Mr Borella's Clary Fritters

Clary leaves after washing and drying

Throughout the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a number of authors produced books called The Complete Confectioner, or with a title that was a variation on this name, such as The New, Universal and Complete Confectioner. The earliest book with this name was a newly christened edition of Mary Eale's Receipts (first published 1718), renamed The Compleat Confectioner, or the Art of Candying and Preserving in the Utmost Perfection (London: 1733). This was followed in c.1760 by Hannah Glasse's The Compleat Confectioner, which was very cheekily plagiarised in the 1780s by the publisher Alex Hogg, though he changed the title to The New, Universal and Complete Confectioner to disguise its source. The text is identical to Glasse's book, though it was issued under the name of a fictitious author called Elizabeth Price.  

In 1789, the professional London confectioner and cook Frederick Nutt issued another Complete Confectioner, though this appeared anonymously in its first two editions under the authorship of 'A Person'. In 1800 a curious volume was issued by an author called Maria Wilson with the same title. She proclaimed on the title page that her book was actually by Mrs Glasse 'with considerable additions and corrections, by Maria Wilson'. Finally, in 1809 the Edinburgh confectioner J. Caird issued his Complete Confectioner, which of all the books with this title is my very favourite. Caird's D'Arcy Cream, an ice cream flavoured with marmalade is to die for. Like Nutt's book, Caird's is an entirely original work. Unfortunately this cannot be said of Maria Wilson's additions to Glasse's The Complete Confectioner, as she lifted all of her extra recipes directly from another confectionery manual called The Court and Country Confectioner by a Mr Borella, which was published in c.1770. Although she credits Mrs Glasse, Wilson makes no reference to Mr Borella whatsoever. This dishonest state of affairs, with its unscrupulous borrowings, is fairly typical of the highly dodgy publishing scene of this period. Since Mrs Wilson cheated Borella of any credit, I thought I would set the record straight by giving you one of his recipes which she claims as her own in her additions to Glasse's book.

Borella, who tells us the had been confectioner to the Spanish Ambassador in London, gives us some outstanding recipes. His Muscadine Ice, a lemon water ice flavoured with elderflowers was probably meant to simulate the flavour of Muscatel grapes. He also suggests a variation which includes white currant juice, which I think is one of the greatest water ices ever. Another recipe with a connection to muscatel grapes is an interesting one for clary fritters. Clary or Clear Eye (Salvia sclera L.) is a member of the Labiatae closely related to sage. Its fragrant essential oil has a muscatel scent and it was used to flavour wines to give them a musky character. In my experience of growing the herb, the scent of individual plants can vary from being odourless, to pleasantly musky, to strongly redolent of cat pee. To make the fritters, Borella tells us to dip the clary leaves in a nutmeg flavoured batter with eggs, water, sugar, cream, flour and ratafia water. By the latter he meant an almond flavoured liqueur which was rather similar to amaretto, which you could use today as a substitute. Here is the recipe.

The large leaves dipped in batter and fried in hog's lard look like fillets of sole or other flat fish

The finished fritters dusted with sugar and with their garnish of orange slices

The acidic juice of Seville orange makes a great foil to these lovely fritters, which have a lovely hint of bitter almonds from the ratafia water in the batter mix. Recipes for clary fritters go back a long way and were not just confined to the English kitchen. Taillevent (c.1310-1395) in Le Viandier gives us a recipe for fritelles made from a purée of clary leaves, honey, white wine and flour. The fritelles were fried and then dressed with sugar and rosemary. In medicine, clary was used for treating eye problems, but it also had other applications, one being as a form of early modern period viagra. In The English Physician (London: 1652), the astrologer and herbalist Nicholas Culpepper tells us, 'the seeds or leaves taken in wine, provoketh to venery... the juice of the herb in ale or beer, and drank, promotes the courses.'  Culpepper's sixteenth century predecessor John Gerard in his Herball, or Historie of Plantes (London: 1597) explains that clary was used in making a type of fried tanzie, an Elizabethan cross between a pancake and an omelette.

This recipe for fried clary leaves from William Rabisha, The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected (London: 1661) suggests it could be served as a breakfast dish. His tip to remove the tough strings from the main leaf vein is very sensible

Clarie from John Gerard The Herbal or Historie of Plantes (London: 1597).

William Verral's Red Currant Tea Bags

Will Verrall's Currant Fritters en surprize 1759

In my last posting I lamented the decline of the standard of food at the White Hart Inn (now Hotel) in Lewes. So I thought it would be fun to make a dish for you from the 1759 cookery book written by William Verral, the master of the inn at the apogée of its gastronomic fame. I have chosen an unusual, but easily made fritter. Here is Verral's original recipe. He almost certainly learnt it from Clouet, the Duke of Newcastle's cook. It is hardly a great set piece baroque dish, just a simple fritter made in rather an eccentric way, but Newcastle loved Clouet''s tasty little treats like this.

From William Verrall, A Complete System of Cookery. (London: 1759).

Fritters of all kinds were popular in the Georgian period and there were many unusual varieties on offer. I have already introduced you to skirret fritters. Here is a clever way of deep frying currant jelly in batter to produce an incredibly rich and buttery parcel of crisp batter with a soft fruit centre. Most fritters were fried in hog's lard at this period, but clarified butter (oiled butter) is used here to give these little devils their decadent buttery character.

The little wafer paper packages of red currant jelly look like tea bags.

Modern wafer paper (rice paper) is too thin to withstand the heat of the boiling butter and will split open and release its jammy contents, but if you use a double layer of rice paper, the recipe works very well. Wet the edges lightly and pinch them close together to make a good seal. Dip them in an eggless beer batter and drop them into the hot butter immediately. They need a turn, which must be done carefully with a perforated spoon. Then drain on some paper. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and eat them while still hot. As you savour their delicious texture and flavour, you will also feel the indescribable sensation of your arteries rapidly furring up! Enjoy!

One of Will's heart attack fritters cut in two

Wafer paper must have been made commercially at this period. It crops up from time to time as an ingredient. However, after  a lifetime of searching I have only found one recipe, which I have posted below. The more adventurous of you may like to experiment with it. 

A rare recipe for wafer paper from John Thacker, The Art of Cookery. Newcastle upon  Tyne: 1758

Verral, in his recipe for currant fritters en surprize, refers to a previous recipe, so I have reproduced it below. If you do not have any wafer paper, you might like to try this one instead. If you have ever prepared hand-made ravioli, you will be familiar with the technique. It works very well when made with very thinly rolled puff pastry. 

On early recipes using deep fried puff pastry (and wafer paper) - more anon!

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Richard Briggs' Skirret Fritters

I have had a bumper harvest of skirrets in my garden this year. This ancient vegetable (Sium sisarum L.) went out of favour during the course of the early nineteenth century. Despite their sweet, delicious flavour, the straggling, mandrake-like roots are difficult to clean and I suspect many cooks just lost patience with them. The kitchen staff must have dreaded it when the master called for a dish of skirrets, because it meant hours of tedious scrubbing and scrapping. Some of the older roots also have a hard stringlike thread going through them, providing the diner with a length of built in dental floss! However, they do have a great parsnip-like flavour and a wonderful creamy texture, so I take the trouble every year to make one or two dishes from them. Today, I made skirret fritters, an old favourite of mine from a recipe in Richard Briggs, The English Art of Cookery (London: 1788).

Skirrets cook very quickly and once boiled the skin can be rubbed off quite easily. I followed Brigg's method exactly, making about a pint of creamy skirret puree. The rest of the process is shown in the images below. 

A creamy puree is made by rubbing the skirrets through a drum sieve.

Flour, sugar, eggs, ginger and nutmeg are added to make the fritter batter.

A spoonful of the batter is dropped into hot hog's lard and the fritters fried until golden brown

The fritters served on an eighteenth century silver plate with their garnish
of dried sweetmeats (courtesy of Plumcake). Delicious!


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