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Jerusalem Artichokes
673. Jerusalem Artichokes must be taken up the moment they are done, or they will be too soft. They usually take about twenty to twenty-five minutes. They must be boiled plain, or served with white fricassee-sauce, or mashed like turnips, seasoning with pepper and salt, and adding a little butter. If the cook points the Jerusalem artichokes when paring them, and sets them upon the dish at the wide end, pouring white sauce over them, they form a pretty dish. 674. TO FRY.-First pare, then boil, the artichokes for about ten minutes, and drain them on a sieve. When nearly cold, dip them into egg and bread-crumbs, and fry them of a light brown; drain them from the fat, but do not allow them to cool before serving. SPINACH. 675. Spinach requires great care in washing and picking it. When that is done, throw it into a saucepan that will just hold it, sprinkle it with a little salt, and cover close. The pan must be set on the fire, and well shaken. When done, beat the spinach well with a small bit of butter; it must come to table pretty dry, and looks well if pressed into a tin mould in the form of a large leaf, which is sold at the tin shops. A spoonful of cream is an improvement; or a few spoonfuls of good gravy, which must be absorbed by again boiling quickly. Plain sippets, or bread cut in shapes and fried, may be added as a garnish. CAULIFLOWERS.
Two ways with Jerusalem artichokes, boiled or boiled-then-fried, followed by the book's method for spinach cooked in nothing but its own washing water. Both are sound; the timings are the part that needs attention.
- Take them up the moment they are doneThis is the hinge of the whole entry. Jerusalem artichokes go from firm to collapsing quickly, and the wreckage cannot be recovered. Start testing with a skewer at 15 minutes rather than trusting the stated 20 to 25.
- Peeling and discolorationPared tubers brown quickly; drop them into acidulated water as you go. The knobbly heirloom sorts are miserable to pare, so buy the smoother modern varieties or scrub and peel after boiling.
- "Pointing" themTrimming each tuber to a rough cone so it can stand on the dish, wide end down. It is purely a presentation trick, and it works best if you select tubers of roughly equal size first.
- White fricassee-sauceThe term is not defined here; it would generally have meant butter and flour cooked without colour, let down with white stock or milk. A plain béchamel serves the same purpose.
- For fryingTen minutes of boiling should leave them still firm, or they will break up in the egg and crumbs. Cool them properly before coating, and fry at around 350-360F for a light brown crust.
- Spinach quantitiesCooking in a pan "that will just hold it" with only the water clinging from washing is still the best method. Reckon on a pound of raw leaf per two people; it collapses to a fraction of its bulk.
- The leaf mouldThe moulded spinach leaf sold at Victorian tin shops is not something you are likely to find now. Press the drained spinach into any small shallow dish or ring and turn it out.
- YieldNeither entry gives one. Allow about 5 oz of artichokes per person as a side dish; roughly 2 lb serves six.
The Jerusalem artichoke is a North American sunflower tuber, Helianthus tuberosus, and has nothing to do with Jerusalem: the name is generally traced to a garbling of the Italian girasole, sunflower, though that explanation is traditional rather than firmly documented. It reached English gardens in the early seventeenth century and, being hardy, prolific and indifferent to soil, became a cheap winter vegetable long before it became a fashionable one. Victorian cookery books treat it much as they treat turnips and parsnips, boiled plain, mashed with butter, or crumbed and fried, and the concern shown here with pointing the tubers and standing them upright in white sauce reflects a period in which the humblest root was expected to arrive at table looking deliberate. Its reputation for causing wind is equally old and entirely earned, the tubers storing carbohydrate as inulin rather than starch.