Professional chefs can have their cookery problems just as amateurs do. And one of my early ones would make any American housewife laugh. I came to New York in the fall of 1910. The Ritz opened in December. That first winter seemed to me one continuous struggle to get what I considered simple and basic commodities like leeks for my soups and shallots for my sauces. That winter I also faced the keen disappointment of so many French chefs when they discover that you might just as well try to capture the moon in your hands as to have fresh truffles for cooking. Finally summer rolled around, and I met up with fresh sweet corn.
Now to me, corn had been something that we fed to animals on my grandfather's farm, until I became potager—soup chef—at the Paris Ritz. Then I was introduced to American canned corn which we served very infrequently—usually only on the Fourth of July for our American guests—in a soup called crème Washington, Hut I had never seen corn eaten au naturel and being a little uncertain about cooking it, I decided to try some myself before putting it on the menu. So I ordered fresh corn, had it shucked, and then boiled it for an hour or so. I found, as you can imagine, that it was very tough, quite tasteless, and had an unattractive yellow color. The next time, I tried putting some milk in the water, a standard practice I had learned for keeping many foods white during cooking. But that didn't help either. At that point I took my problem to Fly Sivade, remembered by many old New Yorkers as head chef of the then well-known Knickerbocker Hotel. He was like an older brother to me because he came from the same small French town that I did and our mothers had been girlhood friends. From him I learned what every child in this country knows—that the secret of tender corn is to cook it for not more than eight or ten minutes.
Of course, as soon as I learned how delicious fresh sweet corn can be, I couldn't wait until I had some new corn dishes for our menu. But 1 discovered that many people who love this vegetable have trouble digesting it because of the tough skins that cover the kernels. That was my cue—to find ways of using the pulp without the skin. The recipes that I evolved have had continued popularity during all these forty years. A simple sweet corn purée is one, and a corn ring called turban Washington has been particularly well liked. And would I be true to my heritage if I hadn't come up with a sweet corn soufflé?
My trick is to remove the pulp and leave the skin on the cob. This gives pulp that has more body than corn cut off the cob and run through a sieve. For the best-flavored pulp, use freshly picked corn, of course. Cook the ears in boiling salted water for about 8 minutes. Remove and plunge them into cold water to stop further cooking and also to cool the corn so that it will be easier to handle. With a sharp-tined fork, rip down the rows of kernels, splitting open each kernel, and press out the pulp with the side of the fork.
Sweet Corn Purée
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and add 2 cups pulp from freshly cooked corn. Season to taste with salt and pepper and hear it. Add a little cream if desired.
Turban Washington
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan, add 1 ½ cups pulp from freshly cooked corn, and cook until the surplus juice is reduced to almost nothing.
Meanwhile, make a thick béchamel sauce as follows: Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan, add 2 tablespoons flour, and cook until it just starts to turn golden. Add 1 cup hot milk and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens. Continue cooking slowly for about 15 minutes, stirring with a whip to keep it very smooth. Beat 1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks together and combine with the bèchamel. Add the corn pulp and reheat, being very careful not to let it boil.
Correct the seasoning and pour into a well-buttered ring mold set in a pan of hot water. Bake in a moderately hot oven (375° F.) for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the mixture is firm. Remove from the oven but leave the pudding in the mold for a few minutes to set. Loosen the edges by running a small knife around. Invert and unmold on a heated serving dish. Fill the center with baby Lima beans or with mushrooms and Lima beans, heated in butter and cream.
Mushrooms and Lima Beans in Cream
Clean and slice ½ pound fresh mushrooms. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan, add 1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots or onion, and cook until soft. Add the mushrooms and cook until the moisture is evaporated. Add 1 cup light cream and cook until reduced to ½ cup. Thicken by adding a manié butter. made by creaming 1 tablespoon butter with 1 teaspoon flour. Add 2 cups cooked Lima beans, return to the boil, and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
When cooking Lima beans, the French have a trick. too, for keeping them green. They use a tin-lined copper pan and cook them in salted water. I advise rinsing the cooked beans for a second in cold water to prevent their getting mushy after they are done. Then reheat them in a little butter and perhaps cream, sweet or sour.
Corn Soufflé
Prepare 1 cup corn pulp. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan, add the corn, and cook until most of the moisture is evaporated. In another saucepan, make a thick béchamel (see above) up to the point where it has cooked for 15 minutes. Mix the corn in thoroughly. Beat A egg yolks and combine with the corn. Reheat, but do not boil. Correct the seasoning and fold in 5 stiffly beaten egg whites. Put the batter in a deep baking dish or soufflé mold, buttered and floured, and cook in a moderately hot oven (375° F.) for 25 to 30 minutes. Garnish by sprinkling the top of the soufflé before it goes in the oven with whole kernels of corn cut from the cob.
With eggplant—like corn, at its height in summer—I had no problem. Here was an old familiar favorite, although I found it wasn't used too frequently on American tables. In France, it is very popular. They say, “Mangez plus d'aubergine, évitez d'aroir les chevenx gris” or “Eat more eggplant if you don't want gray hair”—advice, I'm afraid, of doubtful value.
Eggplant is very good in this country. Apparently the climate is right because the ones grown here are much larger than those in France. In fact, it is surprising to me that such a little plan: can support such a big vegetable. There are numberless ways of cooking eggplant but in all of them the problem s to avoid sogginess, which is too often the case because this vegetable contains so much water. The ideal eggplant is crisp on the outside and succulent within. One way of attaining this is to deep-fry or sauté eggplant slices very quickly and serve them immediately. Or eggplant, if intended for stuffings or soufflé, should be sliced or cut in pieces, sprinkled with salt, and allowed to stand to remove the excess moisture. The pieces are then fried in deep fat and the pulp mashed and used as desired.
Another solution is to combine egg plant with other foods, such as tomatoes.mushrooms, cheese, cream sauce, et cetera. Quite substantial dishes result this way because eggplant has a certain hearty quality. In the French cuisine, tomatoes and garlic are frequently used in combination with eggplant. The flavors seem to have an affinity with each other. The simplest recipe is sautéed eggplant but I think a more popular one is eggplant à l'orientale, which I evolved for our menu. I myself like eggplant pro vençal, a garlic-flavored combination of tomatoes and eggplant that is simple but very tasty.
Sautéed Eggplant
Peel an eggplant and cut it in ½-inch slices. Sprinkle each with a little salt and dip in milk and then in flour. Heat salad oil until it is very hot and brown the eggplant slices in it. a few at a time, cooking each side for 2 to 3 minutes.
Eggplant à l'Orientale
Prepare I cup cream sauce. In another saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon butter, add 2 shallots, finely chopped, or 1 tablespoon chopped onion, and cook until they are soft. Add 4 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, and cook until reduced to 1/3 the original quantity. Add the cream sauce and 1 teaspoon chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat, combine with 2 beaten egg yolks, and finish with 2 tablespoons butter.
Peel an eggplant and cut it in ½-inch slices. Dip in milk and dredge with flour. Fry in hot deep fat or sauté in butter. Season with salt and drain off the surplus fat after cooking. Arrange alternate layers of sauce and eggplant in a heatproof serving dish. Clover the top with the remainder of the sauce mixed with 2 tablespoons whipped cream. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and brown under the broiler.
Eggplant Provençale
Peel a medium-sized eggplant and cut in large dice. Season with salt and dredge with flour. Heat 2 tablespoons salad oil in a shallow pan until very hot and sauté the eggplant dice until golden-brown. In another pan, heat 2 tablespoons salad oil and in it sauté 4 tomatoes. peeled, seeded, and chopped. Combine the two vegetables, add 2 cloves garlic, crushed, and cook (or a few minutes longer. Serve sprinkled will) parsley.
For a main dish, particularly nice for a meatless luncheon, try eggplant à l'al-gérienne. This has a very small amount of sauce, just enough to spread over the top of the dish. Too much sauce would result in sogginess, the very thing to avoid with eggplant.
Eggplant à l'Algérienne
Prepare about 1 cup cooked rice (pilau or risotto). Clean 8 mushrooms and sauté in 1 tablespoon butter for a few minutes. Add 1 shallot, chopped, or 1 tablespoon chopped onion and 1 tablespoon Hour and mix well. Blend in ½ cup cream and cook, stirring, until it is reduced a little. Season 12 slices eggplant, cut ½ inch thick, with salt and pepper, dip in milk and then in flour, and fry in hot deep fat or sauté in very hot oil until golden-brown. Dip 8 tomato slices, cut ¾ inch thick, in Hour and sauté them in very hot oil. Spread the rice over the bottom of a heated serving dish, place the eggplant and tomato slices on the rice, alternating and overlapping the vegetables. and pour the creamed mushrooms over them.
For scores of people, summertime is lobstertime, probably because lobster dishes are the specialty of so many resort hotels and eating places. But I find that more and more families are serving lobster at home, too. And not just those living on the Eastern Seaboard, because refrigerated freight cars and quick air and motor freight now transport even the most perishable foodstuffs to all sections of the country. In addition, there are companies which ship direct lobsters packed in barrels of ice, timing delivery for the exact day requested. So some helpful pointers on preparing lobster should be very timely.
Broiling seems to be a favorite way of serving lobster. Most people think that splitting a lobster is an insurmountable job. Actually, it isn't difficult. All you need is a good knife, one that is strong, sharp, and has a good point, and the courage to use it on a live, active shell-fish. First, cut off all the claws, both the large and small ones. Then place the lobster on its back on a board or table with the body end nearest you. Plunge the point of the knife into the tail section and cut right down the tail and the body, dividing the lobster in two in one long clean cut. Small lobsters that serve one person are cut not quite through so that they are hinged when you lay them open for broiling. Large ones which will make two servings should be cut right through and separated. With the dull edge of the knife blade, give both sides of each big claw one crack. The reason for this is that broiling makes the shells extremely hard and therefore hard to crack. With this first crack, they will break easily after they are cooked. Cutting off the claws makes it possible to cook more lobsters at a time because the body sections can be ranged close to each other and the claws laid around the edges. When brushing them with butter, brush a little into the cracked part of the claws, too. The small claws are used for making sauces for fish dishes, but they can be broiled, if desired. There isn't much meat in them, but there is considerable flavor.
Broiled Lobster
Remove the claws and split live lobsters lengthwise. Remove the sac behind the head and the dark vein along the back. Season with salt and pepper and brush with butter. Crack both sides of each big claw. Put the lobsters, split side up, on the broiler and lay the claws around. Broil in a preheated broiler for 15 to 18 minutes, having the pan far enough from the heat so they will not scorch. Serve with melted butter and quarters of lemon.
For boiled lobsters, no preparation is needed. They are dropped whole into boiling water. It can be plain salted water or it can be a court-bouillon. When cooking lobsters that have just been pulled from the ocean, less salt is needed in the cooking liquid because they retain quite a bit of saltiness, Lobsters purchased in city markets, however, are kept fresh in ice and lose some of this saltiness.
There is a trick in removing the claw meat in one piece from a boiled lobster. an important trick when whole pieces of claw meat are used for garnishing. Here's how to do it. Cut off the claw at the first joint and break off the small pincer, Lay the big part down-on a board and hit it with the cutting side of a large knife about I inch from the joint. Turn it over and do the same on the other side. Pick up the claw in your left hand and pull off the end with your right. It will separate, and the claw meat will come out in one piece. The remainder of the claw meat below the joint can then be removed easily.
Boiled Lobster
Plunge live lobsters into boiling salted water or into boiling court-bouillon (see below) and boil for 20 to 25 minutes if it is to be served immediately. For serving cold, cook only for 15 minutes and leave in the water to cool. Split the lobsters, remove the sac behind the head and the dark vein along the back, and crack the claws. Serve with melted butter and garnish with parsley and lemon wedges.
Court-Bouillon for Shellfish
For each 2 quarts water, use 2 tablespoons salt, 1 onion, sliced, I carrot. sliced, 1 cup vinegar, 10 peppercorns, 2 bay leaves, and a bouquet garni,made by tying together 2 sprigs of parsley, 1 stalk of celery, 1 clove of garlic, and a little thyme.
The trick in making a savory sauce for creamed lobster or lobster Newberg is to use the small claws and the shells to flavor the sauce.
Lobster Newberg
Remove the small claws from 2 or 3 lobsters. Boil the lobsters in salted water for 20 minutes. Discard the sac behind the head and the dark vein along the back. Remove the meat from the tail. body, and large claws, cut it in pieces, and put in a saucepan with a little butter. Cover the pan and keep it just warm.
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a pun, add 1 teaspoon chopped shallot or onion, and cook until soft, Cut up the claws, break the shells taken from the cooked lobsters, and put in the pan. Add 1 ½ cups medium cream and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Strain Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan, add 1 teaspoon flour, and cook until it starts to turn golden. Add the strained lobster-flavored cream and cook, stirring, until well blended and thickened a little. Season with ½ teaspoon salt. Combine 1 or 2 egg yolks with ¼ cup heavy cretin and a little of the hot sauce 3nd stir into the sauce. Add a generous ½ cup dry sherry to the lobster and reheat. Combine the lobster meat with the sauce and heat the entire mixture over a low flame, being careful not to let it boil. Add ¼ cup more sherry if desired.
Use chives more frequently and you add to your repertoire another sophisticated flavor, a trick that good chefs never overlook. Although some of the typical French seasonings like tarragon and chervil are sometimes difficult to find in food markets, chives are something that will grow in any garden and even on an apartment window sill. They have a unique onion flavor—definitely recognizable yet quite mild—which thus enhances delicately flavored mixtures. And the bright green color of their fine awl-shaped leaves is also an asset as a garnish. Chives are equally good alone or mixed with parsley, chervil, or tarragon or with all three to make the fines berbes used so frequently in French cooking.
Chives are usually chopped finely and added to cold sauces or to salads. But adding them to hot dishes is a trick not to be missed. And here are two suggestions. In making meunière butter for fish, add a little chopped chives to the butter and see what a nice flavor it gives the fish. Or if you like cooked oysters, try buîtres Portia next month, adding chives to the sauce.
Oysters Portia
Cook together a handful of spinach leaves with 1 teaspoon chopped tarragon, drain thoroughly, and press through a sieve to make a purée. Add 2 tablespoons of this and 1 teaspoon mixed chopped chervil and chives to I cup Mornay sauce and fold in 2 tablespoons whipped cream. Remove oysters from their shells, allowing 4 to 6 for each person, dry the deep shells, and return the oysters to them. Cook the oysters in a moderate oven for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the oven, cover each with a bit of the sauce, and place under the broiler flame to brown.
Perhaps it isn't so strange that my creation that has gained the greatest reputation is made with potatoes, even though I have originated dozens of others that 1 would have expected to strike a more responsive chord. But vichyssoise secins to grow in popularity as each succeeding summer's heat parches American throats. This story goes back, too, to my childhood and to the same potato and leek soup we ate daily for breakfast.
In summer when it was so hot, we children would balk at eating hot soup. But fortunately at breakfast time, la laitière, the woman who delivered milk to us, would arrive with the big wooden yolk on her shoulder, at either end of which hung a pail of milk, and my mother would entice us into eating our soup by pouring some of the cold, rich top milk into our soup bowls. This cooled the soup, of course, but 1 think that the novelty of eating “cold” soup was what appealed to us.
Years later, in 1917 when the Ritz-Carlton Roof Garden was le dernier cri in smart dining—a long jump both in time and distance from my boyhood home in Montmarault—I was probing my mind for unusual dishes to serve at what was then a novel hotel restaurant. Cold jellied soups were just beginning to be accepted, and suddenly 1 thought of the cold potato and leek soup of my childhood. 1 made it up, straining the puree twice to make it extra smooth, using heavy cream for added richness.
The soup tasted delicious, but it seemed to need a little flourish to set it off. So 1 sprinkled finely chopped chives over the surface, and they not only complemented the leek and potato flavors of the soup perfectly, but also added fresh green color to the creamy white soup.
Then the question was what to call it. Since no one had ever heard of my Montmarault, but most of our guests had visited Vichy, then one of Europe's famous watering places. I called it crème vicbyssoise glacée, meaning a cold pureed soup, rich with cream and named for Vichy's housewives.
Crème Vichyssoise Glacée
Clean and cut away the green part of 4 leeks and slice very finely the white part. Slice I medium-sized onion and cook the vegetables in 2 tablespoons butter until they just begin to turn golden. Add 5 medium sized potatoes, peeled and sliced, 1 quart chicken broth or water, or a combination of both, and 1 tablespoon salt. Boil for 35 or 40 minutes. Rub the liquid through a fine sieve, return it to the fire, and add 2 clips milk and 2 cups medium cream. Season to taste and bring to a boil. Cool and rub the mixture through a very fine sieve. When it is cold, add 1 cup heavy cream. Chill thoroughly and serve sprinkled with finely chopped chives. This will serve eight.