Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (77 page)

3 whole eggs and one yolk

salt, to taste

Once the water is boiling, pour all the flour in at once and begin stirring immediately. Add the butter, and keep over the flame for 10 minutes, stirring continuously. The dough should come out firm; stretch it out to the thickness of a finger and grind in a mortar with an egg to soften it somewhat. Once this is done, put it in a bowl and work it with a wooden spoon. Add the other eggs one at a time, beating until the whites are stiff. don’t stop mixing until it is the consistency of a smooth paste. Let sit for a couple of hours, and then drop by tablespoonfuls (there should be between ten and twelve) onto a baking pan greased with butter. Beat an egg yolk with a little bit of the white to make it more liquid and brush this on the beignets (this last step isn’t really necessary), and then put in a nice hot oven. When they’re done, use a pen knife to make a slit on one side, or a half circle on the bottom, so that you can fill them with pastry cream or fruit preserves; sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar, and serve.

Remember that when you’re mixing doughs that are supposed to puff up when baked, you should move the wooden spoon up and down rather than stirring in circles.

This is a sweet, or rather an amusing treat local to Tuscany, where it can be found at all the country fairs and festivals. You can see it being cooked in the open air in waffle irons.

2 eggs

120 grams (about 4-1/4 ounces) of sugar

10 grams (about 1 ounce) of aniseed

a pinch of salt

flour, as much as needed

Prepare a rather firm dough, kneading it on a pastry board, and shape into nut-sized nuggets which you will place in a waffle iron at an appropriate distance from one another. Turn the iron this way and that over a wood fire, and remove when brown.

Should you ever have some leftover egg whites, you can use them to make the following dessert, which generally turns out well.

8 or 9 egg whites

300 grams (about 10-1/2 ounces) of Hungarian flour

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of confectioners’ sugar

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of butter

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of small sultanas

10 grams (about 1/3 of an ounce) of cream of tartar

5 grams (about 1/5 of an ounce) of baking soda

a dash of vanilla sugar

Beat the egg whites until stiff, and then fold in the flour and the sugar; mix and then add the melted butter. When the mixture is thoroughly blended, add the cream of tartar and the baking powder, and lastly the sultanas.

Pour the mixture into a baking pan greased with butter and dusted with confectioners’ sugar and flour. The cake should rise to a height of at least two fingers. Bake in the oven or a Dutch oven, and serve cold.

Mistress Wood, an amiable English lady, offered me tea with cookies she had made with her own hands, and had the courtesy, rarely found in pretentious chefs, of giving me the recipe for them. I shall now describe it for you, having first tested it personally.

440 grams (about 15-1/2 ounces) of Hungarian or extra fine flour

160 grams (about 5-2/3 ounces) of potato flour

160 grams (about 5-2/3 ounces) of confectioners’ sugar

160 grams (about 5-2/3 ounces) of butter

2 egg whites

lukewarm milk, as needed

Mix the two types of flour and the sugar, and place the mixture in a mound on the pastry board. Make a hole in the middle of the mound, and drop in it the egg whites and butter (in small pats). Then first with a knife blade and later with your hands, blend the ingredients until you have a rather soft dough. Roll out the dough with the rolling pin in a sheet as thick as a large coin. Cut into disks like the ones described in recipe 7, poke little holes in them with a fork, and bake in a baking pan greased in butter in the oven or a Dutch oven.

Even half this recipe will yield a good number of cookies.

These tea cookies are taken from a Parisian recipe.

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of butter

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of white confectioners’ sugar

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of Hungarian flour

1 egg white

Put the butter as is into a bowl, and begin to soften it with a wooden spoon. Then add the sugar, next the flour, and lastly the egg white, stirring all the while to blend the ingredients into a smooth dough. Place it in a pastry tube with an attachment having a 1 centimeter (about 1/2 an inch) round or square opening at the narrow end. Now squeeze out the dough onto a baking pan lightly greased with butter, forming finger-length segments. Keep them well apart, because they spread out as they melt. Bake in a Dutch oven at a moderate temperature. This recipe should yield about fifty cookies.

Sand cake is another German sweet, and it sports this name because it crumbles like sand in the mouth. Consequently, it is generally served with tea, which makes it taste better.

Don’t panic when you learn that it takes two hours of uninterrupted labor to make this pastry, and that you must make sure to work in a draft-free area of the kitchen and to turn the mixing spoon always in the same direction. Women, who are naturally patient, particularly those who take pleasure in whipping up desserts, are not put off by this, particularly if they have a second person’s stout arms to assist them.

185 grams (about 6-1/2 ounces) of fresh butter

185 grams (about 6-1/2 ounces) of confectioners’ sugar

125 grams (about 4-1/2 ounces) of rice flour

125 grams (about 4-1/2 ounces) of starch flour

60 grams (about 2 ounces) of potato flour

4 eggs

the juice of 1/4 lemon

1 tablespoon of cognac

1 teaspoon of baking soda

a dash of vanilla

Starch flour is simply ordinary starch ground up into a fine powder.

First beat the butter by itself, then add the egg yolks one at a time, stirring always in the same direction. Now mix in the sugar, then the cognac and the lemon juice, next the flours, and lastly the baking soda and the egg whites (beaten stiff). But add two tablespoons of the latter first to soften the dough, then slowly fold in the remainder. Put the mixture into an adequate-sized baking pan greased with butter and dusted with confectioners’ sugar and flour. Bake in an oven or Dutch oven at a moderate heat for an hour or until done.

Not to boast unduly, but to amuse the reader and satisfy the wish of an anonymous admirer, I here publish the following letter, which reached me on July 14, 1906 from Portoferraio, as I was correcting the galley proofs of the 10th edition of this cookbook.

Esteemed Mr. Artusi,

A poet gave me as a gift your lovely book
La scienza in cucina
, adding a few lines of verse, which I transcribe below. Perhaps they may be of use if you print another edition, which I hope you will do in the very near future.

Delia salute è questo il breviario,
L’apoteosi è qui delta papilla:
L’uom mercè sua può viver centenario
Centellando la vita a stilla a stilla.
Il solo gaudio uman (gli altri son giuochi)
Dio lo commmise alia virtù de’ cuochi;
Onde sè stesso ogni infelice accusi
Che non ha in casa il libro dell’Artusi;
E died volte un asino si chiami
Se a mente non ne sa tutti i dettami.
                                      Un ammiratore

(This little manual is about health and well-being,
a true apotheosis of the taste buds,
Thanks to which a man can live a hundred years
Sipping life to the fullest drop by drop.
The only joy people have (the rest are a mockery)
God entrusted to the talent of cooks;
So that you have only yourself to blame
If you do not have
Artusi
on your shelves;
And you should call yourself an ass ten times over
If you have not learnt his precepts by heart.
                                                             An Admirer)

140 grams (about 5 ounces) of shelled walnuts

140 grams (about 5 ounces) of confectioners’ sugar

140 grams (about 5 ounces) of chocolate, powdered or grated

20 grams (about
2/3
of an ounce) of candied citron

4eggs

a dash of vanilla sugar

Grind the nuts and the sugar in a mortar until fine, then put in a bowl and mix in the chocolate, vanilla sugar, and eggs, first adding the yolks and the whites, beaten until stiff. Lastly stir in the candied citron, chopped up very fine.

Take a baking pan large enough for the finished dessert to be no more than two fingers high, grease it with butter, and coat with bread crumbs. Bake in the oven or a Dutch oven at moderate temperature. My dinner guests have found this cake to be delicious.

1 liter (about I quart) of milk

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of rice

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of sugar

100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces) of sweet almonds and 4 bitter almonds

30 grams (about 1 ounce) of candied citron

3 whole eggs

5egg yolkslemon zest

a pinch of salt

Blanch the almonds and grind them in a mortar with two tablespoons of the sugar.

Dice the candied citron very small.

Cook the rice in milk, leaving it rather firm, and then add the flavorings. When cooled, fold in the eggs. Place the mixture in a baking pan greased with butter and dusted with bread crumbs. Cook until firm in a warm oven or in a Dutch oven with fire above and below. The next day cut the cake into lozenge shapes, and only when you are about to serve it sprinkle confectioners’ sugar on top.

This cake will turn out very similar in taste to the ricotta pudding described in recipe 663, but much more refined. It is the cake traditionally served at peasant weddings in Romagna, and is superior to many of the prettified desserts prepared by professional pastry chefs.

500 grams (about 1 pound) of ricotta cheese

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of sugar

150 grams (about 5-1/4 ounces) of sweet almonds

4 or 5 bitter almonds

4 whole eggs

4 egg yolks

a dash of vanilla

This dessert is prepared like the pudding described in recipe 663. But it is a good idea to pass through a wire strainer the mixture you have made by grinding the almonds with an egg white in a mortar. Generously grease a baking dish with lard and line it with a sheet of “crazy dough” (recipe 153). Then pour in the mixture, making a layer one and a half fingers deep, and bake in the oven or in a Dutch oven with fire above and below. I recommend very moderate heat, and the additional safeguard of covering the mixture with a sheet of paper greased with butter: the beauty of the cake depends on its turning out white when baked. Once completely cooled, cut it into lozenge shapes in such a way that under every piece there is a wafer of crazy dough,
which may be eaten or not, according to taste, as the crazy dough is used here simply as an embellishment and for tidiness’ sake.