FoodNetArchive

Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

1898

Page 232 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1898. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Carrots a la Flamande. — Blanch a pound and a half of young Carrots in boiling water for ten minutes. Drain them carefully. Put the carrots into a stewpan with one ounce of butter, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar, and enough stock (say three-quarters of a pint) to cover them. Let the Carrots simmer in a closely-covered pan for twenty minutes at least. They may require thirty minutes’ simmering. Shake the pan occasionally, so that all the Carrots may be cooked evenly. Then let the pan boil briskly till the sauce is reduced to a ;glaze. Roll each Carrot in this glaze, and keep them hot. Remove and strain the liquid the Carrots have been cooked in. As soon as it has cooled beat the yolks only of two eggs well, with a little of the liquid ; put the rest of the liquid to warm in the bain-marie, and stir the beaten eggs in, adding finally half an ounce of butter and a tablespoonful of minced parsleyCarrots a la Flamande. Dish the Carrots in a dome shape, and pom’ the sauce l’ound them. CARDOONS. The Cardoon, Cynara Cardunculus, is a vegetable much prized abroad and much neglected in this country. Many gardeners find it too troublesome to grow, and many cooks do CARDOONS 335 not know how to cook it. The Spanish Cardoon, with its large solid ribs and spineless leaves, is the best variety, for the Tours Cardoon, so much grown in France, is covered with such long sharp spikes that its cultivation is really dangei’ous. Cardoons are grown in trenches like celery, and are banked up about October, so as to blanch the stalks, which are the edible portion. The best way to cook Cardoons is to cut them into four or five inch lengths, and throw them into boiling water into which a little lemon-juice has been squeezed. Keep the Cardoons boiling till their outer woolly skin will rub off in a cloth. Drain them, and throw them into cold water. When the Cardoons have cooled, scrape them, and pull off the stringy skin. Fill a crockery stewpan with boiling water flavoured with pepper and salt, lay a good-sized piece of raw bacon at the bottom, cutting the rind in strips, add a bunch of herbs, and then the Cardoons. Simmer gently till the Cardoons are tender, which may take two hours or more, according to their age and size. Drain the Cardoons and warm them up in good brown sauce. Or they can be served with white sauce. Wyvern advises that Cardoons should be placed on slices of fat bacon at the bottom of a stewpan, with more bacon above them, and only just enough blanc to cover all. Then add slices of lemon, a little mignonette pepper, and salt, cover the pan, and let the Cardoons simmer vei’y gently till done. The blanc is a sort of stock which is used in boiling celery or any white vege- table to preserve the colour. To make blanc , cut up as small as possible a quarter of a pound of beef suet, and put it with a tablespoonful of flour into three and a half pints of cold water in a stewpan. Boil up and add eight ounces of onion cut up small, a bunch of curly parsley, a tablespoonful of dxiedrthyme or marjoram, the rind of a lemon, a teaspoonful of sugar and one of salt. Stir well over a brisk fire for half an hour, strain, but do not take off the fat as the blanc cooks. When the Car- doons or other vegetables are cooked in blanc , put in with them two or three slices of lemon freed from pips, to improve the colour. Cardoons with Marrow is a favourite French dish.