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Vegetables, or Légumes, and Salads. 149: Pommes
Pommes de terre Château are cut in oval shapes and fried. sautées-cut in slices and fried. à la Macaire are fried potato trimmings. frisées are fried potato ribbons or curls. pailles are fried potato straws, the size of matches. farcies, or à la Beaufort-the centres are scooped out, and filled with forcemeat or mince preparation; they are baked and served with gravy. soufflées-baked in their skins; the potatoes mixed with butter, grated Parmesan, eggs, etc., put into the skins and browned. These soufflés may be served in little cases, and called Petits soufflés de pommes à la Napolitaine.
À la Christina, they are made with the addition of cream and chopped parsley, etc. à l'Italienne are dressed in the same way, but the potato pulp is mixed with rice, grated Parmesan, etc. They are served in the skins. nouvelles à la crème are young potatoes boiled in cream with chopped parsley, etc.
Croquettes de pommes de terre are potato croquettes, breadcrumbed and fried. This paste sauté in small shapes, and dressed in a crown with white sauce, is called Pommes à la Duchesse.
It is also made into quenelles.
Croquettes de pommes à la Béchamel are potato croquettes with Béchamel sauce.
A purée of potatoes as Purée de pommes gratinée is sprinkled with breadcrumbs and browned. Mixed with white sauce, it is called à la Maria. À la Théodora, it is garnished with little balls of cucumber. In writing a menu, Pommes de terre is usually curtailed to Pommes.
PURSLANE.
The stalks of Purslane with cinnamon, etc., dipped in batter and fried, are called Pourpier en friture à la Milanaise.
SALSIFY.
Salsifis à la crème is boiled and served in a white sauce; à la Béchamel, in Béchamel sauce. à la moëlle stewed, and served with beef marrow spread on pieces of toast, and brown sauce. à la poulette-served in white sauce with cream mushrooms, etc. frits-soaked in oil, etc., breadcrumbed and fried. If the pieces are dipped in batter and fried, they are called Beignets de salsifis.
Coquilles de salsifis is scalloped salsify served in scallop shells.
Fondues de salsifis are made of a purée of salsify with eggs, baked in little cases, sprinkled with chopped parsley and breadcrumbs.
SEA-KALE.
Boiled sea-kale served on toast with butter sauce is called Choux de mer à la sauce: à l'Espagnole, it is served in Espagnole sauce; à la Hollandaise, with Hollandaise sauce; au jus, it is stewed and served with gravy.
SPINACH.
Spinach is served à l'Anglaise--with butter or cream; à la Française with butter, stock, etc.
Épinards à l'Allemande - dressed with butter, cream, breadcrumbs, etc. à l'Italienne-dressed with anchovy butter and raisins, garnished with croûtons. au velouté-with velouté sauce. à la crème with cream and sugar. au jus is served with gravy, garnished with glazed croûtons. au sucre-cooked in butter and mixed with sugar, etc. aux œufs is served with poached eggs. This is often called à la Colbert.
Beignets aux épinards are spinach fritters.
It is also dressed as a soufflé and as a cream.
TOMATOES.
Tomates farcies or au gratin—the centres are cut out, they are stuffed, sprinkled with breadcrumbs and baked. à la Provençale—the centres are mixed with oil, chopped onions, etc., put back into the skins and baked. farcies au fromage are stuffed with cheese mixture.
These are frequently called à la Napolitaine. à la Cardinal are stuffed with anchovy sauce.
Tomates à la Graham are stuffed with a purée of potato. à la Caroline are stuffed with savoury rice with grated cheese. à la St. Jacques are stuffed with button mushrooms in mushroom sauce. à la Toscane are stuffed and braised, and served with truffle sauce. à l'Américaine are raw tomatoes stuffed with Mayonnaise sauce with chopped olives, anchovies and tarragon, and garnished with aspic. en surprise are little round moulds of tomato jelly, filled with forcemeat or mince in white sauce.
Tomatoes may be cut in slices, and served à la crème, with cream sauce; or as Côtelettes de tomates, breadcrumbed and fried, and served with broiled mushrooms and Tartare sauce.
Soufflé de tomates is tomato pulp with eggs, baked in small soufflé cases.
TRUFFLES.
Truffes à la serviette are cooked in wine and broth, and served on a napkin. sous la cendre-wrapped in slices of bacon and paper, and broiled in hot cinders. au vin de champagne-cooked with bacon, veal, mushrooms, champagne, etc., and served in the sauce. à la Piémontaise-cut in slices, fried in oil with garlic, etc., and served on buttered toast with Italian sauce.
Truffes demi Piémontaise are dressed in the same way, substituting a highly seasoned tomato sauce with wine for Italian sauce. à la Dino. Truffles dressed "au vin de champagne" are used for this dish; the centres chopped with forcemeat, etc., put back into the shells, braised, and served with truffle sauce.
For Croûtes aux truffes, they are cut in slices, cooked in brown sauce with wine, and served on toast.
TURNIPS.
Navets au jus are stewed in stock and served in the sauce. glacés au sucre-cooked with butter, sugar and stock, and glazed. farcis à la crème are stuffed, stewed, and served in cream sauce. à la Poulette-cut in shapes and cooked in white sauce.
They are also dressed in a purée, garnished with croûtons, as Purée de navets, and in a soufflé.
Potatoes cut a dozen ways, then salsify, sea-kale, purslane, spinach and tomatoes. It is a catalogue of shapes and names more than of methods, and two of the names mean something quite different now.
- Pommes soufflées, not what you thinkOn this page it is a potato baked in its skin, the flesh scooped out and mixed with butter, Parmesan and egg, returned to the skin and browned — what we would call a twice-baked potato. The dish now called pommes soufflées, thin slices fried twice until they puff into hollow pillows, is something else entirely.
- The fried shapesChâteau cut to ovals, pailles cut the thickness of a match, frisées cut in ribbons, à la Macaire made out of the trimmings left by the others. A kitchen producing this list was frying potatoes more or less continuously and wasting nothing. One of those shapes now comes frozen in a bag and the rest have gone.
- Spinach with sugarThree entries sweeten it: à la crème with cream and sugar, au sucre cooked in butter and mixed with sugar. Sweetened spinach is the hardest thing here for a modern palate, and it is not a misprint. It is a surviving trace of a time when savoury and sweet had not yet been sorted onto separate halves of the meal.
- SalsifyA long pale root, now stocked by very few greengrocers. It discolours the moment it is peeled, so it goes straight into acidulated water, and it tastes faintly of artichoke rather than of oyster whatever its old nickname promises. The black-skinned kind is scorzonera.
- Sea-kaleA pale forced shoot, blanched under cover in the garden and cut through the winter. It is close to unobtainable in shops and the page gives it four different sauces, which tells you it was grown at home rather than bought.
- Raw tomatoes, onceOn a page that stuffs, bakes, braises and jellies tomatoes a dozen ways, à l’Américaine is the single entry that leaves them raw, filled with mayonnaise, olives, anchovy and tarragon. The tomato was still being treated as something you cook.
The most revealing line here is not about food at all: in writing a menu, Pommes de terre is usually curtailed to Pommes. That instruction is for the person holding the pen, and it confirms what the whole chapter is for. The produce behind it belongs to a kitchen garden rather than a shop — purslane, salsify, sea-kale, new potatoes boiled in cream — and the treatments assume a vegetable was a dish in its own right, sauced and garnished and sent up on its own account, not something arranged round meat. The labels move through the same social register as the rest of the book, à la Duchesse, à la Théodora, à la Christina, à la Graham, and exactly one of them survives: piped potato paste is still sold as Duchesse, in the freezer aisle, long after anybody remembered why.