Len Deighton’s French Cooking for Men: 50 Classic Cookstrips for Today’s Action Men. Len Deighton
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too expensive, and veal fat goes bad too quickly. The technique depends upon the temperature being kept high but never so high that the fat burns. (A thermostat-controlled pan is valuable for deep-frying.) Use a large pan with plenty of fat in it and don’t cram the food in. If you drop a large piece of food into a small pan of fat the temperature will drop. So keep the pieces of food small and of the same size. You must cook the centre before the outside goes dark and overdone.
Since the fat will be well above the boiling point of water any water inside deep-fried food will boil and then turn to steam. For instance, the water inside a potato chip will steam-cook the inside and then bubble up through the fat. This expanding steam keeps the fat at bay; if it didn’t the fat would invade the food and make it greasy and unpleasant. The raw piece of potato must be carefully dried or else so many bubbles of steam will come up that the fat will spill over the side of the pan. Also any water on the potato will be cold; it will lower the temperature of the fat. So the two basic rules are: keep the fat hot and the food dry.
The moisture inside a piece of potato is water, so it doesn’t matter if it escapes into the fat, but the moisture inside meat is juice which will burn if it escapes into the very hot fat. In any case we can’t afford to lose that juice. The answer is to create a barrier that will keep the juice inside. Flour makes a good barrier and if you dip the food (e.g. fish) into milk first it will help the flour cling. This coating is called fariner.
A more complex coating – paner à l’anglaise – is a dip into flour, then beaten egg, and after that tiny breadcrumbs are pressed on to the food. This is often used with fish and liver.
Perhaps the best barrier of all, especially for fragile foods or juicy foods like raw meat, is a simple batter (use recipe on page, but make it a little thicker so it’s like heavy cream).
As I have said, in France food is either sautéed with an absolute minimum of fat or deep-fried. A fried egg would be deep-fried in France. If you want to do deep-fat frying – and it’s by no means essential – then it will cost you time, trouble and money. Keep the pan clean and the fat filtered through a cloth between each batch of cooking. Store the fat in the cool when it’s not in use. Darkened oil has been used enough – throw it away. Fat that has been burned must be thrown away.
Still not discouraged? Then here’s some last advice. Deep-fried food tastes best if served immediately after cooking. Put it on hot plates and don’t put a lid over it because the hot air trapped around the food will make the crisp coating go limp. Absorbent paper will remove excess fat from the surface of the food before it goes to the table.
Those first four methods of cookery are suited to meat that will be served with its centre underdone (i.e. first-quality cuts and finely chopped meat). The following cooking methods are for cheaper cuts that will be served cooked right through.
VERY MOIST HEAT
In English cookery there is a method of cooking meat called ‘pot-roasting’. Its equivalent in French cooking is braising. A piece of meat is put inside a close-fitting pot with a heavy lid (the lid has no air vent). Little or no moisture is added but usually there are some vegetables. Heat is applied to the pot by any means you like; this causes the moisture inside the raw food to heat up and this cooks the food. If you are applying heat from underneath the pot you will have to turn the contents over every half an hour because the food will be hotter at the bottom. So it’s easier to put the whole pot inside an oven where there’s no need to turn the contents over because the heat is all around the pot. Whatever sort of heat you apply it will have to be gentle or else you will dry up all the moisture in the food and burn it. (Originally the pot had hot ashes and charcoal heaped upon it.) Pot-roasted joints are usually cheaper foods, such as boiling-chicken or the cheaper cuts of beef which are eaten well cooked. For best results keep the oven temperature very low, i.e. not above 300ºF. (150ºC.), and allow a long cooking time.
Most cooks put a large knob of fat into the pot and fry the outside of the meat to make it brown before beginning to cook it. A few large chunks of onion or carrot provide extra moisture and extra flavour. For a more complex addition try the mirepoix described on pages. The French cook will always be very attentive when cooking in this way. He looks into the pot and dribbles a spoonful of stock over the meat. The meat must never stand in a pool of water or stock, it must be moist enough and hot enough to make its own steam. Maximum amount of basting with the minimum amount of liquid is the rule. See pages, and, for vegetables braised, pages.
Another way of using this same technique is to wrap a piece of food in heavy paper (or the transparent plastic ‘roasting bag’) and put it into a gentle oven. This food too cooks in its own moist heat. This is called cooking en papillotes and is described on pages.
STEWING
This is cooking done by circulating liquid. The liquid circulates because the pot is standing upon heat which causes the heated water to rise, move around, and cook the whole thing evenly by convection. Usually the food is cut into pieces because that speeds the process and releases more flavour into the liquid. (In this cooking method it doesn’t matter if flavour escapes from the meat.) Sometimes the meat is left in one large piece but as long as the liquid is free to circulate, it’s a stew. Fricassée, pages, is a stew. A heavy thickened mixture in which the liquid does not circulate is not a stew, it is braising and should be cooked in the oven. Stews can be solely protein foods, e.g. chicken, beef, fish, or veal, or can have vegetables such as carrots, potato, and onion added to them during the last part of the cooking time so it will all be ready together. In any case stews must be cooked slowly and gently – faire cuire doucement – and never be allowed to boil or bubble. About 180ºF. is ideal. Keep meat pieces equal size then they’ll all take the same time to cook. Total weight of meat used makes no difference, it’s the size of the cubes that counts. Leg of beef, the cheapest cut there is, will need about four hours; chuck steak, a medium-price cut, a little over two hours. The cheaper cut will be better flavoured and the streaks of connective tissue, which look horrible when you are cutting it up, will dissolve with long cooking and become a rich gravy. This body or texture – du corps – of the stew is a sign of a cook’s skill. Some cooks try to get it by artificial means, e.g. stirring in a little flour or a little potato that goes mashy. That’s terrible, try to avoid it. Get the texture by ingredients. For extra body add something that will give you texture, e.g. veal knuckle, pig’s foot, chicken feet, tripe, or oxtail, then discard it before serving.
It’s usual to add some flavouring matter to the stew liquid; onion, garlic, herbs, bacon, or ham. If you fry such items in olive oil the heat will bring out the flavour and the oil will add one of its own.* For a stronger flavour, part of the liquid is sometimes replaced by wine. Sometimes the cook is only concerned with the flavour of the liquid, intending to discard the meat finally and use only the stock. If you compare pages ref1 and ref2 you will see that the only difference between the finest way of making stock and the classic