I want to take a little break from writing up full reports on everything I cook. It was getting a bit tiring, doing that day in, day out. Give me a week or so.
Monday, January 10, 2011
chilli con carne
I want to take a little break from writing up full reports on everything I cook. It was getting a bit tiring, doing that day in, day out. Give me a week or so.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
questions and doubts: this is not an exit
I've just passed recipe 100 and here I am having doubts. The fact that Italian chicken--an Escoffier recipe with a few modifications--sucked maybe woke me up. I've had a mixed experience cooking through Larousse Gastronomique. There are dishes I've loved and dishes I've disliked. I've learned something from most of them. I look forward to some dishes. The whole milk lamb? The cassoulet? The stuffed hare cooked in a casserole? They sound exactly like my idea of a good time.
The problem is that Larousse Gastronomique is not the book that's going to teach me to cook. Here are some flaws from my perspective:
Larousse Gastronomique remains an essential reference for me. Let's make that clear. I'll still cook from it but I'm not going to cook all those egg recipes. And I'm going to supplement it. I want to know more about the cuisines of other countries. I want to fuck around with some molecular gastronomy, just for fun. I have more than 50 cookbooks sitting here and I plan to get a few more. I'd like to grab the Quay book and mess around with that. Grab Thomas Keller's range of books, especially the sous vide one and Bouchon, in a couple of months if they're still on special for $30USD a pop. Turn to books already in my collection I know are good. Bourdain's Les Halles. Alinea. The Fat Duck. Dunlop's Land of Plenty. David Thompson's Thai Food. Greg Malouf's Middle Eastern cookbooks. And, on the pastry front, Advanced Bread & Pastry. I mean, I want to be able to make a fuck off awesome cassoulet for friends. But I also love a nice curry. I'd love to be able to make a beautiful Thai curry paste from scratch. I want to cure my own meats. Brew my own beer--moreso than make angelica liqueur, although that would still be a lot of fun. Savoury icecreams and sorbets. An artful cake. Something as well-thought-out as what I've had at restaurants like Embrasse and maze and The Press Club and Vue de Monde or as rustic as the grilled morcilla with boiled vegetables from MoVida or the pulled pork with much chilli salsa from Mamasita. How is all of that stuff not as valid as espagnole sauce? I just happen to like delicious food. Specific dishes and ingredients. Food does not become more or less delicious if it's French. Coq au vin isn't good because it's French. It's based on classic French technique but much of what makes it good are traits common through international cuisines. A few ingredients. Care. Time. A soothing quality.
How much can you learn from cooking through a single book? I now understand one of the major criticisms Julie Powell faced: it's a stunt. It's an educational stunt, yes, but in terms of providing an education about cooking it's providing an education about one style of cooking as seen through the eyes of one author or team or authors. Their preferences and fuck-ups and missteps and prejudices and limitations become your own. Their goals were not the same as yours. Cookbooks typically aren't written to be cooked through. These aren't novels. You're not really meant to progress from page one to page three hundred and fifty two, the end.
This is not an exit. This is not quitting. The blog shall continue. I shall broaden my focus while still following logical progressions: making a nice braise, refining my roasting technique, getting better at baking cakes, blending spices and herbs, discovering molecular gastronomy.
After all, anything in which recipe #3800 is the end point implies something I really never wanted to imply: an end point. A completion of a journey. I'm here to learn to cook. And that's a journey that will outlast all the cookbooks I currently own and will ever buy.
Onward.
The problem is that Larousse Gastronomique is not the book that's going to teach me to cook. Here are some flaws from my perspective:
- There are a hell of a lot of recipes for eggs with slightly different garnishes. Now I get why these are distinct recipes. I do. I get that location is everything in French cuisine and that a lot of those recipes are region-specific. I'm just not sure what value, if any, I'm actually going to get from booking two dozen different variations on boiled eggs over the course of three or four years. No one wants to read that, either.
- Larousse Gastronomique has remain unchanged in the face of modern wisdom in some key areas. The roasting temperatures and times often terrify me. I'm no scientist but I've picked up a bit of knowledge from Blumenthal, McGee and even Fearnley-Whittingstall. I know cooking meats at certain temperatures is a bad idea. If I have to change the recipes to account for knowledge I've picked up from elsewhere am I really cooking through the book faithfully?
- Larousse Gastronomique is French-centric. I knew this from the beginning and at first I thought that was okay. I mean, even in non-French restaurants, classic French techniques and preparations are clear and present. But they're not everything. This isn't a fault of Larousse Gastronomique. It's a fault on my part. I was a snob, I guess. In wanting to learn to cook I was ignoring the talents of chefs in other cuisines I like--Italian, Spanish, Indian, Chinese (Sichuan especially). I was precluding myself from really explloring something I want to delve into more heavily: using classic techniques from Asia and Europe with Australian ingredients such as emu and kangaroo and wallaby.
- Larousse Gastronomique still draws heavily on the cuisine of Escoffier. Now again, that's not a fault. The book is what it is. It doesn't claim to be more than it is. This means that there are recipes for all the classic sauces--espagnole and so on--and I want to get around to those, but it also means there's a lot of stuff I'm not particularly excited about. Italian sauce, for example ...
Larousse Gastronomique remains an essential reference for me. Let's make that clear. I'll still cook from it but I'm not going to cook all those egg recipes. And I'm going to supplement it. I want to know more about the cuisines of other countries. I want to fuck around with some molecular gastronomy, just for fun. I have more than 50 cookbooks sitting here and I plan to get a few more. I'd like to grab the Quay book and mess around with that. Grab Thomas Keller's range of books, especially the sous vide one and Bouchon, in a couple of months if they're still on special for $30USD a pop. Turn to books already in my collection I know are good. Bourdain's Les Halles. Alinea. The Fat Duck. Dunlop's Land of Plenty. David Thompson's Thai Food. Greg Malouf's Middle Eastern cookbooks. And, on the pastry front, Advanced Bread & Pastry. I mean, I want to be able to make a fuck off awesome cassoulet for friends. But I also love a nice curry. I'd love to be able to make a beautiful Thai curry paste from scratch. I want to cure my own meats. Brew my own beer--moreso than make angelica liqueur, although that would still be a lot of fun. Savoury icecreams and sorbets. An artful cake. Something as well-thought-out as what I've had at restaurants like Embrasse and maze and The Press Club and Vue de Monde or as rustic as the grilled morcilla with boiled vegetables from MoVida or the pulled pork with much chilli salsa from Mamasita. How is all of that stuff not as valid as espagnole sauce? I just happen to like delicious food. Specific dishes and ingredients. Food does not become more or less delicious if it's French. Coq au vin isn't good because it's French. It's based on classic French technique but much of what makes it good are traits common through international cuisines. A few ingredients. Care. Time. A soothing quality.
How much can you learn from cooking through a single book? I now understand one of the major criticisms Julie Powell faced: it's a stunt. It's an educational stunt, yes, but in terms of providing an education about cooking it's providing an education about one style of cooking as seen through the eyes of one author or team or authors. Their preferences and fuck-ups and missteps and prejudices and limitations become your own. Their goals were not the same as yours. Cookbooks typically aren't written to be cooked through. These aren't novels. You're not really meant to progress from page one to page three hundred and fifty two, the end.
This is not an exit. This is not quitting. The blog shall continue. I shall broaden my focus while still following logical progressions: making a nice braise, refining my roasting technique, getting better at baking cakes, blending spices and herbs, discovering molecular gastronomy.
After all, anything in which recipe #3800 is the end point implies something I really never wanted to imply: an end point. A completion of a journey. I'm here to learn to cook. And that's a journey that will outlast all the cookbooks I currently own and will ever buy.
Onward.
meat and potatoes
105. Beef salad
All that Italian chicken business was a bit of a let-down. Perhaps going into what is perhaps the most comprehensive of all French cookery books, I expected to like everything as much as coq au vin and poule au pot and steak au poivre and lemon tart. I mean, I feel that way about all those bistro books. About most of the stuff in Stephane Reynaud's books. That perfect balance of rustic and refined that is that sort of French cooking really appeals to me. So perhaps one of my biggest lessons is that such food is a small element of French cookery. There's going to be a whole lot of stuff in Larousse Gastronomique I'm probably not going to like. I have to admit, it's given me pause. What's the point of cooking through 3800 recipes if I hate half of them? I'm learning, yes, all the time--you can learn a lot from food you don't enjoy--but there are a million books filled, cover to cover, with recipes that I'm going to like. I can't call this a cook through blog if I'm going to ignore the boring stuff and only cook a suckling pig and a couple of variations of grilled rib eye and a cassoulet and maybe some coq au Riesling and then call it a day. Perhaps my prejudices and misconceptions are being challenged. When I heard 'French technique' and 'French cuisine before', I pictured all those old favourites and the modern, light, artistry performed at restaurants like Vue de Monde and Embrasse. Doubts? Perhaps.
With this swirling around in my mind, I decided to do something I knew I'd like: a Larousse Gastronomique salad. So far, they've all been good or great. Tonight's effort contained slices of steak, boiled potatoes, diced onion and sliced tomato. That's all.
All the recipe said about the beef component was that it needed to be cooked. You could use leftover roast beef, if you wanted to. I didn't have any so I bought a rump steak, rubbed some fresh herbs (sage and rosemary) into it and cooked until it was rare.
As for the potatoes, these were boiled and then sliced and immersed in a 'dressing' made from white wine and olive oil.
The whole lot was tossed together and then stressed with a mustard-flavoured vinaigrette.
Overall, this wasn't my favourite salad from Larousse Gastronomique. Not a total dud but it was missing a couple of things. If I'd had more money, I would've bought a nice piece of grass fed beef. The only steaks I've had over the past couple of years have been top quality: not necessarily wagyu but Angus or King Island Beef or Cape Grim or whatever. I'd go without steak for weeks, saving up to buy nice meat from Queen Victoria Market. The difference in flavour between those high quality steaks and what I had tonight is very obvious. Lesson here: don't have this sort of dinner when you're on a tight budget.
I don't blame Larousse for that one but I do feel that there should've been some sort of leaf matter in this salad. Some rocket would've been nice. Some baby spinach leaves, perhaps.
All that Italian chicken business was a bit of a let-down. Perhaps going into what is perhaps the most comprehensive of all French cookery books, I expected to like everything as much as coq au vin and poule au pot and steak au poivre and lemon tart. I mean, I feel that way about all those bistro books. About most of the stuff in Stephane Reynaud's books. That perfect balance of rustic and refined that is that sort of French cooking really appeals to me. So perhaps one of my biggest lessons is that such food is a small element of French cookery. There's going to be a whole lot of stuff in Larousse Gastronomique I'm probably not going to like. I have to admit, it's given me pause. What's the point of cooking through 3800 recipes if I hate half of them? I'm learning, yes, all the time--you can learn a lot from food you don't enjoy--but there are a million books filled, cover to cover, with recipes that I'm going to like. I can't call this a cook through blog if I'm going to ignore the boring stuff and only cook a suckling pig and a couple of variations of grilled rib eye and a cassoulet and maybe some coq au Riesling and then call it a day. Perhaps my prejudices and misconceptions are being challenged. When I heard 'French technique' and 'French cuisine before', I pictured all those old favourites and the modern, light, artistry performed at restaurants like Vue de Monde and Embrasse. Doubts? Perhaps.
With this swirling around in my mind, I decided to do something I knew I'd like: a Larousse Gastronomique salad. So far, they've all been good or great. Tonight's effort contained slices of steak, boiled potatoes, diced onion and sliced tomato. That's all.
All the recipe said about the beef component was that it needed to be cooked. You could use leftover roast beef, if you wanted to. I didn't have any so I bought a rump steak, rubbed some fresh herbs (sage and rosemary) into it and cooked until it was rare.
As for the potatoes, these were boiled and then sliced and immersed in a 'dressing' made from white wine and olive oil.
The whole lot was tossed together and then stressed with a mustard-flavoured vinaigrette.
Overall, this wasn't my favourite salad from Larousse Gastronomique. Not a total dud but it was missing a couple of things. If I'd had more money, I would've bought a nice piece of grass fed beef. The only steaks I've had over the past couple of years have been top quality: not necessarily wagyu but Angus or King Island Beef or Cape Grim or whatever. I'd go without steak for weeks, saving up to buy nice meat from Queen Victoria Market. The difference in flavour between those high quality steaks and what I had tonight is very obvious. Lesson here: don't have this sort of dinner when you're on a tight budget.
I don't blame Larousse for that one but I do feel that there should've been some sort of leaf matter in this salad. Some rocket would've been nice. Some baby spinach leaves, perhaps.
Friday, January 7, 2011
assorted 'Italian'
101. Italian sauce
Before I settled on cooking through Larousse Gastronomique, I entertained the idea of cooking my way through Escoffier's La Guide Culinaire. I ended up choosing Larousse because it's more comprehensive. Larousse covers a lot of the same territory as Escoffier's Bible--indeed, a lot of the recipes are basically the same--but it also has a lot of modern refinements and techniques. There are a couple of sous vide recipes in the 2009 edition of Larousse, for example.
Alongside all the classic sauces you'd recognise as French--bechamel, demi-glace, espagnole and so on--Escoffier wrote of sauces inspired by foreign cuisine. These appear even in the 2009 edition of Larousse, although some of them have been modernised considerably to include ingredients people from India or wherever would actually use.
The first part of Italian sauce that I needed to take care of was the stock. I still don't have any in the freezer. I bought a couple of chicken carcasses with a view to making siome stock for the next week's worth of Larousse recipes.
The stock done, the rest of the sauce is very simple. You saute some chopped mushrooms, an onion and a shallot and then pour in a bit of stock and a few spoonfuls of tomato paste. The sauce is flavoured with salt, pepper and a bouquet garni. At the very end of cooking, ham is added. I have to say--and I feel a bit dirty for saying this, as I know sauce italienne is a classic French sauce--that it reminds me of two things old Auguste Escoffier probably would've looked upon with disgust: pub chicken <Aussie accent>parrrmas</Aussie accent> and a product heavily marketed on television during my childhood, the 'Chicken Tonight' range of simmer sauces. Then again, maybe if Escoffier was still alive today he'd be marketing simmer sauces, just like all those other celebrity chefs promoting Coles and Masterfoods products.
102. Chicken a brun
Chicken a brun (and chicken a blanc, for that matter) serves as a base recipe for many other recipes in Larousse Gastronomique. It's no more than a paragraph instructing you to saute chicken pieces over a high he so they brown up nicely.
103. Chicken a l'italienne
Once you've sauteed the chicken pieces, you can assemble the dish. Deglaze the pan with white wine and then pour in the Italian sauce. Cook until both the meat and sauce are heated through--although note that the 'chicken a brun' recipe states you shouldn't bring the sauce to the boil at this point.
The photo probably makes it obvious: this dish was nothing to write home about.
104. Macaroni calabrese
Figured I'd try and find a side dish that was a bit more fitting than, say, another variation potatoes with animal fat. The sauce for macaroni calabrese contains roasted tomatoes, pitted black olives, capers and basil. Can't go wrong with that combination, can you?
Because I had the time, I slow roasted the tomatoes: 120 degree oven over the course of the afternoon alongside a couple of cloves of garlic and a wee bit of oregano.
The sauce was nice--I just wish I'd bought an extra tomato or two so I had more of it.
Before I settled on cooking through Larousse Gastronomique, I entertained the idea of cooking my way through Escoffier's La Guide Culinaire. I ended up choosing Larousse because it's more comprehensive. Larousse covers a lot of the same territory as Escoffier's Bible--indeed, a lot of the recipes are basically the same--but it also has a lot of modern refinements and techniques. There are a couple of sous vide recipes in the 2009 edition of Larousse, for example.
Alongside all the classic sauces you'd recognise as French--bechamel, demi-glace, espagnole and so on--Escoffier wrote of sauces inspired by foreign cuisine. These appear even in the 2009 edition of Larousse, although some of them have been modernised considerably to include ingredients people from India or wherever would actually use.
The first part of Italian sauce that I needed to take care of was the stock. I still don't have any in the freezer. I bought a couple of chicken carcasses with a view to making siome stock for the next week's worth of Larousse recipes.
The stock done, the rest of the sauce is very simple. You saute some chopped mushrooms, an onion and a shallot and then pour in a bit of stock and a few spoonfuls of tomato paste. The sauce is flavoured with salt, pepper and a bouquet garni. At the very end of cooking, ham is added. I have to say--and I feel a bit dirty for saying this, as I know sauce italienne is a classic French sauce--that it reminds me of two things old Auguste Escoffier probably would've looked upon with disgust: pub chicken <Aussie accent>parrrmas</Aussie accent> and a product heavily marketed on television during my childhood, the 'Chicken Tonight' range of simmer sauces. Then again, maybe if Escoffier was still alive today he'd be marketing simmer sauces, just like all those other celebrity chefs promoting Coles and Masterfoods products.
102. Chicken a brun
Chicken a brun (and chicken a blanc, for that matter) serves as a base recipe for many other recipes in Larousse Gastronomique. It's no more than a paragraph instructing you to saute chicken pieces over a high he so they brown up nicely.
103. Chicken a l'italienne
Once you've sauteed the chicken pieces, you can assemble the dish. Deglaze the pan with white wine and then pour in the Italian sauce. Cook until both the meat and sauce are heated through--although note that the 'chicken a brun' recipe states you shouldn't bring the sauce to the boil at this point.
The photo probably makes it obvious: this dish was nothing to write home about.
104. Macaroni calabrese
Figured I'd try and find a side dish that was a bit more fitting than, say, another variation potatoes with animal fat. The sauce for macaroni calabrese contains roasted tomatoes, pitted black olives, capers and basil. Can't go wrong with that combination, can you?
Because I had the time, I slow roasted the tomatoes: 120 degree oven over the course of the afternoon alongside a couple of cloves of garlic and a wee bit of oregano.
The sauce was nice--I just wish I'd bought an extra tomato or two so I had more of it.
century
100. Fried eggs
My first recipe was something very basic and classic: roast chicken. It's fitting, although it wasn't intentional, that my hundredth recipe was something even more basic: fried eggs on toast.
My first recipe was something very basic and classic: roast chicken. It's fitting, although it wasn't intentional, that my hundredth recipe was something even more basic: fried eggs on toast.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
I'm breaking up with you
99. Spaghetti all'amatriciana
Spaghetti all'amatriciana was one of the first non-bolognese pasta dishes I cooked. It remains one of my favourites. Easy. Delicious. Comforting: you can't say no to a combination of pasta, chilli, cured pork and tomato.
Now. Tomatoes. You see, canned tomatoes used to be a staple in my diet. Most of the time when I was cooking a pasta sauce, I'd use a can or two of tomatoes. I'd use canned tomatoes in dishes like chicken cacciatore. I just realised today, as I sorted through a tub of tomatoes to find the good ones, that I stopped buying canned tomatoes. I think Larousse Gastronomique has something to do with that. The recipes just don't call for canned products. The only canned products I can recall buying, 99 recipes in to the book, are anchovies and tuna. And even then, I think I have to buy maybe one more can of tuna. Not bad for 3800+ recipes.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with canned tomatoes. Like canned beans, they're a convinience worth having in stock in the pantry. Just in case, you know. But I've found that using fresh tomatoes--and I'm not talking about expensive hierloom tomatoes here, as I'm not made of money--lightens dishes. A friend reckons that canned tomatoes have a better flavour but I disagree. I mean, I used to agree, but as I've fallen deeper down the rabbit hole of French cooking and started eating at nice restaurants, I've started to develop an appreciation for subtlety. Canned tomatoes, especially Italian ones, offer a flavour that's ... abrupt. So no more canned tomatoes for me.
Aside from the use of fresh tomatoes in place of canned tomatoes, Larousse Gastronomique's version of all'amatriciana sauce is the same as other recipes I've used. Simply fry up some cubes of pancetta (Wikipedia says it's more traditional to use cured cheek, though) with a little bit of fresh garlic and chilli. I'm using one of the habaneros from the pot plant I purchased a few weeks ago. Deglaze the pan with a little bit of dry white wine and then add your peeled and crushed tomatoes. Simmer until the liquid has evaportated and then stir through your spaghetti.
In making the sauce, I borrowed from the tomato sauce recipe. After peeling the tomatoes I cut them into large chunks. These I stewed in the saucepan for about half a hour with the lid on: the idea being that I wanted a sauce with texture but without great lumps recognisable as tomato. Once the tomatoes had broken down a bit I removed the lid from the pan and reduced and reduced and reduced until the sauce was thick but still moist enough to coat the pasta.
A winner.
Spaghetti all'amatriciana was one of the first non-bolognese pasta dishes I cooked. It remains one of my favourites. Easy. Delicious. Comforting: you can't say no to a combination of pasta, chilli, cured pork and tomato.
Now. Tomatoes. You see, canned tomatoes used to be a staple in my diet. Most of the time when I was cooking a pasta sauce, I'd use a can or two of tomatoes. I'd use canned tomatoes in dishes like chicken cacciatore. I just realised today, as I sorted through a tub of tomatoes to find the good ones, that I stopped buying canned tomatoes. I think Larousse Gastronomique has something to do with that. The recipes just don't call for canned products. The only canned products I can recall buying, 99 recipes in to the book, are anchovies and tuna. And even then, I think I have to buy maybe one more can of tuna. Not bad for 3800+ recipes.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with canned tomatoes. Like canned beans, they're a convinience worth having in stock in the pantry. Just in case, you know. But I've found that using fresh tomatoes--and I'm not talking about expensive hierloom tomatoes here, as I'm not made of money--lightens dishes. A friend reckons that canned tomatoes have a better flavour but I disagree. I mean, I used to agree, but as I've fallen deeper down the rabbit hole of French cooking and started eating at nice restaurants, I've started to develop an appreciation for subtlety. Canned tomatoes, especially Italian ones, offer a flavour that's ... abrupt. So no more canned tomatoes for me.
Aside from the use of fresh tomatoes in place of canned tomatoes, Larousse Gastronomique's version of all'amatriciana sauce is the same as other recipes I've used. Simply fry up some cubes of pancetta (Wikipedia says it's more traditional to use cured cheek, though) with a little bit of fresh garlic and chilli. I'm using one of the habaneros from the pot plant I purchased a few weeks ago. Deglaze the pan with a little bit of dry white wine and then add your peeled and crushed tomatoes. Simmer until the liquid has evaportated and then stir through your spaghetti.
In making the sauce, I borrowed from the tomato sauce recipe. After peeling the tomatoes I cut them into large chunks. These I stewed in the saucepan for about half a hour with the lid on: the idea being that I wanted a sauce with texture but without great lumps recognisable as tomato. Once the tomatoes had broken down a bit I removed the lid from the pan and reduced and reduced and reduced until the sauce was thick but still moist enough to coat the pasta.
A winner.
soldiers
98. Soft-boiled eggs
When my girlfriend first moved in with me, she'd always get upset at how I cooked eggs. For me, eggs--whether they're fried or boiled or poached--require runny yolks. Not in salad, no. But when you're having them with toast and bacon. Gradually I won her over.
For me, runny egg yolks are one of life's simple pleasures. I could quite happily forget the whites and just egg runny yolk after runny yolk. With toast, of course, and much pepper.
And so, today's lunch: boiled eggs with toast 'soldiers' made from ciabatta.
When my girlfriend first moved in with me, she'd always get upset at how I cooked eggs. For me, eggs--whether they're fried or boiled or poached--require runny yolks. Not in salad, no. But when you're having them with toast and bacon. Gradually I won her over.
For me, runny egg yolks are one of life's simple pleasures. I could quite happily forget the whites and just egg runny yolk after runny yolk. With toast, of course, and much pepper.
And so, today's lunch: boiled eggs with toast 'soldiers' made from ciabatta.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
small cock
94. Coquelets en crapaudine a l'americaine
A coquelet is a small cock. See, I wasn't trying to be funny. Basically, think a male poussin. Larousse Gastronomique says they taste of nothing, pretty much, and therefore need a strong-flavoured marinade or sauce to make them interesting. 'En crapaudine' is the French term for spatchcocking.
I have no idea if baby roosters are sold in Australia--it's hard enough to find mature roosters--and nothing Larousse Gastronomique said about them made me want to go looking for them. I considered using a whole chicken instead (I'm not flush enough to buy poussins at the moment) but I find that whole spatchcocked chickens don't barbecue so well. I bought chicken thighs instead.
The suggested spice rub is fairly similar to what I normally use when barbecuing chickens and rabbits: a bit of oil, garlic, salt, pepper, chilli powder and powdered ginger.
Despite my plans to barbecue the thighs, I ended up lighting the grill (broiler) instead. Weber kettles are nice but there's a lot of mucking about. When I move I'm going to go to Kmart or Bunnings and buy a cheap gas barbecue. I want to be able to hit the switch and start cooking, just like I do with a stove or oven.
The marinade is okay. I regret not having some lemons or limes kicking around the place: it could really do with that hit of freshness.
95. Potato cocotte
Out of all the potato dishes I've done, this has to have the most elaborate cooking process. Not hard. Just a bit odd. I'm sure there's a logic behind the cooking method.
You trim potatoes into 4-5 cm long fingers then put them in water. Bring the water to the boil and then drain the potatoes. Saute them for 15 minutes. Roast them for 45 minutes: the first 25 of those minutes at 200 degrees, the remaining 20 at 180 degrees.
Was all that messing around worth it? Not really. Not for what amounts to oven fries. My recipe for potato wedges produces superior results for a fraction of the effort.
96. Tomato salad with mozzarella
Slice tomatoes. Top said tomato slices with slices of mozzarella. Dress with vinegar and olive oil and garnish with basil leaves.
97. Chiffonnade of raw lettuce
A chiffonnade is a 'preparation of sorrel, chicory, lettuce and other leaves'. To prepare a chiffonnade, roll up a few lettuce (or sorrel or chicory ...) leaves and cut into thin strips. Dress with a vinaigrette.
The lettuce is to serve as a garnish and to provide a nice textural contrast to the chicken thighs.
A coquelet is a small cock. See, I wasn't trying to be funny. Basically, think a male poussin. Larousse Gastronomique says they taste of nothing, pretty much, and therefore need a strong-flavoured marinade or sauce to make them interesting. 'En crapaudine' is the French term for spatchcocking.
I have no idea if baby roosters are sold in Australia--it's hard enough to find mature roosters--and nothing Larousse Gastronomique said about them made me want to go looking for them. I considered using a whole chicken instead (I'm not flush enough to buy poussins at the moment) but I find that whole spatchcocked chickens don't barbecue so well. I bought chicken thighs instead.
The suggested spice rub is fairly similar to what I normally use when barbecuing chickens and rabbits: a bit of oil, garlic, salt, pepper, chilli powder and powdered ginger.
Despite my plans to barbecue the thighs, I ended up lighting the grill (broiler) instead. Weber kettles are nice but there's a lot of mucking about. When I move I'm going to go to Kmart or Bunnings and buy a cheap gas barbecue. I want to be able to hit the switch and start cooking, just like I do with a stove or oven.
The marinade is okay. I regret not having some lemons or limes kicking around the place: it could really do with that hit of freshness.
95. Potato cocotte
Out of all the potato dishes I've done, this has to have the most elaborate cooking process. Not hard. Just a bit odd. I'm sure there's a logic behind the cooking method.
You trim potatoes into 4-5 cm long fingers then put them in water. Bring the water to the boil and then drain the potatoes. Saute them for 15 minutes. Roast them for 45 minutes: the first 25 of those minutes at 200 degrees, the remaining 20 at 180 degrees.
Was all that messing around worth it? Not really. Not for what amounts to oven fries. My recipe for potato wedges produces superior results for a fraction of the effort.
96. Tomato salad with mozzarella
Slice tomatoes. Top said tomato slices with slices of mozzarella. Dress with vinegar and olive oil and garnish with basil leaves.
97. Chiffonnade of raw lettuce
A chiffonnade is a 'preparation of sorrel, chicory, lettuce and other leaves'. To prepare a chiffonnade, roll up a few lettuce (or sorrel or chicory ...) leaves and cut into thin strips. Dress with a vinaigrette.
The lettuce is to serve as a garnish and to provide a nice textural contrast to the chicken thighs.
context is everything
Me telling you I've knocked over 91, 92, 93 recipes from Larousse Gastronomique is meaningless without context. Just how many recipes does the Book contain? The introduction says 3800 but does that include the double-ups? The multiple versions of cassoulet and parsley sauce and carp au juive? Did the lowly-paid editor's assistant's assistant at the publishing house, when told to count the recipes, figure out a rough 'average recipes per ten pages' and use that to get an estimate of the total?
At some point I was going to have to give you--and myself--some context to work with. Hence, the newly uploaded list of recipes I'm yet to cook. There will be typographical errors. There will possibly be one or two recipes missing. I may still have a few double-ups. You try typing this shit out by hand. When I tried to copy and paste the list from Excel to Firefox, both applications responded with an abrupt, 'What the fuck do you think you're doing?'
But, errors aside, that's the list. That's all the stuff I have to cook. Granted, meals could easily be made that knock over half a dozen recipes in one go: a meat served with a couple of vegetables and a sauce based on some other sauce based on a stock. I'm not as crazy as I look.
Well, maybe I am. At some point I have to source fresh foie gras. That's illegal in Australia. At some point I have to stuff a sheep's stomach with a mixture of stuff that includes lamb's feet. I have to figure out what the hell I'm going to do about all those woodcock recipes. Can't get that in Australia, I'm afraid. I guess I'll have to risk the wrath of the purists and use squab or quail or silkie or the Australian native muttonbird instead. Or maybe I'll just buy an air rifle and start sniping mynahs and crows and such, hoping to find a delicious substitute ...
At some point I was going to have to give you--and myself--some context to work with. Hence, the newly uploaded list of recipes I'm yet to cook. There will be typographical errors. There will possibly be one or two recipes missing. I may still have a few double-ups. You try typing this shit out by hand. When I tried to copy and paste the list from Excel to Firefox, both applications responded with an abrupt, 'What the fuck do you think you're doing?'
But, errors aside, that's the list. That's all the stuff I have to cook. Granted, meals could easily be made that knock over half a dozen recipes in one go: a meat served with a couple of vegetables and a sauce based on some other sauce based on a stock. I'm not as crazy as I look.
Well, maybe I am. At some point I have to source fresh foie gras. That's illegal in Australia. At some point I have to stuff a sheep's stomach with a mixture of stuff that includes lamb's feet. I have to figure out what the hell I'm going to do about all those woodcock recipes. Can't get that in Australia, I'm afraid. I guess I'll have to risk the wrath of the purists and use squab or quail or silkie or the Australian native muttonbird instead. Or maybe I'll just buy an air rifle and start sniping mynahs and crows and such, hoping to find a delicious substitute ...
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
spaghetti going round and round
93. Spaghetti a la ligurienne
When I was a kid, spaghetti meant one thing: bolognese. Fuck it. Pasta meant one thing. No, actually, it meant three: there was lasagne and something I'd heard about, but never tasted, called ravioli. Meat sauce inside the pasta? Crazy.
In adulthood, when I started earning money that I pretty much spent entirely on cookbooks and food, I learned that pasta is a magical ingredient. It's comforting. It's filling. It's versatile. Bolognese is nice, yeah, but pasta--good quality pasta--can be just as delicious with the addition of a few cheap ingredients. The possibilities are endless.
In case you haven't picked up on it by now, the food of my childhood was pretty bland. My parents couldn't afford to take us to restaurants much. We ate the same kind of stuff over and over. Pan-fried crumbed chicken breasts. Roast chicken with Gravox gravy. Or maybe chicken drumsticks with apricot sauce from a packet. Rissoles with the afore-mentioned Gravox gravy. My dad's spaghetti bolognese, which still and always will have a place on my death row degustation menu. Grow up like this and even Jamie Oliver or whoever's spaghetti with mussels--a meal for two that costs maybe six dollars to make--is a revelation.
I'm getting side-tracked here. Let me wrangle this post back onto the rails. There. Spaghetti a la ligurienne. 'A la ligurienne' is a term applied to 'large cuts of meat garnished with small stuffed tomatoes alternating with a saffron risotto shaped in dariole moulds and piped duchess potatoes brushed with egg yolk and browned in the oven.' Spaghetti a la ligurienne contains no rice, saffron, potato or tomato. It is pretty much just pasta with a pesto sauce. Can't go wrong with that.
The pesto sauce is prepared, at least in part, two hours before the pasta is cooked. You let two cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed) set in 60 mL of olive oil with 40 grams of crumbled Pecorino Romano cheese, 25 grams of pine nuts and 2 basil sprigs. How much is a spring? I wasn't sure about that. I did an image search--seriously--for 'basil sprig' and was shown sort of what I expected. A bit of stem with three or five leaves. So I put that much basil in. When it came to mixing the pesto I found that the cheese was overpowering the basil and that the pesto was yellow. I added a lot more basil, as well as a couple of drops of vinegar, to attain a more balanced flavour and pleasant colour. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
There's not much to this dish. Once your pesto is made you cook some spaghetti (I accidentally bought spaghettini instead).
And stir the pesto through the pasta ...
Very good.
When I was a kid, spaghetti meant one thing: bolognese. Fuck it. Pasta meant one thing. No, actually, it meant three: there was lasagne and something I'd heard about, but never tasted, called ravioli. Meat sauce inside the pasta? Crazy.
In adulthood, when I started earning money that I pretty much spent entirely on cookbooks and food, I learned that pasta is a magical ingredient. It's comforting. It's filling. It's versatile. Bolognese is nice, yeah, but pasta--good quality pasta--can be just as delicious with the addition of a few cheap ingredients. The possibilities are endless.
In case you haven't picked up on it by now, the food of my childhood was pretty bland. My parents couldn't afford to take us to restaurants much. We ate the same kind of stuff over and over. Pan-fried crumbed chicken breasts. Roast chicken with Gravox gravy. Or maybe chicken drumsticks with apricot sauce from a packet. Rissoles with the afore-mentioned Gravox gravy. My dad's spaghetti bolognese, which still and always will have a place on my death row degustation menu. Grow up like this and even Jamie Oliver or whoever's spaghetti with mussels--a meal for two that costs maybe six dollars to make--is a revelation.
I'm getting side-tracked here. Let me wrangle this post back onto the rails. There. Spaghetti a la ligurienne. 'A la ligurienne' is a term applied to 'large cuts of meat garnished with small stuffed tomatoes alternating with a saffron risotto shaped in dariole moulds and piped duchess potatoes brushed with egg yolk and browned in the oven.' Spaghetti a la ligurienne contains no rice, saffron, potato or tomato. It is pretty much just pasta with a pesto sauce. Can't go wrong with that.
The pesto sauce is prepared, at least in part, two hours before the pasta is cooked. You let two cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed) set in 60 mL of olive oil with 40 grams of crumbled Pecorino Romano cheese, 25 grams of pine nuts and 2 basil sprigs. How much is a spring? I wasn't sure about that. I did an image search--seriously--for 'basil sprig' and was shown sort of what I expected. A bit of stem with three or five leaves. So I put that much basil in. When it came to mixing the pesto I found that the cheese was overpowering the basil and that the pesto was yellow. I added a lot more basil, as well as a couple of drops of vinegar, to attain a more balanced flavour and pleasant colour. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
There's not much to this dish. Once your pesto is made you cook some spaghetti (I accidentally bought spaghettini instead).
And stir the pesto through the pasta ...
Very good.
club sandwich
90. Classic mayonnaise
Mayonnaise is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. Mother sauce, you say? Heard of, I don't know, aioli? Tartar sauce? Ranch dressing? Mayonnaise--a humble emulsified sauce made from egg yolks, oil and acid (vinegar or lemon juice)--is the base for so many good things. It's also good by itself if you make it rather than spoon it out of a jar.
Mayonnaise recipes don't vary that much. This one starts with two egg yolks, 300 mL oil (it says olive oil but experience--and other books--has told me that this results in a very strongly favoured mayonnaise, so I used 50% sunflower oil and 50% olive oil), a few drops of white vinegar, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of mustard. You whisk everything except the oil together until you have a smooth paste and then gradually--seriously, kids, gradually--add the oil. Drip by drip. After you've added 100 mL or so this way you can pour in a little more at a time. The idea is that the oil will be dispersed--emuslfied with--evenly through the egg yolks. If you end up with a yellowy, greeny olive oil you've done fucked up. Clean the bowl out and start again.
Season the mayonnaise with salt and pepper and, if you feel it necessary, more vinegar.
91. Hard-boiled egg
Hey, it's a recipe ...
92. Club sandwich
A classic. You take three slices of lightly toasted bread and butter them with mayonnaise (loaded up with chopped herbs). In between them, artfully lay a few lettuce leaves, some sliced roast chicken breast (I cheated and went to the local chicken shop and bought 1/4 of a chicken--it's free range so that makes it okay, right?), a couple of tomato, a chopped hard-boiled egg.
With three slices of sourdough, home made mayonnaise and a boiled egg, this is one very rich and substantial sandwich.
Mayonnaise is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. Mother sauce, you say? Heard of, I don't know, aioli? Tartar sauce? Ranch dressing? Mayonnaise--a humble emulsified sauce made from egg yolks, oil and acid (vinegar or lemon juice)--is the base for so many good things. It's also good by itself if you make it rather than spoon it out of a jar.
Mayonnaise recipes don't vary that much. This one starts with two egg yolks, 300 mL oil (it says olive oil but experience--and other books--has told me that this results in a very strongly favoured mayonnaise, so I used 50% sunflower oil and 50% olive oil), a few drops of white vinegar, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of mustard. You whisk everything except the oil together until you have a smooth paste and then gradually--seriously, kids, gradually--add the oil. Drip by drip. After you've added 100 mL or so this way you can pour in a little more at a time. The idea is that the oil will be dispersed--emuslfied with--evenly through the egg yolks. If you end up with a yellowy, greeny olive oil you've done fucked up. Clean the bowl out and start again.
Season the mayonnaise with salt and pepper and, if you feel it necessary, more vinegar.
91. Hard-boiled egg
Hey, it's a recipe ...
92. Club sandwich
A classic. You take three slices of lightly toasted bread and butter them with mayonnaise (loaded up with chopped herbs). In between them, artfully lay a few lettuce leaves, some sliced roast chicken breast (I cheated and went to the local chicken shop and bought 1/4 of a chicken--it's free range so that makes it okay, right?), a couple of tomato, a chopped hard-boiled egg.
With three slices of sourdough, home made mayonnaise and a boiled egg, this is one very rich and substantial sandwich.
Monday, January 3, 2011
avoiding the obvious penis jokes
88. Coq au vin
Something I've learnt from Larousse Gastronomique over the course of a few recipes: French braises aren't always based on mirepoix. Sounds a bit odd, but every other book I have with French recipes--well, most of the books, anyway--bases pretty much all braises and stews, including coq au vin, on the holy trinity of carrot, celery and onion. Leeks may or may not enter the picture.
There are lots of recipes in Larousse Gastronomique that work like that but a hell of a lot that don't. I understand, I think, why vegetables are usually added. Flavour. If they're actually served, rather than removed with a sieve, they add colour and texture and body to the liquid component of the dish. I don't understand why Larousse Gastronomique omits them. I just accept it.
That's the first point. The second point is on this dish specifically: coq au vin, the dish that, when I first got right, taught me why everyone makes such a big deal about French cooking. The first time I made it with a rooster and okay wine, I understood. Pretty much, without me making coq au vin, there would be blog. Coq au vin was my gateway drug.
The 'coq au vin' entry does mention that coq au vin is supposed to be made with coq (rooster), which I can easily buy in Springvale, but mentions that it's more usually made with chicken. This coq au vin recipe specifies chicken. In the past I've found that coq au vin made the old way is better but, given Larousse Gastronomique will let me do that later (there's more than one recipe for coq au vin), I'll follow the Book's wisdom today.
Aside from the noticeable lack of a mirepoix, the process for making Larousse Gastronomique's coq au vin is very familar. You brown a portioned chicken along with some diced bacon, sliced garlic, peeled pearl onions and small mushrooms. You add brandy and wine and you stew the whole lot. I added a star anise pod to the obligatory bouquet garni. I picked up this from Heston Blumenthal a while ago and have been using it in in bouquet garnis for meaty braises and stews ever since.
When making braises and stews like coq au vin, I like to retain all the bones and other off-cuts. These I brown along with the meat (and actually add them to the liquid, if there's enough to go round--as in, a daube made with a cut like lamb neck or beef shin) I'm actually going to eat. They boost the flavour. You could also make a quick stock with them.
As with many braises in Larousse Gastronomique, the cooking liquid is thickened with beurre manie. Beurre manie is a sort of dough made from equal parts butter and flour. You add it to the liquid about ten to fifteen minutes before the end of cooking time, allowing the flour to cook. It's old-fashioned. A lot of modern authors I've read look down upon it and similar methods of thickening sauces and braising liquids, such as the roux. Personally, I find it part of the charm of coq au vin.
It's a fairly good version of coq au vin. I find it's hard to go wrong with this dish. Even if you use generic cultivated mushrooms, a supermarket chicken and utility wine--I used a $10 bottle of Cab Sauv I was given for my birthday by my uncle and aunt--it turns out okay. After all, coq au vin is classic poor people food. I doubt the people who first made this dish shopped at the fine wine shop in Malvern.
89. Hashed potatoes
Hashed potatoes are 'typical of American cooking.' That's what the recipe says. And I can imagine the author of that recipe--the original French guy, at least--uttering those words in disdain. Still, whatever. Despite my love of many French things, I like hashed potatoes, which are made by boiling potatoes until soft, squishing them into a large pancake shape and frying them until golden brown on both sides.
Something I've learnt from Larousse Gastronomique over the course of a few recipes: French braises aren't always based on mirepoix. Sounds a bit odd, but every other book I have with French recipes--well, most of the books, anyway--bases pretty much all braises and stews, including coq au vin, on the holy trinity of carrot, celery and onion. Leeks may or may not enter the picture.
There are lots of recipes in Larousse Gastronomique that work like that but a hell of a lot that don't. I understand, I think, why vegetables are usually added. Flavour. If they're actually served, rather than removed with a sieve, they add colour and texture and body to the liquid component of the dish. I don't understand why Larousse Gastronomique omits them. I just accept it.
That's the first point. The second point is on this dish specifically: coq au vin, the dish that, when I first got right, taught me why everyone makes such a big deal about French cooking. The first time I made it with a rooster and okay wine, I understood. Pretty much, without me making coq au vin, there would be blog. Coq au vin was my gateway drug.
The 'coq au vin' entry does mention that coq au vin is supposed to be made with coq (rooster), which I can easily buy in Springvale, but mentions that it's more usually made with chicken. This coq au vin recipe specifies chicken. In the past I've found that coq au vin made the old way is better but, given Larousse Gastronomique will let me do that later (there's more than one recipe for coq au vin), I'll follow the Book's wisdom today.
Aside from the noticeable lack of a mirepoix, the process for making Larousse Gastronomique's coq au vin is very familar. You brown a portioned chicken along with some diced bacon, sliced garlic, peeled pearl onions and small mushrooms. You add brandy and wine and you stew the whole lot. I added a star anise pod to the obligatory bouquet garni. I picked up this from Heston Blumenthal a while ago and have been using it in in bouquet garnis for meaty braises and stews ever since.
When making braises and stews like coq au vin, I like to retain all the bones and other off-cuts. These I brown along with the meat (and actually add them to the liquid, if there's enough to go round--as in, a daube made with a cut like lamb neck or beef shin) I'm actually going to eat. They boost the flavour. You could also make a quick stock with them.
As with many braises in Larousse Gastronomique, the cooking liquid is thickened with beurre manie. Beurre manie is a sort of dough made from equal parts butter and flour. You add it to the liquid about ten to fifteen minutes before the end of cooking time, allowing the flour to cook. It's old-fashioned. A lot of modern authors I've read look down upon it and similar methods of thickening sauces and braising liquids, such as the roux. Personally, I find it part of the charm of coq au vin.
It's a fairly good version of coq au vin. I find it's hard to go wrong with this dish. Even if you use generic cultivated mushrooms, a supermarket chicken and utility wine--I used a $10 bottle of Cab Sauv I was given for my birthday by my uncle and aunt--it turns out okay. After all, coq au vin is classic poor people food. I doubt the people who first made this dish shopped at the fine wine shop in Malvern.
89. Hashed potatoes
Hashed potatoes are 'typical of American cooking.' That's what the recipe says. And I can imagine the author of that recipe--the original French guy, at least--uttering those words in disdain. Still, whatever. Despite my love of many French things, I like hashed potatoes, which are made by boiling potatoes until soft, squishing them into a large pancake shape and frying them until golden brown on both sides.
with hardly as much dog meat as some may expect: sandwiches and more barbaric times
87. Alsatian sandwich
Much has changed in Australia's culinary scene since I was a childhood. I'm too young to remember pasta and capsicums becoming standard supermarket items but I recall very vividly the arrival of 'Asian greens' and packets of frozen 'stir fry' vegetables. I remember what the deli section of my local supermarkets--the Noble Park Coles and Springvale Safeway--looked like. You could get a few types of ham, all pretty much the same in taste. You could get 'little boys' or mini-frankfurters. You could get maybe a couple of types of salami. 'Hot' and mild. And you could get Strasbourg. Prosciutto? Pancetta? Chorizo? Forget about it. In delis, sure. Maybe. But not a supermarket in even a very culturally diverse low socio-economic suburb. Never. Half a dozen slices of straz, darl.
Somewhere along the line, all that changed. And sure, you'll still get a wider selection of deli products in supermarkets in Malvern than you will in Noble Park. Market demand and all that. In some areas, there just aren't enough people who'll pay $30 or $45 a kilogram for cured pork products.
One of the staples of my childhood diet was the Strasbourg sandwich. My mum, she'd take a couple of slices of white supermarket loaf. She'd place a slice or two of Strasbourg--loaded up, of course, with tomato sauce--in between said slices of bread. I must have had a million of those sandwiches as a kid. I don't recall having Strasbourg as an adult or even teen. At some point we just stopped buying the stuff.
Now, just so you understand, Australian Strasbourg is not the same stuff that's used in France. The Australian stuff is obviously based on the French one but whereas the French one is, well, sausage-shaped, the Australian one is a great brick of processed meat. You buy it by the slice. I'm sure if you read the bright red wrapper you'd find the words 'mechanically-separated meat'. This explains why I haven't had Strasbourg in a very long time.
Still, Larousse Gastronomique tells me I have to have Strasbourg at least once, so let's get this over with. An Alsatian sandwich is pretty much an upmarket version of that classic from my childhood: the sliced sausage on bread (the book suggests rye but I used sourdough) with grated horseradish. I've never seen fresh horseradish for sale outside of Queen Victoria Market and even if it was widely avaliable, it's not going to be in season for another two or three months. Enter the trusty jar of horseradish cream.
It's an okay sandwich. I'm not a big fan of Strasbourg but a tablespoon's worth of horseradish cream sorts it out.
Much has changed in Australia's culinary scene since I was a childhood. I'm too young to remember pasta and capsicums becoming standard supermarket items but I recall very vividly the arrival of 'Asian greens' and packets of frozen 'stir fry' vegetables. I remember what the deli section of my local supermarkets--the Noble Park Coles and Springvale Safeway--looked like. You could get a few types of ham, all pretty much the same in taste. You could get 'little boys' or mini-frankfurters. You could get maybe a couple of types of salami. 'Hot' and mild. And you could get Strasbourg. Prosciutto? Pancetta? Chorizo? Forget about it. In delis, sure. Maybe. But not a supermarket in even a very culturally diverse low socio-economic suburb. Never. Half a dozen slices of straz, darl.
Somewhere along the line, all that changed. And sure, you'll still get a wider selection of deli products in supermarkets in Malvern than you will in Noble Park. Market demand and all that. In some areas, there just aren't enough people who'll pay $30 or $45 a kilogram for cured pork products.
One of the staples of my childhood diet was the Strasbourg sandwich. My mum, she'd take a couple of slices of white supermarket loaf. She'd place a slice or two of Strasbourg--loaded up, of course, with tomato sauce--in between said slices of bread. I must have had a million of those sandwiches as a kid. I don't recall having Strasbourg as an adult or even teen. At some point we just stopped buying the stuff.
Now, just so you understand, Australian Strasbourg is not the same stuff that's used in France. The Australian stuff is obviously based on the French one but whereas the French one is, well, sausage-shaped, the Australian one is a great brick of processed meat. You buy it by the slice. I'm sure if you read the bright red wrapper you'd find the words 'mechanically-separated meat'. This explains why I haven't had Strasbourg in a very long time.
Still, Larousse Gastronomique tells me I have to have Strasbourg at least once, so let's get this over with. An Alsatian sandwich is pretty much an upmarket version of that classic from my childhood: the sliced sausage on bread (the book suggests rye but I used sourdough) with grated horseradish. I've never seen fresh horseradish for sale outside of Queen Victoria Market and even if it was widely avaliable, it's not going to be in season for another two or three months. Enter the trusty jar of horseradish cream.
It's an okay sandwich. I'm not a big fan of Strasbourg but a tablespoon's worth of horseradish cream sorts it out.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
oeufs
86. Eggs en Cocotte
'Cocotte' is the French word for 'casserole', according to Google's ever-handy Translate feature. Eggs en Cocotte is, basically, a dish of eggs baked in a ramekin or other small, ovenproof vessel (like a cocotte, oddly enough). The buttered ramekin, containing the eggs and whatever flavouring agent you like--parsley, say--sits in a bain marie in a 200 degree oven for 6-8 minutes.
At least, that's the theory. After 8 minutes I opened the oven (and yes, I'd pre-heated it) and found myself looking at a ramekin that housed two raw eggs. Raw. After 16 minutes they were quite rare but getting there. Slowly.
I'm now starting to suspect that this may be the reason why Larousse Gastronomique has a few recipes for baked eggs that instruct cooks to separate the eggs and slip the yolks and whites into different cooking vessels. Sounds perfectionist but probably it's for the best.
Still, baked eggs are nice.
'Cocotte' is the French word for 'casserole', according to Google's ever-handy Translate feature. Eggs en Cocotte is, basically, a dish of eggs baked in a ramekin or other small, ovenproof vessel (like a cocotte, oddly enough). The buttered ramekin, containing the eggs and whatever flavouring agent you like--parsley, say--sits in a bain marie in a 200 degree oven for 6-8 minutes.
At least, that's the theory. After 8 minutes I opened the oven (and yes, I'd pre-heated it) and found myself looking at a ramekin that housed two raw eggs. Raw. After 16 minutes they were quite rare but getting there. Slowly.
I'm now starting to suspect that this may be the reason why Larousse Gastronomique has a few recipes for baked eggs that instruct cooks to separate the eggs and slip the yolks and whites into different cooking vessels. Sounds perfectionist but probably it's for the best.
Still, baked eggs are nice.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
onward
83. Supremes of chicken a blanc
Let's just put it out there. I'm not feeling 100%. When I was flipping through Larousse Gastronomique, looking for something to cook for tonight's dinner, I stumbled on a recipe for potatoes and Bayonne ham cooked in goose fat. I had a near-death experience reading it.
Last night's dinner at The Press Club was lovely. Most of the wines were nice, although I still object strongly to dessert wines. They are not my friend and I am not their friend. I had 8.5 glasses of wine over the course of the evening plus a bottle or so of Henry of Harcourt's Original Cider (a vastly inferior product to Henry of Harcourt's divine Duck & Bull Premium Cider). This morning's breakfast was also a sad affair. Turns out, on New Year's Day almost no one is open in the CBD for breakfast. I wandered all the way from where we were staying on Flinders Street, opposite the station, to Cumulus Inc, but they were closed. Nowhere on Hardware Lane or Degraves Street seemed to be doing business. We ended up at some cafe on the corner of Bourke and Queen. The eggs were okay but, let's just put it this way, dearest cafe owners: you're not supposed to fucking confit cheap sausages in nasty arse vegetable oil.
Back to the matter at hand. I was searching through the Book for something light. I ended up settling on chicken breasts. That is, after all, what supremes are. Okay, supremes--as Larousse Gastronomique describes them--also include the wing up to the first joint. If you want that extra bit of meat it's really not that hard to do the necessary butchery work with a whole bird. There's even a recipe in it for you. Me, though, I'm in no state for such tasks. I can tackle the 'preparing of supremes' recipe another time, such as when I prepare supremes a brun, a l'anglaise or a la whatever.
Preparing supremes a blanc is a process even the most damaged of souls can handle. You season those titties with salt and pepper and brush them with clarified butter. You squirt a wee bit of lemon juice over them. You then stick them in a covered casserole and bake them at 220 degrees for about 15 minutes. Given that the chicken breasts I bought are fairly thick--about 275 grams apiece--I took 'about 15 minutes' to really mean '20 minutes'.
Turns out, 20 minutes wasn't enough. I took them out at this point and they were still a little pink in the middle. I returned them to the oven and after another three or four minutes--I wasn't watching the time as carefully as I should've been--they were perfectly cooked. The lemon-y pan juices make for a nice sauce. I like this method of cooking chicken breasts as the meat remains juicy. And, you know what? A golden brown crust isn't and shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all. I like the blanc finish.
You can garnish chicken supremes with with ...
84. Garnishes for supremes of chicken
This isn't so much a recipe as a list of ideas. Basically, you can serve supremes with whatever vegetables take your fancy. I'm going along with one of the suggestions: a macedoine of vegetables cooked in butter. What's a macdedoine of vegetables? Why, son, it's no more than a 'mixture of vegetables or fruit cut into small dice.' It is, incidentally and, I guess, interestingly, named after Macedonia.
There is indeed a recipe for a macedoine of vegetables. Each kind of vegetable is cooked on its own in boiling water--there are beans, carrots, peas and turnips--and then served with butter or cream. Me, though, my macedoine is just a collection of diced vegetables--capsicum, carrot, garlic and shallot--sauteed in butter and olive oil and seasoned with salt and bay.
85. Clarified butter
I've made clarified butter several times during my Larousse Gastronomique journey and I had no idea there was an actual recipe for it under the 'butter' heading. #85 done and dusted.
And ...
Saint Sylvestre's lovely 3 Monts.
Let's just put it out there. I'm not feeling 100%. When I was flipping through Larousse Gastronomique, looking for something to cook for tonight's dinner, I stumbled on a recipe for potatoes and Bayonne ham cooked in goose fat. I had a near-death experience reading it.
Last night's dinner at The Press Club was lovely. Most of the wines were nice, although I still object strongly to dessert wines. They are not my friend and I am not their friend. I had 8.5 glasses of wine over the course of the evening plus a bottle or so of Henry of Harcourt's Original Cider (a vastly inferior product to Henry of Harcourt's divine Duck & Bull Premium Cider). This morning's breakfast was also a sad affair. Turns out, on New Year's Day almost no one is open in the CBD for breakfast. I wandered all the way from where we were staying on Flinders Street, opposite the station, to Cumulus Inc, but they were closed. Nowhere on Hardware Lane or Degraves Street seemed to be doing business. We ended up at some cafe on the corner of Bourke and Queen. The eggs were okay but, let's just put it this way, dearest cafe owners: you're not supposed to fucking confit cheap sausages in nasty arse vegetable oil.
Back to the matter at hand. I was searching through the Book for something light. I ended up settling on chicken breasts. That is, after all, what supremes are. Okay, supremes--as Larousse Gastronomique describes them--also include the wing up to the first joint. If you want that extra bit of meat it's really not that hard to do the necessary butchery work with a whole bird. There's even a recipe in it for you. Me, though, I'm in no state for such tasks. I can tackle the 'preparing of supremes' recipe another time, such as when I prepare supremes a brun, a l'anglaise or a la whatever.
Preparing supremes a blanc is a process even the most damaged of souls can handle. You season those titties with salt and pepper and brush them with clarified butter. You squirt a wee bit of lemon juice over them. You then stick them in a covered casserole and bake them at 220 degrees for about 15 minutes. Given that the chicken breasts I bought are fairly thick--about 275 grams apiece--I took 'about 15 minutes' to really mean '20 minutes'.
Turns out, 20 minutes wasn't enough. I took them out at this point and they were still a little pink in the middle. I returned them to the oven and after another three or four minutes--I wasn't watching the time as carefully as I should've been--they were perfectly cooked. The lemon-y pan juices make for a nice sauce. I like this method of cooking chicken breasts as the meat remains juicy. And, you know what? A golden brown crust isn't and shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all. I like the blanc finish.
You can garnish chicken supremes with with ...
84. Garnishes for supremes of chicken
This isn't so much a recipe as a list of ideas. Basically, you can serve supremes with whatever vegetables take your fancy. I'm going along with one of the suggestions: a macedoine of vegetables cooked in butter. What's a macdedoine of vegetables? Why, son, it's no more than a 'mixture of vegetables or fruit cut into small dice.' It is, incidentally and, I guess, interestingly, named after Macedonia.
There is indeed a recipe for a macedoine of vegetables. Each kind of vegetable is cooked on its own in boiling water--there are beans, carrots, peas and turnips--and then served with butter or cream. Me, though, my macedoine is just a collection of diced vegetables--capsicum, carrot, garlic and shallot--sauteed in butter and olive oil and seasoned with salt and bay.
85. Clarified butter
I've made clarified butter several times during my Larousse Gastronomique journey and I had no idea there was an actual recipe for it under the 'butter' heading. #85 done and dusted.
And ...
Saint Sylvestre's lovely 3 Monts.
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