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Flan of Vegetables
Wash, chop up fine, and boil several vegetables, a potato, some spinach, a carrot, and a small beet, etc., then boil them again in a saucepan with some stock; then add a half a cup of cream or milk, stir well together, take them off the stove, and let them cool. When cool add the yolks of two eggs, some grated cheese, and the whites of the eggs beaten up. Put the vegetables into a mold which has been well buttered and lined with bread crumbs, and cook in the oven.
A vegetable sformato in all but name: a savoury custard bound with egg and stiffened with beaten whites, baked in a crumb-lined mould. The original gives neither quantities, temperature nor time, so the notes below fill in the working numbers.
- The hinge: cool before the eggs go inThe recipe says to take the pan off the stove and let the vegetables cool, and it means it. Yolks stirred into a hot purée scramble, and beaten whites collapse on contact with heat. Let the mixture drop to lukewarm at most.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe says only "cook in the oven" and names no register; for a custard of this kind a moderate oven, around 350F, works. A bain-marie is not called for in the original, but setting the mould in a roasting tin of hot water coming halfway up the sides gives gentler, more even heat and reduces the risk of the egg curdling at the edges.
- Timing and donenessReckon 40 to 50 minutes for a 1-quart mould. It is done when the centre is set and a knife inserted there comes out clean; the top should feel firm rather than liquid under a finger. Rest ten minutes before turning out or it will slump.
- Working quantitiesAbout 3 cups of cooked, well-drained chopped vegetables to the 1/2 cup cream and 2 eggs the recipe specifies, with 1/3 cup grated cheese, fills a 1-quart mould. Two eggs is on the light side for that volume; a third makes a firmer, more sliceable flan.
- Drain hardSpinach and beet carry a great deal of water, and the vegetables are boiled twice here — once plain, once in stock. Press them dry in a sieve or the custard will weep and refuse to set.
- The beetA small beet will tint the whole mixture pink to purple. If you want the vegetables to read separately, cook and fold it in last or leave it out.
- The cheese"Grated cheese" is unspecified; a hard grating cheese such as Parmesan is the obvious choice. It is salty, so taste the pur he ststock is seasoned too before adding salt.
- Mould and crumbsButter generously and coat with dry fine breadcrumbs, tapping out the excess — this is what lets the flan release. A charlotte mould, a plain metal pudding basin or a 1-quart soufflé dish all work; a ring mould shortens the baking to about 30 minutes.
The dish belongs to the family of the Italian sformato, from sformare, to turn out of a mould — a close relation of the French timbale and a familiar way of putting cooked vegetables on the table with some dignity. The English word "flan" is used loosely here for anything baked in a lined mould and unmoulded, with none of the modern sense of a sweet tart. The instructions name vegetables — potato, spinach, carrot, beet — without a single weight or measure, leaving the proportions to the cook; the potato is doing structural work as much as flavouring, thickening the pur he ste so that two eggs can hold it. Dishes of this kind also lent themselves to thrift, stretching cooked vegetables with stock and a spoonful of cheese.