A Treasury of Great Recipes

La Terrine de ris de Veau

Terrine of Sweetbreads We made La Terrin de ris de Veau at one of the Eating Vincent Price dinners in Chicago. Normally, I like my sweetbreads breaded and fried and served at Bayonne’s in New Orleans. This dish is delicious and will make your dinner guests think you are

pg. 43

Master this Amazing Cote de Veau en Papillote

Side of veal cooked in paper, or papillote de veau Drilling down through the menus printed in the Treasury of Great Recipes is culinary archeology. These are the recipes that carried great restaurants when aspic was a thing and you could smoke at your table. Most dishes focused on flesh.

page 36

Le Poussin en Surprise

Stuffed Cornish hens baked in paper delivers a double whammy to the diner. First, the novelty of the host serving a dish cooked en papillote. Especially if the host is wise enough not to give it away by holding up a bag stuffed with a stuffed cornish game hen and

This Fearless Soufflé aux Framboises

FRESH RASPBERRY SOUFFLÉ Raspberry soufflé is one of those dishes that strike fear into the heart of cooks all over the world. Any soufflé will do that. They lurk in the bracken of culinary lore, camouflaged in the pages of old cookbooks, ready to pounce. All you want to do

Leftover Easter Ham in Aspic

Jambon Persillé à la Bourguinonne, pg 78 I know I have a problem, I know. You don’t have to tell spell it out. I’ve learned to own my flaws and cooking for a Goddam army is one of them. It’s gotten better lately, but I used to

bechemel

Filet de Sole: Casserolettes de Lasserre

There’s no entry for filet de sole in The Treasury, nor for the casserolettes they are served in. Yet, Price describes them as ” . . . Lasserre’s famous casserolettes . . .” Nor are these pastries and sole shown on Lasserre’s website today. However, what you will find is a brief reference to

fresh

This is How You Rock Potage St. Germain

Fresh Pea Soup with a twist Potage St Germain is the French version of pea soup. It is made with fresh peas that have just come up in the garden, shallots, chives, lettuce, and chives. Maybe a little creme fraiche. What’s important is that it’s the light version

mousse

This Sexy Mousse de Saumon Périgueux is Weird

Romantic Dinner for Two at Home – Part 1 Mousse de Saumon Périgueux is sexy and weird. However, if you do it right, for the right person, in the right atmosphere, you’ll get laid. Asking someone on a date almost always means asking them to dinner. You’re saying to

A Treasury of Great Recipes

This is the Best East Indian Fish Curry

Another shorty on which Price spent all of eighteen seconds while writing the Treasury. There’s nothing to write about. It’s a stand-alone recipe culled from The Grille at the Hotel Pierre in New York–included here for the sake of completion. But again, we turn to the menu

foie gras

This Foie Gras is Fantastic

The very first dish listed in the Treasury is a pan-seared foie gras recipe Of course, it’s foie. Of course. In a book full of the most exasperating recipe writing, a book from a time when people smoked at the table, a book that takes 32 pages to find

Evp

Vintage Menus are Valuable History

I was not always a huge fan of menus. Mostly, because the menus I used were hung over the grill at whatever greasy spoon dive where I was ordering my repast. Even the nicer places I visited had their menus slipped into heavy plastic binders the waitress would snatch from

A Treasury of Great Recipes

England Put a Powerful Spell on Vincent Price

In 1935, Vincent Price was 24. He’d recently graduated Yale then moved to England to pursue a degree in fine arts. But Price was drawn to acting. He joined Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater and appeared in a production of Victoria Regina in the role of Prince Albert for which

A Treasury of Great Recipes

3 Reasons to Love French Potage (Bean Soup)

It’s just bean soup. But it is so much more than that. Chef Pierre Descreux’s childhood is buried in the depths of this dish. I can taste it. I can see him as a child sitting at the kitchen table while his mother or his grandmother simmers this

1582

Tour d'Argent: Decadent and Luxurious

Tour d’Argent (The Silver Tower) is the oldest restaurant in Paris. It may be the oldest restaurant in the world, though there are many contenders for that position. It definitely beats Procope by a century or more. And they may be wrong anyway. In 1582, when the Tour d’

American cuisine

This Cranberry Bread is Amazing

Cranberry sauce is the emblem and the badge of Thanksgiving dinner. Without the sauce, it isn’t T-day, it’s just another turkey dinner on a Thursday. But in the Treasury of Great Recipes, there isn’t a single instance of cranberry sauce instructions. It does appear on the menu

Betty Crocker

The Magic of Old Cookbooks

Old cookbooks are time-traveling machines. Pick up a copy of The Joy of Cooking, or A La Rector, or Betty Crocker and you’ll find culinary artifacts that will entice and perhaps nauseate you. Obviously, I’m a big fan of old cookbooks though I only have the one. Die

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Coeur a la Creme

It may be that Mr. Price has told a lie on page 58 of the Treasury. I don’t know for sure, but here’s what he says in the preface to the recipe: We have arrived at this very acceptable substitute for the French cheese though trial and error

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Horcher in Madrid

We recently visited Spain and thought it would be a great idea to drive from Barcelona to Madrid. I’m going to save you from reading three or four hundred pages in 6pt type detailing why it was not and just tell you it was not. By the time we

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Le Jambon Chaud à la Chablisienne

Finally. FINALLY!  A recipe STARTS with “Preheat the oven . . .” I was beginning to lose hope. This is bachelor’s gourmet at its simplest. Do it right and you’ve got a masterpiece. Do it wrong and it’s still ham with chablis This is bachelor’s gourmet at its simplest.

Alps

Le Gratin Savoyard

You’ll need potatoes for your Thanksgiving meal. Mashed are traditional since you’ll be serving gravy from that magnificent bird. However, the Treasury doesn’t offer a mashed potato recipe (actually, maybe it does). So I’m offering this French dish for potatoes au gratin, from the Savoy region

American cuisine

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

The crown jewel of Thanksgiving dinner: pumpkin pie. You cannot have a Thanksgiving dinner without it. Each October, we see the local coffee shops and fast food emporiums roll out their pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin spice this and pumpkin spice that. After a sip or two, you’re pretty

Amandine

Haricots Verts à la Lyonnaise

Thanksgiving dinner means green beans on the table. Some homes serve green beans with bread crumbs sprinkled on top and some serve them Almandine both of which are horrible and no. Don’t. Green beans are just fine all by themselves. They don’t need your help. Just cook them

Baked goods

Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes

I thought the Treasury didn’t have a mashed potatoes recipe. But that’s because the indexing for the Treasury, like some of the recipes, is infuriating. I scoured the book and gave up, offering Potatoes Savoyard as an alt potato. However, I was browsing the index and discovered the

Candied fruit

Thanksgiving Candied Sweet Potatoes Alternative

The Treasury is a generous cornucopia of recipes. I poured over every page looking for a candied sweet potatoes recipe. I scoured the index. Then I remembered yams are a Pacific island food. There’s a whole section on Hawaii and I bet something there might work. Victory. On page

America

Roast Thanksgiving Turkey Wayside Inn

Thanksgiving is barreling through the calendar toward us and if you’re anything like the rest of the home cooks in America you are thinking about Thanksgiving turkey. And if you are anything like the 50 bajillion first-time turkey cooks, you are terrified you’ll foul up your fowl. Fortunately,