Saturday, November 28, 2009

Gratin leger de coucourdon/Light Pumpkin Gratin, Sauce aux Airelles/Cranberry Sauce

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009

Lydie’s cookbook has two recipes for pumpkin gratin: one that is standard and one that is a lighter version. I decided to try the lighter version. My husband arrived from his travels, quite jet-lagged. As a result, we did not have a traditional Thanksgiving. If we had had a traditional Thanksgiving I had thought of making this pumpkin gratin. Since it was still on my mind, I decided to make it the day after Thanksgiving and serve it up with one of those store-bought roasted chickens. This recipe calls for diced pumpkin baked in the oven with garlic, parsley, bread crumbs, and covered over with skim milk. I never would have thought that it would coalesce into a rich, creamy texture, but it did. It was very simple to put together. Then it is baked in the oven for 1½ hours. It was made particularly simple for me because I couldn’t find pumpkin at our local grocer’s. Instead, I substituted already cut acorn squash. No more chopping and peeling pumpkin for me! I suppose I’ll have to make the standard version as well someday (and use pumpkin!), given my goal of making all of the recipes in the cookbook. I feel little incentive for it, though, because this recipe was so good and so uncomplicated compared to the other version.

These recipes left me wondering what defines a gratin. I always thought it meant something in a cheese sauce. So, I consulted my trusty Wikipedia. It said: “an ingredient is topped with a browned crust, often using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, egg and/or butter”. Well, I guess the operative word is “often”. I learned that it needn’t have cheese, or egg or butter for that matter. This recipe is a real find. What a way to have gratin without all the rich ingredients. I learned that a gratin is also defined by a gratin pan – a shallow baking dish. I don’t have one of these but it worked out just fine.

Lydie has a recipe for homemade cranberry sauce. My husband always makes homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, with a little zest of orange grated in for a lovely flavor. The trouble is, the sauce almost never gels. I thought I would try Lydie’s recipe to see if it would gel. It didn’t. I referenced other cookbooks of mine and learned that the key to gelling is having enough sugar. I guess I’ll try again in the near future, since I’m on tap to make Christmas dinner this year and am determined to have gelled cranberry sauce (as well as the canned jelly type, which my sister prefers)!


Monday, November 23, 2009

Poivrons et anchois encore


SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009

I’ve been obsessing all week about the deleted photos of the peppers and anchovy dish that I made last week. Then I decided, why not make it again? I still have some scallions left and even some leftover dressing. Peppers are a snap to roast. My husband is still away so why not have a second food indulgence? Here it is: just as good the second time around.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Salade de poivrons aux anchois/Pepper and Anchovy Salad

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2009

What is your food indulgence? What would you make if you only had to cook for yourself, taking no one else’s food preferences into consideration? I recently had such a conversation with a group of women friends. Not surprisingly, pasta figured prominently in the selections. As it does for me.

My husband is traveling for about 2 ½ weeks. I figured I wouldn’t be cooking much during this time. Then I came across Salade de poivrons aux anchois. Anchovies seem to be an item that no one is neutral about: either you adore them or detest them. I’m definitely in the adore column, but I don’t get to use them very often because of the "detest" factor among most of my friends and family. When I saw a recipe that combines yummy roasted peppers
and anchovies how could I resist! I would put them over pasta and have me a double food indulgence.

Roasting peppers has become an easy endeavor. This recipe uses red and yellow peppers. I was struck once again by how much tastier they are made fresh than the jarred variety. These were topped by slivers of anchovy, sprinkled with an oil and red wine vinegar dressing, and topped with chopped scallions. The dressing was interesting because it contained the juices of the roasted peppers as well. One could even leave out the anchovy (or substitute strips of salami) and have one nice antipasto. Putting it all on top of pasta was like icing on a cake. Yum!

(I took a photo of this dish. It looked very pretty, with the peppers arranged attractively on a plate. However, in an effort to be efficient with my camera’s memory, I accidentally erased the images. Aaaaugh!)

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Sirop pour coulis/Sugar Syrup for Fruit Sauce and Coulis de fraises/Strawberry Sauce

Part II of the Halloween meal: Since the chicken was a fairly rich dish, I decided to keep dessert simple: some ice cream with a strawberry coulis (sauce). I used Lydie’s recipe for making a simple syrup. This is added to fruit to make a sauce. Lydie’s cookbook has recipes for several fruit sauces, such as blackberry or red currant. None of these are in season so I made a strawberry sauce, using frozen whole strawberries, which I pureed. It tasted very refreshing. And, once again, it was simple to make.

So…in total I was able to tick off four more recipes from the cookbook. All in all a successful experience, I think.

Lapin a la sarriette et au coulis de tomates/Rabbit with Fresh Savory in a Tomato Sauce, Carottes braisees aux herbes/Braised Carrots with Fresh Herbs

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2009

It is Halloween weekend. In keeping with the holiday spirit, what scary thing can I cook? I know! I can cook rabbit! When I told my husband my plans he thought I was joking. When he realized that, no, this truly was my plan he was less than enthusiastic. I wasn’t going to let that deter me. I would invite our English friend and her husband to dinner. Surely her Continental sensibilities would fortify the notion that eating rabbit was a perfectly natural thing to do. (I know, I sound like an icky-squeamish American. I can’t help it. I can’t erase the image of those cute little creatures that I take delight in hopping across our lawn.) Our English friend hesitated when I asked about eating rabbit and that was it! I decided: the meal would be sans lapin and avec poulet. They always say that rabbit tastes like chicken so why not use chicken? So, lapin a la sarriette (savory) became poulet a la thym (thyme). I couldn’t find fresh savory and the recipe states that thyme could be substituted. I still had some in my garden. I would use the tomato sauce, frozen from a few weeks ago. (Remember, that delicate concoction from my first entry?) And I would serve it over the (now frozen) successful gnocchi I made last week.

The result was delicious: a very lovely braised chicken in a tomato sauce with shiitake mushrooms and little white onions. (I used cippollini from the last farmer’s market of the year.) This is a great dish for dinner guests as it can be prepared in the morning and simply heated up at dinner time. For an accompaniment I made braised carrots. They were a big hit – with our guests and me: the guests thought they were tasty and I liked the fact that they were simple to make. I think I'll keep the carrot recipe in mind for a holiday dinner.