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Puree of Mushrooms
(Paris.) Cook 1 pound of mushrooms in stock to cover, as above, take out the mushrooms and add to the sauce 1 ounce of grated ham, 1 cup of stewed tomatoes, some chopped onion, nutmeg, parsley, and a bayleaf, salt, and pepper. Cook until thick, add the mushrooms and press through a sieve. Served in Paris as a sauce for baked shad, filling for an omelette, or, by adding an equal amount of bread-crumbs, baked in a dish. Or else add to the puree a glass of Burgundy, and serve, with slices of hard-boiled eggs, on toast. CARROTS (as cooked in Lille, Flanders.).
Scrape and slice 1 pound of young carrots. Add 1/2 pint water, 1 ounce butter, a little salt, and a pinch of sugar. Cook, covered, until tender, add the yolks of 2 eggs, beaten in 1/2 cup of milk or cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped parsley.
EGGPLANT (as cooked in Provence.).
Rub the saucepan with garlic, put in 2 small eggplants which have been sliced and broiled over the fire, a little butter or olive oil, an onion, chopped fine, some parsley, seasoning, a cup of stewed tomatoes, the juice of a lemon, and a spoonful of anchovy paste. Cook until tender, and arrange on toast or as a garnish for macaroni.
Three short vegetable dishes run together in one entry, each written for a cook who already knows the technique and needs only the proportions. The mushroom puree is the main event; the carrots and eggplant are variations on the same saucepan method.
- "As above"The instruction refers back to the preceding recipe in the book: mushrooms simmered in just enough stock to cover, until they have given up their liquid and the stock has taken on their flavour. No time or quantity is given here; "to cover" is the only measure.
- The sieve is the pointPressing the finished mixture through a sieve is what makes it a puree rather than a stew, and it is also what removes the bay leaf, the onion fibre and the mushroom skins. A food mill does the same work; a blender alone will not, because it leaves the grit and skin in.
- Grated hamAn ounce of dry cured ham grated on a fine grater — prosciutto, serrano or a hard country ham. It is a seasoning, not a meat component, and boiled or wet-cured supermarket ham will not carry the same salt and savour.
- Stewed tomatoesIn this period the term meant tomatoes cooked down and seasoned, either home-put-up or canned. A cup of canned crushed tomatoes, simmered a few minutes to thicken, is a close equivalent.
- A glass of Burgundy"A glass" in recipes of this period is usually read as a wineglassful, commonly reckoned at about 2 fl oz, though the term is imprecise. Add it to the finished puree and let it cook a minute or two before serving on toast.
- The carrots: do not boil after the yolks go inTwo yolks beaten into half a cup of milk is a liaison, and it will curdle at a simmer. Pull the pan off the heat, stir the mixture in, and return it to low heat only until it thickens and coats the carrots.
- Eggplant "broiled over the fire"Slices charred directly on a grill or under a broiler until soft and browned, then finished in the saucepan. Salting the slices and letting them drain 20 minutes before broiling keeps them from soaking up oil.
- Anchovy pasteA spoonful is enough to season the whole pan. Anchovy pastes vary considerably in saltiness, so add half, taste after the tomato has cooked down, and season with salt at the very end.
- YieldEach of the three makes enough for about four as a side, or fills an omelette for two.
With a Saucepan Over the Sea belongs to a genre popular around the turn of the twentieth century: the travelling American housekeeper's notebook, in which dishes are collected city by city and labelled with the place they were eaten rather than any formal name. Hence "(Paris.)", "as cooked in Lille, Flanders" and "as cooked in Provence" — the provenance is the recipe's credential. The mushroom puree works along the lines of a duxelles carried further: mushrooms, ham, onion and herbs cooked down hard, then sieved smooth, in the French kitchen tradition of reducing a vegetable to a concentrated paste that can then be pressed into service as sauce, omelette filling, gratin or toast topping. The four suggested uses given in a single sentence say a good deal about how such a preparation was regarded — not as a dish in itself but as a stock of flavour to be kept and spent. The Provençal eggplant, with its garlic-rubbed pan, tomato, lemon and anchovy, belongs to the same broad family of Provençal vegetable stews.