I have a new rule: never make the French Fridays With Dorie recipe on the day that it is due. Especially when you’re also making six litres of Soup for your Housing Co-op’s soup swap.

I will be getting this in just under the wire (I hope) and am now wondering why I took so long to try this recipe. I love Shepherd’s Pie. In fact, it’s really hard to resist ordering it, if it’s available on a menu. Usually, it doesn’t measure up to what I can make at home, with lamb from my parents’ farm. So, homemade Shepherd’s Pie…what was I waiting for? No matter, the leftovers are in my fridge now, along with the soup for tomorrow’s swap.

Hachis Parmentier is essentially Shepherd’s Pie, but much, much richer. I had an elk roast that I’d set aside for this recipe and combined it with some organic beef stewing meat. I looked for gluten-free sausages and finally found some smoked Bison that fit the bill. I had to mince the sausages for the recipe, as they were not crumbly, but they were tastily worth it. Boiling the meat with the vegetables produces a thin, but delicious broth. As a bonus, I was left with enough broth after making the dish, that I was able to freeze two ice cube trays’ worth.

It was hard to avoid eating the filling while I was making the potatoes, but they provided some distraction themselves. So much milk, cream and butter. Then Gruyere, Parmesan and more butter…I love French food.

This recipe worked beautifully, but with three kinds of meat, two sorts of cheese, three varieties of dairy and Dorie’s instructions; I could hardly go wrong.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Hachis Parmentier

I don’t live in Paris. I live in East Vancouver. There’s one aspect of my neighbourhood, though, that’s always made me feel a tiny bit Parisian – the produce markets that run up and down Commercial Drive. While my suburban friends and family are taking their cars to the local supermarket to stock up on groceries, I’m walking along the Drive and thinking about what looks fresh for dinner that evening. And if I sound a tiny bit superior, it’s just the part of me that wishes she did live in Paris getting a little of her own back.
                       
I do appreciate my neighbourhood shops for more than just their ability to enhance my fantasy life. Really. I am blessed to have easily available to me fresh, often organic, ingredients from a variety of world cuisines. If I’ve forgotten something, I can usually just run down the street to get it. Best of all, my food bills are often a third of the price I’d pay at major supermarket chains. On the weekends, I can also head over to the local farmers’ market and spend a little more for farm-to-table goodness.

I reminded myself of all this while shopping for the ingredients for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe. I was frustrated because I wasn’t able to find hoisin sauce, but only because I was looking for one that was gluten-free. It exists, but clearly not in my neck of the woods. I have nothing to complain about.

In the end, I didn’t miss the hoisin sauce at all, because this chicken noodle soup was very flavourful. I didn’t stray far from Dorie’s recipe, only substituting the rice sticks that I already had on hand for the rice vermicelli that was called for. Provided you have all the ingredients at home, or are able to pick them up on your way home from work, this is a great weeknight dinner recipe. Once you’ve got the chopping out of the way, the only thing that takes time is poaching the chicken. It’s so easy to finish, especially using rice sticks, which only need a few minutes under boiling water to cook.

Speaking of the chicken, I poached a little more than was called for in the recipe and set some aside for chicken salad. The meat absorbed the flavours of the soup and I think it will be perfect with a simple dressing on mixed greens. Since there’s only two of us in our household, I divided the soup and chicken, finishing each batch the day we ate it. The soup was good on the first day and better the second, as the flavours had melded beautifully overnight. When I make it for company, I’ll definitely start it the day before.

We used mint and bean sprouts for garnish this time, but there are so many possibilities for this soup. I’d like to add mushrooms, along with the suggested lemon grass and Thai basil. I’m also looking forward to trying the curry version or adding some smoky ham when it’s almost finished cooking. Yum.

                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup

“Hmm. Mustard Tart.” My father’s reaction when I told him what I was making wasn’t much different than my own. Neither of us hate mustard, but we’re definitely not fans. At home, I usually have some Dijon on hand for slathering onto lamb roasts, but it’s generally a lonely little jar.

The process of making this tart was what intrigued me. I wanted to try out the savoury tart pastry and the custard-like filling looked like an interesting cooking challenge. I also wanted to see if I could make mine look as pretty and professional as the example in Around My French Table. I just wasn’t sure if anyone was going to eat it.

The tart dough requires some planning, as there’s a lot of chilling, freezing, baking and cooling involved. It’s not a spur of the moment recipe, but it lends itself to pre-preparation, as the dough can be kept refrigerated for several days before use. In my case, I was baking and cooking all day, so I just made the dough early and kept coming back to it at intervals.

I was surprised at how quickly the tart dough came together. I was using my mother’s old food processor, which no longer looks pretty, but works as well as it ever did. Wrapped in plastic, the dough went into the fridge for three hours. Out it came and it proved easy to work with, though it softens quickly. I was using a springform cake pan, rather than a tart pan, so I estimated the height of a tart and cut the dough accordingly. I had enough left over to fill a small ceramic dish. Then, into the freezer with both crusts.

An hour later, I pulled the pans out of the freezer and popped them into the oven. I didn’t use pie weights and the crusts didn’t suffer for it. They were golden and hadn’t puffed too much. I put them aside to cool.

After a while, it was time to tackle the filling. Preparing the carrots and leeks was really the only time-consuming part of this recipe and even that didn’t take much time. As long as you’ve taken the time for the tart dough, everything else is simple. I used heavy cream in place of crème fraîche, fresh rosemary from my mother’s garden and I substituted a bit of kosher salt for the fleur de sel. I used two mustards, one Dijon and one grainy, but they were probably milder than those called for in the recipe.

I was really pleased with the result. Though mine looked a little more…rustic…than the one pictured in AMFT, I thought they turned out perfectly. The taste was a surprise for me. The mustards had mellowed and merged with the other flavours and the tarts proved irresistible to everyone at dinner. By the next day, there was nothing left.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Gerard’s Mustard Tart

I went on a baking spree this week and Dorie Greenspan’s Gougères were at the top of my list. I don’t get to bake much these days, as my partner has celiac disease and isn’t fond of baked goods. So, no gluten-y or gluten-free baking for me at home. This week, I went over to my parents’ place and baked to my heart’s content. The first thing I tackled was also the first recipe for French Fridays With Dorie.

I used Asiago cheese for my gougères, as I’d picked some up for another recipe, but otherwise I followed the recipe as published in Around My French Table. My parents have a hobby farm, so I have the pleasure of using farm-fresh, organic, free-range eggs for free. The only challenge is finding eggs small enough to qualify as large. I also had the luxury of using my mother’s Kitchen Aid stand mixer, so the whole process was very easy.

I’d always been intimidated by the idea of choux pastry, thinking it would be easy to go wrong with it, but in this recipe everything was surprisingly quick and according to plan. By the time I added the grated Asiago, the dough was the consistency of a rich, extra-thick batter and glowed an eggy, buttery yellow.

I spooned out and froze most of the batch, which is being saved for my brother’s 40th birthday party. I saved enough to bake three, though. (No baking without tasting is a good motto, I think.) My mother’s oven runs a little hot, so they were just slightly browner than I’d wanted them to be, but they weren’t overdone.

I loved the texture and taste of these puffs. The exterior has the texture of a cream puff, but the interior is slightly moist and cheesy. The deep sharpness of the Asiago worked nicely. We ate the first two just as they were (sans Champagne, unfortunately) and my mother spooned some strawberry jam into the last one. I don’t know if that’s done or not, but it was delicious. When I make them next (and I will be making these often, provided I can get some gluten-friendly kitchen time), I think I’ll try Guinness cheddar.

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