Is There a Nutmeg in the House? (29 page)

ROAST CAPON
,
AND TOMATOES WITH RICE AND WALNUT STUFFING

Put a lump of butter worked with tarragon or parsley inside a 2.5 kg (5 lb) capon (about 1.8 kg/3½ lb dressed and drawn weight), rub the bird generously with butter, stand it on a grid in a baking tin and roast it slowly on its side in the centre of a very moderate oven, 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3, for 1½ hours altogether, turning it over at half time, then breast upwards for the final 10 minutes, and basting from time to time with melted butter (about 60 g/2 oz) warmed in a little pan on top of the stove. Add a couple of tablespoons of white wine to the buttery juices in the pan, let them bubble a minute or two over a fast flame and serve in a sauce boat. A plain giblet gravy as an alternative to the rich buttery one can be prepared the day before by cooking the giblets with an unpeeled onion, a sliced tomato, a small piece of celery, two or three springs of parsley, and water just to cover. This needs about 3 hours’ extremely slow cooking, and is best done in the oven. Then all you have to do is to strain the gravy, season it, and heat it up and reduce it a little when the capon is ready.

For 8 to 10 large tomatoes, the ingredients for the stuffing are 90 g (3 oz) of rice, a chopped shallot, 60 g (2 oz) shelled and chopped walnuts, a dessertspoon of currants, the grated peel of half a lemon, 30 g (1 oz) of butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg and 1 egg, a little olive oil or extra melted butter. Boil the rice, keeping it slightly under-done. Drain and while still warm mix with it all the other ingredients. Slice off the tops of the tomatoes, scoop out the pulp, add it to the rice mixture, fill the tomatoes, piling the stuffing up into a mound, replace the tops, put them in an oiled
baking tin or dish, pour a few drops of oil or melted butter over each and bake in the oven while the chicken is cooking: about half an hour should be sufficient.

ROAST PHEASANT WITH CHESTNUT SAUCE

A young but fully grown pheasant will weigh about 750 g (1½ lb) and takes approximately 45 minutes to roast. Put a lump of butter inside the bird, wrap it in well-buttered paper, place it on its side on a grid standing in a baking tin and cook in the centre of a preheated fairly hot oven, 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Turn it over after the first 20 minutes, after another 15 minutes remove the paper and turn the bird breast upwards for the last 10 minutes.

For the chestnut sauce, which can be made a day or two in advance and slowly reheated, the ingredients are 250 g (½ lb) chestnuts, 2 sticks of celery, one rasher of bacon, 45 g (1½ oz) butter, about 6 tablespoons of port, a little cream or stock.

Score the chestnuts on one side, bake them in a moderate oven (180°C/350°F/gas mark 4) for 15 minutes, shell and skin them. Chop them roughly. Heat the butter, put in the chopped celery and bacon, add the chestnuts, the port, an equal quantity of water, and a very little salt. Cover the saucepan and cook very gently for about 30 minutes until the chestnuts are quite tender. When reheating, enrich the mixture with either a couple of tablespoons of rich meat or game stock or double cream.

This mixture is fairly solid, really more like a vegetable dish than a sauce proper, but whatever you like to call it, it goes to perfection with pheasant. A good creamy bread sauce or simply crisp breadcrumbs put in a baking tin with a little butter and left in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes could provide an alternative, and personally I always like a few fried or baked chipolata sausages with a pheasant.

If you prefer to have your pheasant cold, a bowl of those beautiful Italian fruits in mustard syrup (
see
page 106
) would be better than the chestnut sauce. And have a hot first course, an egg dish perhaps (a spoonful of the tomato fondue described on
page 173
, with a little cream, added to baked eggs is a good one); or some scallops, or a creamy vegetable soup.

Vogue
, December 1959

SPICED BAKED CARRÉ OF LAMB

A carré of lamb is the row of best end of neck cutlets trimmed right down to the bone. You will need a rack of lamb of 8 bones weighing not more than 750 g (1½ lb) when trimmed, 1 medium-small clove of garlic, ½ teaspoon each of coriander and cumin seeds, and dried coriander or thyme, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 bay leaves, and 150 ml (¼ pint) of dry white wine.

When you order or buy your joint, make sure that the bones and trimmings are included in your parcel. Weigh the joint before you start operations.

To prepare the meat for cooking, skin and halve a rather small clove of garlic. With one half, rub all the exposed surfaces of the meat and the bones. Cut the other half into very small slivers, insert one close to each bone. Pound or grind a half teaspoon each of coriander and cumin seeds, mix these spices with 2 teaspoons of salt, and a half-teaspoon of oregano or crumbled dried thyme and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Rub this mixture, like the garlic, over the meat.

Put all the bones and trimmings of the meat into an oval, enamelled cast-iron baking or gratin dish. On top put the little joint, fat side up. This preparation can, if it suits your timetable, be done well in advance.

When the time comes to cook the lamb, set the dish over a low heat for about 5 minutes, until you hear the fat from the trimmings begin to sizzle. Quickly pour over the white wine. Let it bubble for not more than one minute before moving the dish from the top of the stove and putting it under the grill, which should already be hot. This part of the cooking is simply to brown the top surface of the meat and takes only about 4 minutes – but that depends upon the workings of your grill.

Now cover the meat with a sheet of foil and transfer it to the centre shelf of a moderately hot oven, 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. A carré weighing 750 g (1½ lb) will take 60–70 minutes to cook so that it is beautifully pink all through.

Remove the meat to an ovenproof serving dish, cover it and keep it warm while you give the juices in the cooking pan a very quick boil; and pour them into a heated sauce boat.

Notes

1. Timing given is for a joint of say six months old lamb. Very young, new season’s lamb would make a thinner joint, would need much less cooking and would not be quite suitable for this recipe. As with all recipes for oven-roasted meat, it should be borne in mind that the timing and temperatures given are those which apply to the ovens of household cookers. Professional chefs, writing for restaurateurs, give shorter times and higher temperatures because they use much larger ovens in which there is plenty of room for the heat to circulate, so the meat does not burn nor the fat fly at a high temperature. When giving recipes for the general public, chefs rarely take this factor into account. In their turn, they are incredulous when they read a household cook’s instructions for oven roasting.

2. The trimmings and bones which have enriched the gravy for this dish of lamb still have meat on them and goodness to give out. The meat trimmings can be used for pilau, or the whole lot can be utilised to make a small quantity of stock which will give a good flavour to a barley, lentil or bean soup.

3. Those who like a flavour of garlic but prefer not to find pieces of the bulb, however small, in their meat, could simply rub the meat with the cut clove and put the rest of it underneath the meat with the trimmings.

Unpublished, 1970s

BONED LOIN OF LAMB BAKED IN A CRUST

This is a dish which needs a certain amount of care and attention, but the results make it well worthwhile.

Ingredients are approximately 1 kg (2¼ lb) (weight after boning – but more rather than less) of kidney end of loin of lamb, boned; the kidneys with their fat removed, sliced and put back inside the meat, which is then rolled and tied in a sausage shape. (A good butcher will do all this for you.) For cooking the meat you need butter, 1 clove of garlic, salt and herbs, and for the final operation a mixture of 2 chopped shallots, parsley, 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and 15 g (½ oz) of butter. For the crust, 250 g (8 oz) of plain flour, 150 g (5 oz) of butter, salt, water, milk.

Before cooking the meat, rub it with salt and chopped marjoram or thyme. Wrap it, with a large lump of butter and a whole clove
of garlic, in two layers of greaseproof paper or foil, put it in a baking dish or other baking tin, and cook it in a preheated fairly hot oven (190°C/375°F/gas mark 5) for 45–50 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave about 15 minutes before unwrapping it and removing strings. (It should be warm when wrapped in the pastry, but not too much so.)

Have the parsley and shallot mixture prepared in advance, as follows: chop the shallots very finely with about 3 tablespoons of parsley, a little salt and freshly milled pepper. Melt the butter in a small pan, let it just cook a minute or two, stir in the breadcrumbs.

When the meat is unwrapped incorporate its juices – minus the garlic clove – into the mixture. Coat the fat side of the meat with this preparation.

For the crust, which is also prepared in advance, put the flour into a bowl, add a good pinch of salt, crumble in the softened butter – thoroughly but very lightly – add sufficient cold water (half a cupful at most, probably less) to make a soft dough. Knead a few moments, shape into a ball, wrap in greaseproof paper and leave in a cool place for at least 30 minutes.

Flour a board, roll out the dough fairly thin and to a rectangular

shape, sprinkling it with flour if it is sticky. Put the meat in the centre, lift up the sides and ends of the dough and join them along the top and at the sides, moistening the edges with cold water and pinching them well together. Place on a baking sheet already rubbed with a buttered paper. Prick the dough all over with a fork (this is to allow steam to escape and thus prevent the pastry from being soggy) and paint it with a pastry brush dipped in milk.

Put in the centre of a hot oven (200°C/400°F/gas mark 6) and leave for about 35 minutes. When you take the dish from the oven, let it stand 5 minutes before carving it into fairly thick slices. The pastry should be short and light and crisp, the meat inside very full of juices and still just faintly pink. It shouldn’t really need any extra sauce, but redcurrant jelly can be served with it if you like, and Belgian endives stewed in butter.

Unpublished, 1970s

APPLES STUFFED WITH SPICED LAMB

This is a Persian dish. The original recipe came from Mr Arto Haroutunian, proprietor of The Armenian Restaurant in Kensington Church Street, where I had the dish for the first time. I have made my own variations in the spicing and flavouring of the lamb and of the tomato and red wine sauce in which the apples are cooked. It is an interesting and attractive dish.

For the stuffing for 8 eating apples (use well-shaped red apples such as Star King or perhaps Worcester. Avoid the insipid Golden Delicious). Other ingredients are 250 g (½ lb) of minced lamb, raw or cooked, 1 small onion, 1 clove of garlic, 30 g (1 oz) of shelled walnuts, 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon of dried mint, 2–3 teaspoons of powdered cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of powdered cumin seed or mixed sweet spice (the kind sold as pudding spice), salt, cayenne pepper, olive oil for frying the meat and a little water or stock to moisten it.

Ingredients for the sauce are 250 g (8 oz) of fresh tomatoes and a small tin (250 g/8 oz size) of Italian peeled tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, a small tumbler of red wine, salt, sugar, water. The sauce, which emerges a deep, dark red and is quite unlike any other tomato sauce I have ever cooked or eaten, seems to me to improve and mellow on reheating, so it is a good idea to make it a day ahead.

Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, skin them, chop them roughly. Into a sauté pan or skillet pour a good measure of olive oil, heat it, put in the fresh tomatoes, let them cook until most of the moisture has evaporated. Pour in the tinned tomatoes and their juice, together with 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed with a knife. Season with salt. Leave to bubble gently until the sauce is about the consistency of a thick soup. Add the wine, then the sugar. Again leave to reduce. If the sauce has been cooked in an enamelled or earthenware pan, it can safely be left in the pan until next day, otherwise transfer it to a bowl. In any case, keep it covered.

To prepare the lamb stuffing, peel and chop the onion, heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, let the onion just melt and turn pale yellow before putting in the meat. Fry gently, and if raw meat is used, moisten it with a little water or stock, or it will be dry. Add the crushed garlic. Season with salt only at this stage. When the meat is well cooked, stir in the chopped walnuts, the parsley, the dried mint and the spices, using only a very small sprinkling of cayenne. It is, of course, necessary at this stage to taste the meat. You may need to add more salt, or extra spice.

Core the apples but do not peel them. Still using the apple corer or a small spoon, excavate a little more of the apple flesh (this can be added to the stuffing) so that there is room for the meat mixture. Do not overdo this hollowing-out operation. If there is too much stuffing in proportion to the fruit, the dish will be stodgy.