Baguettes

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2010

One of the gifts I received at Christmas was a copy of the book Julie & Julia. I had seen the movie (which was the inspiration for this blog) but had never read the book. It is really entertaining. Unlike this blog, it contains many amusing anecdotes from her life. Well, my decision to keep this anonymous means that you’ll never read any dirt about my life – at least not here, from me. Sorry about that. I’m going to stick to food and recipes.

I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from Lydie-cooking. I was visiting my sister and although I took “Lydie” with me, I never cracked the cover. We were too busy with other things to spend a leisurely day delving into a recipe. Instead we ate out, ordered in, or cooked very simple food.

I did want to get back to telling you about that wonderful potato dough from my previous blog. Not only is it good for making pissaladières, but one can make a baguette from it! A baguette from potato dough? I was dubious. I have to tell you that it turned out to be very delicious! I am a bit of a baguette aficionado. The best ones I’ve found are at the Chilmark Store on Martha’s Vineyard – even better than the ones I’ve had in Paris, at least to my taste. The potato dough baguette is not like a Chilmark or Paris baguette. The inside is not quite as light and the exterior is not as crusty. However….it is delicious! It has a more substantial taste to it and is almost a little sweet. I liked it very much. And so easy to make!

After two pissaladières and a baguette I still had some dough left, which I froze. Yesterday I defrosted the remaining dough to use for another baguette. My first clue that something was wrong was that it did not rise during the 30 minutes that you’re supposed to let it rise. I popped it in the oven, never-the-less. Result: something like an unleavened pita in baguette shape. I have to say, though, that it still was mighty tasty, if you got past the expectation of an airy texture. The photo is of the previous, successful baguette.

(p.s. I've finally figured out how to write French characters on my computer: as delighting an accomplishment as any recipe!)

Pissaladiere aux aubergines/Eggplant Pissaladiere

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010

My friends have my number! Many Christmas and birthday presents I have received recently have had a food and/or cooking theme. I think people have gathered my interest in this field. One such gift was a DVD of A Moveable Feast featuring several celebrity chefs each making a delectable dish. The donor of the gift and the donee (me!) are getting together tonight (along with our husbands) to watch the DVD. What to eat while we watch? Maybe this is the time to tackle a category of recipes in Lydie’s book called pissaladieres.

I am reminded of a visit many years ago by a friend and her new husband. I slaved over a new recipe featuring a mélange of different cheeses blended with roasted potatoes and a bouquet of several herbs. This new husband, who has no truck with affectation, looked at the dish and said, “Oh, we’re having potato pizza in a bowl!”

A pissaladiere is essentially a French pizza. (It sounds so much more elegant in French!). Lydie makes it with a potato dough. So basically, I’m back to making potato pizza. This time not in a bowl!

(Later...)
The dough uses baking potatoes that are mashed and incorporated with flour and yeast. Lydie recommends using a heavy duty mixer with a flat paddle for mashing the potatoes and kneading them into the flour. If one doesn’t have such a mixer, she recommends mashing the potatoes with a ricer, then, kneading the dough by hand. I have neither a flat-paddled mixer nor a ricer so I used a simple mashing utensil, then, my hands. I was unable to get the potatoes to be totally smooth so that there were polka dots of potato in the dough. I was worried about this little flaw, but when it was baked, miraculously, the polka dots seemed to have disappeared.

As I was mashing, kneading, waiting for the dough to rise, rolling, I was thinking, “Well, this is interesting seeing how it works to make it from scratch but next time I’d rather just buy a bag of dough from my local grocer.” Sort of like learning the mathematical steps to a statistical program but really being content to hit a couple of keys on a computer program. I’ve changed my mind! The dough turned out to be delightfully light and flavorful. A special bonus was that it was very easy to work with. You know how regular pizza dough always seems to shrink back to its former size, like an elastic band, when you roll it out? Not so, this dough. I’m sure I’ll use this recipe again.

Lydie’s recipe book includes a variety of toppings. I decided on one with eggplant. Instead of sautéing the eggplant, which, in my experience, results in the eggplant soaking up the oil, I baked it, just brushing the eggplant with a little olive oil. Baking until it was soft took about 30 minutes. An interesting touch to this topping was combining mozzarella cheese with minced garlic and shreds of fresh basil, which was placed on the dough before adding the eggplant. It was really quite good.

And here is the result:

Tarte aux clementines/Clementine tart

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010

Lydie’s cookbook has a basic tart shell recipe (pate brisee) that is an excellent basis for all kinds of goodies – sweet and savory. My favorite tomato tart uses this recipe. Lydie also has suggestions for sweet tarts for every month of the year. For January the “tarte de mois” is Clementine. It is a delicious yet simple concoction that uses sliced clementines poached in a sugar syrup, then placed on an orange custard. Once you master the basic tart recipe, (it’s really rather foolproof) it is easy to make an elegant dessert with little effort. It was the perfect cooling ending to a dinner of pork tenderloin marinated in a spicy chili sauce (not a Lydie recipe). I hope my guests liked it. I think they did.

Coulis de tomates avec des tomates en boite/Tomato Sauce Made with Canned Tomatoes

SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 2010

Well, the holidays are past. The turkey, goose, quiches and tarts have been eaten. (The onion tart appeared to be a hit, by the way.) I don’t know about you but after a while all that bland, rich food makes me yen for something simple and comforting. I thought I would have on hand some good tomato sauce in case there was call for a non-holiday meal. This, I thought, would be a good opportunity to try Lydie’s alternative tomato sauce recipe: the one made from canned tomatoes. I had the illusion that it would be simple to prepare. It was, up to a point, but when you double a recipe, things begin to take more time. For example, this recipe calls for using canned whole tomatoes, which one must chop. Not a momentous task, but still, time consuming when the cans number six. The recipe, like the fresh tomato recipe, relies not on Italian herbs, but on onions and garlic for its flavor. The sauce is cooked over high heat – something I’m still getting used to, given my belief that good things come from long-simmered foods. The high heat helps concentrate the sauce into a rich thick one.

Indeed, we had an evening when turkey leftovers were just not going to cut it. I combined the tomato sauce with store-made meatballs over spaghetti (yes, the meatballs were store-bought…there’s only so much that this person is willing to make from scratch during the holiday busy’ness.) The verdict? The tomato sauce was a good, serviceable one. I’m not sure that it’s spectacular and I may be just as inclined to open up a jar of my favorite Dell’Amore sauce.

On a side note: I was inspired to make spaghetti and meatballs mostly because I wanted another reason to have roasted red peppers, this time, served as an antipasto, with salami and cheese slivers instead of anchovies. I discovered that the delicate flavor of the roasted peppers deserves to stand on its own, not next to spaghetti and meatballs. It really should be served as a separate, first course (which I didn’t do). Or, I still really like it best served over pasta.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Tarte campagnarde a l'oignon/Country Onion Tart

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2009

I haven’t been trying any Lydie recipes lately. First of all, we were away celebrating my daughter’s graduation. Then, it’s holiday time and there are many traditional recipes that have to be made. No time for experimentation. I’ve been making a bunch of quiches for our annual holiday brunch. I am adding to my repertoire by including this onion tart. Quiches are delicious but they do contain lots of butter, cheese and cream. No wonder we put on weight during the holidays. (I won’t even mention the cookies!) Lydie’s tart does use the all-purpose butter crust but the filling is simply onions and a couple of eggs. You’ll note that I’ve added the lattice work of anchovies and nicoise olives to only half the tart – in deference to the revelers who aren’t as fond as I am of those ingredients. I plan to freeze this and bring it out next Sunday.

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)!

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.