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Hound the Table

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hound the Table

Ingredients

Directions

  1. gratin, and this has the advantage that it may be applied to the remains of cauliflowers served at the dinner of the day before. This is the simplest form of it : Dispose the pieces of cauliflowers on a dish, pour a good supply of liquefied butter over them, and plenty of grated Parmesan cheese, with a judicious admixture of powdered white pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Put the dish into the oven for a few minutes, or brown with a red-hot salamander, and then serve.

  2. Here are other modes of proceeding : Rub the dish

  3. very slightly with garlic or shallot, mould your cauli- flowers in a basin, and pour over them — before turning them out — some melted butter, into which you have dissolved a good allowance of Parmesan cheese ; turn them out on the dish, strew plentifully with grated Par- mesan, a few baked bread crumbs, pepper and salt quant, sujf., pouring the remainder of the sauce over ; brown and serve.

  4. Instead of moulding the cauliflowers : dip each piece in the sauce and dispose them flat on the dish, filling up the interstices with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese in equal parts; add pepper and salt according to taste; brown, and serve.

  5. The great thing to be avoided is not to make these preparations too dry, and yet there should not be over much butter. The browning must be carefully done, so as to produce a surface of a uniform golden colour — not in patches, some burnt black, and others not browned at all.

  6. To those who may object to cheese, I can recommend the following recipe, which has great merit of its own :

  7. Dispose your pieces of boiled cauliflower upon a dish well rubbed with garlic ; over them strew a mixture of bread crumbs and anchovies, capers and olives minced fine.

  8. VEGETABLES.

  9. pepper ancl salt; over all pour a judicious quantity of fine salad oil ; bake for about ten minutes, and serve.

  10. Vegetable makrows plainly boiled first, as well as celery, and even seakale if you cboose, can be dressed according to tbe forms above given for cauliflowers — indeed, one of them, ciu cjratin, suits most vegetables.

  11. Lettuce and endive are often served in a cooked form on tbe continent; and, altbougb I think that, unless made into a puree, their proper place is in a salad, I will desci’ibe the way to cook them.

  12. Remove all or most of the green leaves, and parboil your endives in fast boiling water, containing a sufficient quantity of salt, till they are quite limp. Take them out and throw them into cold water, then drain and wipe them dry in a cloth. Now mince them moderately small, and finish cooking them in a saucepan containing some butter, a little flour, pepper, and nutmeg according to taste. The saucepan may be previously rubbed with garlic ; and in the process of cooking they should be moistened with a little stock or broth, or even water. In this latter case a liaison — i.e., the yolk of an egg, with a squeeze of lemon — may be stirred in at the time of serving.

  13. This is another way : Having thoroughly picked and cleansed the endives tie them up with string, and parboil them as described above ; then line a saucepan with slices of bacon, lay your endives on this, with a small bundle of sweet herbs, onions, &c., and pepper and other spices to taste ; moisten with stock, and when they are quite done dispose them neatly upon a dish — having removed the strings — and serve with a Spanish sauce over them, or a sauce made from the liquor left in the sauce- pan, well freed from superfluous fat.

  14. A well made farce, or simply some sausago meat, may

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

18Calories
0 gProtein
1 gFat
3 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

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