Butter
On the whole it must be admitted that the English do not with all their rich pastures make good butter. All the best butter with the rich creamy taste supplied to the clubs of London comes from Ostend, from Normandy, or from Brittany. No such butter is to be got in the British Isles save in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where somehow they have learned the art of producing butter which vies with that of Ostend and Normandy. Cambridge butter, too, has this fine creamy flavour; but it is notorious that what has been called Cambridge butter is a mixture of foreign butters. The French export, chiefly to England Butter and Brazil, about 50,000 tons of butter a year, the produce of nearly 500,000 cows.
Most Englishmen would be appalled if they entered a French kitchen and saw the quantity of butter which the cook uses. We digest a French dinner with ease; but let people see the butter absorbed in it-all their prejudices rise, and they have a fit of dyspepsia. Butter and oil are the most delicate forms of fat, and the Englishman who fancies they are ruinous to his digestion will notwithstanding partake abundantly of the coarser fats. Beef fat and mutton fat he will eat to any extent; greasy pork with nice crackling is a great joy to him; and as for the streaky fat of bacon, he thinks it peculiarly wholesome. The French and the English consume about the same quantities of fatty matter: the chief difference between them is that the French prefer the more delicate fats and the English are content with the coarser. of Nominally and theoretically, the grand sauces French cookery are made from reduced essences of meat. But really and truly the most popular, the most useful, and the most admired of all the sauces are the butter sauces-chief among which are the Dutch sauce and the English sauce commonly called melted butter. (See Dutch and English.) The butter sauces are the most simple of all, and require little or no preparation; yet they are very palatable, and many persons enjoy them more than the finest gravies and the most elaborate creams. They generally figure in the books under the name of Small Sauces; but they are the grand unfailing resources of cottage kitchens and impromptu cookery. They are of infinite variety, and when once the simple principles on which they are formed have been mastered, the cook, like a pianist who presents a well-known air with many variations, may show his or her ingenuity in ringing the changes upon them.
There are various preparations of butter used for sauce, - Butter as Maître d'Hôtel butter, Ravigote butter, Anchovy butter, Montpellier butter, which will be found described under their proper names. Here it must be enough to enumerate the three simplest preparations of butter for sauce. 1. Oiled Butter. - Anybody can make this; and if other sauces fail, it can be got ready in a minute. It is plain fresh butter melted, but not allowed to brown. There is sometimes a milky sediment in the butter which has to be got rid of in the strainer. Add salt in serving the oiled butter. 2. Nut-brown Butter, the French Beurre à la Noisette.- This is fresh butter melted in a small saucepan and allowed not to brown, but to begin to brown. A delicious and very delicate flavour is developed if the butter is whipt off the fire the moment it begins to roast. The moment the light hazel tinge shows itself, the operation is complete, and you have, especially for fish, one of the most perfect of sauces, to which in serving may be added a squeeze of lemon-juice and a dash of salt. 1 3. Black Butter-the French Beurre noir, much used for skate, for calf's brains, and the like. This is a sharp sauce. Proceed as for nut-brown butter, but let the browning go further till the butter becomes dark-brown, though without being burnt. Take the butter from the fire, and next proceed to reduce some vinegar rapidly to about two-thirds of its volume. Mix the butter and the vinegar together, add a little salt and pepper, and pass all through the pointed strainer. It is not necessary to use the best butter for this sauce. Its peculiar flavour would be destroyed in the cooking.
Cabbage ABBAGE is the general name for a vegetable that presents itself in several varieties, which, putting the coleworts or wild sort out of account, may be ranged in three classes. 1. That with loose, open leaves-known as greens, kale, and borecole. 2. That which is closed up the white, sometimes called the Milan cabbage, the red cabbage, the Savoy (distinguished from the other closed ones by its wrinkled leaves), and Brussels sprouts, which are generally ranked as a variety of the Savoy. 3. The flowering sortnamely, cauliflower and brocoli, white and purple. In a loose way, the name of cabbage is given to all of these, except to Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and brocoli; which shall therefore be noticed under their own special names. The other varieties of cabbage do not call for much remark. Though used in soups and for garnish, they are hardly ever served as entremets, unless we make an exception in favour of sauerkraut, which however nearly always implies the accompaniment of sausages or bacon. Another apparent exception is the Chartreuse. This looks like a dish of cabbage to be eaten by itself and for itself. But the sly monks of the Grande Chartreuse taught our cooks to hide dainty morsels of partridge within the cabbage leaves.
Cabbage for Garnish. - The English way is simple enough, and applies equally to Brussels sprouts, turnip-tops, endive, and lettuce. After being carefully trimmed and washed, the cabbage-halved and quartered-is thrown into boiling water, which has not only salt in it but often a little carbonate of soda to keep it green. A large quantity of water is used, especially in the case of turnip-tops, which are to be treated as a kind of greens or open cabbage; or else several waters are used to carry off bitterness of taste and rankness of odour. The cabbage is boiled for thirty-five or P Cabbage forty minutes, and being drained, it is supposed to have finished its education and to be fit for table. In this state, however, it is dry and insipid. Be it cabbage, greens, Brussels sprouts, turnip-tops, endive, or lettuce, it should be tossed with butter, pepper, and perhaps nutmeg, before ascending to the dignity of the table.
The French way of dressing cabbage is indicated in the English practice of boiling greens to take with boiled beef. These are not boiled with the beef, lest they should impart too much of their flavour to it; but they are boiled with some of the liquor of the beef and with its top fat. The French take cabbages-white ones by preference-cut them into quarters, wash them well, cast them with salt into boiling water, boil them for ten minutes, steep them for half an hour in cold water, press them and dry them well, tie them up, put them into a stewpan with a piece of bacon previously blanched, a faggot of sweet herbs, an onion stuck with two cloves, and pepper, cover them with broth, and so et them cook, till they are tender and thoroughly impregnated with the surrounding juices. Cabbage Soup is much the same as the foregoing; but put into the stewpan, say for each cabbage half a pound of bacon, and half a pound of gravy beef, with half a gallon of water, or even three-quarters; bring it to the boiling point, skim it, and then simmer it for three hours. Finally, cut up the cabbage and serve it in its broth, keeping back the beef, the bacon, and the faggot.
CALF'S FEET are for the most part boiled in salt and water alone, for the purpose of making sweet Jelly (which see); or with a faggot of pot-herbs for the purpose of making Aspic (which also see). In either case, after hours of boiling, the feet, which have parted with much of their gelatine, still remain good enough to make a very nice little dish. The best way is to heat them up in a Poulette Relish.
Calipash