Échinée Bordelaise

Pork is not my favorite meat--it can be tough or fatty or both. But this recipe gave me tender, delicate meat--Sami at first thought it was veal. It was delicious served with spaetzle (will post that recipe as well).

In the original recipe from Je Sais Cuisiner (I know how to cook), the meat was supposed to be one piece that was rolled and tied. However, my butcher insisted that I'd want chunks. It certainly took less time, so once again, he was right.

Échinée Bordelaise

2 lbs. pork shoulder (Boston butt)

salt, pepper

3 T. (50 g.) butter

1 c. (25 cl) chicken broth

2 c. (50 cl) dry white wine

1 bay leaf

2 branches thyme

2 cloves

1 onion, peeled and halved

You can leave the shoulder whole or cut it into 2-inch chunks, depending on how much time you have. Salt and pepper the meat. Heat the butter in a large frying pan with a cover or a dutch oven over medium high heat. Brown the meat. Add the broth, wine, bay leaves, thyme, and onion halves stuck with the cloves. Bring to a boil and simmer 1 hour (for chunks) to 2-1/2 hours (whole piece). Remove the meat and other solids from the liquid and bring it to a boil over high heat. Let it boil down to a thickish sauce. Serve with lentils or spaetzle and the rest of the bottle of wine.

Tarte aux Carottes

This is translated from a French food blog I follow, Canelle et Cacao. I would never have thought of putting grated root vegetables in a tart/quiche, but it works--it's substantial and light at the same time because of the high veggie/custard ratio. My change to the recipe was to add some cheese, and I'm glad I did. I used up some various bits of cheese hiding in the fridge, and I recommend you do the same.

Tarte aux Carottes

1-1/4 c. whole wheat flour

2/3 c. rolled oats

1 T. poppy or sesame seeds

1/2 t. salt

1/4 c. olive oil

2-4 T. water

Get out your food processor--you're going to want it for the carrots anyway. Put in the steel blade and then put in the flour, oatmeal, seeds, and salt; process for a few seconds. Add the oil and pulse a few times until you seem to have some crumbs forming. Add the water about a tablespoonful a time until the dough holds together. Shape the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic or wax paper; refrigerate at least an hour.

1 lb. carrots or mixed root vegetables (I used carrots, parsnips, and golden turnips)

1 T. olive oil

4 oz. cheese of your choice (really, anything in your fridge that's not Velveeta)

Minced fresh herbs of your choice (recipe calls for chervil; I used chives and parsley)

2 eggs

1/2 c. cream, milk, or half-and-half

Salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 350. Peel the carrots and shred them in the food processor. In a large skillet with a cover, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Sauté the carrots for a bit (season them with a bit of salt and pepper), then put the cover on and let steam for about 10 minutes; stir them occasionally so they don't stick and burn. They should be getting limp.

In the meantime, grate the cheese and beat together the eggs, cream, herbs, and about 1/2 t. salt and some pepper. Also, roll out the dough and line a 9-inch pie pan with it. Sprinkle half the cheese over the crust. When the carrots are done, put them on top of the cheese and then top with the egg custard. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over that and put the tart in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until it is golden on top and underneath. Enjoy eating your vegetables.

"Detox" split pea soup

I have a subscription to Elle magazine: I find it's a great way to learn French and keep up on trends in society. And it has pretty pictures :-). Julia and Claire also look at it, and Julia found this "detox diet" that she wanted to try. The thing about this diet is that it involves food that you'd actually want to eat (if you like fruits and veggies). So this soup is one of the diet recipes she tried out. She made a really yummy stew of winter vegetables, prunes, and orange juice (no, don't gag--it was really good!) for lunch today. I feel healthier already...

So here's the soup recipe, loosely translated from Elle.

Split Pea Soup

2 branches celery, diced

1 onion, diced

1 T. olive oil

3 sprigs fresh thyme

1 T. soy sauce

Pepper

7 oz. split peas, rinsed

2 bouillon cubes (or about 2 c. chicken or vegetable broth--French people use a lot of bouillon cubes)

Juice of one lemon

In a medium saucepan, sauté the celery and onion in the olive oil over medium heat. Add the thyme, soy sauce, and pepper and stir that around another minute. Add the peas and bouillon cubes and enough water to completely cover the peas. Bring to a boil; turn down the heat and let simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the peas are mushy. Add more water/broth if it looks dry. Remove the thyme and use an immersion blender or other tool to purée the soup. Squeeze in the lemon juice and serve. Feel virtuous. The diet suggests you serve this with steamed fennel as a starter and a pear for dessert. Just saying.

Coq au Vin

Mmmm...chicken and a bottle of wine. A winter classic.

This is from my beat-up French cookbook. You can certainly find more complicated recipes for coq au vin, but this one does the job fairly simply.

Coq au Vin

2 T. olive oil

4 oz. bacon, cut into matchstick strips

12 pearl onions (do yourself a favor and buy them frozen), peeled

1 rooster (ha!) or chicken, cut up and sprinkled with salt and pepper

3 T. brandy/Cognac

2 T. flour

3 sprigs thyme

2 bay leaves

1 bottle cheap red wine (Shiraz would be good)

2 T. butter

1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Toasted bread (brush sliced bread with melted butter or olive oil and toast at 350 for about 7 minutes)

Get out your big Dutch oven or covered skillet--it needs to hold a whole chicken and a whole bottle of wine.

Heat the oil in the pan and then cook the bacon in the oil. It sounds crazy to cook bacon in extra fat, but it keeps you from getting burned bacon bits on the bottom of the pan. When the bacon is cooked, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and brown the onions in the fat. When they're browned, remove them and brown the chicken. When the chicken is nice and brown, pour the brandy in the pot. If you like fire, flame the brandy. If you fear the flame like I do, just let the brandy cook down, scraping to get all the good stuff off the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle the chicken with the flour, then put in the thyme, bay leaves, bacon, onion, and wine. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat so that it's gently bubbling. Don't put the top back on--you want that wine to reduce. Let it cook that way, perfuming your kitchen, for about an hour.

About 15 minutes before you want to serve this, get out a medium skillet and melt the butter in it (you could melt a bit extra and use it for your toast) over medium-high heat. Sauté the mushrooms and garlic until the mushrooms are tender and most of their liquid has cooked off. Add the mushrooms to the chicken, which should be tender and purple. Serve with something green and the toasted bread. Wear a beret. Play accordion music. Go on strike.

Rescued Recipe: Crêpes Polonaises

I have an odd collection of cookbooks, to say the least. I certainly don’t have 101 cookbooks like Heidi Swanson, but I do have a bookshelf full of them. The thing is, I forbade myself from buying new cookbooks back in the 90s, so my collection is dated. Of course, I occasionally let other people buy me cookbooks (if you’re reading this and want to gift me, I’d love Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours and Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian), so I do have a few from this century. But I still have Cookbook Rules. I don’t like cookbooks with too many pictures, and I don’t like fussy chef’s cookbooks. I know that so many people love beautiful food photography, but frankly, it intimidates me. It’s like looking at clothes in a catalog—it looks great on the model, but I’m going to look like a sack of potatoes in it. And even though my food tastes great, it’s no model ready for photography. All I need is a list of ingredients and a tempting description, and I’m ready to cook.
So the cookbook that I’m “rescuing” a recipe from today is called Mes Meilleurs Desserts by a certain Anne LeChastenier, printed in 1988. I bought this baby at a cookbook store in Paris in about that year. I didn’t speak much French and asked the lady at the shop for some guidance. She didn’t think much of my French or cooking skills and guided me to this book and another, Cuisine Sans Souci, that I still cook from. These are both simple but not basic books. They assume that you have all the basic cooking skills and just need some ideas to get you through the next meal. If you’re making crêpes, which we are here, they just tell you: “Préparer la pâte et la laisser reposer…Faire sauter les crepes.” (Make the batter and let it rest; cook the crêpes) That’s it. You don’t know how to make crêpes? Go ask Maman.
I’m going to take this approach with you, because I’m not the official crêpe maker in my home. My French husband gets this task, which he does with aplomb. He even gets the first crêpe right. One of the reasons I married him. I see on the Internet that there is a video of Alton Brown making crêpes. If you don’t know how, you might start there.
So here’s the recipe, translated and adapted. We had it for a dinner party and then for breakfast the next day. It’s not mind-blowingly delicious, but we had no trouble polishing it off.

Crêpes Polonaises
Makes about 18 crêpes; would probably serve about 6 for breakfast and about 10 for dessert.

Crêpe batter:
3 eggs
50 g. (1/4 c.) sugar
Pinch salt
1/2 liter (2 c.) milk
300 g. {10.6 oz.; about 2 c.) flour—I used about 1/3 whole wheat pastry flour
25 g. (2 T.) melted butter
More butter for frying the crêpes
More sugar for sprinkling

Filling:
50 g. (about 1/3 c.) raisins—I used golden raisins
a shot glass full of rum
200 g. (7 oz.; a scant cup) fromage blanc (I used homemade ricotta; you could also use cottage cheese that’s been puréed in the food processor for about a minute)
3 T. cream or sour cream (really crème fraîche, but I can’t get that here)
100 g. (1/2 c.) sugar
2 egg yolks
pinch salt
1/2 t. vanilla (not in the recipe, but pretty good anyway)

For the crêpe batter, put the eggs, sugar, salt, and milk in the blender. Blend it for a few seconds, then add the flour and melted butter and give it another few seconds until it’s smooth. Let the batter sit for at least half an hour.
For the filling: Soak the raisins in the rum for at least half an hour. Use a mixer or a food processor to mix the cheese, cream, sugar, egg yolks, salt, and vanilla; fold in the raisins. Chill until the crêpes are ready.
Now it’s time to cook the crêpes. Heat up an 8-inch skillet. Take a stick of butter out of the fridge and unwrap about the bottom fourth. Hold it by the paper and swirl it around the pan to butter it. Now pour in about 1/4 cup of batter and swirl it around the pan. Get out your pancake turner and start scraping at the edges. When you start seeing the bubbles popping at the top of the crêpe, do your best to flip that baby. Give it another 30 seconds and it will be done. Repeat this procedure until you’re out of batter (although the batter will keep for a while in the fridge if you get tired of making crêpes and just want a drink). If your name’s not Sami and you’re not from France, you’ll probably have to make 2-3 crêpes “for the cook” before you get it just right.
Now turn on your broiler. When your crêpes are done, spread each one with a large spoonful of the cheese filling, fold into quarters, and put it on a baking sheet. Sprinkle the crêpes with about a tablespoon of sugar and run them under the broiler for a few minutes until the sugar caramelizes and the crêpes get all crispy. This process also makes me feel better about those raw egg yolks ☺. Enjoy, perhaps with another shot glass full of rum.