Cook's Encyclopaedia

by Tom Stobart

  BATHING. See soaking.

  BAUMÉ. Antoine Baumé (1728-1804) was a French chemist who produced scales for a *hydrometer to measure brine strengths – a *brinometer – and for a saccharometer to measure the strengths of sugar syrups.

  BAY, sweet bay or sweet laurel. The aromatic leaves of this bush (Laurus nobilis) or small tree – it can grow up to about 18 m (60 ft) – are an essential and absolutely basic flavouring in any self-respecting European kitchen. The tree came originally from Asia Minor, but became known generally around the Mediterranean at a very early date. It was not only a culinary and medicinal herb, but also one of magical significance, used for the victor’s crown of laurel in ancient Greece and Rome.

  Bay leaves can be used fresh or dried. They have a strong balsamic scent which fades with age, so that old dried leaves are quite flavourless. Bay is always part of a bouquet garni: It is used with fish, meat and fowl, especially when wine is included in the recipe; it also goes into marinades, pickles and preserves. Bay is a humble, everyday, cheap flavouring, but it can also be used grandly, as when thick veal fillets are skewered with a wreath of bay and fried in butter. It is sometimes called for in sweet dishes and is the leaf in the box of dried figs, put there to keep away the weevils.

  Bay should not be confused with other types of laurel, such as the Mountain laurel and the Cherry laurel, which has a bitter-almond flavour, or with the two important leaves of Indian cooking – which might be thought to have a very superficial resemblance – the *cassia leaf and the *curry leaf.

  [Bay – French: laurier German: Lorbeer Italian: Iauro Spanish: laurel]

  BAY SALT. Coarse *salt from seawater evaporated in bays.

  BEAN CURD, a pressed purée of *soya beans, is a very common and nourishing ingredient of Chinese cooking (and Japanese, where it is known as tofu). It is available from Chinese shops, fresh, canned or dried. The last must be soaked before being added to vegetable soups, stir-fried dishes and so on. There are also sweet bean-curd sticks, used with fish and vegetables, as well as sheets of bean-curd skin for egg rolls and vegetable dishes.

  BEAN-CURD CHEESE. White bean-curd cheese slightly resembles Camembert and is made from small squares of bean curd, which are salted and matured in rice wine. It is eaten raw with a little oil or sugar as an accompaniment to rice, but it is mainly used as a flavouring in Chinese pasta dishes or with chicken, pork or fish. Red cheese, too, is made from bean curd and is fermented with salt, wine and spices. It is more strongly flavoured than the white and goes well with duck, chicken or pork. Both are available canned or in jars.

  BEAN PASTE and BEAN SAUCE. Pastes of red and yellow beans are important in Chinese cooking. Red bean paste is sweet and is made from *adzuki beans. The yellow variety is made from *soya beans and is salty and pungent – it can be used as a flavouring and, like the red paste, can be bought in cans. Fermented salted black beans, made from a black variety of soya beans and known as black bean sauce, are a flavouring in fish, lobster, chicken and pork dishes. The sauce is heavily salted and, once opened, will therefore keep well in the refrigerator. Brown bean sauce is a thick paste of salted brown or yellowish beans and is also used as a flavouring with fish, fowl, vegetables or *bean curd. lt is rather like a thick soy sauce and is more or less interchangeable with black bean sauce in some dishes; it is also available in cans or jars.

  BEANS. Originally a bean was a broad bean or a field bean, and a pea was what is now called a garden pea. When other beans were introduced, mainly from America, the meaning of bean was broadened to include any legume with a kidney-shaped seed (and pea to include any pea-shaped one).There is no longer any precise meaning to either term – there is even a pea-bean. See legume, pulse.

  [Beans – French: haricots German: Bohnen Italian: fagnoli, fagioli, fave Spanish: habas]

  BEARBERRY. See cranberry.

  BEARD. The beard of an oyster is its gills. Some people like to have the beard removed; others do not. The byssus of a mussel (the fibrous extrusion which attaches the mussel to the rock) is also sometimes called the beard.

  BEATING. See whipping.

  BÊCHE DE MER. See sea cucumber.

  BEECH NUT or beechmast. The small triangular nuts of various species of beech, such as Fagus sylvatica in Europe and F. grandifolia in North America, are edible. They were important in the past, not only as food for pigs which were allowed to forage in the forest, but also for humans and as a source of oil. Beech nuts vary in size: many years, in Britain, you will find most of the nuts empty, but sometimes you may come upon a tree bearing well filled nuts that are worth gathering.

  The nuts should be heated gently in an oven until the husk becomes brittle.lt can then be broken by rubbing and winnowed off. The inner seed-coat can be removed after blanching or frying. The flavour of beech nuts is excellent, but they were most commonly used as a source of beech-nut oil (especially in France).This was extracted by grinding the nuts, preferably with the skins removed, in a little water, then pressing the slurry in stout linen bags. The oil can be drawn off because it floats on the water. After the impurities have been allowed to settle, the oil is again siphoned off and is ready for storage. It improves with keeping and is said to be best after 6 years. If you can find beech-nut oil, it is an excellent salad oil. Beech nuts are rich in oil and protein but low in carbohydrate. The seed-coat (and to a small extent the nut) contains a poisonous substance, fagin, which is harmless to us in any quantity we are likely to take but poisonous to horses.

  In North America, the indigenous beech bears slightly smaller but oilier nuts than its similar European brother. There are huge beech forests in the eastern states, but the nuts are of importance only to hogs and to children.

  [Beech nut – French: faîne German: Bucheichel Italian: faggiuola Spanish: hayuco]

  BEECHWHEAT. See buckwheat.

  BEEF and VEAL Beef is the meat of the ox, while veal is that of the young ox, preferably one that has fed exclusively on milk. Oxen were originally domesticated for pulling carts and ploughs. Only in the past 200 years have they been systematically selected for either milk or beef, and since the invention of artificial insemination, there has been great change in this direction. In the last century, the preference was for large joints, well marbled with fat and from not too young animals. Wellhung, these give the most flavourful yet tender meat, yet with families getting smaller, costs going up and dire warnings being issued against saturated fats and calories, the modern tendency has been towards joints that are small and lean. Farm economics are a dominant factor here: an animal that grows quickly to a reasonable size brings in more cash to the producer. It may be fattened in a stall, which saves on food but does not give the best flavour. Beef is now usually eaten fairly fresh. That bought from the butcher will rarely have been hung for more than a week, as proper hanging occupies storage space and thus raises the price of the meat. Large restaurants, though, can buy their steak in great hunks and hang it for 2-3 weeks in a cool, fly-proof place, but it grows mould on the surface, which must be cut off and thrown away. This matters little in restaurant castings, but does make a difference at home when the piece is small – so hanging one’s own meat is scarcely practicable.

  The best beef comes from bullocks bred for the purpose. Bull’s meat is tough and strong. (In Spain, after bullfights, it is commonly sold to the poor and to those who think it gives them virility.) Cow meat is also good if the animal is young, but it usually comes from old cows which have run out of milk and are stringy and tough (cow meat, sometimes acknowledged as such, tends to go into cheap supermarket mince).

  Veal also varies greatly. Young, unwanted calves, which it would be unprofitable to rear, give tasteless, watery meat. The best veal, such as is for instance produced in Holland, is from animals several months old and finished on dried milk. It is white, firm and delicious. Older animals which have eaten some solid food should be known as ‘baby beef’; their meat, intermediate between beef and veal, can be unsatisfactorily made to do duty for ei
ther – their appeal is to the farmer, not the cook. Alpine countries, like Austria and Italy made great use of veal in the past, because calves necessarily born to ensure the cow’s lactation could not be fattened over winter when the mountain pastures were covered in snow. Because good veal is expensive and is used more for made-up dishes than for roasting joints, the butchery is elaborate and involves dissecting out particular muscles. From these, slices can be cut for schnitzels, veal birds, escallops, etc.

  [Beef – French: boeuf German: Ochsenfleisch Italian: manzo Spanish: carne de vaca

  Veal – French: veau German: Kalbfleisch Italian: vitello Spanish: ternera]

  BEER. Alcoholic drinks have been made by *brewing from cereals since the very earliest times. For instance, a Babylonian inscribed clay tablet from the 6th century BC shows brewing. Many different types of ale were made in ancient Egypt, and the techniques were passed on by the Greeks to the Romans. The Britons were already brewing ale when the Romans invaded in 55 BC. Indeed, brewing is not a very difficult discovery to make: if a porridge of grain and water is left standing, it will ferment into a sour, alcoholic brew which can have nice effects when drunk, even if its taste is rather nasty. Any grain may be used: barley, wheat, rice, millet, maize, etc. Primitive brews which are still made today are Zulu beer and Tibetan chang. Rice wine, which is important in the cooking of China and Japan, would more correctly be called rice ale.

  The great advances were the malting of barley and, later, the introduction of *hops. Although ale and beer are now almost synonymous, the old word was ale, and beer referred to hopped ale. Herbs such as madder, alecost, ground ivy or ale-hoof, spruce and nettles had long been used to flavour ale, as unflavoured ales are rather insipid. The use of hops for this purpose first gained favour in Germany, and a taste for hopped ale is said to have been brought to Britain by soldiers returning from Flanders during the Hundred Years War. By the middle of the 15th century, hops were being cultivated in Britain, and a bitter controversy was raging between those who liked hopped ale and those who considered it good only for foreigners. It seems incredible that, in 1464, London brewers even petitioned the Lord Mayor to forbid altogether the use of hops and herbs of any kind. Real ale should be made from just malted barley, yeast and water, they said. But in the end, hopped ale won, and today beer is universal. People liked the refreshing, bitter taste of hops, and hopped ale was cheaper because an interesting drink could be made with half the quantity of malt required to produce a passable unhopped ale. It would also keep a month, as compared with two weeks for the unhopped brews. The economic significance of this was vast, because in those days, and for a century to come, there was neither tea nor coffee – ale was the drink for man, woman and child at every meal.

  The various types of beer are determined mainly by the types of yeast and malt that are used. Lager and American beers use the most lightly cured malt and a yeast that works slowly on the bottom of the vat; lager (which is from the German Largerbier, meaning beer kept in store) should be stored for up to three months, although some is kept even longer. British beers are brewed with faster working yeasts that live mainly on the surface. Bitter is made with lightly cured malt and is thus pale in colour and has a dry, rather bitter taste; bottled, gassy versions of ordinary and best bitter are usually known respectively as light ale and pale ale. Mild is made in the same way as bitter but with darker, more highly cured malts, extra sugar or caramel and less hops; it is less bitter in taste and usually somewhat weaker. Brown ale is bottled mild. Stout, the darkest beer, is made with black malt, which has a burnt taste.

  The occasional use of ale and beer in the kitchen must be of some antiquity, although it is only in Belgium and neighbouring parts of France that it has become classic – in the dishes known as carbonnades. Belgian cooks are insistent that the correct type of beer must be used, as well as the strong local onions. Authentic carbonnade à la flamande is beef cooked in the strongly-hopped Belgian beer, Iambic de gueuze or simply La Gueuze. The same beer is used as a liquid in which to cook pike (brochet à la gueuze). On the other hand, with carbonnade à la wallonne, which is sweet and black with prunes, the beer used must be diest noire.

  Locally, in Britain, people cook shin of beef in mild beer, and there are a number of recipes using Guinness stout, one of which, Mr Guinness’s Cake, is a popular version of the older porter cake of Ireland and the West Country. Beer is also used in many cures for ham and as a medium in which ham is cooked. Some of the famous German sweet soups, which are served either hot or cold, are made from beer or beer and milk; a mild, sweetish beer is usually best for these.

  Beer is a relatively cheap and handy ingredient with which to experiment in the kitchen, although as a cooking medium it is not greatly admired by most French chefs.

  In Britain, the home brewing of beer for personal consumption was freed from tax and restriction in 1963 and, once more, many people brew their own beer. A similar development may be expected in the US where excise duty on home brewing was not lifted until 1979.

  Carbonnade à la Flamande

  Trim a 1.5 kg (¾ lb) piece of stewing beef and cut it into 5 cm (2 in) cubes. Thinly slice 5-6 medium onions and cook them gently in fat or oil until they become opaque but not brown. Remove them from the pan. Now heat the fat until it is almost smoking. Dredge the cubes of meat in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, and quickly brown them, a handful at a time, in the fat, adding more fat if needed. Return all the meat to the pan, put the onions back on top of the beef, and add 0.5 It (scant 1 pt) each of beef broth and beer, 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic and a bouquet garni of thyme, parsley and bay leaves. (The more flavourful the beer, the richer the gravy will be.)

  Simmer the stew for 1-1½ hours, or until the meat is tender. Remove the bouquet garni, add 2 teaspoons each of sugar and vinegar, and continue the simmering for a further few minutes. If there is too much gravy at this stage, pour it, without the meat or onions, into a saucepan and boil it up until there is enough to half-cover the stew. Pour it over the meat and onions, adjust the seasoning and serve with boiled potatoes.

  Mr Guinness’s Cake

  Cream together 225 g (8 oz) each of butter and soft brown sugar until they are light and creamy. Gradually beat in 4 lightly beaten eggs. Sieve together 350 g (10 oz) plain flour with 2 level teaspoons of mixed spices and fold this into the butter mixture. Stir in 225 g (8 oz) each of seedless raisins and sultanas, and 100 g (4 oz) each of mixed peel and chopped walnuts. Mix together well. Stir in 4 tablespoons of Guinness and mix all to a soft, dropping consistency. Grease and flour an 18 cm (7 in) round deep tin and turn the batter into it. Bake it at 160°C (325°F, Gas Mark 3) for 1 hour. Then reduce the heat to 150°C (300°F, Gas Mark 2) and cook it for another 1½ hours. When the cake is done, allow it to become cold before taking it from the tin. Prick the base of the cake with a skewer and spoon a further 4-8 tablespoons of Guinness over it. Keep the cake for a week before eating it.

  [Beer – French: bière German: Bier Italian: birra Spanish: cerveza]

  BEESTINGS, biestings or colostrum. The thick, albuminous milk produced by the newly-calved cow. It is quite unlike normal milk and sets (or clots) when heated, rather like a custard. Beestings is traditional in farm recipes for making special curds and puddings, even a baked, fresh cheese. It is not normally sold, but might be obtained direct from a dairy farm. Recipes for using beestings can be found in Farmhouse Fare, a collection of recipes from The Farmer’s Weekly (Hulton Press).

  [Beestings – French: amouille German: Biestmilch Italian: colostro Spanish: calostro]

  BEETS belong to the family Chenopodiaceae, which include some important edible plants, such as spinach, orache, Good King Henry and quinoa (grown for its seed and a staple in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru).The beets are all varieties of one species, Beta vulgaris, of which the wild one, subspecies maritima, grows on seashores in many places from Britain through to Asia. This is known locally as sea spinach; its leaves, gathered from clean shores and cooked like spi
nach, are delicious. It is from Mediterranean, North African stock of subspecies valgaris that our cultivated types seem to have been derived. One of them, sugar beet, is of no gastronomic value, but of immense importance industrially in the production of sugar.

  Beetroot. Although beets (var. esculenta) have been selected for their roots for over a thousand years, it is only in the last 150 that we have had the tender, uniform roots we know today. The 1633 edition of Gerard’s Herbal illustrates some very rough specimens and says that red beets brought into England from abroad were then treated with grave suspicion, so most of them were presumably white. lt was not until the early years of the 19th century that Vilmorin, the famous French plant breeder, put beetroot properly on the gastronomic map. Even today, in Spain and other places where the seed is not always good, it is possible to experience what those old beetroots must have been like – anything from orange to white, with a tough, fibrous core and a nasty, earthy, over-sweet taste like sugar beet. Beetroots are an important bulk vegetable in Poland and Russia, but elsewhere are consumed only in small quantities. Nutritionally, they are rich in sugar, in potassium and in betain, a substance which the body seems to be able to use to replace choline, and which has been claimed to have some beneficial effect against cancer. There are a number of different shapes – spherical, top-shaped or cylindrical – and choice is merely a matter of preference.

  When handling and cooking beetroot, do everything you can to minimize their bleeding. Tops should be twisted off, not cut, and the beetroots should be washed gently to avoid breaking off rootlets or damaging the skin. Some prefer to bake them in a moderate oven, but they may be boiled or steamed; perhaps they are most conveniently cooked in a pressure cooker. A dash of vinegar (1 tablespoon per 1 It – 2 pt – of water) helps keep the colour red. It is best to remove the skin when the beetroots are hot, after dipping them in cold water to make them possible to handle. The skins will then slip off. Raw, grated beetroot has a pleasant, nutty taste. Cooked beetroot is commonly dressed with something sour, such as vinegar or lemon juice, or mixed with apple, sour grapes or sour cream, as sourness counteracts the rather earthy taste. Other combinations are sweet-sour (e.g. with red currant jelly). Beetroot goes with allspice, cloves, caraway, mustard, horseradish, celery, onion, chives, garlic and capers. If it is simply dressed as a salad, a good olive oil with the vinegar makes all the difference, but is frequently neglected in Britain. In the US, two popular ways of serving beetroots are hot with melted butter, and cold in a sweet-sour sauce (Harvard Beets).As beetroot bleeds, some aesthetic consideration should be given before combining it with other ingredients in salads.