BROILING is not a job that can be done with the left hand of a chef whose right hand is stirring a sauce or sautéing a fish. Broiling is an art which demands exclusive attention, great skill. and long experience, and I have at least one friend, now a chef of considerable repute, who learned that fact the hard way!
This chef, whom we shall call Leon, served his apprenticeship under me in the Ritz kitchens many years ago. We had also in training in the kitchen a young girl who worked in the home of one of the hotel's directors, and I am afraid that the young lady was something of a distraction to Leon. To put it bluntly, Leon was acting like a small boy riding his bicycle with no hands-to a fall. He was showing off. and unfortunately for him he chose the wrung trick. He took half a shad, not the delicate filet-which is notoriously difficult to handle-but a substantial piece of the fish and laid it on the broiling grill with all the flourishes of a master. But while the flourishes were there, the skill was lacking. The grill was not quite hot enough, and the fish stuck to the grill so firmly that poor Leon had to call the grill chef to scrape it off for hint. Then Leon had to watch, his face red for more reasons than the heat of the broiler flame, while the chef marked the fish with a red-hot pique-feu, the poker which was also used to lift the round stove lids, to quadriller it with a pattern of crossbars in imitation of the effect produced by proper broiling.
It is a captivating sight to see a talented grill chef expertly cooking piece-after piece of fragile fish, with never a bit broken or a shred left sticking to the wires, each piece geometrically marked by the hot wires in an attractive pattern, and a sight that makes one appreciate the efforts of the grillardin.
The first grillardin I ever worked with, and certainly one of the best, was père Auguste of the Hôtel du Rhin in Paris. He was a huge man. and with a grot bonnet blanc perched on his massive head he made the other chefs look like people of another, and rather diminutive, race. He was a skilled chef and a tireless worker, or Mr. Morlock, the manager, would never have put up with him, for père Augusts was seldom entirely sober. His own special and inviolable glass was. like himself, enormous. It could hold a quart bottle of wine . . . and it usually did. When be had drunk his own wine, we young commit gave him most of ours, and the courrier, in order to fuel his good humor. always brought hint the wine the guests had left in their bottles. So père Angute was usually très gas and often so funny that we could barely keep our minds on our jobs. When the other chefs went off for their afternoon outing. and we commis, who never had any time off, were busy making the intricate garnishes for dinner-carving roses from beets and turnips, rolling out colored noodles to cut into fancy shapes, fashioning little lemon baskets for parsley and so on-père Auguste would settle himself in a large chair in the far corner of the kitchen and go to sleep.
Grunts and groans signaled pèrs Auguste's awakening and were our cue to rush him a glassful of wine. After several false starts he would finally heave himself out of the chair and stagger to the range. But once at his broiler, père-Auguste was all business, working furiously for hours on end, stopping occasionally. of course, for more wine. livery piece of meat or fish that came off his grill had the right shade of brown and a perfect quadrillé. It was always cooked à point, that is. to the exact degree of doneness. His hands may have been big and at times a little shaky, but. drunk or sober, when he tapped a filet mignon or a roast with his two big fingers, he knew at once whether it was à point or needed more cooking, and he handled piece after fragile piece of delicate boned shad as casually as if he were frying eggs for a roadside diner. His wine-blurred eyes saw even the smallest imperfection in one of the garnished platters waiting for the food from his grill. Then he would try to explain what was wrong to Bob Touch, the young English apprentice who worked under him. By this time the high hat would have slipped to a decidedly rakish angle, the great white-coated bulk would be teetering and swaying, and the thick tongue was only able to manage some entirely meaningless sounds like “monyeu, monyeu, monyeu, ” which poor, puzzled Bob tried to translate into English! Watching the confusion would send us all into raits of laughter until the head chef came over to put a stop to our nonsense-and in words that were full of meaning.
Fifty or more years ago hotel kitchens used only charcoal or coke for broiling. Coke made a hotter fire and was preferred. It was hotter for the chef, too, and usually broiled him along will) the meat. In the old Ritz in New York we had two charcoal broilers and one coke broiler, as well as several fueled by gas and electricity. Few modern establishments are designed with chimneys that go directly from the charcoal or cokebroilers to the roof, which fire department regulations of most cities require, so most places now use gas or electricity.
The first step in broiling is to make the quadrillé, or brown markings. The wire grill must be very hot, for the food is laid on it over the fire to sear the stripes in one direction. Then the meat or fish is lifted with a big spatula and moved halfway around to sear a diamond or crossbar pattern. The cooking is then finished in various ways. Steaks and chops are turned over and cooked on the oilier side, but a delicate piece of fish is usually placed in a hot pan, skin side down, quadrillé up. and finished under a gas or electric broiler or in the oven. With the firm skin underneath, the fish is less apt to break when the cook lifts it off with his spatula. Large pieces of meat to be broiled-whole beef filets, racks or loins of baby lamb, or young turkeys, for example-after they have been seared in the broiler, are finished in the oven to avoid the drying which might be caused by longer broiling.
Pinterest
