No. 2817

Salsify or Oyster Plant a la Poulette, Sauted with Fine Herbs or Fried

Salsifis ou Scorsoneres a la Poulette, Sautes aux Fines Herbes ou Frits

A la Poulette.-Scrape some oyster plants to remove their covering of brown skin, cut off the tops and thin end parts, and throw them as quickly as they are done in cold water acidulated with vinegar; divide them into two and a half inch lengths, and cook in a white stock (No. 182), into which add chopped beef kidney suet and sliced lemon pulp; let cook slowly, and when they crush under the pressure of the finger, then drain. Saute them colorless in butter, season, drain off the fat, and put in a little veloute (No. 415); roll them in the sautoir and thicken with egg-yolks and butter, finishing with lemon juice and chopped parsley.

Sauted With Fine Herbs.-Are first to be cooked the same as the poulette, then cut across in slices a quarter of an inch thick, and sauted in butter, seasoning with salt, pepper, chopped parsley and lemon juice.

Fried.-Prepare the same as for the poulette, drain and season with salt, pepper, lemon juice and chopped parsley; dip them into frying batter (No. 137), and fry slowly in plenty of hot white fat; drain, salt, and dress on a folded napkin with a bunch of fried parsley on top.

← No. 2816 Cos Lettuce a la Rudini-Stuffed Carrots, Beets & Root Vegetables No. 2818 Sorrel with Gravy →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three finishes for one preparation: the roots are always cooked first in a fatted, acidulated broth, then either bound in a lemony egg sauce, sliced and sautéed, or battered and fried. The cooking liquid is the part that matters.

The hinge: keep it whitePeeled salsify discolours quickly, which is why the scraped pieces go straight into vinegar water. The suet and lemon in the cooking liquid work on the same principle as the French blanc used for white vegetables (though a classic blanc is usually a flour-and-water bath with lemon, with suet an optional addition): the fat floats and helps seal the surface, the acid keeps the flesh pale.
Salsify vs. scorzoneraSalsifis is the pale, tapering white root; scorsonères is black-skinned scorzonera. They cook identically. Both turn up in winter at greengrocers that carry European vegetables.
White stock, No. 182Ranhofer's unbrowned stock; a plain light veal or chicken stock stands in. Low-sodium chicken stock, or half stock and half water, works; avoid anything dark or heavily salted, since the liquid is meant to add body without colour.
Velouté, No. 415White roux cooked without colour, then let down with the same white stock and simmered until it coats. Two or three tablespoons per pound of root is plenty here — it is a binder, not a blanket.
Beef kidney suetThe hard fat from around the kidneys, sold shredded in some butcher shops and by mail order. Two ounces, chopped, for a quart of stock. Clarified butter gives much the same protection if suet is not to hand.
Doneness and timingRoot pieces vary; two-and-a-half-inch lengths of pencil-thick root take 20 to 30 minutes at a bare simmer, thicker ones up to 45. The finger test in the original is the right one — the piece should collapse under light pressure without falling apart.
Thickening with yolksTwo yolks whisked with a little cold butter and a spoonful of the hot sauce, then stirred back off the heat. Once the yolks are in, the sautoir must not return to a boil or the sauce curdles. The lemon juice goes in last, for the same reason.
"Hot white fat" for fryingRefined lard or a neutral fat that stays pale, as opposed to darker beef fat. "Fry slowly" points to a moderate rather than fierce heat: the roots are already cooked, so the batter needs time to set and colour gently.
Sautoir and yieldA sautoir is a straight-sided shallow pan — a wide skillet does the job. A pound and a half of trimmed root serves four as a side dish in any of the three treatments.

A Little History

Salsify's English nickname is often said to come from a faint shellfish sweetness in the cooked root, and nineteenth-century American gardeners grew it widely enough that "oyster plant" appears in seed catalogues alongside parsnip and carrot. Ranhofer, writing from Delmonico's in New York, keeps the French headings and the French method: the blanc for white vegetables, the poulette finish of velouté brightened with lemon, both of them standard technique in a professional kitchen of the 1890s rather than anything particular to this root. The sauce name is generally traced to poule, the hen, for the egg yolks that thicken it. Salsify fell out of American markets in the twentieth century, and it survives mainly in European cooking and in kitchen gardens.