Archive for the ‘La Cuisine’ Category
A Quiet Saturday Evening & French Onion Soup
May 15th, 2011 | Rachel
Its the Saturday evening after a busy week.
On Tuesday you listed your apartment on Craigslist during lunch and had a renter for the summer lined up by the time you got home from belly dance class that same night (for $100 more a month than you asked for!). On Wednesday you applied to about a bazillion jobs and went to two “girls’ nights,” and on Thursday you drank an unfortunate mixture of beverages that killed half of your plans on Friday (but you still managed to drag yourself to Ikea to help a friend pick out furniture for her new apartment). And now, you are just a little bit tired.
So what do you do?
Perhaps you meet a friend and her visiting mother for cappuccinos at Stumptown and then spend the evening slow cooking some of Julia Child’s French Onion Soup while watching random movies and tv shows on Netflix On-Demand.
Start with a pound and a half of onions…
Thinly slice…
Sauté in butter for 15 minutes. Then cook over moderate heat for 40 minutes until golden yellow. Stir in three tablespoons of flour.
Add two quarts of your own homemade chicken stock (great use of the leftover carcasses that have been patiently waiting in your freezer since your many roasted chicken attempts).
I think I only used one quart of chicken stock. Or maybe I lost count when I was measuring the volume of my new Ikea food storage containers. Two quarts seemed like it would make the soup too thin.
Let simmer partially covered for another 40 minutes.
Mix in a few shreds of cheese and cover with a round of toasted bread and more cheese.
Then bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Julia says to turn on the broiler for two minutes at the end, but it wasn’t necessary (and my broiler doesn’t work).
Toasted cheese perfection.
In case you don’t have any cute mason jars on hand (or an “onion soup dish” like Julia recommends — whatever that is), a mug is a fine alternative:
Time for the second episode of Cashmere Mafia.
Un Petit Déjeuner Pour Une
May 1st, 2011 | Rachel
After a wonderful, busy day yesterday, I am postponing changing out of my pajamas as long as possible — even though the glow of springtime sunshine is beckoning me outdoors.
Yesterday began with a stroll down to the Union Square Greenmarket where I laid down 40 bucks and came home with a pretty good haul.
I was ecstatic to discover pearl onions for $2 a bag. Mushrooms were considerably cheaper as well, and I had the added benefit of being able to ask the mushroom man how to store my mushrooms (paper bag in the fridge). I’m not a big bread eater, and I have no idea what I am going to do with my half loaf, but the bread stand was so pretty I felt compelled to buy something from them too.
The flowers are peach blossoms, by the way, and were the splurge of the day at $10 for a bundle. I think they are worth it, don’t you?
After the market, I headed down the street to a spa for a facial appointment and (somewhat) regretfully turned all diva on a young, inexperienced esthetician. The peak was when I stood up and pointed at her and then at the door and said something like, “This is a complete waste of my time.” I was angrily putting my clothes back on when the manager came in and somehow convinced me to stay and did the facial herself. Sure, it may sound dramatic, but you have to have confidence in someone who is going to hold sharp objects near your face and has access to a slew of skin dissolving chemicals.
That ordeal took three hours, so I wasn’t able to cook something French and fabulous for a backyard barbecue up in the Upper East Side (next time, Arthur, I promise!), but I brought an offering of beer and limes in exchange for delicious, homemade guacamole, burgers, and lemon cake. Then it was time to christen the rooftop of the Empire Hotel (and my summer party wardrobe). I think this blog is catching on faster than I realized because the same photographer at Empire showed up at the Dream Hotel shortly after we did. Coincidence? Perhaps.
All that is to say I am taking it easy today.
I poked around the kitchen this morning looking for something respectable to eat that would involve minimal dish washing and ended up flipping through Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia Child has a whole chapter on eggs, which I have been avoiding because Julia makes cooking eggs look incredibly complicated. I contemplated trying my hand at an omelette, but that is going to require some outdoor flipping practice involving dried beans.
Eventually I settled on scrambled eggs.
If this post had a byline, it’d be: Scrambled Eggs, I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Means.
If you are anything like me, then you cook your scrambled eggs in a similar fashion to fried eggs only you mix the yolk and egg white together a little before dumping into a pan on moderately high heat and stirring it around for 30 seconds or so until it becomes cooked little egg lumps.
Per Julia’s instructions, I cooked my eggs this morning in a sauce pan. A sauce pan! (That’s the pot with the handle, fyi.) The trick is to cook your eggs on low heat in a pan small enough for the egg to be 2/3″ to 1″ deep. Furthermore, when you pour your eggs (lightly beaten with a splash of milk) into the pot there is no satisfying sizzle, and, true to the instructions, nothing happens for the first 2-3 minutes as you seemingly fruitlessly stir.
But then, very slowly, the eggs will start to turn into a soft custard, and when it solidifies almost enough to eat with a fork, you remove it from heat and stir in a splash of cream to stop the cooking. The result is breakfast perfection.
Now I know why the farmer’s plate at Community (replicated above) always seemed superior to anything I could cook.
Well, I reckon it is time to seize the day.
Butter + Cream + More Butter (And Bacon) = Quiche Lorraine
April 29th, 2011 | Rachel
No. More. Cream. Please.
Since I’ve roasted three chickens in the past month, I decided it was time to move on and try something from a different chapter in Julia Child’s Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. Quiche Lorraine was one of the original contenders, so I gave it a shot.
The makings of a quiche crust
The makings of Quiche Lorraine filling (Note: contrary to popular opinion, this dish does not contain cheese)
Magic ingredients
The making of an insanely buttery quiche crust
This recipe might be the epitome of Julia Child’s interpretation of French cooking. The crust is made with a stick and a half of butter plus half a cup of shortening, and the filling is made with a CUP AND A HALF OF CREAM. Let’s all pause for a moment and think about the splash of cream we add to our coffee (when the good stuff is available). Then, dump out the coffee and fill the whole mug with cream. Twice.
To finish off this already indulgent pie, the recipe entails dropping blobs of butter into the pie crust full of cream, egg and bacon before sending it into the oven until it puffs up and turns golden brown.
The result couldn’t have been more delicious, but after eating it for lunch and dinner two days in a row, I felt like I was going to die. I also think I gained two pounds in the process.
I don’t know if I measured something wrong, but my crust came out disappointingly soggy. Also, the blobs of butter kind of pooled in the middle and kept the quiche from puffing up evenly. I didn’t think it was pretty enough to share with anyone at work, so I ate half of it myself (over the course of four meals, mind you) and threw the rest away.
I need to be better about arranging for people to come over and eat the food I am cooking. I don’t think my cholesterol levels can handle me eating this food alone.
Third Time’s The Charm?
April 19th, 2011 | Rachel
This weekend I finally got to share some french cooking with my favorite dinner companion. I wasn’t planning on cooking this weekend (the highlight of the weekend involved a frozen drink machine and a recipe for a Lemon Whiskey Slush — which is even better with lime juice), but Steve and I decided to brave the crowds at Whole Foods to pick up some dinner ingredients.
For those of you who do not live in New York City, a trip to Whole Foods — particularly on a Sunday evening — is not for the feint of heart. A sign at the check out counter listing the best and worst times to shop adeptly described it as “frenetic.” We managed to navigate our miniature shopping cart through the narrow aisles full pairs and trios of shoppers (Whole Foods is no place to be seen alone on a Sunday evening), and eventually ran into a wall of people dividing the bakery from the deli. That was one of the check out lines. There were three of such lines, each comprised of at least 25 people who were funneled into a color coded holding pen. At that point we waited for a screen to tell us which of the 40 check out counters to go to.
Since this dinner was unplanned, I wasn’t able to reference my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. However, the upside about making the same dish several times in a row (this was my third roasted chicken in the past month) is you pretty much memorize it. I almost pulled of this roasted chicken from memory without a hitch, but I forgot to pick up some sort of stock to make a light sauce at the end.
And I forgot to put salt on the chicken each time I flipped it.
I also forgot to dry the chicken before I slathered it in butter.
I also forgot to make note of what time I put the bird in the oven and cooked one side more than the other…. I guess I forgot to do a lot of things.
I did not forget to buy cooking twine to tie the birdie’s legs together (although Julia Child prefers to use a mattress needle to sew her chicken into a tight bundle). I also did not forget how to roast the tomatoes, which make an excellent, fresh side dish.
Since several people have asked for recipes, perhaps I will start sharing some:
Prepping the tomatoes for roasting (this photo is from my first attempt… this past time I used Roma tomatoes)
Julia Child’s Roasted Tomatoes (a rough paraphrase): Select tomatoes less than 2″ diameter. Cut out the stems an sprinkle salt and pepper in the cavity. Paint with olive oil and place stem side down in a baking dish (I’ve been using round casserole dishes). Bake in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes or until skin starts to split. Serve immediately.
Although many of Julia’s recipes involve smothering your main ingredient in butter or cream, others are designed to showcase the essence of the meat or vegetable. If you are ever at a farmers market and come across a table of small, ripe, homegrown tomatoes, this is what you need to do with them.
My sous chef for the evening, Steve
Patiently waiting for the chicken to finish (due to a late start we ended up eating close to 11pm… woops)
One more golden-brown chicken to add to the archives
Third time was not the charm, unfortunately. Although the color was near perfect, the texture of the skin was not. By the time I realized I hadn’t properly dried the chicken, I had already smeared it with butter. I was hoping the oven, which was far more powerful than the Easy Bake Oven in my apartment, would compensate for this omission, but no dice. The inside, thankfully, was still near perfect
And so, after battling the crowds at Whole Foods and schlepping our groceries onto the subway, Steve finally got to try some of my (beginner) French cooking.
Carving the bird
One of these days I’ll get it right. And one of these days I’ll be brave enough to try a French dessert.
Gâteau de crêpes on the web log
April 13th, 2011 | Rachel
I’ve started noticing a few side effects of web-logging (sounds more sophisticated than blogging).
For starters, I’ve become one of those people who talks about their blog. “I was working on an entry for my blog the other day…” or “I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest update on my blog…” or “Please please please visit my blog so my Google Analytics report will make me feel good about myself….”
I’ve also started talking to myself… even more than usual. I find myself constantly having conversations with myself in my head about ideas for posts or what to write about a particular subject or how to say it. This is most prevalent when I am cooking. And, since many of these recipes take four hours to complete, I’ve had plenty of time to hash all of this out ahead of time.
Unfortunately, these helpful voices cease as soon as I turn on my laptop…
… like right now.
Ahem.
Maybe I should just stick to showing you photos of my food.
Tonight I created a savory gâteau de crêpes. I was previously only aware of dessert crêpe cakes, but Julia Child prefers cheese sauces and spinach and ham fillings.
Everything you need for perfect crêpes
According to Julia, the easiest way to make a smooth crêpe batter is to throw it all in a blender. I don’t own a blender, so I used the food processor. The results were excellent.
Set-up for making crêpes
The recipe calls for approximately 25 6.5″ crêpes
The filling begins with a light cheese sauce, part of which is mixed with sauteed ham or blanched spinach
This recipe was definitely a labor of love. I started around 7:00 pm and was still assembling crêpes at 11:00 pm. Julia says crêpes freeze very well, so the next time I have an hour to spare, I just might cook up 30 or 60 crêpes to freeze and use at a later date.
Behold, the gâteau de crêpes. It was magnificent.
Twenty five layers of deliciousness
The cake looks small (its only 6.5″ in diameter), but it is so rich that the servings should be pretty small. This would make an excellent lunch or first dinner course for six people.
Now that this is finished, I am starting to think I should have come up with some great life metaphor about layers. Ah well.
