Nougat
INGREDIENTS. -Almonds, filberts and pistachios, half their weight in white sugar, liqueur for flavouring, lemonjuice.
Blanch, drain, dry and heat the nuts, which should be cut up small. Melt the sugar in a stewpan, or copper sugar-boiler, and put a dessertspoonful of lemon-juice to each pound; then add the chopped nuts and flavouring, and boil for a few minutes. and pour on an oiled slab to cool.
Nougats à la Crême. - INGREDIENTS for dish for 10 persons.-1 lb. of sweet almonds, a few bitter ones, 1 lb. of white sugar, 1 pint of cream, some crystallised cherries. AVERAGE COST, 3s. Blanch, peel and dry the almonds, and cut each almond lengthwise into 4 or 5 slices, then dry them in a slow oven, without allowing them to take colour. Put the sugar in a preserving pan and melt it, stirring it with a wooden spoon to prevent it catching. When a good yellow colour, NOUGATS À LA CRÊME. throw in the almonds, hot from the oven, stirring all the while, then take the pan off the fire and complete the mixing. Have ready a tin plate and some small pattypans well oiled, then, taking a spoonful of the mixture at a time, flatten it with a lemon on the tin plate as thin as possible, and line the patty-pans, squeezing the nougat close to the sides with the lemon.
Do this as quickly as possible, as the nougat so soon cools. When cold, turn out the moulds out of the pans, fill them with the cream, whipped and flavoured, and place a preserved cherry on the top of each.
TIME.-About hour to stir the nougat.
SEASONABLE at any time.
NOVEMBER, DINNERS FOR. 264 NOVEMBER, DINNERS FOR.
November-Dinner for Twelve Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average Cost. ४. d.
Oysters. 4 doz. 60 Clear Mock Turtle. 5 pints. 46 Turbot, 4 lbs. 40 Horseradish Sauce. 2 turs. 10 Smelts. 3 doz. 46 1 60 2 dishes. 30 1 joint. 10 6 4 lbs. ea. 14 2 birds. 70 1 40 2 mlds. 36 £2 15 4 Lark Pie.
Croquette of Chicken.
Saddle of Mutton.
Potatoes. Brussels Sprouts.
Pheasants.
Curaçoa Soufflé.
Marbled Jelly.
MENU. (French.) Huîtres.
Consommé de Tête de Veau.
Turbot, Sauce Raifort.
Eperlans.
Paté aux Alouettes.
Croquettes de Volaille.
Selle de Mouton.
Pommes de Terre. Choux.
Faisans.
Soufflé de Curaçoa.
Gelée Marbrée.
November-Dinner for Ten Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average Cost. 8. d.
Hare Soup. 2 qts. 36 Brill, 1 fish. 40 Lobster Sauce. 2 turs. 26 Salmi of Game. 2 dishes. 60 Leg of Mutton.
Potatoes. 1 joint. 76 3 lbs. 03 Sea Kale. 2 dishes. 13 Woodcock. 5 birds. 10 0 Russian Salad. 1 dish. 16 Almond Pudding. 1 26 Vanilla Cream. 1 mould. 20 £210 MENU. (French.) Fotage de Levraut.
Barbue, Sauce Homard.
Salmi de Gibier.
Gigot de Mouton.
Pommes de Terre.
Choux Marins.
Bécasses.
Salade à la Russe.
Pouding d'Amandes.
Crême de Vanille.
November-Dinner for Eight Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average Ox-Tail Soup.
Cod's Head and Shoulders, Oyster Sauce.
Chicken Patios.
Saddle of Mutton.
Potatoes. Spinach.
Woodcock.
Compôte of Fruit.
Liqueur Jelly. 8. d. 3 pints. 30 3 lbs. 20 1 tur. 36 10 26 1 joint. 10 0 3 lbs. ea. 10 4 birds 1 dish. 1 mould. £1 15 0 MENU. (French.) Potage de Queue de Bœuf.
Cabillaud, Sauce aux Huîtres.
Petits Patés de Volailles.
Selle de Mouton.
Pommes de Terre. Epinards.
Bécasses.
Compôte de Fruit.
Gelée au Marasquin.
NOVEMBER, DINNERS FOR. 265 NOVEMBER, DINNERS FOR.
November-Dinners for from Six to Twelve Persons.
Menan Clear Soup.
Turbot, Tartar Sauce.
Lobster Cream.
Hashed Game.
Sirloin of Beef.
Potatoes. Sprouts.
Partridges.
Pine-apple Fritters.
Noyeau Cream.
MENU Caviare.
Game Soup.
Filleted Soles, Financière Sauce.
Curried Prawns.
Rump-steak and Oyster Sauce.
Fried Potatoes.
Pheasants.
Vanilla Soufflé.
Ratafia Pudding.
Menu Oyster Soup.
Fried Soles, Sharp Sauce.
Chicken Croquettes.
Leg of Mutton.
Potatoes.
Stewed Celery.
Snipe.
Salad.
Sweet Omelette.
Lemon Cream.
Meno Appétisans.
Crayfish Soup.
Fillets of Turbot, Cream Sauce.
Rissolettes of Hare.
Truffled Capon.
Mashed Potatoes.
Foie-gras Salad.
Iced Pudding.
Cheese Straws.
NOVEMBER, DINNERS FOR. 266 NOVEMBER, DINNER TABLE.
November-Plain Family Dinners for.
No 1.
Two related sweets sit here: a plain caramel-and-nut nougat poured onto an oiled slab, and the more elaborate nougats à la crême, in which sheets of hot almond caramel are pressed into patty-pans to make edible cases for whipped cream. The second recipe cannot be made as printed.
- Bitter almondsThe cream version calls for "a few bitter ones" among the sweet almonds. Bitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide; their sale for eating is prohibited in the United States and restricted elsewhere, and the quantity here is entirely unmeasured. This is the reason the recipe should not be attempted from the text; use a current recipe for almond caramel cases if you want the effect.
- Sugar to nutsThe first recipe gives no weights beyond the ratio: half the nuts' weight in white sugar, with a dessertspoonful of lemon juice per pound of sugar. The acid inverts part of the sugar and is what keeps the caramel from crystallising as it is worked.
- The caramel stage"A good yellow colour" is roughly 165-170C. Past that the sugar darkens and turns bitter within seconds, and once nuts are stirred in the mass carries on cooking off the heat.
- A slow ovenFor drying the sliced almonds without colour, read a slow oven, roughly 250-300F (120-150C). They must go into the caramel hot from the oven; cold almonds chill and stiffen the sugar on contact.
- The lemon as a toolThe lemon in the second recipe is not in its ingredient list. A whole lemon is used as a press to flatten the hot caramel on the tin plate and force it into the patty-pans.
- VesselsA "stewpan" is a heavy saucepan; the copper sugar-boiler was unlined copper, prized for even heat. Patty-pans are small tartlet tins. "An oiled slab" means marble, though a lightly oiled baking sheet serves the same purpose.
- SpeedCaramel of this kind stays workable only briefly; the recipe itself warns to work "as quickly as possible, as the nougat so soon cools". Any attempt at this style of sweet needs the tins oiled, the spoon ready and the work done in batches.
- Cost and yieldThe average cost is given as 3s. for the cream version, which suggests the dish was not a cheap one; almonds and a pint of cream were not everyday purchases. As written it was intended to serve ten.
Nougat in English cookery of this period covers two quite different confections. The white, aerated sort bound with egg white and honey is the one associated with Montélimar in south-eastern France, whose reputation is generally traced to almond planting in the region from the seventeenth century onward. What Mrs Beeton describes here is the other kind, closer to the French nougat noir or croquant: nuts folded into caramelised sugar and set hard. Because that mixture is briefly pliable, confectioners used it architecturally, moulding it into baskets, cups and centrepieces for the dinner table. The nougats are a small domestic version of that trick, each caramel case holding whipped cream and a crystallised cherry. It is the kind of sweet served among the entremets of a formal dinner, at the season when game and heavy joints filled the earlier courses.