Dining at Downton: Gilded crust (pain perdu)

When I took French in middle school and high school, I particularly loved the words that had both literal and figurative meanings. "Petit chou," you might call your sweetheart, meaning..."little cabbage." "Pomme de terre" was on the list of grocery store vocabulary as the humble potato, but literally it meant "apple of the earth." For someone who was beginning to love language, these little linguistic treats made French class that much more fun. (Also, we learned a lot of food words in those first few years. There may or may not have been an epic project where we created a grocery store and bought and sold paper fruits and veggies entirely in broken French. Ah, good times.)

Pain perdu was another one of those phrases that utterly delighted me. Although it refers to something akin to French toast, it literally means "lost bread." This most likely references the stale pieces of bread that would otherwise be thrown away, were they not soaked in milk and egg and fried to perfection. But it's a phrase rich with linguistic possibility, making me think, nonsensically, of orphaned pieces of toast, or bread condemned to purgatory.

(Random, yes. Sometimes that's just where your mind goes.)

While the best way to describe pain perdu is as French toast, in reality it's a little different. After soaking slices of stale bread in sugary, vanilla-perfumed milk, you then dip it in a bath of sugared, beaten eggs, after which you fry them in a hot pan. Then you sprinkle with sugar and serve as dessert after a meal. At least, this is how Auguste Escoffier, author of the Bible of French cooking around the turn of the century, described it. As a result, the Crawley family most likely would have followed his advice and eaten this dish after luncheon or a light supper instead of at breakfast.

Weird, right? I can't wrap my mind around the idea of eating French toast after dinner. And really, maybe that's the true reason we call it pain perdu--it's lost in the confusion of meals, being served at the wrong time of day. Because if you live at Downton Abbey, you can do whatever the heck you want.

Whenever you eat this "gilded crust," however (I went rogue and ate it for breakfast), it's delicious: light and crisp, perfumed with vanilla and dusted with sugar. And dipping the bread twice, first in milk and then in egg, adds a subtle dimension missing from plain old French toast. They sure knew what they were doing in the Downton kitchen.


Gilded Crust (Pain Perdu)
(adapted from The Escoffier Cookbook)

2 slices stale bread
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp sugar, divided, plus more for dusting
1 egg, beaten
butter, for frying

In one bowl, mix the milk, vanilla, and 1 tsp sugar together until blended. In another bowl, mix the beaten egg and the other tsp sugar until blended. Set a frying pan over medium-high heat and melt the butter. The pan will be ready when the butter is sizzling and a few droplets of water flung in the pan evaporate with a hiss. Just before you're ready to cook, dip the bread in the milk mixture, drain, and dip in the egg mixture and drain. Fry in the skillet until one side is brown, then flip and brown the other side. Drain on a plate and sprinkle with a bit more sugar. Serve with fruit whenever you darn well please.

Dining at Downton: How to serve plum pudding

We had a relatively quiet Christmas here in Ohio, seeing family and telling funny stories and going for long, snowy walks and eating good food. As per tradition, we served plum pudding for dessert on Christmas night, along with a lot of other treats (frosted cookies, red velvet cake, petit fours...). We don't mess around with dessert.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the serving of plum pudding is half the fun. Once you've steamed the pudding so it's nice and hot (2 hours at 350 degrees, back in the mold and the double boiler you set up to cook it the first time), you turn the pudding out into a heat-resistant dish. Heat up a little brandy on the stove, pour it evenly over the pudding, and hold a lit match close to the pudding. The fumes from the brandy should pick the flame right up and set the whole pudding alight. In a darkened room with all the family sitting around a candle-lit table, there's nothing quite like it: blue flames dancing around the dish, creating a magical feeling.

Unfortunately, our evening did not go exactly according to plan.

The brandy we ended up using was just too old, so the flames died out almost immediately. Here is the only picture we could get of bringing the pudding to the table--if you look closely, you might see the blue flames as they dwindled to nothing.

That doesn't mean the pudding wasn't delicious, though! The days it spent ripening in the cold did it good, and the pudding was light and fruity with a citrusy zing. It had a tender, spongy crumb that contrasted well with dabs of rich hard sauce.

If you celebrated the holidays this December, I hope you enjoyed equally delicious food and fun company. (I also hope that your projects went a little more according to plan than mine!)

Previously:

How to make plum pudding

How to steam plum pudding

Dining at Downton: How to steam plum pudding

On Saturday we talked about how to make your own plum pudding, the most classic of British holiday desserts. (Yes, I am still wondering where the plums are in the recipe.) Today we'll discuss the cooking process, which is a rather elaborate steaming method. It requires parchment paper, cooking twine, a water bath, and lots of patience.

My dad was fascinated by the process from start to finish. He's an engineer by trade, and he's the kind of cook who loves the science of the kitchen. He will turn out renditions of his mother's pumpkin pie recipe until he has the ingredient ratio just right (much to my mom's dismay). He will collect recipes for beef bourgignon and combine instructions from each to make the best possible stew. He will then exchange observations on the proper way to brown beef with me over the phone. (He also went to great lengths to find out why the one American manufacturer of plum pudding stopped producing it, which is how I ended up making the pudding in the first place.) Put simply, my dad likes method.

"You should take photos of that!" he said as I removed the steaming pudding from the water bath. "And how did you tie the parchment paper down again?"

As he noted, this is a delicate process. So here are your highly expert instructions, just the way my dad likes them.

Step One
Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Once your pudding is mixed and ready to cook, turn the mixture into a well-greased pudding mold or glass bowl. Remember, a pudding mold looks like a Bundt pan, with a ring in the middle to ensure proper steaming. I got mine at Stock, a lovely little cooking shop that recently opened in Providence.

Step Two
Next, cut a piece of parchment paper to cover the top of the mold. Leave about six inches of overhang on all sides of the mold. Fold the paper twice in the middle to create a slight overlay--this will allow steam to accumulate without tearing the paper.

Step Three
Cover the mold with the parchment paper and use a length of cooking twine to tie the paper to the mold, just below the rim. Trim excess paper.

Step Four
Create a handle for the mold, so you can lift it out of the steam bath. Cut a long length of cooking twine and wrap it around the mold as though wrapping a present, laying the twine flat across the top, bringing it down the sides of the mold and crossing underneath. Bring the twine up to the top again on the empty sides of the mold, and slide the twine underneath the cross line on top of the parchment paper. Tie the ends of the string together to create a looped handle.

Step Five
Pour hot tap water into a large stockpot or Dutch oven (I used the latter) that can accommodate the mold with at least an inch of space on all sides. Fill with water so the oven is about 1/3 full. Place the prepared mold in the Dutch oven and cover the whole thing with the oven lid. Put in the oven to steam for about 3 hours. It will make your house smell like citrus and deliciousness.

Step Six
Periodically check the oven to make sure the water hasn't evaporated completely. You may need to pour in more water. When the pudding pulls away from the sides of the mold (about 3 hours), it's done. Carefully remove from the water bath using the string handle, and lift up the parchment paper to make sure the pudding is ready. Cool in the mold completely before turning out onto a plate.

Step Seven
Now that the pudding has cooked, you can eat it straight away or let it ripen over time. If you choose to let it sit, cover the cooled pudding and store in a cool, dark place (we put it in our 1960s-era bomb shelter) until ready to eat. Pudding will keep for at least five weeks. Be sure to warm it before serving by replacing it in the mold or bowl, then steaming for about 2 hours at 350 F.

The very last segment of this culinary adventure is my favorite: setting the pudding on fire at the table! Check back in a few days for photos of our own flaming pudding. (If you want to serve your own pudding before then, warm a small amount of brandy on the stove, then pour over the warm pudding. Immediately hold a lit match close to the pudding, and the brandy will catch on fire. Bring to the table in a darkened room for maximum effect and applause. Once the flames have died, serve with brandy butter or hard sauce.)

Note: It's possible to steam the pudding with a Crockpot instead of in the oven. See this page for complete instructions.


Works cited: Irish American Mom. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Dining at Downton: How to make plum pudding

This time of year, my family is all about tradition. Previously I wrote about the Brunswick stew we've kept from my mom's side of the family, though I tested out a Williamsburg variation of the recipe. That's still on the menu this year. My sister and I maintain important traditions like decorating the tree while listening to a BBC dramatization of Hercule Poirot's Christmas (because nothing says the holidays like a murder mystery), and she will read the January issue of Vogue on Christmas Eve. Our family is still adjusting to some major changes that took place this year, but we're determined to maintain the key rituals. How else will we know it's Christmas?

Vital to our Christmas Day dinner is the plum pudding. Another hold-over from my mom's side of the family, it draws on our English heritage and recalls the classic Charles Dickens Christmas. If you haven't tried plum pudding before, it's basically a soft cake filled with dried fruit, nuts, and (most importantly) booze. It's so historical that a mention of plum pudding first appeared in 14th-century England. 14th-century! That's 1300. Clearly, England has had plenty of time to perfect the recipe. The "modern" version of plum pudding, complete with dried fruit and suet (beef fat), probably came to England with Prince Albert when he married Queen Victoria in the 19th century.

So the Crawleys definitely would have served this kind of plum pudding at their Christmas feast. Mrs. Patmore would have begun the cooking process five weeks before Christmas, since it's an elaborate pudding (the British term for "dessert") that requires a lot of time and energy. Additionally, it's the kind of dessert that tastes the best when it's been around for a few weeks--that way the dried fruit can absorb the alcohol and the whole pudding gets nice and brandified. The alcohol also gives it a long shelf life, so you just need to let it sit in a cool, dark place. Traditionally, cooks made their puddings on the Sunday right before Advent, known as "Stir Up Sunday." (This is such a tradition that the Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper, published an article a few years ago about how few British citizens make their own puddings now. The horror!)

I am not nearly as well-prepared as Downton's cook, so I made mine on Saturday afternoon. It won't be quite as tasty with only a few days of ripening time, but we'll still enjoy it. You can even make yours the day of. Today you'll read about the preparation process, but I'll save the cooking process for a separate post. (I meant it when I said this was an involved recipe.)

Some notes before we begin:

• You'll need a pudding mold to turn the batter into once it's ready. A pudding mold looks a lot like a Bundt pan, but it's ceramic or glass rather than metal. A Bundt pan, I have been assured, will not work. If you don't have a pudding mold, an oven-safe glass bowl will do the trick.


• I adapted a recipe from a French classic that Mrs. Patmore certainly referred to (what with the Edwardians' obsession with French food). The changes are few but important.


• First, I substituted butter for the suet. I was all set to use actual beef fat, but my mom was hesitant. Butter does just as well.


• Second, I cut the ingredients in half, and it still produced way more batter than I was prepared for. Be sure to have a few glass bowls on hand in case your designated mold is filled too early.

my pudding mold

But don't be scared! Plum pudding just takes some careful preparation, and it's well worth the effort. Think of it as a culinary adventure!


Plum Pudding
(adapted from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire)

1 cup + 2 tbsp butter (or chopped beef suet)
1 cup + 2 tbsp breadcrumbs (I used leftover bread)
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup peeled, chopped apple
2/3 cup mixed raisins and sultanas
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp chopped, crystallized orange peel (I used leftover orangettes)
2 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup stout (I used Guinness)
1/3 cup brandy
juice and zest of 1/4 lemon and 1/4 orange

First:
Soak the raisins and sultanas in the brandy. You can do this overnight or an hour or two before preparing the mixture.

Second:
Prepare all the other ingredients. If using butter, melt over low heat. If using beef suet, chop it up into small pieces.

Mix the flour, breadcrumbs, brown sugar, and spices together in a large bowl. Then add the apple, crystallized orange peel, and citrus zest. Mix well. Finally, add the citrus juice, butter, eggs, and soaked raisins together with the remaining brandy. Add the stout at the very end, and mix until just incorporated.

Third:
Pour the batter into buttered pudding molds or glass bowls, filling until about 2/3 full. Stay tuned for the next post, where we cook the pudding!


Works cited: The Telegraph.

Dining at Downton: Mulled wine

It's getting to be that time when I start glancing at the calendar to see how many days are left. Not before Christmas (though that's another kind of concern) but before the premiere.

Yes, you know. The U.S. premiere of Downton Abbey Season Three.

January 6! That's less than a month away!

Josh and my sister and I can barely contain our excitement. I will probably need to review the first two seasons before that fated day in order for the story to be completely fresh in my mind. This kind of viewing--leisurely, paced, because I already know what happens--calls for something special to spice it up.

I'm talking mulled wine.

This recipe is particularly appropriate for the Downton Christmas special. I can imagine the Crowleys sipping mugs of spiced, mulled wine by the fire while they discuss the punch-up between Matthew and Sir Richard. Perhaps Mary and Matthew warmed themselves up with a tipple after their mutual declarations of love. It's the perfect thing for a cold, blustery evening, even if your winter's night features only British TV dramas and central heating. (I really do appreciate the modern comforts of home.)

I recently brewed a batch of mulled wine for a holiday party, pulling inspiration from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire (a cookbook Mrs. Patmore probably used) as well as from the latest issue of Bon Appetit. The Escoffier recipe is fairly mild, calling for only "zest of 1 lemon, a small piece of cinnamon and mace and 1 clove." I suppose a light hand with the spice makes sense, given the famed Victorian aversion to flavor. Since modern tastes are more adventurous, I added a few more cloves, some tangerines, and orange peel to boot. The result, I think, was well worth the tampering.

Mulled Wine
(adapted heavily from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire and Bon Appetit)

2 750-ml bottles of red wine (it doesn't have to be fancy)
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups apple cider
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tangerines
16 - 20 whole cloves
1 tsp dried orange peel
pomegranate seeds for garnish

Pour the red wine over the sugar in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cider.

While the liquid heats, prepare the tangerines. Press the cloves (by the sharp end) into the tangerines, using about half the cloves for each tangerine. This way you don't have to strain out the cloves later on.

Place the tangerines, cinnamon sticks, and orange peel in the wine mixture. Heat until steaming, then cover and turn the heat down to low. Serve after twenty minutes, garnishing with pomegranate seeds (if using), and keep warm for second (or third!) servings.

History 101: Downton Abbey

While Downton Abbey is purely fiction (in all its soap operatic glory), it's based largely on fact. Julian Fellowes, the creator of the show, is known for writing well-researched films set in earlier days of the British Empire (like Gosford Park, one of my sister's favorite movies). Downton Abbey is no different. That intrigue and scandal is all layered on top of historical fact.

Time Period

The show begins with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and proceeds through the end of World War I, and season 3 will take us into the 1920s. These decades held loads of change for Britain. Until 1900, Britain was the undisputed leader of the Western world, with Queen Victoria at the helm and colonies scattered around the globe. "The sun never sets on the British empire" and all that. Yes, there was a huge gap between rich and poor in England itself, and the aristocracy was struggling to maintain its position at the top of the social ladder, but few Victorians thought things would change in the 20th century.

Edwardian England and World War I

Enter King Edward VII, who came to the throne upon the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901. Here are a few important facts about Edward:

• he enjoyed spending weekends with the landed aristocracy at their country houses (like Downton)
• he enjoyed lavish parties at these country houses
• his nickname was Tum Tum (not really important, but I couldn't resist sharing)

Sure, he was a perfectly fine ruler. But mostly people focused on his love of parties. The aristocracy thought of these years before WWI as a "golden summer" because they modeled their lives after Edward's, spending weekends at shooting parties and eating elaborate 10-course meals. They didn't think much about the working class, who were often so poor and so nutritionally-deprived that they couldn't be drafted into the army. The fact that the working class was beginning to take power in Parliament, through the formation of the Labour Party, escaped the wealthy.

Edward VII at Balmoral

The one thing the gentry did notice was the fact that their power and wealth no longer rested on their land and estates, as it had for centuries. Now they had to pay high taxes on their land, and their tenants could purchase pieces of the estates. Some families became so broke that they had to sell to the nouveau riche or find wealthy American heiresses for their sons (like Cora). A major social shift was on the horizon.

Of course, WWI changed everything even more. Suddenly all of Britain's able-bodied men were sent to the front in France or the Mediterranean, and few came back unscathed. The war years even influenced those left at home, like Lady Sibyl, who decides that she'd prefer working as a nurse and running away with the chauffeur to remaining at Downton. By the end of WWI, the social order was completely upended.

How it All Relates to Cooking

Since much of the show is set at a country house, most of the food we'll discuss is pretty high-class. The aristocracy ate elaborately and well, and the servants ate their leftovers or simpler meals. However, the servants were much better fed than most of the working class in the Edwardian era--they could rely upon having at least something to eat at every meal.

the Crawleys at a garden party

The landed class particularly enjoyed modeling their dining habits after those culinary geniuses, the French. Edward made it fashionable to eat 10-course meals, so that's what the landed class did, dining on French-inspired food cooked by trained French chefs. While I can't see Mrs. Patmore, the cook at Downton, training in a French kitchen, she certainly would have cooked French food for the family. For more traditional English recipes, she would have turned to Mrs Beeton's classic cookbook. Finally, ingredients before the war would have been the very best, and often the vegetables came from the estate's farm. Talk about eating local!

However, even the gentry had to give up their rich foods when WWI broke out. Britain depended on imports for 60% of its food supply, so the war at sea made acquiring food incredibly difficult. Prices for sugar, butter, and cheese skyrocketed when war was declared, and the government had to ration food early on. This forced cooks to be much more creative, but it also made for some truly distasteful dishes. For now, I'm going to focus on food before the war.

In a future post I'll talk about the cookbooks I'm using for this project, but for now, be prepared for lots of fancy French food with fancy French names, as well as some classic Victorian dishes.

Downton lovers, what's your favorite thing about this time period? I'm fascinated by Edward VII's nickname...


Works cited: Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking by Kate Colquhoun. Life in Edwardian England by Robert Cecil. Images: 1. Ye Olde History Tavern. 2. TV with Thinus.

Dining at Downton: Afternoon tea

When I graduated from college, I moved to New York City to work at a children's literary agency. I knew almost no one and quickly discovered that I am really not cut out for big city living. While I quietly raged against the masses of people crowding the sidewalks of Manhattan, I tried to carve out a space for myself in this city of millions. I reconnected with a few high school friends, and together we explored restaurants and museums and out-of-the-way shops. Still, there were days when homesickness for small-town Ohio would overwhelm me, and I'd need an afternoon pick-me-up.

That's how I discovered Tea & Sympathy, an adorable British tea shop in the heart of the West Village. On the recommendation of my mom's British colleague, I visited the shop one lonely August afternoon and snagged a tiny round table for myself. Wedged in between a table of chatting women and the front window, I ordered a pot of Earl Grey and a plate of scones with clotted cream and jam. The tea arrived steaming hot, accompanied by milk, sugar, and a little tea strainer. (This is where I learned how to pour tea that's been brewed with loose-leaf.) Balancing my book on my lap, I sipped tea and nibbled on light-as-air scones long into the afternoon. When I re-emerged into the heat of the city, I felt lighter, relieved of some of that loneliness.

Afternoon tea, it turns out, is good for what ails you.

The British knew this well. Once the concept of tea as a meal was firmly established in the late 19th century, it took on different meanings depending on your social class. The working class took tea as their final meal of the day, since they often couldn't afford a full meal with meat and vegetables. On the other hand, the extremely wealthy (like the Crawleys) took tea as an afternoon snack, dining on fancy cakes and dainties while they gossiped. As those of you who watch Downton Abbey know, this is the time for scheming, when the Crawley ladies plot out what suitors to cultivate and how to manipulate issues of inheritance in their favor. It's also the time for nursing broken hearts and talking discreetly about intense emotions. As I've discovered, there's nothing like a bracing cup of tea and delicate treats to make you feel better.

While we Americans often think of afternoon tea in conjunction with sweets, the Edwardians also took tea with savory treats like tiny sandwiches. French food was in vogue, so hors d'oeuvres like canapes were on the rise. This brings us to today's snack: canapes de maquereau.

Why yes, we are throwing around a lot of French today.

It's a simple recipe: thinly slice a piece of smoked mackerel, and bake in a dish greased with cayenne pepper and butter. Top little rounds of toast with the baked fish. It's a salty, spicy dish (perhaps spicier than the Crawleys might like), one that will make you drink gallons of tea. But after all, when you have matters of the heart to discuss, nothing else will do.


Canapes de Maquereau
(adapted from Escoffier: Le Guide Culinaire)

4 oz piece of smoked mackerel
1 tbsp butter
1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
4 - 5 slices light bread

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Combine the butter and cayenne pepper and grease the bottom of a baking dish with the mixture. Slice the mackerel into thin pieces and lay on the greased baking dish. Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes, or until the butter melts and the fish is warmed.

Meanwhile, toast the bread. Top immediately with the fish mixture once you remove it from the oven; be sure to sop up any leftover butter with the fish. Serve with tea.