Thought for Food
Saffron
By ELIZABETH DAVID SAFFRON is a 'useful aro- matic, of a strong pene- trating smell, and a warm pungent bitterish taste.' Culpeper's very exact description contains its own warning. There are few spices or aromatics which possess and impart scent, taste and colour in such a high degree as saffron. Properly admin- istered, it can make a rice dish, a soup, a sauce, most wonderfully attractive; incautiously used, that penetrating smell, that pungent, bitterish taste can turn the same dish into something quite repellent. On the other hand, anybody unfamiliar with the appearance and the smell of true saffron may find themselves landed with an adulterated or falsified version of saffron powder which produces an effective yellow stain but makes little difference to the scent or flavour of a dish, a circumstance which has led to odd misconceptions as to the properties of saffron, the quantities in which recipe-writers prescribe it, and the methods advised for adding it.
True saffron, as we know it for cooking or pharmaceutical purposes, consists of the dried pistils of crocus sativus, the lilac-coloured autumn-flowering crocus. Some 85,000 flowers are needed to make up one pound of dried pistils. One grain, or one-437th of an avoir- dupois ounce of these tiny, fiery-looking orange and red thread-like objects, scarcely fills the smallest salt spoon, but provides flavouring and colouring for a typical Milanese risotto, a Spanish paella or a Provencal fish soup for four to six people. (Not long ago, a reader asked me if a recipe calling for 2 oz. of saffron could be quite correct. No wonder. She had discovered that at the current retail price of 3d. a grain, 2 oz. would add about to the cost of the dish. Misprint? Or howler on the part of the recipe compiler?) The way Italians use the little saffron filaments is to pour over them about a coffeccupful of hot water or of whatever stock is being used for the dish in question. Leave this infusion until it has turned a deep bright orange and is giving out its characteristic, unmistakable smell. When your rice is about two-thirds cooked, strain the liquid into it. This tiny quantity will turn three-quarters to one pound of rice a line bright lemon colour, and will give it a flavour sufficiently pungent for most people's palates. Too strong an infusion will pro- duce a bitter taste, and so would the little threads 'themselves if put whole into any dish, cake, soup or sauce.
For dishes where the additional liquid of an infusion may not be practical, powdered saffron can be stirred straight, and with a little trouble, evenly, into a mixture. The Spanish chef at the De Vere Hotel, Who makes a fine paella, tells me that he simply puts whole saffron, as and when required, into the oven for a couple of minutes, then crumbles it into a powder, to be stirred directly into his dish. Whole saffron is often treated with glycerine to prevent loss in weight, and it shrinks perceptibly even after this brief drying process. Even so this is a more economical method than buying little packets of ready- powdered saffron, which, if genuine, comes, weight for weight, twice as expensive as whole Valencia saffron. This is the quality considered by the trade to be the best, and is more likely to be found at a good chemist's than at a grocer's. When you're using saffron only for an occasional dish, the difference in cost between the whole and the powdered product may seem small. For caterers and restaurateurs who attempt to pro- vide Spanish, Italian, Provençal and other saffron- flavoured dishes in their genuine form and on a large scale, it could be enormous. As the current bulk price of £7 10s. a pound for the best quality Spanish whole saffron before it enters this country has already risen to £5 10s. an ounce, by the time the loss in weight has been accounted for, and Customs, wholesalers, distributors, and re- tailers have taken their toll, it seems unnecessary to double it again by paying for ready-ground saffron. As an alternative to saffron, genuine or imita- tion, some cooks use the ground root of turmeric, a plant of the ginger family, which gives com- mercial curry powders their yellow colour. With- out the bitter pungency of saffron, turmeric has a quite attractive spicy flavour and smell, is com- paratively cheap (at spice counters and Indian grocers) and can be added straight without pre- liminary infusion. A teaspoonful, approximately, will do the job of colouring a rice dish for four people, but the resulting flavour is very different from that produced by saffron: an oriental rather than a Mediterranean accent.
From an Avignon restaurant, via a kind reader, comes a recipe for a saffron-flavoured mussel dish which contains more than one excellent idea.
For two people cook three to four pints of mussels with a small onion chopped, a bayleaf, parsley stalks, a scrap of thyme, half a .dozen fennel seeds and teacup of water. As soon as the mussels open, remove them, strain the liquid and add a scant half-pint of it in a quarter-pint of thick béchamel. Then enough saffron, either in powder or infusion form (in the latter case sub- tract the cofleecupful of liquid from the total amount of mussel stock) to make the sauce 'a good butter colour.' Next, just one tablespoon of cooked and very finely chopped spinach. Then stir in the shelled mussels and turn all into a fire- proof dish. Spread with breadcrumbs and tiny pieces of butter. Reheat in a pretty hot oven for about ten minutes, until the top surface is golden.
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