Betty Lives!

A Treasury of Great Recipes

Mary and Vincent Price

1965

It’s not that I haven’t been preparing recipes from old books, it’s that I haven’t been writing about them because some of the preparations have slipped so seamlessly into our menus.   In fact, last week I prepared Dr. Martin’s Mix AND fresh rolls.  This time I used a combination of onion and pepper pork sausage with chicken and apple sausage plus one link of chorizo for the Mix.  It was fabulous and I’m looking forward to experimenting with different sausages.  I had frozen some of the dough from the last set of rolls and this time I made cloverleaf buns, slathered with butter, and they too were fabulous.

This week I wanted a new recipe so I grabbed my Vincent Price cookbook.  One of my mother’s oldest friends has an extensive cookbook collection and when I got married she told me I could request any book as a gift and I chose this one.  The kitsch value of preparing rich foods provided by the 20th Century Master of Horror has been covered.  I don’t find it that hilarious because Price was an actor, not an ACTUAL vampire, and the book isn’t part of some promotion for General Foods, it’s clearly a labor of love.  It is hard to describe the wonder of this cookbook, but I’m going to try.  The Prices were true gourmands of the mid-century.  They traveled, they dined splendidly, and they entertained lavishly.  I get the sense that they lived to eat and were sophisticated and adventurous diners.  The book is a compilation of recipes, culled from what were the finest restaurants around the world, which the Prices then tested in their own kitchen.  There are loads of great Kodachrome photos and, best of all, reprints of the actual menus from each restaurant (check out those prices!).

One of the reasons I chose this recipe, which comes from the old Lüchow’s in NY, is because my son hates meatballs but loves capers.  I figured I could fool him into eating dinner this way.  The meatballs contain: 1 1/2 lbs ground veal, 1/4 lb ground pork, 2 Tbl melted butter, 2 slices of bread soaked and squeezed, 2 tablespoons grated, sauteed onions, 1/2 tsp lemon peel, 1 Tbl lemon juice, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 2 Tbl chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and three eggs.  After I combined the ingredients the mixture seemed extremely wet and loose to me so I refrigerated it instead of immediately shaping and cooking.  After two hours I dropped the balls into 5 cups of beef stock, covered and cooked them for 20 minutes.  Because the instructions call for “large balls” I was pretty sure that after 20 mintues they needed more cooking so I took the pot off the heat, covered it and let the balls cool in the broth while I went to get the kids.

The Sardellen sauce is made from the strained broth to which a beurre manie is added (5 Tbl flour mixed with 5 Tbl butter) as well as 1 Tbl butter mashed with 1 skinless, boneless sardine, 2 Tbl chopped capers and 2 Tbl chopped parsley.  I reduced the sauce a lot, almost 45 mintues, until I felt the consistency was thick enough to coat the meatballs and cover the noodles I had made to accompany them.  The problem was the flavor - bland with a fishy aftertaste.  It begged for a kick and I was so surprised that such a thing was omited because after I added some sharp Dijon mustard, it was very good.  The meatballs, once napped with sauce, get sprinkled with breadcrumbs that have been sauteed in butter, and I added chopped parsley for color.  The kids needed condiments to get them down (mustard for Nicky, ketchup for Lulu) and Doug enjoyed them sort-of, but I was not a fan.  I don’t think it’s a reflection of the book, I think it was just a poor choice of recipe for me.  I’m going to challenge myself with a different one next time. Posted in General