Courge au Gratin/Squash Casserole

This recipe comes to you via a French cookbook called "Cuisine sans souci," which Sami bought for me at a used cookbook store in Paris probably in the 80s or early 90s. It's a great basic cookbook, without a lot of frills--like most French cookbooks, it assumes you already know how to cook, so the recipes are short. I made the recipe more American by adding cheese.

I think this recipe was designed to be a side dish, but Sami was gone, so the girls and I turned it into a girly main dish. It really is filling enough to take a main role on the plate.

Julia loved this; Claire couldn't or wouldn't finish hers; I liked mine but thought the texture was a bit mushy. That's why I've upped the number of eggs from the original 2 to 3 with an optional 4.

Courge au gratin

2-1/2 lbs. winter squash (I used pumpkin)

Olive or vegetable oil

2 T. butter

2 T. flour

Salt, pepper, nutmeg

Dash Tabasco or other "spiciness enhancer"

1-2/3 c. milk

1 c. grated cheese (I used Comté; a gruyère or sharp cheddar would be nice)

3-4 eggs

2 slices bread, white or wheat

2 T. butter

about an ounce of Parmesan

Heat the oven to 400. Butter a 2-quart gratin or casserole dish and set aside. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds (an ice cream scoop works well for this). Rub the cut side of the squash with the oil and put it on a foil- or parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for about 45 minutes or until nice and soft. You can do this a day or so ahead if you want--just scoop out the squash into a bowl and refrigerate it until you're ready to proceed. If you're proceeding right away, keep the oven on. You can make the sauce while the squash cooks.

The cookbook actually called for "2 cups of thick Béchamel sauce," assuming you knew how to do that. If you do, proceed to make one with the butter, flour, seasonings and milk. Otherwise, get out a heavy smallish saucepan and melt the butter over medium heat until it stops foaming. Add the flour and seasonings and stir for about a minute before gradually whisking in the milk. Heat, whisking almost constantly, until the sauce is bubbly and thickened. Take off the heat and add the cheese, stirring until it melts. OK, now mash up the squash well with a fork, or put it through a sieve or a food mill, or purée it with a food processor (if you do this, make your bread crumbs first--see below). Mix the mashed squash with the cheesy béchamel. Whisk in the eggs one at a time and turn the mixture into the buttered casserole dish.

In a blender or food processor, put the bread (torn into pieces), the butter (cut into 4 pieces), and the Parmesan (broken into crumbles). Pulse that until you have lovely buttered bread crumbs. Sprinkle that on top of your squash mixture.

Put the casserole in the oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the crumbs are nice and brown and the squash mixture has firmed up a bit. Let rest for about 10 minutes before digging in.

Stuffed Flank Steak

My in-laws came for lunch today. They were the first guests we've had since we got to the apartment, which was how it needed to be. I had to come up with something conservative for them to eat--they are definitely of the meat-and-potato mindset. This is what I came up with: a salad with mâche, avocado, and almonds for a starter, this for a main course, and a fruit dessert I'll blog about later on the Maider Heatter site.

I think they liked it--I know Sami and I did. Flank steak usually comes in individual steaks here, so I asked my butcher to give me long, thin strips I could roll up. But the recipe as written is for one large steak--you could pound it or butterfly it to make it nice and thin and stuffable. The recipe also has you flour the steak before you sauté it, which I forgot to do, and frankly, I don't think it's necessary. Flour burns, too. One last thing--if you put some shallots and red wine in the pan after you take out the steaks, let that cook down a bit, and then add the juices from the baking sheet, you've got a nice pan sauce. But here's the recipe more less as written, from the June 2001 issue of Bon Appétit.

Stuffed Flank Steak Medallions

1-1/2 lb. flank steak (one piece)

2 minced garlic cloves

3 T. olive oil

1 bunch arugula (you really only need a small handful)

1 7-oz. jar sliced roasted red peppers, drained

6 thin slices prosciutto (about 2 oz.)

6 thin slices smoked Gouda (about 4 oz)

1 c. flour

1 T. paprika

2 t. salt

1 t. pepper

Pound or butterfly the steak until you have about a 9x10-inch rectangle. Whisk together garlic and olive oil; brush over the steak. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover meat with arugula, then peppers, prosciutto, and cheese. Roll the long way and tie with butcher's twine. Mix together the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a large shallow dish. Roll the meat in the flour to coat (or just salt and pepper it).

Heat the oven to 350; heat the remaining 1 T. oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add meat and sear on all sides. This should take about 3-5 minutes. Bake the meat until cooked through (don't cook too long, though--about 150-160 on a meat thermometer should be plenty), about 45 minutes (I would check after 30 or less). Let meat rest 10 minutes. Remove string; cut meat into 1/2-inch-thick slices. I served this with the pan sauce above, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Linguine with Triple-Pepper Sauce

Sometimes you have little time and less money, so a simple, meatless pasta dish is in order. This was also appreciated by the whole family. I got the recipe from a little booklet put out by Bon Appetit (free with a subscription!) called "Fast and Easy." Yes and yes.

Linguine with Triple-Red Pepper Sauce

Serves 4, but not very generously

About 1/2 lb. linguine

2 T. olive oil

1 large red pepper, diced

1 small onion, sliced (optional)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 t. crushed red pepper flakes ("pizza pepper")

Salt and pepper

1 7-oz. jar roasted red peppers, drained and diced (if they're packed in olive oil, use it for sautéeing)

1/4 c. chopped parsley

Grated Parmesan

Before you do anything, put your (well salted) pasta water on to boil. Put a glass measuring cup next to the pasta pot to remind yourself that you'll want some pasta water later. In a medium sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Sauté the pepper and onion until they are both soft, then add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. Sauté that for about a minute, and then add the roasted peppers. Let that simmer for about 5 minutes or until the pasta is cooked. Add the parsley, and then scoop out about half a cup of pasta water and add that to the sauce. With a giant slotted spoon or tongs, pull the pasta out of the water and straight into the pan with the sauce. Stir that around, adding more pasta water if the mixture seems dry. Serve with grated Parmesan.

Fried Red Tomatoes

It’s early September, which means it’s time to go one last round with tomatoes. At the market this week, they had gigantic, gorgeous, but not too perfect tomatoes, and I brought 4 of them home. Two of them went into the tomato and blue cheese salad, and two of them got fried up as a side dish.
This recipe, which comes from Mollie Katzen’s Still Life with Menu, has some strengths and weaknesses. The strength is the taste: it reminded me of eggplant Parmesan, sauce and all. The weakness is the execution: it was really hard for me to bread and fry the tomato slices nicely. My solutions would be to be generous both with the “breading” (really just seasoned flour) and with the fat—I didn’t use enough to get a good sauté. Also you want to use good-tasting tomatoes that are still firm enough to hold up to all this. It is indeed a tricky thing: but worth trying out.

Gratinéed Tomatoes
4 medium (or 2 large) tomatoes
1/2 c. flour
4 T. grated Parmesan

1 T. dried tarragon
1 T. dried basil

1 t. dried thyme

Salt and pepper

2 T. butter

2 T. olive oil

1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered

Core the tomatoes and slice them in 1/2 inch slices. In a pie plate, mix together the flour, Parmesan, tarragon, basil, thyme, and some salt and pepper (note: I cheated and used Herbes de Provence because I couldn't find some of my other herbs). In a large skillet, put the butter, olive oil, and garlic in to heat. When the butter has melted and the garlic has started sizzling, fish it out and put in a layer of tomatoes--don't crowd them. Ms. Katzen wants you to cook these 10 minutes per side, but that seems a bit excessive to me--I think 5 minutes a side is enough. Keep the heat regulated so that the slices are browning but not burning. Keep frying until all the tomatoes are cooked. Let them rest for at least 10 minutes because a cooked tomato is a very hot thing indeed. Enjoy--perhaps with some bacon and lettuce!

Tomato, Arugula, and Blue Cheese Salad

Here's a recipe from the August 2001 Bon Appetit, not available on Epicurious. It's a good recipe--I made it just with big tomatoes from the marked and regular lettuce since the family doesn't really like arugula. Still, I'm posting it more or less as written so that it's out there for you to adapt at will. It's a simple recipe, but not an obvious combination, and the blue cheese really does accent the tomatoes nicely. Make it quick, while tomatoes are still ripe and delicious!

Tomato, Arugula, and Blue Cheese Salad

Serves 6-8

6 T. olive oil

3 T. sherry vinegar

3 T. minced shallots (1 medium-large shallot)

3 large tomatoes, cut into wedges

1 basket cherry tomatoes, halved

1 basket yellow pear tomatoes, halved

6 oz. arugula, washed and dried

4 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

Whisk together the oil, vinegar, and shallots; season to taste with salt and pepper. If you have time, put the cut-up tomatoes in the dressing to marinate for a while. When you're ready to serve, pour a bit of the dressing on the arugula in a large bowl and toss. Then scatter the marinated tomatoes and blue cheese over.

Fettucine with Salami and Mushrooms

After half a year of living in France and depending on the Internet for my recipes, I determined to put some of my older recipes that are not out there in Cyberland in the blog. So this is the first of what will hopefully be a series, mostly from 80s cookbooks and cooking magazines.

This recipe is adapted from one in a Sunset pasta cookbook that I picked up in Israel in the 80s--the same time and place I got my sideways haircut. Good times.

You can leave out the salami--I just sautéed it first and then set it aside for the meat eaters, creating a mushroom and leek pasta for my vegetarian daughter.

Fettuccine with Salami and Mushrooms

8 oz. dried (or fresh) fettuccine

1 T. olive oil

4 oz. dry salami, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced

2 leeks, cleaned and sliced thin (white and light green parts only)

Salt and pepper

1/4 c. white wine or vermouth

2/3 c. half and half

1 c. (3 oz.) freshly grated Parmesan (you may not need as much since the salami is so flavorful)

Put your (well-salted) pasta water on to boil before you start with the sauce. In a large skillet, sauté the salami with the mushrooms and leeks over medium-high heat until the vegetables are tender and the salami has rendered some fat. Season with salt and pepper, but go easy on the salt since salami is very salty. Add the wine and turn up the heat a bit; cook until the liquid has just about evaporated. Then add the cream and cook that down a bit as well. Hopefully by this point, you will have cooked and drained your fettuccine--add that to the pan along with half of the Parmesan and toss well. Serve with the remaining Parmesan and a pepper grinder. Serves 4.

Learning to improvise

So here I am in France for half a year with my own kitchen and lots of yummy ingredients. I hope to make the most of it, and so far I have been cooking up a storm with fairly limited equipment and counter space. I just found out this morning, though, that this situation is going to change: we're moving to a nicer place with a HUGE, extremely well-equipped kitchen!! I just about fainted with joy when I saw that.
I resolved that while in France I would be more flexible about my random food schedule. I would cook not just what my crazy system told me to, but what was in season or cheap or looked tempting from the many food blogs I looked at. And so far, it's working pretty well! I've made lots of soup because it's freezing, I've been working with leeks and pumpkin and root vegetables because they're in season, and, yes, I've been tweaking recipes in my recipe system to make them fit the situation better.
Hopefully I'll get around to posting some of my other improvised favorites, but what we had for dinner last night was so surprisingly delicious that I want to start with that. The inspiration for this dish was a recipe from Bon Appetit for a Mediterranean Couscous Salad with Roasted Vegetables. It was on my list. But here's the problem: This salad involved summer vegetables like eggplant and zucchini and was to be served cold. When it's 54 degrees in the kitchen, the last thing you want to eat is a cold salad. And eggplant and zucchini are not exactly January vegetables. So I took what I knew of Tunisian/Mediterranean flavors and turned the dish into a warm couscous salad with roasted winter vegetables. I used pumpkin and leek and, well, a red pepper from some Dutch greenhouse. I added some canned garbanzos and roasted it all together, then added all that to the couscous before squeezing on some lemon and adding some Mediterranean accents like feta cheese and capers.
I was quite nervous about serving this: Claire claims not to like couscous, while Sami and Claire both object to orange vegetables like squash and sweet potatoes. But they both shoveled in platesful of it. I was worried there wasn't going to be enough for lunch today! Verdict: success. Roasted vegetables rock. Improvisation is fun!

Here's my recipe:
Warm Mediterranean Couscous Salad

Improvisation tips: If you have it, consider sprinkling cumin and coriander on the roasted vegetables. Also some harissa or chile paste on the side would be quite delightful. And maybe the addition of some green leafy vegetable like kale (which is sadly unavailable in France) would be nice. Also, all quantities are approximate here. Dial up or down as you wish.

1 winter squash (I used a big slice of pumpkin; I bet you could also use that pre-cut squash from Trader Joe's)
1 leek, white and light green parts only
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
4-6 T. olive oil
Salt, pepper, other spices to taste
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 clove garlic, minced
1 c. couscous
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2-3 T. minced cilantro
2 T. capers
1/4 c. crumbled feta

Heat the oven to 425. Get out a big sheet pan and line it with parchment paper. If you're going the whole squash route, cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and put it cut-side down on the lined sheet pan. Put it in the oven for a good 30 minutes. That will help you peel and cut the squash without peeling and cutting yourself. I think you can also microwave the halved squash for about 5 minutes, if that floats your boat.
While the squash is cooking, prep your other ingredients: I did the pepper in medium squares, the leek in matchsticks, and the onion in wedges. Put in a bowl and toss with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and spices. When the squash is at least partially cooked, take it out, let it cool a bit, then peel it and cut the flesh into bite-sized cubes. Add this to the other vegies, toss together, and put all of that on the sheet pan. Put it back into the oven and let it roast for about 20 minutes. Add the garbanzos and give it another 10 minutes. When you take the veggies out of the oven, stir in the garlic.
During that last 10 minutes of roasting, cook the couscous according to package directions. That would probably involve boiling 1 cup of water with a bit of salt and butter, adding the couscous, and letting it sit, covered, off the heat for about 5 minutes. Fluff that with a fork.
Now get a big bowl out. Carefully pick up the parchment you have your veggies on and use it to pick them up and dump them into the bowl. Top that with the couscous, squeeze the lemon over, and sprinkle on the cilantro and capers. Toss that all together lightly, then sprinkle over the feta cheese. Get ready for lots of deliciousness!
This will probably serve 4.