Tag: retro

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Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

151. Deviled Eggs p.27


The recipe

The next few recipes are from a cocktail party we held in honour of a friend’s thesis defense. We invited her to celebrate her accomplishment, and be called Doctor a lot, at an intimate soirée at our place. I was planning a menu around her favourite dishes, and counting on eight to ten people. The day before the party, I was informed that it was going to be more like thirty, and possibly up to fifty people, and that I knew almost none of them. My first reaction was to start dusting.

Most of the time I’m pretty relaxed about the state of the apartment, and the mounting pile of dishes bothers me not at all. The second I hear that company’s coming though, I start channeling my mother. I worked myself up into a right state, gave up on the food, and decided that the best I could do would be to provide an empty and clean space for these hoards to descend upon. Then I thought that even if I wasn’t providing any food, I should really have ice, lemons, and limes on hand. From there I sold myself on baking a congratulatory cake, and decided reprising a couple of the great appetizers from The Project wouldn’t be too hard. The day of I convinced myself that adding a (soon to be blogged) dip would be in the realm of the reasonable. Once the guests had arrived I remembered that we had eggs in the fridge, and couldn’t think of a good reason not to devil them. I spent a good chunk of the evening in the kitchen cooking, but that worked out well as it wasn’t really my party. My dining companion and our newest doctor of philosophy entertained the twenty or so people who showed up, and I catered in the background.

This was a by the book deviled egg recipe, no fancy flourishes, just straight to business. First you hard boil a bunch of eggs, cool them, peel them, and halve them lengthwise, then you remove the yolks mash them up with mayo, Dijon, and cayenne, and pipe them back into the waiting egg whites. You may then garnish with smoked paprika and fresh chives.

Since this was a last minute hors d’oeuvre, I decided to skip the pretty star tip, and just pipe them with a ziplock minus a corner. Chives are lovely with deviled eggs, but the vegetable drawer had run dry, so no chives for you. All in all these were some pretty messy slapdash deviled eggs on my part, but they were devoured before anyone had a chance to notice. As is almost always the case with deviled eggs, they didn’t garner much praise, but they disappeared. If I’d asked people to tell me what they ate, they’d probably have forgotten to mention the eggs, but there was a peculiarly disappointed look that crossed the faces of our guests when they scanned the table and found the tray empty.

Are deviled eggs hopelessly outdated? probably, but who cares? They’re awesome, and I know I’m pleased to see a plate of these on a buffet table. The recipe was very standard, but totally solid. It’s very comforting to know that with a dozen eggs and a jar of mayonnaise I can put out a universal crowd pleaser with only slightly more effort than making an egg salad sandwich.

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Fish and Shellfish The Book

133. Poached Salmon in Aspic p.318


The recipe

I had so much fun making and presenting this, that even if it been inedible, it would have been worth it. Luckily, it tasted quite good. I absolutely knew that I needed an occasion to serve this dish. In honour of the aspic coated days of yore we organized a retro-potluck extravaganza. People brought cheese balls, bean casseroles, cocktail weenies, deviled eggs, mac and cheese, potato salad, and old fashioned cocktails. Then I brought out a cold fish covered in salmon flavoured Jello. Most people weren’t too sure what to make of it, but it certainly caused a stir.

For people who’ve been following along for a while now, it should be clear that I have an abiding affection for old-school, kind of nasty, but kind of great, dishes. For me this is the ne plus ultra of that style of cooking. It’s got the pressed linen and polished silver grandeur of days gone by, as well as a gross out, dare your friends to eat it, backwardness. I’ve been thinking about trying a salmon in aspic for a couple of years, but after an enlightening conversation with my dining companion’s mother, in which I accused her grandmother of having been a great aspicker, I was determined.

The recipe was quite involved, and time consuming. I started by poaching the salmon in water, with lemon, onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, parsley stems, thyme, and peppercorns. Then whole poacher went into the fridge for 8 hours to let the flavours infuse. The recipe calls for a 24-inch fish poacher, which I don’t have. The biggest one I could borrow was 19 inches, so I used a smaller Atlantic salmon (4 lbs instead of 6).

Once the fish is chilled, it’s removed to a cookie sheet, and the broth is strained, fortified with white wine, Madeira, thyme, and salt, then reduced. Meanwhile the most painstaking part of recipe begins, the removing of the nasty bits of salmon. Beyond a little trimming of excess bones, and floppy fatty folds, it involves peeling all the skin and dark flesh off the fish. It’s an easy instruction to read, but a delicate and painstaking job.

Once the broth is reduced, it gets a further addition of leek, carrot, celery, egg whites, and crushed up egg shells, and gently simmered. You’re basically making a fish consommé in this step, using the egg whites and shells to trap little particles in the protein net they form, all the nastiness forms a raft at the top, and once you run the broth through a couple of layers of paper towel you end up with a crystal clear broth. This is one of those incredibly simple cooking techniques, that’s undeniably cool. People were going nuts about using gelatin filtration to make unusually flavored consommés a couple of months back, but making the original had its own charms.

The reduced and perfectly clear broth is then added to some bloomed gelatin, and allowed to simmer for a couple of minutes ’till everything is dissolved. The mixture is then chilled in a metal bowl, sitting in a water bath ’till the gelatin just begins to set. Then it’s time to work quickly and get the aspic over the fish. I’ve read more than a few aspic disaster stories, of the gelatin just sliding off its target, or clumping up unattractively. So I was a bit worried about this step, but it worked flawlessly. I spooned on a thin layer, chilled the fish for a while, then topped it with some blanched leeks, and applied another layer of gelatin. All of the remaining aspic went into a baking dish and was allowed to set. I then cut it up and surrounded the fish with little wiggly aspic cubes.

The whole point of covering a salmon in aspic is to keep it moist. Obviously the aspic adds flavour, and texture, but really it’s all about protecting the fish for a banquet presentation. I have to say it did a very good job on that front. The salmon was quite delicious, mild and delicate. For all the aromatics that went into this, nothing overwhelmed. It was more of a subtle background array of flavours. The aspic had a much more concentrated dose of flavour, and I was surprised to like it quite a bit. I wouldn’t sit down to a bowl of aspic, but it had a rich mouth-feel that complimented the salmon, and added little highlights of flavour

It was quite warm the night I served this dish, and we packed about 35 people into our apartment, so it got intolerably hot. Unfortunately the aspic didn’t hold up well under the heat, and mostly melted off my fish within about 15 minutes. Those who got an early serving tried it as it was meant to be, but latecomers only tried poached salmon in Jello soup. I suppose if you were doing this professionally you’d put your serving dish on a bed of crushed ice, but our ice supply was devoted to mixing old-fashioneds, martinis, and Singapore slings.

I was really happy with this dish, from a showmanship perspective this was absolutely worth it. The flavour was very nice, but it couldn’t live up to my expectations for such a dramatic looking dish. It was very mild, and pleasant, which for a crowd pleasing buffet is exactly what you’re looking for. I’m impressed that the recipe is as clearly written and step-by-step easy to follow as it is. I was very afraid going in that this would turn out to be a spectacular failure, but it couldn’t have gone more smoothly. If you’ve ever considered doing something like this, I’d definitely recommend going for it. It was an excellent experience, worthy of a five mushroom rating.

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Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

71. Baked Cheddar Olives p.28

The recipe

I should have planned an old-timey supper from The Book instead of doing them all separately. There are some great retro recipes in here, and as some of you may have guessed I’m a sucker for dishes that recall church suppers of a bygone era. Here pimento stuffed olives are wrapped in a buttery extra old cheddar dough, and baked. I love imagining the genesis of this cocktail party nibbler. Did someone think that olives weren’t rich and salty enough on their own? Maybe someone ran out of cocktail weenies and made olives in a blanket instead? Maybe a guest spilled the dregs of her martini into the cheese biscuit dough? or perhaps it was part of a wrapping perfectly good foods in dough craze that swept the nation? The world may never know.

The dough was absolutely delicious, it came together easily, and didn’t require any special shopping. All it requires is good sharp cheddar, flour, butter, and the secret ingredient: cayenne. The cayenne sets the richness of the cheese off, and makes the whole crust sparkle. The dough bakes up perfectly, it gets wonderfully crisp on the outside, and the inside is rich and chewy.

My only issue with the dish was the pimentos. I can’t say I love them. I’m a big fan of olives, but I tend to stick to black ones (Kalamata, nicoise, or the Moroccan salt-cured wrinkly ones). Pitted and stuffed cocktail olives have never held much appeal for me. Neither do the sliced olives you find in low end of the spectrum pizza joints and hot-dog stands. I don’t know if it’s the nature of pimentos I don’t like, or a quality issue. Canned and jarred pitted olives tend to be of pretty pathetic quality and flavour compared to whole olives from the olive bar. I don’t know of anyone who produces high end pimento stuffed olives, but with the cocktail renaissance we’re living though someone must have tried to reinvent the martini olive. In any case, I used pretty run-of-the-mill olives, and they tasted pretty run-of-the-mill when I bit into them.

If you’re the sort of person who will happily pick away at a bowl of pimento stuffed olives, then they will be vastly improved by baking them in this cheesy dough. I can think of half a dozen other things I would have preferred to swaddle in this heavenly cheese dough though.

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Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

63. Cheese Fondue p.72


the recipe

My God I love fondue. Everything about it is good. Incredibly rich gooey cheese swaddling a crunchy bite of bakery fresh baguette, what could be better than that? It’s an easy to prepare and casual meal, that’s inherently social and fun. It’s horrible for you, which makes it even better to share with close friends you don’t mind relaxing around. Its got traditions, like the communal kirsch shot that’s taken half way through (one for each participant, and one goes into the pot to keep things from thickening), and inventive punishments for the poor soul whose bread falls off their fork. Better yet, there’s a special surprise at the bottom of the pot where the sterno bakes a perfect little cheese crisp. Just in case it wasn’t enough fun, it involves alcohol and an open flame.

Fondue enjoyed wild popularity in the ’60’s and ’70’s and has since slipped from vogue. I feel privileged to have my mother’s fondue pot as a relic of that renaissance. I’m not sure what caused this fall from grace for this near perfect food. Maybe people just got tired of it, maybe it got watered down with poor packaged versions and less than stellar bread. I can’t say, but I think it’s ready for a comeback. I wonder sometimes if sushi will go down the same road. Now that almost every grocery store has a sushi counter, how long can it remain a hip thing to eat? And, when sushi goes, what will come next?

This particular cheese fondue recipe worked out wonderfully. It has a couple of nice touches, like a mixture of emental and Gruyère, the occasionally overlooked rubbing of the pot with a clove of garlic, and directions for a zig zag stirring method that keeps the cheese from clumping or breaking on you. It lived up to the standards set for me by a Swiss friend, and great fondue aficionado.

I was lucky to be able to find good quality cheeses at reasonable prices, and as Montreal is overrun with good quality french bakeries a beautiful baguette was no trouble to obtain. On a recent visit out west I was introduced to the French stick. My understanding of this term is that it’s a baguette, only bad. I’ve started calling the grocery store fluffy interior mushy exterior baguettes French sticks, and reserving the term baguette for a loaf with a crisp crust, and a chewy interior, made with baguette flour. I’m not sure if the term French stick came about because people don’t like food with weird French names, and the only baguettes in those places happen to be bad. Or, if the French stick is an entirely different animal, and the standards for judging what makes a good one are just different. I find the division useful, if a bit snobby. But I’m certainly not above a bit of francophilic food snobbery.

I don’t have enough good things to say about fondue in general, and this fondue in particular. Make it, love it, share it.

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Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

57. Onion Parmesan Toasts p.34


The recipe

These were remarkably simple little appetizers with some old school flair. It falls into the ancient and proud “stuff on toast” camp of appetizers. The secret to this style of appetizers is to give something either healthy or expensive prime billing in the name, but to make absolutely sure that most of your on-toast topping is creamy, cheesy, fatty, or preferably all three.

Here the role of healthy is played by a sweet onion, cheesy is played by Parmeigiano-Reggiano, and fatty is portrayed by mayonnaise. By volume there are 3/4 of a cup of onion, and a combined 3/4 of a cup of the cheese and mayo. By weight however the creamy fatty team makes up most of the toppings. A bonus rule for old school on-toast appetizers is to avoid unusual spices that might scandalize the croquet ladies. Garlic would be a bit outre, and curry powder is firmly in the province of those bohemian ne’er-do-wells that are tearing this country apart. My dining companion and I brought some guacamole to a family affair a while back, and when my grandmother tried it she said “who made this green stuff? It hurts my mouth”. Here the spices are kept safe and stayed, fresh ground black pepper. Of course pre-ground would be more familiar to the bridge club, but we can modernize a little bit.

I didn’t think I was going to like these all that much, broiled mayonnaise seemed a bit weird, but it really worked. The toasts, cocktail rye of course, crisped up nicely and the topping browned beautifully. I feared that the mayo would break under the heat, but that didn’t’ happen. The onions cooked enough to soften a bit and give off a great deal of flavour, and the cheese turned golden-brown and delicious. These were a fun easy throwback, that was yanked forward into modern times for some very good reasons.

The Book is a celebration of Gourmet Magazine’s 50th anniversary. A lot of the recipes are weighted towards the ’80’s and ’90’s though. It’s nice to see one that very clearly showed up in the earliest issues.