Recipes of the Lost City: Velouté of Whitebait Colony

This is a new feature on Lost City for those readers who hunger to know how New Yorkers ate in days gone by.

Over the years, I have collected a number of books about once-renowned, now-disappeared New York restaurants. Some are histories with a few recipes cataloged at the back, some are out-and-out cookbooks. Only the original chefs and restaurant owners, now all lying in Green-Wood and Woodlawn Cemeteries, can say whether the recipes in the books are truthful or authentic. (One would think they'd want to keep such secrets close to their vests.) But we are taking it on faith that they are fairly close to the true formulas.

I also take it on faith that this subject is of interest. For famous and legendary restaurants are not fascinating only because of the way they looked and who went there. At least, to me. There must have also been something about the food. Not that it was always fantastic, but it was specific, and of the place, and spoke of the joint's personality.

The Colony on E. 61st Street was the first restaurant to embody the idea of Cafe Society—social register folk and celebrities mashing up and chowing down together—in the New York of the 1920s and 1930. It was also known to have quite-above-average French cuisine that attracted discerning socialites like the Vanderbilts.

I have a copy of 1945 book by Iles Brody called "The Colony—Portrait of a Restaurant, and Its Famous Recipes." The first half is an extensive overview of the make-up of the place, its major players and the way it did business. The second half features a couple hundred standard recipes.

The Colony was apparently quite proud of its food; one dish in 10 bears the suffix "...a la Colony." I have chosen to share with you the Velouté of Whitebait Colony, because, among many a complex and vague recipe, this one is fairly straightforward. In other words, you can try it at home. Here it is:

Cook lightly three ounces of finely chopped onion in butter, sprinkle with a teaspoon of curry, add one and one-half pints of boiling water, an herb bunch, a pinch of salt, a little powdered saffron, and two ounces of crusty bread. Boil for ten minutes. Add a pound of fresh small whitebait, and cook over a brisk fire. Rub through a fine sieve, and thicken with the mixture of three egg yolks and a few tablespoons of cream. Pour into the soup tureen over some dried slices of buttered bread. As the last touch, add a very little good sherry. Serve at once. This soup must not stand.

Sorry about the vagueness of some of the directions. "Herb bunch," indeed. A lot of the recipes in this book are like that. Also, sorry, but you're not going to lose any weight or unclog those arteries by following the Colony diet. Everything's dripping with butter and cream and eggs.

P.S.-That's not the Colony above. It's Rector's.

A Baker After My Own Heart

This past-obsessed Park Slope baker sound like someone I could get along with. Also, like someone hoping for a "Julie and Julia" type book and movie deal. Still, I wouldn't mind tasting some of those cakes.

Park Slope baker will bake 100 cakes from '30s and '40s era and chronicle efforts in blog

BY ELIZABETH LAZAROWITZ 

A Park Slope baking enthusiast is making a mission of cooking her way into the past.

Susan LaRosa, 54, spent years collecting old boxes and scrapbooks full of homemade recipe cards from the first half of the 20th century at estate and yard sales.

"They were really treasures, and almost historical documents that reflected what people were really eating in the 1930s or 1940s," LaRosa said.

Now, she has vowed to make about 100 of them over the next year, and she is chronicling her efforts in a blog, acakebakesinbrooklyn.blogspot.com.

LaRosa views the recipes - often typed or handwritten - as windows into the lives of the people who authored them.

A yellowed and stained recipe card for buns bears the name "Ida Zepp," and notes at the bottom that, "These rolls were served hot at Ida's announcement party, May 1, 1937."

Some index cards with basic cake recipes have been given overly romantic names, like "Gold" and "Moonlight Lemon," which LaRosa attributes to a frustrated housewife.

"These are the personal papers of women in an age when they didn't have a voice," LaRosa said. "I think a lot of creative women expressed themselves through baking."

LaRosa, director of marketing at the Henry Street Settlement and a largely self-taught baker, has lived in Park Slope since 1982 with her husband, Paul, a television journalist and former Daily News reporter.

Deciphering the recipes isn't always easy, especially when they give measurements like "butter the size of a walnut," or leave out key details such as pan size.

A gingerbread cake LaRosa made from a 1919 collection of recipes put together by Mrs. Osbourne of Bay City, Mich., bubbled over after she underestimated the pan size, and ended up a smoking, charred mess.

Many of the recipes seem to represent the culture of their time, although LaRosa found that some may have been better left in the dusty annals of history.

For example, a raisin spice cake concocted during the lean years of World War I - dubbed Canadian War Cake - was made with no eggs, milk or butter, and only a modest amount of shortening. "It looked and tasted like a brick," LaRosa said. "It makes you happy we don't have rationing during these war times."

Recipes of the Lost City: Baked Bean Rarebit

This lost recipe is not from a specific bygone restaurant. It comes from the pages of a 1902 edition of The Brooklyn Eagle, which seemed (if the online archives are any measure) to have printed recipes for its readers from time to time. No source is ever mentioned for any of the recipes. Things like Lobster Newberg, "Real Spanish Buns," Hermits (a kind of cookie) and Candied Chestnuts. I'm reprinting this particular one because I have never heard of a Baked Bean Rarebit. It seems to be simply a Welsh Rarebit with baked beans added to the mix.

Baked Bean Rarebit

Press half a pint of cold baked beans through a sieve and mix with half a teaspoon of salt and quarter a teaspoon of paprica. Melt two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan and when hot add the beans and when it is hot stir in gradually one-half cup of milk. When smooth add three heaping tablespoonfuls of soft cheese chopped fine, and a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. Stir until the cheese is melted, then pour over very think toasted slices of brown bread.

Previous Recipes of the Lost City

Recipes of the Lost City: Luchow's Potato Dumplings

The is the third edition of a new Lost City feature wherein I rummage through my library of old New York restaurant histories and cookbooks and dig up the prime dishes the denizens of the five boroughs dined on in years gone by.

Luchow's, on 14th Street near Broadway, was the preeminent German restaurant in the city for the 100 years it existed (1882-1982). It was also a show business hangout during the days when Union Square was the center of New York's entertainment world. Everything at Luchow's was robust: the atmosphere, the hospitality, the music, the company, the music (there was an orchestra) and, above all, the food.

There were no "lite" specials at Luchow's. If you wanted salad, there was Pickled Beef Head Salad. The Herring Appetizer included herring and 16 other things, including three hard-boiled eggs. And that was before you got to the shellfish and meat courses. And well before you got to the Filled Berliner Pancake or Apple Fritters in Wine Foam.

Many of Luchow's celebrated entrees are accompanied by dumplings. An interesting aspect of the Luchow's cookbook, published in 1952, is that it boasts two house recipes for dumplings. For comparison's sake, I'm listing both here.

Potato Dumplings I

3 pounds (9) medium-size potatoes
3 egg yolks, beaten
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons raw farina or Cream of Wheat
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 cup toasted or fried bread cubes
flour
1 1/2 quarts boiling salted water (1 1/2 teaspoons salt)

Scrub potatoes. Boil in salted water until just soft enough to mash. Drain and mash smoothly. Add egg yolks, cornstarch, cereal, pepper, salt and nutmeg. Beat well; shape into dumplings; place few bread cubes in center of each. (It is a good idea to shape 1 dumpling first, and if it does not hold together while cooking, beat a little flour into dumpling mixture before shaping remainder.)

Roll each dumpling lightly in flour. Cook in rapidly boiling salted water 15 to 20 minutes. Remove cooked dumplings from water; serve hot. Makes 12 or more dumplings.

Potato Dumplings II

2 pounds (6) raw potatoes
10 slices bread
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 onion, grated
1 teaspoon minced parsley
2 eggs, well beaten
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 quarts boiling salted water

Wash, peel and grate potatoes. Soak bread in a little cold water; squeeze out as much water as possible. Mix bread, salt, pepper, onions and parsley. Add potatoes and eggs; mix well.

Form into balls; roll lightly in flour; drop into salted boiling water (1 teaspoon salt to each quart water). Cover pot tightly; boil 15 minutes. Serve with sauerkraut, beef, or chicken. Serves 4 or more.

Recipes of the Lost City: Ye Olde Chop House's Corned Beef and Cabbage
Recipes of the Lost City: Velouté of Whitebait Colony

Recipes of the Lost City: Grotta Azzurra's Meatballs

The Grotta Azzurra is not exactly lost. It still sits on the corner of Mulberry and Broome, where it was founded by the DaVino family in 1908. However, it shuttered for six years recently, and, when it reopened, it was no longer run by the DaVinos and is reportedly not the same. So it's a long shot that you're ever find this recipe. It's from a humble, ring-binder, cookbook self-published by John Davino in 1977. According to the introduction, all the recipes within come not only from the restaurant, but "have been handed down form father to son since the 1800's, and each dish has remained untouched from the original recipe." The book was kindly given to me by the owner of Bopkat, the great antique shop on Union Street near Columbia in Brooklyn. She thought I would appreciate it. She was right.

Being a meatball nut, always looking for new recipes for this elemental food, I turned to the recipe simply titled "Meatballs." Since I like the way it turned out, here's how it goes:

Meatballs

1 lb. beef, chopped
1/2 lb. pork, chopped
3 slices of Italian bread, soaked in water and squeeze dry
2 eggs
2 Tbls. of cheese, grated Parmesan or Romano
1 Tbl. parsley, chopped
1/2 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil

Combine beef, pork, bread, eggs, cheese, parsley, basil, salt, pepper and garlic. Mix well. Shape mixture into 2 1/2 inch balls. Place into baking pan with oil. Bake about 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees.

I found the large size of the meatballs made a big difference. They were crispy on the outside, moist on the inside.

Previous "Recipes of the Lost City"

Recipes of the Lost City: Tavern on the Green's Tavern Chestnut Dressing

This is the first Recipes of the Lost City to feature a restaurant that still exists. But I figure the Tavern on the Green of 1950—well before the Warner LeRoy era—was a very different beast than the one we know today. It was owned by the management of the Claremont Inn on Riverside Drive at that point.

This is a recipe for the restaurant's signature Tavern Chestnet Dressing. It's a pretty straightforward formula. Might be worth a try next Thanksgiving.

Tavern Chestnut Dressing

1 pound chestnuts, chopped
1/2 loaf white bread
3 cups water
1/2 cup chopped Virginia ham
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley

Soak bread in 3 cups water. Add chopped ham. Brown celery and onions lightly; add bread and ham together with chestnuts, freshly boiled. Stir throughly. Bake at 300 degrees F for 15 minutes. Serve with your holiday turkey which has been roasted separately after having been stuffed with a stalk of celery and chopped onions and carrots. Top with parsley.

Previous "Recipes of the Lost City"

Recipes of the Lost City: Klube's Bavarian Potatoes

I have written quite a bit about Klube's, the "Little Luchow's" on 23rd Street, lately, so it seems appropriate to print one of their recipes.

The German eatery was well-known and respected enough in the 1950s to be mentioned a few times in the New York Times. That paper is where I found the below recipe, which I have tried and can vouch for as a simple and satisfying side dish.

Mother Klube’s Bavarian Potatoes

1 quart large potato cubes
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 T. butter
1 T. vinegar

Boil potatoes in salted water, drain and place in a covered vegetable dish. Saute onion in butter till well browned. Add vinegar and pour over potatoes.

In other Klube's news, the descendant of the restaurant's founder who contacted me recently was kind enough to send me a picture of Agnes Klinger Klube, the wife of founder Carl August Klube. There she is above. What can you say but "Wow." That was one smart-looking, self-assure lady. One can just see her strolling around Madison Square Park.

Previous Recipes of the Lost City

Recipes of the Lost City: Eggs Colony

We return to The Colony, lost Upper East Side haunt of the Cafe Society, for this edition of Recipes of the Lost City. I have The Colony cookbook and it has a ton of recipes in it. It seems a shame to only post one and leave it at that.

So, this time let's see how of the dinner-jacket-and-pearls crowd did brunch back in the 1930s and 1940s. Eggs Colony is a simple enough dish, and easy to do at home, if you have the wherewithal to purchase the necessary crabmeat.

EGGS COLONY

Spread freshly cooked crabmeat over a piece of toast, place a poached egg on top, season with a few drops of Sherry.

Yum, yum, yum. Sherry for breakfast. How English. Apparently, the Colony was obsessed with crabmeat.

Don't like seafood? Here's another recipe for good measure: Oeufs au Fonds D'Artichauts Colony. It's a little harder.

OEUFS AU FONDS D'ARTICHAUTS COLONY

After boiling the artichokes remove the leaves and the chokes, leaving only the fonds. Scrape the edible part of the leaves with a silver knife, and make into a paste with butter, pepper and salt.

Poach as many eggs as are required, and very carefully lay each egg on a fond of artichoke.

Lay the paste already prepared on the eggs, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, put a tin piece of butter on each and serve very hot.

Silver knife, you oafs! If you don't have a silver knife which which to scrape the fonds, don't attempt this recipe.

(Above is the only photo of The Colony that I can find in the whole wide world. As you can see, it belongs to Oxford Galleries. To be fair to Oxford, and to make sure they don't get on my back about posting it, I'm provided a link here to Oxford's eBay listing, so you can buy the photo if you wish, and if you have $200.)

"Recipes of the Lost City" Columns

The followed are past edition of the "Recipes of the Lost City" column. As stated at the beginning of each edition, in this column "I rummage through my library of old New York restaurant histories and cookbooks and dig up the prime dishes the denizens of the five boroughs dined on in years gone by."

Gage & Tollner's Crabmeat a la Dewey
Hampshire House's Veal Steak Saute Provencale
Grotto Azzurra's Meatballs
Toast Colony
Baked Bean Rarebit
Longchamps Chicken Manhattan House
Trader Vic's Mai Tai
Recipes of the Lost City: Stork Club Punch
Luchow's Wiener Schnitzel
Eggs Colony
Tavern on the Green's Tavern Chestnut Dressing
Braised Striped Bass Pavillon
Klube's Bavarian Potatoes
Town and Country's Main Blueberry Griddle Cakes
Longchamp's Spaghetti
Luchow's Potato Dumplings
Ye Olde Chop House's Corned Beef and Cabbage
The Colony's Veloute of Whitebait Colony

Recipes of the Lost City: Spaghetti a la Grotto Azzurra

I haven't done one of these columns—in which I make a dish based on the recipe in a cookbook put out by a long-gone New York restaurant—in a long time. Nearly four years. Mainly I stopped because it's a lot of work and takes up a great deal of time. And, to be honest, the payoff usually isn't that great. Perhaps my cooking skills aren't what they could be; or the cookbook authors left some secret ingredient out of every recipe; or I don't have the required restaurant-level equipment. Or maybe the food of yesteryear just wasn't that good to begin with. Whatever it is, the result is usually underwhelming. 

That said, I have had successes. I can say that since making Luchow's Wiener Schnitzel back in 2009, I make it about one a month. And the Grotta Azzurra's meatball recipe is a winner. 

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Meet the Cafieros

It's been a while since I've revisited my obsession with Cafiero's, the extinct Italian family restaurant that once dominated social activity on President Street in Brooklyn the way The Colony once ruled Cafe Society on the Upper East Side. This is mainly because I had nothing new to report about the place, which was so local, so secretive, so insidery that there were (to the best of my beliefs) no advertisements, no newspaper write-ups, no menus, no matchbooks, no paper trail whatsoever. The eatery, which closed in the 1970s, only lives on in the memories of some very old people.

But one of the joys of writing Lost City is it brings people to me I otherwise would never meet. A week or so ago, I was contacted by an actual Cafiero! I kid you not. Not the progeny of owners Sharkey and Katie Cafiero—they had no children. But Anna, the granddaughter of Katie's brother.

After I overcame the shock of this visitation, I began asking questions. Anna confirmed most of what I had reported before—That Cafiero's was the hangout of judges, celebrities and mobsters alike, that Sharkey kept things very low-profile so as not to attract too much attention; the privacy of his customers was his prime concern. The place was a family affair. Katie and Sharkey's sister, Mamie, were waitresses. Brother Frank was the cook.

But I also learned some new information. The restaurant was founded by Sharkey's parents, who subsequently lived in the rooms above the dining room. Mamie lived on the top floor. The Cafieros were from Naples and served Neapolitan dishes. People who ate there have mentioned to me such dishes as the Charcoal Broiled Veal Spedini, Vinegar Peppers over grilled pork chop, potato croquettes, the sides of rigatoni, the heros. I asked Anna is the family had retained any of the recipes and I could hear her laugh come over the next e-mail. There were no recipes. The menu changed daily, depended on what could be had at the market that day.

Anna sent over the photo above, which was taken at Chez Royale in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, probably years after Cafiero's closed. Sharkey and Katie are on the left and Katie's sister-in-law Anna is on the right. Looks like the man pictured below, no?



Anna's grandmother Anna, incidentally, also owned and operated a restaurant in the area. It was called Anna' Luncheonette, and was on the southeast corner of Columbia and Summit Streets. A vacant lot is there now. The luncheonette consisted of a large room with booths on the right side and a counter on the left. There was a telephone booth at the back wall along with a jukebox with 45 records. It had a tin ceiling.

I have learned recently that I may have a chance to go inside the old Cafiero building. Watch this space.

Recipes of the Lost City: Trader Vic's Mai Tai

New York had a fine place to get all faux tropical and order tall, ornate tiki cocktails in Trader Vic's, before Donald Trump began his ignominious reign as owner of the Plaza Hotel and decided the restaurant was too "tacky" for his tastes. (Imagine Trump, the King of Bad Taste, finding something tacky.) It closed in 1989.

The Trader Vic chain, once mighty and nationwide, was founded and owned by Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. He opened the first of his Polynesian themes restaurants in Oakland. At the height of the tiki craze, there were 25. (There has been a resurgence of late, with many international locations opening.) One of the classiest addresses in the chain was in the basement of the Plaza.

Bergeron's most lasting contribution to world culture was the Mai Tai. While there has been some dispute over the years as to who invented this drink (Donn Beach of Donn the Beachcomber claimed authorship as well), lately it's been pretty well resolved that Bergeron came up with the formula to the most popular version of the cocktail. Here it is, as printed in a 1972 reprinting of his bartender's guide.

MAI TAI

1 lime
1/2 ounce orange curacao
1/4 ounce rock candy syrup
1/4 ounce orgeat syrup
1 ounce dark Jamaica rum
1 ounce Martinique rum

Cut lime in half; squeeze juice over shaved ice in a double old fashioned glass; save one spent shell. Add remaining ingredients and enough shaved ice to fill glass. Hand shake. Decorate with spent lime shell, fresh mint, and a fruit stick.

Notes of preparation: Don't skip the orgeat (you can find it at Astor Wine & Spirits) or use anything other than fresh lime juice. They are critical, as are the two kinds of rum; 2 oz. of one kind of rum is not the same. For the rock candy syrup, simple syrup will do. As to the fruit stick, it's safe to skip that. Don't even know what it might be.

Previous Recipes of the Lost City

Recipes of the Lost City: Town & Country's Maine Blueberry Griddle Cakes

The is the fifth edition of a new Lost City feature wherein I rummage through my library of old New York restaurant histories and cookbooks and dig up the prime dishes the denizens of the five boroughs dined on in years gone by.

I know very little about Town and Country, a restaurant on Park Avenue that thrived in the 1950s, except that it stood exactly opposite the Waldorf=Astoria, and was the subject of a rather spectacular holdup in 1956 which left two robbers dead on the avenue.

Here is their recipe for Maine Blueberry Griddle Cakes. It looks quite easy.

Maine Blueberry Griddle Cakes

2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon soda
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup fresh blueberries

Beat eggs and add buttermilk mixed with soda. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar into this mixture; then pour in melted butter. Fold blueberries into batter, and fry on a hot griddle. Serve with maple syrup and sausage and you have the perfect breakfast for a cold winter morning.

The boast at the end is the recipe's, not mine. Though they're probably right.

Previous "Recipes from the Lost City"

Recipes of the Lost City: The Stork Club Punch

It's appropriate, isn't it, that the debut of the Stork Club in this running column would be for an alcoholic beverage? Didn't the swellest and richest people in the world get blitzed there nightly for 30 years running.

I've heard of the Stork Club Cocktail; you can still get it in some swanky bars. This formula is for the Stork Club Punch. So make sure you invite over some thirsty friends before you make it. I haven't made it myself. Looking at the ingredients, it seems very fruity and very potent (all that rum). Why "domestic" maraschino liqueur is need, I have no idea? The most famous maraschino liqueurs are Italian. But, then, this recipe was printed in the New York Times in 1944, and we were at war with Italy. So that may account for it.

We were not, thankfully, at war with Jamaica.

STORK CLUB PUNCH

1 1/3 cups orange juice
1 1/3 cups pineapple juice
1 1/3 cups lemon or lime juice
1/2 bottle Jamaica rum
1/2 bottle Bacardi rum
1/3 bottle domestic maraschino liqueur
1/3 cherry brandy
Sliced orange and lemons or limes.
Slice fresh pineapple, if available
Canned cherries

Mix ingredients, except slices fruit and cherries, in a large bowl, then pour into a punch bowl containing a big piece of ice. Add the sliced fruit in amounts to taste—there can be as much or as little as you like. Serve with bread and butter sandwiches or simple cookies. This makes a quantity sufficient for twenty.

Previous Recipes From the Lost City

Totonno's Reopening Is Nigh

New York magazine has the scoop that the long-closed fire victim, Totonno's, will reopen..."soon." The piece is interesting in that it tells us a lot about the fire and damage that we didn't know before.

Louise Ciminieri is squinting at the ceiling and frowning. “This is annoying me right now,” she says. The rectangular area in question, roughly four by three feet, is slightly in front of the hulking brick-lined, coal-fired oven that has produced, since 1924, arguably the greatest pizzas in New York City: Totonno’s... The original tin walls and ceiling survived, except for this rectangle. Louise could buy new tin to line it and no one would know. But if she couldn’t have the original, better to leave it bare. “This is New York,” she says, gesturing around the room. “Some things shouldn’t change.”...

The fire gods spared the dining room: The vintage framed photos of everyone from Joe DiMaggio to Lou Reed are in storage, along with the tables and chairs. The two narrow booths are intact. ...

I ask about the recipes for the incomparable dough and tomato sauce, whether they were written down and lost in the blaze. She shoots me a disbelieving look I remember from my first visit to Totonno’s... Now she doesn’t answer my question about the recipes being at risk in the fire. She merely points to her head.

Recipes of the Lost City: Longchamps' Chicken Manhattan House

A little labor intensive, this one. It is named after Manhattan House, at 65th Street and Third Avenue, the home of one branch of the Longchamps chain. You'll need a bunch of 8-inch pans. And about a day to kill, since you have to make the brown sauce first, which will take a few hours. And the chicken stock, which takes a few more hours. (I eliminated the recipe for the chicken stock; it's your basic stock; you can use your own recipe or any cookbook recipe you like.) Seems like a lot of work, but it sure sounds like the result will be fantastically yummy.

Chicken Manhattan House

2 chickens, 2 1/2 pounds each
2 cups milk
4 T. flour
1 T butter, melted
3 eggs
Salt
1/4 cup butter
Flour for dipping
1/4 pound fresh mushrooms
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 shallots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 scallions chopped
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 cup basic brown sauce*
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine

Cut each chicken into 4 parts. Mix milk, flour, butter, eggs and dash of salt; beat well. Pour this pastry mixture into 4 heated 8-inch pans. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 8-10 minutes or until brown. Flour and salt the chicken and brown on both sides. Add mushrooms, garlic, shallots, onion and scallions and cook until brown. Add tomatoes, bay leaf, brown sauce, stock and wine. Cover and cook for 1 hour. Place a leg and a chicken breast in each pastry shell. Top with sauce.

*Basic Brown Sauce

2 pounds veal bones
Few chicken bones, neck and feet
1 carrot, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 leek, chopped
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 bay leaf
3 black peppercorns
2 cloves
Pinch rosemary
1 clove garlic
1/4 pound butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sherry
3 large tomotoes, chopped
1 T. catsup
1 T. chili sauce
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
3 quarts chicken or beef stock
Salt

Put veal and chicken bones, chicken parts, carrot, onion, leek, celery, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, rosemary, garlic and butter in a pan. Put in a 350 degree F. oven to brown for 20 minutes. Add flour and stir over low heat until flour has browned. Add sherry, tomatoes, catsup, chili sauce, Worcestershire and stock. Simmer for 3 1/2 hours. Strain. Season to taste.

Past "Recipes of the Lost City"

Recipes of the Lost City: Hampshire House's Veal Steak Saute Provencale

The Hampshire House was at 150 Central Park South. So you can sort of imagine the sort of folks who dined there. There were not of little means. It was famous for its interior decorations by famous designer Dorothy Draper. The chef at the time this recipe appeared (1950) was Maurice Lassauze. There were murals in the cocktail lounge by James Reynolds and Greeks heads in the corridor leading to the restaurant. Also, in general, "Smooth Smartness Beyond Criticism," according to a 1940 survey.

The building was begun in 1931, at the start of the Depression, and abandoned by its developers six months later. It was finished in 1938. First a hotel, it later became a co-op.

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Recently, I reported that Leske's, the old Scandinavian bakery in Bay Ridge that closed last year, would be reopening soon, using the same bakers as before. In response, I got this comment from a reader:

I live across the street from what used to be Leske's, and according to the new managers its going to re open with same recipes and bakers... that is a FALSE and a poor fake!!! All the bakers found new jobs and they are stable. One of the bakers is baking most of the stuff at Jean Danet bakery across the street from Leske's and there kringler and black and whites taste REAL good. It's similar to Leske's.. Please dont believe that fake sign! The new owners are lying to every one! 

I have no idea who's telling the truth here. But the timing of the comment was a coincidence, because I had been thinking about Jean Danet bakery in recent days, and wondering about its history.

Jean Danet is just a couple blocks to the north of Leske's on Fifth Avenue. It has an old-looking vertical sign on the side of the building, but a shiny new facade and interior. I expect the bakery's been renovated recently. Ironically, the redo's specific intent was obviously to make the facade look old! Look at the fake-ancient-ruin mix of bricks and plaster.

Anyway, here's the story according to the Danet website: "Originally started as a french pastry shop forty years ago, Pat Giura decided to keep the original name of Jean Danet and use the owner’s original recipes when the Giura family bought the business back in 1998. It was a natural fit for the graduate of The French Culinary Institute and certified Wilton Cake Decorator who grew up working at Savarese Italian Pastry Shoppe, owned by his parents, Cathy and Mario Giura."

Interesting pedigree. If the Leske's bakers are indeed employed there, the pedigree just got even better.

Recipes of the Lost City: Ye Olde Chop House's Corned Beef and Cabbage

The is the second edition of a new Lost City feature wherein I rummage through my library of old New York restaurant histories and cookbooks and dig up the prime dishes the denizens of the five boroughs dined on in years gone by.

I'm about one day late for a good recipe of Corned Beef and Cabbage. Sorry. I didn't realize I had it until last night. The formula belongs to Ye Olde Chop House, of which no one talks anymore. It was, for a long time, the oldest restaurant in New York, having been founded in 1800 as Old Tom's Chop House. 118 Cedar Street was its original home and it stayed on that street for most of its existence until it expires in the 1970s.

The name can tell you what kind of place it was. Old and woody. A lot of pewterware and dusty pictures on the walls. The was a tap room and a "pleasantly gloomy" grill room in back. In the grill room, the booths were boxy and separated from each other by shared pieces of wood. Sorta looked like today's office cubicles, only much, much better. It closed down on the weekends, since its clients were virtually all Wall Streeters.

So, Corned Beef and Cabbage. Here's how they did it:

3 1/2 pounds brisket of corned beef
2 onions
3 carrots
celery leaves
1 head cabbage
bacon rind or ham bone
2 teaspoons salt
dash of pepper
4 tablespoons butter

Simmer beef slowly for 3 hours in water to which spices, 1 onion, carrots, and celery leaves have been added. Boil cabbage in fresh water with bacon rind or ham bone. Flavor with an union, salt, and pepper. Cook until soft, about 20 minutes, and drain. Brown butter and pour over cabbage. Serve with corned beef. Makes 4 or 5 portions.

Simple enough. Though they don't say, I imagine they mean the onions, cabbage and carrots to be chopped.

(I'm not sure of the date of the above image. It may be of a later version of the Chop House on Broadway.)

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Recipes of the Lost City: Welsh Rarebit a La Pen and Pencil

The Pen and Pencil was a steakhouse that formerly held a place of honor on Manhattan's former Steak Row (E. 45th between Lex and 1st), and in the hearts of healthy newspapermen and ad men everywhere. It was run by John C. Bruno, the "Mayor of Steak Row." In 1952, Bruno shared his recipe for Welsh Rarebit with the New York Times:

Welsh Rarebit a la Pen and Pencil
1 T. butter
3/4 lb. aged cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 cup consumme
Dry mustard
Paprika
Worcestershire sauce
3 oz. ale
Toast

1. Place butter in shallow individual earthenware baking dish and set in a hot place (on flame pad over low heat) to heat and brown the butter.
2. Heat cheese with consumme in a small frying pan, stirring constantly until smooth. Add mustard, paprika and Worcestershire to taste.
3. Add ale and cook, stirring until smooth and hot, or about one minute.
4. Put a piece of hot toast in the buttered baking dish and pour the hot rabbit over it. Serve immediately. The dish must be so hot that the mixture sizzles in it for a minute.

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