FFWD – Cheesy Crème Brûlée

March 8, 2013May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

“Cheese has always been a food that both sophisticated and simple humans love.”
M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf (1942)

I simply love cheese. I guess I know which side of Fisher’s equation that places me on. Though I’m not a fan of processed cheese. There, I just retained my dignity.

This week’s dish was a cheese lover’s dream. Well, it was this cheese lover’s dream. My partner, who loves cheese even more than I do, decided that he wasn’t a fan of this savoury cheese custard. “I prefer my cheese sliced,” was his verdict. My reply: “More for me!” And I enjoyed these all through last weekend. I guess there are some advantages to recipes that don’t win universal popularity…

I used a mixture of Gruyère and Dubliner, which worked really well together. The Gruyère was the last little bit of a beautiful cave-aged variety that appears occasionally at our local food co-op. This brûlée was a very good last use of the cheese. I chopped my cheese into tiny cubes (measurable in millimeters), which disappeared into the custard while baking. I had to turn up the heat from 200° to 250° for the last fifteen minutes of baking time, as my ramekins aren’t as shallow as those called for in the recipe.

I’ll make this again, certainly (though for a dinner sans Kevin). Creamy, cheesy, mostly made-in-advance, and a little unusual – sounds like a perfect start to a dinner party.

Happy International Women’s Day, everyone!

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cheesy Crème Brûlée

FFWD – Chicken Breasts Diable

March 1, 2013May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 20 Comments

We are well into Raincouver season here and I’ve just finished towelling myself off after taking the dog for a walk. Water is running over every surface outside, streaming down the sidewalks, making lawns resemble a beachside network of tidal pools and rivulets, all leading to the shallow seas forming around the storm drains at the corners of each street.

It’s the sort of weather that demonstrates the exact extent of water resistance in outerwear, but the temperatures are mild and the rivulets of water streaming through my hair were cool, not frigid. I’m grateful that it only takes one cup of tea to warm up, but it’s still not the sort of weather that would tempt me to run out for a forgotten ingredient.

Enter Chicken Breasts Diable. Though it sounds adventurous, as long as you remember to pick up the chicken, it won’t send you running out into the rain for anything you don’t already have in your kitchen. The devil in this dish is Dijon mustard and it forms a very mildly piquant pan sauce when combined with shallots, garlic, white wine, and cream. I substituted milk for cream, as I often do. I also skipped the Worcestershire sauce, because I haven’t been able to find a gluten-free brand (admittedly, I haven’t tried very hard). I did add a very small dab of HP Sauce to the pan, since both Worcestershire and HP are tamarind-based. I think it worked pretty well as a substitute, but it really has to be no more than a dab, or it could overwhelm the sauce. Someday I’ll remember to look for gluten-free Worcestershire sauce beyond my usual haunts, but until then, I’m glad my favourite breakfast condiment can pinch hit for it. (In case you’re wondering, HP Sauce is to the Commonwealth what ketchup is to North America. Canadians often play for both teams.)

It’s not my favourite one-pan recipe from this cookbook (that would be Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la Normande), but it’s another recipe that’s going to be making repeat appearances. It doesn’t hurt that it’s comforting and warm without being heavy – perfect for this in-between time of year. With the lemon spinach that’s coming up later this month and celery root puree, this was a lovely meal.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Chicken Breast Diable

FFWD – Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup

February 22, 2013February 22, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 20 Comments

A few years ago, the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibited a piece called Ought Apartment, which consisted of a stack of apartments reaching up through the centre of the building. Each apartment was decorated in the style of a particular decade, right down to the knickknacks and the contents of the drawers and cabinets. So many of the objects (and decorating schemes) resonated for me. The fifties apartment had the same sort of ceramic fish that my grandparents hung in their bathroom, there were some questionable young adult design choices in the eighties/nineties range, and so on up through to the millenium. It was the seventies apartment that fascinated me the most – it replicated the landscape (or carpetscape, anyway) of my childhood.

Why am I telling you all this in a post that’s supposed to be about pea soup? It’s all in the colour. The olive drab of the soup was a dead ringer for the avocado green of the kitchen appliances of my youth. The house that I grew up in had orange shag carpet in the living room, and olive green appliances in the kitchen. It may seem horrible now, but in the seventies it was de rigueur. Just as Ought Apartment had, this week’s soup carried me back.

What it didn’t do was carry me back to the taste of my mother’s pea soup, which is a solidly French Canadian split pea and ham bone affair. It’s delicious, but so was this soup, made with frozen green peas and romaine lettuce and relying on nothing more than salt, pepper, and softened onions for additional flavour. I couldn’t help myself – I added thyme and a clove of garlic to the onions, a minute or two before adding the vegetable stock. My vegetable stock was almost the colour of beef broth, I think because it has some tomato paste added to it, which might explain the colour of my soup. Others have reported their soups were a bright emerald green. No matter the colour, this soup does remind me of a summer soup, even though it’s also warming and rich enough for a cold spring evening. I’d like to take another run at this recipe when it’s truly summer, with fresh peas and mint. That might bring on another attack of memories, this time of shelling peas and shucking corn for family barbeques, but I’ll deal with it when it happens.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup

FFWD – Coeur à la Crème

February 15, 2013February 16, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 31 Comments

You might notice a distinct lack of heart-shaped-ness in this week’s dish. I couldn’t bring myself to buy the traditional moulds for this dessert, so substituted a colander, instead. We’re not big fans of Valentine’s Day around here. We’d rather celebrate Kevin’s birthday, which is within a few days of the holiday. When we first started dating, we had a tentative conversation about it:

“So, I’m not really into the whole Valentine’s Day thing, are you?”
“No, not at all! That’s so great we’re on the same page!”

Obviously, reconstructing conversations is outside of my skills set, but you get the idea. We’d had partners in the past who celebrated it and it was a relief to both of us to be able to let it go. It’s one of those holidays that engenders the sort of high expectations that can lead to disastrous results – like New Year’s Eve, but with more self-esteem involved. Sis Boom Blog’s Trevor has a story that tells it so much better than I could, so I’ll leave it at that.

I’ve not tasted this dessert yet, though I’ve tasted all its components, so perhaps I’ve tasted it after all. My no coeur in this crème version of this week’s recipe is going to taste pretty fabulous. Instead of liqueur, I added a couple of teaspoons of Campbell’s Gold amaretto-spiked honey. Drizzled on top is more of the honey and Dorie’s bittersweet chocolate sauce. (I should have stuck with just the chocolate sauce for drizzling purposes, as the honey made everything a little bit smeary. Oh, well.)

With this dessert and a pot of chocolate sauce in the fridge, I think we’re set for a cosy weekend. Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate it and a very relaxing weekend to all.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Coeur à la Crème

FFWD – Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

February 8, 2013February 8, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

Have I mentioned that I have some envy issues when it comes to citrus? Reading about other Doristas walking into their yards and picking fruit for the week’s recipe emphasizes the drabness of Vancouver winter a little too keenly. I was able to find some lovely Cara Caras today, so that’s some consolation.

Another consolation is that the orange in this dish didn’t wow me. Next time, I’d reach for some apples instead. Cardamom-rubbed porkloin, roasted in an apple cider and balsamic sauce, now that seems more my style. Not that I minded the stove-top method. It gave me more room in the oven to roast some potatoes and garlic, which I smashed with butter and a little milk before serving.

Now, I’m off to enjoy the long weekend. Next week, it’s coeur à la crème and the dreaded V-word.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

FFWD – Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote

February 1, 2013February 2, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 37 Comments

The usual obstacles to a properly chopped ingredient are dull knives (got that covered – there’s a good sharpener in the drawer), poor knife skills (improving every year, thank you very much), or unripe produce (great selection at the local market this week). I have another, quite individual obstacle, in the person of one small dog:

Imagine that face staring intently at you while you prepare your meal. Distracting, right?

Roxy’s five now and when she was two, she got quite ill and had to be put on a diet of home-prepared pork and yam for a year-and-a-half. She’s back on dog food now, but is only allowed small quantities of fruits and vegetables as snacks. All this has led to her belief that everything prepared in the kitchen is for her.

This week’s dish included two of her favourites, squash and apple. There was some whining involved and it may come as no surprise that not quite the entire apple called for in the recipe made it into the oven. I also may have hurried through the chopping process a little, rendering my cubes of squash and apple a little less than uniform.

Distraction aside, this recipe was quick to put together and, en papillote, easily left to its own devices in the oven while the rest of dinner is prepared.

I liked the combination of Brussels sprouts, squash, and apple. Sage and brown sugar brought the flavours together well, though I think I might add some nutmeg next time. I also think I’ll forgo the foil – a little caramelization would really make this dish.

And Roxy? She moved on to demanding a portion of the blueberries I added to this banana bread. Everything in the kitchen. For her.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote

FFWD – Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles

January 25, 2013January 25, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 20 Comments

I’m not entirely sure I should be claiming to have made this week’s recipe, but I’m certainly not alone in this. Once again, our Problems & Questions thread was very busy and this week’s subject was tomato purée. Those who’d made the recipe early felt the purée overwhelmed what might otherwise have been a perfectly good stirfry. Those of us, not naming any names here (particularly mine), who tend to do things a little last-minute mostly decided to reduce the amount of tomato or eliminate it altogether.

I eliminated it and didn’t really have to tweak the rest of the flavours at all. Next time, I might squeeze some lime juice over the stirfry just before serving, but I was quite happy with tonight’s results. I did play with the recipe in other ways – substituting a mix of fresh wild mushrooms for the dried tree ear mushrooms and brown rice vermicelli for the cellophane noodles, but the seasonings in the original recipe were quite well-balanced, so I stuck with them. The five-spice powder was especially good with the shrimp and sesame-soaked noodles. If you’d like to see a delicious-sounding adaptation of this dish, here’s Patty’s version.

I’m not sure what it is about this month’s recipes, but our Dorista discussions have really taken off. Perhaps it’s because we’re getting close to the halfway mark of our project, or perhaps it’s just because January was chosen as the month to get a few challenging dishes out of the way. I suspect that it’s also because we’re becoming so intimately familiar with the style of cooking in this book that we’re going to see ever more creative riffs on each week’s recipe. I’m looking forward to it.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles

FFWD: Chicken Liver Gâteaux With Pickled Onions

January 18, 2013January 20, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 21 Comments

It’s been an interesting month for us at French Fridays. Last week’s recipe caused controversy over technique; this week’s recipe provoked one of the liveliest Problems & Questions thread that we’ve ever had. Liver is a challenging ingredient for many and this recipe seemed doubly challenging for some because the chicken livers are blended into custard cakes. (Meat custard…mmm…)

The results, however, are wonderful, at least for those of us who love pâté. This isn’t the pâté of my youth, a hearty country version that my mother’s family used to bring to us (safeguarded in their carry on luggage) when they were visiting from Manitoba. That pâté, Del’s, is famous amongst those who grew up in St. Boniface and gets shipped around the world to nostalgic Franco-Manitobans. Dorie’s Chicken Liver Gâteau is a much lighter affair, with subtle hints of sage, thyme, and rosemary.

I elected to ‘lighten’ it even more by using a lower fat milk in place of the whole milk and heavy cream, but it’s still very rich. There are several eggs in this recipe (and that’s before you add more yolks). I also put the custard into smaller molds, since I was serving these as an appetizer. My mother suggested baking them in mini-muffin pans for a Christmas buffet. I’ll have to put a note in my calendar to remind me of this ’round about mid-November.

The onions take a very short time to prepare and after a day in the refrigerator, they’re addictive. It’s a little dangerous knowing how easy pickling can be. I have to be careful not to make too much, since we’re a two-person household. Or, I could just make them for the rest of the family, as I did this week.

The gâteau is meant to be plated on a bed of mixed greens, with the pickled onions on the side, but I served it on a plate with olives and herb crackers along with the onions. It made a lovely savoury appetizer plate and was absolutely not as scary as our P&Q conversation might have led you to expect.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Chicken Liver Gâteaux With Pickled Onions

FFWD – Long and Slow Apples

January 11, 2013May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 12 Comments

You wouldn’t think baked apples were controversial, but this recipe caused a lot of consternation amongst the French Fridays crowd this week. It wasn’t the long bake at 300° or the layers of melted butter and spiced sugar. It wasn’t even figuring out what to use to press down on the apples as they cooked. It was that the recipe asks you to wrap the ramekins in a layer of plastic wrap under another of foil.

I’ve long been scared away from using cling wrap in the microwave, for fear of leaching chemicals, so I was also dubious about putting some into a conventional oven. My brother (a chef) advised that there are two kinds of wrap – restaurant-grade wrap that’s oven-safe and the cling wrap most of us have at home, which isn’t. I decided to brush the leftover melted butter onto foil and leave it at that.

That seemed to work just fine. My layers of apples were reduced to about a quarter of their original height and their texture had changed, too. They’d absorbed the butter and sugar and had become dense and rich. I used homemade vanilla sugar, skipped the zest, and added ground cardamom along with the ginger. It was a nice mix of flavours.

The apples are meant to be served with whipped cream, but I decided to dust them with icing sugar instead, which promptly melted into the apples, which were still a little too warm. This (relatively) quick apple confit made a great late night snack last weekend and I’d happily make them for a dinner party (with whipped cream, of course).

I’m curious to see what choices the rest of the Doristas made when they wrapped these for the oven. You can find their links here: Long and Slow Apples.

In the meantime, this week’s recipe was published here.

FFWD – Herb-Speckled Spaetzle

January 4, 2013May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 32 Comments

As you can see, my spaetzle are a little creamier than they are supposed to be. I made them gluten-free and though I think they’re pretty good for a first attempt at converting the recipe, they’re not exactly what you’d expect if you were ordering spaetzle from a menu.

Most cuisines have a comforting dumpling or pasta and this German version was tasty, if a bit messy to execute. I pushed the batter through a flat grater to shape them and it seemed to work well enough. Though you can’t tell from the photo, the spaetzle held their shape through boiling and pan-frying, though they never lost the creaminess that came from not getting the proportion quite right in my gluten-free flour substitution.

I served the spaetzle as I would rice, alongside the pork version of Dorie’s Chicken, Apples, and Cream à la Normande from a few weeks ago. The next day, I sprinkled a few of the leftovers in red pepper and tomato soup, as I was heating it up. Noodles and dumplings are something my partner doesn’t get much of since his celiac disease diagnosis, so the spaetzle have been a nice treat for him. Still, I don’t think I’ll be making spaetzle often. Maybe it’s a post-Christmas abstemiousness, from so much rich food over the holidays, but I’m leaning more toward soups these days. (This carrot soup, for instance.)

I don’t feel finished with desserts, though – I finally caught up on the chocolate mousse from November and am trying to come up with an excuse to serve it again. So good and far too quickly put together for something so elegant. It’s also much prettier than my version of the spaetzle. Not that we stopped to admire it long before eating it.