French Provincial Cooking (58 page)

Here is his recipe:

‘Choose 12 firm cèpes, small rather than large, and with dark heads; remove the stalks and peel them, but only wipe the heads; make incisions on the underside of the heads with the point of a knife. Put a glass of olive oil in a frying-pan; when it is hot, put in the heads of the cèpes; turn them over when they have browned on one side. Season with salt and pepper.

‘Chop the stalks with 4 cloves of garlic and some parsley. Throw this mixture over the cèpes. Let them all
sauter
in the pan for 3 or 4 minutes.

‘You may add a tablespoon of soft white breadcrumbs. Serve.’

About ten kilometres from the little town of Apt, in the Vaucluse department of Provence, the curious village of Roussillon stands on the side of a steep hill. Its orange and saffron and terracotta-coloured houses look as if they are about to come crashing down the cliffs. Its steep narrow streets are barely negotiable by car; and about Easter-time the lilac trees and the wistaria come into flower, so that a backdrop of mauves and pinks and greens against the ochre rocks makes the whole place look highly theatrical. Apart from ochre-mining, these rocks provide the district with a flourishing little subsidiary industry, for they are honeycombed with caves which are used for the cultivation of mushrooms.

While we were staying in a neighbouring village some years ago, the local mushrooms proved to be our most valuable resource in the way of vegetables during the very early spring, for most of the root vegetables were finished and the
primeurs
had not yet started. No deep freeze, of course, and the vegetables imported from North Africa seldom penetrated as far as these hill villages. Our kitchen was not conspicuous for planned comfort or modern amenities; most of our cooking had to be of the quick and simple variety, and the mushrooms were a blessing in this respect. But these local mushrooms, as with most French cultivated ones, required very meticulous cleaning and washing, for they are grown in very sandy, gritty soil.

English ones are rather easier to deal with. They can simply be wiped with a soft damp cloth, or given a brief rinse in cold water, if they look at all gritty. They can be rubbed with a cut lemon to preserve their whiteness, but neither peel nor stalks should be removed.

The three following dishes are among those we used to cook with the little cultivated mushrooms, and there are more recipes in the hors d’œuvre chapter, and an excellent soup on page 171.

For
lb. of mushrooms, cleaned as above, heat about 1 oz. of butter in a frying-pan and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Slice the mushrooms fairly thin and cook them at a moderate pace for a minute before adding salt, pepper, a scrap of nutmeg and a tablespoon or so of finely chopped parsley and shallot. Shake the pan so that the mushrooms do not stick. Stir in 3 or 4 tablespoons of thick cream. It will thicken naturally: 5 minutes’ cooking altogether is enough—when people complain that cultivated mushrooms are insipid, it is nearly always because they have been overcooked.

The dish goes well with steak, veal and chicken; with little triangles of fried bread it makes a good dish on its own; to go with sausages and bacon it is better without the final addition of cream. Enough for two.

Cut
lb. of small mushrooms, already cleaned in the usual way, into quarters. Cook them in butter with a little scrap of garlic; salt, pepper and nutmeg. When the juice is running, after 5 or 6 minutes’ cooking, take the pan from the fire and add about 1 oz. of parsley butter (page 116) to which you have added, if possible, a little chopped tarragon. Shake the pan
over
the flame but not directly on it, so that the butter spreads, melts and forms a little sauce without actually cooking.

A good vegetable to go with a steak or to serve by itself. Enough for two.

The large flat mushrooms or the shaggy brown ones or, of course, the now rare field mushrooms, are best for this method.

Having cleaned and sliced them as usual, pour a little oil over them, with salt and pepper. Leave them to marinate for an hour or so. Drain them; sauté them in fresh oil in a small heavy pan. The preliminary marinading will prevent the mushrooms from catching on the bottom of the pan, which ordinarily they are apt to do in the first few moments of cooking, before they start giving out moisture. After 5 minutes’ gentle cooking, add, for
lb. of mushrooms, 2 tablespoons of parsley chopped with a little garlic, or shallot if you prefer it, and 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs. When this mixture has absorbed the oil in the pan, the mushrooms are ready to serve. Enough for two.

These lovely apricot-coloured fungi rarely reach the shops or markets in England as they do in France (where they are also called
girolles
) and, indeed, all over the Continent, but they grow quite commonly in the British Isles.

To prepare
chanterelles
for cooking, cut off and discard the muddy ends of the stalks and wash the
chanterelles
very thoroughly in plenty of cold running water, and then examine them carefully to see that there are no little pockets of grit left. If the
chanterelles
are large, slice them lengthways into strips. Cook them in a mixture of butter and oil, with a little salt, in a covered frying-pan for about 10 minutes, and then add either a sprinkling of parsley chopped with, if you like, a little piece of garlic, or else some thick fresh cream; in this case, shake the pan over the flame until the cream thickens.

Cook the washed and sliced
chanterelles
in butter in a covered frying-pan, then add salt and a very little pepper. When they are tender, add a lump of parsley butter cut into little pieces and, if possible, a tablespoon or two of good clear chicken or veal stock. Shake the pan until the butter has melted and, with the stock, formed a little sauce. This is, perhaps, the best way of serving
chanterelles.

A warming winter dish of Alsatian origin.

The ingredients are a white cabbage,
lb. of chestnuts, 6 oz. of salt pork or bacon bought in the piece, to
pint of clear stock.

Blanch the cabbage in boiling salted water for 10 minutes, and drain it carefully. Shell and skin the chestnuts as described on page 263 (
lb. looks rather a small amount but they swell a good deal in the cooking) and cut the pork or bacon into squares. Remove the outer leaves of the blanched cabbage, put it on a board, open it out carefully and cut out the hard inside stalk and centre. Season with pepper, a scrap of nutmeg, and a very little salt, and then pack in the chestnuts and bacon. Reshape the leaves round the stuffing, tie the cabbage into its original shape with tape, and put into an earthenware or enamel-lined pot in which it will just fit. Over the top lay the outside leaves which have been removed, and which will prevent the top of the cabbage drying up. Pour over the stock, cover the pan and cook in a very slow oven for 5 hours. To serve, extract it very carefully from the pot and put it in the serving dish before removing the tape. Pour the juice over it. Enough for four.

A small red cabbage (about 2 lb.), 2 medium-sized onions, 2 cooking apples, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons each of port or other dessert wine and wine vinegar, a bouquet of parsley, thyme and bayleaf, salt, pepper.

Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage, cut off the stalk, cut the cabbage in quarters and cut out the hard white stalk. Slice the cabbage fairly thinly.

Arrange in layers in a deep earthenware pot alternately with the sliced onions and peeled, cored and sliced apples. Season as you go with the sugar, salt and pepper. Put the bouquet, tied with thread, in the middle. When all ingredients are packed into the pot, pour over the wine and vinegar. Cover the pot; cook for about 3 hours in a low oven, Gas No. 2, 310 deg. F.