Vivi starts to catch up

I've gotten out of sync with the rest of you, and with the book. Having missed the Sunday session of Lesson 3, I ended up making it the following Saturday, chez Maman, with Peaceable as sous-chef. Then I came back to the left coast and made most of Lesson 4 for Christmas meal -- the salmon crepes, the chard gratin and lamb (but not according to the Cordon Bleu recipe). For dessert for that meal, I made another Chocolate Mousse à la Lesson 3, accurately guessing that the chocolate paradise would be more favored than a mere fruit sorbet.

This is me and my sous-chefs at Christmas, mixing the mousse. They were quite helpful, both with plenty of experience with cooking (JG is an official former professional crepe maker -- but Algerian, not French, crepes -- and RJ is a foodie). They both got more light-hearted about the cooking as they consumed more holiday aquavit (or Jubal Ale, as the case may be). We were all pretty light-hearted by the time dinner was served.

For New Years Eve, I made the Cassoulet from Lesson 5, but for dessert, a mincemeat pie (Left Coast Brother and I have neglected most of the customary family holiday treats this year; this was the last cry for tradition). And tonight we had the Summer Salad and the Sponge Cake with a beef rib roast. As of tonight, I'm caught up, except for the fruit sorbet.

Summary: Lesson 3

One curious thing about the Chocolate Mousse: when Peaceable and I made it in the Midwest, we used a wonderful gourmet chocolate that tasted so good alone that we decided to leave off the 1/2 cup of sugar in the chocolate, and depend only upon the 1/2 cup of sugar in the egg whites. This produced a rich, dark, bittersweet mousse which sang the contrast to the Chantilly Cream over top -- but which was as dense and thick as a flourless torte.

Was it the absence of that sugar in the chocolate? Is there a chemical reaction of chocolate and sugar that makes the combination lighter and softer? When I made the recipe again for Christmas -- this time with a mix of Ghiradelli chips and Scharffen-Berger gourmet chocolate (cleaning up what we had in bits in the cupboard), with the 1/2 cup of sugar, the mousse was soft and pudding-like.

Both mousses tasted great, and neither was badly textured; they were just different from each other. (The photo is my second mousse -- I have a pastry bag, but neglected to find the nozzles, so had a plain 1-inch hole for a "shape".)

Also, in both mousses that I made, I used chopped, not crushed, hazelnuts. You can see the bumps in the photo. I liked the crunchy effect of the bits of toasted nut, but RJ pointed out that it would be smoother with crushed hazelnuts (and that the crunchiness could be achieved with a smattering of nuts over the top, which would look pretty, too).

Toasting note: hazelnuts are much easier to toast first and then chop/crush than to chop/crush and then toast.

As to the Veal Shanks with onions and mushrooms -- I found it quite uninteresting, and certainly not worth the effort to find veal or cost of the meat. The Egg Gratin was very tasty (but our bechamel sauce was too thick), but I think it unlikely I'll make it again.