Clafoutis

Like I said last week, it’s cherry season! For the past two weeks, the farmer’s market has been a veritable carpet of deep red and black sweet cherries. The farmers have been very vocal in their encouragement that we buy up their stock, particularly one woman who has pretty much be braying how much she detests strawberries but loves cherries on a continuous loop. Kind of weird, but she did compliment my blue nail polish, so all was forgiven.

Anyway, I spent an excellent week mainlining cherries, then decided it was time to do something with them, specifically, make a clafoutis. Clafoutis is a traditional French dessert made with lots of cherries in a little batter. The batter is egg-heavy, with just a little sugar and flour, but it contains more cherry than cake--a great way to feature cherries in season.

First, macerate about a pound and a half of cherries in a few ounces of kirsch. Hoookay, first problem--who keeps kirsch around the house, honestly? It's a clear cherry brandy from Germany, and used in fondue and cakes when not drunk straight. But, it being Sunday, I had no way of getting any kirsch at short notice. So I substituted maraschino instead.



What's maraschino? Why it's an Italian cherry liqueur (as opposed to a German brandy). The main differences, as I understand it by tasting them both in days gone by, is that maraschino has a richer and sweeter flavor, whereas kirsch is stronger and dryer. I figured that in a cake, the difference wouldn't matter so much (in a cocktail the difference would make or break it), and since my cocktail geek husband had a nice bottle of maraschino in the liquor cabinet, it would serve.

So! The cherries macerate in the liqueur for an hour, releasing their juices and taking on that tasty liqueur flavor.

When the cherries are done, beat six eggs...



Then add some sugar, flour, and vanilla.



The batter will be liquidy... almost like pancake batter. Fold the cherries in, and pour into a buttered and sugared pan, then shove it in the oven at 450 degrees for 40 minutes.



Or... so I thought.

After about 20 minutes in the oven, the clafoutis had completely puffed out of its pan, and was starting to burn. OH MY GOD!!! I freaked, thinking it would lead to horrible burned-on-the-outside, raw-on-the-inside bad times. I even TURNED DOWN THE HEAT IN MY OVEN (wow such a bad baking idea) to try to fix the issue. When the thing came out after 40 minutes, it was looking a little grim...



But a knife stuck in the middle came out dry, so I decided to slice things up. I served with a sprinkle of powdered sugar.

And guys, it was really good! Even the burned bits were nice--turned out, the batter puffed so much that only a thin layer was burned, but most of the batter was a creamy, eggy deliciousness. The cherries, soaked in their maraschino, were completely delicious. In fact, it was even better the next day over a cup of milky coffee.

I absolutely loved this dessert and will make it again as soon as possible... maybe with some oven tweaks.

Lessons learned: Maraschino is an ok sub for kirsch in baking (not cocktails); maybe it is time to recalibrate my oven (how do you even do that with an ancient gas oven?)

Next week: Not sure... I might do a non-Les Halles post.

Another hellish week, but this time I am trying not to let that stop me from cooking this weekend. So I picked a very simple dessert--chocolate mousse. I've made mousse a few times, and it has the benefit of being relatively quick and easy to make. The real question is whether the Les Halles mousse is somehow better or more exciting than other types of mousses.

At first glance, this is the only mousse I've made that has Grand Marnier, which is exciting.

I started out by setting up my mise... some unsweetened chocolate, cointreau (since I didn't have Grand Marnier), four eggs (separated) and butter.



I melted the chocolate over a double boiler. I usually play fast and loose with my chocolate and sort of hover over the gas flame instead of bothering with a double boiler, but decided to be safe this time.



Next, I poured the cointreau into the melted chocolate and...?? The chocolate seized up weirdly. For a bit I thought I'd burned it, which was a problem, since I didn't have any more cooking chocolate left. I decided to try to continue on with the recipe since the chocolate didn't taste burnt, but was not hoping for the best.

Next I added the butter and egg yolk to the chocolate. It looked a bit grittier than it was supposed to, but at this point I was all in.



Next step, lighten the mousse. I whipped the egg whites until they reached soft peaks, and then folded them into the warm chocolate mixture.



Then I did the same with some heavy cream, and folded the entire mix together.



I dolloped the mousse into some martini glasses, and chilled it in the fridge for two hours.



The verdict--very nice. The gritty texture was there, but not as pronounced as I feared. Husband J hovered it down, praising the "cakey" texture, then promptly complained about how sick he felt after wolfing the mousse. I was more reserved and only ate about a third of mine, which ended up being just right.

So, not a bad dessert recipe, pretty easy for the end of a busy week.

Easter Dinner

Blech. Yeah I know ages since I posted anything. Long story short, work is kicking my ass and both the cooking and posting have slowed to a crawl these days. I'm looking to pick up a bit more again in about a month so please stay patient!

You guys, I am such a bonehead! In the whirl of getting ready to head to the suburbs to Mom's to cook easter dinner, I remembered my dutch oven... I remembered my scalloped tart pan... I remembered my ovenproof gratin dish... and forgot my CAMERA. Can you believe it? Of course I couldn't just not cook easter dinner due to lack of camera, but I feel pretty terrible about leaving you guys with no pix.

Anyway, the plan for dinner was gigot a la sept heurs, that is, seven-hour leg of lamb. I love lamb for easter, and never got it as a kid, because my mom always hated lamb. (Anyone sensing a pattern here of me making up for things I wanted as a kid but never got? Oh my life was soooo hard...) Usually we get a ham, but since we had a non-pork-eater joining us for dinner, mom agreed to let me cook the lamb... and the whole rest of the dinner, too. This was my first holiday meal flying solo, you guys! After much deliberation on the appropriate sides and dessert, I decided on the following:

1. Gigot a la sept heurs, from the Les Halles Cookbook
2. Gratin Dauphinois, from the Les Halles Cookbook (I know this is a repeat but the fam didn't want mashed, and I couldn't help but think how wonderful this dish would be with leg of lamb as I wiped the puddles of drool off my cookbook)
3. Nantes carrot stew, from Ad Hoc at Home
4. Asparagus coins, from Ad Hoc at Home
5. The most extraordinary lemon tart, from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours

Pretty ambitious, wouldn't you say? Well, let's see how it goes...

Prep for the meal got started the week before (I know, I know, I'm crazy) when I started with the lemon cream for the tart. The lemon cream (based on a Pierre Herme, recipe, by the way) is different from the usual lemon cream used in tarts, and different from the lemon tart I made a few weeks back, in that the butter is added in a blender after the rest of the cream is put together. This keeps the butter from melting into a curd-like structure, but emulsifies the butter to make a very fluffy, light cream. I've had trouble emulsifying before (see my aoli fail) but this lemon cream came together perfectly. I'm definitely going to try another aoli or mayonnaise endeavor using my hot new blender, instead of my old-ass food processor, to see if it will work better. The lemon cream recipe is around the internet, but I do recommend getting the Dorie Greenspan book, as it has a lot of great recipes and is a wonderful baking resource.

With the lemon cream freezing away nicely, I undertook two parts of the asparagus recipe from Ad Hoc at Home: chive oil and parsley water. The cookbook explains that asparagus flavor generally leaches out into the water in which the asparagus is cooked, so for the Ad Hoc recipe, it is cooked with parsley water to retain its flavor, and to add the herbal parsley flavor as well. I won't go into too much detail on these (more detail to be had when I make basil oil or parsley oil from the Les Halles Cookbook in the not-too-distant fugure), but suffice to say they were super easy and took next to no time at all.

On Saturday, after a fun morning negotiating a DC metro system that was OVERRUN with tourists going to the cherry blossoms, I chucked my cooking supplies (sans camera) into a suitcase and headed to the suburbs for Easter with my mother, grandmother, and sister.

I woke up at the crack of dawn on Easter Sunday morning to get the lamb in the oven. Mom had gotten a lovely big leg of lamb from the local Whole Foods, and I set to work trimming it of fat and silverskin before putting it into the dutch oven. Only when I attempted to do so... of course... my dutch oven was too small to fit a full lamb leg with its bone in. I knew it would be, of course, but I only had the one dutch oven, with no time to buy a new one, so what's a girl to do? After some hilarious, and aborted attempts to trim the bone with a handsaw, I ended up seaming the leg, carving off the meat, and stuffing the meat into the dutch oven with some herbs, white wine, and a ton of garlic shoved into the lamb folds. With that in the dutch oven, and the lid on, I mixed some flour and water together to form a seal where the oven lid meets the pot. This mucking around with floury goop got some arch comments from my mother and grandmother, but I soldiered on, and shoved the entire mess (perched on a baking sheet) into a 300 degree oven.

Following this, I made Dorie Greenspan's sweet tart crust, a process not unlike the tart crust I made for a plum tart earlier in this project. The main difference is that it was meant to be pressed into the tart pan, rather than rolled out, so in a way it was an intentional Frankencrust. This went into a freezer for the rest of the day until it was ready to be baked.

That was all of the big prep to be done for the day, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon relaxing with my family, eating copious amounts of licorice, and making pysanky (Easter eggs dyed and then painted with wax, then dyed again for colorful pictures).

When it was almost time for dinner, I first made the potatoes gratin (featured from my holiday recap post), and then made carrot stew. I sauteed the carrots in a knob of butter until they began to release their juices, then added some sweet white wine (in place of sherry), and then some carrot juice, curry powder and coriander. After a few minutes, I removed the carrots, and cooked the liquid down to a glaze, which became intensely sweet and fragrant. This got the nice addition of a knob of butter whisked in, and then I put the carrots back into the pan over low heat to keep warm.

Next, I made the asparagus coins by slicing asparagus into thin rounds, and sauteing it in the chive oil. When the coins were barely cooked, I added the parsley water and simmered the mess until the coins were done.

By this time, it was time to take the lamb out of the oven, which I did with a little trepidation. The entire house was by this time smelling of delicious, savory lamb, garlic and herbs, and everyone who came in the house commented on the wonderful aromas. I had Husband J haul the dutch oven on its baking sheet out of the oven--the amount of meat plus the heavy enamel-iron pot made for an incredibly weighty. Then, I tried peeling the now browned flour and water slurry off of the dutch oven... but it was stuck on tight. Husband J to the rescue again, he grabbed mom's heaviest kitchen implements and used them as a hammer and chisel to chip the mix off. This was pretty arduous, but eventually it all came off, and we lifted the lid. The meat had broken down and looked like tender bits of brisket, and we spooned it out of the pot and onto a serving platter.

All in all, dinner was a huge hit. The meat could have been a bit more tender--I think it was a little overdone, since we had to cut the bone out, but it was very tasty with all that garlic and herb flavor. We included some organic mint jelly at my grandmother's insistence, and it tasted wonderful with the lamb. Of the sides, the potatoes gratin was the biggest hit (obviously, I mean who doesn't love potatoes gratin?), but the carrot stew and asparagus coins were devoured just as quickly.

The lemon tart was... well, all right. After baking the crust I cooled it, then spread it with the thawed lemon cream. It tasted nice, though the cream melted on the still warm crust and glorped all over the place. Add to this that over dessert, my sister insisted that we watch her new favorite movie The Cove, so by the time I had finished, all I could think about was dolphin massacres, and that doesn't go so well with lemon tart. Next time at least I'd put the tart into the fridge to solidify the cream, and definitely wouldn't watch animal slaughter movies while eating it.

But, aside from that dessert debacle, the meal went wonderfully, and received great acclaim from the family, so I was happy about that! My first holiday meal, a success.

Lessons learned: Don't forget your freaking camera. Get a bigger dutch oven to cook big old legs of lamb. Don't watch dolphin slaughters with your dessert.

Next Week: Roti de Porc au Lait

Lemon Tart (Basic Pie Crust take 2)

It's been a lazy weekend in our household, which in my opinion is just grand. However, it does mean that my energy and desire to go shopping is about nil. Add to that, Husband J and Neighbor C concocted a scheme to have a double showing of Black Dynomite and Tool Academy 3 (This Time There's Girls!) and decided that they wanted takeout for dinner while we watched. So I decided to make a dessert that used what we had in the house.

I figured a lemon tart would be great, as we have a bunch of lemons to use up, and also because I wanted another shot at the pie crust that I butchered so horribly last year. This time, I wanted to try making it with my hands, in a bowl, as opposed to in the food processor, as I can control the moisture better when making it by hand. I also decided to pay a bit more attention, rather than slapping it together like last time. I did run into some problems, which I'll discuss in their turn.

First problem: recipe calls for pastry flour. I looked this up on the internet, and found that pastry flour is distinguished by having less protein than all purpose flour. (For those who are interested, bread flour has the most protein, then all purpose, then pastry flour, and cake flour has the least protein.) You can make a mix approximating pastry flour by combining all purpose flour and cake flour at something between a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio. I looked for cake flour at the local shop, but of course couldn't find any, so I decided to give it a shot with all purpose flour to see where it gets me. (This is of course very scientific, and will help those of you who can't find pastry or cake flour determine if the recipe is worth trying. Not because I'm lazy. No, no.)

So first I measured out nine grams of flour in my NEW HANDY KITCHEN SCALE WHICH I LOVE HOORAY!

Next, I whisked in salt and sugar for a nice dry mix.

Then, I made a well in the dry mix, and added one cold egg, and one cold stick of unsalted butter, chopped up. (Cold is very important to create a tender, flaky crust, of course.)



I started mixing the bowl with a fork, then gave up and used my hands, as it's the best way to break up the butter and mix it into the dry evenly. You want your hands to be cold, so I rinsed them in cold water from time to time, so the butter didn't melt. After mixing for a little bit, I added a tablespoon and a half of water (which I kept on ice in a bowl) as the recipe suggested. Even then, I found it was too dry, and added another tablespoon of water to the mix. At that point, the dough started coming together in a way that hadn't happened the last time I made this dough, so I could tell that I was doing something right. Once the dough came together (though there were still visible bits of butter in--but that's a good thing) I put it in the fridge for an hour.



Once the dough finished chilling, I put it on a floured mat and started rolling it out. Again, it was clear that I'd done it right this time, as the dough stayed together in one piece instead of becoming a frankencrust. I draped it into the tart pan, and pressed it into the corners.



Rolling out nicely, and...



Victory!

Here's where I ran into problem number two. The recipe for the crust ends here, but the lemon tart recipe starts with an already baked pie crust. So how are you supposed to bake the crust? The book doesn't say! So instead I turned to my baking book (and recent Christmas present) Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. She recommends baking her crust recipe at 400 degrees for 25 minutes under foil, then uncovering and baking for 10 minutes for a fully baked crust. So that's what I tried.

The result:



I think that it browned a little too much (the center was nicely golden in patches, but the edges of the crust were a bit too crispy). So next time I might try the same time, but baking at 350 or 375 degrees instead. Anyway, I let the crust cool to room temperature.

Next, I made the filling by combining lemon juice, sugar, eggs and cream, and poured the mix into the crust to bake and set.



Husband J, juicing the lemons in the cuisinart.



Me, mixing the ingredients for the filling. The cream made nice patterns in the egg/sugar mix.

I was a little worried about whether the filling would set properly, as the last time I made a lemon meringue pie it turned into a runny mess, but after about half hour of baking, the tart came out very nice and firm.



I brought it over to Neighbor C's, and we ate it after our takeout.

The verdict... well... I'm not really sold on the tart. The guests at Neighbor Cs said they enjoyed it a lot, and Husband J ate much more than his fair share, but it tasted a little odd to me. It might have been the slightly overbaked crust or the fact that the pie crust is not very sweet when compared to the tart filling, but something about the combo just didn't taste right. It was fine, but not brilliant.

Lessons Learned: Tony, tell us how long to bake your freaking pie crust mmkay??

Next Week: Daube Provençale

Poulet au Pot

Phew, what a refreshing break! Thanks everyone for being patient, and coming back to read some more.

After the rather exotic coeur du porc last time, I decided to go with something a good deal more familiar and homey, and what better than poulet au pot--that is, chicken-in-a-pot?

Poulet au pot, as I discovered from the magic that is google, is a recipe that dates back over 500 years, and is a Sunday Staple in the French countryside. It's basically a stuffed chicken stewed in a pot with veggies, and served with crunchy cornichons, salt and mustard in its own broth. The internets even report that Henry IV declared that every French family ought to be able to have poulet au pot once a week, the start I suppose of that great political promise "a chicken in every pot."

I made sure to wake up extremely early on Sunday, so to take the best advantage of the farmer's market's bounty (particularly the whole chickens from Smith Meadows Farms, which are snapped up very quickly in the mornings). I got there so early, actually, that I had half an hour before the "starting bell" and had to grab a coffee at (uch) Starbucks to bide my time. It turned out to work well, because I was able to scope out which stands had the veggies I needed for the stew, and could map out the best route through the market in order to maximize my take. Farmer's market strategies... I don't know whether that's uperyuppie or megahousefrau.

I stopped first at Smith Meadows and asked for the biggest chicken they had (Tony's recipe calls for a 6 pounder; the biggest I could get was 5 lbs) and a pound of chicken livers. Only--disappointment--they had no livers that day. I'm beginning to think there's some kind of Smith Meadows conspiracy against me, where they don't have precisely the thing I need each week (because of course all farms must cater to my needs at all times). Oh well, at least I got the chicken. Next I stopped by the Cedarbrook Farm stall to pick up some sausage for the stuffing. They were out of "country rope," but did have loose sausage stuffing outside of the casing--perfect! I thanked them for the heart, and reported that it tasted like roast beef. They looked at me like I had sprouted two heads, but tried to be polite about it. I guess the thought of cooking pig heart is just a little too much crazy at 9:00 in the morning, even if you are a farmer. It's going to be fun when I ask them for pig livers for the upcoming pate....

Then I loaded up on veggies and hauled my take home. Next to Whole Foods for cornichons, livers, cream and bread while the chicken and sausage defrosted in the refrigerator.

In addition to the chicken-in-a-pot, I decided to go with the "pot" theme and make salted caramel pots-de-creme from a recipe I found on Tastespotting at the blog "A Bowl of Mush" and have been dying to try. I need to get on some of the desserts that are actually in the book, but they're so few, while the main courses are so many, I'm trying to space them out. So as a bonus, I'll tell you about my experience with this recipe, even if it doesn't exactly go with the theme.

After getting back from Whole Foods, I started the dessert by melting sugar, sea salt, and a little water in a pot til it got caramelized and liquidy. The recipe calls for stirring constantly, but I found that by leaving the sugar alone, then stirring it up a bit and leaving it alone again, the caramelization process went faster, but still didn't burn. Then I took the caramel off the heat to add the cream. This proved troublesome, as the caramel immediately turned rock-hard and stuck to the bottom of the pan, refusing to mix with the cream at all. I had to allow the cream to heat slowly and melt the caramel in order to incorporate.

While the caramel melted into the cream, I started preparing the stuffing for the bird. First I mixed a cup of bread cubes with some more heavy cream, then added parsley and shallot. Next I chopped up a half pound of chicken livers into a liver-y mush, and added them plus the pound of sausage meat to the mix. The stuff looked a bit slimy thanks to the livers, but I bucked up and stuffed the mess into the bird. There was a good bowlful of stuffing left over, even after I crammed the chicken to the breaking point, so I baked it in the oven as dressing.

Raw stuffing. Yup that red gobbety stuff is chicken liver and possibly blood. Mmm.

Tony calls for sewing the chicken's butt up with a trussing needle and thread, but by the time I'd overstuffed the thing to the point of livery stuffing oozing out of its cavity (nice mental picture there, right?), there was going to be no sewing, that was for sure. Also, I couldn't find a needle and thread at the Whole Foods. I figured once I got the stuffing in and propped the chicken up inside the pot, the stuffing would stay reasonably intact.

Finally, I chopped up the veggies (carrots, parsnips instead of turnips, celery, garlic, onions), and added them and a bouquet garni to the pot, and set them to simmer for two hours.

Chicken and veg simmering together

Back to the custards. By now, the cream had melted the caramel sufficiently so that I had caramel infused cream instead of rock hard caramel sitting in a pool of cream. I cooled the caramel cream and added it to a mix of egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla. The mix filled four ramekins reasonably well (enough for Husband J, Neighbor C, Friend I and me), so into the oven it went for about 50 minutes to bake.

By this time the chicken stew was smelling amazing, bubbling away on the stove, and the extra dressing had come out of the oven sizzling, and filling the kitchen with a rich meaty aroma. Husband J, Neighbor C and I all had bites, and the stuff was really out of this world.

Cooked dressing, glistening with delicious fat.

After the chicken simmered for two hours, I threw in a chopped up head of cabbage and a couple of red potatoes, and let the stew simmer for another 30 minutes. Then the pot came off the heat, the chicken came out of the pot, and I carved it up, giving everyone a chunk of white meat, a chunk of dark meat, a spoonful of stuffing, and some veggies, and some broth on top. Cornichons, salt and mustard went into the extra ramekins on the table for everyone to spoon out as much as we liked.

The result was better than I could have imagined. I'm always skeptical about boiling food, coming from the Irish tradition of "chuck it into the pot and boil it till it's grey" school of cooking by ancestry, but poulet au pot makes for one spectacular chicken. The meat was super tender, falling off the bone, but the breast meat was not at all dry. The stuffing inside the bird spilled out in a nice, well-cooked pile, adding some meaty richness to the dish. The veggies were all cooked to perfection, especially the very delicious cabbage and potatoes. All of it went wonderfully with the briny mustard and cornichons. Husband J feels that it is the chicken stew equivalent of a pastrami sandwich, with the meaty goodness nicely balances with the tart mustard and sour pickle. In fact, he liked it better than the poulet roti, because the meat was so tender and soft in this dish, and the combination of veggies and condiments were perfect. Everyone ate a big plateful, barely saving room for dessert (the dish is surprisingly filling).

The caramel pots de creme were again the big hit of the night (notice how everyone loves desserts best?) with everyone cooing over their salty caramely goodness. I topped them with whipped cream and a sprinkle of sea salt, and it was the perfect end to a great meal. The caramel cream was an even bigger hit than the fruit tarts if you can believe it.

Uh, and sorry about the lack of photos on this post. The dishes got snapped up before I could really take a camera to them. I'll definitely be making this dish again, so I might try to supplement this post with future poulet au pot photos.

Lessons learned: Sometimes chucking it into a pot and boiling it is the best way to cook. No matter what, everyone loves dessert best. Anything tastes good with mustard, salt and pickle. Chicken livers are pretty freaking tasty.

Next week: Frisee aux lardons (BACON SALAD, an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) and Coquilles Saint Jacques avec Champagne (sea scallops in champagne sauce). But what for dessert?

Soupe au Pistou and Basic Tart Dough

Last Monday after our extravagant turkey dinner in August, a day where we could hardly sit outside because it was so hot, the temperature suddenly dropped. I walked outside to go to work in a light summer dress only to find that outside, it was in the low 60s. I could not believe it... but it is a sign. Summer is almost over.

Husband J is thrilled. Fall is his favorite season, and he can't wait to break out sweaters, coats and scarves, and eat fall type foods like apples and sausage, roasted root vegetables, and rich braised meats.

I'm not so thrilled. Despite the oppressive humidity that characterizes D.C. summers, I really love the warm weather and the start of cold weather always makes me feel a little sad. It's time to have a last summer meal, veggie heavy, and full of the last of the best late summer produce. Soupe au pistou is definitely the best way to do that, as it is full of zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, and basil.

This weekend, Labor Day holiday weekend, was an odd one. I ended up heading home sick from work early on Friday, and stayed sick through Saturday, leading to a very low key video game playing day. Sunday I woke up feeling better and headed to the market for veggies. When I got to the stand that sells my favorite yogurt and butter, they had a big sign out front: "WE HAVE MASCARPONE!" so I couldn't resist getting a tub. That gave me an idea for a mascarpone fruit tart, so I grabbed a load of peaches and blackberries (I think those fruits go very well together). The soup and tart will be very delicious refreshments for tonight's activity--visiting neighbor C's apartment for a double feature of the second season of Tool Academy (Husband J terms it "TA2: The Reckoning").

First, the tart crust. I was hoping for a better result than the pie frankencrust from two weeks ago, which turned out dry and patchy, and not very photogenic. Tart crust is not made in the food processor, which is good, as I've decided I prefer making crusts with my own two hands. Tart crust is also softer, sweeter, and more delicate than pie crust.

I started out by sifting flour into a bowl, creaming butter and stirring it into the flour, then adding egg, sugar, and vanilla.

Crust ingredients in the sun.

I mixed all of these with a fork old-school style, and the crust came together easily. I took a taste of the raw dough, and it's just astoundingly delicious, like the sugar cookie dough my grandmother makes for her Christmas cookies, and which I can (and have) eat(en) by the handful (salmonella be damned). I wrapped it up and set it in the fridge to cool for an hour.

After the hour passed, it was time to roll the crust out. This crust was just beautiful... soft, rich, delicious tasting, and rolled out nicely in a circle. The only problem was, despite the generous flouring I gave my silicone mat and the rolling pin, the crust just did not want to transfer to the pan. First it stuck to the mat, forcing me to tear it up and re-roll it, then an attempt to transfer it into the tart pan caused it to tear in half. I ended up pressing the crust together in the pan again, creating a Frankentartcrust which ended up being a bit more photogenic than Frankenpiecrust, anyway.

Frankentartcrust!!!

While the crust baked in the oven, I made the custard, using the recipe called for in the Tart Alcasienne (apple tart), replacing the called for heavy cream with mascarpone. Only I screwed the filling up by adding the eggs before putting it on the stove, and realized my mistake before putting the whole mess on the stove to heat. I decided to try it, hoping the egg wouldn't curdle if I kept whisking. One sore forearm and a mess-o-curdle later, I dumped the pot and made another batch of custard, this time keeping the eggs separate until I boiled the cream. That seemed to work well. Once the custard was finished and cooling, I sliced the peaches, arranged the berries in the crust, and poured custard over the whole thing. Into the oven it went to set.

Time to make the soup! The canellini beans had soaked overnight, so they went into the pot for 10 minutes, 5 minutes less than their package said to cook them. While they cooked, I chopped the zucchini, onion, garlic, tomato and fennel. Onion and garlic sweat in the pot first, then I added the rest of the veggies to soften in the oil.

Gorgeous veggies!

Once the veg were soft, I added the chicken broth, a bouquet garni, the macaroni and the beans, and set the thing to simmer for half an hour.


Meanwhile I made the pistou (basically pesto, without the nuts). This involves mashing six cloves of garlic and a bunch of basil leaves into a paste with a mortar and pestle, then adding olive oil a bit at a time, mashing until smooth. "If you are criminally lazy," says Tony, "you can use a food processor." Okay, done!

Mmmm... criminal laziness....

A bit of Parmesan, salt and pepper, and the pistou was finished.


This is where the problems in the soup pot began. The macaroni started cooking nicely, and was soft and delicious in a few minutes. The beans, however, remained rock-hard and kind of disgusting. Full disclosure... I'm not the biggest fan of beans in general, since my early days when beans came in a can and were covered in slime, and I've never worked with dried beans in a dish before. Not a good day to try....the clock was ticking for Tool Academy to start, and the beans were just not cooking! Finally I decided enough was enough--the veggies and mac were turning to mush, and the broth was cooking out of the soup. I took the soup off the heat, stirred in the pistou, packed it into a tureen, and trucked it over to Neighbor C's for a night of tools and prosecco.

Despite the great cannelini bean disaster, the soup went over very well, with everyone having seconds and lapping up even the nasty beans (I warned everyone about the al dente nature of the beans, but it ended up being too much trouble to pick them up or eat around them). Everyone involved loved garlic, which is a good thing, since with the pistou the entire thing had eight big cloves. It really would have been great if the beans had cooked properly, but as it was, the taste was good, even if the texture was a bit off.


The tart was of course the hit of the night. In my opinion the fruit was the best, followed by the nice sugar cookie crust. The tarte alcasienne custard was a bit too eggy and rich for a summer fruit tart, but it didn't taste bad. Husband J opined that it was better than the usual too-sweet custards in fruit tarts, so all in all, it worked out.

I tried to arrange the peaches artistically, but it didn't quite work out...

It's almost time to start stewing and braising, which means I need to make some veal stock. Alas, no veal bones were to be had at the market today. It's kind of depressing that there are no real butchers to be found in DC, though I have a promise from one of the farmers market stands that I can e-mail them on Thursdays to see if I can find some bones at the next market. I'm not feeling too sanguine though, since veal is a spring thing, right? I'm running out of recipes that can be made without veal stock and demi glace, though, so if anyone knows where I can find some bones, please let me know...

ETA: Forgot my lessons and future plans! Here we go...

Lessons learned: Cannelini beans take for freakin' ever to cook and don't taste that good al dente. Everything tastes better with 8 cloves of garlic. Never put the eggs in the custard before you put it on the stove, they curdle no matter how fast you whisk. Mascarpone tart is ok, but there are better ways to showcase mascarpone flavor, next time just use cream. Tart crust is delicious but delicate to handle. Veal bones apparently do not exist in DC.

Next week: Possibly salad nicoise, or if I am feeling very ambitious, whole roasted fish basquaise which has the added bonus of leftover bones so I can make fumet (fish stock). The soupe au pistou used up the rest of my chicken stock, so we'll probably have to roast another chicken in the near future so I can have more bones. Who is up for a stock making party?

Crème Brûleé

I'm usually not one to go with the pretentious french accents on words. I mean, really, especially "crème" because it makes me think of low-rent face creams or hair dye at home kits that try to class it up by writing "crème" instead of "cream." But crème brûleé has THREE different types of accent letter (whoa!), and besides, it is classy, not low-rent-dressed-up-as-classy. So we'll use the accents today.

Crème brûleé was the first really French dessert I ever ate while in Paris. I went as a treat for my 16th birthday (I know, super privileged, right? Not so much, actually went with my Dad who was there on business and decided it would be fun to take me and Grandma along... well we all had to share a tiny room and they snored, so I ended up sleeping in the bathtub every night. But Paris!) We had our first nice dinner at the restaurant atop the Musee d'Orsay, which was amazing. I had escargots for the first time at that meal, which I piggishly refused to share (more garlic butter for me). But when dessert time came, I had my first bite of vanilla-infused custard with crunchy sugar top, and it was love at first bite. It's still my favorite dessert, and I particularly love it infused with tea flavors, like earl grey, jasmine or matcha. But vanilla is still the best.

Mom also loves crème brûleé--it is her favorite dessert too--so I knew when I saw the recipe in the Les Halles Cookbook I'd have to make it for her. The opportunity arose this weekend when she decided to host family dinner when my sister came into town from Chicago. Well, sort of decided. The conversation went a bit like this.

Mom: "Sister M has asked for her favorite dinner tonight--Thanksgiving turkey and all the sides."

Me: "There is no way I am making a fucking turkey. But I'll make dessert."

Mom: "What's for dessert?"

Me: "Crème brûleé."

Mom: "Ooooh..."

Done and done. I had egg yolks to use up and a tube of vanilla beans, so I was ready to go. I hauled these, plus my ramekins out to the suburbs to cook dessert in mom's kitchen.

Tony's crème brûleé recipe is easily the richest I have ever made. Most call for a mix of cream and milk, with four to six egg yolks. Tony wants a full QUART of heavy cream and TEN egg yolks. It took all of my eggs plus all of mom's eggs to get the right amount.

First I halved the vanilla bean, and scraped the middles into the cream with a knife, putting the shell into the cream once it was scraped clean.


Add sugar, then put the pot onto the stove to boil.


Next, whisk the remaining sugar into the egg yolks. Once the cream boiled, Husband J helped to slowly pour splashes of cream into the yolks, while I whisked to make sure they didn't curdle. We poured the mixture into ramekins, which we put into pyrex dishes half-filled with water.


They went in the oven for 50 minutes, until the tops were set, but jiggled a little.


The custards cooled while we finished our turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, steamed vegetables and cranberry sauce. As the family relaxed on the deck, I dumped a tablespoon of granulated sugar (Tony calls for brown, but Mom's brown sugar was disgustingly rock-hard, so granulated it was) on top of the custards. They went under the broiler, set on high, until the sugar liquefied, caramelized and charred a little.



I served them still warm--we couldn't wait for dessert much longer. Everyone went crazy for these crème brûleés, though by the time we got through our dinners AND dessert, we were all feeling pretty gluttonous and nauseated. (The desserts were BIG, too.) Everyone scraped their bowls pretty clean, except mom who insisted on saving half of hers (and pouring everyone's scraps into her ramekin) for lunch tomorrow. For me, the vanilla bean really made the dish. I'd never actually made a dessert with a vanilla bean before, having previously only used vanilla extract. Even with the random Indonesian beans I found at Whole Foods (which were NOT cheap by any means), the vanilla flavor was super strong yet subtle and just plain delicious. I also liked using so much sugar on the tops, as they cracked like very proper crème brûleés in a satisfying way. I like crunching the top and mixing the bits into the cream so that I get sugar top in every bite. Delicious! Grandma even said I'd beat out the crème brûleés made by Cousin A, who is a pastry chef... though I'm pretty sure she was just being nice. All in all, a big dessert success.

Oh, additionally, we brought some of the rillettes over as an appetizer, and even picky Sister A ate and enjoyed the delicious porky goodness. We have one more big tupperware of pork to go. Takers???

Lessons learned: Vanilla bean is always best. With crème brûleé, the richer the better, but I kinda want to throw up now. I'm so going to gain 30 pounds while doing this project.

Next week: Soupe au Pistou

(Non)Grilled Lamb (Non)Steaks and Blueberries with Lime Sugar

Today's dinner takes place on a Saturday, as some friends (K & A) from the suburbs are coming into the city to partake of our bistro bounty. This is great, though it does mean that we must do our shopping at the Whole Foods rather than the farmer's market. So husband J and I headed down in the morning to purchase some lamb steak.

Now I have nothing against Whole Foods. It is definitely expensive, but I love how you can find practically anything there, especially our favorite beer, which we drank with BLTs for lunch. One issue I have with Whole Foods is that it tempts me into buying pre-made foods when I'd really rather cook. But I countered that desire by eschewing the premade sandwiches in favor of buying some nitrite free bacon, bread and lettuce and making BLTs with the leftover tomatoes we bought for tonight's dinner.

We even found the exact cuts of lamb we needed... with some mishap. We headed to the meat counter first, and, not finding lamb leg steaks, decided on a 2 lb butterflied lamb leg which we figured we'd cut up after grilling. Of course, 15 minutes later while looking for creme fraiche we found in the packaged meat section precisely the cuts of lamb we needed. We'd already had the other packaged for us though, and the leg was local rather than from New Zealand, as the steaks were, so we decided to go with the butterflied leg anyway. We also grabbed some more local heirloom tomatoes for a tomato salad (We can't not eat tomato salad with the tomatoes being so delicious right now) and some blueberries.

Once home, I cut the excess fat and silvering from the lamb and put it in the marinade--garlic, olive oil, rosemary, thyme--and in the fridge. Technically it is supposed to marinate overnight but I figured six hours would not be so bad.


Then I started into the lime confit for the blueberries. This was extremely easy, basically peeling the zest from the lime, slicing it into thin, vertical slices, and boiling it in a mix of water and sugar until half the water has cooked off.


A few hours later, it was time to take a look at our cooking implement, the rooftop grill. Unfortunately and to our disappointment, the grill had decided that today was a good day to actually not ignite... leaving us with only one option (since we have no grill pan), to broil the leg of lamb. So we have non-grilled lamb non-steaks to look forward to... hopefully the fact that we are using Tony's marinade will make up for the unorthodox cooking methods and cuts.

So while I prepped the tomato and onion for the salad, I put the lamb in the roasting pan and under the broiler for about 10 minutes per side. I used a meat thermometer to gauge the temperature of the interior of the lamb, which almost led to disaster when I didn't realize that the cord to the thermometer was actually touching the flames emanating from our broiler unit. Whoops. After a little toxic smoke, but not too much damage, I readjusted the thermometer. The interior of the meat was still a bit cool after broiling, so I left the lamb in a 200 degree oven for about 10 more minutes until the middle of the lamb reached 60 degrees C (I couldn't figure out how to adjust the thermometer to Fahrenheit), the temperature that corresponds with "rare."

While the lamb cooked I finished the tomato salad, and made an onion sauce consisting of chopped onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Finally I finished the dessert by mixing the juice of the zested limes, a little sugar, and the blueberries. I topped the berries with a chiffonaide of mint leaves, and left them in the fridge.


Once the lamb came out of the oven and rested for 10 minutes, everything was ready, and dinner was served (too quickly to allow for pics of the finished lamb, unfortunately). The lamb with onion sauce and the salad were big hits with everyone. I sliced the leg thin, which allowed for small slices to hold generous amounts of onion sauce, and allowing all to have seconds and thirds of the meat. I felt a bit bad actually, since both the main course and salad relies heavily on onion flavor, which made for a rather acidic dinner, but everyone seemed to enjoy it anyway. The resident food critic liked the lamb quite a lot, saying "It was more familiar than some of the other things you've cooked," because it allowed for the flavor of the meat to shine through and reminded him of having lamb in Greektown near Detroit as a kid. He also liked the very prominent onion flavor to the dinner, which made me feel a bit better.

The dessert ended up being the big hit of the night--despite it being again very acidic due to the lime juice and berries. We served the soaked berries with creme fraiche, which was a perfect accompaniment. K and I ended up scooping creme fraiche into the juice left on our plates when we finished, and ate the cream soaked in the leftover berry/lime juice. All in all another successful dinner.

Lessons learned: Whole Foods has a packaged meat counter as well as a butcher deli, so look there before deciding on a different cut than the recipe calls for. Onions are great, but maybe not in every single course. Creme fraiche basically wins everything. Tomato salad is always successful when it is the time of year for delicious tomatoes. Lime zest might be awesome in a cocktail of some kind (maybe a gimlet?)

Next week: Not really sure actually. I'll be on a business trip for most of the week, so it may end up being "whatever I feel like." Dad's coming in from the middle east, though, so I may try to make rillettes for him.