Cooking Julia for the experts

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Julia Child is not a recent development in my life. When my mother and father met, she was taking a french cooking class and it appears that this was a significant attraction (amongst many others) to my father. I am not sure at what point Julia Child entered into the equation but she has been the source of many memorable dinners for Mémère and Pépère. We they came to visit I understandably wished to dazzle them with my newfound Julia prowess. Unfortunately this coincided with a killer week in court and an early morning start for my uncle to build a dishwasher hole in our kitchen. Result? a decimated kitchen, no preparation and a late arrival from work. Le Gourmand, Mémère and Pépère were wondering why we didn't just go out for dinner. Despite this they kindly pitched in as sous-chefs.

Menu
Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme
Chou-Fleur À La Mornay, Gratiné
Sauce Mornay
Carottes Glacées
Epinards Etuves au Beurre
Clafouti aux Pommes

The menu was somewhat modified when the piece of bacon I bought for the Daube was double what I needed, so I found a chicken recipe that called for bacon lardons. Always a bonus! The chicken was again browned in butter in the casserole on the cooktop, and small potatoes and onions (or quartered onions in this case) added to the chicken with the lightly browned bacon. Everything was covered in foil and the lid is placed on the casserole before it was cooked for an hour - we all agreed that the resulting chicken was succulent and tasty and I browned the potatoes and onions up in the chicken juices on the cooktop at the end.

The cauliflower is much like the cauliflower my grandmother, The Queen of Pastry, has always made with her roasts and Le Gourmand and I could eat it by the bucketload - blanched cauliflower, covered in mornay sauce and sprinkled with cheese. Mémère was particularly enamoured with the carrots glazed in stock with a little butter and sugar. The spinach was blanched and lightly braised in butter with a sprinkling of nutmeg that was quite subtle. Pépère decreed the meal delicious but too much effort for a Thursday night. Le Gourmand joked that we eat like this every night but let's face it at the moment we eat like this very often.

The apple clafouti was fantastic - I cooked it a little less than the recommended time and the batter was even gooier than the pear clafouti. Even I was impressed that the other three went for seconds - Bruce was already feeling crowded after main meal!

The verdict from Mémère and Pépère? Lovely subtle flavours. Hopefully the Julia they know and love.

Peas and Rice

Ok we're not on rations yet. The week has been a little more glamorous than peas and rice but also ridiculously busy so getting the food on the table has taken precedence over luxuries like photographing it.

Le Gourmand cooked yet another feast of lamb and mashed potato pies on Sunday so the only room for Julia was one of her recipes for buttered peas. It was a race against time to shell the peas so that they were on the table in time for the Masterchef finale. Happily victory went to Adam, whose invention test showcased his flair and inventiveness with his pork belly assiette while Callum seemed to regurgitate Masterclass and Pressure Test recipes in his chicken and pea assiette. The choice of dessert as the final test was sufficient to make me fear that justice would not be done, but ultimately all was well including the peas - a pleasant reminder of how nice fresh peas are, especially when accompanied by butter and sugar.

While Le Gourmand was cooking up a storm, I prepared our Monday night Julia meal - Daube De Boeuf - tasty layers of beef, onions, carrots (all marinated in red wine, herbs and gin!), bacon, tomateoes and mushrooms - slow cooked in a casserole dish. The classic flavours were fantastic the next night as we dug into the layers. Another winner - Julia's Risotto recipe, which basically involves cooking onion until soft in lots of butter in a fireproof casserole dish, adding rice and stock, bringing to simmer and cooking in the oven for 15 minutes. Simple but tasty!

Mastering the Art of French Cooking when Foxtel drills into your electricity supply

Le Gourmand has dreamed of Foxtel for a long time and on Saturday the day finally came.

Sadly for the house, our Foxtel installer, allegedly a qualified electrician, was not bright enough to drill his hole for our Foxtel cable without drilling into our electricity cable, despite the fairly clear evidence of said cable on the other side of our wall.

Usually I am quite polite to people providing services to me (as a service provider in my non-Julia life) but it was difficult to contain my rage when I explained to him that he needed to fix the problem as we were having guests for lunch. While I catatonically reread Julia for lunch suggestions that involved only a gas cooktop and no oven, our Foxtel installer managed to repair the cable.... or so we thought.

Meanwhile, Le Gourmand was unable to go to the fish markets for fresh fish and we were forced to choose from the selection available at our local fish and chips shop and my three course Julia inspired lunch suffered a serious time setback.

I wish this was the reason for some of the deficiencies in our Aïgo Bouïdo (garlic soup). Our guests were adventurous so I thought they would be the perfect guinea pigs. Unfortunately the three yolk and oil enrichment was not enough to thicken the two litres of water boiled with 16 garlic cloves, parsley and thyme and strained into it. Perhaps one and a half litres would have been a better balance. As promised by Julia, the flavour of the garlic was subtle and interesting (once everyone added a lot of salt and pepper) and our french bread accompaniment was lovely.

Luckily the Rápée Morvandelle - grated potatoes with ham, onion, eggs, swiss cheese and seasoning, cooked in the oven - were a winner, as was the Sauce aux Capres (Caper Sauce) - capers added to Julia's mock hollandaise recipe went beautifully with fish, bread and gratin if you were so inclined. Julia's Tomates Grillées Au Four (oven baked tomatoes with oil and salt and pepper) were simple but tasty (although I did find my mind wandering to my balsamic glaze recipe).

While one of our delightful guests washed up, I prepared the Souffle a l'Orange. Ordinarily I find souffles not too difficult, but the base on this was a lot thicker than I was used too. But it started to rise and I sighed in relief. And then the electricity went off. In my haste to get the souffle out of the oven, I dropped it and we found ourselves eating what can be generously described as quite tasty orange flavoured cake/batter.

Could the day get any worse? Apparently yes. When the electricity finally came back on the (electric) ignition for our cook top would not stop flickering and in an attempt to solve the problem I gave myself an electric shock. Twice. Bruce found out about the emergency section of the hospital. Happily he is just fine despite his mother's bad luck and the second electrician appears to have resolved our problem. What. A. Day.

My Low Fat Friday - Crepes and Cream Sauce

While Le Gourmand merrily drank his way around Sydney on Friday night, I decided it would be a good night to practice crepes. Julia's recipe involves a little organisation, as it requires you to leave the crepe batter in the fridge for two hours before using it but the pay offs are excellent. Most of the time I could even flip the crepes, which is a nice feeling of achievement.

After I had a nice pile of crepes, I used chicken and asperges au naturel mixed into a Sauce Creme to fill them.

Sauces are my raison d'etre with French foods. If I can cook a mean french sauce after my time with Julia, I will be a happy Brioche. This sauce was basically a bechamel with a cream enrichment, seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon. It was a fantastic texture and, despite the cream and butter, surprisingly light. I spread filling along the bottom third of each crepe and then placed the rolled crepes in a baking dish, covering the dish with the cream sauce and sprinkling it with fantabulous emmenthal cheese before browning it under the grill.

Although I used nowhere near the amount of butter Julia recommended, I think she would have been proud.

What's the deal with turnips?

I still have a wretched cold but have started cooking from the couch in 20 minute bursts of energy. I have decided that on weekends, I am Mastering the Art of French Cooking but on weekdays I am Modernising the Art of French Cooking. So when Julia requests veal mince with pork fat and ham, I will acccept the perfectly adequate substitute of mixed pork and veal mince. Of course, I reserve the right to take short cuts on weekends.

Menu:

Fricadelles de Veau

Choux de Bruxelles a la Milanese (with broccoli instead of Brussels Sprouts)

Carottes aux Fines Herbes

Navets À L'Étuvée

The good news? The veal patties taste fantastic. The bad news? What is the deal with turnips? To me they tasted really bitter. Le Gourmand was less critical but thought that they usually taste better mashed with another flavour. There is a turnip casserole recipe in the book that Julia says brings most people around when they don't like turnips. I think I will have to cook that next because turnips braised in chicken stock and butter is not my cup of tea. All turnip advice will be gratefully received so please let me know if you have any good ideas?

The carrots were yummy - cooked in water, butter, sugar, salt and pepper and then had fresh herbs and butter added at the end.

The broccoli was prepared in the same way that we prepared the Brussels sprouts on the weekend but there was less baking time until I added some emmenthel cheese and parmesan at the end and baked it for another ten minutes. It tasted awesome because of the cheese.

The veal patties involved a bit more effort than I usually make - softening half a cup of minced onion then adding two peeled, deseeded, diced tomatoes, a clove of garlic and some basil and cooking that down, then adding this to half a kilo of mince, parsley, salt and pepper, a cup of milk soaked breadcrumbs and egg before forming patties. These were refrigerated then browned on each side before cooking slowly in the pan for 15 minutes. The pan was then deglazed with two thirds of a cup of beef stock and cooked down with a little enrichening butter at the end. The result was delicious.

Le Gourmand was less sold on the Aubergines Farcies Duxelles (Eggplant stuffed with mushrooms) the next night. I loved mine - the eggplants were baked and most of the flesh scooped out and mixed with lightly cooked minced mushrooms, softened onion, cream cheese, parsley and seasoning - but there were too many mushrooms for Le Gourmand. One variation I recommend is that in the final roasting, the eggplants should be roasted on a tray rather than roasting in a small amount of water, if you like the flavour of roasted eggplant, as I do. We both enjoyed our Haricots Verts a la Creme - let's face it, what's not to like about green beans blanched, tossed in butter and simmered down with a little cream?

Masterchef - Shannon Bennett Judges - Courtney Leaves the Kitchen

Even though Courtney was one of my favourites and it was sad to see her go, inventiveness was not her strongest suit, so her departure last night was not a stunning surprise.

What was fantastic was seeing Shannon Bennett judge as he oversees one of the best French restaurants in Australia - Vue de Monde. One of the sad things about living in Sydney is not being able to make excuses to go to his Melbourne restaurant as often as I would like. It was good to see him in the kitchen, although I thought that he and the other judges seemed to be unnecessarily helpful for a finals week elimination round?

Adam complained that the Jimmy selected ingredients in the Mystery Box - chickpea flour, lentils, garam masala, chilli, lemon, muscat, gorgonzola, ginger and tomatoes - were difficult to transform into a French meal for Shannon but I thought they just required a bit of imagination (especially given the fact that everyone seemed to have access to staples of flour, butter, eggs). In fairness, Adam showed imagination with an egg and soubise dish and candied tomatoes for dessert. Claire, Callum and Courtney also managed at least one French dish. Shannon appeared to be impressed.

Favourite moment? Matt Preston referring to Garry and Shannon as Gazza and Shazza. Does that make him Mazza or Matza?

Boeuf a la Catalane

When I searched for this recipe online I read various comments about its intricate flavours and how people had used it as a dinner party classic.

Menu

Boeuf À La Catalane

Haricots Verts

Champignons Sautés Au Beurre

The dish involves lightly browning blanched bacon and removing to a casserole, then browning beef and removing, then browning onions and removing. Cook a cup of rice in the oil and then remove and keep separate. Deglaze with a cup of wine, then add it and some stock to the casserole containing the bacon, beef and onion. Cook in a very slow oven for an hour then add some peeled tomatoes and extra stock if necessary. Cook for another hour then add rice. As I was cooking a day ahead, I choose to stop before adding the rice. Even though Julia tells you that it is possible to reheat this dish after you put the rice in, I was a bit sceptical and glad that I didn't do it. Monday night I brought the casserole up to a simmer, added the rice and simmered slowly for 20 minutes until the rice softens (this was supposed to happen in the oven but mine didn't get to the right temperature so I did it on the stove, this allowed me to monitor the rice cooking which I was a bit wary of). Add a cup of grated swiss cheese and serve with the buttered blanched beans and mushrooms sauteed in butter with shallots. Le Gourmand is not such a fan of mushrooms so he mixed in a few with his casserole.

One of the worst things about pregnancy is it hits your immune system hard. I have been sick so many times already. Luckily Bruce keeps kicking away but I am really sick of being sick!

A bad cold had set in on Monday so I may not be the best judge but I would not describe the flavours as intricate and Le Gourmand and I agreed that it was good weekday food but we wouldn't serve it at a dinner party. As you can see from the photo, it has no wow factor. The reheating will be.... interesting.

Bruce eats Italian

Or rather, I eat it for him. Lucky for Bruce, his father is committed to ensure that he eats a diet more diverse than French food. Unfortunately for our collective health, this does not mean that his father is committed to low fat food but the end result is awesome Italian food.

Le Gourmand choose an amazing canneloni recipe for his Sunday night special which required veal, pork, bacon and proscuitto. He probably didn't expect it to take five hours to cook but this made me feel a bit better about all the time I had spent in the kitchen the day before. Not surprisingly it tasted amazing - the veal, pork and bacon filling was extremely tasty and the pasta was rolled around not only it but some prosciutto and mozarella cheese before each roll was laid on a delectable tomato sauce and covered in a cream and cheese sauce. Divine!

My contribution - healthy green salad with Julia's Sauce Vinaigrette - lemon juice, vinegar, dry mustard, salt and pepper and greatly reduced oil content.

Menu

Canneloni

Fresh salad with Sauce Vinaigrette

After I washed up I whipped up the Boeuf a la Catalane for Monday dinner and Potage Parmentier (Leek and Potato Soup - simmer leek and potato for 20 minutes, blend in simmering water, season, add some cream or butter). Where possible, we have a nice little system where Le Gourmand cooks a double batch of dinner on Sunday night and I slow cook a meal for Monday night on Sunday so we have a good start on the week ahead.

Saturday Duck!

Menu:

Soufflé Aux Épinards

Caneton a l'Orange

Gratin Dauphinois

Choux De Bruxelles Étuvés Au Beurre

Crème Plombières Pralinée

We can't eat like this more than once a week said the Le Gourmand. In fairness, this was his fifth Julia meal in 4 days and tonight he will have a break. And of course, we can't eat three courses of Julia, many nights a week. But this was a good night.

Pigeonne and Crevette were joining us with great enthusiasm for dinner (their adorable daughter slept in the next room). They enthusiastically assisted with duck turning and vegetable preparation, although Le Gourmand heroically dealt with most of the sous-chefing. They were also fantastic food stylists and photographers (and didn't mind that their duck was a bit cold as a result of my insistence that we take some good photos).

That morning Le Gourmand had valiantly found a free range duck at the local farmer markets with a beautiful long neck for making duck stock. Meanwhile I had completed the dessert using my sponge fingers, which I dried out in a very slow oven for an hour and then drizzled with a viennese coffee liqueur in the bottom of a nice bowl. On top of this I added creme patissiere, folded with stiffly beaten egg whites and pulverised praline. Into the fridge while I fiddled with my quiche for lunch.

When P&C arrived we were realising that duck a l'orange, Julia style, is quite complex - peel, julienne and blanch orange peel then create perfect segments of duck, boil down some duck stock (for an hour and a half! some short cuts were taken) and make a sauce base of red wine vinegar, sugar, duck stock, port, arrowroot and blanched orange peel. Season your duck with salt, pepper, thyme and orange peel then cook breast side up for half an hour. Then lean it on each side to cook for 15 minutes. We improvised with ramekins to allow the duck to sit on one side then the other and had to take the duck out half way for the souffle.

Mmm the souffle was yummy. Knock wood I have always been lucky with souffles rising and this was another success. Make your souffle base with milk and roux until thick, add egg yolks of the heat, then add blanched spinach that has been dried in a pan. Fold in egg whites, pour into a buttered souffle dish that has been dusted with grated parmesan and place in your oven.

Remove to great excitement 25 minutes later. Take photos quickly as souffles may sink at any second. Just like the inside of cheese and spinach triangles without the filo opined Piggeonne. For Le Gourmand on final round up - the hero of the meal.

Therein followed a bevy of main course activity - finishing the duck and its sauce and finishing the gratin and buttered brussels sprouts in the oven. The duck was beautifully presented with the orange segments, photos were taken and then Le Gourmand was faced with the difficult task of carving duck - our free range fellow didn't have a lot of meat on him. We still managed to get enough for four but we could not have fed more. The sauce - a reduction of pan juices and more port with the prepared base, some Cointreau and a splash of lemon - was beautiful. Perhaps a little less arrowroot next time, but this time we do it JC's way. Pigeonne and Crevette enjoyed the meal. Le Gourmand was impressed at the balance of the slight bitterness of the brussel sprouts with the sweetness of the duck sauce. The gratin, potatoes lovingly prepared by Le Gourmand on the mandoline, with milk, swiss cheese and a little butter, was beautiful and not overly rich.

We washed up a storm - great way to do it when you have hands on guests with a reward of dessert at the end. I proudly took the dessert out of the fridge and sprinkled it with more pulverised almonds. I am not looking forward to the version with canned pineapple instead of praline. Out of the bowl it was not the most aesthetically pleasing dish but it more than delivered on taste - Crevette noted that the swollen sponge fingers and crunchy praline were particularly good. All was right with the world!

Quiche for the pastry queen

Yesterday we went to visit my nan. Her specialty dish is caramel tarts with amazing pastry so it was with a little trepidation that I took her a Quiche Lorraine. This involved making Pâte Brisée and I was less then delighted when I removed the blind baked pastry shell to see that the sides were not very deep and all the pricking of the base and fandangled pastry weights had not prevented the middle from puffing. I poured the seasoned egg and milk filling in and some of it slowly but surely trickled out of the pastry and around the sides.

Miraculously it rose, brown and puffy and when we ate it the pastry was fine. It's like puff pastry, raved the pastry queen, who ate two pieces of quiche - quite unusual for her. The main event for her is actually Bruce, as s/he will be the first great grandchild, but it was nice to see her enjoying lunch too!

Nude Gnocchi

As we scooped the gnocchi out of their "barely simmering" water onto a tea towel, they struck me as very naked (and not particularly appealing).

The menu:

Páte Á Choux

Gnocchi De Pommes De Terre

The JC method of making gnocchi is unlike any that I have previously used. Instead of making a robust dough and poaching small gnocchi in boiling water until they rise triumphant to the top of the boiler, JC asks you to make large delicate gnocchi that you poach in barely simmering water for 15 minutes in a frypan (which I did with surprising recipe conformity). To try and "toughen them up" and dry them out I removed them to the oven for five minutes. Le Gourmand suspects that they were overcooked in the poaching process and lacked the chew he expects from gnocchi. Next time I invite him to stand there and sample at 2 minute intervals so we can determine the perfect gnocchi cooking time.

I appreciated the flavour that the cheese and nutmeg added to them, when they were eventually extricated from the oven and served with reheated ratatouille and Bastille Day chicken but Le Gourmand pronounced the meal a bit bland, dousing things in cheese and salt and pepper. He may have been more appreciative if he had made the additional ingredient of choux pastry batter and then spent what seemed like an eternity pushing boiled potato through a sieve, as we lacked a crucial potato ricer. I was not highly impressed by the gnocchi's texture either (and wonder if the variations (gratineed or mornayed) will improve the base product) but I fear that Le Gourmand is showing a lack of commitment to Julia on Day 3. A bad sign!

For tomorrow:

Pralin

Biscuits À La Cuiller

How much are you going to cook from this book? he asked. We'll see, I said, as I completed two pre-recipes for tomorrow's desserts. Sponge fingers and praline. Sponge fingers were a bit challenging but at least they are done. The only problem with praline was not eating it (and burning my fingers in the process). I fear the praline's minutes are numbered in this house.

As butterless as possible please

Julia Child mocked our fear of fat in food, but surely sometimes substitution must be just as good as moderation?

The Menu:

Côtes De Porc Poêlées

Marinade Sèche

Ratatouille

Salad with Macadamia Dressing

After last night’s buttery extravaganza, I choose some dishes that would be a bit lighter. The pork chops were marinated in Marinade Simple – lemon juice, oil, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper this morning. The marinade was great as it really permeated the meat.

The pork chops were cooked in the Le Creuset in a little olive oil (butter optional so we went with oil) for 3-4 minutes each side. As the pork chops were a little shy of the prescribed inch thick mark I probably should have cooked them a little less. The chops and juices were removed from the dish and some butter and halved cloves of garlic were added and heated. The chops were returned to the dish until they started to sizzle, then placed in the oven for 20 minutes. The recipe said 25 minutes, I was working with half the amount and probably should have tried to remove them at 15 minutes. Some of the juices were then cooked down with white wine to form a jus.

Not sure why, but I have never thought of ratatouille as French. The ratatouille involved sweating eggplant and zucchini and then lightly frying them in oil for a minute on each side. Then onions and green capsicum were sweated for ten minutes in the same pan and garlic and chopped tomatoes were added. The tomatoes cooked down, covered and then the juices were cooked off and the tomatoes were seasoned. A third of this was added to the bottom of a stoveproof casserole dish, followed by half the eggplant and zucchini, more tomatoes, more eggplant and zucchini, then the final layer of tomatoes and some parsley.

The verdict? Le Gourmand thought the ratatouille should be more finely chopped (I thought it was surprisingly small, Le Gourmand rectified this by chopping his own ratatouille on the plate) but liked the flavours. I loved the flavours, particularly the green capsicum – it was smoky and tasty and relatively healthy. Good for Bruce!

The pork chops had beautiful flavour and the jus was tasty. Unfortunately just a little overcooked – obviously the amount and size of the chops should result in cooking time being adjusted. You live (hopefully dodging heart disease for another day), you learn.

Daring Cooks Challenge July - Nut Butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

This post is a little late as I have only just been accepted as a Daring Cook, so brimming with enthusiasm I accepted their July challenge. I did not try and use other Daring Cooks for inspiration.

As I had already planned a Julia meal, I needed to adapt the challenge so it would use ingredients in our kitchen and complement the planned pork chops and ratatouille. That left me with some aged macadamias, so I roasted them up and turned them into a roast macadamia butter, which was surprisingly simple - just add the cooled nuts to the blender, blend on the highest setting and watch as a paste formed. One cup of nuts yielded approximately half a cup of paste.


Salad with Macadamia Nut Dressing
Dressing
1/4 cup macadamia butter
1/3-1/2 cup of lemon juice and water, mixed depending on how acidic you like it
1/2-1 teaspoon of sugar
2 shallots, white parts chopped
salt
pepper
Salad
1 small red pepper, sliced
1/3 iceberg lettuce, washed and separated
1 small cucumber, sliced
1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes
1/2 avocado


Slowly add lemon juice and water to macadamia butter, beating with a whisk. Add shallots using a spoon to combine. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
Arrange lettuce on a platter. Add red pepper, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado.
Spoon approximately half the dressing over the salad. Provide the remainder in a jug.


The macadamia butter made the dressing quite creamy, a nice contrast to the salad. The macadamia flavour was quite strong, possibly because the macadamias were well roasted but the lemon juice balanced it nicely.


I am delighted to have some macadamia butter left in the fridge for something sweet!

Happy Bastille Day

So Bastille Day has arrived. Bastille Day is quite famous in our family. When I was eight I was involved in a stupid dare that involved a very steep hill, a bike and no helmet. And a tree at the bottom of that very steep hill that I became intimately connected with. My memory of the incident is completely gone but apparently they were quite relieved at the hospital when, despite the apparent head injury, my response to the question "What day is it?" was "Bastille Day." It was in fact, 14 July.

Hopefully the headaches are at a minimum today. I spent last night planning my attack (7 MTAOFC recipes in one hit is no mean feat!) and rose bright and early to peel and marinate pears for the clafouti. Given the fact that it is a Wednesday night, Blairgourmand kindly offered to bring something, so he was assigned entree.

As I walked to work, I mentally organised the order in which I would cook everything and the pots and pans I would need. I stressed over my lack of a 6-8 capacity cooktop proof clafouti pan and decided I would need to modify the recipe. Internet research led me to decide that I would ignore the direction to set a film of clafouti on the cooktop (requiring the cooktop pan) and set it in the oven instead.

I arrived home in time for almost two solid hours of cooking before the guests (and as it turned out, Le Gourmand) arrived. Flicking back and forth between seven recipes in MTAOFC was a challenge involving sticking various kitchen utensils and post it notes in the right place but things went reasonably well, despite having to halt proceedings for entree and Le Gourmand's arrival. Petit Poulet and Blairgourmand arrived, beer and bubbles in hand (as all good guests do).

The menu:

Coquilles San Jacques a la Blairgourmand (Scallops)

Poulet Poêlé À L'Estragon (Casserole Chicken with Tarragon)

Carottes Étuvées Au Beurre (Carrots braised in butter)

Pommes De Terre Sautées (Sauteed potatoes)

Chou-Fleur Blanchi avec Beurre au Citron (Blanched cauliflower with lemon butter sauce)

Haricots Verts À La Provençale (Provencale Green Beans)

Clafouti aux Poires (Pear "flan". My idea of fwhat a flan is and Julia's idea of what a flan is differs slightly, so let's just stick with Clafouti.)

The Verdict:

Scallops were superb! Blairgourmand eschewed the poaching required by Julia and most other recipes for scallops, seared them on one side and laid the seared side down in the shells, covering them with shallots, mornay, cheese and breadcrumbs, then grilling them. We licked our shells!

I hastily returned to the kitchen to put the clafouti in the oven, reheat the vegetables and finish the sauces for the cauliflower and the chicken. The beans and cauliflower appeared to suffer the most from the pause but I suspect this was also Julia's 1950s cooking style.

The carrots were the most familiar recipe - slice and add water, butter, sugar and salt, bring to boil then boil gently for 30-40 minutes. Melt in the mouth!

Somewhat appalled by the butteriness of my lemon butter sauce (lemon juice reduced and butter slowly beaten in) I went off piste with the recipe and instead of adding 3 tablespoons of hot vegetable or seafood stock at the end, I added half a cup of chicken stock and heated it again. The blanched cauliflower were drenched and we could decide for ourselves whether or not to add more of the butter sauce which pooled at the bottom of the bowl. The lemon cut through nicely and balanced the other dishes.

The beans were Blairgourmand's favourite - cook the life out of tomatoes, sweated onions, garlic and herbs wrapped in cheesecloth, then add some partly blanched beans. My theory is that if you add tomato and onion to any green vegetables they will taste good (especially if you sprinkle fetta and toasted pine nuts on top, but that's another day).

I had cheated a little with the potatoes - for evenness of size I had cut some of them in half. As a result they didn't roll around the pan quite as easily in the butter and oil. They also browned a little more than golden in the reheating but Le Gourmand, Blairgourmand and Petit Poulet loved them and thought that the caramelisation was a welcome addition. They were melt in the mouth.

I feared that the chicken, which I diligently browned in the casserole before lying on top of carrots and onion, covering in foil and the Le Creuset lid and adding to the oven, would be overcooked as a jab with the meat thermometer showed we were eating a hot chicken! Instead of port or madeira, I used some marsala and red bubbles in the sauce, which blended beautifully with the tarragon that I had seasoned the chicken with. The meat juices and stock thickened with it beautifully (with the assistance of some cornflour). I sieved it, added some enrichment butter and chopped parsley and voila! I think this probably impressed me the most. The chicken was beautifully tender (lovingly carved by Le Gourmand).

The flavours balanced quite nicely, despite the buttery top notes and the meal was deemed a success!

So we washed the mountain of dishes. The clafoutis had cooked and was sitting in the oven. It was not quite as puffy and brown as I had hoped (probably because I used too many pears and the dish was too big) but when we finally served it with french vanilla ice cream, the pears were a hero. Perhaps all pears should be soaked in wine and sugar for several hours. My favourite thing about the clafoutis? No butter.

Dinner done, we lolled around discussing baby names for little Bruce, who (judging from his little kicks) appeared to have enjoyed the buttery feast.

What is bad French Food?

As Bastille Day draws near, I am preparing for an onslaught of French cooking and MTAOFC will finally get a work out - a large amount of butter has been purchased in preparation for Wednesday night's meal, which fills me with a degree of trepidation (poor little Bruce is ill prepared for what is to come).

Queries about whether it is "right" to serve 4 out of 5 dishes with butter as the main ingredient are supplanted by the big question - what is bad French food? For some people it is too rich, too much butter and I fear that Le Gourmand may eventually skid right into this big, buttery wall. For me I think a more appropriate word than bad is disappointing. If you manage your expectations and order correctly, I think there is almost always something on the menu that will satisfy you in even an ordinary French restaurant but if the Chateau Briand is on the menu for $10, don't be surprised if it doesn't live up to your expectations (0f course life is even worse if the food is both overpriced and underwhelming).

Sometimes it is impossible not to be disappointed - on our recent trip we were innocently dragged into a group dinner at a touristy French restaurant in the centre of London a mere day after our return from Paris. One of the worst things about pregnancy is the warnings against eating undercooked meat, which meant that (unless I was prepared to order it well done), I could not follow Le Gourmand's sensible selection of steak frites. Instead I ordered chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce. For me one of the highlights of french cooking is the amazing technique the French demonstrate with sauces. This fell sadly short. An excessive use of cornflour is really a very efficient way to stuff up almost any sauce and sadly this "technique" had been employed by our "chef".

We wisely steered clear of French restaurants for the rest of our English-American trek - it just wasn't fair to compare.

Reading cookbooks in bed

I did not discover until I was the ripe old age of 22 that there are those who read cookbooks for pleasure and those who do not. In my family this is considered to be a normal activity, as are all activities generally devoted to the worship of food. Everyone contributes in their own way - my father and I are usually the only people in the family who will debrief on a holiday with a blow by blow description of every meal consumed but food is always a feature of family holidays. Despite my passion for travel, it is always the food section of Gourmet Traveller that I immediately devour.

At the moment I have been taking cookbooks to bed with me, in particular MTAOFC. So far Le Gourmand has not commented. He probably realises that such activities, whilst not particularly romantic, are ultimately for the greater good of his stomach.

For those who do not know the pleasure of reading a good cookbook, you have my sympathy. I think it can be likened to the value of buying a lottery ticket simply to spend an afternoon daydreaming about how you would spend the money if your numbers were called. Similarly a good cookbook read not only inspires future cooking endeavours but enables a calorie-free indulgence in a potentially delicious meal.

The Last Parisian Supper

Even though lunch at Aux Lyonnais was technically our last meal in France, we employed an old trick of buying dinner in Paris and taking it back to London. A plan somewhat complicated when our dinner companion indicated that she was trying to avoid wheat... What is France if not bread and quiche? Especially if you're avoiding charcuterie and cheese (grr)

Serendipitously my quest for maternity clothes in the 19th arrondisement led us to a delightful pedestrian mall of food shops on Rue de Levis. The strawberries and cherries looked divine so we grabbed masses of yummy summer fruit.

We had also been drooling over the prepared dishes on offer in the French delicatessan, so we loaded up on some yummy looking meatballs, a beautiful looking gratin and a tasty eggplant dish. Not the most convenient things to transport on the metro back to the Eurostar, but well worth the effort.

Unable to completely ignore our boulangerie urges, we stopped in and bought some baguettes, eclairs and slices of quiche.

Suddenly time was of the essence. For a moment it looked like we might be done for, when Le Gourmand's last metro ticket would not work and we had spent our last Euro at the boulangerie. Le Gourmand does not like to be late for planes or international flights so he was not happy but luckily we made it to Gare du Nord with (a little) time to spare, dinner in hand.

Such a delightful way to finish a trip to Paris, we gorged on the food later that night, cognisant that in Australia we wouldn't have been allowed to carry half of this food between Sydney and Melbourne, let alone Sydney and Auckland, thanks to our customs restrictions.

Pour Le Gourmand. I had left him in the fromagerie unsupervised with the instruction to buy some hard cheeses. He had managed to explain using gestures that he was buying cheese for a pregnant woman. The fromagère apparently understood but sold him a soft cheese. I am assuming it was pasteurised but was unwilling to trust the language barrier (plus debate rages as to whether pasteurisation is sufficient to avoid listeria in soft cheeses) so while the others finished their meal with what they assured me was a delectable brie (or camembert? noone was sure), I ate some macaroons contributed by our hostess. Bruce will have to try French cheese another time.