French Provincial Cooking (46 page)

With the exception of the delicious cheese of Époisses, in Upper Burgundy, there is no notable Burgundian cheese, but the Burgundians are great cheese eaters for the obvious reason that cheese is one of the best accompaniments for wine. Cheese dishes may be served as a first course or as a savoury; in this case it will come after the cheeses themselves, to go with the last glass of wine, before the sweet. The gougère, a kind of cheese pastry made with choux paste similar to that used for éclairs, is the great cheese dish of the country. It is rather tricky to make, so if it doesn’t come right the first time one just has to persevere.

To make a gougère for six people, the ingredients are
pint of milk,
lb. of flour, 2 oz. of butter, 4 eggs, 3 oz. of Gruyère cheese, salt and pepper.

The paste is made as follows: bring the milk to the boil and then let it get quite cold. Strain it. Put in the butter cut in small pieces, and a teaspoon of salt and a little freshly-ground pepper, and bring rapidly to the boil so that the butter and milk amalgamate. Pour in, all at one go, the sifted flour. Stir until a thick smooth paste is obtained; it will come away clean from the sides and bottom of the pan.

Off the fire stir in the eggs one at a time, each egg to be thoroughly incorporated before the next is added. When the paste is shiny and smooth add the cheese, cut into very small dice, reserving 1 dessertspoon of the little cubes. Leave to cool a little.

Lightly butter a baking sheet. Take tablespoons of the mixture and arrange them, like so many half eggs, in a circle about 7 inches across, the space in the middle being about 2
inches. When you have made one circle, put the remaining spoonfuls on top of the first, so that you have quite a high wall round the central well. Pat into an even shape with a palette knife. Place the little pieces of reserved cheese on top and all round. Brush with milk. Cook in the centre of a preheated oven at a moderately hot temperature, Gas No. 5, 375 deg. F., for about 45 minutes.

Although the gougère begins to smell cooked after the first 20 minutes, do not be taken in; it will have swelled up and turned golden brown, but it is not ready. If you can resist, do not open the oven, because of the risk of the mixture collapsing. If you feel you have to look, open and shut the door of the oven very gently. To test when the gougère is done press lightly with a finger in the centre of the cake; it should be firm to the touch. If it is too soft it will fall the instant you take it from the oven into a sad flat pancake.

If you are going to serve the gougère hot (it makes a good first dish at luncheon) transfer it for 5 minutes to a warm place such as the plate drawer before transferring it to the serving dish, or if you cook by gas, turn the oven off and leave it 5 more minutes. If to be served cold, ease the cake off the baking sheet on to a wire cake rack so that there is air all round it, but keep it away from sudden draughts.

This is the famous Alsatian speciality. It makes a truly lovely first course.

For the pastry: 4 oz. plain flour, 2 oz. butter or 1 oz. each of butter and meat dripping, 1 egg, salt, water.

For the filling: 1
lb. onions, the yolks of 3 eggs, a good
pint of thick cream, seasonings including nutmeg and plenty of freshly-milled pepper, butter and oil for cooking the onions.

Make a well in the sieved flour, put the butter cut in small pieces, the egg and a good pinch of salt in the middle. Blend quickly and lightly but thoroughly, with the fingertips. Add a very little water, just enough to make the dough moist, but it should come cleanly away from the bowl or board. Place the ball of dough on a floured board and with the heel of your palm gradually stretch the paste out, bit by bit, until it is a flat but rather ragged-looking sheet. Gather it up again, and repeat the process. It should all be done lightly and expeditiously, and is extremely simple although it sounds complicated written down. Roll it into a ball, wrap it in greaseproof paper and leave it to rest in a cold larder or refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours, so that it loses all elasticity and will not shrink or lose its shape during the baking. This is one version of the
pâte brisée
or
pâte à foncer
used for most open tarts in French cookery. Without being as rich or as complicated as puff pastry, it is light and crisp. But those who already have a satisfactory method for tart and flan pastries may prefer to stick to their own. In spite of all the cookery rules, the making of pastry remains a very personal matter. I find myself that the easiest and most generally successful tart pastry is the one described for the cheese dish in the next recipe.

For the filling, peel and slice the onions as finely as possible, taking care to discard the fibrous parts at the root of the onions. Melt 2 oz. of butter and a little oil in a heavy frying-pan. In this cook the onions, covered, until they are quite soft and pale golden. They must not fry, and they should be stirred from time to time to make sure they are not sticking. They will take about
hour. Season with salt, nutmeg and pepper. Stir in the very well-beaten yolks and the cream, and leave until the time comes to cook the tart.

Oil an 8-inch tart or flan tin. Roll out your pastry as thinly as possible (the great thing about this dish, as also the
quiches
of Lorraine, is that there should be a lot of creamy filling on very little pastry). Line the tin with the pastry, pressing it gently into position with your knuckle. Pour in the filling, cook in the centre of a fairly hot oven, with the tin standing on a baking sheet at Gas No. 6, 400 deg. F., for 30 minutes. Serve very hot.

Line an 8- to 9-inch flat pie or flan tin with a crumbly pastry made from 6 oz. plain flour, 3 oz. butter, half a teaspoon of salt and 2 to 4 tablespoons of iced water. Simply crumble the butter into the sieved flour and salt, add the iced water, and form into a ball. Do not knead or roll it or leave it to rest, but spread it directly into the tin with your hands, pressing it lightly into place with your knuckles. Prick the flat surface evenly with a fork, fill with dry beans, and bake in a hot oven, Gas No. 6, 400 deg. F., for 20 minutes.

Have ready the following mixture: a stiff béchamel made with 1 oz. butter, 2 tablespoons of flour,
pint of warmed milk. Season with freshly ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, a scrap of nutmeg. When well cooked and reduced, stir in 2 oz. of grated Gruyère cheese and
oz. of grated Parmesan; then, off the fire, 2 very well-beaten yolks of eggs. When cool fold in, as for a soufflé, the 2 stiffly whipped whites. Pour immediately into the partly cooked pastry case, if you like brush the edges of the pastry with cream or milk, sprinkle the top with grated cheese, return to the oven at the same heat and cook for 12 to 15 minutes until the filling is risen and golden brown, but still a little creamy inside.