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Cepes in Shells
Select some small sound cepes, mince the heads, place them in a fryingpan with a small lump of butter and fry them gently, tossing them about, season to taste, throw in a small bunch of sweet herbs, and when the moisture has evaporated put in a few tablespoonfuls of bechamel sauce that has been reduced until it is of a creamy mixture. Fill some silver shells with the above, level the surface with a knife-blade and sprinkle on some grated breadcrumbs; baste each with a tablespoonful of warm butter and brown them under a salamander or in an oven. When the surface is glazed over arrange the shells on a folded napkin or an ornamental dish-paper, and serve. A few sprigs of fried parsley improves the appearance of the dish.
Boiled Chestnuts Served as a Vegetable Peel off the outside skin of the chestnuts and steep them in boiling water until the skin can be quickly and easily removed, throwing them as they are peeled into a bowl of cold water. Put two ounces of butter into a saucepan with two table-spoonfuls of flour and stir the whole over the fire until well mixed. Then pour in one-half pint or more of clear broth (according to the quantity of chestnuts), and continue to stir over the fire until boiling. Season the sauce with salt, throw in the chestnuts and keep them simmering at the side of the fire until soft. When served in this way they make a good vegetable for roasted meats or poultry, particularly turkey.
Two dishes have run together on this page: a gratin of cepes in shells, and boiled chestnuts in a butter-and-broth sauce. Both are straightforward once the archaic equipment names are translated.
- CepesCepes are Boletus edulis, sold now as porcini. Fresh ones appear briefly in autumn. The recipe gives no quantities; about a pound of fresh caps would fill four shells. Dried porcini rehydrated in warm water will do, though they give a softer texture and you should squeeze them dry before they hit the pan.
- "Mince the heads"Only the caps are used here. The stems of large cepes are tougher and often wormy, but on small sound specimens they are perfectly good chopped fine and cooked alongside.
- Drive off the moistureThis is the hinge of the dish. Mushrooms release a great deal of water, and the bechamel must not go in until the pan is dry and the cepes are beginning to catch and colour. Add the sauce early and you get a grey, watery filling that will not brown.
- Silver shellsIndividual scallop-shell gratin dishes, silver or plated, standard service ware in a hotel of Oscar's era. Ceramic coquille dishes, small gratin dishes or shallow ramekins are the direct substitute.
- SalamanderAn overhead radiant grill. A domestic broiler set high, with the shells 4-5 inches beneath it, does the same job in two or three minutes. The recipe names no oven heat; if using an oven, a hot one (around 450F) and longer will be needed.
- Sweet herbsA small tied bunch of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf. Not a mixed dried blend. The recipe does not say to lift the bunch out, though a tied bunch would be removed before the sauce goes in.
- Reduced bechamelA few tablespoonfuls, as the recipe says, cooked down until it coats a spoon heavily and just falls from it. It should bind the mushrooms, not pool around them.
- Peeling chestnutsThe recipe takes the outer shell off first, then steeps the nuts in boiling water to loosen the inner skin; scoring a cross in the shell before boiling is a modern shortcut to the same end. The inner pellicle is the difficult one, and it only lifts cleanly while the nuts are hot, so work through them a few at a time.
- The chestnut sauceTwo ounces butter is 4 tablespoons, half a pint of broth is 1 cup. Simmering to soft takes 20-30 minutes depending on the chestnuts; they should yield to a knife tip but still hold their shape. A pound of peeled chestnuts serves four to six alongside roast poultry.
Cepes were one of the markers of a serious French kitchen in New York at the turn of the century, and Oscar Tschirky's book is full of dishes that assume a brigade, a salamander and a cupboard of silver service pieces. The scallop-shell format itself is older than the Waldorf: serving a rich bound mixture in a shell, crumbed and glazed, is the same logic as coquilles St-Jacques, and it let a hotel plate a small luxury as an individual course. Chestnuts, meanwhile, were a genuinely common American vegetable in this period, before the blight that swept the native chestnut out of eastern forests in the first decades of the twentieth century; the casual instruction to peel them belongs to a time when they were cheap street food, not an imported delicacy. The pairing with turkey that Oscar recommends survives in stuffing to this day.