Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

The final installment of That Cookbook Thing II, a community review of various recipes in Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One, brings us to desserts. The French are perhaps the most renowned for their desserts, particularly those involving pastry. Our final group sampling comes from the essential chapter Desserts and Cakes, in which one is introduced to fundamental baking techniques as well as what goes into making quintessentially French tarts.

Central to the art of baking are the various binding requirements of eggs, sugar and cream or milk required for pastries and pastry cream. The latter is more intricate for all it takes is a difference of temperature, quantity or inclusion of one or two different ingredients to go from a creme anglaise to a frangipane pastry cream. While short on theory, Child et al. provide enough information in order for you to succeed in baking heavenly tarts. The idea is to get you into the kitchen, not to weigh you down to the point of inertia.

Dessert tarts typically comprise of three elements: pastry shell, pastry cream and fruit. Of course, there are various pastries and creams from which to choose in order highlight one's chosen fruit(s), and this is where the French truly transcend the expectations of a simple dessert.

The tart that we were supposed to make is a flambeed cherry tart. While the cherry season has just begun in New Zealand, I was not able to find any. So, I decided on dried figs, which were still plump and responded well to reconstituting in red wine. Besides, figs are just as much a part of French life as cherries. The tart, finally, took a detour, ending up with more of southern flavour than a south-western one. Never mind. It is still a fruit tart, and you know I love tarts (Samantha Jones of Sex and the City included).

In making the tart, Child et al. suggest two possible tart shells and pastry creams. There is no discussion on which works best; therefore, the reader is empowered to create an instant repertoire - keep your fruit the same, and just change out the shell and cream. The pastry shell options are sweet short crust and sugar crust. I opted for the sugar crust, as it provides a firmer finish (depending on the amount of sugar used). As for the pastry cream, the options are a custard filling or an almond custart. I have an absolute adoration of almond custard (aka frangipane), so there was no debate. In combination with the figs, I was salivating from the first beating of the whisk - this is fruit tart ne plus ultra.

The tart fits a 25cm/10" tart pan. Overall, I used considerably less sugar than recommended.

Tarte aux Figues
(Largely based on Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck's first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

For the sugar crust pastry shell:

1 3/4 cups flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
7 tablespoons butter, diced
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1) Mix together flour, sugar and baking powder in a medium bowl.
2) Rub butter into the flour mixture with the tips of your fingertips until sand-like granules are formed. Touch as lightly and deftly as possible. (Believe me, you will get that hang of it if you make pastry tarts enough times.)
3) Mix in the beaten egg and vanilla and bring entire mixture together.
4) On a lightly floured surface, knead the mixture into a ball.
5) To fully blend the mixture, use the heel of your hand to press small sections of pastry in a quick smear of approximately 15cm/6"(this process is known as fraisage).
6) Form into a disc and wrap in clingfilm for approximately 30 mintues.
7) Preheat oven to 190 C/375 F.
8) Roll out disc on a lightly-floured surface.
9) Place pastry into a prepared (lightly filmed with butter and flour) tart mold. Cover with foil and baking beans, then bake for 6 minutes.
10) Remove foil and baking beans, prick base of the tart base, bake for a further 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on the rim of the shell, for it might blacken (due to sugar content). It is wise to place foil around the rim, as I have done in the past but neglected to do on this occasion.
11) Remove from oven and from mold, and let cool on a rack, during which time it will also harden.

For the figs:

1 cup red wine
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons sugar
3 cups dried figs, halved if large

1) Boil red wine, lemon juice and sugar.
2) Add the figs.
3) Simmer for 5-6 minutes, then off the heat and let figs steep in liquid for approximately twenty minutes.
4) Drain figs (no need to reserve liquid).

For the frangipane (almond custard):

1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup boiling milk
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup almond flour (pulverised almonds)
2 tablespoons cognac (or kirsch or brandy)

1) In a bowl, beat egg and egg yolk, gradually adding sugar.
2) When the mixture is pale yellow and forms ribbons, beat in the flour.
3) Add milk in a very thin stream.
4) Over medium heat, pour contents back into pot in which milk heated (to save on dishes, you understand), stir slowly, whipping all the time.
5) When the mixture becomes lumpy, beat vigorously until a paste is formed, all the while over the heat to cook the flour. Be careful not to burn the mixture on the bottom of the pot.
6) Off the heat, add butter, vanilla and almond extracts, almond flour and cognac. If you are not using it immediately, clean the sides and dot top with butter to prevent a film from forming over the frangipane.

To assemble the tart:

1) Fold drained figs into the frangipane.
2) Spread figs into sugar crust tart shell.
3) Preheat broiler/grill in oven.
4) Sprinke 1 tablespoon sugar over surface.
5) Place under broiler for 2-3 minutes to caramelise the sugar.
6) Optional: Throw 1/4 cup cognac, kirsh or brandy over surface of tart, alight and present to table.

This truly is a heady and wonderful combination, a complete success. The tart shell is sturdy and sweet, the figs heady and plump, the almond custard and booze rounding our the flavours of the tart with interest. While there are a few steps to building this tart, not one of them is difficult - and only the last optional step is potentially dangerous. I found that this tasted just as good the next day with a perfectly hot cup of strong black coffee, but I have a love of sweet goods late in the afternoon (I must be Central European at heart).

That Cookbook Thing II has been a wonderful experience for me to get to know a classic cookery text. Whilst I have not proceeded to engage in it to the nth degree as Julie Powell of the famous Julie/Julia Project, I have made a connection to Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's masterful text. This is a great text for the home cook, for its sole purpose is to really train the reader to produce quality meals at home. The tips are insightful and the organisation of the great selection of recipes is practically unparallelled. This is a user-friendly guide for those of us who love French cooking.

Labels: Book Review, Fig Tart, Figs, French, Fruit tart, Julia Child, That Cookbook Thing II

I don't know about you, but I cannot keep all the various cuts of meat straight. It has been most confusing keeping track of what one calls a particular cut in New Zealand and what one calls the same thing in the US. It is even more confusing when translating the same cut from another language - I need to check a few references (first, the one in the language/country from which I have found the recipe source) before finding a synonymous cut in New Zealand. It really does my head in. Perhaps this is because I'm easy when it comes to meat - no pun intended. If I see oxtail, I think of braising; if I see sirloin, I think of frying (in all its sanguineous glory, please). I have neither an allegiance to a selection of meat nor to a method of cooking. Today's choice selection, tournedos, ensured that I checked a few references before embarking on a the recipe selected for That Cookbook Thing II.

And so the research question: What is tournedos? Because today's post reflects a selection of meat recipes from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck's first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, it is best to see how Child et al. describe it. Better than verbal description alone, the ladies provide a cross-section diagram of a whole filet of beef. Tournedos is located in the T-bone steak section, which is towards the lower back, as opposed to the shoulder/rump. The T-bone is divided into two sections: tournedos (next to the filet steak of the porterhouse cut) and filet mignon (at the extremity of the rib end of the steak). This is clear enough, but another source, Martha Stewart, says that filet mignon and tournedos are the same thing in America. This conflicts with Julia Child's lesson, which is directed to an American audience. New Zealand Beef tells you that one side of the T-bone flesh is the tenderloin, agreeing with Child et al., one part of this is the tournedos. My head hurts already, but I think we're there...

The commonality of all these descriptions is the rib end of the beef steak (but not its extremity, which is the filet mignon), no matter whom you listen to. Armed with this basic understanding of steak, I trotted off to my butcher par excellence, the wonderful guys at Seaview Meats, and ordered: "Tournedos, or whatever one is calling it today. I would like six healthy portions of it, and all I know is that it is not the filet mignon but the the other bit of the T-bone's tenderloin." Exhibit A, this post's opening photograph, is what I got.

As you can see, it is not as marbeled as the filet steak (cut from the mid-section - aka Porterhouse), but it is indeed tender. The lack of marbling is an excuse to fry the steak with strips of pork fat.

The following recipe serves 6.

Tournedos Sautés Chasseur
(from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck's first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

6 rounds of bread, thinly sliced, crust removed (I used one of spelt and flax seed)
4 tablespoons clarified butter
250g/ 1/2lb fresh mushrooms, whole or quartered if big
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided use
2 tablespoons oil, divided use
2 tablespoons minced shallots
salt
pepper
6 tournedos, each bundled in a strip of gorgeous fat
1/2 cup beef stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup brandy (or Madeira), mixed with 1 tablespoon cornstarch (or arrowroot)
1 1/2 tablespoons parsley, minced

1) Sauté the rounds of bread in the clarified butter, lightly browned on each side. Re-heat at 180 C/350 F immediately before serving.
2) Sauté mushrooms in 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon oil.
3) Stir in shallots and cook over medium-low heat for two minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then set aside.
4) Heat up 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in sauté pan over medium-high heat. When butter foams, sauté the tournedos to your preference, then immediately remove from heat. Season the tournedos and plate each one on a separate piece of browned bread. Keep warm while the following sauce is prepared.
5) Remove fat from the sauté pan in which your prepared the steaks, add stock and tomato paste. Boil fiercely, scraping up the browned bits (the fond) and cooking juices.
6) When the liquid is reduced to but 2-3 tablespoons, add brandy and starch mixture. Boil until alcohol has evaporated and sauce has thickened.
7) Add sautéed mushrooms, simmer to blend the flavours and taste for seasoning.
8) Spread mushrooms over the steaks.
9) Sprinkle parsley over the dish.

Ms. Child recommends that the dish is served with whole-roasted tomatoes, artichoke hearts prepared in butter, or potato balls sautéed in butter. I roasted tomatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. I also served the dish with sautéed bok choy, which is not French at all, but I like to serve red meat with greens. You, of course, will do as you please.

Even though the dish serves 6, I had two tournedos. I was feeling very greedy but regretted it soon after. One really is enough if one wants dessert afterwards (besides, one supposedly shouldn't consume more meat than the size of one's palm). In terms of repeatability, the tournedos, truthfully, are very simply prepared. I will marinate them next time. The mushrooms work well in the sauce, but it is too tomato heavy, really. Less tomato paste and perhaps some herbs will liven it up next time. As seems to be the case with all the recipes attempted for That Cookbook Thing II, Mastering the Art of French Cooking provides the willing cook with wonderful foundational material from which one can spring forth with personal additions and twists.

Please visit the posts of my friends in the blogging community who have also tried this dish as part of That Cookbook Thing II: Mike at Mel's Diner, Sara at I Like to Cook, Ruth at Once Upon A Feast, and Deborah at What's In My Kitchen?.

Labels: Book Review, French, Julia Child, Steak, That Cookbook Thing II, Tournedos

When I first read through the recipe sequence for That Cookbook Thing II, I had not thought of making the highlighted chicken dish, Poulet au Porto (chicken in port), the centrepiece of a casual dinner with great friends. I had imagined it as an easy Sunday dinner for one, not only because I have no great affection for fungi but also because I derive a lot of satisfaction from making roast chicken. Yet I am also a man of occasional drama. Knowing of the delight that the intellectually-ferocious and generous Anita and quick-witted and cool Craig would get from a bit of flambée action, it was clear that the otherwise simple recipe of roast chicken and mushrooms would lend a touch of the unexpected to a dynamic evening.

Of course, it also helps that it is expressly stated in Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking that Poulet au Porto is the perfect dish to make in the company of close friends. After all, the chicken can roast whilst host and guests imbibe the first of the evening's glasses of wine along with home-made pâté and charklis pkhali. After the first drinks have warmed the back of the throat and lightened the load in one's head, it is easier to rope friends into participating in the kitchen. Speaking of drinks, booze features rather prominently in this menu, for the home-made pâté (an on-going receipe development, becoming more nuanced with each attempt) is rich with brandy, the mushrooms for the poulet au porto are reduced with both brandy and port, the poulet itself is set alight after a splash of brandy, and the evening's dessert, Prune Tart, is made with brandy-sozzled prunes d'Agen.

Perhaps the aid of wine-happy friends is not what Ms. Child had in mind when suggesting that Poulet au Porto be made for the company of friends, but one cannot be too sure given how many cocktails housewives and cookie-cutter husbands knocked back in their square homes in the `60s (all in the name of sophistication, of course). And maybe it was the drink speaking, but the chapter on Poultry is quite hilarious, easily one of the most evocative of the period at the time the cookery book was originally released (1961). I don't know anyone with a trussing needle nor do I know anyone who "averts" his or her face when engaging in flambée - in fact, it would be a dangerous decision not to keep an eye on the development of the flames. The notion of stitching up a chicken or avoiding a flame in so prissy a manner comes to a head in these rushed, contemporary times when kitchen string does the trick (faster) and purposefully-created flames over food whoosh and wheeze before one has had time to think about looking the other way.

The French, in any period, are particularly revered for their poultry dishes. Whether the chicken be stewed in red wine, poached in an aromatic liquor, or bronzed to Biarritz perfection, the common chicken gets a real make-over when prepared á la française. Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's Poulet au Porto also got a make-over by democratic decision-making.

Poulet au Porto
(Adapted from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

The essential components of Poulet au Porto are: 1) roast chicken; 2) mushroom sauce.

By now you probably know me as someone who greatly respects tried and true methods by cooks and chefs, but even I have a preferred method for roasting chicken. I have no patience nor derive any enjoyment from spreading butter over the skin or between the skin and flesh of a chicken. I personally think it best if you roast a chicken in the way that pleases you most; otherwise, see Mike's version of Julia Child's method at Mel's Diner.

For the roast chicken:

1 whole chicken, to serve four people (or three greedy ones, like us)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
fleur de sel
black pepper, freshly-ground
to fill the cavity: a citrus fruit of your choice (usually one orange or lemon, halved; if the fruit is small, use more and slice in half), and a bunch of fresh herbs. (I generally throw in a few whole cloves of garlic, but the quick-witted and cool Craig is allergic to members of the allium family.)

1) Pre-heat oven to 200C/400F.
2) Coat the chicken in the olive oil.
3) Sprinkle the chicken all over and inside the cavity with fleur de sel (or kosher salt) and pepper.
4) Fill the cavity with the citrus, herbs and garlic, if using.
5) Close the legs of the chicken with kitchen string and tuck the wings tips under the "neck" of the chicken to prevent early burning during the roasting period.
6) Put chicken in the oven, breast side up.
7) Baste every twenty minutes, turning the roasting tray every time until the chicken is done, approximately 80 minutes.
8) There are a couple of tests to do to ensure that the chicken is done. To my mind, the fastest method is to cut the inner thigh close to the bone. If the liquid runs clear yellow, the chicken is done. If it is rosy, then you need to roast the chicken longer. Check every 5 minutes.
9) Remove chicken from the oven and cover with aluminium foil for 10-15 minutes.

While the chicken is resting, prepare the mushrooms and sauce. The ferociously-intelligent and generous Anita, quick-witted and cool Craig and I dispensed with the notion of "boiling" the mushrooms by using but a couple of tablespoons of water to create steam.

For the mushrooms and sauce:

300g/10.5oz mushrooms (we used innocuous button mushrooms), trimmed and sliced thinly
1/4 tablespoon butter
spritz of lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup (heavy) cream
1/4 tablespoon cornstarch
salt, pepper, if necessary
1/5 cup port

1) Toss mushrooms, butter, lemon juice (a quick squeeze) and salt in a saucepan. Cover. Shake saucepan every now and then until mushrooms have softened, about 5 mintues.
2) Slicken with heavy cream.
3) Add cornstarch to one tablespoon of water and stir until combined.
4) Stir cornstarch into mushrooms. Check for seasoning - add salt and pepper, if required.
5) Stir in port. Leave uncovered until liquid has reduced somewhat and strongest notes of alcohol have evaporated.

To assemble the Poulet au Porto:

Roasted chicken, as above, jointed or carved into slices
Mushrooms in port, as above
salt
1/2 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup brandy

1) Smear a casserole dish with butter.
2) Arrange chicken pieces in casserole dish and dust lightly with salt.
3) Put casserole dish over a moderate heat.
4) When the butter begins to bubble and the chicken begins to sizzle, pour cognac over the chicken and set cognac alight.
5) Gently shake casserole dish until flames have abated.
6) Pour in the mushrooms in port, coating the chicken.

Perfect with an earthy red wine or an aromatic white wine alike, this silken dish is the essence of comfort cooking. The dish's lack of pretense is relaxing; therefore, it is conducive to good discussion around the table, underscoring Julia Child's recommendation of preparing it in the company of very good friends. We simply paired the poulet au porto with wilted down spinach, sautéed in olive oil and lightly seasoned. It is a perfect side dish to a modest main. Julia Child suggests potatoes sautéed in butter or a simple risotto as vegetable suggestions that do not interfere with the deep flavours of the Poulet au Porto.

After a cheese platter of gouda, English stilton, camembert, membrillo and cherry tomatoes, we yearned for a sweet note on which to end our fabulous evening. Sticking with the "cooking with booze" theme of the evening, I turned to a tart that I had not had since I lived in France more than ten years ago: Prune and Armagnac Tart. I reached for brandy instead, but it is practically the same as armagnac if one bears in mind that armagnac has vintages - good for remembering the best years - whereas more common brandy can be of varying quality. Use your preferred booze. (Stephanie Alexander recommends against telling the French of the south-west that cognac and armagnac are the same thing.)

The following recipe suits a 26cm/10.5" fluted tart pan, and the tart pastry is slightly boozy, too!

Prune and Brandy Tart
(from Prune and Armagnac Tart in Stephanie Alexander's Cooking and Travelling in South-West France)

For the pastry:

1 1/4 cups flour, sifted
tiny pinch of kosher salt
113g/4oz unsalted butter, diced
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon orange blossom water
1/2 teaspoon brandy

1) In a medium-sized bowl, mix flour and salt together.
2) With the tips of your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until sand-like granules are formed. This is your dry mixture.
3) In a separate bowl, gently whisk together egg, orange blossom water and brandy. This is your liquid mixture.
4) Stir the liquid mixture into the dry mixture until a ball is formed. You might not need all of the liquid for this.
5) Knead lightly and quickly with the goal of encouraging cohesion. Lightly flatten out to a disc, wrap dough in cling-film and refrigerate for thirty minutes.

For the tart:

1 tart recipe, as above
1 egg white, lightly beaten
20-24 prunes d'Agen, steeped in brandy (reserve the brandy)
4 eggs
100g/3oz ground almonds
125ml/4.5oz (whipping) cream
1 tablespoon brandy
60g/2oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1) Pre-heat oven to 200C/400F.
2) Lightly dust your pastry surface (marble stone, cool benchtop, cold wooden board), rolling pin and hands with flour, then gently roll out the pastry, always from the centre. Turn the pastry clockwise after every couple of passes of the rolling pin to ensure that it does not stick to your surface (throw some flour underneath every now and then for extra security).
3) Loosely roll pastry around rolling pin, and roll dough out over a prepared (with butter and flour) tart pan. Gently ease the pastry into the pan, then use the rolling pin to cut across the edges of the pan to remove the excess pastry.
4) Prick holes in the base of the tart with the tines of a fork and blind bake for 15 minutes. To "blind bake": line pastry with foil, cover with beans and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the foil and beans, brush pastry base with egg whites, then bake for a further 5 minutes).
5) Reset oven to 180C/375F.
6) Position the boozy prunes in the tart pan.
7) Mix the eggs, ground almonds, cream and melted butter in a small bowl, then gently pour over the prunes, trying not to disturb their layout.
8) Bake until the custard is firm, about 25 minutes.
9) Before the tart is completely cool, brush it with some of the reserved brandy.

Prune and Brandy Tart is simple as far as ingredients and method go, but the depth of the sweet yet spicy prunes combined with nutty, buttery almonds is a beguiling experience. So enchanting was the first slice (or so boozed were we) that we had seconds. This is the perfect tart for almost any occasion, as it is elegant, flavourful, and can be served at room temperature. A perfect ending to a perfect meal.

Please review the other bloggers' posts on Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's Poulet au Porto - Mike at Mel's Diner, Ruth at Once Upon A Feast, and Sara at i like to cook.

Labels: Book Review, Brandy, Chicken, Cooking with booze, French, Fruit tart, Julia Child, Port, Prune Tart, Prunes, That Cookbook Thing II

French lunches are almost always simple yet fully-flavoured affairs. There is great importance placed on fresh produce and a steady reliance on eggs, the superfood.

In her many texts, Elizabeth David paints glorious pictures of lunch at provincial hotels after drives in the countryside or along the roadside with provisions from a hotel proprietor or produce bought at an impromptu moment. Always, the descriptions of lunch menus are spellbinding. An enticing pastoral lunch is David's famous preference for an omelette and a glass of wine, preceded by home-made pâté, and olives, followed by fresh salad, a ripe, creamy cheese and small, fresh fruit, such as figs or strawberries. In the first instance, this lunch menu is beyond simple; it is a masterplan that can be adapted to every season. Thinking of the buttery, eggy omelettes, rich cheese, bitter salad leaves, salty olives, gamy pâté, and honeyed figs, one sees that this is an exploration of seasonailty, temperatures and textures. This is also a celebration of depth of flavours.

The most popular lunch item that has been appropriated by many a nation is quiche Lorraine (although often bastardised with the addition of cheese). In fact, such is the simplicity and convenience of making open-faced tarts that Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck first present readers of their Mastering the Art of French Cooking) with a series of quiches in their chapter on Entrées and Luncheon Dishes, from which That Cookbook Thing II tests this month's chosen recipe: Râpée de Morvandelle.

If one is too pressed to make a pâte brisée (as shown at the introduction of this chapter, which also gives detailed preparations on making soufflées, which I recognise may not be a typical offering at lunchtime these days) for a quiche, one can turn the filling of a quiche into a gratin (named for the shallow heat-proof dish in which it cooks). Gratins also often have cheese (usually Swiss cheese), bubbling and burnished as they come out of the oven and are transferred to the lunch table. Râpée de Morvandelle is a gratin of shredded potatoes with eggs, onion, and ham.

Râpée de Morvandelle
(from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

1/2 cup onions, finely minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
56g/4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided use
120g/3oz cooked ham, finely diced
4 eggs
1/2 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
120g/3oz cheese, grated (I used Gruyere; the receipe suggests Swiss)
4 tablespoons cream
salt, pepper
300g/10oz potatoes

1) Preheat oven to 190 C/375 F.
2) Over medium-low heat, heat oil and 21g/1.5 tablespoons butter in a saute pan, then cook onions until yeilding but not coloured.
3) Turn heat up to medium, then add ham and cook for one minute.
4) In a bowl, beat together the garlic, parsley, cheese, cream, salt and pepper.
5) Add onions and ham to the beaten mixture.
6) Peel potatoes and grate them with the large holes of a box grater.
7) Squeeze water out of the grated potatoes.
8) Stir potatoes into egg miture.
9) Check for seasoning.
10) Heat 21g/1.5 tablespoons butter in a heat-proof baking dish or oven-proof saute pan/skillet. When warmed through and foaming, pour in the potato mixture.
11) Dot with the remaining 14g/1 tablespoon of butter.
12) Bake in upper-third of the oven until top has browned, approximately 35-40 minutes.
13) Serve from the baking dish or sauté pan.

True, this is simplicity itself, but it is an odd dish to pick to highlight a section of a cookery book. That said, like Elizabeth David's aforementioned lunch menu, many a technical foundation is taught in this chapter, and this gratin is appealing and adaptable. Imagine it encased in a buttery pâte brisée or swap out the onion for leeks and blitz chives into the butter that dots the gratin. This is the foundation for a lunchtime centrepiece; it is rich, fulsome, and perfect.

Feel free to check out the results of That Cookbook Thing II's other members: Sara of i like to cook, Ruth of Once Upon A Feast, Mary of The Sour Dough, Kittie of Kittens in the Kitchen , Elle of Elle's New England Kitchen, Deborah of What's In My Kitchen?, and Mary of Cooking For Five. Bon appétit.

Labels: Book Review, Eggs, French, gratin, Julia Child, That Cookbook Thing II

If it weren't for my basic biblical and Islamic knowledge, I would have assumed that the Queen of Sheba was a notoriously haughty woman who did as she pleased, a non-fictional, pre-Common Era Duchess of Langeais. This impression stems from the colloquialism in the title of this post (but for the French name for the queen). In fact, I recall a few childhood moments witnessing my mother's frustration as women cut in front of her in queues or acted superior to her when they were the ones behind the counter. Out of an offending woman's earshot, my mother would mutter under her breath, "Who does she think she is? The Queen of Sheba?"

The Queen of Sheba is recorded to have travelled from the areas of contemporary Eritrea and Ethiopia to Jerusalem as a monarch conducting international affairs. She was impressed by King Solomon's wisdom, to whom she presented many questions and riddles, and submitted to monotheism.

What the gâteau, reine de Saba, has to do with the Queen of Sheba, I do not know. I have thus far not been able to find a connection between the two and have thus invented it: 1) The cake contains almonds, which are part of the regular diet in Ethiopia; 2) The cake is rich, and the Queen of Sheba is recorded as being a very wealthy monarch, having gifted a load of gold to King Solomon.

Reine de Saba with Glaçage au chocolat
(from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

For the cake:

120g/4 oz chocolate (I used 68%)
2 tablespoons espresso (or rum)
113g/4 oz unsalted butter
2/3 cup and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, divided use
3 eggs, divided into yolks and whites
pinch of salt
1/3 cup finely ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon bitter almond extract
1/2 cup flour (cake flour is also good), scooped, levelled and sifted

1) Pre-heat oven to 180 C/350 F.
2) Butter and flour a cake tin (I used a 23cm/9" springform pan).
3) Create a double-boiler and set chocolate and espresso on top, letting the chocolate melt while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
4) Cream the butter and 2/3 cup of sugar until pale and fluffy.
5) Beat in the egg yolks.
6) In a separate bowl, such as a clean stainless steel bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks are formed.
7) Sprinkle one tablespoon of sugar on the soft peaks and beat until you have stiff peaks.
8) Blend the melted chocolate into the creamed mixture.
9) Stir in almonds and almond extract.
10) Stir in 1/4 of the beaten egg whites to lighten the density, then gently fold in the remaining egg whites 1/3 at a time, interspersed with additions of flour by the third.
11) Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake on the middle shelf in your oven for approximately 25 minutes.
12) The cake is ready when it has puffed slightly and 6cm/2.5" around the circumference are set (a toothpick test in this section should be clean, and it should be oily if poked into the centre of the cake).

For the icing:

60g/2 oz chocolate (again, I used 68%)
2 tablespoons espresso
56g/4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1) Melt chocolate with espresso in a double-boiler.
2) When perfectly smooth, remove from heat and beat in butter one tablespoon at a time.
3) A spreading consistency needs to be achieved. As the icing is cooling, you can beat over a bowl of ice until spreading consistency is reached.

Decorating the cake with almonds tells your quests that there almonds are present in the cake. As I mentioned around this time last year, almond flour adds depth of flavour and imparts a moist result. Reine de Saba is rich beyond belief; it is both dense and creamy.

I don't who she thinks she is, but reine de Saba is welcome to turn up any time an easy-to-make and rich cake is desired.

Labels: Afternoon Tea, Chocolate Cake, French, Julia Child, Reine de Saba cake

In January of this year, a group of food bloggers reviewed Norwegian chef Andreas Viestad's Where Flavor Was Born, and they all had different results. Sometimes the Round Table Review bloggers concurred that instructions were vague, some failed where others succeeded, and all of them found at least one new favourite recipe. While it is clear that subjectivity reigns when deciding on whether to integrate recipes into one's repertoire, I am wholly amenable to building on this dialogue where bloggers are working from a common space in order to understand the many ways we orient ourselves in the world by way of various texts on cooking. To work with Where Flavor Was Born, the bloggers' selection of recipes to test was decided by a complicated rubric - season, availability, cost, individual preferences. What the selection of recipes to test essentially offers is an education into what an author offers as the truth of its chosen subject. The varying results act as a cross-section of reviews for those who are thinking about purchasing the cookery book.

So, exhilerated by this experience, one of the members of the Round Table review group, Mike of Mel's Diner, decided to test some recipes as a way of illustrating some truths of French bourgeois cookery by way of the classic text Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. Personally, I jumped at the chance to join the bunch because I didn't have this landmark American book - like any interested foodie, I have come across the title many times, whether it be a reference in a bibliography or an adaptation of a recipe, but I never got around to buying it. I suppose the apprehension is because I did not grow up in a household that had had the text "since forever" and valorised it for its appropriation of American cuts of meat to French techniques, but my curiosity never waned when the book was referred to. The other members of That Cookbook Thing II are: Sara of i like to cook, Ruth of Once Upon A Feast, Mary of The Sour Dough, Kittie of Kittens in the Kitchen , Elle of Elle's New England Kitchen, Deborah of What's In My Kitchen?, and Mary of Cooking For Five.

One of Mastering the Art of French Cooking's great assets is its recipe layout. The recipes are divided into two columns - on the left-hand side are the ingredients, matched in the right-hand column with the concomitant method for the ingredients. This prevents confusion, especially when ingredient lists are long, and it forces a thorough reading of the recipe before cooking, which is what one should do, but do we all do as we should in our private lives?

Based purely on a cursory exploration, I have to say that recipe layout aside, this is an odd book. There are useful tips on food preparation peppered throughout the book (and strange ones, like illustrated hints on preparing a gigot - leg of lamb - which I know is because this cut is a fave in traditional French cookery, but what about the rest?), but there is no real historical context. And this is what poses a problem for the first recipe I am testing from the book: Sauce au Cari.

Curry in French cooking?! (Double-take.)

Why it was so necessary for the authors to choose this sauce from others in the haute bourgeousie's reportoire, I do not know. Yes, I am aware that most people don't care - a sauce is a sauce - but I'd like to know why this recipe is featured and what particular curry blend Ms. Child and gang had in mind when they prepared Sauce au Cari. I know Escoffier made it, with similar lack of detail regarding his blend du jour (and this is probably how it entered Child's lexicon), but what I want to know is what she had been exposed to that made it so good - my searches online have not been able to elucidate my inquiry.

To say that the French don't like hot spices might be stretching it, but what we know from the representations of French cuisine that cram bookshelves is that there are not a lot of piquant flavours in French cuisine - at least not without a salty kick. So, my guess is that the types of curries that were appropriated by the French during Julia Child's time in France are those that came from France's many colonies. Following this line of thought, I turned to West Africa for a curry mix, which is exciting because the fact that I find myself doing this undoes preconceptions I had of the book - whether or not that is the intention, I do not know for sure, but cooking is an intimate process, so it almost does not matter what Les Trois Gourmandes had in mind.

Ghanian curry powders typically feature 12 or more spices, herbs and seeds. I was without some ingredients - Grains of Paradise, groundnuts, tamarind, fenugreek and mace; however, I substituted peanuts for groundnuts and black pepper for Grains of Paradise. While I had no idea of the ratio of each ingredient per cup of curry blend, I used the various ingredients according to my own taste in order to produce a curry blend that made up a nuanced blend without too much heat, which I decided is what Escoffier would have liked. The following recipe makes exactly enough for the Sauce au Cari - just over three tablespooms.

Ghanian Curry Blend

1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon shelled peanuts
1/2 cinnamon quill
1 teaspoon cardamom seeds
5 cloves
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, whole
1 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
3/4 tablespoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon lemon zest

1) In a dry saute pan over medium heat, heat the cumin seeds, fennel seeds, peanuts, cinnamon, cardamom seeds, cloves and black pepper until fragrant, tilting the pan occassionally in order to allow oils and heat from the ingredients to intermingle. Do not allow any ingredients to burn.
2) Take off the heat and allow to cool.
3) Discard the cinnamon, and tip the rest of fragrant spices and seeds into a spice blender with the nutmeg, turmeric and lemon zest.
4) Blend until a powder is formed.

Depending on which way you want to swing, Sauce au Cari can be a riff on béchamel (milk based) or velouté (stock based), and it can be as thick or thin as you like. I think a few members of That Cookbook Thing II had an issue with the thickness of the sauce. Having made béchamel a million times with my angelheart Eric (many Sunday nights making lasagne with parmesan and asiago), I paid great attention to the writers' suggestion of cooking the sauce for 10-15 minutes after adding the liquid. Stopping in between the suggested duration, my sauce was just right, and I did not need to enrich and thin the sauce with more than 5 tablespoons of cream. Of course, the timing is dependent on the size of your saucepan (Mesdames Child, Bertholle and Beck suggest an 8-cup enameled saucepan), and I think that the volume capacity has a lot to do with the desired consistency within the suggested times to thicken and cook the sauce.

The following recipe makes 2 1/2 cups of sauce.

Sauce au Cari
(from Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

1/2 minced white or yellow onion
70.5 - 84.75g/5-6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided use
2-3 tablespoons curry powder, such as the Ghanian Curry Blend above
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups boiling milk (for a variation of a béchamel sauce)
4-6 tablespoons whipping/heavy cream
salt
pepper
lemon juice

1) Cook onions and 56.5g/4 tablespoons of butter over low heat for approximately ten minutes. This allows to the onions to soften without colouring.
2) Stir in the curry powder and continue to cook over low heat for two minutes.
3) Add the flour in one go, stir, and cook over low heat for three minutes.
4) Take curried mixture off the heat and blend in the boiling milk.
5) Return to the heat - increasing slightly to obtain a simmer, which is to be maintained for 10-15 minutes, depending on desired thickness. Stir occasionally.
6) Remove sauce from the heat, add enough of the cream to your preference, and add salt, pepper and lemon juice for preferred seasoning.
7) Enrich the sauce by stirring in 14-28.25/1-2 tablespoons, bit by bit. Feel free to add minced parsley for colour.

Whilst fragrant and delectable with sautéed skinless chicken thighs (not my usual choice, for skinless and boneless preparations reek of hypermarket disrespect for provenance, but it seems that many things are without explanation today), I still do not understand why Sauce au Cari is included in this book, unless it is the only master class curry sauce that the French acknowledge - nowadays that would be hard to believe, but perhaps not impossible to comprehend in the 1940s-60s, the time in which Julia Child lived in France, culminating in this book co-written with her Les Trois Gourmandes partners in crime.

Stay tuned for further explorations of Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck's tribute to La Belle France, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Labels: Bechamel, Book Review, Curry, French, Ghana, Julia Child, Sauce