Daube Provençale

It's getting on spring and the weather is just teetering on nice, which for me is very exciting. I love springtime and summer, though in terms of food, those seasons tend to get me eating less than in winter. I think this is a pretty universal condition, craving less, fresher food in the summer and more warm and fatty food in the winter.

This is a little bit of an issue with the Cooking Les Halles project, since so much of it is "wintery" food: braises, stews, fatty cuts of meat, and all that. So, during the first weekend of March, which was (though I didn't know it then) one of the last cold weekends of the season, I decided to make the ultimate winter food: a big old lamb stew, or daube provençale.

Daube provençale takes a bone-in cut from a lamb's neck. I was worried about being able to find such a cut around, but as luck would have it the local Whole Foods does indeed carry locally raised, bone-in lamb neck cuts in 1.5 lb packages. I have to say, with all the crap that Whole Foods gets, it is a great place to find what you need, when you need it. Anyway, I picked up the neck and a few needed veggies, and headed home to stew.



Cuts of lamb neck

First, I browned the lamb in a dutch oven, using a mix of olive oil and butter.



After the lamb was browned, I set it aside and replaced it with half a pound of bacon.



It is pretty weird to be sauteing bacon in oil and butter... doesn't it have enough grease?

Once the bacon got crispy, I poured most of the liquid bacon grease, oil and butter mix into a bowl to discard later (never pour bacon grease down the drain!) and sauteed an onion, some celery and two chopped garlic cloves in the remaining fat. Once caramelized, I added some tomato paste, a little flour and some wine to scrape up the fond. This got taken to a boil, and reduced by half. Next, I added a cup of my reserved veal stock ('memba that?) and some demi to the pot. Finally, the rest of the ingredients--lamb, carrot, bouquet garni, some orange zest, and the bacon--went into the pot.



I simmered the stew for 90 minutes while I peeled potatoes. The recipe says that you should peel and "turn" the potatoes, which means cutting them into small football shapes. Or, just cube them. Uh, yeah, football shapes? I cubed them. After the 90 minutes, and plopped the potatoes into the pot to stew for 15 minutes. Then I served the stew in big old bowls.



This was nothing mind blowing, but it was a very tasty winter stew, with great hearty potato and meat flavors. It was especially satisfying to gnaw the lamb meat off of the neck bones, and poke out the tiny bit of softened marrow that was in there. It was a great way to say good bye to winter, and I'm looking forward to making more dishes in the spring.

Lessons Learned: Not too many, though this did reinforce the fact that meat on the bone is best for wintery stews. Tony calls those who prefer boneless "poor deluded bastards," and I'm inclined to agree.

Next Week: It's Easter! And I have cooking duty for Easter dinner. Wait and see what I have in store... main dish by Tony Bourdain, sides by Thomas Keller, and dessert by Dorie Greenspan. Let's hope it's as delicious as I think it's going to be.

Moules Normandes; Aoli

Happy Valentines Day!

Okay, okay. I think you know enough of my character to know that I am NOT a huge fan of Valentine's day. It's nice and all, but who needs chalky, unpleasant heart-shaped candies, and greeting cards with canned sentiment? Not me, for sure. Valentine's Day for me usually carried the same dread as Friday the 13th--even when I wasn't single, something horrible would invariably happen and the day would go completely wrong.

Once I met Husband J, though, Valentines Day settled down, and bad things stopped happening. I learned to sit back and enjoy the day, rather than dread it, and we began a tradition of staying in, and cooking fun meals to celebrate the day. (Unusual presents, too--Husband J got me a much-coveted bottle of L'heure Bleue, while I got him a copy of Brütal Legend, a heavy metal themed video game starring Jack Black. That's love!)

For tonight's dinner, I really wanted to go all-out to make up for my slacking lately, what with the storm, the trip, and the simplistic dishes I've been making for the past few weeks. I ambitiously set my sights on Duck a l'orange, only to run into a snag--there is no duck to be had in the city. Even my faithful Eastern Market butcher doesn't stock poultry! So, stranded at the Whole Foods, Husband J requested mussels, which were in stock. I knew that there were five--count 'em, five--recipes for mussels in the Les Halles Cookbook that needed to be gotten through, so I agreed. We picked up a bag of mussels, and headed home to cook.

Now, mussels plus Tony Bourdain does not equal sweet harmony. In fact, he admits in the cookbook that he has "famously frightened away hundreds of people from eating mussels." For those who haven't read Kitchen Confidential, there's a segment in the book in which Tony explains some of the less savory kitchen practices in restaurants, and how that resolves into what he will or will not eat when dining out. While he grants that he is not bothered by recycling bread baskets from one table to another (me neither, I'll eat the bread too), he does provide some basic tips about what not to eat at restaurants. These tips include "never order fish on Monday," "no hollandaise," "don't eat in a restaurant with filthy bathrooms," "no swordfish," (three foot long parasitic worms, anyone?) "no well-done steak" and, most damning, never eat mussels in a restaurant, unless you see how they handle and store them. Mussels need to drain while being held for cooking, and be picked through carefully to ensure each mussel is healthy and alive before throwing them into the pot. But, as Tony explains, this type of handling is rare because mussels are so easy to cook and sell at a premium. Toss them in a pot, and $24.95 later, you're making a sweet profit with time left over to chiffonade your mise. The effects of eating bad mussels are dire, he explains, using such phrases as "shitting like a mink." I prefer not to spend my Valentine's evening in such a position, so I resolved to handle the mussels as carefully as possible, first storing them in a colander above a bowl in the fridge, so that they could drain properly.

The best thing to eat with mussels is, of course, fries with mayonnaise in the true Belgian style. I wasn't about to try deep frying myself some fries just yet (no Valentine grease fires please) so I whussed out with some frozen fries. But I determined to make some garlic aoli (in the "miscellaneous meez" section of the book) for dipping. The recipe calls for four garlic cloves, half a cup of olive oil, and salt, pulsed in the food processor. Once pulsed, add an egg yolk, and leave the processor running while another half cup of olive oil is trickled in.



Easy, right? Well it ended up in a runny, grainy, separated mess.



Blech. Please pay no attention to my "claw hand" there, I was trying to steady the oily mess and take a picture at the same time.

I'm no stranger to mayonnaise mishaps, having tried making it myself before, but I was pretty disappointed in the nasty mess I'd made with the aoli. Hopefully the mussels wouldn't have the same result...

I started the mussels by frying bacon, the way every dish should start, in my opinion.



Next, I melted a ton of butter in a pot, and fried chopped shallots until soft.



Then, I added sliced mushrooms and cubed apple, and sauteed them until they released their liquid and softened.



The recipe called for calvados (French apple brandy), but instead I used what we had on hand--apple whiskey from Leopold Bros. in Colorado. Then I added cream, salt and pepper, and brought the whole thing to a boil.



As the sauce simmered, it was time to go through the mussels. I hauled the colander out of the fridge, and went through the pile, mussel by mussel, checking which were tightly closed (good) and which were gaping open (bad). The open ones were thrown out, while the closed ones got tossed into the pot and cooked in the sauce until they opened up. I probably threw out about half of the mussels, which sounds wasteful until you think of the phrase "shitting like a mink" and what it signifies.



At this point I had a problem--the recipe didn't say what to do with the bacon that I had fried at the beginning of the evening. So, I dumped the bacon bits over the cooking mussels. Once all the mussels opened, I dumped them into a bowl and served them with the fries, and a loaf of homemade bread.



The verdict? Oh my god. The mussels were delicious and sweet, and I was happy that I had picked through them so carefully. But the best part was the sauce, which was creamy and smoky from the bacon and whiskey. I was actually happy when all the mussels were gone, so I could soak bits of bread in the sauce and lap it all up. Husband J and I actually ignored our fries to focus on the mussels and sauce, which was really something. Husabnd J said that this was definitely one of his favorite meals, in that it was more of a casual, "pub food" meal than most of the ones I have cooked so far. All in all, it was a great Valentines Day meal, and more than made up for my aoli fail.

Lessons Learned: Always handle and store your mussels carefully, and toss the open ones before you cook. Aoli is freaking hard. Pay attention to what's to be done with the bacon. Homemade mussels and homemade bread are much better than frozen french fries.

Next Week: Ehhh I'm not sure... I'll think on it.

Frisée aux Lardons; Coquilles Saint-Jaques with Champagne

In my excitement for having braved the pig's heart a few weeks back, I sent my blog around to a couple of friends. Friend S, an out of town student who I hadn't seen in an age, came in to town this weekend, so of course I had to invite him over for another culinary experiment. The catch? He's been diagnosed as celiac, so no gluten allowed. After perusing the recipes in my book, I decided on bacon salad, or frisée aux lardons, and coquilles saint-jacques with champagne, that is, sea scallops in champagne sauce. No gluten there, except the optional croutons spread with roquefort that go with the salad. Also, the champagne sauce attracted me as having only half a cup of actual champagne in the sauce... meaning the rest is for drinking (yesssss).

I'd been eyeing the big, fat, meaty sea scallops that they have at whole foods, and pounced on them this morning. All I have to say is MAN those things are pricey. But I looove scallops, so they are oh so worth it for the indulgence. I also went to my favorite pork vendor, Cedarbrook Farms, for their delicious bacon for the salad. One thing to note about this bacon is that I think it's probably true to the way slab bacon probably should taste in a frisée aux lardons--not too salty, not processed, just very porky, meaty and delicious. Husband J claims it tastes like jerky, and I take his word for it, never having had jerky ever. (Am I missing out on this?)

First, I clarified some butter for frying the scallops. Clarified butter is tougher than it looks, in my opinion. You have to first melt the butter to the point where it separates, then scoop out the foam on top, and then pour off the liquid leaving the rest of the solids at the bottom of the pot. I was only moderately successful.

C is for clarified butter... it's clear enough for me.

Anyway, the time for dinner drew near on Sunday evening. I started out with the salad. Now, the recipe in the book calls for chicken liver vinaigrette, but alas, my livers were not in tip top shape, and I was a little suspicious about how fatty a liver vinaigrette would be in a (let's repeat) bacon salad. So I made the executive call that a plain vinaigrette would do, and set about making the same one that I made for the salade niçoise (red wine vinegar, olive oil, stirred with a clove of garlic).

Vinaigrette and shallots standing by for the salad.

Next comes bacon. The recipe called for blanching the bacon by boiling it, and then frying it afterwards. This is a little better than the rillettes, which were all boiled, but I still cast a suspicious eye upon the boiling of bacon.

It's just so wrong.

Frying makes it so right.

While the bacon fried, I started on the sauce for the scallops. This involves shallot sauteed in butter, then fish sauce and cream, and reduced by about half to create a thick, fishy, creamy sauce. Full disclosure--I didn't have the time or the ability to make fish stock, but found some frozen stock in the Whole Foods seafood section. Am I going to hell? Probably. But it was pretty tasty and looked house-made if not home-made, so we're just going to go with it for now. The sauce went on to warm while I waited for the guests to arrive. The featured guests tonight were the aforementioned Friend S, and an in-town friend, Friend T, who brought her lovely husband... uh, J.

Anyway, while waiting, I patted the scallops dry and set them out. Aren't they gorgeous?

Husband J calls them "sea pillows."

When the guests arrived, we shared the remaining champagne and some pate, crackers and chips. Then it was time to cook the scallops. I melted the clarified butter, and set the fluffy monsters out in a ring. Three minutes on each side led to a lovely golden color on their tops and bottoms.


Once the scallops were finished and keeping warm on a plate, it was time to finish up the sauce. I deglazed the scallop pan with the champagne, reduced it, then added the cream sauce and a knob of butter. The result was a fragrant fat-infused cream sauce... seriously you could gain weight just by smelling the stuff. It came off the eat, and some lemon juice and chives finished off the whole deal. I served the salad on top of toasts smeared with roquefort, and the scallops in a bowl covered in delicious sauce.

Salad...

And tasty, tasty scallops.

Well it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that this was another huge success. I mean, you can't dole out fatty scallops smothered in cream and butter and have unhappy guests, especially when you gave them the leftover champagne first. Everyone scraped their plates clean--Friend T even asked for (and received) a spoon to lap up the rest of the sauce in her bowl. (The only reason she didn't slurp it up was because we didn't have any straws!) I encourage plate licking, but I suppose dignity got in the way tonight. Maybe next time.

Husband J (my Husband J, not T's) decided that this was hands down the best meal I'd made from the Les Halles Cookbook so far, and he's had them all, so that's quite impressive. I was really pleased with how well the salad and the scallops went together, too, and glad that I'd decided to forego the liver vinaigrette which would have been too much.

Oh, and dessert ended up being a mix of sorbets and gelatos, since I didn't have the time or inclination to make dessert. But the lighter, cold dessert again was a good compliment to the meal, so it all worked out in the end.

Lessons learned: You really just can't go wrong with scallops. Bacon salad tastes just as good with regular vinaigrette, especially when the rest of the meal is a saturated fatfest. Whole Foods fish stock tastes pretty freaking good.

Next week: Happy day... I saw whole snappers at the whole foods. We're having whole roasted fish Basquaise!

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?

Rillettes du Porc, Basic Pie Dough

Today's Les Halles adventure is a truly frenchified dish, rillettes du porc. This is the first dish I got really excited about cooking from the Les Halles Cookbook because it looks intimidating at first glance, but actually requires very little labor on the part of the cook. It's also the dish that Tony rhapsodizes about in the introduction to the cookbook as being the thing that convinced him to take the job as executive chef at Les Halles restaurant in the first place.

He tells the story in the introductory section of the cookbook, how he went to an interview with Jose de Meirelles and was unimpressed with the shabby, dirty looking restaurant, nicotine stained ceilings blazing in the noon New York sun. The interview concluded with an invitation to dinner at the restaurant. Tony decided to pass on the job, but mentioned the free dinner offer to his (first) wife Nancy. She, hungry for steak frites, insisted he keep the dinner appointment. When the two pushed their way into the now-crowded, darkened restaurant, it was clear a magical transformation had taken place. He stared, astounded at the menu at dishes he hadn't seen since his childhood summers in France, and the first dish he orders is "a crock of lovely, extravagantly fatty rillettes." By the time he finished dinner, he decided to take the job, and the rest is food-memoir-and-travel-tv history. (It's a good story, and better the way he writes it, so I encourage you all to buy the cookbook or get it from the library even if just for this three-page story.)

So what are rillettes du porc? Basically, it's boiled, shredded pork, stored under slices of fat, and molded like a pate to be served spread over slices of baguette as an appetizer. I'm making them this weekend for a family dinner next weekend in honor of dad's visit. My dad lives as an expat in a Middle Eastern country, and whenever he comes back to the US for a visit or business, the first thing he looks for is a big serving of pork. Rillettes seem like the perfect, porky gluttenous dish to serve him, particularly since Ramadan began yesterday, and he (a non-Muslim) is forced to snatch quick bites in his office while the rest of his colleagues fast. Rillettes also have to be made at least three days in advance to allow the flavors to marry, which is why I'm making them this weekend for next weekend's dinner.

On to the dish!

I knew just where I was going to get my pork for this dish--the Cedarbrook Farm stand at the farmer's market, which provides the most delicious pastured pork. I am a huge fan of their hot Italian sausage (of which they were providing free samples while we waited in the line--BONUS!) and their bacon. I was waited on by the must cherubic little boy who sweetly asked me what I would like from their truck.

"I need some serious pork from you today!" I said, to differentiate myself from the masses who were snapping up the Italian sausages after tasting the free samples (posers... I liked the sausage BEFORE it was cool). "Do you have pork belly?"

Angelic little boy conferred with his mom, who was working with the register.

"Not til September!" he reported.

What is this?? Pork belly not in season? I was not aware that there even was a season for pork belly, though I suppose it makes some sense. Well never mind, Whole Foods was bound to have something I could use. I ordered a pound of pork shoulder (though as I discovered it only comes in 3 pound packets) and a pound of back fat (hahaha, back fat back tack tack back fat back...). After obtaining some veggies, peaches, yogurt and butter from the market stands, I left Husband J with the bags while I ran to the Whole Foods to find some belly. Only when I got there, there was no pork belly to be had. I skimmed the butcher stand, remembering to check the refrigerated cuts section, but still no darn belly! Oh well, I decided, grabbing two pounds of bacon. What is bacon but pork belly that has been cured and sometimes smoked? I got the thickest, fattiest, least messed with bacon I could find, which would just have to do.

I was feeling a little despondent as I walked back to the house in the hot Sunday morning sun. But I had to remind myself that I'd done the best I could, that salted pork belly was probably not going to taste too different than non-cured belly, and that however you slice it, I was the winner in this situation, because I was the one walking home with TWO POUNDS OF BACON!!!

Only, I wasn't. I walked in the door, and found Husband J slicing up some peaches into little bowls of greek yogurt for our breakfast, and pouring coffee.

"Did you find the pork belly?" he asked.

"Nope," I said, "so I got bacon. See?"

I reached into the bag and got a handful of parsley. Bay leaf. Two slices of Norwegian Jarlsburg. Thyme. Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. But no bacon. I'd left it at the register.

Gallant Husband J grabbed the receipt and trotted back to Whole Foods to fetch the bacon while I seethed, steamed and sweated, and used up all our ice in an ice bath to defrost the pork shoulder.

Pork Shoulder defrosting in its package. I looove you Cedarbrook Farm!

When the bacon arrived, I chopped it up into sliced chunks and threw it into the big stock pot.

mmm. Bacon.

The pork shoulder had about defrosted, so I cut the three pound cut into thirds, and chopped a third into chunks. The shoulder even had a layer of skin on it, which to my credit, I was NOT grossed out by. Mostly I thought to myself, "cool, skin" because although I am not awesome enough to actually slaughter a pig and cook it for my dinner, I feel that buying pastured pork with the bones and skin and all is a good way to get to that point.

Pork shoulder chopped. At the top is the branded or stamped bits of skin. To the right of those is my Whole Foods receipt, used to claim the bacon. To the right is my 8.5 inch Wusthof chef's knife. She is my very favorite knife. I call her "Vera."

The pork went into the pot along with some fresh herbs (parsley, bay leaf, thyme) and four cups of water.


I turned the heat on to low, and we are set to cook for six hours. Now there is something kind of morally reprehensible to me about boiling bacon. Bacon, like all the most delicious foods (onion rings, paneer pakoras, beignets, calamari, mars bars) should be FRIED. And I can't help but thinking of that bit in Better Off Dead where the mom boils the bacon and it turns green and disgusting. But the French have apparently been boiling bacon for centuries, and who am I to argue with the French and Julia Child?

Next, time to make some basic pie dough from the "miscellaneous meez" (ugh, so precious) section of the cookbook, for tonight's dinner of zucchini/tomato/leek quiche. There aren't any quiche recipes in the Les Halles Cookbook, but I do make a mean quiche, and am evangelical about handmade pie crusts. Premade does NOT taste the same, or feel the same, or ANYTHING the same as a simple, easy homemade crust. I have made plenty of crusts in my time, but now is a great time to try Tony's recipe.

Today it's time to try a crust technique that I've never done--pie crust in the food processor. I've heard it's the easiest, best way to make a pie crust, but what can I say... I'm old school and tend to use a fork. I put 2 cups of sifted flour into the processor, along with sugar, salt, a stick of butter and a beaten egg (really? Never used an egg in pie crust either). Blended all of this until it was a mass of crust.


Then I added a tablespoon and a half of water. when the crust came away from the sides of the Cuisinart, it was time to roll it into a ball, cover in plastic, and refrigerate.

Pulling away from the sides of the Cuisinart.

The pork continued to simmer on the stovetop, filling the house with pork-smelling goodness. I sat down for a break to watch a DVD of The French Chef with Julia Child that I got off Netflix (to husband J's dismay--he'd wanted either The State or Mad Men, both of which were ahead of The French Chef in our queue. But both had "long waits" so The French Chef it was). Julia was cooking tripes a la mode, holding up an entire cow stomach for our viewing pleasure. Between putting together the quiche (bacon, egg, cheese, veggies sauteed in bacon fat), the pork simmering on the stove (more than half fat itself) and the tripe on the tv, I was beginning to feel a little ill.

Once properly cooled, I rolled the pie crust out on my silicone mat. To my great dismay, the crust was a little too dry, and cracked immediately. I frantically patched it together, but by the time I had it rolled out and ready to get into the pie pan, it cracked again. I had to console myself with piecing it, bit by bit, into the pie pan, and pressing it together first with fingertips, then the heel of my hand for an even surface.

FRANKENCRUST!!!

At least it was marginally in once piece at this point. I filled it with zucchini-onion mixture, then bits of bacon left over from the rillettes and cooked the way God intended (that is FRIED), then some halved cherry tomatoes from the market, and covered it with a mix of eggs, milk, cream, and cheese. Popped that into the oven for about an hour.

Some people would have arranged the tomatoes and zucchini artfully, perhaps in an elegant spiral. Those people can suck it.

By this time, Julia was showing us how to fillet whole fish, and roast and serve them by pulling their tails apart and stuffing them through their mouths, as if they were throwing up their own tails. I was feeling seriously sick at that point.

"I should have made salad," I groaned.

"Is the quiche ready?" asked Husband J.

Almost. The quiche was golden brown at the end of the hour, and out of the oven it came, ready for our dinner.


To my astonishment, frankencrust actually tasted really good. It wasn't rock hard, as I feared it would be, but buttery, light, and flaky, the way a good pie crust should be. It got a bit heavy at the edges, but that's it. I managed to get down a small piece of quiche, but that was about all the grease I could handle for one night. Husband J procured a dry riesling that was acidic enough to make me feel a little better. It was practically a salad.

After dinner, the pork was ready. I drained it in a colander, then, in batches, shredded the pork with two forks.

This really does not look appetizing.

Shredding the pork

"Feel free to shovel some still-warm pork into your face," recommends Tony when you get to this step. "You know you want to."

Well actually I was still feeling sick and did NOT want any pork. But I managed to feed some to Husband J, who gave it an enthusiastic double thumbs up.

Finally, the shredded pork gets stored in small plastic containers under a layer of back fat. It has to marry for three days, so we'll try one of the containers on Wednesday (with a SALAD) and report back on how it tastes!

Covered in back fat. Haha. "Back fat."

Lessons Learned: Pork belly has a season and it starts in September, which is not now. "Back fat" is hilarious to say. Don't leave your bacon at the Whole Foods, but if you do, it's easy to get back. Making too much bacon-centered foods in one day while watching Julia Child cook tripe will make you feel very sick, so try not to do that.

Next time: Tasting report on rillettes du porc.

(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.