Yummy, yummy meal #5, from sister #2

Some years ago, after internet but before Google, I learned that almond flour was used in cakes and as a thickener back in Jane Austen's day, and, of course, I developed a passion to try it if I could ever find it. Thus, today, when I discovered almond flour on the shelf at Whole Foods, I knew immediately that I was going to use it in today's sponge cake no matter what the recipe called for. This turned out to be just one of many substitutions in today's menu.

Unlike the Bride, I made the summer vegetables as diligently as I could--the artichokes stuffed with green beans, cauliflower, celery, tomato. But I drew the line at the mayo. I made it, yes, whisking away, cheating only on the quantity of oil I used, but I served the vegies plain, with the mayo alongside rather than mixed with the vegies. The vegies themselves were delicious. The cauliflower, lightly soaked in vinegar water, was crisp and flavorful. The beans were cooked to just the right state of undoneness. The celery added texture and crunch. The tomatoes provided a vivid red contrast. But Whole Foods didn't have curly endive, so I subsituted some rather odd smooth Belgian endive and a frizzy lettuce that, as far as I could tell, added nothing but expense.


The real revelation of the evening was the seafood cassoulet. I started from canned navy beans, not dry, because, honestly, I haven't had much luck with dry beans in the past, and I didn't feel like messing around with them today. They have always ended up too dry for my satisfaction, and I wanted a nice Toulousain mushiness tonight. Meanwhile, Whole Foods had no monkfish nor did they have Trout NOR did they have whiting filet. So I bought the six scallops required by the recipe and substituted pricey sea bass for the monkfish and filets of tilapia for the trout or whiting fillet. The resulting cassoulet was flavorful, seafood-rich without being "fishy", and the beans were tender.


And the almond flour-adulterated sponge cake was lovely with strawberries and blueberries on the side. I substituted 1/4 cup of almond flour for 1/8 cup of the potato and 1/8 cup of all-purpose flour. The cake had a light almond flavor, almost marzipan-ny, which I quite liked. The only disappointment was the crème anglaise which curdled slightly. It still tasted simultaneously decadent and comfy, but the texture wasn't quite as smooth as I hoped.

We--the husband, the niece, the fiancé, and I--agreed that this was the best Cordon Bleu meal yet. We had a lovely Portuguese white with all this yummy goodness. I'll post pictures just as soon as I can find my transfer cord thingie.

I want to mention level of effort. I started around 1:00 PM after I got home from the grocery store, and I spent the rest of the day cooking with a little quiet email/IM break around 3. We ate around 7:30 PM. The on-line Weightwatchers activity tracker estimated that I earned 8 points for all that standing, slicing and juggling of hot food to help offset the 18 points or so that the meal cost with all its butter, eggs, flour and sugar. (I estimated 240 minutes of activity --four hours rather than the six to seven I had spent--but I had to substitute "housework-ironing" as my activity. I guess Weightwatchers doesn't really want its members to use "cooking a three course meal" as one of its activities. It is the sort of thing that might lead to abuse.)

The Bride Falters on Menu 5

Nothing really new for me in this menu, so I took some liberties. I did a lot of things ahead of time. I did the beans yesterday through the adding of the tomatoes. All I had to do tonight was to brown the fish, layer the cassoulet and put it in the oven for 15 minutes. The beans weren't as soft as the ones I remember from cassoulet in Toulouse, but it made an interesting and healthier variation. The picture shows the cassoulet half eaten.

I made a different starter, as we don't have many Spring Veggies at this time of year. I made a kohlrabi remoulade, using kohlrabi left from our CSA this summer. Since I've made home-made mayo many times, and since we are a little squeamish about raw eggs, I made a home-made vegan mayonnaise for the remoulade. The advantages of the vegan mayo were 1) raw eggs replaced by silky tofu and 2) many fewer calories, as there was only about 1/3 cup of oil in addition to the tofu. Verdict: it made a tasty starter mixed with the kohlrabi, but I wouldn't use it where the flavor and texture of the mayo is important. It was grainier and.... well.... less oily than real mayo.


I also did the Creme Anglaise last night. That didn't go so well - it got too hot and 'split'- I think it's called. Annoying, since I have made it many times with no problem. In fact, I made it last week for the plum pudding and it was fine. Anyway, rather than start from the beginning, I used a cheat. I strained it, then re-heated it with a little cornstarch. It wasn't as good as it would have been, but it was OK. Next time I'm going back to Julia Child's recipe.

The sponge cake was fine. I've also made it before many times, so no surprise. I sprinkled powdered sugar through a doily to create a pattern. This would have been better if the doily had been round, not square.

Tomorrow.... the lamb!

Chilean Sea Bass

It isn't Cordon Bleu, but tonight we had pan-roasted Patagonian Toothfish, aka Chilean Sea Bass, for supper. The name change, evidently, is for the US market.

I was delighted by how flavorful it was. Very buttery and flaky! Am I the last member of the family to discover this delicious fish?

The Bride makes Salmon Crepes - Yummy Yum Yum

Tonight we had the Smoked Salmon Crepes from menu 4 for dinner. It was really fun to make crepes again, after learning how in France last Spring. They were great, really delicious. We had them with a salad and, for dessert, a meringue to use up egg whites left from Christmas.

Tomorrow night I plan to jump back into the program and fix the Fish Cassoulet from Menu 5. Instead of the Spring Veggies in the starter, I'm going to do winter vegetables in the mayonnaise. And, because we are all a bit squeamish about raw egg, I'm going to make a vegan mayonnaise. I'll let you know how it goes. Otherwise I'll stick to the menu. I promise.

Then on New Years Day, I"m going to do the lamb, the swiss chard gratin and the pineapple sorbet, which everyone else has already done. I was waiting for the lamb. We've bought an organically reared lamb from Maine, which was delivered Christmas Day. Menu 4 will be our inaugural meal.

Sputtering along

I have made three of the four recipes from the fourth lesson, distributed over severals days, which, go figure, seems a lot easier than doing a three course meal at one time! On Christmas Eve, we had the main course--Gigot d'agneau and the Gratin de Blettes--but I substituted our traditional oyster stew for the entrée of salmon crêpes.

I was under the impression that I was the only one in our household who liked oyster stew, so, accepting reality uncomplainingly like the saint that I am, I was going to give up on my family tradition--as I had done with fruit cake. I was planning to make the crêpes instead of the stew. But then my son objected. But he LIKES oyster stew! Then my husband also protested that he, too, likes Christmas eve oyster stew. Even my daughter admitted that her particular Christmas tradition involved eating and then complaining about the oyster stew. So we had the oyster stew, and all of us were happy in our own ways.

The method for making the lamb was basically what we have always done--garlic shards embedded, rubbed with oil and seasonings, hot oven. The swiss chard gratin was tasty and straightforward to make. It was even better several days later. The meal was not for the lactose-intolerant.

We had the salmon crêpes for dinner Wednesday night, the day after Christmas. No real challenges there. I used a chunky salmon rather than strips, but it tasted delicious. Since our crêpes pan is in storage, I used a small omelet pan and that worked out okay; My French-learned, crêpes-flipping technique served me well. We used crème fraîche on top. Overall, I thought it was a bit bland, though.

Lesson 4: Crêpes, Sugar Syrups, Roasting

23 Decembre 2007

Crêpes au Saumon Fumé
(Smoked Salmon Crepes)

Gigot d'Agneau
(Roast Leg of Lamb)

Gratin de Blettes
(Swiss Chard Gratin)

Ananas Givré
(Pineapple Sorbet)

Veal Redux

Last night I made the Veal with the creme fraiche sauce again. I used thinly sliced boneless pork chops - they came that way, I didn't do anything special to them.

Here is what I did. I used 1 tbsp of butter(for taste) and 1 tbsp of healthier olive oil and cooked the pork quite quickly until they were done - only a couple of minutes on each side was enough. Took the pork out and put in the shallots and the mushrooms and a wee bit more olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and cooked it for a couple of minutes. The salt makes the mushrooms lose moisture so they cook faster, at least so it seems to me. When they looked done, I added the calvados and a bit of chicken broth to deglaze the pan. I didn't set fire to the calvados, and I don't think it added much to the flavor. then I added the pork again, just for a minute to heat and to let the juices cook down a bit more, maybe by half. Finally I added 1/2 cup of creme fraiche, (which was perfectly adequate) and stirred. It was quite nice, although I think it could have used.... something. It was a bit bland. I put quite a lot of parsley on mine and that helped some. Maybe sprinkled with fresh thyme.... or instead of calvados, I'm going to try maybe red wine or marsala or something. I know it changes the recipe to something entirely different, but so what.

Oh. apples. I did intend to make the baked apple side dish, but the apples I wanted to use were a bit old - the last of the local organic farm - so I made apple crisp instead.

Where in the world were we?

You know how Mother always tells us to write down when and where photos were taken? I have totally forgotten when and where this one was taken. When I look at it I think of Menton a couple of summers ago, but the Botanical gardens were closed when we walked up there. Was it in Nice? Do you remember?

Chicken stock redux

I tried making chicken stock again using the recipe from lesson #2. The last time, you may remember, I had to abort after an hour. The stock ended up on the porch as a frozen block of leeky ice. This time, I gave myself enough time, but I misread the recipe and cooked the chicken for 1.5 hours instead of one. It was pretty rubbery when I pulled out. Then during the final hour of simmering, I was distracted by the charming film, Stardust, which I watched with daughter and visiting Oregon sister. As a result, when I got back to the stock, I had two cups of intense stock instead of eight. Sigh.

So I'll have to try yet again. Perhaps it will be A Quest. I'm not going for perfection here; I'm going for basic competence.

Lesson 3: 16 Decembre 2007

Oeufs à la Tripe
(Gratin of Hard-Boiled Eggs)

Rouelles de Veau Bourgeoise
(Veal Shanks with Pearl Onions and Mushrooms)

Mousse au Chocolat aux
Noisettes et au Whisky
(Chocolate Mousse with Hazelnuts and Whisky)

(Extra Lessons: Roux and Flour-Bound Sauces, Liaisons)

The Mousse au Chocolat was found to be delicious by all respondents.

Poll Results: Lesson 2

Eaters! Lesson 2: Any four star courses?

Country-style Vegie Soup 1 vote (25%)
Veal Scallops with Apples 1 vote (25%)
Caramel Custard 4 votes (10%)

4 votes

Chocolate mousse poems

Butter, sugar, eggs,
Dark chocolate and thick cream.
This dessert is rich.
(Peaceable)


Some cooks are wusses
Using tiredness as excuses
from making chocolate mousses.

Real chefs never cease
or allow disturbances of their peace
to interfere with the making of chocolate meese.
(Vivi)

The Bride Takes Liberties with Menu #3

Fourteen eggs, and thirteen tablespoons of butter, not to mention the 1 cup of heavy cream, the chocolate and the sugar. According to my calculations over 6,000 calories for the meal. More than one thousand per person, at 6 servings per dish - about as much as the Bride should eat in one day.

But no sacrifice is too great in the name of Sisterhood! The Bride took liberties, but did not cut the amount of fat/eggs etc in the recipes.

Recipe #1: The strange egg dish. The COG and the Son of pronounced it delicious, but possibly too rich and the texture was too soft. The Son said he would eat it again. Next time, we'd add more onions, serve it on toast or with crusty bread and a green salad. The Bride experienced some difficulties in preparation. The 10 minutes called for did not fully hard cook the eggs, but the Bride averted disaster, though she does not wish to discuss how.

Recipe #2: Couldn't get the right kind of veal and used veal chops. They were perhaps overcooked in this method and were a little tough. All of us agreed that they were nicely flavored, but there was a huge amount of sauce left over and I don't think it thickened enough.

Recipe #3 The Mousse. Liberties were taken. Instead of Hazelnuts we used Hickory nuts gathered this autumn along the road while walking the dog. It was a pleasure to use local nuts and they tasted fabulous! However, extracting the tiny nut meat from the shell was tedious to say the least. It took an hour or more (over 3 days) to get enough tiny pieces. The good news was that there was no need to crush them, since the pieces were so tiny. (Think - Hickory Nut is to Hazelnut as Crawfish is to Lobster).

The Bride also used brandy instead of scotch. That was because we had no whiskey in the house and, because it was snowing, we couldn't get any.

And the Bride used chocolate chips instead of chocolate cut into small pieces. They were the nicest chocolate chips, however.

And, worst liberty of all, the Bride stirred the chocolate, risking having her chocolate 'seize'.

The verdict, intensely chocolatey, but waaaaay too rich to eat very much of. The sugar didn't seem to dissolve enough - possibly due to the Bride's impatience. The COG pronounced it 'Nice'. The Son of didn't eat any. He's a bit squeamish about raw eggs. The COG and I are old, so we take more risks with our lives.

OTOH the pastry bag is really fun and The Bride is looking for ways to use it again.

Wine: We had a Russolo Mussignaz, an Italian white that we'd never heard of before, but which was recommended for the meal by our favorite wine store. It was nice, but not a patch on what Chez Peaceable had.

Vivi Chokes on Menu #3

Not literally, figuratively. I didn't do the menu this week. We had a large party yesterday, which involved, among other preparations, the making of three loaves of yeast bread, a double batch of blueberry muffins and a double batch of banana bread, a roast ham, apple cake, Swedish Meatballs, chocolate fondue, and two dozen half hard-boiled eggs. Even though there were four boiled eggs leftover (easing some of the preparation of the first course), the prospect both of cooking an unfamiliar menu, and of eating a second high fat meal, in two days, made me quail.

So we all went out to a local pub for dinner, instead. Hard to top pub food when you're tired.

I want to try the gratin, and am looking forward to the chocolate mousse (possibly for Christmas). I think the veal shank recipe sounds interesting, but Peaceable's review is not enthusiastic, and I've not yet found a steady supplier of pink veal, so I don't know.

Menu #3..."wow, wow, rich & heavy," moaned sister 2

I suppose, given the number of eggs and the amount of butter, it should have been obvious that this was going to be a heavy meal. In France, a number of non-French mentioned that they found French cooking heavy, and I wasn't sure what they meant because I wasn't experiencing French food as particularly heavy. Until tonight. Maybe I'll just have a gallbladder attack to spite myself. Or a coronary.

In terms of technique, the dishes were very straightforward, though I continue to struggle with the sequencing with so many steps and multiple courses.

In terms of the food, the diners liked the egg dish starter which they described it as tasty and "interesting" though I thought it was dull. White eggs, white onions, white sauce...bland. However, it was good practice with Bechamel sauce, one of the "Mother" sauces of France. On the other hand, the diners didn't care for the veal shanks bourgeois (I substituted beef ribs.) They thought it was dull, a cover-up for a poor cut of meat. They didn't even think it was very "french." I liked it, though. I thought it could be adapted very easily as a technique for a lot of meat stews, We served it with wild rice so the Vegetarian would have something to eat, but I wondered if potatoes might have been better; The other diners pooh-poohed that idea vigorously. I believe the term, "meat and potatoes," was used in a pejorative way. I missed fresh and green at this meal.

But the chocolate mousse...we all agreed that was divine! Today was the Husband's 60th birthday. We had lunch at the St. Paul Grill with his family and returned to our house for cake and presents. Instead of cake (which we cooks won't reach until lesson #5) I made the chocolate mousse (it is pictured here, half devoured.) It was easy to make and fantastic. The chocoholics considered it first rate, high praise indeed. I wasn't able to find a pastry bag in the desultory shopping that I did, so I used a cookie press. Not perfect, but worked well enough.

We had extraordinary wines tonight. In honor of his 60th birthday, The Resident Oeniphile brought up a couple of bottles of wine that he bought when he was a young whippersnapper: a 1970 Château Giscours, from the Margaux region and a 1973 Château Margaux. We had a third bottle of a California pinot noir for comparision. I'll have to let him write his own observations in the comments section because I drank almost no wine (too much rich food for my blood today.)

So, overall, in the Midwest, the opinion was that lesson #3 was a good menu for techniques, had a fantastic, killer-chocolate dessert, but too much butter and too many eggs for people concerned about their weight or arteries. Or people concerned about weight AND arteries.

Menu #1, redux

Last night, I redid Menu#1. We had chicken, trussed and cooked the Cordon Bleu way and the peas, minus most of the butter and extra water, and the fruit. The chicken was very nice, but I love roast chicken and it's not hard. The peas were actually better this time because I defrosted the peas and onions before cooking them. I added only 1 tbsp of butter and almost no water, so there was no sauce. I think I need to tinker with it some more, but I thought it tasted better this time. It was still buttery, but not so watery. The fruit was a last minute thought. I only had apple, banana, orange and pineapple in the house. I used almost no sugar, but 2 TBSP of cointreau. It was easy this time.

Skipped the cucumbers because I didn't have any, but added mashed potatoes. Oh, and the gravy turned out very well.

Lesson 2: 2 December 2007

Soupe Villageoise
(Country-style Vegetable Soup with Noodles)

Escalopes de Veau Vallée d'Auge
(Veal Scallops with Apples and Calvados)

Crème Renversée au Caramel
(Caramel Custard)

Crème Renversée was found to be most delicious by most respondents.

Baby Grows Up (Vivi)

Frankly, I hate being called Baby. So I'm changing my name. I've gone thru a bunch of alternatives, and have ended up with .... Vivi. It's a little used old Latin name, meaning "alive", which can be taken in its minimal sense (breathing, functioning), or in a more happy connotation (vivid, vivacious). And it's easy to type.

Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Ladies, Start your Pastry Bags

Sisters, have you looked at the next menu? It's veal again, shank this time, cut into rounds. And the dessert, a scrumptious looking chocolate mousse with hazelnuts and whiskey and chantilly creme, requires a pastry bag. I will have to go buy one and if I happen to see a good looking Charlotte pan, I might buy that as well.

It's all about sauces and thickening with eggs and I believe the recipes call for a total of 14 eggs.

How much work, really?

If you discount mistakes (letting it get frozen, forgetting it on the stove)*, was the cabbage soup really such a lot a work? I mean, stocks are foundational cooking. I make them all the time.

Let me reframe the question: If we separate out the stock-making (which I believe was the purpose of the soup in Lesson #2) from the soup-making, it's not such a big deal. In fact, the cabbage-and-leek soup was intentionally chosen because it was so easy to make in its final form.

Okay, I just remembered the 27 steps to prepare the cabbage. Hmmm.

Still, my point is, the lesson was the stock (I think?). The soup was intended to be easy. And perhaps the lesson was also that with a great stock, even a simple soup can taste really good. But we are all reasonably trained cooks, so these basic lessons are not truly aimed at us. Making stock is not a surprise, nor that homemade offers great flavor.

By the way, the food critics -- urr, children -- ate and actually loved the plain boiled stock-cooked chicken, reheated with no other seasoning. Neither of them usually prefers homemade to frozen prepared breaded nuggets. Who would know they required French cooking?


*Not meaning to pick on Peaceable -- I have myself carefully strained all the vegetables out of a stock, letting the liquid flavor pour out down the sink drain.

Rising to the Challenge

Menu #2, a haiku

White porcelain dish --
Inedible, amber rock --
Caramel mistake.

Menu #2, a pair of couplets

What a lot of work you have to do,
to create a simple French cabbage-and-leek stew.
For all the trouble that kind of thing takes,
the Irish would have served steaks.

Menu #2, Poetry

Sisters, please feel free to add poetry to this thread. I know you can top mine....in fact, I dare you. I double dare you!

Menu #2, a haiku

A cloud of bleu fire
On mushrooms and crème fraîche.
Flaming Calvados!

Menu #2, a limerick

An amateur chef tried to light
A spoonful of brandy last night.
A cloud of bleu flame
then enveloped the same,
And the chef shrieked in alarm at the sight.

Update on Midwestern broth adventure

When last I posted re Sunday's meal, the broth, left incomplete on Sunday, had become a frozen mass of leek, celery, and so on...now it is strained, a thick brew about six cups in volume. I put the pot on to simmer for 1.5+ hours after supper on Monday and, oops, forgot, left it overnight. I didn't shriek when I woke from a sound sleep at 6:00AM, suddenly mindful that I had not turned it off, but I definitely scurried out of bed and downstairs. Expletives may have been spoken.

The soup was fine, fortunately, but there is even less of it than before. The urgency of the question, "Was it worth it all the fuss?" has been increased. Another round of cabbage, onion and vermicelli will have to provide the deciding evidence.

Photos from the heartland

I was so distracted by flame, hot sugar, accidents and task that I forgot to take photos of the food. But here is the contented family after the feast. The Niece is still howling in laughter. Actually, I believe they are all laughing at me, not with me.

The Bride Wants to Know

What is everyone going to do with the trussed chicken, leftover from the soup? If it were summer I'd make a cold chicken salad with a nice garlicky mayonnaise, but it's cold here.

On the Plage at Menton

Sisters! Remember that wonderful day on the plage at Menton. I still think the horizontal stripes were a mistake, though, Baby Bleu.

Menu 2: the Bride has Mixed Results

The soup: Disappointing. A lot of effort and a strangely colorless result - leeks, cabbage, and pasta - all the same color. That bit of chopped parsley slung on at the end was gratuitous. The flavor was very good, but still, not worth the effort. I'm going to eat the leftovers for lunch and hope it will have improved with sitting. Admittedly, I cut the fat here by 2/3s, but I don't think 4 more tablespoons of butter would have added enough flavor to be worth it, and it certainly wouldn't have affected the color.

The veal: Yum! was the unanimous verdict by the COG, the Son of COG and the Bride of COG, herself. We used humanely-reared veal, which was, naturally, hugely expensive. We used wonderful wild mushrooms, which were also, naturally, hugely expensive. The whole meal, in fact, caused the COG to mutter under his breath for quite a long time about the price of groceries.

The preparation method is similar to one I use quite a bit, so everything went well except I couldn't get the calvados to flame. This recipe is one I will return to. In the future I'll try pork, though, which is a natural complement to the apples. Loved the apples! But, again, in the future I'll probably leave the skins on. I like the texture of the skin on baked apples.

I cut the fat by at least half and used a little butter for flavor and mostly 'good oil' for the bulk of the fat. I don't think it hurt the flavor appreciably and I (and my gall bladder) slept easier knowing the arteries of the COG and the Son of COG were undamaged.

The Creme Renversee - I wish I'd taken a picture because it came out perfectly. It looked so lovely on my blue and white dish, with a pool of caramel around it. I have tried to make it before (with mixed success), but previous attempts meant I had already figured out the caramel part and knew the custard needed time to cool. In fact, it came out better this time than ever before. I used 2% milk and the exact amount of sugar.

I used a ceramic dish which I warmed in hot water, dried, then placed on the special warmer burner of my range while the sugar was caramelizing. Peaceable, I think you have one, too. Baby, you probably don't, but I before I had a special warmer, I just put the dish on the stove while I did the caramel. The goal is warm, but completely dry. Having the dish warm gives you time to coat it with caramel before it hardens. Too cold and it hardens too soon. However, having it too warm also doesn't work. And not completely dry is another kind of disaster.

We had a California merlot with the veal and it was terrific.

I thought the timing of this menu was easier than the first one. The soup and creme caramel done ahead of time. I waited until the apples were tender before starting the veal, which just took minutes. It's a basically fast and simple method of preparation.

Charlotte pans: C'est chouette!

In last night's Crème renversée au caramel, the recipe called for a 4-cup Charlotte mold, and I had NO idea what that was. I know, I know, how pitiful. Et moi, j'ai habité en France pendant neuf mois! Based on the shape of the custard illustrated in the book, I went with what I had, a 9" cake pan. Now, having done a quick google, I can see that the cake pan only made my life harder, and I want a charlotte mold...to be precise, I "crave" rather want. I crave a Charlotte mold. Maybe someone will get me one for Xmas???

This is the post that originally overwrote my preparation post. Through cut-and-paste cunning, it now shows up where it is was meant in the first place. Sigh.

Whew! And this is only lesson 2? (from Baby)

I was expecting this to be an easy dinner -- after all, a simple soup and custard, which I've made in some form dozens of times before, and then sauted meat, which I've done often enough. But the details, the methods of cooking, threw me off. We sat down to eat about 1-1/2 hours later than planned (with hunger-crazed kids). Now I'm concerned about the difficulty of lessons 10-15, not to mention 60-90.

The caramel was the main thing that threw us off. I let my sous-chef take that over (the Texan), and we both forgot to read ahead in the recipe. For us, the worry was about burning the caramel...so after rescuing it at a perfect light amber, while we casually looked up what to do next, the caramel hardened half in the heating pan and half in the custard pan. That alone set us back 45 minutes, because everything had to be cleaned, and it took forever for the caramel to come to a boil. Also, distracted by these problems, I allowed the simultaneously sauteing cabbage to be "colored" (aka, a little burned). But I was able to rescue the majority of it for the soup.

However there were no other disasters, and the soup and mushroom sauce were delicious, as was the final caramel custard. The veal was tasty but tough -- in queasiness about the whole use of the meat, I had purchased scallops that were on sale, and then froze them. I've decided that next time I'll try turkey cutlets (unless beef is recommended?).

Fatty, fatty two by four
I halved the butter and creme fraiche in all cases. The sauce was on the chunky side, more a tasty glop than a sauce, but everything tasted fine. I'm definitely going with less fat in future.

Weird cooking practices
So, is Savoy Cabbage tougher than ordinary green cabbage? We blanched it, then sautéed it, then simmered it for 45 minutes in stock. (One would think the cabbage was an inmate at Gitmo.) Amazingly, it was still the perfect texture in the end, a little crunch still left. I would guess the blanching preserves the color and texture of the cabbage through the sauteing (and removes some bitterness), but it seems like a lot of steps when in the past I've just thrown the greens into the stock. On the other hand, it tasted great, perhaps my favorite part of the meal.

Three oenophiles only, we drank less than one bottle of a Pacific Coast Viognier. Nice wine but a little pungent with this meal. Brother BeerDrinker drank two microbrews.

#2 x #2 or Peaceable's Adventures in the Kitchen

I didn't start the stock in time. I broke a beloved dish. I totally missed that we were supposed to cool the custard before serving. I nearly set my hair on fire when I lighted the calvados, and I stood so long in front of the 425º oven, custard-tending, that my gold necklace began to heat up; I nearly dropped the pan of near-boiling water and wobbly custard goo as the necklace scorched my tender skin. The Niece, to tell the truth, enjoyed the spectacle of the whirling, dish-dropping, frazzled, hair-on-fire, neck-grabbing, yelping Chef. She wished she had a camera on her to take some candid photos.

I have new insight into why the French prefer to be alone in the kitchen with a door that can be shut.

And then, to top it all off, my long initial post on the subject was somehow over-written by my subsequent post on Charlotte pans. "Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbons?" chortled the Prince Regent long ago to the author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." "Grumble, grumble, grumble, eh, Peaceable?" would be my modern take. So here I am, rewriting something that I was satisfied with before, that peculiar exercise in memory.

In any case, despite all that, we all agreed that we loved the custard even though it was served hot because the important text, "remove from pan and let cool" had not managed to pierce into my consciousness. In terms of preparation, it took me two tries to get the caramelized sugar to "coat the bottom and sides" of the cake pan I used as a substitute for a 4-cup charlotte mold. That would be two goes with a 20-minute clean-up in between (Man, that caramelized sugar is tough stuff!) Our mother, of course, makes fantastic custard sans caramel sauce; It isn't just "French children and their parents" who grew up on and "love this eggy custard." I used whole milk for this, with a pang of guilt. I'm going to try it again with 2% or skim. The Niece and I agreed that the desserts last week and this were too sweet; I'm going to make caramel custard again, but I will cut back on the sugar in the egg goo rather than forgo the caramel. I'm also going to cut back on the sugar in subsequent desserts. Fat, sugar, long pre-prep times...what else can I change to make these recipes function for me?

I also loved the soup, but I made it (Quelle horreur!) with Savory Choice Liquid Chicken Broth concentrate ("Fresh homemade flavor made from natural ingredients") rather than the fond de volaille, and, done this way, it was relatively easy. Under sibling pressure, I decided to make the chicken stock after all, but I started way too late. So, preferring to eat supper sometime before 9:30 PM, I aborted at the point where I removed the chicken, with the 1.5+ hour final simmer remaining. The stock spent the night on our front porch and is frozen rock solid. Now it requires a several hour defrosting AND a 1.5+ hour simmer before being useable, sigh. I liked making the bouquet garni from scratch, but the whole process seemed pretty fussy for eight cups of chicken stock! Was the flavor worth it? I'm going to make this soup again later this week to use up the stock and see. I may use a standard MN cabbage with no butter wilt rather than a Sa-VOY cabbage (I asked for a SA-voy cabbage and was primly corrected by the produce man at Lunds) with scald and butter wilt. Because, God forbid, I should be systematic about this.

Another BIG hit in our crowd was the baked golden delicious apples. I used less than 2T of butter on eight apples so it wasn't too bad, as these things go. Personally, I could have skipped the meat and just feasted on baked apple, mushroom sauce and whole milk custard. We used a cut of thin-sliced beef instead of veal, and I was disappointed. It wasn't tough, but neither was it particularly flavorful. I think chicken would have worked as well. But everyone else enjoyed the meat. They were full, but would have enjoyed more. I substituted a blend of 2/3's cup of low-fat sour cream and 1/3 cup of low-fat yoghurt for crème fraiche--so only around 100 calories per serving rather than crème fraiche's 10,000,000.

The Resident Breadman made lovely rolls as a side starch. These were a bit soft for our tastes, but we happily used it to sop up all the mushroom sauce. Among us, we downed nearly four bottles of bon vin rouge: two French--a Minervois and a burgundy--plus an Italian red and a Malbec from Argentina.

Our neighbors, Larry and Julie, joined us. They are betting that we don't get past recipe #5. The Son also joined us, a pleasure, of course. The Daughter had to work Christmas hours.

Naming Bleus

Hey readers!

We are torn between naming the blog "HotDish Bleus" and "Bleus Sisters" (or Les Bleus Sisters). Please enter your vote in the poll off to the left (if you haven't already), and if you have a good reason for preferring one over the other, comment on it after this post.
This photo of us was taken last summer when we vacationed together in Italy (notice the lovely jasmine in the background). Bride is on the left, and Peaceable (or is it French?) is on the right. That leaves me in the middle, as usual.

Prepping for #2 by #3

Mais oui, you must make the stock! Else what's the point? All of us have cooked stocks before, so the difficulty is doing it their way, not the "usual". I thought I read the recipe before I started, but then kept tripping up -- I cut the leeks in half, crosswise, before reading about cutting them into quarters. So I essentially cut them in strips (quartering lengthwise). Then I found out I was putting them into a bundle -- too late to wrap the bundle in a single leek. Still, I managed.

I assumed you truss the chicken to keep it from flopping around in the pot -- it's easier to pull it out after an hour, without getting bits of onion and carrot stuck inside it or under a drumstick. You tie up the bundle for the same reason -- those are the floppiest stuff to pull out, and it's easier to pull out as much as possible before straining.

Here are my questions: Why cut the tips off the wings and then throw them into the soup pot with the chicken? What, exactly, is a "branch" of thyme, as compared to a sprig? I assumed it was a thicker stemmed bit, with several sprigs on it.

Diverting from the Fatness
We have already concluded that we don't need 8 Tbs of butter for the veal recipe. We're planning to use half what is called for (in all recipes) and cooking spray. That should keep the flavor without making it hard to cook. I'll report back if it works. Maybe we can use even less -- but I've never cooked with veal before (I've only ever eaten it once that I know of) so I do want to get a sense of what things are supposed to taste like before altering too much.

A warning about the caramel, which I coincidentally made for Thanksgiving: it goes from clear sugar water to blackened burned in fewer than 10 seconds, after 8-10 minutes of boiling. Watch it carefully. I had to make two batches to get it right (you can use a candy thermometer, if you are lucky enough to have one -- I think the sweet spot is 375°).

If you look at the picture for "chiffonade" (how-to) on page 520 of my edition (1991), they show what appears to be Savoy Cabbage, not ordinary green cabbage as I know it. I've never cooked with it before, so I don't know if it's any different from other cabbages. I haven't located any in town yet; if I can't find any by noon I'll use ordinary.

Given Blithe's comments about help from Larousse Gastronomique (what is French "lettuce"?) I'm considering getting a copy. It's an $85 book (in the new 2001 edition), and even the older editions at Powell's, dog-eared and yellowed hard-to-read pages, at in the $40 range.

The Bride Trusses, Folds, & Ties

I made the stock exactly according to the recipe, though the COG urged me to use tinned organic chicken broth. Quelle horreur! If I am going to do it, I told him, I'm going to do it exactly as instructed.

But I'm not sure why you have to truss the chicken when you are only going to take it out later. (I trussed it). And why you have to fold up and tie the bouquet garni - parsley, bay leaf, thyme tied between leek leaves - when you strain the whole thing later? (I folded and tied). Will my stock will be superior because I have trussed, folded, and tied?

Then, I figured out how many Weight Watcher points in each serving. Soup (with 6 TBSPs of butter) OK at 3 points. Creme Renversee not bad at 5 points. Veal Thingie.... 22 points per serving. It has 8 TBSPs of butter, 1/4 cup of oil plus one cup of creme fraiche, which together hike up the points.

And here I draw my line in the sand. Cordon Bleu or not, I'm going to reduce the amount of fat in this dish. It's just not healthy. It would be more merciful to just bash the COG on the head, rather than kill him slowly with Bad Fat. I'll report back about how much fat I actually used. Hopefully, it will still taste good.

And I still get points for trussing, folding and tying, don't I?

Planning ahead for #2 by #2

I'm planning to make the starter--the country soup--with vegetable broth so the Vegetarian can share the meal as well. Will I actually make the broth? Time will tell. I have this delicious soup base in a tidy packet that I have been using of late....Quelle horreur!

I'm also planning to substitute beef for veal. I just can't bring myself to cook veal. However, my rational is that we found French beef to be surprisingly tough; their veal--the one time I ate it--was much more like what we eat as beef.

I've invited our next-door-neighbors to join us, and I was intending to invite another couple as well, but I haven't yet because now I'm worried that the recipe is for six, and we are five without any guests. It's easy enough to stretch the recipe for 8 or 10 people, but I'm already nervous about the creme caramel. And how far astray from the recipe--fudge the broth, change the meat, increase the number of servings--can one go before the whole point of the lesson has been lost?

And that doesn't even take into account the number of seats at the table problem.

Lesson 1: Pratique de Base (Getting Started)

Concombre á la Menthe
(Cucumber Salad with Mint)

Poulet Roti
(Roast Chicken)

Petits Pois á la Française
(Spring Peas with Lettuce, Chervil, and Onions)

Salade des Fruits
(Fresh Fruit Salad with Cointreau)

Poetry for Lesson 1

Green peas in butter,
onions and wilted lettuce
simmering slowly.

There was a sister whose primary lust
Was a short order cook who abandoned her trust.
He stole off to the hills
But left her some skills:
She intimately knows how a chicken is trussed.

Lettuce discuss the greens

So, in the peas, sisters...two things seemed unspecified. First, "head lettuce" and second, "small bunch" of chervil--what did you choose to fill in the gap on info for those, and how did it turn out?

And have you thought about the purpose of the lettuce? Why add those bitty strips? What does the lettuce add?

Drinks...(BrideBleu)

I didn't say that we had our brand new Forty-Four as an aperitif. With the meal we drank a lovely crisp Australian white - a Viogner/Chardonnay blend with nice floral and fruity tones.

Notes from the Left Coast, Sister #3

In light of other sisters' comments, two things occur to me to mention.

We ate American style -- that is, all the food was scheduled to be served at once, and it was. (We were merely 30 minutes behind schedule, eating at 6:30. We had small children and a guest.) As a cook, I've never bounced between kitchen and table, preparing as others are eating (except when a dish, half-prepared and left in the over, is remembered, or dessert). I don't know that I'll be willing to give up being a participant in my own dinner party. Next week's meal will be easier to eat in courses, so I'll try that.

As to beverages: We did not have aperitifs (didn't think of it). Rather, we had a bottle of cheap local red wine (Pinot Evil, I believe) while cooking, and, with the meal, a somewhat too-sweet-for-the meal Pinot Gris -- from the local winery Anne Aimee, for rather obvious reasons. The men (BleusBrother and RJ) drank Guinness, and later Belgian beer.

The cookbook doesn't discuss things like wine, or serving courses, or how to set the table. That seems to me to be lacking.

Menu 1: When Good Foods go Bad From BrideBleu

Menu 1 takes very healthy fresh foods and adds a lot of fat a sugar, making them less healthy. That troubles me. I haven't figured out whether I want to just make the recipes with no alterations, or to tinker with things like 5 TBSPs of butter in the peas.

We all thought the cucumbers were good but a little salty. Next time I will actually rinse them before drying them off, to eliminate more salt. I used mint from my garden, which still has some cold-weather herbs in it.

The chicken was very nice. I thought the technique of cooking the sides, then the breast resulted in a beautifully browned chicken. Of course, we fed the skin to the dog and cat, but it looked lovely. We used a local organic chicken and we thought it was very nicely flavored, and that we could taste the thyme (from our garden). I cooked the giblets in water for the animals and used the water from that instead of using 1/2 cup of water in the roasting process.

The technique used for the gravy is the one we always use, so it was not new.
The only thing I do, that the recipe didn't mention, is to spoon off the fat before I let the liquid reduce. The fat does not add flavor. I also added all the remaining water from the giblets before cooking it down. If I had cooked potatoes (I didn't), I might have added some of that liquid, too.

The peas were yummy, but swimming in buttery juice. They made me think of Mom's adage: 'if you add enough butter to anything, it tastes good'. Possibly it was the frozen peas/onions that made the excess of buttery juice. Possibly the lettuce was really juicy. I think I would have preferred the peas with less juice. I'm going to try the technique again with less butter and next spring, with fresh peas.

The dessert: couldn't get strawberries or peaches and didn't substitute anything because the recipe gave permission (use less fruit, it says, instead of not fresh fruit). I'm really trying to stick with local, seasonal produce as much as I can. I also cut the sugar considerably. I probably used 1/8 cup. I'm feeling a little guilty about it, as if I broke the rules, but I know we like our fruit on the tart side.

Menu #1 from sister #2

I had done three of the four dishes before so I thought I'd be, you know, proficient, heh, which just shows how much I know. Still, the earlier trial-run allowed me to get my timing right...okay, "right" is generous; It was a great thing that I had friendly, patient family around me, not hungry guests. I began cooking supper at 6:00 PM, and we got up from table, sated, at 10:00PM. As 9:00PM approached, we were plying family with apertif.

Dish by dish...first, the cucumbers were tasty. I forgot to put the last couple of mint leaves to decorate it, and the effect was less minty fresh than last time. This recipe is a simple one and worth remembering--it is simple to do and refreshing to eat. We served this as a starter course while the chicken rested and the peas cooked. The picture shows the table just before we sat down.

The peas were a great hit...yeah, those FIVE Tablespoons of butter, mmm, good! I also used frozen peas--baby peas in fact--and I used canned "holland onions" which were soft AND peeled. In this recipe, last time I had trouble with the lettuce--then, I used Boston lettuce, and the result was lumpy green ick. This time I used two leaves of Romaine lettuce. These were tasty and had some character. The technique I learned--we used it for the mint and the lettuce--of rolling the leaves up and then slicing them into strips is likely to be useful for all those times when I have to obtain slices of green stuff. I still have no idea how big a "small" bouquet of chervil is.

The technique for roasting the chicken was good, but the flavor itself was a bit flat--I think it was the bird, not the technique. I usually buy organic birds from Whole Foods and, pressed for time, I bought a "smart bird" from Lunds. But I'm not convinced the one side-other side technique produced a bird that was incrementally better. It might be interesting to compare the taste of two birds roasted at the same time, one this way and one our traditional way.

The big hit in our household was the fresh fruit dessert. I substituted fresh mango for fresh peach, and whatever. It was fantastic. Mind you, with 1/2 cup of sugar and 1T of cointreau even cardboard would taste fantastic.

The Vegetarian had a spare meal. She liked the peas, the cucumbers and filled up the hollow spaces with a baguette that the Resident Breadman produced eariler in the day. We served a pinot noir that wasn't really worth the calories.

Comments from the Left Coast...

Everybody loved tonight's meal. I thought the cucumbers were a bit too salty, but I was alone in that. We had our friend RJ join us this evening, to serve as an independent opinion. He has invited himself to join us for many of the upcoming Sunday dinners, looking forward in particular to the sweetbread menus. I am decidedly not looking forward to those, but I reckon I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Not much to "learn" in this lesson, I thought. The method of roasting the chicken was new to me, that of cooking it on its side for 20 minutes, turning it, cooking on the other side for 20 minutes and then putting it on its back for the rest of the roasting. It reminded me of positioning a baby for sleep, in the old days when you were supposed to lie them on their stomachs.

I can't find chervil, so instead I tied a chunk of fennel into the parsley in the peas, which gave it a nice subtle almost licorice flavor. Other changes: I also put the onions in first and let them cook for a couple of minutes before adding the peas and the lettuce, so that everything was cooked at about the same rate.

Substitutions: Frozen petite peas for fresh; canned peach (in juice) for fresh; English cucumbers for "European cucumbers", which might be the same thing. Also, we added a baguette on the side.

Our Royal Miss M took one look at the dinner and elected to eat a frozen burrito instead. Royal W was the sous-chef -- only two cuts on his fingers until we took him off apple peeling detail (he switched to using a potato peeler). He was very helpful with stirring and measuring. After helping me wash and prep the chicken however, he has returned to vegetarianism.

Starting off - Messages amongst our authors

Hey, Sisters -- we have some few details to work out. I suggest we all post to the blog to see how it works and we can delete and/or rebuild later.

Format: You can see the one I picked. I like Cerulean's/EC's/Bride's too, which I happened across trying to find her google name. Here's a link to compare (use control-click and it'll open in a different window).

Title: I like Bride's title a little better, too -- or rather, I like "Le HotDish Bleus" the best, for all the layering.

Names: Unless we change our google identities, we will be SybBrig, Bride and Kate. We could of course all get additional google accounts (possibly we can get an alternative email address with our main one, that's commonly available but I haven't checked that possibility). I've temporarily changed to "Royal" to see how it looks/feels on me. It would be a pain to always be thinking about which Identity I have when I log in to various blogs. Or maybe a good thing to have them compartmentalized.

Or we could do this in WordPress -- possibly the whole naming thing is different there. I will check tomorrow.

Photos: We'll have to work out how photos work -- three pictures of roast chickens will get boring fast. I don't know that we can make a rule about that in advance -- we'll have to see how that works.

I'm sure there are many other things, but I drank a lot of wine with our meal, and I have to go to bed soon.

Remember to blog back, not comment.