The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season. Richard Olney
for preparing fish and often useful for cutting poultry.
Nothing can replace heavy tinned COPPERWARE in a kitchen, and certain preparations can never be successfully realized without it. But note that copper should not be used on electric stove tops. The best—that made for professional use—has heavy iron handles. The brass-handled articles are always lighter in weight and comparatively more expensive. A good selection would be: a sauteuse (sometimes called plat à sauter), a saucepan with low, straight sides, large enough to hold a cut-up chicken at ease (approximately 12 inches in diameter); a sautoir—to confuse things, this is sometimes also called a sauteuse (slanting sides, higher than a sauteuse), somewhat smaller; at least four more saucepans (casseroles) of varying sizes; and an oval cocotte with a tight-fitting lid, large enough to contain a trussed chicken. Copper is not difficult to clean (in any case it is the substance itself, and not its exterior appearance, that renders it useful). When copper utensils are rubbed on the outside with an abrasive cleaning pad and scouring powder each time they are washed, they retain their clean, mat copper color—it is only when copper is not used regularly that it becomes tarnished and unsightly. There are copper-cleaning products on the market that work rapidly and easily and do no harm to the utensils; for those interested, a home recipe, a paste made of a couple of cups of marble dust, an egg white, about ¾ cup of flour, ⅓ cup vinegar, and a handful of salt, may be prepared and kept indefinitely in a sealed container. Copper occasionally must be retinned, although for rapid sautés tinning that has gone thin will do no harm. When a copper pot contains liquids, the flame may be quite high, but for frying or sautéing the heat must not be too intense or the tin will melt.
Though many serious cooks are able to do without EARTHENWARE, and even disapprove of it on the grounds that it retains odors, I find it indispensable, particularly for the many rustic dishes that require many hours of slow, even cooking. These dishes are never quite so good prepared in anything else, for no other material takes the heat and holds the heat in quite the same way. Over a gas flame, earthenware should always be protected by an asbestos or other insulating pad. New earthenware should be rubbed inside and out with garlic, filled with water and left to boil for several hours. Earthen poêlons, low, wide, and round in form, with bulging sides, find many uses, and an oval cocotte of 4-to-5-quart capacity with a closely fitting lid is particularly valuable.
Although hardly an article of daily use, a FISH COOKER (poissonière) and its accompanying TRIVET are essential to poach and properly present a large fish. It may be used as well for braising whole fish, whole stuffed rabbits, hares, etc. It need not be of copper.
A large IRON SKILLET is useful, and heavy steel OMELET and CRÊPE PANS (the latter have very low, sharply slanting sides) are indispensable. When new, these should be seasoned by heating cooking oil in them over an intense heat until the metal darkens and turns bluish in color, then emptied and wiped with a dry cloth. Omelet and crêpe pans may be used interchangeably or for semi-deep-frys or any other preparation that involves no addition of liquid and does not risk sticking to the pan. After use, they should be wiped out with a dry cloth—never washed. Nothing will stick to them if they are properly treated, but should they suffer mistreatment, wash them in warm soapy water with an abrasive pad or fine steel wool, rinse well, dry them with a cloth, then heat over a high flame and rub well with an oiled cloth.
Aluminum is all right for boiling water but will discolor certain vegetables—celeriac and artichoke hearts for instance—whereas stainless steel does not. Heavy CAST-IRON ENAMELWARE is very serviceable but should never be used for sautéing or frying, for the surface does not allow the proper kind of caramelization. Terrines, oven casseroles and gratin dishes of enameled ironware are good, although porcelain or earthenware are more attractive. Nothing is more practical than a marmite or pot-au-feu in this material. A 10- or 12-quart vessel of this sort is necessary and a smaller one useful.
One should have WOODEN BOARDS cut to the dimensions of those terrines destined to be used for pâtés, so that the pâtés can cool under a weighted board.
Two MARBLE MORTARS, one with an interior diameter of approximately 12 inches for pounding forcemeats, and one about half that size which serves multiple purposes (reducing dried herbs to powder, making bread crumbs rapidly, preparing stuffings and forcemeats in small quantity, etc.). The pestle for the larger one has, classically, a head on either end.
Also essential are:
WOODEN SPOONS and WOODEN PESTLES, one of which, the champignon (mushroom-shaped), is particularly useful, for its form fits exactly to that of a rounded screen sieve.
Several SCREEN SIEVES (passoires) of different dimensions, rounded and conical (the latter are called chinois) and NYLON DRUM SIEVES (tamis). These sieves were formerly woven of horsehair, but nylon is better, because horsehair had a tendency to shed fragments into the food. Nylon drum sieves are useful for passing raspberries and other acid fruits that suffer from contact with metal, and are essential for the passing of fine forcemeats. A FLEXIBLE, OVAL PLASTIC DISK (corne, so called because in the past it was made of horn), about five inches across (to be held between the thumb and the four fingers and scraped firmly and flatly against the sieve) is needed for passing material through a drum sieve—pestles are not only ineffectual but hard on the sieve.
WIRE WHISKS for sauces and beating egg whites, and an UNTINNED COPPER BASIN, in which egg whites mount more firmly and with greater volume.
A VEGETABLE MILL (moulinette) for passing soups, puréeing vegetables, and making rough purées to facilitate their final passage through the tamis, and a mouli-julienne, a small, simple and miraculous machine with several changeable blades for reducing raw vegetables into anything from thread-sized julienne strips to fine slices. It may also be used for grating cheese.
A MEAT-GRINDER.
A selection of MOLDS including SAVARIN (a low, round mold with a thick central tube), JELLY (small, high mold, generally with a geometric surface décor and a narrow central tube), CHARLOTTE (a simple round, flat-bottomed mold, the bottom of which is slightly smaller in circumference than the top), and DOME (or, lacking that, a ROUND-BOTTOMED, TIN-LINED METAL BOWL, cul de poule, designed for pastry cooks).
A LARGE WIRE SKIMMING SPOON (araignée), useful for lifting anything out of liquid and better than a wire basket for deep frying, for not only does the basket take up needed space in the frying basin, but articles dipped in batter often stick to it and their browned surfaces are torn open in turning them.
NEEDLES for sewing up stuffed and/or boned fowl, rabbits, fish, etc.: one straight needle about five inches long and a curved upholsterer’s needle; a LARDING NEEDLE for larding surfaces with strips of fresh fat pork.
A ROUND WIRE GRILL for steamed vegetables and WIRE PASTRY GRILLS.
Manche à gigot, a handle designed to be screwed or clamped onto the leg bone of a leg of lamb (or venison). Without it, a leg of lamb cannot be correctly carved at table.
A MARBLE SLAB for rolling out pastry