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.