bleudauvergne

I followed the recipe closely. After blitzing the fish, I ever so slowly incorporated the cream and egg whites. Batter. It turned to liquid. I chilled it for the prescribed amount of time. It got a bit thicker but not much. It's too bad I didn't read Julia Child's take on a failed quenelle paste...

Eden, who is the speaker? And an obscene amount of butter. But I will do my best to remain reasonable.

Alright, I am giving home made flourles quenelles a try...

I looked for brochet (pike) but did not find it. Therefore I chose wild sea bass. Not sure if it was ok. I cut the sea bass small and the minced the shallots.

Eden, she does. But she uses the ones made with chicken. It's like singing a lullabye. Puts people right to sleep. On with the project for the flourless quenelles.

I'm not sure this is going to help me with my diet. ← It will if you decide to follow the diet and don't succumb to things like this... After my decision to prepare flourless quenelles for tonight, I went out with a shopping list to get what I needed in the quartier (that means the 'hood). I only needed fish, white wine, and butter. There's only one place to get fish in my 'hood in the late afternoon - Marechal Center. Well, I guess since I'm going I have to make a stop a t the cheese counter... I also had to get the wine for the sauce. So on the way I snapped a pic of some quenelles though a window. Literally every single traiteur (deli) in Lyon makes and sells them. The guy noticed me taking pictures at the window and waved. I went in and asked him about flour in quenelles. He said that his are made with semolina. He said that some people make them with flour. I asked him if they are ever made with eggs only, and he replied that they are made with semoulina or white flour. But the recipe I linked to does not contain flour, and I implicitly trust good 'ole George to give me good recettes. He's never failed me.

Did I say canelles? I meant quenelles. Oh I'm always doing that. Thank you for that question, otherwise I might never have noticed. So about quenelles. They are one of the famed Lyonnais specialties. Most of the traiteurs make them and sell them ready to pop into the oven. They are dumplings that puff up to 3 times their size, are light and airy, and are usually made with brochet or poultry meat. Julia Child's recipe contains white flour, but many others contain only eggs. I think I might give my hand a try at this tonight. Here is a recipe for quenelles from Georges Blanc. I have one of his cookbooks (cuisine en famille) and every time I try a new recipe from it, it turns out quite well. I think I will do something like the link above, but have not decided what to use -- poultry or fish.

Dinner was a sort of ratatouille . I basically emptied out the veggie drawer and included some roasted veggies that I had already but needed to use. Lots of garlic. (Loic got his with rice, I had mine plain) I have some leftovers to have over pasta tomorrow at lunch. Tomorrow I will focus on phase one rules, suggested sauces, I plan to hit the library to see what Montignac cookbooks are available as well.

The day's eats included a hodge podge of bland, unmentionable foodstuffs, strictly following the rules and giving me my obligatory carb intake without much effort (i.e. store bought pasta). Dinner was alright. I was thinking of making pasta again and then succumbed to some smoked magret de canard and changed my tune mid course. When you can't find toothpicks, look around at the herbs you've got drying around the kitchen. Sage branches are just fine speared through the slices of magret. (note the wine I poured in the glass was served to Loic and mine went untouched until after dinner)

You can make a Gateau Breton.

I have seen a dog actually given a chair across from it's owner at an outdoor cafe in Vienne. I suspect this was a long time regular. I took a photo but it was a print. I think, like in any culture, you're going to have examples falling acoss the spectrum. For example, one of my French family members won't eat cheese, anything with capers, oysters, does not like fish, nor does she particularly like green vegetables, things that are "too sweet", or with textures she doesn't like. Anything prepared in a manner she isn't expecting is suspect. She frequently turns her nose up at anything that doesn't please her, whether she is a guest or at home. When she goes home to visit, she digresses to the age of 7, and her mother, like a short order cook, always prepares Aude complete seperate dishes according to her long list of tastes and preferences. She has been known to pout when served something that the hostess was unaware was on her list of not-eats (choucroute). It is the way she was raised. I have entertained the idea that she could be a supertaster as well and had some bad experiences in childhood, or that this is backlash to the kind of harsh discipline that Jon speaks of. The rest of the family is a group of adventurous gourmands with high standards. The father has a history of being rather dictatorial and has put a lot of pressure on the children, although he seems to be mellowing over the years. There could be a complex history to this. For that reason I have memorized her list and cook accordingly, and I happily consume the 'yellow meals' we are served at her house. It's about being in a family, I guess. Farid's wisdom rings true here. My husband, when he was my boyfriend, in the midst of a discussion of our respective schooling, mentioned "when (he) started work... ", and I thought he was saying that he'd taken a job in addition to his studies. I asked how old he was, and he said "Oh, at about 5 we started the real work, you know, memorizing". At that point, I was just learning to share my milk and cookies, play nice with others, and lie still at nap time!

I agree. Excellent blog. I love to walk in the woods and gather things as well, I'm so happy you are taking us on your foraging missions! There are many excellent woods near my mother's home. Last summer I went out early to take pictures of mushrooms. Just off one particular trail in the woods behind the school in the village I stumbled upon a small grove of the plant that helps your grandmother's arthritis. I left it, because I figured it was someone's lovingly tended teenage botany project, but I did take a picture of one of the plants. My brother said I should send it to a magazine. It was very pretty. Oh thank you fifi for sharing your stories and wisdom of nature with us.

The result of the sabayon was good. First I reduced 4 ladles of the stock from the blanquette ito about half its volume. That took about 20 minues. Then I set up a bowl over a simmering pot of some rice I was cooking for Loic (not for me). I whisked 3 egg yolks and reduced stock (about a cup and a half) for a couple of minutes. Then I hit it with an electric mixer (a new toy!) when the yolks began to thicken the sauce. It thickened beautifully, and also took on some volume. I was suprised at the result. With the reduced stock, the flavor was very rich. I added about a 1/2 t. of white pepper at this point. The sauce was a very good compliment to the blanquette. There was something about the texture of the blanquette that bolstered the creaminess of the sauce and the sauce drew you into a love affair with the soft braised meat, and threw you off into a neverending spin. It was one of those things you can definitely serve to guests. Its on my list. Blanquette de veau has a lot of cartilage and skin, so it takes on that gelatinous rich flavor. In this way you can eat a small amount and be satisfied. Although I did not finish what was on my plate, I did end up probably eating more than I needed to eat, out of sheer gourmandise. The salad was endives with a walnut oil vinaigrette. Having a little bit of the walnut drizzled over my lunch got me in the mood. The local vegetable vendor said that now is not the time for Grenoble walnuts, otherwise I would have sprinkled some on the endives. This reminds me that the green walnuts should be available sometime soon. I am bound and determined to make some vin de noix this year. Loic went back for more rice and sauce. Recipe to follow tomorrow. Dessert. The cholocate mousse has room for improvement.

Definitely, Eden, if you can find whole wheat semoulina. Something about feculants, now that Eden brings this up. Lentils of any kind, kidney, lima, etc. are special. They are special because they shift in application between phase one and phase two. My husband the scientist did a little research on these beans. They're good for the heart, that's for sure, and they can be eaten in great qualtities, alone. 1) When you cook lentils with bacon, remember that the bacon is for flavor and you should limit your intake of the meat. If you can help it, avoid eating the meat. Give it all to your spouse. The lentils fall into the carb family and are not to be combined with heavy fats. Wait a minute here! When you cook a nice slab of smoked meat with your lentils, obviously you're adding fat. The lentils absorb it. That's an illegal combination! However, if this is what you need as a flavor enhancer, this particular combination won't completely sabotage your regime. You will continue to lose in stage one. You have to consider that combining lentils with certain fatty foods will have less of an impact, but at the same time, sometimes that bacon makes a big difference between opportunities and restrictions. It's the overall picture we're looking at here. So for this reason, you should consider it, but not overdo this type of combination. 2) i.e. When you are combining with rice, be careful not to include any fat (at all) in the lentil preparation (basmati rice & dal with spices). It's the only way. It ccunts as a carb. So be careful to control any oils when you are combining feculants with rice. Here is a photo of the meat, which has been set aside after about an hour and a half of simmering.

That is so true. I always wonder when people say: "Oh no I am not allowed to eat that, because I am on a diet". When you look at the food you eat as a kind of punishment, how can it nourish you? It won't. So that's when you will start craving the other stuff again, the food that you're 'not allowed to eat', which becomes all the more desirable because it's forbidden. And you give in and then you can say: see, diets don't work. ← Frame of mind is everything, Chufi, you are so right. Lunch was out and I enjoyed a carpaccio de boeuf with walnut oil. It was a very light serving, so I had a 1/2 St. Marcellin. Sometimes the St. Marcellin is so incredible when the restaurants treat it right. This one melted in my mouth... I took a photo of the carpaccio and will put it up later. The first night should follow rules but needn't be puritannical. Anyway, there are some things that I have been meaning to try. 'Sabayon' has been the word on everyone's lips these past couple of weeks. It has popped up in magazines, has come on cooking shows, sugary versions used in tiramisu, the asaparagus sauce, etc. in all shapes and forms. I've been thinking that the sabayon is a butterless hollandaise, a sort of custard sauce thickened with egg yolks, using any liquid - wine, stock, champagne, fruit juice, what have you as a medium these days. Therefore, I will incorporate this newly discovered little tidbit of joy into the dish I will cook tonight. For Loic, the blanquette de veau is one of his favorite comfort foods. His mother has adjusted her recipe (as many moms do) to appeal to the children's tastes, incorporating olives and even canned canelles (not so hot but wow once you have a belly full of that you have no problems falling right to sleep) from time to time. I have decided to go back to the basics and prepare this dish and instead of using the beurre manie that we see time and again, I will use a bit of the stock which has simmered the blanquette and some eggs to prepare a sabayon, thus thickening the sauce without flour. I won't have a whole pot full of sauce, but that's fine. I hope it works. The veal has been on simmering for the last hour. In addition, as a kind of celebration, I will serve a little chocolate mousse. This is also an invention I have been thinking about, using one egg for two people. You beat the egg white stiff with a pinch of cream of tartar. Then you add 2t. sucrose and beat again till shiny. Then one T. plain (Bernachon - I went back today while back at the bio shop to get some basics.) cocoa is sifted over the whites and folded in. This tastes good as is. I incorporated 1/2 more T. cocoa into the egg yolk and fold that in, and sprinkled the rest of a 1/2 T. cocoa over the rest and folded it in. Put into individual ramekins and chill. I will taste tonight's and see if it needs any adjustments. The timer's going off.

That and the range of produce and products shipped in to market in Paris most probably expanded the average home cook's vocabulary a great deal.

Eden, I am so glad you'll be joining me. Yes, in the French version Lunch is the big meal, and the one where he encourages us to take in our lipids for the most part. He says dinner should be light, but I tend to have at least 2-3 lipid dinners during the week. If it means I have to diet for an extra few weeks, so be it. My emphasis on breakfast is a personal one. Note I usually have a tartine or small simple carb meal, except from time to time I splurge on a lipid fest. Butter is alright as long as you don't go crazy with it, but he encourages us to prefer duck fat and olive oil, for health reasons. In stage one we are told to keep intake low when possible but it is not verboten. Cheese: French version: Free rein. However I will note that he says that if you are having trouble with a stall, you should try and cut fats, thus tweak the cheese intake. 100% WW pasta is certainly recommended for dinner meals in my book. He may have the American version avoid it due to the fact that most industrially made pastas, unless they guarantee only 100% whole wheat, do contain significant amount of refined flour, and are only "demi complet" in the US. The final 100% WW products can be gritty, so to avoid that, product developers mix flours for the best mouthfeel they can get. There's a big difference between 100%WW pasta and demi complet. If you have any refined flour in your pasta, it won't work. Imagine the backflap if he suggested that you have to make your own pasta. Although many of us here on eGullet find making pasta a perfectly normal and pleasurable activity, I suspect that we are special people. So maybe he's playing it safe because so many of the products available in the states claiming to be WW are not really. 100% WW pastas have a large market here in the bio shops. They are expensive. I make my own pasta for financial reasons. It's about 1/8 of the price, and home made tastes better anyway. I have got to get cooking! I want to have dinner ready when Loic gets home!

I'm going to ask my father-in-law, who was born and raised in Paris. He might be able to shed some insight into this question as well. That's the thing about home cooking books and books in which dishes are presented as coming from a particular region. Note that if you run across a cookbook you most likely will get from the message some notion that Parisian food is French food in general. In Paris, I suspect there are three kinds of parisian cooking: 1) That which is native to the city, historically, and may include specific styles in which a certain dish is served, 2) products of the city's people, that which falls into what we think of buying and eating when visiting the city, i.e. regional specialties, from the viewpoint of coming from the outside, and 3) What people who live there are cooking at home. Its still rather cloudy to me, though.

Amen to that. I think I'll look into salad cruets this afternoon, it's a nice idea.

Sometimes we need to crave. This feeling comes from the idea that we’re so completely overwhelmed by life and work and the roadblocks and stalls, and everything around us, that it’s a welcome thing to have in your mind a nice little island with a lighthouse beacon like a piece of rich cake from that wonderful teahouse or a batch of duckfat popcorn, or a pain au raisin (what we might call a cinammon raisin roll without the cinnamon, and made with an almost unctuous cross between a pate feulitee and a pain de mie, rolled up and just as buttery as it is sweet…) but I digress. Sometimes what we need is inspiration. And the thought of the perfect pate brisee or one last chance before the hot weather comes to make a tartiflette can mask itself as inspiration and present itself at our door. What do we do? Sometimes we take the opportunity as it knocks. But when there’s a binding around the waist that leaves a mark, or when gazing over the wardrobe which we’ve just rearranged for Spring, we are magnetically attracted to that big long white cotton sweater that covers everything, it is the time, my friends, to think about focusing our attention to the here and now. Sweep away the false beacons of hope and concentrate on the world around us. Breakfast is an opportunity to charge up the batteries and the perfect time to start the transition back to healthy thoughts about food. Why? Because if we have a nice big breakfast, we won’t even think about food until lunchtime. Even then, they won’t be desperate thoughts that end in baguette sandwiches or kebabs, or choosing unnecessary desserts. We will have the opportunity to reasonably and thoughtfully contemplate what our mid-day meal will consist of. So on my first day back, I begin my morning with a nice bowl of oatmeal. Even as a child I did not have a real sweet tooth, and I preferred butter and salt in my oatmeal. However this morning, it will just be a dash of salt. I am thinking of my mother today. She is a great fan of oatmeal. She says she likes soy sauce on it. Today is the perfect day to try it. While the oatmeal cooks I enjoy a plum. I take my brewers yeast, which will help me to find an equilibrium over time as I concentrate on what crisp spring bounty will become my focus of attention, and I think about what opportunities lie before me. This is the key to the Montignac method. You must think of the opportunities, and not of the restrictions. I have the following available to me. What will I prepare? The possibilities are beginning to present themselves.

Tomorrow I begin.

There's something I completely agree with about choosing to eat less and eat things that are good for you, it happens when our body is in balance and we lose the cravings. I have Dr. Montignac to thank for that to a certain degree. But claiming that French women are not fat is just a myth. Do you need me to take pictures? Anyway. I may be back to the regime. I need some purification. My spleen is craving popcorn and ice cream that's the first reason to do a few days of the plan. Let me think about some recipes to share.

This post takes me back to art school. Thank you.

This is a wonderful read. Jen, when are you coming back? Will you do Lyon?

I switched to duck fat when popping corn long ago, in fact just last night I popped up a batch of duck fat popcorn. It's heavenly. 1/3 cup of popcorn and 2T. of duck fat popped in a covered 2 quart sauce pan will give a generous serving for two at aperetif. Fleur de sel adds to the pleasure. The oil gets very hot without burning, which is good, and there's a nice subtle taste added to the popcorn that's beautifully addictive.