Petit Sale Aux Lentilles

Entrecote Bordelaise A La Moelle, Braised Endive And Gratin Dauphinois.

This is one of the true classics of french cuisine and it comes of course from the Bordeaux region of France. The real Entrecote Bordelaise is not done like this at all. The original recipe calls for the steak to be grilled, not sauteed, on a bed of vine branches and then topped with a red wine and shallot recuction. I was told this by a native of Bordeaux familiar with the history of the dish.

However, now in restaurants and hotels it is sauteed and covered with a bordelaise sauce.

The most complicated part of this dish is the sauce but it is really quite easy to make. To make this sauce you really need demi glace which is a reduction of veal stock until it is thick.

The other way to make it is to follow the instructions above and when the reduction is done whisk in some whole butter. This is a good and easy substitute because the butter will thicken the sauce . You have to be careful not to boil the sauce after you put the butter in or it will separate.

The advantage of having demi glace is that you don't end up with a sauce rich with butter. You can buy demi glaze in the stores but I don't know what it tastes like.

The endives are simply cooked slowy in olive oil with the addition of white wine until they are tender.

I think there is a recipe for the gratin dauphinois on this blog.

This dish was outstanding.

How Can You Possibly Go Wrong With Ingredients Like These?

Pot Au Feu. This is the grandaddy of french cuisine in the winter. It is usually served as a plat du jour and is rarely on an everyday menu. The american equivelant is the new england boiled dinner. Every country has a version of this but somehow france beats them all as usual.
This of course if a variation on the dish as you can't find everything you need to follow the recipe in most places outside of france. But this is a very good impersonation of the dish and except for a few cuts of meat it is authentique.
Here I used some beef ribs I got from the local supermarket on sale. I also used A leg of chicken and some marrow bones. You can use all sorts of vegetables as long as they are sturdy. The main staples are carrots, cabbage, leeks, turnips and then add to that whatever takes your fancy.
To start with I blanched the meats which means you put them in some cold water, bring them to the boil and then rinse them off under cold water. This will remove the residue that rises to the surface when you bring a piece of meat to the boil. Getting rid of this gives you a better chance of ending up with a clear stock for your pot au feu.
You then wash out the pot and put the meats back in, cover them with water and put them back on the stove and bring it to the boil again. There will be a little more residue so you need to skim that off with a ladle.
Then, having peeled all your vegetables and cut them into any shape you want to you will add them to this same pot. You will also add thyme, bay leaf, whole unpeeled garlic buds and salt and pepper. Then let them simmer away util the vegetables are cooked. They will for the most part be cooked before the meats so remove them and keep them warm until the beef is ready.
When the beef is cooked correct the seasoning on the stock and ladle off any surface grease.
Put all the vegetables back into the pot with the meats, cover and let sit for a good hour in order for everything to come together.
Then serve accompanied by mustard, cornichons, horseradish and sea or kosher salt and some very crusty bread.

Chicken In Red Wine Vinagar

Chicken in Red Wine Vinegar. 12 chicken thighs (about 3 to 4 pounds), bone in

16 large mushrooms

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 shallots, minced

6 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup red wine vinegar

1 cup dry white wine

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1½ cups chicken stock, preferably homemade

½ cup chopped Italian parsley

Directions

Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper to taste. In a large, deep skillet (big enough to hold all chicken fairly close together; or use two skillets) melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium high heat. Brown the chicken for about 8 minutes, turning so both sides get nicely browned.
Transfer the chicken to a deep, broad, ovenproof casserole that can go from the oven to the table. Remove the skillet from the heat and pour off most of the fat. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Place the skillet back over medium heat and add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add the shallots and garlic and cook for about 1 minute, or until they become translucent. Then add and cook the mushrooms. Add the vinegar and wine, and stir up the crispy bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Allow the liquids to cook down a bit, stirring occasionally, for about 8 minutes. Whisk in the tomato paste and let the sauce simmer and condense, about 5 minutes more. Then add the chicken stock, a little at a time. Keep stirring to mix well. Pour the sauce over the chicken. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the chicken is very tender, turning the chicken pieces midway through, so that both sides are infused with the sauce. Remove one thigh and cut into it to make sure it is done and no red juices flow from the cut. Remove the casserole from the oven, sprinkle the parsley on top, and serve.

Seafood Tajine

As usual, one of my favorite dishes that I make very often. This one is made with Mahi Mahi, scallops and shrimp.

Twice Baked Jumbo Kartofel Stuffed With Bacon, Gorgonzola, Peppers And Onions. Bowl Of Brocolli Soup.

This is a great meal if you are feeling lazy or just don't have the time. All you need is a potato and a few odds and ends. You can make the potato the night before and pop it in the oven when you get home from work the next day. You don’t even have to make the soup. There are some perfectly good canned soups in the supermarkets. One of my favorites is Campbell’s Chicken Noodle.
Of course if you do have the time and the inclination a fresh soup is always better.
For the potato:
Bake a large potato and allow it to cool so you can handle it. While it is cooling put a pot on the stove and let it heat with a little olive oil. Chop up some onions and some garlic along with some parsley. Put the onions in the pot to cook slowly, add the garlic and let it cook a little. Take it off the heat.
Then look in the fridge to see what you can add. Mushrooms / bacon/ ham/ frozen peas/sausage/spinach/: all are good candidates for the stuffing and at any given time there must be at least 3 items that would be good for this purpose in your fridge. Add them to your onion mix and cook, but very lightly. You want most of the cooking done inside the potato in the oven.
Scoop the flesh from the potato into a bowl in big lumps and add your mix from the stove. Add chopped parsley, salt and pepper and a drizzle of Virgin Oil and then fill your potato. Finish in a medium oven and serve with a salad and the soup

Braised Shortribs With Gorgonzola Chantrelle Risotto And Baby Spinach.

This was an excellent dish. The gorgonzola went very well with the risotto and the chanterelles and they both provided a superb contrast to the rich wine sauce from the short ribs. I can’t think of a greater accompaniment to this dish. Mash is good but it gets a little tired after a while.
These are two average sized short ribs, ample for one person. Two might be a little too much for one person but one would not have been enough. Three ribs would probably be enough for two people but I wouldn’t take a chance.
These ribs marinated for two days in red wine and a mire poix. A mirepoix is a selection of vegetables cut up and used for marinating. Mirepoix http://classical-french-cuisine.suite101.com/article.cfm/mirepoix is usually thrown out after cooking so there is no need to be fussy. I use vegetables with the skin on and left over peelings if they are large enough.
I also add a head of garlic cut in two, thyme, bay leaf, parsley stalks, some whole peppercorns and a spoonful of olive oil. Cover the ribs and mirepoix with red wine. There is no need for anything expensive. I use Rossi burgundy wine in the jar.Marinate this entire thing in the fridge for two days. Mix the marinade over the period of the two days. I usually turn the whole thing over in the bowl every eight hours or so.

To cook:
Remove meat from marinade; strain the vegetables and the ribs. Keep the red wine to make the sauce. Sauté the ribs in a medium pan on all sides until brown. Remove from the pan and put them aside. Add the vegetables to the pan and sauté them until they are well browned then put the beef back in with the vegetables. Cook the beef and the vegetables together until all flavors are well combined then add tomato paste and continue to cook. Add a little water to this mix and reduce well in order to concentrate the flavors. Add a half cup of flour or so and mix well. At this point you can add the wine and some water, bring to the boil and add the whole mix to the slow cooker. This takes a while to cook.
When the ribs are cooked remove the meat and reduce the sauce to concentrate the flavor and thicken. Then strain the sauce into an appropriately sized saucepan and adjust the seasoning, add the meat back in and keep warm until the rest of the ingredients are ready.
The Risotto is made in the usual manner; at the end add some gorgonzola and allow the cheese to warm slightly before serving.

Italian Meatball Sandwich And Bacon Cauliflower Soup.

This soup is made from the big cauliflower that I got on sale last week. It was really too big to eat and even though I got a few dishes out of it, it remained an ominous presence in the fridge.
This, again, was a very popular soup back in the day and it always went under the name of 'Crème Dubarry';King Louis XV's mistress. I don't think the name 'cauliflower' was elegant enough then and a lot of the ruling class had dishes named in their honor.

Soups used to be called by their culinary names before the cooking craze took over the universe.
These days we are more inclined to call a spade a spade and not worry about fancy names. However, this was the name of this soup in those days. It is still delicious. A rose by any other name.............
Meatball sandwich is pretty straightforward. This was really good and made with baby peppers I found in the shops the other day plus some Walla Walla sweet onions, tomatoes and lots of garlic and olive oil. I cooked the sausage from raw in the sauce.

Smorgasbord Of Goodies Tonight

Got a few bits and scraps together tonight to make a varied and easy to make meal. I roasted some of the cauliflower I bought last week in garlic, olive oil and white wine then threw in some peppers and tomatoes at the end.

I made a mushroom omelet with some fresh mushrooms that I bought today. I was going to use some chanterelles again but decided to keep them for a dish during the week.

I made a small romaine lettuce salad tossed in Dijon mustard dressing.

I roasted some small sweet peppers, peeled the them and tossed them with some of the dressing.

Finally I baked a couple of small bakers.

This whole mix was very good. A kind of super tapas if you will.

Hungarian Goulash, Potato Garlic Dumplings

There is a recipe for goulash somewhere on this blog. I make it quite often.

As for the dumplings.

I boiled 3 medium baker potatoes and then strained them. I then riced them with my potato ricer and dried them out very well in the original pot on the stove.

Then I put them in a bowl and allowed them to cool a little before adding roughly one third the volume in flour and some cornstarch then kneaded it all together very well. It should be softer than a pastry dough and should not stick to your hand. Then I made a small dumpling and poached it in some simmering water to see if the texture and mix were right.

As soon as I saw that it was going to work I added chopped garlic and chopped parsley and seasoned. Then the dumplings were formed and put in the fridge to settle for five to ten minutes.

Finally I poached them in some rolling slightly salted water. You will know when they are cooked because they rise to the surface.

When finished, drain the dumplings and add them to the dish you are going to use them in (just on top of the sauce) so that they gather flavor. Leave them for a little while and serve.

These dumplings are big in Germany.

Minestrone With Spinach And Twice Baked Stuffed Potato

This is a regular home made minestrone with the addition of raw spinach leaves at the end. The spinach leaves will cook in the hot soup.

The potatoes are baked and the flesh mixed with peppers,onions and garlic with also a few leaves of spinach (found some on sale!) allowed to cook with the hot potato. The potato shells are then filled with this mixture, sprinkled with cheese and baked in the oven until brown. Nice easy dinner.

Civet Of Pork With Amandine Potatoes.

This not an authentic civet of course. In a real civet the blood of the animal is used to thicken the sauce and Armagnac is used to flambé the meat. The most common animal used for this is the hare although rabbit and pork are commonly used. It is a very satisfying dish to make and to eat.

The Amandine potatoes are also a lot of fun to make and were a huge item back in the sixties and beyond. They are rarely seen now and considered ‘passe’. How a potato can be passé I do not know. They were often used in banquets but were found on many of the menus of first class hotels. I made these in the following way:

I boiled 3 large baker potatoes and put them in a colander to let all the water drain out of them. This is very important. Then I mashed them and put them back on the stove in the same pot and dried them out over the heat.

The reason you want them dry is that when you deep fry them you don't want them to burst and the less water in the mixture the less possibility there is of that happening.

Then you let them cool for a bit and put one or two egg yolks in it. Mix them around very well. Then you roll the potato/dough out onto a little flour and roll them into cylinder shapes. They will need to go back into the fridge to settle for a good half hour.

It is really better to make these the day before.

While they are in the fridge mix some slivered almonds with some breadcrumbs. Break and egg or two in to a bowl and put some flour on a plate. Beat the eggs so you end up with liquid eggs.

Put these items side by side: flour/egg/breadcrumbs.

Take your potatoes from the fridge and cut them into the size you want. Pass them first into the flour, then into the egg wash and finally in the breadcrumbs/almond mixture. Reshape them when finished and deep fry them until golden brown in hot oil. Be careful not to burn the almonds