by Tom Stobart
Montilla is not strictly a sherry, for legal reasons, but it is a very similar wine grown on similar white soil a little north of the sherry districts, towards Córdoba. Because the wines of Montilla are naturally rather stronger than sherry; they are not fortified. They have very much the same sherry flavour and a taster will know immediately that they are from the same stable. Montillas are fine aperitif wines, less known and often a little cheaper than real sherries. They are excellent for cooking and as an aperitif are served cold like a manzanilla.
Oloroso means odorous in the nicest sense. It is the basic wine of the sherry district which has not been changed by a flor. It may be sweetened, and fortified with alcohol. An oloroso in Spain is dry; but elsewhere it will almost always be sweetened to make it medium. It is the archetypal sherry, the one that people borrow to use in a trifle. With a more expensive fino for those who like it dry, an oloroso is the basic fuel for a sherry party.
Palo cortado. A rare type of sherry for connoisseurs. It is a separate type, rather dark, but dryish and unusual. It would only be for a special occasion.
Sherry type wines come from South Africa, Australia, California, Cyprus. There is even British sherry; which has been made from dried fruit since the beginning of the century. South African sherries will not be distinguished from run-of-the-mill Spanish sherries except by experts, and even then not in blindfold tests. Others vary in quality from good to awful. You have to rely on your own palate and judgement.
[Sherry – French: vin de Xérès German: Sherry, Jerezwein Italian: vino di Xeres Spanish: jerez]
SHIITAKE. See mushrooms.
SHIN. In beef butchery; the shin is the lower part of the front leg and is equivalent to the shank in mutton or lamb and part of the hand in pork.
SHIRATAKI. See noodles.
SHORTENING. Any kind of fat or oil used to make pastry brittle and crisp – i.e. short, an adjective that also crops up in shortbread and shortcake. Shortening is the normal US term for fat, especially that used in baking.
SHRIMP and PRAWN. Both names indicate small crustaceans related to lobsters, though much smaller, except for a few giant forms. Most live in the sea or in brackish water, but some are found in rivers and lakes. Great confusion is caused because the English names prawn and shrimp, which originally described two sorts that were fished off British coasts, have now acquired general meanings, and these differ in Britain and the US. In Britain, a shrimp is small – at least in common parlance – and a prawn is large, but in the US all sizes are now called shrimp. So to Americans, jumbo shrimp is a perfectly logical description. Further confusion is caused by the use, particularly in Scotland, of the word prawn to describe the Norway lobster, alias *scampi.
There are thousands of species of prawn and shrimp in the world and the high prices they fetch have made it commercially worthwhile for them to be flown refrigerated from the most remote places. In the jungle waterways of Asia, you can nowadays find fishermen netting with primitive gear and filling bamboo cages with huge live prawns for eventual shipment half way round the world. Prawns and shrimps are not easy even for a zoologist to identify; and the scientific nomenclature is littered with confusing synonyms. The best that the layman can hope to do is to recognize the types that are in the local market by their appearance and popular name, and, by experience, to get some idea of their quality.
In Europe, small shrimps are usually sold cooked because they are very perishable when fresh – in Britain, they are traditionally cooked in seawater by the fishermen on board the catching boats. They are no longer caught by hand in shrimp nets, but by boats dragging a fine meshed net along the sea-bed. They may also be caught in nets drawn over estuary flats at low tide by horses, or now more often by tractors. In Britain, most shrimps are still handpeeled; a good peeler can deal with 2.5-3 kg (5½- 7 lb) per hour. About 300 shelled shrimps make 500 ml (1 pt).The pint is the measure by which they were traditionally sold. A pint is some 275 g (10 oz) of unpeeled and 340 g (12 oz) of peeled shrimps.
Live shrimps, which you will probably have netted yourself on the shore, should be thrown into boiling seawater as soon as you get home, and cooked for a minute or so. They become opaque when cooked. Depending on the quantity you have in relation to the amount of water and heat, they may be done almost as soon as the pan comes back to the boil, so keep tasting. Shrimps cooked too little are soft; cooked too long and too fast, they go tough, but gross overcooking will turn them into a mush. Shrimps and prawns should be simmered and not violently boiled.
There are machines for peeling the larger deep water shrimps which can handle the work done by as many as 16 hand peelers. To do the job by hand, take the cooked shrimp by whiskers and tail, straighten it out, telescope it a little by pushing the tail towards the head until the shell bulges out and then pull gently apart. The flesh of the tail – the only part that is eaten – should then come free.
The two commonest shallow-water species of the English Channel, North Sea and British coasts are the Brown shrimp (Crangon crangon) and the Pink shrimp or Aesop prawn (Pandalus montagui),which are respectively 6 cm and 5 cm in length. The Pink shrimp looks prettier, but the Brown tastes better. Famous places for shrimps in Britain are the Lancashire coast, especially Morecambe Bay, the Wash and the Thames estuary. They are much fished in shallow water off Holland and the French coast, as well as in Denmark, where tiny pink shrimps are used to cover an expensive but delicious open sandwich (rejemad). In Britain, shrimps potted in butter and flavoured with mace are a famous delicacy which can be bought ready prepared. Frozen shrimps are a poor second; although frozen when fresh, they seem to lose flavour.
Prawn is a word that might beneficially disappear from the English cook’s vocabulary. The creature to which it properly refers is the Common prawn (Palaemon serratus), a coastal species about 10 cm (4 in) long that is actually not at all common around the coasts of Britain; it is scarcely fished on a commercial basis. Its place in the fish shops is usually taken by the species that the Department of Trade thinks should be called the Deepwater shrimp (Pandalus borealis); a second, as yet unexploited, species, Pandalus bonnieri, is found off the west coast of Scotland. Both are 10-12 cm (4-5 in) long. The Deepwater shrimp, which is unofficially referred to as the Deepwater prawn or Northern prawn, has been fished for some years by the Danes and Norwegians, but not with any success by the British until 1970.
Cooking is the same as for shrimps, but they will take about 5-7 minutes to cook, and large ones may be peeled before cooking, split down the back, deveined and opened flat. (The fan is left on to serve as a handle.) At least since Victorian times, prawns prepared in this way have been fried as prawn cutlets (butterfly shrimp in the US.) King prawns, which usually make this dish today, are imported (e.g. from Malaya). Other old British prawn dishes curried prawns in the Anglo-Indian manner.
A pint contains about 40 unshelled and 120 shelled prawns or Deepwater shrimps; the weights would be roughly the same as for shrimps.
A few of the many other prawns found in European Atlantic and Mediterranean waters need special mention. There are, for instance, the very large and striking blood-red species, Aristeomorpha foliacea and Edwards’s Red shrimp (Plesiopenaeus edwardsianus), which can go up to 30 cm (1 ft) long, although 20 cm (8 in) is more usual; they live at a depth of some 250 m (822 ft).The Red prawn (Parapenaeus longirostris) is not quite so large, rarely exceeding 16 cm (6 in) and usually only 12 cm (5 in) long. It lives at great depths and frequently gets squashed when it is hauled up with the other creatures in the trawl. Perhaps this is why it is usually sold cooked in Italian markets, where it is called not only gambero rosa (pink prawn) but also gambero bianco (white prawn).This and another species, Aristeus antennatus (which is red), are known as gamba in Spanish restaurants.
In Spain, both species are commonly sold raw in the markets. They are frequently rather soft, with an off smell, but many people acquire a liking for a ‘bad prawn’ taste (see trasi), which blends well with garlic. The aristocrat
of the European prawns, and possibly a claimant to the title of best crustacean in the world (its perfumed and delicate flesh is superior to that of any crayfish or lobster) is Penaeus kerathurus, which the Spanish call langostino and the Italians mazzancolla or gambero imperiole. Large- around 20 cm (8 in) long- and pale garnetred striped with dark garnet on the tail, it lives on the muddy bottom off the estuaries of rivers, usually buried with just its head sticking out and at only about 30-40 m (100-130 ft) deep. To eat this fabulous prawn to perfection, you have to go to the Mediterranean, best of all to San Carlos de Ia Rapita at the mouth of the Ebro river in Spain, where they make a feature of serving them absolutely fresh. The town’s badge is a golden prawn. A langostinara (prawn feast), which is costly but worth every penny as a gastronomic experience of almost Chinese sophistication, is a meal composed entirely of langostinos cooked in different ways. First come plainly-poached langostinos with sweet cos lettuce, then sopa, a vegetable stock made by boiling onion, garlic, tomato, parsley, oil and salt for a quarter of an hour, in which the langostinos are cooked for 3 minutes. After that, they are taken out and peeled. The stock is put through a sieve and thickened with beurre manié. The langostinos are peeled and served in a soup bowl with the soup poured on top. Next are langostinos a Ia plancha, cooked by sprinkling the top of the stove with salt and laying whole langostinos on top. Langostinos al ron, a traditional dish in San Carlos de Ia Rapita, is made by first drying the langostinos on top of the stove for a moment and then frying them in fine olive oil. When done, they are flamed in *rum and salted to taste. The fifth dish is langostinos marinera. A basic sauce is made by pounding together garlic, parsley, toasted almonds and fried bread. A drop of brandy is added and some tomato purée. The langostinos are fried for a moment in olive oil and taken out; into the pan is put the sauce. It is seasoned with a little white pepper and salt, and coloured with a little pimentón. Then whole clams (almejas) are added, and when they open, the langostinos are returned to the pan, fried for 2-3 minutes at most and served. (I am indebted to the kitchen of the Hostal Miami in San Carlos for the skeleton recipes; the proportions are, of course, their secret.)
In the US, which eats more shrimp than any other seafood, there are three important species. The Northern shrimp, the American name for Pandalus borealis, is found in northern off-shore waters of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Southern shrimp, from south-eastern and Gulf state waters, is of roughly the same size as the Northern shrimp. The North Pacific shrimp which is caught from California to Alaska, is much smaller. However, huge quantities of shrimp are imported from all over the world. The largest come from Pakistan and Ecuador, some of them 60 g (over 2 oz) each, and there are small shrimps from Denmark and Holland. Newer methods of flash-freezing shrimps individually have greatly improved quality, but the best seafood in America, as elsewhere, is found on the coasts, where local shrimps with local names, are cooked in traditional ways.
Shrimps and their relatives are very popular in most regions of the world. For example, in Japan, prawns are eaten in dozens of ways, as you might expect in a country that makes so much use of food from the sea. Famous species are the large Penaeus japonicus (20 cm or 8 in long), the common Japanese prawn, and equally large Penaeus nipponensis, the Japanese Red prawn. The strangest way the Japanese eat prawns is alive – as Europeans and Americans do oysters. In a ritual called odori (dance), the living prawn is beheaded, shelled and gutted so rapidly that the diner can pop it still moving into his mouth. As the other end of the freshness scale, there are preparations of pounded and dried rotten prawns and shrimps used particularly in the cooking of South East Asia. The best known is *trasi, from Indonesia.
[Brown shrimp – French: crevette grise German: Garnele, Krabbe Italian: gamberetto grigio Spanish: quisquilla gris.
Common prawn – French: crevette rose, bouquet German: Sägegarnele Italian: gamberello Spanish: camarón, gamba.
Deepwater shrimp – French: crevette nordique German: Tiefseegarnele.
Aristeomorpha foliacea – French: crevette rouge Italian: gambero rosso Spanish: langostino moruno.
Parapenaeus longirostris – French: crevette rose du large Italian: gambero rosa Spanish: gamba.
Penaeus kerathurus – French: caramote, grosse crevette Italian: mazzacolla, gambero imperiale Spanish: langostino]
SHUNGIKU. See chrysanthemum greens.
SIERRA. See snoek
SIEVA BEAN. See butter bean.
SIFTING. Putting through a sieve to take out lumps or coarse particles, but also a method of mixing (sifting together) and of getting air into flour for lightness.
[Sifting – French: tamiser, passer au crible, sasser German: durchsieben Italian: stacciare Spanish: cerner]
SILVER (Ag) does not appear to be regarded by anyone as an essential trace metal in the diet. Like most metallic salts, those of silver are poisonous in any quantity. Silver is also very poisonous to micro organisms; drinking water used to be kept for preference in silver jugs (which helped to purify it, although the reason was unknown). Modern filters of porous material used for purifying water are often impregnated with colloidal silver, which eliminates the need for periodic heat sterilization – otherwise the bacteria live in the pores of the filter and gradually get pushed through like fat men through a maze, but the silver kills them.
Silver is the best of all conductors of electricity better than copper – and is a good conductor of heat, but it is soft unless mixed in alloy with other metals. It stands up well to ordinary kitchen acids but is easily tarnished by anything containing sulphur, silver spoons go brown if they touch egg, and silver-lined pans should not be used for omelettes. However, silver looks beautiful on an elegant table, and silver-covered copper (Sheffield plate) serving dishes and chafing dishes are the best of all, combining beauty with conductivity. Silver-lined copper pans for making crêpes and for flambés can be bought in specialist shops. Tinners will sometimes line pans with silver. The result is not much more expensive but is a lot longer lasting than tin.
[Silver – French: argent German: Silber Italian: argento Spanish: plata]
SIMMERING is cooking just below boiling point, with the liquid just trembling. In the old days, this meant pushing the pan to the side of the stove; with gas and electricity, it is often more difficult. The usual simmering temperature is 96-98°C (205-209°F), but for meat a somewhat lower temperature of 82-87°C (180-189°F) is often recommended. However, the temperatures used in simmering are not precise – that of boiling water is easily recognizable and simmering is just below it. The temperatures are not directly related to those needed to coagulate proteins, kill harmful organisms, or soften tissues. It is likely that cooks who use thermometers can make considerable improvements in their cooking by using lower simmering temperatures than they would otherwise do.
[Simmering – French: boullir lentement German: Iangsam kochen Italian: sobbollire Spanish: hervir a fuego Iento]
SINGEING quickly with a flame such as that from a spirit lamp is used after plucking to remove the last traces of feathers from poultry.
SKATE. See shark.
SKIM MILK or skimmed milk is *milk after the cream has been skimmed off, but today is more often milk in which the cream has been removed in a separator. It can be bought in most countries and is much used by people on a low calorie diet.
[Skim milk – French: Iait écrémé German: entrahmte Milch Italian: latte scremato Spanish: leche desnatada]
SKIMMING is removing scum, fat or froth from the surface of a liquid. Scum is usually most easily removed with a perforated spoon; solid fat can be taken off when the liquid is cold (but there are also gadgets- separating spoons -to help separate liquid fat and water).The last vestiges of fat may be removed by applying kitchen paper or blotting paper to the surface.
[Skimming – French: écumer, écrémer German: abschäumen Italian: schiumare Spanish: desnatar]
SKINNING. See drawing.
SKIPJACK. See bonito.
SLIVOVITZ
. See fruit brandy.
SLOE is the fruit of the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), a relative of the plum that grows wild all over Europe. lts equivalent in the US is the wild plum (Prunus americana). Sloes look like tiny, spherical plums and have a heavy bloom, which makes them appear blue, although the skin is purple to black when this is rubbed off. The pulp of the fruit is greenish. Even if the sloes are left on the tree until late in the autumn, they never get sweet and are always astringent. Sloes are sometimes used in apple jelly and in dishes with apples to which the sloes add a punch, but their most important use is in sloe gin.
For this, sloes should be gathered in late autumn, pricked or crushed (together with a few of the stones) and put into bottles, which are then filled up with gin. After corking and leaving for a few months, decant the liquid and sweeten it to taste. Sloe gin is a particularly English drink, which was very popular in Victorian times. Recipes abound – several of my aunts kept recipe books which seemed to have contained recipes for little else – but all are essentially the same. Made with 95% pure grape spirit (a method used in Italy), it is even better and becomes very bracing indeed – it might perhaps be called sloe vodka. The lovely dark red colour comes from the skins of the sloes. The French liqueur prunelle is also flavoured with sloes.
[Sloe – French: prunelle German: Schlehe Italian: prugnola, pruna selvatica Spanish: endrino]
SMETANA. A thick, rich sour-cream product, which is basically made by adding a quantity of sweet double cream to sour cream. It is altogether a different product in its native Russia to the smetana sold in British supermarkets, which is more like a thick buttermilk.