The Book of Lost Recipes: The Best Signature Dishes From Historic Restaurants Rediscovered
240
The Book of Lost Recipes: The Best Signature Dishes From Historic Restaurants Rediscovered
240eBook
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Overview
Enjoy Celebrated Recipes from Top Hotels and Restaurants of Their Era
Discover amazing signature recipes lost to time from the most fashionable hotels and restaurants of bygone times. Part vintage nostalgia, part history tour, but all great food, the recipes—often inseparable from their legendary haunts—were meticulously researched and reconstructed by author Jaya Saxena for this unique cookbook.
Now you can experience the legendary institutions of the American restaurant landscape from coast to coast, including the M&L Chopped Liver at New York’s Moskowitz&Lupowitz and the Baked Cannelloni at Paoli’s in San Francisco. Find delight in the Blintzes from Ashkenaz’s Deli in Chicago or the Fried Fish Cakes and Famous Baked Beans at Horn&Hardart Automat in Philadelphia.
Bring the glamour, elegance and taste home with this beautiful collection of historic recipes.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781624142505 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Page Street Publishing |
| Publication date: | 06/14/2016 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 41 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Book of Lost Recipes
The Best Signature Dishes from Historic Restaurants Rediscovered
By Jaya Saxena
Page Street Publishing Co.
Copyright © 2016 Jaya SaxenaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62414-250-5
CHAPTER 1
Century Inn
Scenery Hill, PA Opened 1788
Originally, towns along Braddock Road were twelve miles (19 km) apart. That's because twelve miles was as long as your average oxen could travel in a day. Braddock Road bled into the National Road, and was used as a stagecoach line, the only road funneling anyone from east to west in the area. Stephen and Thomas Hill, the owners of the stagecoach company, knew this gave them a captive audience and in 1788 began building Hill's Tavern.
Officially founded in 1794, Hill's Tavern, now known as the Century Inn, has been continuously operating as similar inns and taverns on the road fell away. "At one point there were four other Inns in the village. We're the only one left because we are a stone building," says Megin Harrington, whose family currently owns the inn. "All the stone was quarried on our property. We went through so many changes, and other buildings' changes did not hold up."
The impressive architecture also attracted a richer clientele, like Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and General Santa Anna. President Abraham Lincoln even hired a coach to take him there, even though he was staying at a different inn down the road, just because he heard the breakfast was so good. In 1811 parts of Braddock Road were paved over and expanded to make the National Road, the first highway built by the national government. It funneled thousands of settlers westward, many of whom would continue to stop at the tavern for meals along the way. There were also rooms on the property for people to stay overnight, though according to the original rules of the house, there were "no more than five to a bed."
In the tavern, a flag from the Whiskey Rebellion, which took place the same year the Inn was being built, still hangs. At that time, farmers in the area had discovered they could distill their surplus grains and sell the product in Philadelphia for extra money, or just trade it among themselves. At the time, liquor and beer were safer to drink than water, and paired with the common belief that alcohol contained medicinal properties, the market was ripe for whiskey. Concurrently, the federal government found itself in debt from the recent wars and decided taxing whiskey would be a quick and easy way to make some of that money back. This didn't please the local farmers, who rebelled, but were soon quashed by thousands of George Washington's troops. And though the whiskey tax was repealed by the early 1800s, the rebellion was the first demonstration of the power of the new national government.
The Harringtons bought the inn in 1945 and resisted pressure to update the decor. By 1952, a historic marker to the tavern was erected on Route 40 (which encompasses much of the National Road) and today they still serve meals to weary travelers. "We have a lot of lamb, duck and pheasant. We use things that would have been readily available in colonial times," says Harrington. Over 200 years out, the road has changed. It's easier to just keep driving west, to the next big city or the next gas station, sticking to what one knows. Places like the Century Inn remind one of what's still around if one takes a moment to look.
Century Inn Braised Lamb Shank
The Century Inn primarily uses products that would have been available during the early days of the inn, and this lamb shank is a great example of both the ingredients of the area and the type of warm, hearty food the inn has served over the years. The lamb is cooked until it falls off the bone in a simple, velvety sauce that would satisfy any traveler, then or now.
Serves 6
6 lamb hind shanks
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch cracked black pepper
¼ cup (32 g) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (60 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (240 g) onions, diced
½ cup (120 g) celery, diced
½ cup (120 g) carrots, diced
½ cup (118 ml) dry red wine
1 qt (950 ml) veal or beef stock
1 bay leaf
Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C). Season the lamb shanks with salt and pepper. Dredge with the flour, and pat off the excess. Heat the vegetable oil in a high-sided roasting pan over medium heat. Add the lamb shanks to the pan, being careful not to crowd, and brown them on all sides. Remove the shanks and add the onions, celery, and carrots to the pan. Cook until they begin to caramelize, about 10 minutes, then deglaze with the red wine. Bring the mixture to a simmer until most of the wine has evaporated, about 3 to 4 minutes. Return the lamb shanks to the pan and add the stock and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, and cover with foil or a tight-fitting lid. Place in the oven and cook for 2 to 3 hours, turning the shanks incrementally. Add more stock or water if the juice seems to be evaporating too quickly. When done, the meat should be able to be removed from the bone with a fork.
Remove the shanks and pour sauce into a sauce pot. Reduce until the sauce is thickened, for about 15 minutes, enough to coat the back of a spoon. Serve shanks with sauce on top.
Century Inn Peanut Soup
The Century Inn's peanut soup is a long-standing tradition, and some claim it's based on a recipe from Thomas Jefferson. Whether or not that's true, peanuts were a popular crop in the American South, so whenever they were shipped north they were a real treat. Peanut soup was a common recipe in American cookbooks in the late 18th century, and this recipe honors that tradition, while modernizing the flavor profile a bit with lime and soy sauce.
Serves 4
1 tbsp (15 ml) vegetable oil
½ cup (120 g) celery, diced
½ cup (120 g) onions, diced
3 cups (709 ml) chicken stock
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp (5 ml) soy sauce
1 cup (240 g) ground roasted peanuts (or low sodium peanut butter)
1 cup (236 ml) heavy cream
Salt to taste
Chopped peanuts for garnish
In a medium sauce pan, heat the vegetable oil, and sauté the celery and onions until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, lime juice and soy sauce, and bring the mixture to a boil. Whisk in the peanuts a bit at a time until the mixture is thickened, and simmer for another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Whisk in the heavy cream until the soup is just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add salt to taste and garnish with chopped peanuts and serve.
CHAPTER 2Planters Hotel
New York, NY 1833-1940s
What would you do if you found out your favorite restaurant was haunted? Well, it probably wouldn't happen because you'd likely get kicked out before they locked the doors at night and unleashed the night stalkers. But according to "Phantom at the Planters, 1833–1933, our first hundred years," a strange piece of advertisement, that's exactly what happened at the Planters Hotel in 1933.
The Planters Hotel was located on Greenwich and Albany streets in downtown Manhattan (though one account puts it at Greenwich and Cedar), and it was popular with travelers from the South — such as Daniel Webster, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun and eventually Edgar Allen Poe — who were looking for good food and a good night's rest. Its proximity to the Perth Amboy ferry made it particularly appealing. "Here the first cotton exchange in America was established, where thousands of dollars worth of cargoes changed hands every year," wrote one history by H. Jerome Parker. Though New York outlawed slave trafficking in 1792, it was at places like these that the city maintained powerful economic ties with the plantation South. However, the Civil War put an end to that exchange, and the hotel closed until a new owner (possibly D. Clinton Mackey, a surety bondsman named as the owner when he died in 1932) opened it as Planters Cafeteria and Restaurant in 1922.
This is where we find our pamphlet's haunted protagonist, who claims he awoke alone in the restaurant and decided to take a walk around. On the second floor he encountered a man who "looked almost too old to be alive, and had a bearing which we associate with years long before the jazz age." The man offered him a pipe, and said, "I have been here since 1833. Exactly one hundred years ago tonight, I was among the first guests to dine here." In the story, the ghost continues to explain the history of Planters and New York. He reminds us that this was no "little back street" in 1833, and when asked how they lived without "subways, radios, airships" and "how long you had to wait for news," he replies, "We didn't need any news. We had our own lives to live and we lived them leisurely and well."
But what of the food? The menu of the original Planters sounds pretty incredible. The ghost describes "roast haunch of venison ... with currant jelly sauce melted in port wine," roast leg of pork brushed in oil and applesauce, baked shad with butter gravy, and "roast pheasant ... stuffed with minced snipe and truffles and served with a decoration of oranges." It was certainly heavy food, but also a touch more elaborate than what you'd find at your average chophouse, meant both to sate travelers and impress potential clients.
Through the 1920s and 1930s, Planters continued to be a popular restaurant and the kind of place where business would be done over food, as it had been when it was a hotel. But, as H. Jerome Parker wrote, "you eat heartily as did Webster, Calhoun and Poe — still you experience a feeling of emptiness — something seems missing." Even then the "real days" of the Planters seemed gone, and it was relying on that perennial New York hobby — nostalgia. By 1939, a New York City guide called it a "relic of the old days," and from then it didn't last long. But when you walk in downtown New York, the ghosts of the Planters may still be there.
Planters Hotel-Style Roast Pork
The ghost at the Planters Hotel described one of their delicacies as a "roast leg of pork brushed in oil, roasted for three hours, served with applesauce." It's a simple dish, but a classic sweet and savory pairing, made even more appealing by the pork's puffed, crisped skin. It's a dish that's stayed appealing through the centuries. Be sure to save any leftovers for day-after sandwiches.
Serves 8-10
1 leg of pork, about 15–20 lbs (6.8–9 kg) 4–5 tbsp (20–25 ml) of vegetable or sunflower oil Salt and pepper to taste ½ cup (118 ml) of applesauce
Preheat the oven to 450°F (232°C). Lightly score the skin of the pork leg with a knife in a criss-cross pattern, being sure not to pierce all the way through to the meat, and brush it with a neutral oil like vegetable or sunflower. Season the leg heavily with salt and pepper, and roast it for half an hour until skin is crispy, then lower the temperature to 350°F (176°C). Continue roasting for approximately 3 hours, until the inner temperature reaches 145°F (63°C), and the skin is nicely browned and crisp. Let rest for 1 hour, then serve with the applesauce.
Planters Hotel-Style Roast Venison with Currant Port Sauce
The haunch of the venison is the hind leg, also known as the Denver leg, which can be ordered from many specialty stores or butchers. This method results in perfectly pink meat under a salty crust. It's served with a sweet-and-sour sauce that cuts the gaminess, and makes for great sandwiches the next day.
Serves 8-10
1 haunch of venison, boned and rolled, about 5 lbs (2.2 kg)
¼ cup (45 g) kosher salt
Vegetable oil
½ cup (120 g) currant jelly
½ cup (118 ml) port
Preheat the oven to 425°F (218°C). Let the venison come to room temperature, pat dry and rub all over with kosher salt, enough so that the crystals are still visible. Place the meat in the rack of a large roasting tray and brush all over with oil. Pour a little water in the bottom of the tray to keep the drippings from smoking. Roast for 20 minutes. Turn heat down to 325°F (162°C) and roast for another 45 minutes, basting with more oil occasionally until the roast reaches about 130°F (54°C) measured with a meat thermometer. Remove the roast from the oven and let rest.
Pour meat drippings into a pan with the currant jelly and port wine. Reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon, about 7 minutes. Serve over sliced venison.
CHAPTER 3Harvey's Famous Restaurant
Washington, DC 1858-1990s
Everyone seems to have a different theory on how Harvey's Famous Restaurant, the go-to seafood spot for Washington, D.C.'s elite from 1858 through the 1970s, came up with its famed steamed oysters. One theory is that it was an accident facilitated by a leaky steam jet in the basement of the Harvey brothers' first restaurant, which they opened when George Washington Harvey was only sixteen. The steam blasted a pile of nearby oysters, and the Harveys discovered they tasted a lot like their popular roasted oysters. Another is that George Washington Harvey had them at a dinner party hosted by Mrs. Frances Seward, wife of Secretary of State William H. Seward, and decided to add them to the menu. Yet another is that patrons were too impatient to wait for Harvey's famous oysters to be roasted, so they just came up with a steaming method. Or perhaps those patrons were hungry Civil War soldiers, craving something other than the hardtack and coffee they had been living on in the fields.
Whatever the story, Harvey's Famous Restaurant earned its name. In its heyday it was the most well-known restaurant in Washington D.C., where the political elite met and networked over shellfish and cocktails (their menu makes the claim they were the originators of the Jack Rose). According to The History of Harvey's, "whenever the pressure of public business would permit, [Ulysses S. Grant] would leave the White House and walk down the avenue to Harvey's. ... a peck of 'steamed' was his usual order, over which he lingered with the enjoyment of a connoisseur." The Canvasback Club, a meeting of the likes of Thomas Nast and members of the New York delegation of Congress, also made Harvey's their meeting place, and in 1902 presented George Harvey with a silver flagon as a symbol of their appreciation.
Originally known as Harvey's Ladies' and Gentlemen's Oyster Saloon, it occupied three floors on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 11th Street — the first floor public bar and restaurant for men, the second floor ladies' dining room, and the third floor private dining room, though late nights it would turn into a dance floor with a live jazz band. According to one account, "Harvey was an old-fashioned landlord who liked to wander among his guests at the table and see that they were well cared for," occasionally saucing dishes in front of guests if he believed it hadn't been done properly. Oysters were only to be harvested from the Chesapeake Bay, and he considered the oyster, the diamondback terrapin and the canvasback duck "the Creator's greatest gifts to mankind." George Harvey allegedly estimated that he had sold a billion oysters in the 1906 season.
That was the same year George Harvey sold out the business and retired, and in 1909 he died of heart failure. But the business went on, serving the D.C. elite as much diamondback terrapin and seafood as ever. In 1931 Harvey's was pushed out of its historic building, and moved to Connecticut Avenue, next to the Mayflower hotel, where it continued successfully. However, in the 1970s it was forced out again due to Metro construction, and moved to 18th and K streets. It continued there through the 1990s, but without its historic surroundings, it could only rely on its food, which was expensive. Too expensive, it seems, to coincide with the recession of the early 1990s.
When Harvey's opened, oysters were a cheap street food, raked from the bay by the barrel and sold out of carts. Early American cookbooks list recipes for oysters many wouldn't dream of making now, from oyster omelets to oyster hash to oyster mousse, anything to utilize this affordable source of protein. In 1884, 15 million bushels were harvested, supplying almost half the world's demand for oysters, and earning them the nickname "Chesapeake gold." Naturally, a gold rush followed, and the "Oyster Wars" nearly destroyed the bay's oyster beds. Fisherman from New England sailed south, poaching local watermen's territory. Men were killed over this greed, and the oysters suffered. By 1889, the oyster population in the bay had declined by a third, and in 2010, just under 200,000 bushels were harvested. It was due to this over-harvesting that the oyster's place in American food culture drastically changed. Through the 20 century it became too rare to be an everyday snack, and instead turned into the chosen appetizer of the elite. And in a recession, not everyone could afford that luxury anymore.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Book of Lost Recipes by Jaya Saxena. Copyright © 2016 Jaya Saxena. Excerpted by permission of Page Street Publishing Co..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Introduction,
Century Inn,
Planters Hotel,
Harvey's Famous Restaurant,
Schweizer's,
Locke-Ober,
Thompson's Spa,
Wolf's Roadhouse,
Old Original Bookbinder's,
Ernst Café,
Overland Hotel,
Horn & Hardart's Automat,
DeRobertis Pasticceria,
Bob's Chili Parlor,
Moskowitz & Lupowitz,
Ashkenaz's Deli,
Ye Olde College Inn,
Mt. Nittany Inn,
New York Exchange for Women's Work,
The Maramor,
Rogers' Restaurant,
Clifton's Cafeteria,
Henry Thiele's,
Boar & Castle,
Perino's,
Charlie's Cafe Exceptionale,
Chasen's,
The Pump Room,
Aunt Fanny's Cabin,
Dearing's,
San-Dar Smorgasbord,
India House,
Ruby Chow's,
Paoli's Restaurant,
Wolfie's Rascal House,
Kahiki Supper Club,
Maxim's Chicago,
M&G Diner,
The Tack Room,
Mister C's,
Corn Dance Café,
Endnotes,
Photo Credits,
Acknowledgments,
Index,
About the Author,
Copyright,