Bordeaux
Bordelese. - The famous capital of the Gascon country has given its name to a sauce, to a method of serving the entrecôte or ribsteak, and to the cooking of crayfish.
Sauce Bordelaise. - Properly speaking, there is no such sauce, and very few of the books care to describe it. What is so called is a variety of the Genevese Sauce, and got its name probably because of the Bordeaux wine in it. Take a good brown sauce, Spanish if possible, boil it down with a tumblerful of red Bordeaux, with one or two shalots chopped small, and by rights also with a clove of garlic crushed.
Entrecôte à la Bordelaise. One would imagine that this must be a ribsteak with Bordelese sauce. It is nothing of the kind-for, as we have said, there is, strictly speaking, no such sauce. It is a ribsteak grilled in the ordinary way and served with (either upon it or under it) a piece of cold maître d'hôtel butter, into which has been wrought some chopped shalot. To those who love onion flavours the idea seems good, but many persons regret the order they have given for the Entrecôte à la Bordelaise, from not taking into account that the shalot is raw.
Bouchées 8I Crayfish à la Bordelaise are a passion with some people, especially in the season when game fails. They take the place of game towards the end of dinner. Chop a faggot of Mirepoix fine, pass it in butter, and add a tumblerful of white wine to it. Boil it up, put the crayfish into it alive; they are soon dead and red, although to be thoroughly cooked they must be tossed for at least twenty minutes. When done, pile them in a noble monument on the dish; take the sauce, finish it with a little fresh butter, and pour it fondly on the monument you have raised.
Given the crayfish, there comes a terrible question, - How are they to be got at? how are they to be eaten? Prigs and foolish virgins are aghast to find that knives and forks are of no use. Then comes a moment of great trial to weak nerves. What becomes of our boasted civilisation when it is known that the crayfish are to be boldly eaten with the fingers, and that when the dish is consumed finger-glasses go round?
BOTARGO-Roe of the Grey Mullet. are small Vol-au-vents, and the way to make them is described under that heading. They are filled with a salpicon of chicken, game or fish, well moistened with a white sauce - Béchamel or Allemande. Bouchées à la Reine. - Filled with a salpicon of chicken, -that is, a fine mince of chicken with tongue, mushrooms and truffles. The queen after whom they are named was Marie Lesczinska, the wife of Louis XV., who gave the French cooks their idea of the Baba or Polish cake and the Kromeski or Polish croquette.
Bouchées of game in the same way.
Bouchées of lobsters or of shrimps are filled with either of these cut small, but not mixed with anything else save the white sauce.
Bouillabaisse BOUILLABAISSE is a fish soup for which the Provençal fishing towns are famous-chiefly Marseilles. Garlic is essential to it, as to nearly all the Provençal cookery; but those who eschew garlic may still obtain from it a good idea of how to concoct a savoury fish soup. Thackeray's Ballad of Bouillabaisse has given it a great name in England, but most Englishmen find it disappointing. It is a soup to be mightily loved or to be abhorred.
This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is- A sort of soup or broth or brew Or hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes That Greenwich never could outdo:
Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffern, Soles, onions, garlic, roach and dace ; All these you eat at Terré's tavern In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.
Choose a variety of fish-soles, red mullets, dorys, whitings, flounders, perch-avoiding the oily sorts, as the herring and the eel. The mussels mentioned by Thackeray are a pleasant addition. Reckon from half to three quarters of a pound for each person to be served. For every pound of fish put a pint of water into a stewpan, a quarter of a pint of white wine, and a tablespoonful of oil. Then supposing there are four or five persons to be provided for-add two sliced onions, two cloves, two bayleaves, two leeks-the white only, but chopped, four cloves of garlic, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a little orange or lemon zest, half an ounce of chopped capsicums, a teaspoonful of saffron (but many tastes crave a whole tablespoonful), pepper and salt. Into this mix the fish, which have been well trimmed as well as cut into pieces, and boil them for half an hour. The Marseillese declare for rapid boiling on a brisk fire-pointing out that the name Bouillabaisse means Bouillon-abaissé-that is, broth rapidly reduced by evaporation. This rule, however, is not always followed. When the soup is to be served, drain Brains the fish and put them on a dish apart, making, spite of Thackeray, a pretty good clearance of herbs and spices. Strain the soup by itself into a tureen, with it may be sippets of toast in it. It is more common, but not so good, to serve soup and fish together.