Last month, a neighbour lent me her school cookery book from the 1950s. It is a wonderful guide to the basics of French cooking, and contains dozens of recipes that should be preserved for posterity.
The book builds on previous recipes, assuming that students will work their way through from start to finish. Flipping through, the recipe for friands caught my eye - it requires a portion of puff pastry (covered earlier in the book), some ham, and a half portion of mornay sauce (also covered in a previous chapter). Later in the book, basic preparations for preserves, tarts, pâtés, and stews all build on the skills learned earlier.
To cook your way through the book, from start to finish, is to get an education in traditional French home cooking. Unfortunately, I won't have access to the book for long enough to copy it out - and translate it - in full. I do, however, have time to present some of the greatest hits in the form of forgotten classics.
1 egg
60g butter, softened
60g sugar
75g plain flour
30g dried raisins
1 tbsp rum
1. Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.
2. Macerate the raisins in the rum.
3. Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and mix well.
4. Sieve the flour into the mix and fold it in with a metal spoon. Once the flour is incorporated, fold in the raisins and any remaining rum.
5. Put teaspoons of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet and bake for around 7 minutes. They are cooked when the tops are a pale gold and the edges are crisp and brown.
The book builds on previous recipes, assuming that students will work their way through from start to finish. Flipping through, the recipe for friands caught my eye - it requires a portion of puff pastry (covered earlier in the book), some ham, and a half portion of mornay sauce (also covered in a previous chapter). Later in the book, basic preparations for preserves, tarts, pâtés, and stews all build on the skills learned earlier.
To cook your way through the book, from start to finish, is to get an education in traditional French home cooking. Unfortunately, I won't have access to the book for long enough to copy it out - and translate it - in full. I do, however, have time to present some of the greatest hits in the form of forgotten classics.
1 egg
60g butter, softened
60g sugar
75g plain flour
30g dried raisins
1 tbsp rum
1. Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.
2. Macerate the raisins in the rum.
3. Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and mix well.
4. Sieve the flour into the mix and fold it in with a metal spoon. Once the flour is incorporated, fold in the raisins and any remaining rum.
5. Put teaspoons of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet and bake for around 7 minutes. They are cooked when the tops are a pale gold and the edges are crisp and brown.
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