4 recipes in one cake and I am pleased!

Menu Gâteau À L'Orange (page 671)

Gateau Fourre a la Crème d'Orange

Crème au Beurre a l'Orange Glazed Orange or Lemon Peel Vietmum is back in Australia to have her baby (very very soon!) so we gathered for a baby shower and my contribution was Julia's orange sponge. Conveniently this involved four recipes, so I cleared the whole morning and felt a little apprehensive about my sponge making prowess and our oven. My fears were assuaged by Julia's  comprehensive instructions and the sponge tasted like a sponge. Of course this may have been aided by my super dooper Kitchen Aid beautifully beating the egg whites before adding them to the beaten egg, sugar orange rind and orange juice into which flour had been delicately folded. The filling involved heating butter, sugar, eggs, orange juice, orange liqueur and rind until a little whiff of steam rises! Then beating it until cool over cold water. Add butter for your icing and pull out your candy thermometer to glaze some zested orange peel for decoration! Transporting on a hot day may lead to slightly less aesthetically pleasing results..... The afternoon tea was delightful - mmmm macarons and cucumber sandwiches!

La semaine en bref

The weeks are hectic as the end of work and Bruce's arrival approaches. So hectic that I am beginning to forget what I have cooked, although we are still religiously following Julia. So all I will offer is some brief recipe appraisals.


The Sauce Robert - a brown sauce with mustard and some yummy tarragon flavours was delicious! The spinach au gratin (with mushrooms, picked out by Le Gourmand) was totally decadent, especially as it was backed up the following night with broccoli au gratin and the gorgeous braised leeks with swiss cheese. The lamb was simply a mustard glaze and I lessened the impact of the creamy mustard sauce for the pork by breaking the pork up and adding carrots and capsicum to it, serving it on rice. Very very tasty!


Menu
Tuesday

Poulet avec Sauce Robert

Epinards a la Mornay, Gratines

Wednesday
Gigot a la Moutarde
Poireaux Gratines au Fromage


Thursday

Rôti De Porc Poêlé avec

Sauce Moutarde a la Normande

Festivus

And there was great feasting and merriment for Pepere was about to turn 65. The whole tribe (apart from the New Yorker) gathered for the requisite celebratory ale and french meal.

Menu

Souffle with pear, parmesan and butter lettuce salad
Coq au Vin
Grandma Rose's chocolate sponge with Glaçage Au Chocolat 

Saturday night was the celebration for Pepere's birthday so the Bear, Memere and I put on a french-themed feast. The main event was Coq au Vin, which I assisted Memere to cook. Actually it was more like observing a Julia masterclass. Apparently it is worth the effort of drying your chicken/meat and the added je ne sais quoi of the dish is flaming it in cognac or brandy - the results spoke for themselves, even Memere admitted it was one of her best CAVs ever. She didn't blink an eye at sauteeing the mushrooms or browning the onions using the separate recipes - possibly because she has done it so many times before she doesn't even need to look at said recipes. I note that she did not blanch the bacon!

My entree was filled with the requisite drama of cooking a souffle and needing to marshall the troops into the dining room at the right time - the recipe was much the same as the earlier spinach and cheese souffle and despite my concerns it rose beautifully!  The balsamic glaze on the pear, parmesan and butter lettuce salad was just right. The only complaint was that there was not enough.

Which meant that we were very hungry for the main event but had to patiently wait while it returned to the oven. Le Gourmand contributed his excellent mashed potatoes to my oven cooked tomatoes and the menu was complete. Memere had spent loving amounts of time properly deglazing the sauce from the coq au vin and as a result the sauce was gorgeous, restrained and not too rich. 

The Bear patiently listened to thousands of helpful ideas and made a fantastic double sponge for dessert following Grandma's special recipe, which left out a few instructions here and there. The Bull and I used Julia's chocolate icing recipe (heat rum and chocolate, beat in butter, allow to thicken beating over bowl of ice and water) and the results were divine.

As all good birthday dinners end, the party ended when the birthday boy - exhausted from a big day at an air show with all of the other men - fell asleep at the table (naturally after the meal).

Daring Bakers Challenge September- Lemon Footprint Cookies!

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking. 

The cookie recipe was great as it meant the cookies kept there shape but the decorating was a real challenge - in my pregnated state I am currently not blessed with much stamina, which might ordinary overcome my lack of artistic talent or not particularly steady hand. Plus, the bonus of MTAOFC is very few pictures of the finished product so you can use your imagination. The challenge required mental toughness and an egg free royal icing substitute!

The theme was September which automatically means spring and new life for me - quite conveniently as Bruce will arrive in less than two months and it is almost time for a baby shower. These cookies were my practice run for a baby shower. Still some work needed but they tasted great (is this a recurring comment for my daring baker challenges?).

Basic Sugar Cookies with Lemon twist: 

Makes approximately 36 x 10cm / 4 inch cookies 

200g / 7oz / • cup + 6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, at room temperature 

400g / 14oz / 3 cups + 3 Tbsp All Purpose / Plain Flour 

200g / 7oz / 1 cup Caster Sugar / Superfine Sugar 

1 Large Egg, lightly beaten 

5ml / 1 tsp Lemon Juice

Zest of one lemon

Directions: 

Cream together the butter, sugar and any flavourings you’re using. Beat until just becoming creamy in texture. 

Tip: Don’t over mix otherwise you’ll incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread during baking, losing their shape. 

Beat in the egg until well combined, make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. 

Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non sticky dough forms. 

Tip: I don’t have a stand mixer so I find it easier to switch to dough hooks at this stage to avoid flour flying everywhere. 

Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces. 

Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 5mm/1/5 inch (0.2 inch) 

Refrigerate for a minimum of 30mins. 

Tip: Recipes commonly just wrap the whole ball of dough in clingwrap and then refrigerate it for an hour or overnight, but by rolling the dough between parchment, this shortens the chilling time and then it’s also been rolled out while still soft making it easier and quicker. 

Once chilled, peel off parchment and place dough on a lightly floured surface. 

Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife. 

Arrange shapes on parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate for another 30mins to an hour. 

Tip: It’s very important you chill them again otherwise they’ll spread while baking. 

Re-roll scraps and follow the above process until all scraps are used up. 

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C Fan Assisted) / 350°F / Gas Mark 4. 

Bake until golden around the edges, about 8-15mins depending on the size of the cookies. 

Tip: Bake same sized cookies together otherwise mixing smaller with larger cookies could result in some cookies being baked before others are done. 

Tip: Rotate baking sheets half way through baking if your oven bakes unevenly. 

Leave to cool on cooling racks. 

Once completely cooled, decorate as desired. 

Tip: If wrapped in tinfoil/cling wrap or kept in airtight containers in a cool place, un-decorated cookies can last up to a month. 

Lemon Royal Icing

I modified this recipe http://veglicious.blogspot.com/2008/07/royal-icing-decorations.html 

1 c. confectioner's sugar

1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

2 tsp. lemon juice

food coloring (optional)

2-3 tsp. milk

Sift the sugar and cornstarch together. Stir in the lemon juice and any food coloring you wish to use. Add the milk, 1 tsp. at a time, until the mixture becomes a smooth, but thick, paste. Run a knife along the icing - if it is smooth between 5 and 10 seconds after this, it is ready.

To decorate I used icing writing tubes in red and blue.

Try not to choke

I cooked artichokes for the first time on Wednesday night. It was quite a spectacle - Julia provides detailed instructions not only on how to cook artichokes but how to eat them. Consequently Le Gourmand and I sat at the dinner table, MTAOFC propped up in front of us, trying to maximise our enjoyment of the artichokes. This involves using your teeth to remove the "meat" inside each leaf until you get to the "meatier" choke. Fingers are a must although you must be prepared to get you fingers dirty with your chosen sauce.

Menu
Artichauts Au Naturel
Sauce Bâtarde
Escalopes de Veau a l'Estragon

Once the base of the artichoke is trimmed, it is fairly straightforward to sit it in water, cover with cheesecloth and cook for 30-40 minutes. Draining the water out of the artichoke is a bit more of a challenge.

The book suggests Hollandaise to accompany the artichokes but, as I am trying to avoid raw egg, I substituted Sauce Batarde or mock hollandaise, which involves using a white roux to thicken up some white stock and then slowly adding to egg yolk and cream before briefly heating the sauce again (and hopefully cooking the egg). Le Gourmand was impressed.

More sauce followed - the veal scallops were lightly cooked but the real star was the tarragon sauce, which involved deglazing the pan with dried tarragon and white wine before adding two cups of jus lie (recycling from the week before) and cooking down the results. I am still a little dubious about the amount of arrowroot that was in the jus lie, as I prefer things a little less thick, but the sauce was extremely tasty with the veal scallops.

Bruce decided to assert himself for the next few nights - his habit of lying on my right side has landed me at the physio with all kinds of restrictions and it seems that being pregnant really does make you tired. Who would have thought it?

Apple Butter and Mastering the Art of French Cooking - Daring Cooks September Challenge

The challenge for the daring cooks this month was to preserve food. I have been "canning" or bottling my own relish for a while now and know what an involved job it could be, so I decided to try the freezing option for my apple butter instead.

My personal challenge? Cook a MTAOFC recipe that would complement the apple butter (and remember to do it before the September 14 deadline expired). The recipe? Roti de Porc aux Choux - nothing too daring about roast pork and cabbage with apple butter but... the result? Spectacular! The only problem - we wished that we made more apple butter (I frugally made a half serving). Le Gourmand joked that one of the two freezer bags might just disappear...

The pork was browned in a casserole and then the obligatory carrot and onion were cooked slowly with a herb bouquet and two unpeeled garlic cloves for five minutes. The pork was then cooked in a slow oven for about and hour before I added a lot of cabbage boiled for two minutes, with carraway, salt and pepper, brought the casserole to a simmer and returned it to the oven for another 30-40 minutes, basting the meat juices through the cabbage.

Meanwhile the apple butter had been cooking away, as I diligently followed the directions so that there was no ring of liquid around the final product. I have cooked apple sauce before but apple butter adds a whole different, delicious dimension to the flavour profile. And it goes beautifully with the pork and cabbage (and the toast I had it on for dessert) - Le Gourmand will be a pork lover yet!

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation

Being pregnant I was not keen to use artificial sweetner so I used sugar and Granny Smith Apples (my favourite), and halved the apple cider content, but the reduced sugar option follows. I peeled and cored my apples and mashed them in the pot (they were so broken down I really just needed to stir them) and then took some of the apple mixture out and blended it with the sugar and spice before returning it to the pot as I don't have a stick blender.

Recipe: Reduced Sugar Apple Butter

2kg apples, cut into eights and cored (peel if you like)

1 cup Apple Cider (Optional: Water or Juice)
1/2 cup Sucralose/Splenda (Optional: Honey, Agave or Sugar - to taste)
1 Tbl Cinnamon, Ground
1/2 tsp Allspice, Ground
1/4 tsp Cloves, Ground

Note: * If you used peeled and cored apples. I recommend buying 5 lbs (2.26 kg) of apples

1. Wash apples well and remove stems. Cut apples into quarters or eighths and remove cores.
Note: I ended up peeling the apple at this step.

2. Combine unpeeled apples and cider in 8-quart (about 7 ½ litre) saucepan. Cook slowly and stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Cook until apples are very soft (falling apart).

3. Position a food mill or strainer securely over a large bowl. Press cooked apples with cider through the food mill or strainer to make a pulp. Be sure to collect all the pulp that comes through the food mill or strainer; for example, scrape any pulp clinging under the food mill into the bowl.
Note: Since the apples were peeled, I just mashed in the pot.

4. Combine pulp with Sucralose and spices in an 8-quart (about 7 ½ litre) saucepan. Simmer over low heat, stirring frequently.
Note: A stick blender can be used to mix the spices and creates a smoother apple butter. Also, when cooking down the apples, you want to leave the lid ajar or use a splatter screen. This will allow for evaporation. Another trick is to support the lid by laying two wooden spoons across the top of the pot.

5. To test for doneness, spoon a small quantity onto a clean plate; when the butter mounds on the plate without liquid separating around the edge of the butter, it is ready for processing. Another way to test for doneness is to remove a spoonful of the cooked butter on a spoon and hold it away from steam for 2 minutes. It is done if the butter remains mounded on the spoon.

6. Pour contents into desired storage container or multiple containers. I stored my apple butter in 1-cup (250ml) plastic containers with screw on tops. Refrigerate up to 2 weeks, freeze up to a year, and home canning is good for a year.

* The Finished Apple Butter:Apple Butter is often used as a spread. However, apple butter can also be used as a condiment (pork chops or in marinades) or as an ingredient to an apple quick bread.

* Freezing:I used a freezer bag where I expelled as much air as possible and minimized the gaps in the bag. Freezer bags work well for storage since they can lay flatter in the freezer than containers.

With a container, you need to ensure you have “headspace”. Headspace is the gap between the food (or liquid level) and the top of the container. Typical, headspace when freezing foods is 1/2 “ (1.27 cm) for straight sided containers. As mentioned previously, water expands when freezing. The headspace allows room for expansion.Thawing: The best method (Food Safety) is to thaw in the refrigerator for a day.Cold water, 70ºF (21ºC) or lower, can be used for as quicker way to defrost. The frozen food is submerged under running water. An alternative to running water is to change the water every 30 minutes. If you need an even faster method to defrost and you plan to cook the food immediately, the microwave is another method (of last resort).

Weekend a la Child, Bertholle and Beck

Le Gourmand and I had a delightful start to the weekend on our balcony. Le Gourmand made the coffee (very week for me and Bruce) and I made Oeufs Brouillés - yummy scrambled eggs. The ratio of milk to eggs was 1 tsp to each egg and the amount of butter added at the end was surprisingly restrained! The results were soft, yummy scrambled eggs.

Menu
Gigot Ou Épaule De Pré-Salé, Farce Duxelles aux Haricots
Petites Crêpes D'Épinards

For dinner on Saturday night I was finally organised enough to make the crepe batter for spinach crepes, which were delicate and yummy. Le Gourmand last ate Julia's crepes after several litres of beer so they were even more of a revelation for him.

Very exciting - I was able to use my boning knife to bone our leg of lamb cooked with white beans. Less exciting - trying to stuff said lamb with the ham, mushroom, herbs, onion, pork fat (MacGyvered off the pork roast for Monday) and tie it - before browning the lamb and adding the obligatory carrot and onions to the casserole. Meanwhile parcook the beans - boil for two minutes, soak for an hour, simmer for an hour - before draining off the sauce from the lamb and degreasing. Return lamb, degreased sauce and beans to oven. Voila! Very tasty.

But the night was still young. It seemed to take forever to make the Tarte Au Citron Et Aux Amandes for afternoon tea the next day - making the sugar pastry crust (the same one I made for the apple pie); peeling the lemons and blanching the julienned lemon peel; cooking the sugar syrup with a candy thermometer; adding the lemon peel to the syrup; beating the egg and sugar to form a ribbon; adding the almond meal, almond essence and lemon juice; filling the crust and baking; removing the lemon peel from the syrup and scattering over the baked tart; boiling down the syrup and glazing the pie. All for one recipe! Luckily people seemed to like it (or at least eat it) at afternoon tea the next day. A little too almond essencey for me and apparently too sweet and tart for Le Gourmand so it was good that others could try it (plus it's never that great to eat a pie between two).

Yummy little morsels

Menu

Fricadelles de Veau a la Crème

Beurre de Moutarde

Flamiche - Quiche Aux Poireaux

We really love our veal patties, so tonight we used the left over veal from the ballotines to make veal fricadelles with cream sauce, which was delicious. Tonight was particularly decadent - we also had leek quiche cooked as a gratin (without the pastry) and it was fantastic, boil the leeks down for 20 minutes then add them to the cream, egg mixture and sprinkle with swiss cheese - divine! I wish I could remember what the third Julia touch was (this was the week of three Julia recipes each night, we were so busy devouring the veal and leeks that it's difficult to remember. Actually it was dijon mustard butter, which I used to enrich the sauce for the fricadelles but also used with some stir fried carrots and garlic shoots, cooking them in the melted butter and then adding a few small spoons of the butter to the final stir fry.

Why garlic shoots you ask? Le Gourmand had been sent to get celeriac and was assured that the garlic shoots were in fact celeriac. Luckily garlic shoots and mustard butter make a fine team.

Monday, Tuesday, Julia

Some weeks all of the Julia blends into one. Sometimes it's a real struggle to cook from the book, thanks to a lack of foresight in penning the weekly shopping list, or work being a bit unmanageable or Bruce wriggling around inside complaining that rich, buttery foods don't really interest him.

This week, I was running out of vegetables so I tried to cook more widely across the book - on Monday night I cooked an easy brown sauce (stock, arrowroot, herbs) for the chicken I baked in the oven which became Sauce Diable (devil's sauce) when I added some black pepper, cayenne pepper and port. Yummy - plus I am always happy when I can cook two of Julia's recipes at the same time!

Menu

Jus Lié

Sauce Diable

Soubise

We also had onion soubise which was fantastic - slice up lots and lots of onions and cook briefly in butter, add half a cup of rice that has been boiled for five minutes and drained, then cover and cook in the oven for about an hour. The juices from the onion will cook the rice and everything will be very sweet. At the end add 1/4 cup of cheese and 1/4 cup of cream - of course! We were quite enamoured with it but happily, given Le Gourmand's recent complaints, it wasn't too rich. A side salad was served!

On Tuesday night I revisited the dubious garlic soup section of the book and cooked a variation adding potatoes and saffron. The verdict - not bad. Le Gourmand and I remain a bit confused by these garlic soups, they seem a bit insipid to us, but as the end of soup season approaches and it was a cold night, we weren't too disappointed.

Menu

Soupe À L'Ail aux Pommes de Terre

Paupiettes De Beouf/Roulades De Beouf/Petites Ballontines De Beouf

Frozen Peas

The real challenge for this evening was the beef rolls (yes paupiettes sounds much more exotic so I will stick with that) which were difficult because they involved rolling out meat into 1/2 centimetre pieces when the meat was really not cut properly for that purpose. A long day at work and beating meat with a rolling pin is not really that invigorating when you're seven months pregnant (otherwise I might have enjoyed beating the meat). The rest of the recipe was surpisingly painless - stuff with seasoned pork and veal mince, tie with kitchen string, brown in casserole and then add onion and carrot to the casserole, add blanched bacon rind to the bottom, pour in some stock and wine, partially submerge paupiettes, bring to a simmer and then cook in a slow oven for an hour. Once the paupiettes are tender, remove, strain and degrease sauce, and boil sauce down if necessary, adding some mustard and cream at the end. Oh and of course a little butter. Again, surprisingly not too heavy.

Julia's recipe for frozen peas involves cooking them down in half a cup of stock with a minced shallot and some butter - must have helped because we didn't feel too cheated that the freshly shelled peas to which we were becoming accustomed had been replaced by frozen ones once more. Still feels like cheating to use frozen food in a Julia recipe!

Pork, potatoes and the dreaded anchovies

It's been a long term challenge to entice Le Gourmand to enjoy pork. If it has enough flavour he is generally sold, so with some care that morning I prepared the dry marinade for our pork loin.
However, it seems that I drop the ball that night when I decide to make a spinach and potato dish with anchovies. Ooops - never a good look when your dinner companion runs from the table to spit out the meal you have lovingly prepared and declares that you are mean for hiding anchovies in food. But I've done it before, I protest weakly. And I eat olives when you hide them in food, I think to myself, pushing the leftover

Menu
Marinade Sèche
Rôti De Porc Poêlé
Épinards À La Basquaise

Why do people hate anchovies so much? I have to be a bit careful as there is a bunch of dreaded celery in my fridge at the moment, waiting for me to bite the bullet and cook Julia's braised celery. I imagine I will find a multitude of ways to put it off.

Luckily the casserole roasted pork saves the day - Le Gourmand loves the flavour in the pork - the dry marinade has allspice as well as the usual suspects of salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme - and it is browned and then cooked in the oven in a casserole. Carefully - as our pork loin is a lot smaller than Julia's recipe - and once again the meat thermometer is my friend. The sauce is more a jus, cooked down juices with wine.

Meanwhile I enjoy the sliced potatoes and spinach in stock flavoured with anchovies and butter and sprinkled with cheese. Less heavy than the previous gratins, it means dinner is not the usual cream and butter festival. Le Gourmand enjoys the reheated vegetables from earlier in the week. There are no complaints from Bruce - hopefully he will eat anchovies when the time comes.

I made mayonaisse!

So what? You say. It's not that difficult. Most of the time.
All true. I think the reason I have never been bothered to make mayo from scratch is (whisper quiet voice), I prefer the commercially produced stuff. Which might sentence me to a fate worse than death if I were a Masterchef contestant, but, in the greater scheme of things, has not really held me back gastronomically speaking.

Thanks to the salad recipe calling for herbed mayonaisse, I knocked over both the regular mayonaisse recipe (saving it in a jar for later) and one of the variations. Wonderful now but at the time, a lot of cooking and a lot of processes.

Menu
Cotes de Porc Sauce Nenette
Chou-Fleur Aux Tomates Fraîches
Petit Pois (for very young peas)
Salade À La D'Argenson
Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise aux Fines Herbes

The beetroots for the salad had been sitting around for a week but, knowing that cooking them takes an hour at the very least, I had always been too tired to cook them. Eventually I popped them into the oven on Monday night in preparation for Tuesday. This meant I just had to peel them (a job better done while they are still warm I would suggest) and dice them, while I waited for an equivalent amount of potatoes to cook, so I could dice them and mix with the beets. I then added minced shallots and, instead of making another vinaigrette, substituted the mustard dressing I had made the night before. I also added half a cup of cooked beans.

After that it was just a matter of making the mayonaisse. Beat egg yolks until sticky, add dry mustard and white wine vinegar, beat with whisk while slowly adding oil drop by drop. This was a lot easier thanks to the helpful Julia suggestion of using a teaspoon to add the oil. Eventually the mayonaisse emulsifies and you can add oil more quickly. Julia then suggests adding two tablespoons of boiling water as an anti-curdling agent. This thins it out but, interestingly, turned my mayonaisse from a pale yellow to a more traditional creamy colour.

For the herbed mayonaisse variation, I simply finely chopped two tablespoons of parsley.

Apparently parsley is great for iron absorption, calcium, vitamin C and lots of other nutrients. Of course - as with most things - too much parsley is bad and can result in pre-term contractions and early labour. So for now, I use parsley in Julia's recipes with a little caution but in about nine and a half weeks it may feature more prominently in my diet.

I added the herbed mayonaisse to my beet and potato mixture and voila! D'Argenson Salad. The only D'argensons I could find on Wiki appeared to have been French statesmen. One is described as a noted bibliophile - hopefully the salad was named for him, perhaps my Larousse Gastronomique will have the answer.

The pork chops had been browned on the stove and them cooked in the oven. Julia's recipe still seems to over cook pork chops, no matter how much I reduce the cooking time. The sauce was simple - dry mustard and tomato puree were mixed with simmered cream and seasoned. At the end the sauce was added to the deglazed pan and simmered for a few minutes before the chops were returned to the sauce to coat. Le Gourmand and I agreed this was a tasty pork sauce!

It's hard for any cauliflower dish to live up to Cauliflower au gratin. This one involved blanching the cauliflower and adding it to a dish and surround it with tomato pulp. Melted butter was then drizzled on top before swiss cheese and breadcrumbs were added and more butter was drizzled. Everything was then baked in an oven for 30 minutes. Yummy but not quite like the decadent white sauce we eat whenever we can justify it in the Brioche household.

Meanwhile, peas take forever to peel and at this time of year the young baby peas are mixed in with the more mature larger peas, so I threw caution to the wind and cooked them to the baby pea recipe which involves boiling them, adding a bit of sugar and butter and voila!

Part of the challenge tonight was to try not to draw Le Gourmand's attention to the fact that we were having white meat with a creamy sauce for the second night in a row. I understand that this might be cause for objection, unless it was a clever use of leftovers (which it was not). Speaking of leftovers, Le Gourmand is starting to fret about the amount of leftovers in our fridge. Try as I might to cut Julia down to size (I divided the pork and potato and beet salad recipes in two) we do have a lot that remains and most of the meat things I am being super-careful about not reheating for fear of some nefarious baby unfriendly bug. Ordinarily it wouldn't be a problem but we are off to Melbourne for the weekend. C'est la vie!


Pork chops

Yummy creamy chicken

There's a style of creamy sauce that I really like, not too rich, with a subtle flavour that enhances the cream. More subtle than your standard sauce in a jar that sullies the good name of cream sauces everywhere.

Some people associate heavy cream sauces with the worst of French cooking but I as I have not had an unpleasant cream sauce in my travels in France, I suspect that this style may actually be a hallmark of inferior local French restaurants.

The cream sauce that we made for our chicken was fantastic. I wished that I had made rice so that I would have an excuse to eat more of it - that said, there was an elegant sufficiency of vegetables, including left-over carrots from last Friday. I had foolishly believed that the braised leeks would soak up the sauce, but they were busy dealing with their own natural cooking juices.

Menu
Poulet Saute a la Crème
Poireaux Braisés Au Beurre
Salad with Sauce Moutarde

This was our last sauteed chicken recipe - a bit of a shame as they have all been quite enjoyable. The drill was fairly standard initially, with the addition of slow cooked onion to the casserole. The chicken pieces, once cooked in butter, were seasoned with salt, pepper and curry powder. Just a hint, but a nice subtle bit of flavour, which, with the onions, reduced the overpowering nature of the cream. I then poured port over the chicken and cooked that down before finally adding "boiling cream" and slowly simmering the chicken for twenty minutes. Season with salt, pepper and a little lemon juice. Delicious!

The leeks were beautiful, clean leeks - which made me happy as they had cost Le Gourmand an arm and at least half a leg (he was shopping unsupervised, I suspect there would have been no leeks this week if I had been there but how can you criticise commitment to the list?). I cooked them down in water and butter, and slowly simmered them on the cooktop for 25 minutes before removing them to the oven, loosely covered in foil for another 25 minutes baking. We love the sweet flavour of leeks all by themselves - no need for excessive flavour intervention.

Le Gourmand had outdone himself with a Moroccan tagine on Sunday night so, in the interests of lightening up our diets, salad was on the menu. I have really enjoyed all of Julia's salad dressing recipes so far and the mustard sauce was no exception - mix dijon mustard with hot water, slowly add oil, a little lemon and don't forget the parsley!