Jeremy Lee, a chef and author, has named his mother’s boeuf à la mode, prepared for his 21st birthday, as the best thing he ever ate. The dish, a classic of French provincial cooking, was served cold on the east coast of Scotland in the 1980s.
A special birthday celebration
Lee was born on his mother’s birthday, and the date marked his 21st. Birthdays were usually celebrated by the family at home, with a cake made in the child’s favourite flavour. For this occasion, Lee volunteered to bake a cake, and his mother accepted, relinquishing her kitchen.
His mother, a gifted cook, chose a recipe from Elizabeth David’s book, French Provincial Cooking. The dish involved a secondary cut of beef, barded, rolled, and tied, then simmered in wine and herbs, with pepper, salt, nutmeg, pork rinds, and cognac or whisky. A calf’s foot or pig’s trotters were added to ensure the beef, when served cold, set in a limpid jelly. Carrots, cooked until tender, were set in the jelly around the beef.
The art of the dish
Lee recalls his mother quietly spooning away impurities, peeling carrots, and testing the beef for doneness. The finished dish was served in a deep ashet, a Scots term for a serving dish, with the beef sliced and carrots dotted around, then refrigerated to set the jelly. He notes that the dish, while simple in appearance, requires practice, but the effort is returned manifold when serving.
Alongside the boeuf à la mode, a salad of green or bitter leaves, a pot of mustard, and a pot of horseradish cream were served. Lee notes that serving warm vegetables would dissolve the jelly, and that the use of wine and herbs might have incensed the Presbyterian spirit of John Knox.
The chocolate cabbage cake
For his mother’s birthday, Lee made a chocolate cake in the form of a cabbage, from a book by Judith Olney. He melted bars of dark chocolate, painted cabbage leaves, and after baking and cooling a chocolate cake, scooped out the centre and folded it with chocolate mousse and cream. He then peeled each painted cabbage leaf from the chocolate, and despite some breakage, managed to enclose the cake.
The table was laid with glass, polished silver, and pressed white napkins, with wine decanted, and the boeuf à la mode at the centre. Lee’s book, Kitchening: Day-To-Day Good Food, Come Rain or Shine, is published by HarperCollins at £30.
