by Tom Stobart
[Savory – French: sarriette German: Bohnenkraut, Kölle, Winter Bergminze Italian: savore, santoreggia Spanish: sabroso]
SAVOY. See cabbage.
SAWFISH. See shark
SCALD. See flatfish (lemon sole).
SCALDING is in most cases the same as *blanching. It also refers to pouring boiling water over a freshly killed pig to loosen the bristles, which can then be scraped off with a knife.
[Scalding – French: blanchir German: abkochen, abbrühen Italian: scottare Spanish: limpiar con agua muy caliente]
SCALLION. See onion.
SCALLOP or scollop is the fan-shaped shell on which the Shell Oil trade mark is based. There are many species in all seas. Unlike the majority of bivalves, scallops can swim by flapping their shells together, though many can also attach themselves like mussels to weeds, or rocks by a byssus of threads. They are usually obtained by dredging or trawling. Scallops are often opened and cleaned by the fishmonger (or processed at sea, with only the muscle being brought ashore, usually frozen); otherwise they should be well scrubbed and then opened with a knife, as are other bivalves. The white muscle, which is eaten, is most easily cut out with scissors. In Europe – but not in America- the red ‘tongue’ or ‘coral’ is included with the white muscle. The rest is discarded, although the beard can go into soup.
Scallops are most often cooked in a sauce and served in the shell -there are many fine recipes, particularly from France. A typically Norman example is coquilles Saint-Jacques havraise – scallops sautéed in a shallot butter, mixed with prawns, and heated in the shell with a sauce made of thick cream, flavoured with white wine, Noilly Prat vermouth and black pepper.
The species that is found around the coasts of northern and western (Atlantic) Europe is the Great scallop (Pecten maximus).The usual Mediterranean species, the Pilgrim scallop (P. jacobaeus), is a little smaller but is also prized; it is best in autumn and winter. Another large North Atlantic species that is commercially fished from America is the Atlantic deep-sea scallop (Placopecten magellonicus).A smaller, northern species is the Iceland scallop (Chlamys lslandica). Other small species may be eaten raw as well as cooked; among them are the Queen scallop or quin (C. opercularis) and the Variegated scallop (C. varta), known in France respectively as vanneau and pétoncle, and the Bay scallop (C. irradians), which is the best scallop of eastern North America. All species can be cooked in the same ways.
The white muscle meat of the fan shell (Pinna nobilis) is eaten like the scallop, either cooked or raw, in Mediterranean countries. The shell has a narrow wedge shape and is commonly 50 cm (20 in) long, where the scallops mentioned above are not usually more than 16 cm (6 in) long in the case of the Great scallop, and the small species normally reach only about 8 cm (3in).
[Scallop – French: coquille Saint-Jacques German: Kammuschel Italian: pettine, ventaglio Spanish: concha de peregrino]
SCAMPI is the plural of the Italian name (scampo is the singular) for the Norway lobster or Dublin Bay prawn (Nephrops norvegicus). Because the demand for scampi is so great, other imported crustaceans are often substituted (when the tails alone are sold, only experts can tell) and the name has rather lost its original meaning. Even the Dublin Bay prawns fished around Britain are not as tasty as scampi from the muddy sand bottom of the Adriatic, and the substitutes are often very inferior. The scampo is a fairly close relative of the lobster, with claws and the same general anatomy, but is much smaller- no more than 25 cm (10 in) long at the very most. The meat is in the abdomen or tail. While perfectly fresh scampi tails may be poached for around 10 minutes in salted water and served with no more than melted butter, the average Italian recipe is much fiercer. For instance, the tails might be threaded on skewers alternately with sage leaves, marinated for an hour in oil and cognac, then grilled briefly (basted with the marinade) over a clear fire. Although they are such a popular commodity today, scampi were almost unheard of outside Italy until after World War II. Indeed the very name Dublin Bay Prawn was almost a term of contempt describing the part of the catch that could be sold only by being hawked through the streets of the city. In the US, scampi can be the tails of any large shrimps.
[Scampi – French: langoustines German: kaisergronate Spanish: cigalas]
SCARLET RUNNER. See runner bean.
SCHABZIEGER or sapsago (US). Hard Swiss cheese containing *melilot from the Glarus region near Zurich. An important flavouring.
SCOLLOP. See scallop.
SCORZONERA. See salsify.
SCOTCH PIECES or SCOTCH. See sugar.
SCREWPINE. See kewra.
SCROD or schrod is baby cod or halibut, and is highly regarded along the New England coast. The flavour is delicate, and it is best cooked simply.
SEA ANEMONE is a polyp, a primitive animal related to corals and jellyfish. It consists essentially of a digestive sac, and a ring of tentacles surrounding the mouth (which doubles as the anus).The tentacles are armed with special cells which shoot out poison darts to paralyse their prey.
These often beautiful, flower-like creatures are not commonly used as food, but two European species are eaten in France. They are the Beadlet (Actimia equina) and the Oplet or Snakelocks anemone (Anemonia sulcata), a species with longer tentacles. Both vary in colour from brown to green, but the Beadlet, as its French name tomate de mer (sea tomato) suggests, may also be red. Both are common in British waters. To prepare them, remove the tentacles, turn the rest inside-out and wash the body cavity clean. Remove any sand and rock adhering to the foot Use them in soup or fry them in batter. Alan Davidson’s Mediterranean Seafood (Penguin) gives recipes for this little known esculent
[Sea Anemone – French: anémone de mer, ortie de mer German: Seeanemone Italian: anemone di mare Spanish: anémona de mar]
SEA CUCUMBER is a holothurian, a roughly sausage-shaped relative of sea anemones and sea urchins. Dried holothurian, known as bêche de mer or trepang, is used in Chinese cooking. To prepare these unpromising objects, which are bought whole, first wash and clean them, then soak them overnight Next day, blanch them for 5 minutes in boiling water, cut them open and gut them. Simmer them for 4 hours and they will swell and become gelatinous.
[Sea Cucumber – French: cornichon de mer, concombre de mer German: Seewalze, Seegurke, Meergurke Italian: cetriolo di mare, cocomero di mare Spanish: cohombro de mar]
SEA DATE or date mussel (Lithophoga lithophoga). A bivalve, the size, shape and colour of a date, which lives in holes which it bores in marine rocks. Sea dates are much appreciated in Mediterranean countries for their delicately sweet taste. Though usually eaten raw, they are also excellent when cooked.
[Sea date – French: datte de mer Italian: cetriolo di mare, cocomero di mare]
SEA EAR. See abalone.
SEAKALE (Crambe maritima) is a cruciferous plant with tough, thick leaves. It grows wild in many places on sea coasts in northern Europe. In the past, it was much cultivated for its blanched shoots which, when cooked like asparagus, were considered a delicacy. Today, it has to be classed as a rare vegetable. The vogue for seakale in fact lasted for only about 150 years, since its cultivation dates from the end of the 18th century though from time immemorial the inhabitants of various parts of the coast have been in the habit of searching for it when blanched by the drifted sand, and cutting off the white shoots close to the crown of the plant It is the blanching process which makes seakale so delicate. Unblanched it is worthless. Wild seakale may be blanched intentionally by piling up shingle to cover the crowns. The action of light gives seakale a bitter taste; it must always be kept in the dark until it is cooked and should never be bought if it has the slightest colour. In Britain, it is one of the earliest vegetables and has a season from January to June. In the US, it is virtually unknown.
To prepare seakale, wash it carefully, brushing it, if necessary, to remove grit. Cut out the black parts of the roots and tie the rest in bundles, as for asparagus. Put it into rapidly boiling, salted water and fast-boil it until it is tender. D
rain and serve it with melted butter. Tender young seakale will take 20-30 minutes but older plants can take up to 50. The water should be changed half-way through cooking if it has become bitter.
[Seakale – French: chou marin, chou de mer German: Strandkohl Italian: cavolo marino Spanish: berzo marina]
SEA LETTUCE. See seaweed.
SEA-MOSS. See carrageen.
SEA SPINACH. See beets.
SEARING is sealing the surface of meat at the start of cooking by briefly exposing it to very strong heat
SEA URCHIN. A spiny, more or less spherical creature related to starfish and sea cucumbers. Many species are eaten around the world. In Europe, the species known as the Edible sea urchin is Echinus esculentus, which is 12 cm (5 in) across and occurs from Scandinavia to Portugal, but this is less delicate in flavour than two smaller species of 7-8 cm (3 in) across. These are the northerly Green sea urchin (Strongylocentrus droebachiensis), which occurs on both sides of the Atlantic down to the English Channel and New Jersey, and the more southerly Paracentrotus lividus, which is dark purplish-brown, almost black in fact. The latter is the sea urchin commonly eaten in Mediterranean regions (it is found as far north in the Atlantic as Gulf Stream warmed southern Ireland). In the past, sea urchins were sometimes called sea-eggs, because they were dipped for a very short time in boiling seawater, opened and eaten like eggs. All the contents except the gut are edible, but more often only the roes (five equally spaced vertical strips of orange stuff) are scooped up with a soldier of bread and eaten raw with at most a squeeze of lemon. Sea urchins can be opened simply with a pair of scissors: poke a blade through the shell and cut round the equator (there are fancier ways and a special cutter called a coupeoursin). Be careful not to get spines in your fingers. Remove the digestive tract and wash the rest in seawater. Sea urchins are at their best when the roes are ripe, just before breeding. They may be gathered easily by skin divers, but it is a job that requires gloves. The urchins must be alive until you are ready to eat them; once they are dead, they do not keep. There are recipes for cooking the roe with scrambled egg, and it makes a wonderful sauce if it is scooped out with a spoon and mixed with a little mayonnaise in the liquidizer. The flavour is vaguely like crab. A paste of sea urchins (uni) can be bought in shops that specialize in Japanese food.
[Sea urchin – French: oursin German: Seeigel Italian: riccio di mare Spanish: erizo de mar]
SEAWATER is used sometimes as a cooking liquid for fish or shellfish, especially in fishermen’s recipes. Because of the many substances dissolved in it, seawater has a certain bitterness which is not found in a brine of pure *salt.
[Seawater – French: eau de mer German: Seewasser, Meerwasser Italian: acqua di mare Spanish: agua de mar]
SEAWEED belongs to the group of primitive plants called algae. These can be divided into three main groups – green, red and brown – of which the brown are the most plentiful, especially in northern seas, but the least interesting to the cook. Commercially, however, they have become very important in recent years as a source of alginates, the jelly-like, mucilaginous substances which are used as stabilizers and general goo-producers in the food industry. For example, in commercial ice cream, they keep the emulsified pig’s fat in suspension and prevent the growth of ice crystals.
Of the green algae, the only one of any importance in Europe is the Sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca),which actually looks rather like lettuce leaves that have become wilted and transparent with age. It is also known as Green laver, Lettuce laver or ulva; it is cooked like true laver, but is less interesting. True *laver which has gastronomic importance and an entry to itself, belongs to the red algae along with dulse, *carrageen, and the seaweeds from which *agar-agar is obtained.
Dulse (Rhodymenia palmata),in theory, is supposed to be used raw in salads – and must have its devotees. There are also mentions of dramatic Scottish recipes, which include wrapping it around red-hot tongs, but it is also referred to as a masticatory, and they can say that again. l chewed some long ago, when on a marine biological course at Port Erin, Isle of Man, and it seemed like rubber sheeting laced with iodized salt. However, André Simon says that the great Alexis Soyer included it in his St. Patrick’s Day Soup. Dried dulse remains pliable, and the Irish used to chew it like tobacco, just as Icelanders today chew another red alga, Pepper dulse (Laurencia pinnatifida),which has a pungent flavour and, according to Alan Davidson in North Atlantic Seafood (Penguin), was used in Scotland as a condiment rather than a food.
The subject of edible seaweeds is a happy hunting ground for those interested in what the half-starving Irish or Hebridean crofters managed to live on in the past (they were hard and healthy people when they survived), but is worthy of only a brief mention here.
Kelp,the general name for any of the brown seaweeds, is a source of iodine (as extracts or tablets) in health diets. Murlins (also called dabberlochs, henware or honeyware) is Alaria esculenta, a brown alga, but, as its specific name suggests, it is edible, if less palatable than the red algae. Tangle and redware (ware and ore mean seaweed) are words used in Scotland and New England but do not have exact meanings except locally – in Orkney, redware is Pink laver (Porphyra lacinata).
Seaweeds are eaten in many other parts of the world. For instance, there is the Durvillea antarctica, the alga mar (seaweed) of Chile, which is exported to the US. However, it is in Japan that the use of seaweed is of vital gastronomic importance, so much so that many species are cultivated. (Seaweeds are also cultivated in other parts of the Pacific, for instance in Hawaii, where seventy varieties are eaten.) *Kombull is the seaweed ingredient of the ubiquitous Japanese stock, dashi, for which black sheets of the dried weed are cut into small bits; it can also be made into a tea, or soaked and cut in strips for wrapping up pieces of raw fish to make sushi. Nori, from a red seaweed related to laver, is also dried in black sheets and is also used for wrapping sushi; after crisping over heat, which makes it go purplish, it can be crumbled over foods as a flavouring and garnish. Wakame, which comes in long curly strands, is soaked, the leaves are opened out and the midrib is removed; this seaweed may be used as a decoration.
Less use is made of seaweed in China than in Japan, but various kinds can be bought in Chinese markets. Purple laver is dried for use in vegetable soups. There is also a hair-like seaweed used in savouries and vegetable dishes. All dried seaweeds need to be soaked before use.
[Seaweed – French: algue German: Alge Italian: alga Spanish: alga]
SEMOLINA. The word comes from the Italian and refers to the larger particles of endosperm which are sifted out in the milling of cereals. Although it was originally applied to durum wheat, it may now mean any very coarse flour (e.g. rice semolina, maize semolina). Unqualified, though, it always means semolina from wheat.
Semolina differs from flour, which is much finer, in that when cooked it has a texture more like a porridge than a paste. This makes for lightness in many dishes. For instance, gnocchi made with fine flour are stodgy unless they are lightened by the addition of other substances such as semolina or mashed potato. Cooked semolina is an excellent binding agent for croquettes.
Nursery semolina puddings give no indication of the wonderful sweets in which semolina is used in the Middle East and in India. When fried in butter to a pale golden colour and then sweetened, the taste of semolina is delicious. Some of these confections are dry, with the semolina grains remaining separate – almost like a *cous-cous.
[Semolina – French: semoule German: Griessmehl Italian: semolino Spanish: semolino]
SELSCHCAREE. See bacon.
SELTZER. See water (mineral water).
SERCIAL. See madeira.
SEREH or serei. See lemon grass.
SERVICE TREE and SERVICE BERRY. See rowan.
SESAME. A few years ago, the word sesame had only one association for people in Britain and the US; Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Now people know about *tahina and even about the use of sesame oil in oriental cooking. Sesame seed is popular in veg
etarian diets for its high content of protein and polyunsaturates. The sesame plant (Sesamum indicum) probably originated in Africa but has been cultivated in India and China since ancient times. Today it is grown all over the world in tropical and subtropical climates, even in Mediterranean countries, but it will stand no frost. The plant is a strong, erect annual which reaches 2m (6½ ft) high. When the seeds are ripe, the plants are cut, bundled and stacked upright to dry; they can then be turned upside-down and the seeds shaken out.
Sesame seeds are small, usually white and of a flat pear-shape, but they can be cream to brown, red or black. They contain around 50% oil, which can be extracted by cold pressing. Good sesame oil is almost tasteless and colourless. It can be used for salads and cooking. Under the name of gingelly oil, it is one of the most important cooking oils in South India and in Mexico, although the sesame plant does not give such a high yield of oil per acre as some other oil seeds. When raw, the seed itself is rather tasteless but gentle roasting makes it take on a most delicious nutty flavour. It is used sprinkled like poppyseed over bread and cakes in baking. Mixed with a pinch of kalonji (*nigella) seed, it is often sprinkled on nan, the North Indian leavened bread, or simply fried and mixed with sugar. Added to rice, it is used in Indian versions of stuffed peppers. In sweet dishes, sesame seed makes one of the finest halvas (which can be bought ready-made in shops selling Turkish specialities).
[Sesame – French: sésame German: Sesam Italian: sesamo Spanish: sésamo]
SEVICHE. See ceviche.
SEVRUGA. See caviar.