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Leeks for Garnish
Wash the leeks and trim them, cutting off the green close to the white. Place them in salted hot water and parboil. Drain, dry in a cloth, and cut them up rather small; put them in a saucepan with a piece of butter rolled in flour, a little salt and pepper, sufficient stock to moisten, and stew gently until done; then mix in a little cream, or the yolk of an egg beaten up with a little milk.
A creamed leek garnish of the sort Oscar's kitchen kept ready to spoon around roasts and boiled meats. Nothing here is difficult, but the two places it goes wrong are the grit in the leeks and the egg liaison at the end.
- Wash properlySplit the trimmed whites lengthwise before washing, or fan the layers under running water. Leeks carry sand well up into the shaft and rinsing the outside does nothing.
- "Butter rolled in flour"Close to what the French call beurre manié, butter and flour worked together cold; for a pound of leeks about a tablespoon of each works, dropped into the simmering liquid in pieces so it thickens as it melts.
- Parboil, do not cook throughThree to four minutes in salted boiling water is enough. The leeks finish stewing in the stock, and leeks that were already soft turn to threads.
- Sufficient stock to moistenInterpret this literally: roughly half a cup for a pound of cut leeks, just enough to come partway up. This is a garnish, not a soup, and the sauce should coat rather than pool.
- The egg liaisonIf you finish with yolk beaten in milk, take the pan off the heat, temper the yolk with a few spoonfuls of the hot liquid first, then stir it back in. Returned to a boil it will scramble and break the sauce. Plain cream is more forgiving and can be reduced briefly.
- Stew gentlyTen to fifteen minutes at a bare simmer, covered, until the whites are tender to a knife tip. Leeks scorch quickly once the liquid tightens, so keep the heat low and stir.
- YieldTwo pounds of untrimmed leeks yields roughly a pound of white, enough to garnish six plates.
Oscar Tschirky's 1896 Cook Book came out of the Waldorf, a hotel that plated in the French manner, where a roast or a boiled fowl was often surrounded by small, separately cooked vegetable preparations rather than sitting alone. Leeks were a long-standing kitchen-garden staple in both Britain and France, valued partly because they keep in the ground through winter. The final enrichment with egg yolk and milk is the classic liaison, an older technique than the flour-thickened sauces that came to dominate professional kitchens.