by Tom Stobart
[Castor oil – French: huile de ricin German: Rizmusöl Italian: olio di ricino Spanish: aceite de ricino]
CASSIA. See cinnamon.
CATCHUP. See ketchup.
CATECHU or cutch is the gummy substance which forms when chips of wood from the Indian tree, Acacia catechu, are boiled in water and the resulting solution is evaporated by further boiling. Catechu, very astringent and rich in tannin, is used in *pan for chewing. It is also the red-brown dye with which the sails of fishing boats were once preserved, and, suitably mordanted, was also used to dye khaki.
CATMINT or catnip (Nepeta cataria). Growing wild over much of Europe, this typical labiate is well known as a garden plant loved by bees and cats. It is sometimes used as a culinary herb, but was more popular in the past and was used in Roman times. Dried, it can be used on pork roasted on a spit over an open fire. Rub on as much as will stick to the meat, and use no other seasoning. Dried catmint, intended as a medicinal tea, can be bought from health-food shops.
[Catmint – French: cataire, herbe aux chats German: Katzenminze Italian: erba dei gatti Spanish: calaminta, calamento]
CATSUP. See ketchup.
CATTLEY. See guava.
CAUL. A membranous cap that covers the heads of some babies at birth. Also the name often used for the omentum, the mesenteries and even the peritoneum of mammals. Caul is a strong, nearly transparent membrane with islands of fat, which give it a lacy appearance. lt is strong because it has to suspend the various organs inside the abdominal cavity. Butchers once used it to cover legs of mutton, to make them look attractive. By the cook, it is used as a covering for faggots, crépinettes and gayettes. Before trying to use caul, put it in warm water with a little salt or vinegar to soften the fat and unstick the layers of membrane; otherwise it tears easily.
CAULIFLOWER. The original cauliflower (cavoli a fiore or ‘flower cabbage’) appears to have come from the Orient – where it goes back to ancient times – and is variously said to have come into Spain with the Arabs in the 12th century, and into Italy in the 16th.At any rate, as a vegetable it became established in Europe fairly late. lt was being grown in Britain by the 18th century. The cauliflower does not particularly like the British climate, so will only thrive in summer.
A late arrival from Italy is broccoli, which matures in the winter and is only a type of cauliflower, but distinguished by gardeners who must be conscious of the seasons. The cook, buying in the market, calls all white varieties cauliflowers, and distinguishes the winter ones from the summer only by the leaves which curl over to protect the curd in the latter. ‘Broccoli’ has come to be applied only to the open-sprouted forms, such as calabrese and purple sprouting broccoli, particularly since ‘broccoli’ has become familiar as a frozen vegetable. The gardeners’ distinction between summer cauliflower and winter broccoli is now largely disregarded.
The cauliflower and its brothers are, incredibly, all varieties of the same species as *cabbage. The flower stalks of the cauliflower have become thickened into storage organs, producing the curd-like ‘flower’. Perhaps the fact that it is a converted flower accounts for the nutritive richness of cauliflower, which contains, as well as the more usual vegetable vitamins (ascorbic acid, riboflavine,thiamine and niacin), considerable amounts of folic acid, one of the B vitamins, which is not found in such quantity in other vegetables. Since lack of folic acid causes certain types of anaemia, cauliflower has been christened ‘vegetable liver’ by some health-food enthusiasts. As it also contains considerable amounts of calcium in an assimilable form, as well as useful iron, it is very helpful to anyone who cannot take milk. Types of cauliflower vary somewhat in their cooking quality; and beauty is not always the best guide when shopping, since some cauliflowers which do not have the aesthetically ideal tight curd and white colour may prove excellent for eating. But a cauliflower should look and feel really fresh and firm, with no wilted bits. The leaves should not have been trimmed away, as that is done by retailers to fool the customer. Moreover, cauliflowers will not keep after trimming; old cauliflowers are horrid.
Broccoli – in the modern usage of the word – has no compact curd. It may be white but is more usually green or purple. Most familiar is calabrese (the Italian broccoli calabrese means broccoli from Calabria). In calabrese, when the central head is cut out, the plant goes mad and produces delicious side shoots. Although these shoots remain quite good even when they are beginning to flower, you must be sure they are fresh and not flowering because they have been picked for several days. Sprouting broccoli and calabrese deserve care in cooking, even if they are no longer luxury vegetables. All except the large cauliflower-shaped varieties should be tied in small bundles before plunging into fast-boiling salted water. They should be cooked for a minimum time, just to make them tender, and in general treated with the same respect as asparagus. There are a number of unusual kinds of broccoli, such as the perennial variety which produces a succession of ‘cauliflowers’, or sprouts and broccoli, on one plant, but as yet these are only garden curiosities.
[Cauliflower – French: chou-fleur German: Blumenkohl Italian: cavolfiore Spanish: coliflor
Broccoli – French: chou-broccoli German: Spargelkohl Italian: broccoli Spanish: bróculi; brécol)
CAUSTIC SODA or sodium hydroxide (NaOH). As the name suggests, this is highly caustic and dangerous; it should be kept in an airtight container (or it loses its strength) and well out of reach of children. Caustic soda dissolves readily in water, getting very hot in the process, to form an alkaline solution which, when strong, will dissolve paper and other vegetable matter, and react with fats to form soap. The solution must not be kept in a glass stoppered bottle, as the stopper will refuse to come out. It must be handled with rubber gloves, as it will seriously blister the skin and, even when dilute, will soften the nails. Like other alkalis, it feels slimy (the slimy feeling can be removed with an acid like vinegar). Caustic soda was once a common household ingredient, because people saved fat and made their own kitchen soap. Today it is used commercially in dilute solution for various purposes (for instance to speed the cure of green olives by removing their bitterness, and for treating the skins of peaches before canning), especially as a substitute for *lye.
[Caustic soda – French: soude caustique, hydrate de soude German: Ätznatron Italian: soda caustic Spanish: sosa cáustica]
CAVALANCE. See cowpea.
CAVEACH. The word comes through the Spanish from the Arab sakbay, meaning meat or fish pickled in vinegar. It is usually fish that is preserved in this way, but the method is sometimes used for meat, brains or tongue. Caveach differs from soused fish in being fried before pickling and having extra oil added to cover it if the fish is to be preserved. Escabeche, the Spanish and Provençal version, is used mainly as an hors d‘oeuvre. lt can be bought by weight or packed in jars at delicatessen stores, but is very easy and rewarding to make at home and will keep for some months in a cool place.
Most fish can be caveached – cod, salmon, mackerel, smelts, whiting, red mullet, sardines, tunny, anchovies, etc. are all recommended.
Fried fish preserved in vinegar was a Roman dish. The famous South African pickled fish, which was my favourite summer breakfast when I worked there, is really a form of caveach. Variations on the theme are also popular in Northern Italy (the Veneto), Rumania, Turkey and the Balkans; the method is always the same.
Escabeche
Gut and clean 1 kg (2 lb) fish, leaving small ones whole but cutting large ones into fillets or pieces. Flour the fish and fry it a pale brown in plenty of oil. Take out the fish and in the same oil fry 1 large sliced onion and 6 cloves of crushed garlic until they just start to colour. Take off the heat, add a bouquet garni of parsley, bay and thyme, 1 teaspoon paprika or pimentón, stir and immediately add 250 ml (8 fl oz) vinegar, a little water and (optional) a finely-sliced lemon. Cook the mixture slowly for 15 minutes, salt to taste, then put in the fish and bring back to the boil. Arrange the fish in a suitable dish and cover with the liquid.
Leave it for 2 days in a cool place. If the fried fish is fully covered with the marinade (which in turn is covered with a layer of oil) and packed in a jar with the top tied down, it will keep for some months. The vinegar can be more heavily spiced, as is usual in Britain.
South African Pickled Fish
Flour and fry fish fillets. Make a marinade using for each 450 g (I lb) of fish fillets,425 ml (¾ pt) of vinegar, a sliced onion, a bay leaf, a good pinch of peppercorns and another of coriander seeds, plus 1 clove. Boil until the onion is soft. Then stir together about 25 g (1 oz) of curry powder and 25 g (1 oz) of flour (that is about 3-4 dessertspoons of each, but this depends on the strength of the curry powder and the type of flour) and make them into a paste with a little cold vinegar. When you have a smooth liquid sauce, salt it to taste and then pour it hot over the fried fish, which has been arranged in a dish. Leave it for 2 days or more before eating. It will keep at least a week in the refrigerator, or longer if covered with oil and sealed in a jar. There are also more sophisticated versions.
Original Indian varieties of pickled fish are many. Naturally, they use fresh spices, not curry powder, and very often the pieces of fish are rubbed with salt and turmeric powder and left to drain for an hour or more to get out some of the water from the fish. It keeps better if you do this. The spicing in India is heavy (which helps preservation), and the pickles are also well saturated with oil in addition to the vinegar. Mustard oil in particular seems to have special preservative properties. Such Indian pickles are, however, used as a relish with curry and rice and not eaten as a separate dish like South African pickled fish.
CAVIAR. Although we associate caviar with Russia, the word comes from the Italian caviale or cavia via the Turkish khavyar. The Russians call it ikra. Real caviar is made only from the ripe eggs of various species of sturgeon – primitive fish of rather sharklike appearance. When I first disturbed one while wading across an Iranian river and saw a shark’s tail lashing out of the water, I did find myself wondering whether freshwater sharks existed. However, sturgeon are quite inoffensive and actually toothless; they feed by sucking up detritus.
The two dozen species of sturgeon are found only in the Northern hemisphere. The smallest is the sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus) from eastern Europe; the largest is the beluga (Huso huso), an enormous fish which lives to be 100 years old and can then weigh over 1000 kg (2200 lb) – even 1600 kg (3500 lb). This fish should not be confused with the White whale, a mammal which is also called beluga. Other well-known sturgeon species used for caviar are the Common sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean (rarely caught in British waters these days), the sevruga (Acipenser stellatus) and the osciotre (Acipenser guldenstädti), both of the Caspian Sea and weighing 10 kg (22 lb) and 18 kg (40 lb) respectively.
The centre for sturgeon is in the area of the Black and Caspian seas. The world’s largest sturgeon fisheries are in Russia and, since 1950, in Iran. The Rumanian fishery at the mouth of the Danube is of lesser importance. Some sturgeon are also fished in North America and caviar is made from them – there are species found, for instance, in the Great Lakes, and in the St Lawrence and Delaware rivers. There is now a problem with pollution, which the Russians have also had to face in the northern Caspian Sea and the Volga, and one of their responses has been to introduce sturgeon into new and unpolluted habitats.
Sturgeon are fished with gill nets laid off the mouths of the rivers up which they will spawn. The riper the eggs, the better the caviar, so it follows that the best comes from sturgeon caught off the mouths of short rivers, such as those arising in the Elburz Mountains of northern Iran. Here, with little distance to travel, the fish can wait until the last moment before going upstream. Only about one in every fifteen fish caught contains eggs suitable for making into caviar. A beluga will produce 17-20 kg (38-45 lb) of caviar, osciotre 4-7 kg (9-17 lb) and sevruga only 1½-2 kg (3½ -5 lb).
Caviar can be made only from the roes of perfectly fresh fish: once taken out of the net, they must reach the processing station within an hour or two. The stations are sited near the mouths of the rivers, sometimes on wooden artificial islands in particularly shallow areas of the Caspian. The sturgeon roes have to be removed with the greatest care so that the eggs do not get smeared with blood. If roe has to be washed, it does not make good caviar. Roes are cut in pieces the size of a fist, and rubbed gently on a string sieve to free the eggs from the membranes. The mass of eggs, which has fallen through the sieve into a basin, is now drained, accurately weighed and mixed by hand with fine salt (50-80 g/2-3 oz per kg/2 lb according to the judgement of the highly-skilled caviar maker). In caviar destined for most countries of Europe, a small percentage of boric acid is also added. This preservative improves the flavour by giving a slight acidity and preventing the growth of fishy flavours; it is not legally permitted in caviar for the US.
The caviar is later packed in the special tins, and the lid is sealed with a rubber band. This is, therefore, not a sterile product, so must be kept chilled (never frozen) and handled carefully until it reaches the table. Caviar is at it best 3 days after making. It is then totally devoid of any fishy taste (as I know from having spent a morning tasting with the chief Iranian caviar grader). It is unfortunate that by the time caviar reaches the restaurants, its price is astronomical and it is often not worth eating. The taste is fishy, which perhaps explains why many people who have tried it once do not like it, and why it is so often served with lemon or onion.
The best caviar is lightly salted. Russian tins are marked malassol (from malo, little, and ssoleny, salted).The eggs should be separate and not squashed together. They will, of course, vary in size according to the species of sturgeon from which they come. The largest, from the beluga, are usually the most expensive, but probably not the best, as beluga caviar does not travel as well as some of the others. Caviar from the sterlet (sterlyad) was once reserved for the Tsars and the Emperors of Austria, just as the golden caviar from Iran was reserved for the Shah. The excellence of golden caviar, however, is entirely in its appearance; the colour of caviar has no bearing on flavour. Because appearance is important, caviar from different fish is not mixed – the result would be speckled. Colours vary from black, through shades of grey to almost white, and from golden to orange-brown and even greenish.
Caviar should be served in its tin, surrounded by crushed ice and accompanied by lightly-toasted, fresh white bread and fine butter. Etceteras like chopped hard-boiled eggs are added merely to make it go further. While it is traditional outside Russia to drink champagne with caviar, you eat it with a spoon out of grease proof paper and wash it down with vodka on a Caspian caviar station. This (the vodka not the paper) is also the norm at Soviet diplomatic parties, but you may think the spirits kill the delicate flavour. It is sometimes served in small tarts, or with sour cream stuffed into blinis, but should never be cooked or heated itself.
Pressed caviar or payousnaya is a cheaper product made from sturgeon eggs which are not quite mature. After being separated from the membranes in the usual way, the slushy, half-formed eggs are treated with hot brine which coagulates them. The mass of eggs is then pressed into small wooden tubs. Pressed caviar has a sticky, waxy texture and is always rather salty. It is usually served spread on squares of toast, or in small tarts or barquettes.
Red caviar or ketovaia is, strictly speaking, not caviar, as it is made from the eggs of the keta or dog salmon (Onchorynchus keta) found in the rivers of Siberia which drain into the Pacific and of the west coast of Canada. The eggs are very large, red and almost transparent. Red caviar is much more salty than the true caviar and has a different flavour, which some people even prefer.
Imitation caviar. Salted fish eggs of other kinds are a popular delicacy in many fish-eating countries, but unfortunately there are also many such products which are artificially coloured grey or black and sold at inflated prices to simulate caviar and provide snob appeal. These substitutes are heavily salted, with a hard and grainy text
ure. They are commonly sold in glass jars with a sealed metal lid and have such names as ‘German caviar’.
Salted roe of this type can be made at home if hard (female) roes are taken from fish just before spawning, cleared of fibre, washed if necessary in cold water, drained and mixed with salt: 1 part by weight to every 6 of roe. (For good caviar the proportion is only 1:20.) After being kept for 2 days in a cool place and being turned occasionally in the brine that is formed, the eggs can be drained, spread on a board 1 m (3 ft) from a fire and dried thoroughly for 10-12 hours before being pressed into jars.
Lumpfish caviar. The lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) is also called lump-sucker, sea-owl or cock paddle, because its dorsal fin is reminiscent of a cock’s comb. It is fished in the North Atlantic, and the main source of supply is Iceland, but it is also found off the coasts of Scotland. Its flesh is not regarded highly, except smoked, but in spring the females are stuffed with eggs, which are used to make lumpfish caviar.
Salted roes can be made at home if ripe roes are taken from fish just before they spawn. The method is that given above for imitation caviar, before final drying, the eggs can be slightly acidified with powdered citric acid (to taste).The product, though without black grains and concomitant snob appeal, is tasty. It can be kept in the refrigerator for some days.
Synthetic caviar. It had to come. The Russians, after years of research, are making synthetic caviar for the common man. They do this by blowing little bubbles of protein, flavouring them, and adding salt. The result is said to be a bit slushy, though better than feared. As the price is right, it is immediately snapped up, for only a small quantity is at present being made.
Egyptian caviar is a name for *botargo,while ‘poor man’s caviar’ is a dip made of puréed *aubergines.
[Caviar – French: caviar German: Kaviar Italian: caviale Spanish: caviar]