Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (28 page)

The bread that best lends itself to making crostini is fine white bread baked in a mold, in the English fashion. If this type of bread is not available, use day-old bread with lots of pulp inside and cut it in square, one-centimeter thick slices (about 1/2 of an inch), on which you will spread the following mixtures which should have the consistency of an ointment:

Combine equal parts of caviar and butter. If the caviar is firm, heat to soften it a little, stirring with a wooden spoon over a moderate flame. If instead of butter you would prefer to use olive oil, add a few drops of lemon juice, then fully blend all three ingredients.

Wash the anchovies, and remove the backbone and spines. Then mince with a mezzaluna, adding the right amount of butter. Crush the resulting mixture with a knife blade until you have a smooth paste.

I would use the following amounts, but feel free to modify them according to your taste:

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of butter

40 grams (about 1 1/3 ounces) of caviar

20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of anchovies

Prepare a blend of all three and reduce to a fine, smooth paste.

Sandwiches can be served as appetizers or to accompany a cup of tea.

Take very fine day-old bread or rye bread, remove the crust, and cut into small round slices each about 1/2 a centimeter thick (about 1/4 of an inch), 6 centimeters long (about 2-1/2 inches), and 4 centimeters wide (about 1-1/2 inches). Spread fresh butter on one side only, place a thin slice of lean ham or salted tongue on top and cover with another slice of bread.

2
chicken livers

1anchovy

Cook the livers in butter, and when they have absorbed it cover with broth. Add a pinch of pepper but no salt. When done, mince finely together with one anchovy, washed and boned. Then put back in the skillet where you cooked the chicken livers, add a little more butter, and heat the mixture without bringing it to a boil. To serve spread on slices of fresh bread from which you have removed the crust.

120 grams (about 4-1/2 ounces) of mutton spleen

2 anchovies

Remove the membrane from the spleen and cook in butter and brown stock. If you have no brown stock, sauté a little onion in olive oil and butter, adding salt, pepper and the usual spices, and then use the mixture to cook the spleen. When the spleen is done, add the anchovies, finely mincing together all the ingredients. Put the sauce back on the fire, adding a teaspoon of bread crumbs to bind the mixture. Do not allow it to come to a boil, and spread on small slices of bread that have first been dried but not toasted over the fire, and then buttered.

This type of crostini is easy to make, lovely to look at and rather delicious.

Remove the crust from some very fine bread and cut into lozenge-shaped or square slices about 1 centimeter thick (about 1/2 an inch). Spread fresh butter over them and lay two or three sprigs of parsley on top. Place anchovy fillets around the parsley like little snakes.

How strange is the nomenclature associated with cuisine! Why white mountain and not yellow mountain, as one would think from the color this dish takes when made? And how could the French, demonstrating their usual boldness when it comes to metaphors, have stretched their name for this dish into
Brandade de morue?
²⁵
Brandade
, they say derives from
brandir
, to move, strike, wave a sword, halberd, lance and similar weapons. In fact, what is being brandished except a paltry wooden mixing spoon? No, it cannot be denied that the French are clever in everything!

Whatever the case, this is a dish that deserves your full attention, because salted codfish, when prepared in this fashion, loses its vulgar nature, becoming very delicate and worthy of gracing an elegant table, either as an appetizer or
entremets
.

500 grams (about 1 pound) of plump salted codfish, softened

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of extra fine olive oil

1 deciliters (about 1/3 of a cup) of cream or high-quality milk

Remove the bones, spine, scales, skin and sinews, which look like threads, from the cod and you will be left with about 340 grams (about 12 ounces) of flesh.

Grind the fish thoroughly in a mortar, then place it in a saucepan along with the cream, and heat over a moderate flame, stirring constantly. When the cod has absorbed the cream or milk, begin adding the oil in small droplets as you would do when preparing mayonnaise, stir constantly brandishing your kitchen weapon, the wooden spoon, so that the mix does not curdle and remains smooth. Remove from the heat when it seems perfectly cooked. Serve cold with a side dish of raw truffles cut into the thinnest slices, or else with fried bread crostini or caviar crostini, as described in this chapter. If you have prepared this dish correctly, it will not release any oil when served.

These amounts serve eight people.

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The best sauce you can offer your guests is a happy expression on your face and heartfelt hospitality. Brillat-Savarin
²⁶
used to say, “Inviting someone is the same as taking responsibility for their happiness and well-being for as long as they stay under your roof.”

The pleasure you would like to give to the friends you have invited during these few hours is nowadays imperiled even before it starts by certain unfortunate customs that are being introduced and threaten to become widespread. I am referring to the so-called “digestion visit,” to be made within eight days of the meal, and to the tips distributed to the domestics for the meal served. When you have to pay for dinner, it seems best to pay a restaurateur since that way you incur no obligation to anyone. And that bothersome second visit, which is made within a set period of time, like an obligatory rhyme, and does not issue unbidden from a sincere heart, is downright silly.

To prepare green sauce, squeeze the brine out of some capers and then, using a mezzaluna, finely chop them together with an anchovy, a little onion, and very little garlic. Mash the mixture with a knife blade to make it into a fine paste which you will place in a gravy dish. Add a fair amount of parsley chopped with a few basil leaves. Blend everything in fine olive oil and lemon juice. This sauce goes well with boiled chicken, cold fish, hard-boiled or poached eggs.

If you have no capers, brine-cured peppers may be used instead.

This sauce deserves to become part of Italian cuisine because it goes well with poached fish, poached eggs, and so forth.

The sauce is made mainly with parsley, basil, chervil, pimpernel (also known as salad burnet), some celery leaves, two or three shallots, or, if you do not have any, a scallion or green onion. You also need one anchovy, two if they are small, and sweetened capers. Mince everything very finely or else crush in a mortar and then pass through a sieve. Place the purée in a gravy dish with a raw egg yolk, seasoning with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix well and send to the table. I use 20 grams (about 2/3 of an ounce) of capers, one egg yolk and the other ingredients in the quantities that seem suitable.

This sauce is rather hard on delicate stomachs. It is ordinarily used with steak. Take a pinch of sweetened capers, squeeze out the brine and finely chop with a mezzaluna along with an anchovy from which you have removed the scales and spine. Heat this in olive oil, and pour it over a beef steak that you have grilled and then seasoned with salt and pepper and some butter. Use the butter sparingly, however, otherwise it will clash, in the stomach, with the vinegar from the capers.

If I may be allowed to make a comparison between the senses of sight and taste, this sauce is like a young woman whose face is not particularly striking or attractive at first glance, but whose delicate and discreet features you might indeed find attractive upon closer observation.

500 grams (about 1 pound) of spaghetti

100 grams (about 3-1/3 ounces) of fresh mushrooms

70 grams (about 2-1/2 ounces) of butter

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of pine nuts

6 salted anchovies

7 or 8 tomatoes

1/4 of a large onion

1 teaspoon of flour

Place half the butter in a saucepan on the fire and brown the pine nuts in it. Then remove them from the pan, and grind them in a mortar, adding the flour. Finely mince the onion, place it in the butter in which you sautéed the pine nuts, and, when it begins to brown, add the tomatoes, chopped up. Season with salt and pepper. When the tomatoes are done, purée them. Put the sauce back on the fire adding the fresh mushrooms, cut into thin slices no larger than pumpkin seeds, the pine nut paste diluted in a little water, and the rest of the butter. Allow to simmer for half an hour, adding water to make the sauce rather liquid. Lastly, dissolve the anchovies by heating them with a little of this sauce, but do not let them come to a boil, and then combine with everything else.

Drain the spaghetti and toss with the sauce. If you wish to improve this dish further, add some grated Parmesan cheese.

These amounts serve five people.

What a pompous title for a trifling little thing! Yet here, as in other matters, the French have claimed the right to lay down the law. Their dictates have prevailed and we must conform. This too is a sauce that goes well with steak. Chop some parsley and to remove the acidity wrap it (as someone has suggested) in the corner of a napkin and wring gently in cold water. Then make a paste with it, adding butter, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Heat on the fire in a baking pan or platter, taking care not to bring to a boil. Dip steak, hot off the grill, or fried cutlets in this sauce, and send to the table.

This sauce should be served with boiled asparagus or cauliflower.

100 grams (about 3-1/3 ounces) of butter

1 tablespoon of flour

1 tablespoon of vinegar

1 egg yolk

salt and pepper

broth or water, as needed

First put the flour on the fire with half the butter, and when it has turned nut brown, add the broth or water slowly, stirring constantly. Without letting it boil too hard, add the rest of the butter and the vinegar. Remove from the burner, fold in the egg yolk and send to the table. It should have the consistency of cream sauce made without flour. For an ordinary bunch of asparagus, 70 grams (about 2-1/3 ounces) of butter should do, and then add a proportionate amount of flour and vinegar.

There once was a priest from Romagna who stuck his nose into everything, and busy-bodied his way into families, trying to interfere in every domestic matter. Still, he was an honest fellow, and since more
good than ill came of his zeal, people let him carry on in his usual style. But popular wit dubbed him Don Pomodoro (Father Tomato), since tomatoes are also ubiquitous. And therefore it is very helpful to know how to make a good tomato sauce.