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Normandy Pie
Normandy is best known for its preparations of flounder or sole, although it is the birthplace of the very best cooks in the world, and is only rivalled in fame by the province of Gascony, in the south. Because the Pope used to hold court at Avignon, French people always declare that the environs of that town will be famous among epicures. For, as some one aptly says, the angels taught them how to cook. Bake a tall tart of puff paste, lining a high mould with it, and turning it out very carefully. Make a ragout, or stew, of a large flounder,--or any firm white fish,--cutting it into pieces, baking it in a dish with butter, herbs, and white wine, only enough to cover it. Take out, add to the wine 12 oysters and 12 mushrooms, cooked in butter, and 1 dozen croutons, or crusts of bread, toasted, the size of a quarter, 1 cup of oyster juice, yolks of 2 eggs, beaten, with 1 cup of white broth, salt, and pepper. Let these cook together carefully, then fill the pie with them, the crust having, of course, been kept warm.
A vol-au-vent in all but name: a tall pastry case filled at the last moment with fish, oysters and mushrooms bound in an egg-yolk sauce. The original assumes you know how to keep a liaison from curdling, so start there.
- The hinge: the egg liaisonThe two yolks beaten with a cup of broth must never come to a boil, or the sauce will scramble and break. Warm the liquid, temper a ladleful into the yolks, return the mixture to the pan and hold it below about 180F until it coats a spoon.
- The pastry case"A tall tart of puff paste, lining a high mould" appears to mean a shell baked empty, weighted so the sides hold their shape, then unmoulded. The book gives no oven setting; puff pastry is generally baked hot, around 400-425F, until the layers are set and coloured through, since a pale shell will collapse under a wet filling.
- Baking the fishButter, herbs and just enough white wine to cover. The recipe gives no oven temperature; a moderate oven of about 350F will serve. A flounder or sole in pieces needs roughly 10-15 minutes; take it out the moment it flakes, since it will sit in hot sauce afterwards.
- OystersTwelve oysters go in only to heat through, one to two minutes at most. Held longer they shrink and turn rubbery, and their liquor is the better part of the flavour.
- White brothA light unbrowned stock of veal or chicken, unseasoned and unreduced. Modern low-sodium chicken stock is the nearest thing; salt at the end, as the oyster juice already carries salt.
- Croutons the size of a quarterRounds of bread about an inch across, toasted or fried in butter. Note that the recipe adds them to the ragout with the oysters and mushrooms rather than laying them on as a last-minute garnish.
- Assembly and timingFill the case at the very last moment. Pastry standing in sauce softens quickly, and the original does note that the crust should have been kept warm while the filling is finished.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. One large flounder with a dozen oysters would probably fill a shell for about four as a main course, or six as an entree in the older sense of a smaller made dish between courses.
The dish belongs to the family of French pastry cases filled with a rich white ragout, of which the vol-au-vent and the bouchee are the best-known members, and the Norman claim rests on its combination of sole or flounder, oysters and butter, all products of that coast. The opening paragraph is really travel writing rather than instruction: the notion that Avignon and its surroundings owe their cooking to the papal court there in the fourteenth century is a well-worn French commonplace, more often repeated than documented. That mixture of anecdote and method is characteristic of the late-Victorian and Edwardian culinary travelogue, a genre written for American and British readers who had begun to tour France and wanted to bring something home from the table as well as the gallery.