Category: The Book

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

12. Lamb Tagine With Prunes Apricots and Vegetables p. 510

the recipe

I’m not the hugest fan of meats in sweet sauces, and this certainly was sweet. Between the dried prunes, apricots, squash, sweet potato and honey it came close to cloying. There was a huge amount going on here, lamb isn’t a subtle flavour to begin with, and the all fruits and spices brought it near to sensory overload.

I know that Tagine’s and much North African cooking is based on these flavour profiles, but they are often more muted than they were here. The best Tagine’s I’ve had have kept the individual ingredients flavours distinct in each bite, with a mingling of their tastes in the sauce. Here I thought it blended too much, and it was texturally homogenous. I found the spicing to be quite nice, with ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg perfuming the sauce.

I would recommend cutting some of the fruit from this dish, and serving it as one of several elements in a meal. We had only this and couscous, and I really enjoyed the first few bites, I just tired of it rather quickly. The recipe also makes a whole lot of food, so my impression of this one may be tainted by having eaten days worth of leftovers.

Categories
Fruit Desserts The Book

11. Cherry Clafouti p. 817

This was a very straightforward dish, an eggy batter poured over cherries and baked until puffed and golden. It was very easy to put together, the whole batter is made in the blender, and the addition of almond and vanilla extracts as well as kirsh gave it some complexity of flavour. I’m always happy to see kirsh turn up on an ingredient list, because other than fondue au fromage, I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

The recipe recommends pitting the cherries, but gives the option to leave them whole. I left them au naturel and warned my guests. We didn’t have any incidents at dinner, however the next day I bit down on a cherry stone and may have loosened a tooth. The final dish was quite sweet, but I believe this was my fault. In rereading the recipe I notice that it called for sour cherries, and I’m fairly sure I used Bings from the grocery store. The sour cherries would have been welcome here, or if using sweet, cut the sugar.

This dish is located in the Fruit Desserts chapter of the book, but I think it would be more at home in with the Breakfast and Brunch section. It was billed as being “halfway between custard and cake”, turns out this is the state known as pancake. I was hoping it would be less sweet and more boozy, but as I mentioned that was probably my fault.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

10. Asparagus With Tarragon Sherry Vinaigrette p.520

the recipe

This turned out quite well. I served it with steak Diane and brown-buttered corn with basil. Here the asparagus is steamed and then shocked in ice water before tossing with the vinaigrette. I usually boil my asparagus, but steaming worked very well. The recipe calls for a hard boiled egg to be passed through a sieve and sprinkled on top. I skipped this step, as my dinner was heavy enough with the steak. If I were serving this with salmon the egg might have worked very well.

The Tarragon was a great addition to this dish. The vinaigrette was simple and added a pleasant tang, while the tarragon has a great affinity for both the asparagus and the mustard in the vinaigrette. I chose to do this recipe early on in the project because I love tarragon, but don’t encounter it all that often. I actually hear about it more as a classic ingredient in French cuisine than I come across it on the plate. I live in Montreal, where every second restaurant is a French bistro, and you might expect it to turn up. That’s not to say that it’s not around, just that it’s under appreciated.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

9. Brown-Buttered Corn With Basil p. 534

Again, no recipe for you today but this side dish is so easy you really don’t need one. I browned butter in a heavy bottomed pan, and added corn kernels, salt, and pepper. When the kernels were tender (around 4-5 minutes) I stirred in some torn basil leaves.

I think the proportions were a bit off in this one. The book recommends 2 TBS of butter, 3 cups of corn, and 1 cup of basil. I would cut the butter and basil in half. Both added really nice flavours, but the extra butter just wasn’t really necessary. The problem with the basil was too much flavour, it started to overpower the corn a bit. I’d also be careful about shredding the basil very finely, as it was I got a lot stuck in my teeth.

Despite my criticisms I thought this was pretty good; fresh and summery. I think the browned butter was a great idea, it added a much appreciated layer of nuttiness to the dish which contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the corn.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

8. Steak Diane p. 427

I can’t find a recipe to link to, and that’s a real shame. This dish was a knockout. The classic version uses tenderloin, here The Book calls for much more affordable sirloins. The steaks were flavourful and ended up fillet mignon tender after a pummeling with an empty wine bottle. The steaks were seasoned with salt and pepper, then pan seared. I cooked down some shallots in the fat in the pan, and added a mixture of beef broth, Worcestershire, lemon juice, Dijon, Cognac, and Sherry (I used port). I reduced the sauce, and finished with butter and parsley.

The only change I’d make to this one would be to leave the parsley out of the sauce, it wilted kind of unattractively. I’d leave it out all together, but a bit in a chiffonade over the steaks would look nice.

This took all of 20 minutes to put together and it blew me away. I’m a sucker for a pan sauce because they rescue so much of the goodness you left behind in the pan, and can add complimentary flavours and complexity. In this case the sauce was exceptionally well balanced, and enhanced the flavour of the steaks without covering anything up. I loved that this took no time to prepare (dicing a whole cup of shallots was the most irritating part), didn’t cost an arm and a leg, and left a big impression with my guests. Traditionally the cognac is added right at the end of the dish and ignited table side, the recipe doesn’t call for it but big flames can do wonders to liven up a dinner party.

This was so good I’ve awarded it the first 5 mushroom rating of the project. Well done Steak Diane, well done.

Categories
Poultry The Book

7. Colombian Chicken, Corn, and Potato Stew p. 370

the recipe

This is a stew is thick and rich. I made it in the middle of July. What was I thinking? It may have gone something like:

me: I feel like chicken.
ME: But it’s hot out, and your apartment is already 35 degrees.
me: Don’t people in hot countries eat chicken?
ME: You’re right, it’s hot in Columbia… make this stew.
me: Stew? it’s hot I don’t want stew!
ME: What do you know about hot weather eating? If it’s good enough for Columbians it’s good enough for you.
me: OK, let’s do it.

By the time I finished cooking my apartment was up to about 40 degrees, and I was ready to pass out. I ate a few obligatory spoonfuls and decided that the rest should be frozen ’till the fall. Unfortunately I didn’t retrieve it ’till a couple of weeks ago, and the freezer burn didn’t do anything to improve it.

Despite my foolish timing for this dish, it was actually fairly good. It had great chicken flavour, and grating half the potatoes left the sauce nicely thickened with some potato chunks to bite into. The stew itself is bland, so I’d top it with a healthy dose of the capers and cilantro. The flavour in the stew mostly comes from the chicken, so don’t skimp on browning it.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

6. Roasted Cherry Tomatoes With Mint p. 585

the recipe

The name pretty much says it all. Tomatoes tossed in oil, salt, and pepper, roasted till bubbling and a bit blackened, topped with fresh mint. This was pretty good, but I’m not sure that roasting improved them. I liked that they took on some colour, but why mess with summer fresh cherry tomatoes? They’re great just as they are, and roasting them denies you the satisfaction of having them pop in your mouth.

Because these cooked for only about 8 minutes they were somewhere in between fresh and fully cooked. I guess this would let people who dislike the raw flavour in tomatoes to come close to appreciating their summery goodness. Next time I’d keep the ingredient list and skip the roasting.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

5. Roasted French Fries p. 568

Epicurious doesn’t have a recipe to link to for this one. But since this is hardly a recipe at all we won’t worry too much. I cut three large baking potatoes (skins on) into wedges about 1/3 of an inch wide, tossed with vegetable oil, salt, and pepper and transfered them to a baking sheet. I baked at 500 for 25 minutes flipping once.

These were nearly as good as their fried cousins, and I didn’t have liters of hot oil on my stove. The last time I tried frying at home I used a cheap fry thermometer and let the oil temp get away from me. When the fries went in, the oil boiled over the sides of my pot and half of my kitchen turned into a fireball. Hours spent cleaning a slurry of extinguisher powder and oil out of my stove has given me a healthy sense of respect for home frying. Worse, even when done successfully in as well ventilated an area as an apartment kitchen can be, you and all your clothes still end up smelling like french fries.

The results of this baked version were different, the potato skins not quite as crispy, but not as oily either. The cleanup was a snap, and there wasn’t even a chance the fire department would need to show up. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of oil, I used less and found that even with a non stick baking sheet they did stick a bit.

I had these as a side to fish en papillote with tomatoes and olives. They really saved that supper.

Categories
Fish and Shellfish The Book

4. Fish en Papillote With Tomatoes and Olives p. 302

the recipe

This was less than the sum of it’s parts. A lot of good things went in: a couple nice halibut fillets, tomatoes, olives, red pepper flakes, orange zest, sage, wrapped and baked in parchment. What came out looked pretty, but tasted off. The individual flavors were good, but they didn’t meld particularly well. There was way more zest than I would have liked, and something unexpected and unpleasant in the sage-olive-fish combination. The fish was also a bit underdone, and you can’t put a papillote back together again (I finished in the microwave, but it didn’t help matters much). I think this one was a lot better in theory than it was on the plate. If I were to redo this I might replace the halibut with red snapper, and switch out the sage for thyme or basil. Overall there’s just way too much going on without much balance. There were about as many toppings as there were fish. Restraint might have improved it significantly.

Categories
Breads and Crackers The Book

3. Garlic Bread p.606

the recipe

Ahh Garlic bread, the ubiquitous starchy accompaniment to a big plate of my mom’s pasta. Weren’t the fat phobic carb happy 80’s a good time? So this is fairly idiot proof: apply garlic butter to bread, bake in tinfoil till warmed through, open tinfoil package to crisp up bread. Who could screw this up? apparently I can.

Things were going well through the cutting of the ciabatta loaf, and smearing butter stages. All clear for operation put in tinfoil and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Things were going so swimmingly I decided to focus on the rest of dinner. 15 minutes became 20, and the first hint of burning came to my nose. I never opened the package to crisp, and while the bottom of the loaf got nicely done, the rest of the loaf was the soggy mess of a thousand backyard BBQs.

Soggy garlic bread does have some fairly good memories associated with it, and
I enjoyed it thoroughly. However, I was really looking forward to the crispy crunch. Thankfully this is as simple a recipe as there is, so a redo won’t call for any untoward effort.

One thing I really appreciated about this was the suggestion to replace the parsley with basil (a suggestion not made in the linked recipe). To me parsley is a bit of waste of an herb, the Italian stuff has some nice flavor, the frizzy has none. All in all I’ll give parsley a pass whenever possible. Unfortunately The Book (and the whole world) seems to have a bit of thing for it. I won’t balk at spending eight bucks on a tiny piece of goat cheese, but that 79 cent parsley tax so many recipes charge really irks me.

This is a childhood classic not re-imagined in any way, as it should be.