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Entrées: Turque
Ragoût de mouton à la Turque is stewed mutton, served with stuffed cucumbers. Served with a purée of tomatoes, it is called à l'Américaine; or with a compote of prunes, à l'Algérienne.
Fricassée de mouton au riz is a white fricassee of mutton with rice.
Pilau de mouton à la Turque is a mutton pilau.
Small pieces dressed with savoury rice cooked with spice, saffron, raisins, etc.
Croustade à la Turque is a baked shape of rice, filled with a preparation of minced mutton.
The same preparation is served in little balls of rice as Ballettes à la Turque; or in little patties made of semolina as Petites croustades à la semoule.
Petites croustades à la Ménagère are pastry cases filled with mince, with poached eggs on the top.
Cassolettes à l'Irlandaise are little patty shapes of mashed potato, filled with mince.
Chartreuse aux épinards is a mould of spinach, ENTRÉES. filled with minced or pounded mutton and brown sauce.
A short page, and every dish on it is made of mutton cut small or minced, put into a shape, and given a country’s name.
- Mutton is not lambThese dishes are built for the meat of a grown sheep: strong, firm, and improved by an hour of stewing. Mutton has all but vanished from western butchers. Lamb will be ready in a third of the time and will taste of much less, so the prunes, tomato purée, saffron and spice that balance mutton here will take the dish over outright.
- The nationality is one ingredientÀ la Turque is stuffed cucumbers or a spiced pilau. À l’Algérienne is prunes. À l’Américaine is tomato. À l’Irlandaise is mashed potato. Each name rests on a single ingredient standing in for a country, and nothing on the page is an attempt at anybody’s actual cooking.
- This is a leftovers chapterCroustades, ballettes, cassolettes, petites croustades, chartreuse aux épinards: mince in a case, mince in a ball, mince in a mould. The whole page exists to put yesterday’s joint on the table in a new outline.
- Croustades you can makeA croustade here is not pastry. It is a shell of cooked rice, semolina or mashed potato pressed into a buttered mould and baked until it holds its shape. It works, it is cheap, and a modern kitchen does the same thing with a ring mould and calls it nothing at all.
- The spice list is the whole spice listSpice, saffron and raisins in the pilau, and that is as far as the seasoning goes on this page. It is a useful measure of how narrow the range was, and a reminder that a dish called à la Turque was seasoned for a palate that found saffron adventurous.
A hostess who wanted to put a made dish of yesterday’s mutton in front of guests needed it to look and sound like something that had not been eaten before. The chapter is organised for exactly that search: she could find the shape that matched what the larder held, and the French name that covered it. The run of Turkish, Algerian, American and Irish titles over a single bowl of minced mutton shows where the appetite really lay. It was for the idea of somewhere else at the table, which cost nothing, rather than for the cooking of it.