Home › The World's Kitchen › Croutes, New Century
Croutes, New Century
Cut off a piece lengthwise--about a quarter--from the top of six French rolls, then scoop out all the soft part, place on a tin, set in the oven (with the covers) and let get a nice golden colour and keep hot. Pick all the meat from the turkey left over from yesterday and cut in quarter-inch-square pieces. Cut also in same way two ounces cooked ham and keep on a plate until required. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a small saucepan, add one finely chopped, seeded green pepper and nicely fry three minutes; add six well-cleaned fresh mushrooms cut in small squares, and brown five minutes, occasionally stirring. Add a level tablespoon flour, mix a little. Moisten with a half gill white wine and a gill white broth. Mix well and boil ten minutes. Pour in one and a half gills cream, mix a little, then add the turkey and ham with the leaves of two branches chervil, half a teaspoon salt, a saltspoon cayenne and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Mix well, then slowly cook fifteen minutes. Dilute an egg yoke with a tablespoon cream and add to the pan. Mix while heating two minutes. Arrange rolls on a dish, fill them with the preparation, place covers over and serve.
A leftover-turkey creamed filling served in hollowed hot rolls. The measurements are in gills and saltspoons, and the finish depends on one restrained step at the end.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup: half a gill of white wine is 1/4 cup, a gill of broth is 1/2 cup, and a gill and a half of cream is 3/4 cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so the cayenne and nutmeg are each a scant quarter-teaspoon.
- The egg yolk finishOnce the yolk and cream go in, the sauce must stay below a simmer. Two minutes of gentle heating thickens it; a boil scrambles the yolk and the filling turns grainy.
- The rollsUse firm crusty rolls, not soft dinner rolls, which collapse once filled. Crisp them cut side up with their lids alongside in a moderate oven until golden and dry inside; the original gives neither a temperature nor a time.
- How much turkeyThe original assumes yesterday's carcass and names no quantity. About 2 to 2 1/2 cups of quarter-inch dice fills six rolls with this amount of sauce; much more and the filling stiffens.
- Green pepperA single seeded green bell pepper, finely chopped. Three minutes in butter softens it without colouring, which is what is wanted here.
- The ten-minute boilBoiling the wine and broth with the flour for ten minutes is deliberate: it reduces the liquid and cooks out the raw flour taste before the cream goes in. Do not shorten it or the sauce will be thin and pasty at once.
- ChervilThe leaves of two sprigs, roughly a tablespoon chopped. Chervil is delicate and fades with heat; if unavailable, flat-leaf parsley with a pinch of tarragon is the nearest substitute, added at the end.
- YieldSix filled rolls, one per person as a lunch or supper dish, or two each as a light main course for three.
Croûtes in the French sense are bread cases hollowed out and crisped to hold a ragout, the humbler cousin of the puff-pastry vol-au-vent and a standard way of dressing up cooked meat in a professional kitchen. The instruction to use the turkey "left over from yesterday" suggests a book arranged day by day, building today's menu out of yesterday's roast. "New Century" reads as a period flourish rather than a description of the dish, and points to a date around the turn of the twentieth century. The green pepper is the American touch in an otherwise thoroughly French preparation of butter, mushrooms, wine, cream and an egg-yolk liaison.