59 posts tagged “french”

Oh dear.

I've been trying to recreate a fish au gratin dish from my childhood. I loved the crispy crust on this dish so much that I always tried to scoop up a bit more than my fair share... But I'm having problems recreating the crust. Last time, the filling was too wet, and I poured too much oil over the crumbs, so they ended up completely soggy. So this time I left the filling (the sauce) a little thicker, and used a lot more breadcrumbs. Way too much breadcrumbs. And not enough cheese.

The breadcrumbs did far more to spoil the look, than the taste (well apart from the crust, which obviously was a complete failure), so overall it was really very tasty.

I sautéed some lightly floured potatoes to brown the edges (the crispiness would obviously fade, but that browning does create a little extra taste) and set them aside — same with a small dice mirepoix and chopped tilapia. This was put in a baking dish with a thick Béchamel sauce flavored with dill, thyme, Dijon mustard, white pepper and salt. Topped with lots (ie., far too much) of homemade breadcrumbs, and some commercial Italian seasoned breadcrumb, and finally some grated Jarlsberg.

The charred edges look a lot worse than they actually were. Simple, tasty stuff. Puff pastry, tomato paste, onion and garlic. Bake. Done. Nothing very special, but very easy and damn tasty.

Wafer thin crêpes filled with shrimps in a Béchamel type sauce from Smart Balance fake butter, peanut oil, 1% milk and flour along with yellow onions, scallions, white and cayenne pepper, lemon juice and salt. Asparagus on the side.

Very tasty. And apart from the crêpes, very simple. The use of low fat milk, margarine and groundnut oil (as opposed to cream and butter) had an impact on the taste, but I can't quite tell whether it was good or bad — taste, or health-wise.

Julia Child famously said "I just hate health food." I think that was mostly because she appreciated good food so much, but in fairness, you can't help but wonder that some of those uh, "old fashioned" opinions came from people who never had much of a weight problem. Not because they were biologically lucky, but because they lived in a time when people lived a much more active life — by necessity, if not by choice.

So while I appreciate that anti-health food opinion, I also think that we shouldn't be scared of holding a differing one, in our day and age. Still, one argument says that if you use proper butter and cream you won't eat as much — and if it says low fat, calories, or "can be part of a healthy diet," people eat buckets of it. Insightful stuff.

But the most interesting bit was probably that this meal killed to birds with one stone: it was both low fat and calories, while at the same time, it miraculously made me eat less.

Because it just didn't taste as good.

Once upon a time, I joked about how I could make procure great bread by ambushing customers who emerged from a bakery, beating them over the head with my stone-hard, inedible, home-cooked bread, and then stealing whatever they'd just purchased. That was a joke.

These baguettes aren't. I don't think I could actually knock someone out with them, but these suckers could definitely give you a black eye. Really.

The saddest bit about it is, this is the first time I've properly followed the instructions from that bible of breadmaking: The Bread Maker's Apprentice. I've learned a lot of things from it, that has helped me make better naan and burger buns. But I never did try to properly do a verbatim recipe from the book.

The book recommends a steam tray, which I've used before. But the pictures shows the steam tray on a higher rack in the oven, than the bread — as opposed to putting it underneath the bread. As much attention that is given in this book, to the differences between professional and home equipment, I find it hard to believe that this was the only thing that ruined my baguettes, but damnit, next time I'll put the steam tray underneath.

It's been so long since I've made quiche, I'd forgotten how satisfying it is to make. It's easy to the point of being difficult to mess up, it looks great, and tastes even better. And as leftovers, well quiche tastes just as good, if not better when cold. This is one of those recipes that I feel comfortable enough with, to never quite follow a strict recipe — still, even if I'm improvising, I do take notes. And in this case, I got a really wonderful, light texture that I will probably stick to for the future.

Here's the recipe, along with some notes:

CRUST:
1 1/4 cup AP flour
1/3 cup unsalted butter
4-5 tbsp cold water

FILLING:
6 eggs
6 slices of crispy, crumbled bacon
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese
1/2 cup grated Gruyère cheese
4 sliced scallions
1/4 tsp freshly grated white pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (approx — I think I accidentally got this one just right, without any measuring. I couldn't quite taste it, but I suspect it adds to the salty taste).

Be very careful with the salt. Original recipe called for 1/4 tsp salt, and I used about 3/4 tsp kosher salt. This was too much.

Only possible suggestion is perhaps some Dijon mustard?

Was very nice with fresh tomatoes from the garden.

Overmixed the crust. It became a little too hard, and not flaky and light.

(Blue cheese sounds like a good idea, but in this case, I think it'd be overpowering.)

Finally, one more picture, of the entire quiche itself:

This was rich beyond belief — I used too much butter in this dough, but dagnabbit, it was tasty. Not as good as the pear and blue cheese galette, but in my not-so humble opinion, you just can't beat that one.

Maybe that's why cooking is so much fun... A lot of the time, I find myself frustrated because my efforts don't reach my expectations — but then again, there are occasions when I exceed them, in the most unexpected way. This was one of those occasions. I've gotta try make more of these galette suckers. They's good eatin'.

This was seriously good... I made a blueberry galette a couple of years ago, and I have no idea why it took me so long to try this again — other than the fact that I rarely make dessert. But the pear and blue cheese part of it comes from a pizza that this very excellent grandmother of a friend of mine ordered from California Pizza Kitchen — caramelized pear and blue cheese. I think it's fantastic that someone of that age would be so open minded about unusual food combinations. I tried some of the cold, leftover pizza, and it was simply spectacular. I'm not sure how it'd taste hot, but cold, it was an eye opener.

Well, I took that combination and used it for my galette, and it was a winner. It looks a right mess, but oh well, you can't have everything.

Obviously, it wouldn't go down with people who don't like blue cheese, but I'd never allow those sort of people at my dinner table. Denying evolution, the moon landing or the Holocaust is one thing, but blue cheese?! What kind of depraved bastard would do such a thing? Get thee to McDonalds, you degenerate.

Snapper drenched in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper, sautéed and sprinkled with lemon. This makes for a very thin, but crispy, golden crust, with a moist interior. Mashed potatoes with the skin on, and a slight hint of garlic. A salad with ribbons of lettuce, thinly sliced apple, halved, red grapes, freshly ground pepper and a touch of balsamic vinegar.

Very nice, and extremely simple. I should do fish this way more often, but of course, there are so many ways to cook good fish...

This was a bit of a mish-mash, with the lightness of the fish and salad, and the relative heaviness of the mashy taters, but it isn't properly summer yet. If it had been into the 90s or 100s, I'd skip the taters. And instead of sautéing the fish, I'd just leave on a damn shingle out in the garden. It'll be quicker that way. I just don't look forward to the hot season, me...

This was a bit of a project. I've been having problems creating a really crispy "au Gratin" crust, and I still do — but I I'm getting closer, though. I think. My findings will be released, once I have discovered the secret! /deranged Dr. Frankenstieen cackle/.

The taters were sliced extremely thin on a mandolin*, along with a yellow onion. These were layered with a fairly thick Béchamel sauce with little touch of freshly grated nutmeg — no cheese. This was baked for 45 minutes at 350°F, and then a mixture of grated Swiss cheese and hard breadcrumbs was added. After 15 more minutes, it still hadn't browned up properly, so I poured some oil over it and turned the broiler on. This helped, but it still didn't look right. Maybe I should have gotten the breadcrumbs wet with oil when I was mixing it with the cheese. I thought the cheese would provide liquid, but it just melted away and drained downwards into the potatoes. Also, I used too much breadcrumbs. You live and learn. I learn a lot.

But the main part of the meal was the salmon. Hand caught and flash frozen. Not by me, mind you**. The way I deal with ingredients is that the better it is, the simpler I prepare it. Here, it was just salt, pepper and oil. I really wanted to create some proper grill marks on it, and I almost got it right. I used a neat little trick to raise the coals up until they were about an inch away from the grill — I'll have to get a picture of that tomorrow and demonstrate. I had some very high heat to play with. The only unfortunate thing about a Weber style kettle grill is that the grill griddle is relatively light, so it doesn't have enough mass to retain the heat, if you slap a big wet thing on like a thick salmon fillet. So it's kinda hard to get proper grill marks. I'm still not sure if it really is possible at all, but at least next time, I'll try letting the protein come to room temperature — that'll help, at least.

The sad thing is, I undercooked the thick part of the fillet. It's always a little tricky to cook a fillet that varies a lot in thickness, but I thought I knew what I was doing. Not so. All I can conclude is, I need to start grilling fish a lot more. And hey, 'tis the season for it.

A final thing I learned is that the unsightly white goo that excretes from salmon when it is overcooked — it doesn't just happen when it's overcooked. It also happens if you just use very high heat. The goo appeared when I put the salmon over direct, close, high heat for grill marks — but it dissipated when I moved it to a colder area. Interesting.

*(The thing about a mandolin is, it's one of those kitchen "gadgets" that is truly and genuinely indispensable. The only way to develop knife skills is to practice, so I try to use my chef knife as much as possible. But if you need slice a lot of things, very uniformly thin, there's just no alternative to the mandolin.)

**(I've never met a worse fisherman than myself. I haven't fished in years, and I don't miss it one bit. If you'd melt down the lures I've lost up through the years, you could keep Mr. T in bling for the remainder of his life. I spent some of my time tying knots, a tiny bit actually fishing, and most of it just running back and forth on the shore trying to unstick my lure from the bottom. One time, I actually lost the top of my pole doing this: I yanked on the pole, and the top half came off and promptly slid down the line, into the lake while I stood there just gaping at the sheer horror of how bloody awful I was. Now, I've never cared for "Catch and Release" much. I'm not gonna join Peta anytime soon, but some people call it cruel. I'm not sure if I agree, but I see the point. And if fish were capable of complex thoughts, I'm sure they'd happy to be released, no matter if they've suffered pain... The problem with fishing is that if you kill what you catch, you're contributing to a Darwinian thing — the only fish left in the lake will be the bastards who're too damn smart to eat a lure. With catch and release, you end up with a bunch of idiot fish going "Oh! Shiny!" and going for my lure. So I'm very much in favor of catch and release, these days. I mean, that other people practice it. Not me, of course. I catch one of those bastards, I'm overwhelmed with a profound sense of hatred and an overwhelming desire for vengeance: I've spent FOUR fuckin' hours out here for this half-pound fucking trout?! Die, motherfucker, die!)