Pratitque de Base -- Lessons 3-4

Lesson 3

• Gratin of Hard-Boiled Eggs -- one of the oldest recipes known in France (cookbook claims there are copies from the 17th century), this is simple and elegant. The problem is that my family has preconceived notions about eggs -- what they should look like, when to eat them, etc. Their closed minds meant my intake went up (along with my cholesterol). Delicious, but not even The Boy liked them.
• Poached Swordfish with Pearl Onions and Mushrooms -- A variation on the veal chop recipe (my concession to Donna's insistence that we limit meat intake). This is delicious! BFP pushed aside the pearl onions, but loved the 'shrooms and fish. Donna and Andre loved the whole thing. It was fabulous. LFP was a no-show.

Time: 3.5 hours Complexity: 6 (of 10) Cost: $76.59* Mess: 7**

Lesson 4

• Smoked Salmon Crepes -- Wow! A big winner all the way around. Macerating the salmon (soaking in milk for 2 hours) made it really tender and less "fishy". Disclaimer: I am intensely annoyed by the non-specific complaint "it's too fishy". When's the last time someone complained that a t-bone was "too meaty". It's a stupid comment that should die a quick and unhonored death. However, this maceration method will help certain people with the designation FP (Fuss Pot) transition into more fish consumption. LFP ate the plain (but homemade and nicely prepared) crepes. For the rest, it cut like a sushi roll. A big winner that should be repeated. Leftovers were (nearly) equally good. Update: Deidre has made this dish the buzz of Mendham Township Elementary School, Grade 3. Julia Neihoff tells Deidre: "I hate salmon, but I want to try it!" Confidence is low.
• Roast Leg of Lamb -- Another bastardized recipe (hey, no one in France is actually reading this -- which reminds me: Deidre, Alaina and their friend Grace Shin call me "Uncle Fritz" for reasons which escape/do not interest me. Andre looks at me and says "Hi, Uncle France!" Ok, I'm Uncle France.) I used a yogurt marinade (Donna gets an endorphin rush when I use already purchased ingredients from the 'fridge), including thyme, oregano, garlic, marjoram, lemon juice and sliced onions. Will definitely do this again, but four hours was not enough -- this is what will now be referred to as a Spitzer -- it's an overnighter. Convection roasted it for about 50 minutes (6 lb. leg) and it came very rare.
• Swiss Chard Gratin -- Another surprise winner! First time cooking chard -- it's expensive (about $8 for two servings for the family). Difficult to work with the white part (it's stringy and needs to cook a while) but the greens, after blanching, baked up deliciously. I screwed up by layering too much gruyere cheese (12 ounces, grated) thinking that would be a selling camouflage for the kids. Turns out they would've been fine with half that much. Good for leftovers.
• Chocolate Mousse with Hazelnuts and Whisky -- (substituted for Pineapple Sorbet, as I find non-machine-made ice creams and sorbets to be slushy ice baths...the kids enjoyed fresh cut pineapple much more than they would have liked the sorbet). I need to work on this one -- sugar did not dissolve properly. I skipped the hazelnuts (forgot to buy them) and that would have covered up the crunchy granules of sugar. Kids were ok w/it, but it wasn't ready for a more sophistimacated palate. Oh, and I was out of whisky, so I used dark rum instead. It was a good substitute.

Time: 3 hours Complexity: 5 (of 10) Cost: $62.65 Mess: 7*

*- Why do roast pans with drippings drive Donna crazy? And what possesses me to leave them crusting on the counter until the next day...every time?!?

Non-Lesson Meal

• Grilled Swordfish (marinated in soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and olive oil) -- wonderful! 5 minutes/side undercooked the fish...needed about 7 minutes/side to do the trick on the giant Weber grill.
• Hamburgers -- again, a freezer leftover item that just sent Donna into happyland that we used it. I could smell the estrogen from across the room (but it resulted in nothing as I ruined the romantic mood by making her watch Hurt Locker...big Pollack dummy).

First day this year we were able to eat outside. Deidre and I had planned an April Fools joke to play on Donna (telling her I was taking a job in Taipei and she should start learning to speak Mandarin now...Deidre was ready to say "wo bu mingbai" -- I don't understand...Donna's key foreign language phrase) but we didn't get it done. I substituted with a trick on Deidre -- she cut her toe and I put a giant bandage on it, covered it with a plastic bag and told her she had to hold it up in the air all night. I even offered to get rope and tie it to the ceiling light in their room to help. She fell for it, but said afterward she was humiliated. She has such a good heart, she can't believe anyone would ever lie to her. I am a bad person.

Pratique de Base

Pratique de Base?!? Sounds like something I should've done as a kid if I wanted steady work in bar bands.

Lesson 1

• Cucumber Salad with Mint -- this is the hit of the meal! Surprisingly, the whole family enjoys this simple dish. The only planning required is salting and draining the cucumbers. Fresh mint allows my "anti-mint" wife to enjoy the dish without her ingredient affectation rearing its ugly head (stereotype alert: this appears to be a very Italian trait -- see Thrifty Fifty post on garlic and cilantro).
• Roast Chicken -- I've gotten very comfortable with roasts over the last decade. Three keys to success here: 1) know your oven. Too many people assume "425F for 12 minutes/pound" is a universal directive. That's like saying "buy her a drink and tell her she's got a nice ass" to get laid. Ovens, their installation/insulation and the size/shape of the items you put in them introduce variations that inevitably lead to overcooked food. Get an oven thermometer, a meat thermometer and practice. 2) Don't rely on {in pompous PBS-produced cooking show voice} "when the fleshiest part of the poultry reads 170F, it is done". Yup. In fact, it was done half an hour ago and will be at a gravy-evaporating 185F by the time people eat it. Get accustomed to pulling roasts out early and testing. When a chicken is at 160F, it will cook through on the counter while the juices return to the meat. 3) Brine. Briny briny brine. OK, Le Cordon Bleu doesn't call for brining chicken. Screw them. Brine the bitch. It is easy, doesn't cost much and only requires a little advanced planning (in this case, a 6-pound Perdue Oven Stuffer Roaster required only 4 hours in the salt bath).
• Spring Peas with Lettuce, Chervil and Onions -- ok, just because it's 39F outside and raining, we're pretending it's spring vegetable time. Again, this went over surprisingly well, though LFP and BFP (Little Fuss Pot, aka Alaina and Big Fuss Pot, aka Deidre) pushed the pearl onions aside. And that after I painstakingly peeled 3 dozens of the little bastards...the onions, not the fuss pots.

Time: 2.5 hours Complexity: 3 (of 10) Cost: $37.28 Mess: 3

Lesson 2

• Country-Style Vegetable Soup with Noodles -- wow! First time I'm cooking with cabbage as a main ingredient and realizing I've misunderstood this smelly beauty all these years (feel this way about several women I know as well). Thinly sliced, blanched, sauteed then boiled with the homemade stock, this stuff comes sweet and tender. Even the fuss pots (save FP extraordinaire, Alaina) love it! Used Contadina dried vermicelli to put in the soup (half a pound) but should have cut it in fourths instead of in half. Lots of tableside mess while we tried to cut down the brothy pasta into some size that was manageable.
• Veal Scallops with Apples and Calvados -- the baked apples (used golden delicious) was a big hit. Will think about making desserts around this aromatic, simple dish in the future. Everyone loves the veal (even Donna "Eat Right for Your Aging Blood Type" Thompson). Of course, as with so many things, we have to call it "steak" to get the kids to eat it. I think when we take them to the dentist, we'll call it "lunch at Morton's" in the future. Had trouble finding calvados in the liquor store, but it's a nice addition. Thought I'd thrill the kids by flaming it on the stove and Deidre screamed bloody murder (dragging the other two down with her). I grumbled something stupid about never doing anything fun for them again (why didn't they think of me potentially burning the house down as fun?!?) and got on with the meal.
• Caramel Custard -- this is a clear attempt to move outside my comfort zone (yes, I bring tired business cliches to the kitchen -- get used to it...I'm several months away from a diet and exercise regimen that will be called "rightsizing"). I typically don't do dessert. When guests come and insist on bringing something, I feign "just bring an appetite" before I tell them to bring a dessert. The problem is, with time constraints, health crazes and general American laziness, everyone goes to the store to buy dessert (and not even a bakery these days, people go to Kings for dessert -- yes, I'm aware them make desserts on the premises, but my snobbery forces me to look down on this practice). The Custard goes exceedingly well. I have used a bain marie before, so I'm ok with this (even though I am criticized for not using the hot water feature on our Poland Spring water dispenser -- I am so appalled at this hypocrisy in my tree-hugging approach to life that I pretend it's not there...except when I need a cold drink of water, of course...in which case I grumble something about my wife forcing me to do this and I chug it down). I use my creme brulee dishes -- first time they've had a dessert in them, even though they were purchased at a Chef Central splurge about 6 years ago -- which gets me a snide "'bout time" from the Unnecessary Expense Police. I make one without caramel for LFP, but she still doesn't bite. BFP puts up an argument about caramel until I show her what it is (sugar and water). In my fustication with BFP, I let the caramel cool too long in the pan and make stained glass instead of caramel. I have to reheat the image of the Virgin Mary that I've created and get it into the dishes. This is a serious imposition on my blustering (an important part of cooking), but I get the dish right. Delicious! I'm back in the dessert game.

Time: 3.5 hours Complexity: 6 (of 10) Cost: $71.15* Mess: 7**

*-The creme brulee dishes killed me here -- a full cycle through the dishwasher, then hand-washed, 2 minutes/dish.

**-Though there are no veal or custard leftovers, we have two full soup meals and stock chicken left over, so -- veal costs aside -- this is not as expensive as it first appears.

Le Cordon Bleu at Home

Part One -- The Easy Stuff

Nothing original here -- having seen Julie and Julia, I realized one item in my cooking armour that is weak is documentation. I often do things that surprise myself and forget them later. More egregious, I make mistakes and repeat them because I am compelled by my nature to have "oh shit" moments that recur like Groundhog Day.

The Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook is organized into entire meals that intend to assist the amateur cook in learning basic skills then building on them. My ego insists that I point out that I learned many of these basic skills from Jim Mandio (and the "other Jim" who's name now escapes my addled brain) back in the 1980s. The two Jims were both edumacated at CIA, cooked at the Sheraton in Bordentown (now a Ramada Inn) with me. Sunday's were a borefest until dinner time, so much free instruction (as well as unauthorized consumption) occurred. This is my systematic attempt to formalize what I have been doing for decades.