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Devilled Leeks
Procure twelve even-sized leeks, trim off stems, outer stale leaves, and cut green parts one inch from white parts, using white parts only. Thoroughly wash in cold water and drain on a cloth, place in a braising pan with two branches parsley, a branch chervil, bean garlic, clove, bay leaf, sprig thyme and half ounce butter. Moisten with a half gill white wine and gill broth, season with half teaspoon salt and three saltspoons pepper. Cover pan and briskly boil on fire for five minutes, then set in oven for thirty minutes. Remove to a table, take up with skimmer and split them open without separating. Place six slices toasted French bread in a baking dish, arrange the leeks over toasts, strain gravy through a cheesecloth into baking dish, spread a tablespoon French mustard and dredge a little bread crumbs over leeks, then set in oven for fifteen minutes, remove and serve.
A braise-then-gratin dish that comes together easily once the archaic measures are translated. The only real trap is grit: the leeks go into the pan whole and are only split after cooking, so they must be washed with unusual care first.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of white wine is 1/4 cup and a gill of broth is 1/2 cup. A saltspoon is a scant 1/4 teaspoon, making three saltspoons about 3/4 teaspoon of pepper for twelve leeks — assertive by design, and worth cutting to 1/2 teaspoon if you prefer.
- "Bean garlic"Almost certainly a bean-sized piece of garlic, i.e. one small clove. The "clove" listed alongside it is then the spice, not more garlic — a single whole clove, which the straining of the gravy through cheesecloth will remove along with the herbs.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Treat both stages as a moderate oven, 350F: thirty minutes covered for the braise, then fifteen minutes uncovered to set the crumbs. If the top is pale at the end, a minute under the broiler finishes it better than more time at heat.
- Wash before, split afterBecause the white parts stay whole through the braise, sand trapped between the layers has nowhere to go. Soak the trimmed whites in several changes of cold water, fanning the top end open under the tap, before they ever reach the pan.
- The braising panAny lidded pan or shallow Dutch oven that takes twelve leeks in one layer and moves from stovetop to oven. Three-quarters of a cup of liquid total is a true braise, not a boil — the leeks steam as much as they simmer, so a tight lid matters.
- French mustardRead this as Dijon. A tablespoon spread over the split leeks is what makes the dish "devilled"; add it after the braise, since mustard held at oven heat for long loses its edge.
- Toast that holds upThe bread takes the strained braising liquid, so slice a sturdy baguette or country loaf thickly and toast it dry and hard. Soft sandwich bread collapses into paste under the gravy.
- YieldSix servings, two leeks and one slice of toast each, as a first course or a light supper dish with a salad.
To "devil" a dish, in English cookery from what is generally traced to the late eighteenth century onward, meant to season it sharply ear mustard, cayenne, black pepper, sometimes vinegar ear and usually to give it a spell of fierce heat, the name a joke about infernal fire and hot spice. Applying the treatment to leeks rather than to kidneys, bones or crab is characteristic of the encyclopaedic American cookbooks of the early 1900s, which drew freely on French technique. The underlying method here is straightforwardly French: leeks braised in wine and broth with a bundle of parsley, chervil, thyme and bay, then finished as a gratin over toast so nothing of the cooking liquid is wasted. Leeks were cheap and kept well through the winter, which is why they turn up in this period as "poor man's asparagus," and a mustard crust was one way of making an inexpensive vegetable read as a dish in its own right.