Devils
It is the great fault of all devilry that it knows no bounds. A moderate devil is almost a contradiction in terms; and yet it is quite certain that if a devil is not moderate he destroys the palate, and ought to have no place in cookery, the business of which is to tickle, not to annihilate, the sense of taste. Devils are of two kinds -the dry and the wet. The dry devil is a Carbonade, scored, peppered, salted, mustarded or otherwise spiced; the wet devil is a Bernardine Salmi. See Salmi.
Sauce à la Diable. - The French cooks' idea of the devil is that he has a passion for shalots. Mr. Masson has written an essay on the Three Devils-namely, Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's. There is room for yet another essay, yea, a volume, on the Frenchman's idea of the devil, much given to the onions of Ascalon. Take three or four shalots, and mince them well with a clove of garlic, a faggot of sweet-herbs, and as much pepper as may be dared; simmer all for half an hour in brown sauce and red wine, pass it through a tammy, and know of a surety that this will much rejoice all French devils.
DILL is a plant which, like anise, caraway and coriander, was supposed to be a good stomachic. Dill-water is still to be found among the bottles of the apothecary. It was also, like fennel, a good deal used in soups and sauces. That we should now make very little use of it in the kitchen is probably no great loss to us; but it is certainly a mystery. It is impossible to tell many a time how reputations grow and how they pass away. By all the rules of human conduct dill ought to be the most prized herb in the English kitchen garden; and yet it is of the smallest account. William the Conqueror had a cook named Tezelin, who one day served him with a white soup called dillegrout. The monarch was so pleased with its exquisite flavour that he sent for the cook and made him for his dill soup Lord of the Manor of Addington. When a great work of art is thus rewarded we might expect that the fame of it would live for ever, that all the cooks of England would bear it in mind, and that it would still be fashionable. But such is the caprice of fame and fortune, there is probably not a living creature in England who has ever tasted dill broth, and the name of Tezelin is known but to a very few. There are monuments in Westminster Abbey to heroes who have achieved less than the Lord of the Manor of Addington.
The entry is half essay, but a workable recipe sits in the middle of it: a shallot-and-wine reduction finished in brown sauce. The quantities of liquid are left to the cook, so the proportions below are a starting point rather than a conversion.
- ShalotsRead as shallots; three or four means roughly 60-80 g peeled. Mince fine so they dissolve into the sauce rather than sitting in it.
- Faggot of sweet-herbsA bundle of herbs: parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf. A faggot is by definition tied, but the sentence puts it in with the mincing, so the text is ambiguous; either way the tammy strains the herbs out at the end.
- Brown sauce and red wineNo amounts are given. A practical reading is about 250 ml espagnole or a good reduced brown stock to 150 ml dry red wine, which after half an hour's simmer leaves enough for four servings.
- Espagnole, not gravy browningProfessional and large Victorian kitchens kept a brown sauce standing, though the book only says "brown sauce". A modern substitute is well-reduced brown veal or beef stock, thickened lightly if you want the coating body the original assumes.
- TammyA tammy is a worsted straining cloth. A fine chinois with the solids pressed hard, or a fine sieve followed by a quick blitz, gives the same smooth result.
- As much pepper as may be daredTake the opening paragraph seriously. Kettner's whole argument is that a devil must stop short of annihilating the palate; start at half a teaspoon of coarse black pepper for the quantity above and correct at the end, bearing in mind that long simmering is often said to turn pepper harsh rather than mild.
- Simmer, do not boilThe recipe says simmer, and half an hour at a bare tremble concentrates the shallot and wine; a hard boil at this ratio risks reducing the sauce too far.
- The dry devilThe carbonade described alongside is simply grilled meat scored, seasoned and rubbed with mustard before it goes over the fire. It needs no sauce; the two devils are alternatives, not stages of one dish.
- ServingThis is a sauce for grilled or broiled meat, poultry legs and kidneys, and for reheated cold roast. Allow two to three tablespoons a person.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), written by the journalist E. S. Dallas around the name of the Soho restaurateur Auguste Kettner, is a dictionary of cookery with opinions, and this entry shows the form at its most characteristic: a joke about Masson's essay on the devils of Luther, Milton and Goethe, then a working sauce. Devilling itself was an English habit of the late Georgian and Victorian table, a way of making cold roast meat, bones and kidneys interesting at breakfast or supper by way of mustard, cayenne and pepper; the French sauce à la diable that Dallas describes is a milder, more structured thing built on shallots and wine. His "onions of Ascalon" is the standard dictionary derivation of scallion and eschalot from the Levantine port, by way of Latin caepa Ascalonia. The dill digression that follows repeats another traditional tale: that the manor of Addington was held by grand serjeanty on condition of presenting a dish, variously recorded as dillegrout or malpigernon, to the king at his coronation, a service documented in medieval records even though nobody now knows what the dish was.