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Jesuites
Roll out on a lightly floured table half pound feuilletage as thin as possible, then cut in twelve even triangular pieces, two inches base and three inches in height. Prepare a creme patissiere and divide evenly in the centre of six of the triangular pieces, lightly wet the edges, cover with the other six pieces, press the edges together so as to entirely enclose the cream. Make a light incision on top of each, then place on a lightly wetted pastry sheet. Pour in a bowl two ounces granulated sugar, six drops vanilla essence and the white of a small egg. Sharply stir with wooden spoon three minutes. Spread the sugar over the six cakes. Sprinkle over an ounce peeled, chopped almonds, set in oven twenty minutes. Remove, sprinkle a little vanilla sugar over them and serve.
BALANK TSORBASSI (FISH SOUP) Procure a head of either salmon or bass (fresh) and place in a saucepan with a sliced carrot, a sliced onion, two sliced branches celery, two branches parsley, one branch chervil, one bay leaf, a sprig thyme and a clove. Moisten with three quarts water. Season with two teaspoons salt, half teaspoon pepper, one teaspoon curry powder and gently boil one and a half hours. Strain the soup through a cheesecloth into another saucepan, add three ounces raw rice and gently boil fifteen minutes. Finely chop one bean garlic, one leek, one branch parsley and four sound shallots, add to the soup, lightly mix and boil five minutes longer. Remove the skin and bone (if any) from a pound of fresh halibut, then cut in half-inch-square pieces, add to soup and simmer fifteen minutes. Dilute an egg yoke in a gill cream and juice of half a sound lemon, add to soup, carefully mix with wooden spoon while cooking two minutes, but do not allow to boil. Pour soup into a tureen and serve.
Two entries run together here: the Jesuites, a triangular puff-pastry cake, and a Turkish-style fish soup. Both assume a cook who already knows the French repertoire, so several steps are left unstated.
- Feuilletage and creme patissiereThe book expects you to make both from its own base recipes. Half a pound of puff pastry is roughly one sheet of all-butter frozen puff; the pastry cream should be thick and fully cooled before it goes on the dough, or it will thin out and burst the seams.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Puff pastry of this size wants a hot oven, 400-425F, for the twenty minutes stated; the almond and sugar topping browns fast, so watch it from about fifteen minutes.
- The topping is a royal icingTwo ounces sugar beaten with one egg white and vanilla is a thin glace royale. Three minutes of vigorous stirring is what makes it opaque and crisp; underbeaten, it soaks into the pastry and stays sticky.
- Wetted pastry sheetDampening the baking sheet rather than greasing it is commonly directed for puff pastry in period texts, the usual explanation being that the steam helps lift. A parchment-lined sheet does the same job with less guesswork.
- YieldSix cakes, each about two inches at the base. They are a coffee pastry rather than a dessert course.
- "One bean garlic"Evidently rendering the French une gousse d'ail: one clove, not a head. "Four sound shallots" means four unblemished ones; "sound" here simply means not spoiled.
- A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. "Egg yoke" is the yolk.
- The halibut is overcookedHalf-inch cubes of halibut are done in three to four minutes in simmering broth. Fifteen minutes will leave them dry and chalky; add them near the end and let the residual heat finish the job.
- The liaison is the hingeYolk, cream and lemon juice will curdle instantly if the soup boils. Temper a ladle of hot broth into the mixture first, return it off the boil, and hold the pan below a simmer for the two minutes given.
- Fish headA salmon or bass head still makes the best broth here, but ask the fishmonger to remove the gills, which are usually blamed for bitter, muddy stock. The recipe gives no yield; three quarts of water, reduced over the long simmer, will stretch to six or more as a first course.
Jésuites are named for their shape: the triangle of puff pastry, glazed white and dusted with almonds, was thought to resemble the flat, wide-brimmed hat worn by members of the Society of Jesus, and the name is generally traced to nineteenth-century Parisian pâtisserie, where they sat alongside other clerically nicknamed pastries. The fish soup that follows is a transliteration of the Turkish balık çorbası, "fish soup," and its egg-and-lemon finish is the same terbiye liaison found across the eastern Mediterranean, from Greek avgolemono to the Ottoman kitchen. That the two sit on the same page is characteristic of The International Cook Book, which marched through the world's cuisines filtering everything through the vocabulary and technique of the French-trained hotel chef — hence a Turkish soup thickened with a classical liaison and seasoned, oddly, with curry powder.