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Thomas Keller's "Bouchon" Cookbook


Bond Girl

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  • 1 month later...

Got this book for Christmas and have cooked a little from it. We were inspired to buy it because of the quiche we had at Bouchon earlier last summer.

Anyway, we've made the quiche, though in a shallow tart pan, which was crazy out of control good. We've bought some springforms, so hopefully they'll work.

Also made the salmon with leeks and beurre blanc. A nice dish, though not that spectacular. It was made exactly how I might imagine. I do like the idea of only cooking the fish on one side, though this technique is certainly not for everyone.

Also made the onion-fennel confit. I caramelized it somewhat because I wasn't paying attention, but it's nice to keep around for sandwiches, to put in custards, and to eat with cheese and cold cuts.

The roasted chicken is sooooo delicious. We did the salted, as opposed to brined, bird and even I was shocked at the amount of salt he called for. Since our bird was about 6.5 pounds I used about 1.5 tbs. We served it with the mushroom ragout. The ragout was pretty typical as I would have made it without a recipe, but went very well with the chicken.

The pastry side of this operation tried the lemon tart. In an absolutely inexplicable oversight they used a reactive aluminum bowl for making the sabayon. Now, we have a tart that tastes of iodized lemon. Mmmm, delicious. This recipe has the potential to be good, we just have to work on it. The pine nut crust appeared very difficult to work with and I found it a bit too crumbly and light. We'll be back to this recipe, though.

I guess I'll start taking pictures of what we continue to make from this book. We've got creme caramels going in the oven as I type, and other goodies to be made for dinner this evening.

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The book is indeed very enjoyable. Although I've loved my experiences cooking out of TFL cookbook when I've taken it out from the library, this book is more immediately appealing. The dishes, though traditionally simple, are challenging enough such that each recipe makes you feel as though you've learned and accomplished something.

Here's the quiche I made from the other day. Again, not the right pan, but it was soo tasty.

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Tonight we did a slew of savory recipes and desserts.

From foreground to back:

Roasted beet salad, red onions, cara cara oranges (p.7)

Duck breast, mustard sauce, wilted spinach (p.137 sort of)

Cauliflower gratin (p. 246)

(The asparagus weren't at all from the cookbook)

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The salad was nice and the red onions added a good bit of texture and alium. The cara cara oranges just added a bit of unique sweet acidity. The duck was very different than the book's, but I kept the sauce effectively the same. I added some baby spinach during the last minute or so of cooking. I slightly oversalted this sauce, but it was still very good. The cauliflower gratin was probably the best of the savory options. I added some leeks leftover from last night's salmon with leeks to the stem puree. Topped with parm reg and idiazabal rather than Comte. The velvety sauce/puree and perfectly cooked florets are a great textural match.

Then a series of desserts we put together this evening:

Creme caramel (p. 264)

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The weird thing about this was that the plastic melted a few minutes into cooking. I used Glad because it doesn't have plasticizers. After this mishap we topped the caramels with parchment paper, and carried on. Still, I found this puzzling. For the sake of comparison, I cooked a couple custards in my water bath very long and low. For some reason my bath was vibrating slightly (possibly b/c there was so little water) and this caused the caramel to become somewhat dispersed throughout the custard over the long cooking process in addition to being pooled at the bottom. The slow cooking yielded an even smoother final caramel that was just barely set. I preferred this one. The rest of my family preferred the slightly more traditional, more structurally sound version cooked in the oven. In both instances, we were very pleased with the texture.

Tarte tatin (p. 276)

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I was least impressed with this dessert from the technical cookbook and taste standpoint. Tastewise, it was fine, but not spectacular. For some reason, it just lacked punch. The crust also was too thin and didn't add much to the dessert. From the cookbook writer's perspective, I was disappointed that they chose not to include a clearer picture of what the final dessert is supposed to look like. For those unfamiliar with tarte tatin, such as my sister who spearheads pastry operations at home, the printed instructions aren't that clear. A clear picture would have explained everything in terms of the placement of the apples and what the filled pan is supposed to look like.

Profiteroles (p. 300)

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Making the pate a choux was a slightly harrowing experience for a first-timer. It looked like a really strange roux in the pot. The end result, however, was a very tasty puff that held our ice cream quite well. In both the picture in the book and mine, however, there is simply way too much ice cream to get the ideal balance between pastry, ice cream, and chocolate. We've got a bunch of puffs left over that will be filled with cheese and all sorts of goodies for snacks in the coming days. In terms of the chocolate sauce in the book, I found that it tasted good (we used Scharffen Berger 62%) but didn't fall in smooth ribbons. I'm not sure why this is, but it just didn't seem to behave correctly off the spoon.

I'm so full now.

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You do not need the pine nuts. I made the tart using my grandmother's butter crust recipe and it was delicious.

I made it during my blog in December and it was a huge hit with my guests.

Well, sure you do not "need" to. Any good butter crust will work fine. I still think, unless someone has an aversion to pinenuts, they need to try it with the crust in the book. It's different and makes for an awsome texture and taste.

FoodMan's right, the pine nut crust really stands out, and works surprisingly well with the extremely delicate custard. (The last time I made it, whisking the sabayon made my shoulder hurt for three days.)

I've also substituted lime for lemon, and added a wee bit of finely chopped zest to the sabayon with good results.

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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... In terms of the chocolate sauce in the book, I found that it tasted good (we used Scharffen Berger 62%) but didn't fall in smooth ribbons.  I'm not sure why this is, but it just didn't seem to behave correctly off the spoon.

Bryan, great job as usual. Do you think the chocolate may have been overheated during the tempering process? This has happened to me in the past, and is usually fixed by adding a little cream (some suggest water) to make a heavy ganache.

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Thanks, hjshorter. The duck was simply cooked on all sides in a pan. I've just been doing it this way for a while, so I kind of know what to look for. The key is to render out enough fat while cooking it to the right internal while not burning the skin. I vary my heat from med-low to med+ (not quite med-high) on my Viking. Rest for 10+ min.

The quiche is chanterelle, shiitake, baby spinach, idiazabal, and parm reg. The custard recipe is exactly from the book.

Percy, you may be right. Of course, I had left the pan with the chocolate sauce almost entirely off the burner on low to just keep it warm. While waiting for the profiteroles to cool, someone moved it back full onto the burner. It could've been slightly overheated in general.

ETA: I should add that the tarte tatin was much better today. As it cooled and sat overnight, the apples firmed up slightly and picked up more zing. The caramel also tasted somewhat deeper. I'm still not in love with this crust, but I've found that on pretty much all tarte tatins I've had.

Edited by BryanZ (log)
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FoodMan's right, the pine nut crust really stands out, and works surprisingly well with the extremely delicate custard. 

The pinenut crust is good, but my favourite nuts to use with the lemon tart are macadamia (probably b/c I reduce the sugar a little to make it extra-tangy, and the super buttery nuts soften the tang a bit.) I think the texture is also better with macadamia--super crumbly and more delicate.

Bryan: How did you like the choux pastry in the Bouchon book? I've used it once, making a few minor adjustments (I think I used a tbsp. or two less water and slightly more butter, to make it more in line with proportions I'm familiar with). They tasted good, but puffed up a bit irregularly--not as perfectly round as the Pichet Ong recipe, which calls for a bit of condensed milk.

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FoodMan's right, the pine nut crust really stands out, and works surprisingly well with the extremely delicate custard. 

The pinenut crust is good, but my favourite nuts to use with the lemon tart are macadamia (probably b/c I reduce the sugar a little to make it extra-tangy, and the super buttery nuts soften the tang a bit.) I think the texture is also better with macadamia--super crumbly and more delicate.

Interesting. I tend to stay away from macadamia nuts, because it's tough around here to get really fresh ones and I can taste it when they're even slightly off.

I'll be trying this with Meyer lemons, once I can get my hands on some.

TK's onion soup was supposed to be dinner last night, until some helpful little person in my house added play dough to the onions while they were cooking. Eight lbs. of carefully sliced onions into the trash. We'll try it again today.

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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Bryan: How did you like the choux pastry in the Bouchon book? I've used it once, making a few minor adjustments (I think I used a tbsp. or two less water and slightly more butter, to make it more in line with proportions I'm familiar with). They tasted good, but puffed up a bit irregularly--not as perfectly round as the Pichet Ong recipe, which calls for a bit of condensed milk.

I thought they turned out well, but then again I have nothing to compare them to. This was my first choux I've made, and my mom made it once like ten years ago or something. I found the puffing has to do with how it's piped out. Some of mine were round, others not so much.

TK's onion soup was supposed to be dinner last night, until some helpful little person in my house added play dough to the onions while they were cooking.  Eight lbs. of carefully sliced onions into the trash.  We'll try it again today.

Sadness. Then again Play Doh (I think that's how you spell it) is edible, but I'm not sure TK would approve.

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TK's onion soup was supposed to be dinner last night, until some helpful little person in my house added play dough to the onions while they were cooking.  Eight lbs. of carefully sliced onions into the trash.  We'll try it again today.
Sadness. Then again Play Doh (I think that's how you spell it) is edible, but I'm not sure TK would approve.
It was bright blue, so even if the taste was Ok the color would have put me off. I have another 8 lbs. on the stove right now.

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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TK's onion soup was supposed to be dinner last night, until some helpful little person in my house added play dough to the onions while they were cooking.  Eight lbs. of carefully sliced onions into the trash.  We'll try it again today.
Sadness. Then again Play Doh (I think that's how you spell it) is edible, but I'm not sure TK would approve.
It was bright blue, so even if the taste was Ok the color would have put me off. I have another 8 lbs. on the stove right now.

Playdough in the soup is much more an Achatz/Alinea thing than TK/Bouchon, I think.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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TK's onion soup was supposed to be dinner last night, until some helpful little person in my house added play dough to the onions while they were cooking.  Eight lbs. of carefully sliced onions into the trash.  We'll try it again today.
Sadness. Then again Play Doh (I think that's how you spell it) is edible, but I'm not sure TK would approve.
It was bright blue, so even if the taste was Ok the color would have put me off. I have another 8 lbs. on the stove right now.

Playdough in the soup is much more an Achatz/Alinea thing than TK/Bouchon, I think.

Like a blue, salty roux. If memory serves from my Play-Doh eating days.

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Alas, this was not homemade playdough and so not worthy of a Keller recipe.

Can someone tell me why it's necessary to caramelize 8 lbs of onions when only 1 1/2 cups goes into the soup? The recipe says to reserve the remainder for another use - sure it's nice to have caramelized onions around, but I am not getting the reasoning. (Yea verily, not seven, not nine, but eight shall be the number of pounds...)

Edited by hjshorter (log)

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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Alas, this was not homemade playdough and so not worthy of a Keller recipe.

Can someone tell me why it's necessary to caramelize 8 lbs of onions when only 1 1/2 cups goes into the soup?  The recipe says to reserve the remainder for another use - sure it's nice to have caramelized onions around, but I am not getting the reasoning.  (Yea verily, not seven, not nine, but eight shall be the number of pounds...)

If you do the whole eight hour (or whatever) cookdown, the extra onion problem is not, to my recollection, a significant one. There ain't much left.

TK Blue playdough recipe: "...after dehydration, puree the organic sloe-berries and macerate in a potatoe-based vodka for 48 hourse, or until liquid has become a deep purple (the color will blue-en after contact with the 0-0 semolina flour...) and strain through a tamis, chinoise and 400 count bedsheet, in that order..."

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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I found the puffing has to do with how it's piped out.  Some of mine were round, others not so much.

To some degree, yes, piping does matter. However, I piped the Bouchon ones extra carefully, as we had a big name chef over for dinner. To me, they looked pretty textbook perfect--certainly just as good (if not better) than the ones I make with the Pichet Ong dough. But maybe I'm just being picky...

Edited by Ling (log)
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If you do the whole eight hour (or whatever) cookdown, the extra onion problem is not, to my recollection, a significant one.  There ain't much left.
Five hours, but that's good to know.
TK Blue playdough recipe: "...after dehydration, puree the organic sloe-berries and macerate in a potatoe-based vodka for 48 hourse, or until liquid has become a deep purple (the color will blue-en after contact with the 0-0 semolina flour...) and strain through a tamis, chinoise and 400 count bedsheet, in that order..."

OK Charles, would that be a 30 or a 40 gauge tamis? :laugh:

I made the green salt for the duck confit on page 135. Sure is pretty.

Edited by hjshorter (log)

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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Try one of the salads if you want to ease into it. The roasted beet and mache salad with goat cheese and toasted walnuts is fabulous, as is the frisee with bacon and poached egg.

If you want to jump right in, the Pig's trotters with sauce Gribiche is delicious, as is the Boeuf Bourguignon.

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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I was given this book for Christmas and have lusted over the photos. Today I jumped in and tried the quiche and lo and behold, about a third of the filling leaked out onto the jellyroll pan I was smart enough to have (after reading this thread, thank you).

I had thought using a 9 x 3 springform pan would work, but the side was too tall to cover with the crust, so that it did droop down in the blind baking.

Tonight I have broken down and ordered the ring mold from Sur La Table and will not disobey Mr. Keller again.

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TK's onion soup was supposed to be dinner last night, until some helpful little person in my house added play dough to the onions while they were cooking.  Eight lbs. of carefully sliced onions into the trash.  We'll try it again today.

OUCH!! That's gonna go into my painful memory bank, along with another helpful little person who carefully slid his grilled cheese sandwich into the videotape slot of the console. It loaded in perfectly, I gather, but removal was a mess.

Or the other HLP who wanted to see what spaghetti sauce would sound like if you sucked it into the vacuum hose.

On reflection, I do believe you got off lightly. Sympathy all the same. :sad:

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That grilled cheese story is very funny. :laugh:

The onion soup recipe is quite good, but (dare I say it?) much too greasy. I would halve the amount of butter called for in cooking the onions.

I made it with a light, super-defatted veal stock instead of beef stock with good results.

Edited by hjshorter (log)

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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