Rarebit Spotting

Welsh Rarebit was the subject of one of the questions on the latest PodQuiz: episode 275. I like to torment Matthew with PodQuiz whilst we do dishes.

Rookie Mistake

 Let us pause to consider the chafing dish itself.

There's a scaffolding that holds a water pan over a heat source and the blazer pan over the water pan.  The heat reaching the food is a very even 212° F, perfect for melting cheese, making delicate sauces, or keeping food warm at the buffet.

But the very name blazer pan seems to suggest it might be used a bit more aggressively.  And so it can.  You remove the water pan and use the blazer pan directly over the heat source like a skillet. This is how you can use the chafing dish for cooking performances wherein meat is browned and a fond created for rich sauces. This is how you create sizzle!

In retrospect, it seems obvious that for Steak Diane, you would want to use direct heat.  

 Illustration by H.W. Doremus from The Chafing Dish Cookbook by John and Marie Roberson.

Meat: The Yardstick of Protein Foods

 At this point we will take a break from the Prices.  Don’t worry, we will come back to them. I have barely lifted the crust of the deep dish pie that is A Treasury of Great Recipes. Just remember that this pie is as likely to contain jellied meat as anything.

But in the meantime, I ought to actually cook something.  Not that there aren’t things I can cook in A Treasury of Great Recipes, but so far the only things that seem doable are cookies or desserts. As for main courses, I keep getting distracted by things like Polynesian Coconut Duckling or Königsberger Klops.   What I need is something relatively simple, not too terribly expensive, that will appeal to Matt, while keeping me interested.

It is time to turn to Fondue, Chafing Dish and Casserole Cookery by Margaret Deeds Murphy.   I’d really like to use the chafing dish again: the drama! The easy cleanup!  And Mrs. Murphy seems to know that the exotic cooking equipment is novelty enough: she doesn’t load up her ingredient list with saffron or three kinds of meat.

She has a recipe for Steak Diane that looks good.  I’ve made Steak Diane successfully (i.e. Matt liked it), but the recipe I used in the past was made in a skillet and used as a crêpe filling. The basic formula is the same:  steak lightly sauced with mustard.

The first hurdle is always meat selection.  It ought to be simple, yes?  One pound boneless sirloin steak. 

The thing is, I have to admit I’m not very good with the packages of meat at the grocery store.  Really buying meat in general.  Whether I go to an actual butcher shop or to the butcher counter, or select from among the wrapped Styrofoam trays, whatever cut was called for in the recipe doesn’t seem to be available,  only available in quantities more suited to a mess hall than my kitchen.  I’ve read and re-read all  about the primal cuts, and the difference between  chuck and round, but  when I get to the store I can’t keep sirloin, tenderloin and top loin straight, much less filet mignon vs. “tournedo of beef”.  I write down what it is I want but nothing at the store is labeled that way, and I’m not sure if that’s because they don’t have it, or they just call it something else.  Substitution is fraught with peril.  Tip steak and sirloin tip just do not work the same.

Matt is quite knowledgeable about meats.  He has been cooking daily for years now, loves meat and studies it like a Mets fan and the box scores.  When we’re at the store and he heads to the meat department, I usually wander over to the bakery to look at the pretty cakes because he has to examine everything from chops to skirt steak.  More than a few of my cookbooks point out that any fool can make a tasty meal out of an expensive steak, but it takes a truly skilled cook to make a good meal out of a cheap cut. (This is usually before the section on organ meats)  Matthew is a Master of Chuck, a Magician of Brisket.  He always selects his meat with an eye on the price, and he will go for quantity over quality every time.

I am of course, the dilettante who would always choose a tiny, expensive piece of meat over the solid trencherman’s slab.  So whenever I ask Matt’s advice on which cut of meat I could substitute, I always suspect he is steering me towards some tough piece that is completely unsuitable for the delicate recipe I have in mind.

Luckily this time around I was able to find a package of meat that matched my recipe.  It only took about twenty minutes, and it was twice as much as I really needed, but now I have everything I need.   Tonight’s cooking performance starts at six.

Photo from New Delineator Recipes.

Rabbit or Rarebit?

Some people spell it rabbit, some spell it rarebit.  What's Vincent Price's take on the question?  He includes a recipe in the section on England and the introduction addresses that very question. (All of the recipes except for a few in the back for basic sauces, doughs etc. get a paragraph introduction.) Go ahead an click on the image to bring up a version that should be large enough to read.  He does agree with me about  milk-based rarebit.  Never!

Feast Your Eyes

Few of my vintage cookery books have photographs.  Those that do usually make gravy look like an oil spill and vegetables look like the surface of an inhospitable planet.  Food styling was either non-existent or demented.

The photos in A Treasury of Great Recipes, though, are like everything else in the book: luxurious. It is hard for me to imagine all the technical challenges of trying to capture entire restaurants, or the Prices at home, with the cameras, film and printing processes of 1965 but the photographers represented in this book certainly seem to have done a fantastic job. Better than my scans can represent. 

In the above photo by William Claxton, we see the authors, in casual dress, in their own kitchen. There is a lot going on here, but let me just point out one detail: The monogrammed panels on either side of Mr. Price.

There is also a lot going on in the below photograph, not all of which I'm sure I understand, but you don't grow up in the home town of Knox Gelatin and not know an aspic when you see it. Or maybe that's just me.

Photo by Eliot Elisofon at La Pyramide restaurant.

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “What makes this cookbook so great?”  Er, actually you’re probably thinking; “Wait, Vincent Price?  Really?”

Like most people of a certain age, my most vivid memory of Vincent Price is from Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but what made him so perfect for Thriller was that he was already established in my mind and in everyone else’s as Creepy.  Über –creepy.  What performances gave me this impression,  I’m not sure.  I’d probably seen him in House of Wax, and in various roles here and there.  More recently I came across him in an old time radio episode where he played a guy who liked to wall people up in his pipe organ. (Suspense: June 1^st, 1944 Fugue in C Minor)  Very creepy.

What I didn’t know is that Vincent Price and his wife, Mary, a costume designer, were noted gourmands and art lovers. Check it out on Wikipedia.

When this book came across my desk at work, though, it wasn’t the name Vincent Price that made me fall in love with it.  Sure it adds a fillip of interest, and the photos of Vincent Price are quite something, but really all the photos are Quite Something.

I think of my favorite cookbooks as narrative cookbooks:  they tell a story with their recipes.  They offer the romance of fine cooking, the history of a great restaurant, or a slice of a certain lifestyle.  This book does all of those.  Divided into geographic areas the recipes are grouped not by meal or ingredient, but by restaurant.  Major restaurants are introduced with an essay, two photographs, and a reproduction of their menu. Each recipe is introduced with a paragraph on its virtues. One can imagine oneself the jet-setter of 1965 visiting all these restaurants or the housewife trying to re-create some of their glamour for her dinner party (à la Betty Draper).

The book itself is sumptuous.  Lots of color photographs on coated paper interspersed with the uncoated pages of text printed in two colors decorated with charming illustrations.  There are two ribbon bookmarks.  In the back:  pages for you to record not only your own recipes but notes on your favorite wines and your favorite guests. That last makes me wish the previous owner of this book had filled in a few pages.

And of course, it offers a generous helping of delicious absurdity.  The very first recipe is Truite Farcie Fernand Point (Stuffed Trout Fernand Point) from M. Point’s restaurant, Pyramide, in France.  The recipe is in three parts: Stuffing (four steps), Fish (five steps) and Garniture (seven steps). Per the introduction:   

At the Pyramide, the fabulous trout they serve are caught in a nearby brook and kept alive in an outdoor aquarium near the kitchen until the chef is just ready to cook them. Moral: Only the freshest fishes are truly delicious.

The garniture is mostly what you see on top of the fish: the shrimp topped with a mushroom, topped with a shaving of truffle.  Because the dead eyes of the fish weren’t disturbing enough, we thought we’d add some eyes made of mushrooms. As the caption notes: “Beautiful to look at, beautiful to eat”

A Brown Paper Package

It's here ! It's here!

I know this means I've crossed some sort of Rubicon, but for the first time rather than just browsing the used book stores or library book sales and buying things that turn up, I actually hunted down a book online and ordered it from a dealer. And I admit I paid more than $12.95, my previous high.

But look at it!

Besides the fact that it's really tough to get an image of a cover with that much faux-gold leafing, do you notice anything? Like the author?

Yes, that Vincent Price.  And there are pictures.  We will definitely be dipping into them in coming posts. Definitely.