by Tom Stobart
[Chinese five spices – Chinese: heung new fun, hung-liu, ngung heung French: cinq épices chinoises German: fünf Gewürze Italian: cinque spezie cinese Spanish: cinco especias chinas]
CHINESE LANTERN PLANT. See physalis fruit.
CHINESE MUSTARD. See Chinese cabbage.
CHINESE PARSLEY. See coriander.
CHINESE PEPPER, Japanese pepper, anise pepper, or Szechwan pepper. This useful spice – which, despite its peppery taste, is no relation to ordinary black pepper – is the dried berry of a shrub (Zanthoxylum piperitum) belonging to the same family, the Rutaceae, as citruses and rue. Among its close relatives are satinwood (once commonly used for furniture), and the prickly ashes of North America, which have medicinal barks. The Chinese pepper bush can be grown in any temperate climate.
In China, this spice is commonly mixed with salt and used as a table condiment. For this, it is first gently roasted until crisp, then ground and mixed with a little salt (a teaspoon to 2 tablespoons of the powdered spice). Chinese pepper is also an ingredient of *Chinese five spices. When allowed to get stale, it develops a nasty scent.
[Chinese pepper – Chinese: hua chiao]
CHINING. See chine.
CHIPOLATA may be derived from the Italian for an onion (cipolla), but in Britain it simply means a small but otherwise ordinary sausage (16 instead of 8 to the pound).
CHITTERLINGS. This name is given to sausages made of bits of intestine, usually pig’s. They may be bought from butchers ready prepared (cleaned, scraped inside, freed of fat, washed, soaked in salt water, and simmered in water and milk with spices, herbs and onion for several hours). In some places (e.g. Wiltshire) they are plaited. Grill and serve them with a vinaigrette dressing. To butchers making sausages, chitterlings would refer to the frilly part of the large intestine of the pig. And in the US, chitterlings are the odd scraps of a newly-killed pig, and are cut in squares and cooked in broth.
CHIVE. An onion with pretty purple flowers (superficially rather like those of thrift) and very fine, tubular, grass-like leaves, which are the part of the plant used in the kitchen. They are chopped finely and should be added to hot dishes at the last moment. Native to most of Europe, chives (Allium schoeno prasum) have long been used as a flavouring in soups, omelettes and sauces, with cream cheese and in salads, particularly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Although the flavour of chives is unmistakably onion, it is subtly different. Anyone with green fingers but no garden should be able to grow a supply of fresh chives (which are infinitely superior to the dried variety) by growing them in a window box or flower pot. Remove any flower buds as they appear.
[Chive – French: ciboulette German: Schnittlauch Italian: erba cipollina Spanish: cebollino]
CHLORINE (CI). A poisonous yellow-green gas, found on earth mainly in the form of its sodium salt (sodium chloride, or common salt) in seawater. Chlorine is an important element in life processes, but is chemically too active ever to be found in its uncombined state in nature.
First discovered in 1774, it has long been used for bleaching and disinfecting, as it dissolves in water to form a powerful oxidizing agent, hypochlorous acid. Its smell and taste are well known in over-chlorinated tap water. To get rid of this, add a very little hypo (sodium hyposulphite), a common chemical known to all photographers. Hypochlorous acid is lethal to all forms of micro-organisms, but as it also reacts with dead organic matter (such as you find in ponds and streams), unfiltered water needs much more chlorinating than clear water.
[Chlorine – French: chlore German: Chlor Italian: elora Spanish: cloro]
CHLOROPHYLL The green pigment of plants, the means by which they use the energy of sunlight to build complex carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water molecules. Chlorophyll, which contains magnesium, is often mixed with other pigments yellow, red, or brown – to produce the range of leaf colours we see in nature. Chlorophyll is used as a green food colouring, but synthetic green dyes are more often used.
[Chlorophyll – French: chlorophylle German: Chlorophyll Italian: clorofilla Spanish: clorofila]
CHOCOLATE, from the Aztec, chocolatl, was used as a drink long before the Spaniards arrived in Mexico. Columbus noticed it on his fourth voyage, when it was found in an Indian trading boat in the Gulf of Honduras, but it was first brought to Spain by Cortes in 1528.The Spanish tried to keep its existence a secret, and for a good while, few people north of the Pyrenees had any idea of its value or use. Dutch and English pirates, for instance, threw cocoa (or cacao) beans overboard when they captured a cargo, calling them ‘sheep shit’. The first chocolate house opened in London in 1657, but the high customs duty imposed on cocoa kept it as rich man’s beverage until as late as 1828.The tree (Theobroma cacao – the generic name means ‘food of the gods’) which provides chocolate is native to tropical America, but to satisfy world demand, it was soon being cultivated in other countries – notably West Africa – between 20° north and south of the equator.
The ‘beans’ from which chocolate is made grow inside fat, spindle-shaped pods which are borne directly on the main branches and trunk of the tree. The beans are scooped out of the pod with the adhering pulp and are fermented to develop their flavour. They are then dried in the sun. After shipping to the factory, the beans are roasted and broken into small nibs, and the shell is winnowed away. The grinding and refining of the nibs is a long and skilled process, on which the fineness of the finished chocolate depends. The pressure of the refining mills liquefies the cocoa nibs as they are ground, turning them into what is called chocolate liquor, and this emerges from the mill as a solidified block.
Drinking chocolate (as opposed to *cocoa) is chocolate with much of the fat (which is known as cocoa butter) pressed out, leaving a dry cake which is then pulverized. If you add extra cocoa butter to the chocolate and refine it by ‘conching’ (rolling the chocolate liquor back and forth in a curved trough by a mechanical roller), you get fondant chocolate, which usually has sugar added to make it bitter-sweet or semi-sweet. The longer conching continues – it can last from less than a day or as long as 7 days – the finer the chocolate. Fondant chocolate was invented by Rodolphe Lindt. The adding of condensed milk to chocolate, which was first done by M. Peter in Switzerland in 1875, produces milk chocolate.
The quality of chocolate you get depends to a large extent on the price you pay. It seems obvious (but has to be said) that chocolate varies enormously in flavour and that you cannot expect to make a good chocolate dish with inferior chocolate. The problem today is finding good chocolate – for example, in the US, chocolate may be totally defatted, then reconstituted with inferior fat; careful inspection of the label is advisable. The best chocolate for cooking is the very finest eating chocolate such as Lindt or Bendick’s Sporting and Military. Perhaps it is because chocolate is usually sweetened commercially that people find it so extraordinary that it is used in savoury dishes – with meat, game, octopus and so on – but unsweetened chocolate does appear in this role in Mexico, Spain and Italy. Bitter chocolate goes well with onion and tomato, for instance, as a base for a dish of fish or meat. In Mexico, it is added to chilli powder. For sweet dishes, it combines especially well with vanilla, another Central American discovery, and also with cinnamon. There are chocolate-based liqueurs, too, which are usually unbearably sweet.
[Chocolate – French: chocolat German: Schokolade Italian: cioccolata Spanish: chocolate]
CHOKO. Australian name for *chayote.
CHORIZO is the most famous Spanish sausage and comes in many regional varieties. They are all smoked and combine chopped pork with pimentón. Chorizos are made in other countries, including France and, particularly, Mexico, which took the tradition of making them from northern Spain. Mexican varieties, of which there are said to be 124, each with its own balance of chillies, herbs and spices, are generally less tough than the Spanish ones. Chorizos are very good grilled (preferably over charcoal) until they are crisp on the outside and cooked right through. They are also an important ingredi
ent in Spanish and Mexican cooking; for some recipes they are skinned before being added.
CHOROGI. See Chinese artichoke.
CHOW-CHOW. No doubt derived from the Chinese, this now means a mainly American pickle of mixed vegetables, which is rather rich with yellow mustard seed. The following is a typical recipe.
Chow-chow
Cut into small pieces 1 kg (2 lb) green tomatoes, 1 large bunch of celery, 450 g (1 lb) each green beans and green peppers, 1 kg (2 lb) firm cucumbers, 1 small cauliflower and 400 g (14 oz) onions. Sprinkle well with kitchen salt. Leave overnight. Next day bring to the boil 2 It (3½ pt) vinegar plus 60 g (2½ oz) white mustard seed, 25 g (1 oz) ground turmeric and I tablespoon each ground cloves, allspice and black pepper. Drain and squeeze the vegetables to remove some of the water and throw them into the boiling vinegar. Cook gently until the vegetables are tender, then bottle.
The chow-chow that can be bought in Britain in jars for use as a relish is mainly made of fruit and is sweet-hot in taste.
CHROMIUM (Cr). A very shiny, silvery metal often used for plating, usually over a film of nickel. Chromium is corrosion resistant, because of the film of its oxide which forms on the surface. It is an important constituent of stainless steel, and also a trace element present in an available form in raw vegetables and unrefined foods. Good sources are brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, mushrooms, even beer and pepper, but the metal is made unavailable by temperatures over 120°C (248°F), which means that food sterilized in an autoclave or cooked in a pressure cooker – which for practical purposes means canned goods – is lacking in chromium. Deficiency is claimed by some authorities to be a contributory factor in heart disease.
[Chromium – French: chrome German: Chrom Italian: cromo Spanish: cromo]
CHRYSANTHEMUM. This genus of the daisy family (Compositae) has about 150 species ranging from the ordinary wild ox-eye daisy to the enormous varieties sold by florists. Among its members are *costmary (Chrysanthemum balsamita),*tansy (C. vulgare), pyrethrum (C. cinerariifolium) and *chrysanthemum greens (C. coronarium).They may be annuals or perennials. The chrysanthemum varieties grown as flowers belong to a number of species, and since they are not poisonous – though not necessarily nice to eat – they can be safely used as decoration in food.
[Chrysanthemum – French: chrysanthème German: Chrysanthemum Italian: crisantemo Spanish: crisantemo]
CHRYSANTHEMUM GREENS or shungiku. Although this annual is sometimes thought to be a separate species (Chrysanthemum spatiosum), it may well be a cultivated variety, with larger leaves, of the Crown daisy (C. coronanum), also called Garland chrysanthemum. The wild form of the Crown daisy which is so common in Mediterranean countries, has feathery leaves that are strong in taste and less worth eating. Japanese chrysanthemum greens can easily be grown in Britain or the US. They should be young and tender, old leaves are not worth eating. Shungiku is called for in Japanese recipes and may be used raw in salads.
CHUFA, tiger nut, earthnut, earth almond, yellow nut grass, pignut, or rush nut.
The chufa is the small tuber of a sedge (Cyperus esculentus) which is native to Mediterranean Europe and Portugal. The plant is related to Cyperus papyrus, from which the ancient Egyptians made a precursor of paper. Chufas have certainly been eaten for several thousand years, but though cultivated in a number of countries, it is in Spain that they are of most importance. As bought, chufas are knobbly, shrivelled little objects about the size of the thumbnail, and with a sweetish taste. They are better when shrivelled than when fresh, as keeping makes them sweeter. Although eaten as nuts, mainly by children, and used occasionally for ice cream, their gastronomic importance is in the preparation of horchata de chufas, a milky drink much loved in Spain.
Horchata de Chufas
Soak 225g (½ lb) of chufas in water overnight and wash them very carefully. Put them in a liquidizer with a little water and reduce to a fine state. Add a bit of cinnamon stick (bruised), a little grated lemon rind, about 150 g (5 oz) sugar, to taste, and 1 It (1¾ pt) of water. Stir well and leave to stand for another 4-5 hours. Then strain through muslin and bottle. Chill in the refrigerator. (A horchata of almonds is made in the same way.) Horchata is drunk as a cool, refreshing drink on a hot day. Horchatas are also made with melon seeds and with other nuts.
CHUMP. Means the end of something – wood, meat, etc. The term is applied by butchers to chump chops, which are the chops at the hind end of the rack, not exactly like the other chops and so often sold more cheaply.
CHUTNEY. A chutney is a piquant Indian relish, eaten in small amounts to add an accent to a meal. The correct pronunciation is more like ‘chatni’, but in old books it is often written ‘chutnee’. There is a great difference in what is understood to be chutney in the East and the West.
A chutney in India is almost invariably a mixture ground fresh on a curry stone, and consists of a paste of raw ingredients, such as fresh ginger, fresh green chilli, onion, garlic, mint, green coriander, sour fruits, coconut – in fact, anything considered tasty, stimulating or refreshing to the palate. Within wide limits, the cook is free to create from what he happens to have available.
The sweet, bottled chutney sold elsewhere is very different. Though it is of Indian inspiration, and quite often manufactured there, most people in India would call it a sweet pickle rather than a chutney. This chutney is always cooked and always combines sugar and vinegar with spices and fruit. The fruit is mango, but the British home substitute, well known on stalls at craft sales and church jumbles, is based on apples and raisins. More rarely, other fruits, such as apricots, are used.
Mint Chutney
Take a handful of mint leaves, a medium-small onion,1 teaspoon salt, 5 fresh green chillies and the juice of about half a lemon (to taste). Chop and blend with about ½ cup water. The remaining component is freshly grated or desiccated coconut. If you are using desiccated coconut and a blender, first grind the coconut dry to a powder. Finally add the coconut to the other ingredients, a little at a time, until you have a smooth, soft paste. Quantities are flexible.
Green Coriander Chutney
Make as above with a handful of green coriander leaves, 2-6 fresh green chillies, salt, lemon juice and water.
Mrs Luck’s Bengal Chutnee
The following comes from Spellow House near Harrogate in Yorkshire. Mrs Luck was my grandfather’s cook and must have been born about 1850 – a real Victorian. Her method of dealing with holes in her stockings (as reported by my father) is interesting. She would draw the stocking together round the hole, tie it with a piece of string and cut off the surplus tuft with a pair of scissors. After which, as she forced the stocking on again, she would remark: ‘It’s a bad foot indeed that won’t shape its own stocking.’
Dissolve 225 g (½ lb) salt and 900 g (2 lb) brown sugar in 3.5 It (6 pt) cold brown vinegar. Add 3 dozen peeled and cored apples, 100 g (4 oz) sultanas and 225 g (½ lb) crystallized ginger of cooking quality cut into small pieces. Slice up 5 Spanish onions and add them together with 25 g (1 oz) mustard seed, 6 shallots, and 40 g (1½ oz) chillies – bird chillies are best. Boil everything together until the apples are tender. Bottle. Keep for some months before use.
Sweet Mango Chutney
This is an Indian recipe, which needs ripe, but not soft, mangoes – washed, peeled and sliced. Heat in a very little water until they are soft. For each kg (2 lb) of mango slices, add 1 kg (2 lb) sugar, 60 g (2½ oz) salt, and, pounded and tied in a muslin bag, the following flavourings: 25 g (1 oz) mixed spices (equal parts of cumin, cardamom, cinnamon), 15 g (½ oz) ground chilli, 50 g (2 oz) onion, 2-3 cloves garlic, and 125 g (4½ oz) green ginger. Cook the whole to a jammy consistency before putting in 100-125 ml (4-4½ fl oz) vinegar, depending on strength, per kg (2 lb) of mango slices. Then cook for 5 minutes, remove the spice-bag and bottle the chutney.
CIDER is an ancient drink, although exactly how ancient is a matter for argument. it has certainly been made for over 1,000 years, and it is possible that the Romans were the first to
introduce sweet apples, suitable for cider-making, into Britain. By the 17th century, when the British cider apples were classified by the first Viscount Scudamore, there were over three hundred varieties grown, with splendid names like Handsome Maud’s, Slack-my-Girdle, and Skryme’s Kerne. Cider-making had become a traditional cottage industry in the west of England (in Somerset, Devon, Dorset and Herefordshire); in the 19th century it was not uncommon for farm labourers to get part of their wages in cider, just as the Scottish farm workers got part of theirs in oatmeal. The West Country colonists also took their knowledge of cider-making to America and cider was the usual drink of the early settlers, (with the applejack they learned to distil from it). In the old days, cider varied enormously from place to place and from year to year, because of the wild yeasts which made fermentation an uncertain process. At the end of the 19th century, the isolation of good yeasts made reliable cider-making possible on a bulk scale. Today, the best cider is made from blends of cider apples, which give a fine balance between astringency, acidity and sugar, but cheap, run-of-the mill ciders are sweet and uninteresting.
In making cider, the apples are milled to a pulp and the juice pressed out of them. It is fermented in barrels or, commercially, in large tanks, in the same way as grape juice is fermented in a winery. The residue is used as a source of *pectin. What remains after that goes into animal foodstuffs. Cider can vary between a fine dry drink of champagne-like quality, to a sweet, child’s drink, or from something smooth to a rough farm cider, suitable for scaling a boiler. ’Old Scrumpy’ will still dissolve rats, as it was said to in the past, (and as my father’s cider used to do), although, as PR men are quick to point out, this no longer happens in the factories.
Obviously, the type and quality of cider is of great importance if one is cooking with it. Recipes for using cider come from all the American ‘apple states’, as well as from Normandy and the west of England. Northern Spain, in the main, produces sweet cider, and does not seem to use it much in cooking. Opinions are sharply divided as to the merits of cider in meat and fish dishes, where it has often been advocated merely as a cheap substitute for wine. French chefs, who, like most good cooks, are apt to have definite opinions, do not look on it as a particularly notable ingredient unless they are Norman – you have to make up your own mind. The dishes in the classic cuisine which use cider are all Norman; they include tripes à Ia mode de Caen and l’oie en daube à Ia Normande (goose cooked slowly in a closed pot with onion, celery, leek, carrot, with apples and cider).They usually contain *calvados (which is to Normans what applejack is to Americans). Indeed, calvados is a more frequent cooking ingredient than cider.