FrogPrincesse

I suspect that Bouchon might be a little more involved, and that recipes in Mastering the Art may be more "adapted" to the American public of the 1960s, but I don't own either of these books. For something more "complete" I turn myself to The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan, which is a great reference. Les Halles has a lot of good classic recipes with techniques that are simple, traditional French home-cooking at its best in my opinion, plus of course the hilarious commentary from Bourdain. Here is the Pot-au-Feu (subtitled "How to Make a Frenchman Cry") that I made earlier this year. It is very close to what my mom used to make when I grew up, including the traditional garnishes (cornichons, mustard, gros sel (large-grained sea salt)). My mom made it with beef tongue which is not really "traditional" as far as I can tell, maybe just a family tradition. In Les Halles, the pot-au-feu is made with a wonderful combination of cuts: shoulder or brisket (I substituted flank as I was cooking only for 4 people), oxtail, short ribs, veal shank. Bourdain uses cabbage, carrots, leeks, onions, potatoes, celery root. I skipped the cabbage and replaced the celery root with a turnip to match my mom's recipe. Also cabbage seemed a little place for me in pot-au-feu but that may just be me - I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. Giant pile of meat and vegetables, with a bowl of consommé on the side (which I forgot to degrease properly - an important step which is actually omitted in the recipe), whole-grain mustard, cornichons, sea salt, crusty peasant bread (marrow receptacle). Pure comfort food! annecros documented this recipe on the Pot-au-Feu cook-off thread quite thoroughly here.

This reminds me of Rivella, a Swiss soft drink made from milk whey.

This reminds me that I made a batch of sauerkraut a few months ago. After a 2-week fermentation period at room temperature, I moved it to the back of my fridge where I completely forgot about it. Should I throw it away?

Hi Genkinaonna, I agree with you, the Racines cake is truly exceptional. I don't think that I could survive without chocolate in the house. My husband and daughter would never allow this to happen. We are all chocolate addicts in case this was not already obvious!

I was going through pictures and realized I had forgotten to post a few to this thread. The Chocolat Idiot Cake (also known as the more PC Chocolate Orbit Cake) Slice with whipped cream The Racines Cake with The Perfect Scoop Armagnac and Prune Ice Cream

The Chocolate Spice Bread from The Sweet Life in Paris. This twist on the French pain d'épices is intensely flavored with chocolate, plus the traditional ingredients: honey, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and whole anise seeds. It's a little dense (in a good way) and really good with coffee. I did not have anise so I used fennel seeds instead. I don't think that I am able to tell the difference in a cake.

This is an old thread, but I am still regularly cooking from Les Halles, which is my go-to cookbook for French-bistro recipes. I am glad to see that someone upthread brought up the issue of the (lack of) lardons in the Boeuf Bourguignon recipe: I had this dish in France and it also included lardons, which I thought were a great addition. Was that an anomaly? Even if it's unconventional, I might have to add them to the dish when making this recipe.... I find the recipe in les Halles to be excellent once you add the lardons. Without the lardons, there is really a layer of flavor missing. I've never had boeuf bourguignon in France served without lardons. I made the Clafoutis recently. It's really simple and wonderful thanks to the generous amount of booze. I used high quality Swiss Kirshwasser/eau de vie (3 oz!). I need to find something a little cheaper if I want to make the recipe more often. Here is the clafoutis after coming out of the oven, dusted in powdered sugar (my hand was a little heavy). Slice The clafoutis is quite eggy as it should be. Most other clafoutis recipes use milk, and this one has the particularity of not using any. But actually I think I prefer it that way, very thick. I pitted the cherries, as specified in the recipe, even though I am normally too lazy for that extra step. But my American husband is paranoid about his teeth. Also this was an excuse to get this super cute cherry pitter that my daughter loves to use. If anybody's interested, the Clafoutis recipe is available on Google books. [edited to add link to recipe]

Thanks nibor, I am happy to hear this! Making terrines is fun and a relatively easy way to impress your friends.

I made a couple of terrines from Charcuterie these past few weeks, with good results. Crab, Scallop, and Saffron Terrine (details here in the Terrine thread) Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with Spinach and Mushrooms (details here in the Terrine thread)

I made the Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with Spinach and Mushrooms from Charcuterie last week, for a potluck. The recipe first involves making a shrimp mousseline. Mushrooms are sautéed until soft; the spinach is trimmed (probably the most timed-consuming part for me; I used baby spinach which, at least, was pre-washed) and cut into a chiffonade. Mushroom and spinach are mixed with the shrimp mousseline. For the final assembly, the terrine is filled with 2/3 of the shrimp mixture, then a fresh salmon fillet is added in the middle, and lastly the top is covered with the remaining shrimp mixture. Cooking took about 2 hours in a bain marie in a low-temperature oven. The terrine looks great thanks to the contrast between the salmon and the spinach & mushroom. It is a little difficult to cut because it has a tendency to fall apart. I made the mousseline in two batches and I believe that the egg white did not get distributed throughout, so some areas were easier to cut cleanly than others. The salmon tasted wonderful (I used wild king salmon), but for me the mushrooms really made the dish. It's amazing how little button mushrooms can develop so much flavor. The terrine is a little more "rustic" than the crab and scallop terrine, but I think that I preferred both its texture and taste. I guess that I like simple things! My husband, on the other hand, liked both terrines but preferred the crab & scallop version.

That sounds great! Thanks for a great blog, I really enjoyed it.

Mauviel = moh-veeyell Bourgeat = boorjah Laguiole = lah-yole

Actually, in French, honey is MIEL (no 'e' at the end)

Everything looks great. Was this lunch today (in which case a nap would be in order after this and the chicken & waffle breakfast!), or dinner last night?

After my success with pâté de campagne, I decided to move on to seafood terrines. The first recipe that got my interest was the Crab, Scallop, and Saffron Terrine from Charcuterie. The recipe calls for “8 leeks, green tops only”. Interestingly, my local Whole Foods only had trimmed leeks so I had to ask them to check in the back for untrimmed leeks. Who would have thought that the leeks would be the hard-to-find ingredient in this recipe! I bought 8 leeks and then blanched only half of them as they would not all fit into my largest pot. In the end I only used 1 or 2 leeks. The terrine mold is lined with the blanched leeks. Then it is filled with a mousseline made with the scallops and saffron-infused cream to which lump crab meat is added. Since this was my first time making mousseline, I decide to substitute shrimp for the scallops as a cost-saving measure (but it was still an expensive terrine – I think I spent close to $50 in ingredients). No real difficulties with this recipe other than the fact that I was using a baby-sized food processor which was not the best tool for the job (a Cuisinart “mini-prep” processor). As a result, I had to prepare the mousseline in two batches. I probably should have cut the shrimp a little beforehand as the food processor overheated somewhat and a couple of shrimp pieces got stuck around the blade. I was not really careful when filling the terrine so I ended up with a few air pockets as shown in the first picture. But the terrine still looked beautiful, with specks of color from the saffron and chives. It took about 2 hours to cook in a water bath and was easy to slice the next day. A week later, I was invited to a party and decided to make this terrine again. This time I used scallops as specified in the recipe. I did not bother trimming the leeks into rectangles (I just used them "head to tail" instead) and used exactly 8 leaves to line the mold. I served the terrine with an herb (chives, parsley) mayonnaise. It was even better than the first time and our friends raved about it. As most terrines, it’s a good recipe for a buffet as it can be prepared in advance. Active prep time for me is about 45 minutes so it’s also relatively quick.

for a more unctuous pâté campagne, consider adding 10% cold cream to the mix (by weight of the forcemeat). That sounds great. Unctuousity is a good quality and should improve spreading properties. Thanks for the expert advice!

I can't believe that I have the audacity to post to this thread after the incredible Pâtés en Croûte and Galantine by Le Baron himself, but here we go... I have been making a lot of terrines recently. My first attempt was about a year ago. At the time I made Pâté de Campagne with the recipe from Les Halles. The recipe is pretty standard in its use of pork shoulder, pork liver, and pork fat (2:1:1 ratio). The pâté is seasoned with allspice, parsley, garlic, shallots, white wine, and Cognac, and bound with an egg. It is wrapped in caul fat and cooked in a terrine (even though, in the book, the pate is shown wrapped in what looks like barding fat, which confused me to no end as I was trying to figure out what caul fat was supposed to look like). Anyway, I managed to find all the ingredients at my local butcher shop. The execution was simple but time-consuming. As I did not own a grinder at the time, I had to finely dice the 2 pounds of mixture with a knife, which was no small task for me. In the process, it was difficult (read: impossible) to keep the meat cold. But I did what the recipe said to do when grinding was not an option: "cut the pork into small dice, and hope for the best". In the end, it seems that pâté is quite forgiving so the result was fine. I thought that the pig liver flavor was a little too pronounced for my taste, so I decided to try another recipe in the future. I had an occasion to make pâté de campagne again recently for the Charcutepalooza September challenge. This time, I followed the recipe from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. It's somewhat similar to the one from Les Halles. The meat to fat ratio is about the same (1.7:1 if I am doing the math correctly), but she uses escalopes in addition to the pork shoulder. Chicken livers are used instead of pig livers, and only a small amount (that would be 0.33 compared to the amount of fat needed in the recipe). I liked that change because chicken livers are much easier to find for me, and also because I did not want to taste of liver to overwhelm the pâté. Unlike the previous year, I had appropriate equipment available, and I used my new Kitchenaid grinder with a coarse die. I used the technique from Charcuterie and lined my mold with plastic wrap so I would not have to hunt for caul fat again (I like caul fat but very few places seem to have it available and when it’s available, it’s always frozen). Everything worked well and I was pleased with the end result. I would make that recipe again and maybe add some pistachios next time for texture and “visual interest”. We all liked the taste and my cat went completely nuts for it, which is odd because usually he is not into “people food”. (to be continued)

I've had scallop crudo in France with the roe attached, and it's delicious. They were just sliced very thinly, and seasonned with a little bit of lime juice. They were very fresh of course - in France we buy them in the shell.

My local Bristol Farms has them too, and so does Whole Foods (the fresh ones).

Heidi, The scallops were scored. They were quite thick so I thought that would be a good way to ensure that they would cook fast. Otherwise they tend to be overdone and can become tough. They were seared for 2-3 minutes on each side. They caramelized fast but inside they were still very tender.

Beautiful mushrooms. Do you wash them or just wipe them to get them clean? I know there are different schools of thoughts on that topic. I usually start by wiping them, but give up after 5 minutes and just rinse them instead... It's great to see the prep that goes into the wonderful dishes that you've been sharing with us! I can't wait to read the rest of your blog.

Here is a picture of a meal we had a few days ago. These are scallops with a lime-ginger beurre blanc, sprinkled with sesame seeds. The scallops were really outstanding. I bought at Bay Park Fish which is a small fish shop and restaurant.

Katie, I assume that you are referring to a cherimoya/custard apple, not a papaya, right? You could make Audrey Saunders' Soursop Sour! It's delicious.

Regarding the Cruzan line, I am just finishing up a bottle of Cruzan aged rum that someone gave me. While it's not something I would normally buy, it was a decent rum that was suitable for mixed drinks.

In Costa Mesa, I recommend Marche Moderne. It's a French bistro strangely located inside the South Coast Plaza shopping center (but that has its own patio so you quickly forget that you are in a mall). The chef Florent is French and his wife Amelia is the pastry chef. Their food is very creative, a combination of classic dishes with interesting twists. I remember having an impeccable foie gras au torchon there, and also a delicious tajine with local vegetables. Honkman posted a detailed review of the restaurant here.