I have a point. Literary food, so to speak. I enjoy cooking the dishes mentioned in the books. I confess, there are those who excited the imagination since childhood.
For example, remember the scene from The Three Musketeers?
- Letter, letter of recommendation! Shouted d'Artagnan. - Give me my letter, a thousand devils! Or I'll spit you like hazel grouses!
Unfortunately, some circumstance prevented the young man from realizing his threat. As we have already said, his sword was broken in half in the first fight, which he managed to completely forget. Therefore, making an attempt to grab the sword, he was armed only with a fragment of several inches long, which the innkeeper neatly shoved into the scabbard, hiding the end of the blade in the hope of constructing a scupper needle.
I remember the phrase "scaling needle" and made a strange impression on me. In the USSR (and even now), such devices were not in use in the kitchen. And I racked my brains for a long time - why do I need a scoring needle and how the hell is it to be used, and also - how can it be made from a rather long piece of sword?
Only years later I encountered this device for the first time. A modern stuffing needle looks like this
In the clamp we clamp a strip of product, with which we will stuff something with a needle, pierce this product, stretch it and... voila!
It turns out pretty interesting.
One of my favorite recipes is beef stuffed with bacon. Based on a scene from Dumas' novel Forty-Five. Dumas was very fond of delicious food, and this love of his was reflected in the meeting described there between Shiko and his brother Goranflo, who became the abbot of the monastery. This abbot asked his cook:
- What do you have for breakfast today? Asked the Honorable Abbot.
- Scrambled eggs with cockscombs.
- What else?
- Stuffed champignons.
- More?
- Crayfish with Madeira sauce.
- It's all a trifle, a trifle. Name something more solid, and hurry up.
- You can serve a ham stuffed with pistachios.
Shiko snorted contemptuously.
“Excuse me,” Euseb intervened timidly, “it's boiled in sherry and stuffed with beef.
Agree, it sounds delicious. But I don't like pork, so I had to experiment with beef. So, let's take a good piece of pulp. It would be nice to marinate it a little in wine, for example, in dry white, but if not - and not necessary.
Cut the bacon into thin long strips. If the strips are not long, just let them be thin so that they can be “tied” (with the most natural knots). We take a scoring needle (if it is not there, then a knife), make a puncture and pull it through the pulp, as if sewing it.
If you stuff with a knife, then you make a through puncture, and you push bacon into this puncture with a regular sushi stick.
To prevent the beef from drying out during baking, the side that will look "up" must be "stitched" as close to the surface as possible. Experienced cooks manage to directly "embroider" patterns with bacon, like wicker patterns, but I don't have enough sleight of hand for this.
Next, salt and pepper the meat, rub with rosemary, sprinkle with garlic petals (thinly sliced garlic), wrap in foil and send it to the oven, preheated to 250 degrees for twenty minutes (if the piece is large) or 10 (if slightly less). As this time passes, we reduce the heating to 180 degrees.
The baking time is difficult to determine precisely. I usually put an hour on 500 grams of meat and add twenty minutes to each of the next 250 grams.
Half an hour before the end of baking, unfold the foil so that the beef turns out with a crust. It can be served either cold or hot.
Enjoy your meal!