"Essential Cuisine", Michel Bras – errata/typos?

[calfcalf]

I am mystified by the instructions given in the English version, on pages 186 and 188 for making nougat millefeuilles. The ingredients list calls for:

 

100 g caramelized sugar

100 g crumbled pâte sablée [this is made of flour, banana, butter]

75 g nougatine (page 260) [appendix recipe uses walnuts and hazelnuts]

 

The recipe instructs to combine the sugar and pâte sablée, which is then spread out to cool. The remainder of the paragraph says to reheat "the nougatine", to form into individual thin leaves.

 

An online version for page 188 leads me to wonder if the line "75 g nougatine (page 260)" should be ignored—what gets rolled out into thin leaves is just the 100 + 100 = 200 g of candied pâte sablée, implying that the walnut/hazelnut nougatine from the appendix is never used. Another possibility is that the 75 g nut nougatine should be crushed then mixed with the crumbled pâte sablée (either before or after the aforementioned cooling step), yielding 275 g of nougatine to be used for making leaves.

 

I'm stumped! Anyone have ideas as to what the intent was? If anyone who has the original French book that would be a great help too.

More generally I couldn't find any errata listing online; the edition I have is Rouergue translated by Ici la Press.

Edited April 5, 2014 by calfcalf (log)

[Robenco15]

This is what the recipe says in my book:

 

Let the caramelized sugar cool briefly. Thoroughly mix it in the crumbled pate sablee. Spread this mixture over a non-stick baking sheet. Spread the nougatine between 2 sheets of parchment paper on an 8x12 in. baking sheet and reheat at 325F. When the nougatine is tender and flexible, remove it from the oven, peel off the top sheet of parchment paper, and cut the nougat into 16 rectangles, 1 1/2 x 4 1/4 in. Let cool in a dry place.

 

As I typed that I have a feeling you have the same text as it is quite confusing. The recipe you linked too translates (according to Google Translate) as basically the same as I typed above.

 

Somehow the nougatine gets incorporated. I can't see how exactly but it has to be considering it is in the name of the piece. It'd be harder to make that typo twice.

 

Sorry I can't be more help and I hope someone can chime in with better answers!

Edited April 5, 2014 by Robenco15 (log)

[Robenco15]

This book can also get somewhat confusing as the platings of the dishes don't always seem to be final platings. There are often inedible things on the plates (like lobster tail in the shell, prawns still intact) and some of the meats look raw. Either I am way off, or this is done to provide more inspiration, etc. for someone trying to create these recipes/create a more organic/artistic aspect to the platings.

[calfcalf]

Yeah. The photo compositions can be somewhat… dreamy. 

 

After some thought, I'm starting to think the banana millefeuille is not intended to contain the walnut/hazelnut nougatine. Reason being the walnut nougatine made in the appendix is quite coarse, whereas the caramelized pâte sablée is very fine textured so as to be workable into thin sheets—these two textures don't seem to go together. Still, walnut does sound like a nice pairing/enhancement with banana—it's just that the walnut nougatine would just have to be laboriously re-ground quite finely before mixing it in, and I don't think the recipe meant to do anything like that.

 

Another big clue is in the nearly identical peanut millefeuille recipe on the following pages (pp 188-189), mentioning the exact same nougatine in the ingredients. It seems random and arbitrary to introduce walnut/hazelnut flavors into what's predominantly a peanut dessert, in this context. And since the online recipe written in French doesn't use it, I'm inclined to guess it's a typo.

Edited April 7, 2014 by calfcalf (log)