by Tom Stobart
Chick peas must be soaked before being boiled as, unlike other pulses, they are almost impossible to cook otherwise, soaking is usually done overnight. Many cooks add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda per kg (2 lb) to the soaking water to help to soften the skins, although this does not improve the flavour and is not always necessary with modern varieties. Old-fashioned ones may need to be boiled for up to 4 hours in an open pan, or blitzed for an hour in a pressure cooker, but new types will be cooked in as little as 20 minutes in a pressure cooker. Since it is almost impossible to overcook chick peas, it is best always to err on the generous side. If the skins have to be removed, this may be done by soaking the peas for an hour in a strong solution of bicarbonate of soda – say 2 teaspoons per 225 g (½ lb) of chick peas – and then giving them a quick boil in the solution. After that the peas may be drained and put into cold water, rubbed hard between the hands, and the skins washed off. The skinned chick peas should be rinsed in several waters. In Mediterranean countries, cooked chick peas may be found in the markets. Chick peas are also available canned, a great saving in time and effort. *Besan flour can always be found in Indian shops but, if it is not available, chick peas can be ground at home; it is, however, necessary to put them through the grinder twice, once to break them coarsely and again to grind the broken bits to a flour. The bits of husk have to be sieved out. (An ordinary coffee grinder is unsuitable as chick peas are so hard that they will break the machine.) Roasted chick peas used to be added to coffee with chicory, not to adulterate it but because some people liked the flavour.
Chick peas have always been common in Spanish cooking, despite criticisms of them. ‘As for garbanzos,’ said Théophile Gautier, ‘they sounded in our bellies like pieces of lead in a Basque drum’. And Alexandre Dumas, in his great Dictionnaire Gastronomique, claimed that they are ‘bullet-sized peas quite beyond the powers of digestion.’ But whatever these Frenchmen may say, chick peas are excellent and an essential part of Spanish cooking. For instance, a Castillian cocido consists of ham, stewing beef, chorizo sausage and chick peas simmered for 3-4 hours in water with some olive oil, a piece of fat and a bone. Vegetables (cabbages, leeks, onion and garlic) are cooked separately and seasoned with a little pimentón. The liquid is served first as a soup with some pasta cooked in it, then the meat, chick peas and other vegetables are eaten with a salad of lettuce and tomato dressed with oil and lemon. Plenty of coarse salt is essential. Other versions are more elaborate.
At the simpler end of the scale are the Spanish potajes de garbanzos, in which, after cooking, a few of the chick peas are crushed to thicken the juice, and perhaps a handful of spinach or some potato is added. The soup may be seasoned with olive oil (in which several cloves of garlic have been fried and some red pimentón stirred in), or alternatively with a sofrito of garlic and tomato fried in oil. To this, a little chopped raw garlic, cumin seed and black pepper may be added, following the common Spanish custom of combining raw and cooked garlic. For a more nourishing dish, chopped hardboiled eggs, meat balls, minced salt fish (bacalao) or even a pasta may be included. These are comforting winter dishes, best not demanded by tourists in August.
[Chick pea – French: pois chiche German: Kichererbse Italian: cece Spanish: garbanzo]
CHICORY and ENDIVE. There is a great deal of popular confusion between these two plants, which is not surprising as both wild and cultivated forms are very much alike, belonging to the same genus of the composite family. In any case, from the culinary point of view, it is more important to distinguish between the various types of chicory than between chicory and endive in a botanical sense.
Chicory or succory (Chicoria intybus) grows wild throughout much of Europe and is a common escape in the US. It is recognized by its pale blue flowers and does not look promising to eat. However, the very young shoots, hardly appearing above the ground, have been used as a salad since at least Roman times, and are still eagerly grubbed out in Mediterranean countries and sold in winter and early spring.
Endive (Chicoria endivia) comes originally from eastern Asia and has gone wild in places in Mediterranean countries. It came into Europe as a salad plant at a much later date.
Both chicory and endive need to be blanched by the grower, as they are very bitter when green (and still rather bitter when blanched). Commercially, they are always blanched. Greenness is thus not a sign of freshness but of age. They are even best kept in the dark at home until eaten.
The true endives fall into two general types. Firstly there is the frizzly form, called moss curled or stagshorn endive. Rarely is it seen perfectly white; more often, a tile or slate has been put on the plant so that only the centre is properly blanched – the rest will be somewhat bitter and the outer leaves tough. There is also a well-known form with broad, slightly curled leaves, known as Batavia endive or escarole. It looks more like a curly lettuce. In chicory also there are similar leafy forms such as the Italian spadona, in which the leaves are bunched, and the form with long narrow leaves, the puntarelle of the Roman markets (also called cicoria asparagio or di Brindisi, or catalogna). Again in Italy there are the exotics, for fiori commestibile (edible flowers) which, when blanched, are red or variegated pink, orange or yellow, instead of white. The chicory which looks like a red-leaved brush – the root being the handle – is called radicchio di Treviso, while the pink flower-like chicory, which is sometimes almost like a vegetable rose, is radicchio di Castelfranco Veneto and rosso di Verona, radicchio being an alternative Italian word for chicory. These flower types have almost no bitterness and give colour to winter salads.
The well-known Brussels chicory or Belgian endive is a true chicory with the tight spindle-shaped hearts (chicons) forced and blanched. Even in the US, these come mainly from Belgium. The alternative name for this is witloof (white leaf). Like other chicories, it is slightly bitter, it can be eaten raw or cooked.
There are also varieties grown for their large tap roots, of which the best known is Magdeburg chicory. In the second half of the 18th century, the roasted root began to be used to flavour coffee – and soon to adulterate it. Cheating became so rife that in Britain the use of chicory in coffee was banned altogether in 1832, but eight years later – because those who liked chicory in their coffee protested – it was once more allowed, provided it was marked on the label.
To make chicory for coffee, the tap roots are washed, cut in bits and dried in gentle heat. Then the dry pieces are broken into nibs, roasted brown and ground. Chicory in coffee has a characteristic taste and is liked in France and in some of the southern states in America.
Yet more unwanted confusion about names can be caused by using barbe (beard) for chicory and other related salad plants and vegetables. Barbede-bouc (Goat’s beard) is Brussels chicory (forced chicons) in Belgium. In France, barbe-de-cupucin is the shoots of wild chicory, as also in Italy is barba di cappuccine di campo (Capuchin friar’s beard); Italian barba di becco (Billy goat’s beard) is white *salsify and barba di frate or di prete (priest’s beard) is another relative of salsify which is used as a salad plant and vegetable in Italy. In England it is called Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon or goat’s beard (Tragopogon pratensis).
[Chicory and endive – French: chicorée, endive German: Endivie, Zichorie, Wegwarte Italian: cicoria, indivia, radicchio Spanish: achicoria, endibia, escarola]
CHIHLI. See Chinese cabbage.
CHIKU. See sapodilla.
CHILE SALTPETRE or sodium nitrate (NaNO3) is used as an alternative to *saltpetre (potassium nitrate), as it is cheaper. It is roughly one-sixth stronger in its action on meat, so quantities should be scaled down accordingly.
CHILLI, chili or even chilly. Chillies and *sweet peppers belong in the same genus and mostly perhaps in the same species (Capsicum annuum). However, the tiny, very pungent chillies at least can be referred to another species, C. frutescens, which is a perennial, unlike C. annuum, and cannot survive frost. Two other chilli species are cultivated in South America. Some long, pointed forms with the classic ch
illi outline are sweet and mild, while certain large kinds, especially those from Peru, look as if they ought to be mild, but are blistering. Even colour is nothing to go by. Most chillies start green and turn red when ripe. Some may first be yellow, and then red, and others turn chocolate, brown or even black. In size, there are varieties 30 cm (12 in) or more long and others no bigger than a pea. To many people, a chilli is merely a source of painful hotness, the raw material for cayenne pepper, but in Mexico, Spain, India and South America, the selection of exactly the right chilli for a particular purpose is a matter of gastronomic importance. Chillies vary not only in hotness but also in flavour – and in intensity of flavour. The hotness can be adjusted, with added cayenne perhaps, but the flavour cannot.
Chillies are natives of tropical America. They have been found in prehistoric Inca remains from Peru and were in common use by the Aztecs before the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico. It is difficult to imagine how Asiatic countries like India (which today is the largest producer of chillies) managed before they were introduced. Chillies are the flavouring above all used by poor people the world over, since a little goes a long way and they make almost anything palatable. People who use chillies at every meal become used to their burning principle and need increasingly larger doses and hotter chillies to obtain any impact.
It is therefore quite wrong to make Mexican or Indian food blindingly hot on the grounds that it is authentic. That is not how it tastes to the people of those countries. Very hot chilli, especially if the dish contains seeds or bits of the fruit, is not very good for the insides when suddenly sprung upon them and can even cause internal blisters. You must wash your hands carefully after handling chillies, as any residual juice on the fingers can burn the eyes if they are rubbed by accident. Chillies of many types are canned, and they freeze fairly well. Fresh green chillies, which cannot be replaced by dried ones, are now to be found in Britain (often imported from Kenya) thanks to the demand created by the immigrant population. In the US green chillies are available in markets, especially where there are customers who enjoy Mexican food, for which they are essential.
Mexican chillies
The use of chillies is more sophisticated in Mexico than anywhere else in the world. It has been estimated that there are about two hundred types of chilli, half of which are used in Mexico, including those listed below. When the hottest Mexican chillies are not obtainable, fresh cayenne pepper makes an acceptable substitute.
Cascabel. Dried. A small, plum-shaped chilli which has a nutty flavour after roasting. It makes the not over-hot salsa de chile cascabel.
Chilaca. Fresh, this is a long, thin, almost black chilli, which is very hot and well flavoured. Chilacas are roasted and skinned before use. When dried, they are pasillas which, toasted and ground, are used particularly in sauce for seafood.
Guajillo. Dried and exceedingly hot, this average-shaped, slender, pointed chilli is smooth, red-brown and sometimes sold as the much milder and rounder cascabel.
Güero. Fresh, this is a pale yellow chilli of variable size and typical long shape. lt may be lightly grilled and used as a salad or added to sauces; it is hot and has a distinctive flavour.
Habanearo. This tiny, light green, irregular chilli is possibly the hottest of them all. It is the one Mexican chilli that probably belongs to a separate species, Capsicum sinense.
Jalapeño. A short, fat, green chilli that is top-shaped with a rounded end. lt is also fairly well known in the US, where it is put into processed cheese. This is a fairly hot chilli if the seeds and septa are included. It is the basis for the common, chiles jalapeños en escabeche, a Mexican table condiment which is also used in cooking. Jalapeños are sometimes available frozen as well as in cans. Dried, smoked jalapeño is chipotle, which is used to flavour soups and stews; it is obtainable canned in vinegar or red adobo sauce.
Poblano. This top-shaped, very dark green chilli is usually rather mild but has a rich flavour. It is roasted and skinned and is used particularly for stuffing. The dried, ripe poblano is an ancho, the dried chilli that is most used in Mexico; it is dark brown, becoming brick red when soaked. The mulato is another brown dried chilli which is very like the ancho but is sweeter in flavour.
Serrano. These small green chillies have very piquant seeds and septa. They are used fresh or toasted, often in green sauces, and are among the commonest types of Mexican chilli, being also available canned and in escabeche with other vegetables.
In the US, chillies are produced particularly in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and California. Best known is the Anaheim or Californian Green chilli, which is about 20 cm (8 in) long. This is a fairly mild, sometimes even sweet, chilli which is often stuffed with cheese or other filling and fried in batter (chiles rellenos).
The fresno is a small, conical chilli something like the jalapeño, but not so hot. Among yellow types, Banana chillies are mild and sweet, while the yellow wax caribe and güero are pretty hot. (You should approach all chillies warily.) The hot cayenne peppers, dried and ground to a hot, red powder, are used as a condiment. Tabasco peppers, small and red, are grown mainly in Louisiana for sauce.
The use of chillies in parts of the US is influenced by traditional Mexican dishes. The same Mexican influence has also travelled to Spain, where chillies are valued. Hot chillies, called guindillas, are used notably to add a kick to the dishes cooked al ajillo (fried with garlic), and green chillies are in the markets, but only in small quantities, from summer to autumn. Substituting guindillas, as some foreign books do, for the Romesco peppers, which are mild *sweet peppers, in Romesco sauce is disastrous.
Indians make wonderful fresh chutney, a thick purée of ground green chilli, green coriander, salt, lemon juice and coconut. Many varieties of chilli are grown in the East, mainly chosen for yield in a given climate and soil. They are dried by the thousands of tons, and used whole or ground to make chilli powder, often after a mild roasting which improves the flavour. Chilli powder is pure chilli, hot, but not as hot as cayenne. The chilli powder sold in the US and used for chilli beans or chili con carne is usually mixed with cumin or oregano. The most famous chilli condiment is *tabasco sauce; other chilli sauces are often highly-flavoured unsieved ketchups. Nepal pepper – not much seen these days – is merely a variety of chilli, and the *harissa of North Africa is a mixture of chilli and cumin.
CHINE. The chine of a small pig consists of two undivided loins (the same cut as saddle of mutton), but from larger pigs, especially bacon pigs, the chine is the backbone with some meat between the wings of the vertebrae attached to it. The word is applied to similar parts of other animals.
Chining a loin of lamb or pork is sawing close alongside the backbone from the inner surface, cutting through the bases of the ribs and/or the wings of the vertebrae, but leaving the backbone attached to the meat. It is then easily removed when the loin is cooked, to make carving very much easier.
[Chine – French: échine German: Rückenstuck Italian: coppa Spanish: espinazo]
CHINESE ARTICHOKE or chorogi. These small tubers from a labiate plant, Stachys sieboldii, an exotic relative of the common hedgerow woundworts, get their name from a slight resemblance in flavour to *globe and *Jerusalem artichokes. They are popular in winter in France, as well as in the Far East from where they came. The French name, crosnes, is from Crosnes, where they were first grown in Europe in 1882. (They were sent to a Monsieur Pailleux by the doctor to the Russian ambassador in Peking.) It is essential that Chinese artichokes be fresh, as they rapidly lose flavour when dug out of the ground. (They can safely be left and dug as required.) After washing them well, remove the skin by shaking the tubers in a cloth with coarse salt or by blanching them in boiling water and rubbing the skin. Some leave the skin on. There are many ways of cooking them, but they may simply be boiled for a quarter of an hour in salted water, drained and finished in butter with chopped parsley, or heated in gravy or a creamy sauce.
CHINESE BEAN. See cow pea.
CHINESE CABBAGE. There is a
lot of confusion about the two Chinese species of Brassica and their variants, partly because the original ‘Chinese cabbages’ were much improved in the US after World War I and returned to their former country in a greatly changed form. The Chinese cabbage or pe-tsai (Brassica pekinensis) is also wrongly called ‘celery cabbage’; the variety that is usually sold by British greengrocers looks a little like a cos lettuce with large white midribs, but others look almost like Swiss chard. So, too, does Chinese mustard or pak-choi (B.chinensis), which is also known as mustard greens; two other varieties of this species are known as wong bok and chihli. According to some authorities, B. chinensis is only a variety of rape (B. napus var. chinensis).
The pickle which is often known as Chinese sauerkraut is made from pak-choi fermented in salt; it is used in stir-fried dishes or steamed with meat and fish. This is available in cans and sometimes also from the barrel in Chinese stores. It is generally rinsed in water and squeezed dry, just like ordinary sauerkraut, before use. Dried, salted cabbage, which is usually sold tied in bundles, needs to be soaked in warm water until it is soft (about 15 minutes). It can be used as a particularly interesting flavouring in soups.
CHINESE CHIVE. See onion.
CHINESE FIVE SPICES consists of equal parts of star anise, cassia (or cinnamon), cloves, fennel seed and Chinese pepper. It may be bought ready ground from shops which specialize in Chinese foods or made at home, although the spices are difficult to grind finely. As you will have to visit the Chinese suppliers for the Chinese pepper, you might as well buy the five spices. Apart from being essential in certain Chinese dishes (e.g. porc laqué), it is also most useful flavouring with pork.