seemed like a good idea. Triple bypass surgery on the vice-presidents of a medium-sized corporation could have been performed in the time it took me to bone this chicken because the trick was to bone it v^ithout cutting into it. You sort of wiggled the knife inside the cavity and got the bones from underneath. When I had finished, I was exhausted and the poor little chicken looked like a dead basketball. But nevertheless, I was determined to stuff that creature with a fancy mixture of ham, chicken, pistachio nuts, cream, cognac and so forth. It makes me shudder to think of it.
1 roasted it in the oven and I felt it smelled peculiar. Not off, or high—just odd. The pate canceled out the roasting chicken smell and vice versa. When it was cooked 1 left it to sit a little and collect itself and then I sliced it. It, too, looked very impressive and it didn't taste bad, but no one really liked it very much. It was confusing: was this a chicken or a pate? In restaurants people expect this sort of thing. In other people's houses, it seems, they do not. They like to have a nice straightforward meal: one thing or another, but not both. That is the great virtue of people's houses over restaurants. And when you are bored with home cooking, it is the great glory of restaurants (unless you are in one of those exhausted states in which you want something that tastes like something you would cook but you don't want to cook it) to provide you with something thrilling.
I have made homemade pretzels, a very good idea, and lemon-flavored babas, a not so good idea. After all, the joy of cooking is the joy of discovery.
Not very long ago I decided to buy a pheasant. I found one at my farmers' market and had a chat with the pheasant farmer.
"Has this bird been hung?" I said, remembering from English cookbooks that you are supposed to roast a pheasant when its tail feathers fall off. English friends often claim they like pheasant so high that you can mash it with a fork. I did not think I could get my husband and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter to eat something that had rotted out its feathers, so I felt I needed information.
"It is not permitted by law to sell a hung pheasant," the farmer said. "1 like 'em hung a little when I keep them for myself, but we have to sell them fresh." He produced for me a naked carcass in a plastic bag. No feathers of any sort in sight.
"What does it taste like?" I said.
"Chicken," the farmer said. "A little tastier. Not too much meat on it, though."
Why am I buying this? I wondered as I took it home. I roasted it in a casserole and served it for Saturday night supper. We all agreed that it tasted like very expensive chicken and until I get my hands on one that has had a little time to accumulate a little more taste, I am not going to buy pheasant again.
On the other hand, I was once given a pasta machine and instantly set about making pasta. My pasta was not beautiful and it did not emerge from its final rolling in one long, beautiful sheet, but it certainly was delicious and not overly time-consuming. I have also made spinach gnocchi, a messy job which takes a fair amount of time and pays you back a thousandfold.
For years I have been cruising past the zucchini blossoms during the summer at my greenmarket and not buying them. This year, I gave in. The blossoms were attached to tiny little zucchinis, the sort beloved by my daughter who likes a baby vegetable. 1 took them home, snipped them off, and turned to my Italian cookbooks to see what to do with them.
All agreed that I should dip them in batter and fry them in oil. No one agreed how the batter should be made. One recipe called for one egg, one cup of flour, one tablespoon of lemon juice and one of water. This looked as if it would produce plaster of Paris, and so I cut it down to one-fourth cup flour, and a little more water. I dipped the zucchini blossoms in the batter and fried them in olive oil. They puffed up beautifully and turned golden brown. I had no idea what they would taste like.
At the dining room table, my husband and daughter waited patiently. At last a little platter of these blossoms was placed before them. I did not know what to expect, but I have come to
Stuffed Breast of Veal: A Bad Idea
177
believe that the exotic will often let you down, especially if you have never tasted what it is supposed to be like.
I now feel that the real purpose of zucchini is to produce zucchini blossoms, and that anyone with a small child should think seriously about laying in a good supply in June. No sooner had this platter been placed before us than its contents disappeared.
"More zucchini flowers!" my daughter howled, but it was too late. We had eaten them all.
Of course there is a motto here: always try everything even if it turns out to be a dud. We learn by doing. If you never stuff a chicken with pate, you will never know that it is an unwise thing to do, and if you never buy zucchini flowers you will never know that you are missing one of the glories of life.
BLACK CAKE
When my daughter was a year old, she acquired a babysitter from the island of St. Vincent named Betty Cham- I bers, who came to play with her three mornings a
week. Shortly thereafter I became acquainted with something called Black Cake, a traditional West Indian fruitcake served at weddings, Christmas and other festivities. One morning Betty appeared with an odd-looking slice of something that might have been tar with elaborate white frosting on the top.
"What is this?" 1 said.
"Black Cake," Betty said. "I thought you might like to taste it."
I took a tentative bite and was transported into a state of rapture and admiration.
There is fruitcake, and there is Black Cake, which is to fruitcake what the Brahms piano quartets are to Muzak. Its closest relatives are plum pudding and black bun, but it leaves both in the dust. Black Cake, like truffles and vintage Burgundy, is deep, complicated and intense. It has taste and aftertaste. It demands to be eaten in a slow, meditative way. The texture is complicated, too—dense and light at the same time.
"How did you make this?" I gasped.
"Oh, it's simple," said Betty. "You just chop up all the fruits and marinate them for six months in a bottle of Passover wine and a bottle of dark rum."
This sounded not only daunting but disappointing since there was only a tiny scrap of the slice left and I was forced to share it with my child, who said "More!" in a loud voice.
I grabbed a pencil, sat Betty down and got the recipe. It is a beautiful, old-fashioned recipe which was handed down to Betty by her mother, who got it from her mother, and so on. It comes from a time when cakes were cakes and no one bothered much about using a dozen eggs at a shot.
It is not necessary to marinate the fruit for six months, although serious West Indian bakers always have fruit ready. Betty starts her fruit a month to two weeks before baking.
A Black Cake really is black, not dark brown. It gets its blackness in part from burnt sugar essence, which is available in West Indian grocery stores. If it's unavailable, Betty suggests putting a pound of brown sugar in a heavy skillet with a little water and boiling it gently until it begins to turn black. You do not want to overboil. It should be only slightly bitter, black and definitely burnt.
This recipe makes two deep nine-inch cakes.
BLACK CAKE PART I: THE FRUIT
/ pound raisins
I pound prunes
1 pound currants
I pound glace cherries
V4 pound mixed peel
1 bottle Passover wine
1 bottle dark rum (750 mi)
/. Chop raisins, prunes, currants, glace cherries and % pound of
mixed peel extra, extra fine. For a grainier texture, leave some of tfie currants wfiole. Pour into a large bowl or crock and cover witfi Passover wine and one bottle of the darkest rum you can find. Marinate at least two weeks — but the longer the better — up to six months.
BLACK CAKE PART II: BAKING
/ pound butter
1 pound dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
V2 teaspoon nutmeg
V2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 dozen eggs
1 pound plus
V2 cup flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 pound burnt sugar, or 4 ounces burnt sugar essence
1. Butter and flour two deep 9-inch cake tins and set aside. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Cream butter and brown sugar
3. Add the fruit and wine.
4. Add vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon.
5. Beat in eggs.
6. Add flour and baking powder, burnt sugar or burnt sugar essence if you can find it. Batter should be dark brown.
7. Bake in cake tins for I to V/4 hours at 350°.
When the cake is absolutely cool, wrap it in waxed paper or tinfoil—not plastic wrap—and let it sit until you are ready to ice it.
BLACK CAKE PART III: THE ICING
Black Cake must be iced. The icing is the simplest white icing made of powdered sugar and egg white with the addition of half a teaspoon of almond extract. This is essential and a perfect foil to the complexity of the cake. Since Black Cakes are often wedding cakes, it is traditional to decorate them: colored icing, flowers, swags and garlands. Any standard cookbook has a recipe for white icing and the decoration is up to the cook.
I confess that I have not yet baked my Black Cake. I am waiting. Last Christmas Betty gave us one as a present, and it was polished off on Christmas Eve by ten adults and twb children under three. But when I brought it to the table 1 was greeted with considerable skepticism.
The same people more or less come to Christmas Eve dinner every year. The year before 1 had decided that I would bake a Dundee Cake (a fruitcake heavy on the candied cherries) from a recipe in a British magazine. This was a terrible mistake.
Our guests were presented with a ring of buttered sawdust in which was embedded a series of jujubes (for those who have never seen them, these are little fruit candies with the consistency of hard, congealed rubber cement).
Therefore when I appeared with Betty's Black Cake (on the top of which 1 had placed a sprig of holly), I was not greeted with jubilant shouts.
"What's that?" said our friend Seymour, victim of last Christ-mas's Dundee Cake.
'This is an authentic Black Cake," 1 said, "it is made with St. Vincent rum."
No one looked very thrilled except my daughter, who had been talking about Black Cake for a couple of weeks.
1 cut into it and took out a slice.
"By God!" said Seymour. "It is black!"
I cut each person a small slice. Black Cake is, after all, very
HOME COOKING
rich, and besides, I wanted leftovers. A total silence ensued, which is either a good or a bad sign.
In this case it was a good sign for our guests and a bad sign for me, since I was counting on having some Black Cake around for a week or so to nibble on in the afternoon. The two children under three each ate a considerable portion but since the alcohol had all been baked out it did not have the soporific effect the adults were hoping for. Black Cake is bracing.
This is an easy recipe to cut in half, but it seems a shame to do it. The spirit of this recipe is celebratory, lavish and open-handed. It seems the right thing to make two and give one to someone you feel very strongly about.
Fruitcakes abound in the Caribbean. I have had a couple—a dark fruitcake from Jamaica and one from Barbados. Both were full of heavy fruit and raw rum. But Black Cake! Black Cake is in a class by itself. I have never had anything like it before or since, and it is not an acquired taste.
One bite is all it takes.
Almond sauce, green, 65 Ambrosia, orange, 55-56 Apple juice, 3
Apples, baked chicken with, 128 Applesauce, 50, 54-55 Avocado,144-145
Baked beans, 85-86 Baking:
bread, 44-48
equipment for, 16 Barley, beef and leek soup,
116-117 Bass, 63-65, 66 Batterie de Cuisine, 13-18 Beans:
baked, 85-86
black (fermented), yam cakes
with, 60
string, warm potato salad with, 34
vegetarian chili, 160 Beef:
boiled, 134-135
flank steak, 134-137
fondue, 20
and lentil salad, 136-137
organic, 3
pot roast, 50-52
soup, with leeks and barley, 11&-117
stew, 7, 9-11
tea, 10&-107 Birthday parties, 162-163,
164-168 Bitter greens, 109-113 Black Cake, 17^182 Blenders, 13
INDEX
Blowfish, 63
Boston Brown Bread, 86-87
Bread, 42^8
brown, 86-87 Bread pudding, chocolate, 79 Bride's Dessert, 55 Broccoli, 58
orzo with, 83-84 Broccoli di rape, 109-113
orzo with, 83-84
pepper chicken with polenta and, 111-113
salad, 144-145 Broiling, 100 Brussels sprouts, 24, 53, 85,
131, 144 Buckwheat noodles, cold roast
chicken with, 128-129 Butterscotch brownies, 140-141
Cabbage, pickled, 22 Cake, 77 Black, 178-182 chocolate, 77-78 gingerbread with chocolate
icing, 167, 171-173 Latvian Birthday, 165-166 Capon, Father Robert Farrar,
115-116 Carrot pudding, 58-59 Casseroles, 15, 148-149 Celery, braised, with fennel, onion, and red pepper, 92 Chambers. Betty, 178-179, 181
Charleston Receipts, The (Junior League of Charleston), 170 Cheese:
buns, 167
toasted, 21 Cheese slicer, 18 Chicken, 2
baked with garlic and apples, 128
boned and stuffed with pate, 174-175
with chicken glaze, 39-40
cold roast, with buckwheat noodles, 128-129
fat, 52-53
fried, 27-30
Grieben, 53
mustard, 97
organic, 2
party dishes, 24
pepper, with polenta and broccoli di rape, 111-113
poached, 115
salad, 153-157
stewed, 22 Chicken fryer, 16 Chicory, 110 Chili, 9
vegetarian, 160 Chinese food, 66 Chocolate, 76-80
cake, flourless, 77-78
icing, 167, 172-173
puddings, 78-79
wafers, 79-80 Christmas Eve parties, 164
187
City and Country School, 73 Codfish with green almond
sauce, 65 Coffee, 22 Coffee grinder, 18 Colcannon, 72 Columbia University, 1968
student uprising at,
69-70 Condiments, salt-free, 127 Consuming Passions (Pullar)
2 Cornbread and prosciutto
stuffing, 132-133 Crabs, 62-63 Cream tea, 120 Creme fraiche, potato salad
with, 34 Crowds, cooking for, 68-75 Cucumber: salad, 145 sandwiches, 22 Curry: chicken salad with, 154 flank steak with, 136 Cutting boards, 15
David, Elizabeth, 23, 44, 78
Davies, Richard, 120, 121, 123-124, 148-149
Delicata squash, 59
Delmoor, Jean, 70
Desserts for dinner parties, 95
Dinner parties, 93-98 chicken salad for, 154-155 no-fail menus for, 97-98
salt-free, 127 Disasters, 138-142 Double boiler, 18 Double cream, 123-124 Drummond, J. C, 2 Dundee Cake, 181
Eggplant, 25-26 Eggs: baked, 107-108 frittata, 81-82 organic, 2-3 poached, and sauteed vegetables in one pot, 17-18 scrambled, 5-7 Electric beaters, 14 Endive, 110
English Bread and Yeast Cookery (David), 44 English food, 2, 119-124 English Food (Grigson), 122,
141 English Scrambled Eggs, 6-7 Englishman's Food, An (Drummond and Wilbraham), 2 Equipment, 13-18 Escarole, 110
Extremely Easy Old-Fashioned Beef Stew, 10-11
Farmhouse Cookery (Webb),
122 Fennel, braised, with celery,
onion, and red pepper, 92
INDEX
Fermented black beans, 60
Fish, 62-67 baked stuffed, 139-140 old-fashioned fish bake, 150 pie, medieval, 149-150
Flank steak, 134-137
Flour, 45-46
Fondue pots, 20-21
Food in England (Hartley), 2
Food mills, 13-14
Food processors, 13
Fourth-of-July parties, 164
French Provincial Cooking (David), 78
Frittata, 81-82
Fritters, vegetable, 58, 84-85
From Caviar to Candy: Recipes for Small Households from All Parts of the World (Martineau), 122
Fruit salad, 38
Frying pans, 15
Funghi porcini, chicken salad with, 154-155
Fussy eaters, 36-41
Green sauce, 40-41 Greens, bitter, 109-113 Grigson, Jane, 122, 141 Grilling, 99-103 Groves of Academe, The (McCarthy), 77
Haggis, 121
Harrods, 120-121
Hartley, Dorothy, 2
Heals (English store), 119-120
Hess, John, 59
Hess, Karen, 44, 59
Hors d' oeuvres, 95
Iceberg lettuce, 69, 150
Icing: for Black Cake, 181 chocolate, 167, 172-173 lemon, 173
In My Father's Court (Singer), 160
Italian Food (David), 23
Garbo, Greta, 143
Garlic, baked chicken v^ith, 128
Ginger, salad dressing with,
129 Gingerbread, 169-173
with chocolate icing, 167,
172-173 Good Things in England
(White), 122, 169 Graters, 13, 14, 16
Jalapeno peppers, creamed
spinach with, 82-83 Jewish Cooking, 166 Joy of Cooking, The, 78
Kander, Mrs. Simon, 79 Kitchen shears, 15 Knives, 13-15 Kosher food, 38
189
i
Lamb:
grilled half head of, 36
leg of, 96 Last-Minute Soup, 156-157 Latvian Birthday Cake, 165-166 Lebanon bologna, 101-102 Leek, beef and barley soup,
116-117 Lemon icing, 173 Lentil:
and beef salad, 136-137
soup, 115
sprouts, 144 Lettuce, 38, 69, 150 Lost Country Life (Hartley), 2
Marinade:
for flank steak, 136
for ribs, 102 Martineau, Mrs. Phillip, 122 Mary Poppins (Travers), 164 McCarthy, Mary, 77 Meat loaf, 84 Minorcan potatoes, 105 Mixing bowls, 14, 16 Molasses, 170-171 Murdoch, Iris, 164 Mustard chicken, 97
New York Chicken Salad, 154 Ninotchka (movie), 143 Noodles, 11 buckwheat, cold roast chicken with, 128-129 Nursery food, 104-108
Olivieri Center for Homeless
Women, 70-73 Omelets, 22 Onions: baked, 90 braised, with fennel,
celery, and red pepper,
Home cooking Page 15
