pancake gone wrong

47. Clafoutis


Clafoutis is the first Larousse Gastronomique dessert I've prepared and a classic. Variations appear in many of the books in my shelves--Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook has a recipe that isn't too different from Larousse Gastronomique's, although it calls for the cherries to be soaked in kirsch. Matt Moran or Neil Perry or maybe both have recipes for clafoutis of pears or figs or quinces or something. I remember seeing a pineapple version at some point--Jacques Reymond's menu, maybe. Larousse Gastronomique acknowledges that clafoutis can involve more than just cheries but makes clear people from the region of Limousin are conservative in their tastes. Apparently they were very upset when some academy of whatever dared define the dessert as 'a sort of fruit flan' as opposed to 'a cake with black cherries.'

Now. Black cherries. It's summer here so of course cherries are in season. Cherries are expensive: today, Coles was selling them for $16 per kilogram and, to be honest, they didn't look spectacular. The recipe specifies black cherries but neither Coles nor the local green grocers specified what variety they were selling. I know very little about cherries--I can't remember ever buying fresh cherries before--so I couldn't tell whether they were black cherries by sight. Luckily, the canned foods section had reasonably priced 425 gram cans of pitted black cherries. I bought a handful of the fresh cherries to bring the weight of cherries up to 500 grams, which is what Larousse Gastronomique's recipe calls for. Traditionally, the cherries used in clafoutis are left unpitted as the pits are supposed to improve the flavour of the cake. In most Australian restaurants and pastry shops, though, I'd imagine they'd pit them for the same reason most places pinbone fish. The canned cherries came pre-pitted and I pitted the fresh ones.

As I said earlier, Bourdain soaks his cherries in kirsch before mixing them into the cake batter. Larousse Gastronomique just lets them sit in 50 grams of caster sugar for half a hour or so. At the end of this point I found that the cherries, which I'd drained before putting them in the bowl, had expelled a lot of syrup. I discarded this as the batter is very moist. The cherries are then moved into a shallow baking dish. You could just as easily pour them into ramekins or little pie tins to make individual portions.

The batter, which is poured on top of the cherries, is made from 125 grams of plain flour, a further 50 grams of caster sugar, 3 whole eggs (beaten), 300 mL milk and a pinch of salt. It's very similar to pancake batter, really, which is probably what led my pastry chef housemate to describe clafoutis as 'something of a pancake gone wrong.' The clafoutis is baked at 180 degres for 35-40 minutes.

It's a lot like a pancake in taste, too. Gone wrong? Well, not really. It's nice. It'd be really nice with icecream. Amazing? Perhaps not, but doubtlessly a crowd-pleaser that's quick and easy to prepare.

a woman's place

46. Loin of lamb a la bonne femme

I cooked loin of pork bonne femme the other day and here I am today cooking a similarly named dish. Just what is this bonne femme business? The little bit of French I've picked up from the Rosetta Stone software tells me the name has something to do with women. The 'bonne femme' entry in Larousse Gastronomique tells me bonne femme dishes are the sort of things a 'good wife' would prepare. They are simple, homely preparations. How quaint. I'm sure, if pushed, I--an old media and communications student--could write a couple of thousand words on cultural notions of gender and food. The man and his barbecue or paella. The woman and her ... meaty loins.

The lamb version of the recipe is a little different from the pork one. The pork was prepared as a straight roast, the lamb is prepared as a pot roast. You brown a loin of lamb and then throw it in a casserole with some browned pearl onions, browned chopped potatoes and crisped-up diced bacon. You spoon a little bit of extra fat in for good measure and then place it in a 180 degree oven for a hour or so.

A word on the cut: if you're in Australia and go to a butcher or supermarket and look for loin, you'll probably see chops. Individual chops. What I'm working with is a single piece of loin. It wasn't on display but the butcher had a few such pieces out the back, each weighing somewhere between 700 grams and a kilogram. A lot of the loin roasts that you'll turn up via Google image search have been rolled and tied attractively. Mine didn't come like that.

I scored the fat as one might with a piece of pork belly and then placed some roughly chopped fresh rosemary and bay (I would've included parsley and thyme, too, but those two plants are looking a bit sad and the last thing I think I should be doing is picking their leaves) inside and then rolled it and tied it.

Incidentally, if you do a Google image search for 'loin', the very first image that appears is of a well-built man wearing naught but a few strategically-placed lengths of chain.

rib-sticking goodness

43. Spare ribs

Waking up this morning I decided to continue my journey through the 'encyclopaedic animal' that is the pig. It's hot today. I was thinking of doing something with loin, but no, I've had enough roasts over the past week. Time for something different. Time for sweet, sticky, salty pork ribs. Luckily, Larousse Gastronomique has a recipe.

The marinade, which must be applied to the ribs at least 30 minutes before cooking them (I'm giving them a good 7-8 hours), is made up of powdered ginger, salt, pepper, sugar, garlic and equal quantities of soy sauce and tomato sauce (60 mL to be precise--which makes the perfect amount of marinade for the half-dozen ribs I bought). For reference, spare ribs are different to the 'American-style' ribs some butchers sell. The 'spare ribs' entry explains that spare ribs come from 'the upper part of the pork belly' and are 'cut into long, narrow strips'. The 'best spare ribs are the fleshiest and the leanest.' Good thing, too, given that the ribs I bought are both fleshy and lean. I'm looking forward to this one.

Larousse Gastronomique mentions a number of ways of cooking spare ribs but provides no specific times or temperatures. A bit of research on Google told me that 50 minutes in a 200 degree oven is about right. Spare ribs require basting numerous times during cooking.

I like the ribs. I really do. In fact, they're easily one of my favourite Larousse conquests.

44. Avocado salad with cucumber

A fitting salad for a hot night. The recipe calls for equal quantities of cucumber and avocado to be dressed with a strong mustard-flavoured vinaigrette and chopped herbs. I've prepared two of Larousse Gastronomique's vinaigrette bases before. The second one I prepared, which suggested a fat to acid ratio of 3:1, was far superior to the one that called for a 1:1 ratio of fat to acid. I'll be flavouring the vinaigrette with hot English mustard, purely because that's what I have on hand.

Protip: if you're the sort of person who normally only buys avocados for tacos and sandwiches and, as such, always looks for ripe, soft avocados, understand that maybe they shouldn't be so ripe and soft if you're supposed to dice them. Just saying.

45. Boiled rice with butter

I'm getting a bit tired of having dairy fat with every meal so this will probably be my last recipe that needs butter for a while. I have a little bit of a block to use up, still. Boiled rice with butter is self-explanatory: you steam some rice and then stir a little bit of butter in.

opening the encyclopaedia

41. Loin of pork bonne femme

'It was [...] a meat of the common people. Grimod de La Reyniere saw the pig as an 'enclopaedc animal, a meal on legs' that did not provide roasts for aristocratic tables.'

- Larousse Gastronomique

Larousse Gastronomique is full of such quaint tidbits. I wonder if, to some extent, that attitude explains why pork isn't as common on restaurant menus (at least here) as chicken and beef. Why high end western restaurants seem to favour veal and lamb over the mighty pig.

Anyway, pork loin. I don't buy pork loin, normally. When I want roast pork, I buy belly or shoulder. Maybe neck. Australian supermarkets tend to stock leg and shoulder. Sometimes boned out 'scotch fillet'. Larousse Gastronomique's roast pork recipes all call for loin, a far leaner cut than what I am familiar with.

The formula for roasting a loin of pork is simple. You season and sear the pork and then roast it for 50 minutes per kilo at 200 degrees. My piece of pork is just shy of 900 grams in weight, so I'll be taking it out of the oven somewhere around the 45 minute mark. About 25 minutes, you add some pearl onions (first browned in butter) and potatoes to the roasting pan.

Sitting here a few hours before I roast the loin, I just realised I may have a bit of a problem. The piece of meat I bought, it's boneless. Every time I've seen pork loin in an Australian butcher, so far as I recall, it's been boneless. Sometimes it's rolled up and tied and encased in a layer of pork skin. Sometimes it's just a slab of meat with a thin layer of fat. Reading the recipe closely, though, I see that I have to 'separate the loin chops' once I have removed the loin from the oven. Chops? What chops? 

Some quick research told me that pork loin is indeed sold in two forms. Further research told me that the cooking time for the boneless version is surprisingly pretty much the same as what Larousse Gastronomique specifies in the recipe.

Eating dinner now, I'd question the wisdom the people who said boneless roast takes roughly the same amount of time to cook: it doesn't. I like pork cooked to medium-well. This is easily sitting on well. A lean cut like loin doesn't respond well to that. It's nice, yeah. But next time I'll shave ten minutes or so from the cooking time. I put the potatoes in earlier than the recipe said and even so, they're still not as soft as I'd like.

42. Sage and onion sauce

Billed as a fine accompaniment to roast pork and goose, sage and onion sauce is as basic as it gets. It is made by combining boiled onions, fresh sage, breadcrumbs, butter and the pan juices from the roast. It's very satisfying being able to make something, no matter how simple, with herbs you've just picked from your garden.

This recipe challenged my understanding of sauce. I thought of sauce as something very wet--a liquid that may be quite viscous or downright watery--but this the complete opposite, even after I added more pan juices than the recipe specified. Those breadcrumbs just suck up all the moisture. It tastes okay but I probably wouldn't make again. If I did make it again, I'd halve--at least--the amount of bread crumbs.

what's in a name?

39. Oven-roast rib of beef


The names of beef cuts changes depending on where you are. In Australia, some butchers will sell you rib eye steaks. Others will sell you scotch fillet steaks. They're one in the same. Scotch fillet steaks are not fillet steaks, though. Fillet steaks come from the sirloin, which is located towards the rear of the animal.

Anyway, I have a scotch fillet--boneless, for reference--here that requires roasting. And so here we are with the first of Larousse Gastronomique's roast beef recipes. Larousse Gastronomique asks the reader to brush the beef with either melted butter or dripping and then roast it at 240 degrees for 15-18 minutes per 450 grams plus an extra 15 minutes. It then rests in a hot oven, which has been switched off, for 30 minutes, covered in foil.

Now here's one of the 'problems' with Larousse Gastronomique: the entries and recipes for one technique or ingredient can contradict each other. The 'beef' entry has a spiel on roasting that recommends cooking the meat at a lower temperature than what the actual recipe specifies: 230 degrees for 15 minutes then 15-20 minutes per 450 g at 200 degrees. Given my success with a similar roasting method detailed in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat book, I'm inclined to go along with the entry's advice.

The roast beef came out okay, although it would've been great if I'd used some grass-fed beef. Clayton doesn't offer such luxuries locally. The meat came out to a medium-doneness even though I was aiming for medium-rare--I'm not sold on the idea of resting meat in an oven that's just been switched off. Next time I'd rest it elsewhere or, at the very least, keep the oven door wide open.

40. Mashed potatoes

Well-made mashed potatoes are some of the best eating there is. My favourite variation on the theme is aligot, to which I was introduced at Embrasse. Larousse Gastronomique includes a recipe for that, but given that it requires tracking down a certain kind of cheese, I'm just following the normal mashed potatoes recipe tonight. Larousse Gastronomique's method is stock standard: you quarter potatoes, boil them until soft, mash them (either by hand, with a potato ricer or by working them through a sieve) and then load them up with glorious dairy fat. In this case, butter. The recipe mentions you can throw in some grated cheese, too, if you like, so I added a bit of Parmesan.

veal veal

36. Breaded veal chops a la Milanaise

A local butcher has recently put up a sign. 'We sell real veal.' I'm under the impression that a lot of meat marketed as veal in Australia isn't veal at all--it's yearling, too old, technically, to be veal. I imagine that's what they're talking about.

Veal chops a la Milanaise is a classic and Larousse Gastronomique's version doesn't stray too far from the tried and tested formula. You flatten some veal chops using a meat mallet and then coat them in a mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan.The crumbed chops and then gently cooked in butter.

The recipe suggests serving the chops with macaroni a la Milanaise--makes a lot of sense--but I opted for something else.

I like Larousse Gastronomique's take on veal chops a la Milanaise. I find you generally can't go too wrong coating something in bread crumbs and cheese. This would be a sure fire hit with children, too.

37. Macaroni with mirepoix & 38. Vegetable mirepoix

More of a formula than a recipe. Larousse Gastronomique calls for equal parts cooked macaroni and vegetable mirepoix to be spooned into a dish, covered in cheese and butter and then browned in the oven. For those not in the know, mirepoix is basically a generic vegetable base for many soups and stews. It's  made up of finely chopped onions, carrots and celery, although I've seen leeks and other vegetables creep in too. Larousse Gastronomique also speaks of mirepoix with meat, which is essentially the same thing but with some ham or bacon thrown in.

I'm surprised at how much I like this. I figured it'd just be boring. I intentionally left the vegetables larger and crunchier than what the recipe called for as I wanted that comforting texture. With coq au vin or whatever I'd do no such thing. I swear. I'd sliver that plant matter the fuck up. 

And ...
I know, by the way, that my plates and kitchen counter top look very student ghetto chic. I know. I'd like a nice marble counter top as opposed to the cheapest laminex that was going when this house was built. I'd like some flash plates--I really like Embrasse's plates, actually. Then again, I like everything Embrasse. Soon I'll no longer be a student and will actually be able to afford nice things so you, constant reader (you better be constant), can have sexy photos to look at when you're in environments--workplaces, etc--where it's maybe slightly inappropriate to Google Christina Hendricks.

nice rack

35. Roast rack of lamb

Rack of lamb is one of my favourite cuts of lamb. Maybe second favourite, even--shoulder being my all time and forever number one. Larousse Gastronomique walks its readers through the process of preparing a rack of lamb so it's all pretty like, although a lot of the stuff they tell you to do has already been done by the butcher without you even having to ask. Even at supermarkets.

The recipe is about as basic as a roast gets. You season the rack and then roast it at a high temperature--at 240 for ten minutes and 220 for another ten minutes. While the meat rests you prepare a simple pan sauce using the rendered lamb fat, water (obviously you could--and should--use lamb stock if you had some handy), garlic, parsley, thyme and bay.

I'm in no mood for fucking around tonight so the sides are repeats and non-Larousse Gastronomique stuff--some roast potatoes (duck fat, naturally), some roast tomatoes (on the vine; served with leaves picked from my new basil pot plant) and some gin and tonic (garnished with lime). Wonderful.