My French Food experiment (Part 3): Along with “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”

I made it through breakfast I have to admit, with quite a few dishes that needed to be dealt with but was not deterred since I was on a mission and rather excited to tackle my first soufflé.

A VERY French Lunch:Soufflé Au Fromage (Cheese Soufflé)

Mr. B. was very surprised when I told him I was quite nervous about this soufflé, he was shocked to hear that I had never made a soufflé before, sweet or savory. I always take risks when I entertain, trying new recipes on old and new friends, and I never really worry about things. In my house, there is always a frozen pizza in case of emergencies. I have never had an emergency but there have been many recipes I would never do again. The soufflé just seemed so intimidating-the falling, the egg whites, the last minute prep, etc. When I entertain I like to do a lot of prep ahead of time. Soufflés always seemed so last minute to me but the book notes many steps that can be done ahead of time. Actually the entire soufflé can be made ahead of time and just covered with a large pot for up to an hour!

The book illustrates what a soufflé pan should look like but as noted most American soufflé pans are not high enough. I looked around and I did have one that looked high enough but it was too small. I did not want to alter the recipe. I opted for my round Corning ware white set. I arranged parchment paper around the perimeter and tied it with a string. This took 15 minutes! Not sure if I am just THAT uncoordinated but I have just added a proper French soufflé pan to my birthday list. Since I KNOW I will be making soufflés on a regular basis. Out of the three meals of the day this was by far the easiest. I chose the basic Cheese soufflé because I wanted to try it in its unadulterated glory. I am not at all a fan of omelets. I am not sure if it's a texture thing or what but I would never choose to have my eggs that way. A soufflé is a whole different egg-sperience (sorry I had to get at least one in there, I am done now J). The book suggested you butter and sprinkle the dish with grated Parmesan cheese. This created a crispy crust all around. I am thrilled that I used the paper collar because the soufflé rose almost to the top of the collar. It was perfectly browned and yes it did fall fast. The saying that "you wait for the soufflé it doesn't wait for you" is right on spot. The only laborious part was the egg whites which went fast with the stand mixer.

Because we were eating so much in one day I did not serve it with anything but for guests for a lunch course a nice green salad would be perfect. The soufflé is for 4-6 people (which is what is suggested) and it came out amazing! It was so tender with the cheese sprinkled throughout. Perfectly seasoned. WOW! The next time I would like to try the spinach soufflé or maybe even chocolate! I obviously had leftovers and the next day I heated it up on the stove and served it over a piece of baguette (think Hayes Street Grill Stand at the Farmers Mkt on a Saturday).

I can now say I have achieved a perfect soufflé, not so sure I have "mastered" it but I am looking forward to my next one that's for sure!

Five recipes and 2 meals down!

Jusqu'à ce Soir…Until tomorrow…

My French Food experiment (Part 2): Along with “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”

A VERY French Breakfast:
Oeufs a la Fondue de Fromage (Poached Eggs on Canapes with Cheese Fondue Sauce)

Canapés-Croutons (Plain or Sautéed bread rounds)

Beurre clarifie (clarified Butter)

Oeufs Poches (Poached Eggs)

 

I wanted to do an egg recipe and going in I thought, "eggs, piece of cake, I KNOW how to make eggs". What an idiot. Since my sis and I were young my mom frequently made "dropped eggs on toast" for dinner (sometimes for breakfast too). We loved them. I would eat 3 sometimes and want more. Its basically a poached egg on a piece of toast (Wonder bread back then). I have to admit, it hasn't even been 2 weeks since my last installment…in any event, I saw the recipe "Oufs a la Fondue de Fromage" –Poached eggs on Canapes with Cheese Fondue Sauce—aka FANCY dropped egg on toast. Because I am a "beginner" to French cooking (actually going in I thought I was intermediate, hey, I can make an omlette and a croquet monsieur) I really didn't have a clue as to how to make a couple of the ingredients called for in the recipe. BUT Julia took care of that because there are actually recipes WITHIN the recipe. Now, I am sure those of you that actually went to cooking school would know how to do most of this stuff but not me, I have never made clarified butter in my life and I had no idea how to make it. It is actually ridiculously easy and I can honestly say I will forever have some in my fridge. Within this egg recipe there were 2 recipes. One for poaching an egg and another for the canapés (which there was another recipe for the clarified butter). I was motivated to do as the book told me and instead of poaching the eggs like I usually do I followed Julia's instructions to the "T" and OMG her way is SOOOOO much better. All these years I have been suffering with LAME poached eggs. The eggs were perfectly cooked with a nice heavy firm white with a perfectly runny yolk and you couldn't taste a trace of vinegar! Not to mention how incredibly pretty they were! Her Canapes recipe was fantastic too. Of course, why wouldn't bread toasted in butter be better than toasted dry???

I feel like it took me forever to make but I think it was because I was up against the unknown. I honestly don't think I am going to be able to ever go back to MY dropped eggs on toast. I also now know that using good fresh eggs do make the difference. I had on hand my regular white eggs from the supermarket and I bought organic (blah blah blah) eggs specifically for this purpose. There was a difference. So much so, I now understand why all you people have chickens in your backyard. I promise to NEVER roll my eyes again and I now envy you…

At the very end when I was compiling the dish I realized that yes it was work BUT you could seriously do everything ahead of time and actually serve this masterpiece for guests. SO those of you who will be "brunching" at my place soon you now know whats on the menu.

SO to all you husbands and kids out there that are wondering what you should serve mom for breakfast (in bed, of course) on Sunday…try this!

Mom, if I was in town on Sunday this would be on the menu, but, it looks like you will have to wait a week…

Four recipes and one meal down! What a great way to start the day!

Jusqu'à ce Soir…Until tomorrow…

**I have chosen not to add in the recipes. I honestly don't have time to retype everything and there are so many references to techniques, like folding egg whites in batter, etc. that I think plays such in important role in making these dishes.

PS-OK I KNOW my pictures are really bad…I am working on finding a good camera and taking some classes…

My French Food experiment (Part 1): Along with “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” as my guide

I have a bit of a problem. I collect cookbooks and then I don’t actually USE them to cook with. I read them like a book from cover to cover and then they go to my cookbook shelf rarely to be seen again. I am a digital girl and I am sad to say that I enjoy digital copies of newspapers, magazines, recipes, but not books... I was determined to change my ways and start using them.


There were a few key pieces of motivation I must admit. The first is that I finally sat down to watch the recent movie about Julia Child & Julie Powell (the one with Meryl Streep & Amy Adams in it). I thoroughly enjoyed it, the story, the acting, everything. From my interpretation the movie’s “lesson” (in very basic sense) was that if you are sad or bored then do something you love. Julie and Julia loved to cook and eat. It made them happy. It makes ME happy too. I lost my cat of 15 years last week and I was very sad and really didn’t have any motivation for much of anything until I watched the movie.

Watching the scenes of both actresses’ eating everything not only got my stomach rumbling it also got me excited to get into the kitchen. SO off I went to visit my collection of cookbooks. Staring at me was of course "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". I have NEVER cooked anything out of this book. Have you seen this book? Have you LOOKED at the recipes? I mean they are loooong…not to mention the format at first glance is kind of confusing to me. I was not brought up with recipes written out without a top list of ingredients so you can quickly see what you need to get or even if you like the ingredients in them. However, I was motivated and up for a challenge, and I have a big project coming up for a job I am working on which will not allow for much time in the kitchen the next couple of months. SO on Monday night at 8PM I sat down with this rather large cookbook and was determined to cook for an entire day from it…breakfast…lunch…and dinner (can you tell I am a short term thinker).

Since I was eating 3 meals in one day (which I very rarely do) I needed to make sure Mr. B and myself could handle it so I picked recipes that were somewhat light, or so I thought. I also had visions in my head of the food in the movies and wow did the food stylists make it look so freakin good! I mean how many of us remember that chocolate cake scene???

The menu:
Breakfast
Oeufs a la Fondue de Fromage (Poached Eggs on Canapes with Cheese Fondue Sauce)
     Canapés-Croutons (Plain or Sautéed bread rounds)
          Beurre clarifie (clarified Butter)
     Oeufs Poches (Poached Eggs)

Lunch
Soufflé Au Fromage (Cheese Soufflé)

Dinner
Sauce Vinaigrette (French dressing) with butter lettuce & Fleur de Sel
Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons (Fish Filets Poached in White Wine with Mushrooms)

Dessert
Reine de Saba (Chocolate and Almond Cake)
     Glacage au chocolat (Chocolate –butter icing)

When I finalized the menu for the day I then went back to try and figure out what I needed to purchase at the store at 7AM the next morning. I literally needed FIVE items. I keep a pretty decent pantry but I was really surprised. I mean, count the recipes above…NINE! I imagined I would be searching all over creation for ingredients. BUT if you think about it, the book was published in 1960 based on true French food. They didn’t have the internet so they could easily source ingredients but they did have FRESH ingredients to cook with.

Jusqu'à ce Soir…Until tomorrow…