Fricassée de Poulet à l’Ancienne and Crème au Beurre, Ménagère

“For this traditional Sunday dinner dish, which is not difficult to execute, the chicken pieces are turned in hot butter, sprinkled with four and seasonings, then simmered in wine and white stock.” Julia and her co-authors explain that a fricassée is between a sauté and a stew in that the meat is first cooked in butter and then simmered in liquid. This particular version recommended serving whole mushrooms and onions along with rice or noodles with the cream sauce.

Parsley, thyme, bay leaf

I am still working on my chicken dissection skills and am improving with most of the carves but still struggled with disjoining the legs from the rest of the body. Once the young fryer made its way into about eight pieces, I lightly cooked sliced onions, carrots, and celery in a large casserole and then added the chicken. The chicken needed to be turned every few minutes so that it became only “lightly golden yellow” on each side. After several turns, it was sprinkled with flour, salt, and pepper and then continued to cook for a few minutes on low heat. Then the liquids – stock and wine – were added along with an herb bouquet that included parsley from my garden. Side note: I think these herb bouquets are lovely and would like to see them as a more ecological substitute to flowers at weddings. The chicken then simmered for about 30 minutes until it was cooked through.

Cosy in the casserole

Failed flutes

In the meantime, I prepared the onions and mushrooms. The cross-reference for brazed onions (oignons glacés à blanc) calls for small white onions to be peeled and simmered slowly in butter, white wine, salt, pepper, and an herb bouquet for 40-50 minutes. Simple enough. The stewed mushrooms (champignons à blanc) are cooked so that they maintain their white color. MAFC recommends fluting the mushroom caps in a lovely decorative manner. I couldn’t quite get my knife to work the way the authors describe, but the mushrooms managed to have some texture. The mushrooms were then placed in boiling water, salt, lemon juice, and butter for five minutes.

When the chicken was finished cooking, it was removed from the casserole and the cooking liquid was boiled down. The recipe called for whipping cream to be beaten with egg yolks, but I forgot to buy cream and had to substitute skim milk which seemed to work just fine. The hot liquid was slowly added to the eggs to temper them and then the mixture was returned to the casserole dish and continued to boil down. A little salt, pepper, lemon juice, and nutmeg and the sauce was ready to strain and have the enrichment butter.

Couldn't resist another "ingredients in the kitchen" shot

I used the same steamed rice technique from a few weeks ago but without the addition of mushrooms. The whole dish was served on a platter with the chicken over the rice and garnished with mushrooms and onions and covered in sauce. I understand that aromatics that are cooked with the meat are not usually served, but they are so delicious I can’t help but nibble on them anyway so I placed them on the plate for color and extra flavor.

Bountiful platter

Plated dish

I had additional ladyfingers left over from last week and the authors say are good for at least 10 days and can be served alone or with a butter cream. I chose to make the simplest butter cream mixture with powdered sugar, rum, vanilla extract, and egg yolks. The cream was so rich that I layered only a small amount between two of the cookies in order to stick them together into a small sandwich. I did not think that the butter cream tasted like much other than slightly sweet butter but my guests seemed to like it. I served them with some wonderful fresh cherries.

Ladyfinger cream sandwiches

My friends Brandee and M.E. and her husband Phil joined me for this dinner. Brandee brought the perfect pinot noirs to pair with the richness of the meat. We all agreed that the sauce, as usual, made the dish outstanding and perfectly flavored both the chicken and the rice. M.E. had tasted the ladyfingers in the crème plombières from last week and enjoyed this variation as well, so did Phil who interrupted me mid-sentence to exclaim how good they were. Overall, this was a lovely, hearty meal with good friends and good food.

Crème Plombières au Chocolat et aux Fraises

When my friend Martha invited a few friends over for a girls’ night, I knew this was going to be the chance to spend a week focusing on desserts exclusively. Wine, games, dancing, ice cream, AND French desserts? What could be more fun?! I selected two variations of crème plombières listed in MAFC, one with chocolate and one with strawberries. The authors describe the dessert as “…a custard filling into which beaten egg whites and a flavoring or fresh fruits are folded. It is spooned over lady fingers or sponge-cake, then chilled.” 

To begin, I followed the recipe for ladyfingers, or biscuits à la cuiller. The batter is comprised of beaten egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla with beaten egg whites and flour folded into it. While this sounds simple enough, a number of steps happened simultaneously and required switching between ingredients several times as the egg whites and sifted flour were incorporated. The batter results in a lovely, airy mixture. The batter was then transferred to a pastry bag and squeezed onto buttered and floured baking sheets. I do not have much experience working with pastry bags and did not have a tip quite as large as the recommended half-inch diameter. While it was a little bit of a messy process, I was able to form the four inch “fingers” without too much hassle. Then, a layer of powdered sugar was applied and they baked for 20 minutes. The little cakes had a light crust and were flakey on the outside but had a tender chewiness to the inside. Due to my novice piping skills, some ended up wider and flatter than they were supposed to be but this may also have been the result of insufficient beating of the components or deflation in the combining process. I thought that I had done a good job of preparing the baking sheets, but a number of the ladyfingers stuck to the pans and crumbled quite a bit when I tried to remove them with a spatula. Not to worry too much as they were still delicate and delicious and were to be covered in cream anyway!

Imperfect looking but perfectly delectable ladyfingers!

The basic recipe for crème pâtissière was similar to the process for making the ladyfingers (and the mousse recipe from a previous post) by beating egg yolks and whites separately then combining. This time, the yolks and sugar mixture also included a little flour and a couple cups of boiling milk beaten as it was slowly poured into the batter. The cream was then poured into a saucepan and boiled and whisked for a few minutes before adding a bit of rum, vanilla, and butter. Since I was doing two variations, I decided not to double the cream recipe as it sounded like it would produce quite a bit. I’m glad I didn’t as there was plenty of cream for both dishes. I split the batch and added melted chocolate mixed with rum to one and sliced strawberries in sugar to the other. Then beaten egg whites and sugar were folded into each mixture.

The dishes were assembled by lining two serving dishes with ladyfingers. The ladyfingers that would have the chocolate were sprinkled with rum (it was also supposed to have a little coffee but I didn’t have any available) and the ladyfingers to be topped with strawberries were sprinkled with orange liquor (a substitute I had on hand for kirsch or cognac). The dishes were covered with their respective cream mixtures which formed about a one inch layer. Then both were refrigerated for two hours and decorated with shaved chocolate and strawberry slices, respectively.

Crème Plombières au Chocolat

Crème Plombières aux Fraises

The authors warn that if the ladyfingers are not stale, they will become too soggy with the cream on top. Since mine were freshly baked and I did not have time to dry them in the oven as instructed, I had to risk the sogginess. I didn’t mind so much that the cakes took on a little of the moisture; they still maintained their airiness as the cream thickened in the refrigerator. Of the two, I preferred the chocolate in part because it was reminiscent of the mousse from a few weeks ago that I loved so much. Also, the custard with the strawberries did not take on as much of the strawberry flavor as I would have expected, so while the fruit pieces were nice, the cream itself was less impressive. I’m also not sure that the orange liquor was an appropriate substitute for the recommended liquors as it was rather potent. The other girls seemed to enjoy both variations and the extra shot of alcohol helped kick off a truly pleasurable evening. 

Served with vanilla ice cream. YUM!

Unfortunately, all photography this week was done with artificial lighting although the photos seem alright. However, the strawberry decorations did not survive the travel well and sank some. There were extra ladyfingers leftover which the authors of MAFC say are good for at least 10 days, so they may make an appearance at next week’s dinner…

Moules à la Marinière

Happy quatorze juillet!!! The 14th of July marks the French national holiday commemorating the storming of the Bastille, the state prison, which helped ignite the French Revolution. Fun fact: unlike the American Revolution which immediately resulted in a democracy, the French Revolution was followed by three emperors (on four separate occasions) and three kings (also on four separate occasions). All this to say that now the French eat mussels and fries to celebrate – at least those in Bretagne do, I haven’t been able to confirm that this is true for the rest of the country. When I studied abroad in Bretagne, I was introduced to this tradition in full force. I had moules frites, originally a Belgian dish, with my host family about three times during the week leading up to le quatorze juillet. That was fine with me as the coastal region was perfect for mussel eating. At one community event, the mussels were served in one of those red baskets you see here in the States and the fries were shoved in right alongside them. It made me a little less homesick for our county 4H fair food…

Ok, enough reminiscing about the past. Mussels are incredibly fast and easy to cook. The challenge is buying them fresh so they are still alive and clamped shut. The live creature must remain on ice or in fresh water and not be suffocated – not enclosed in a plastic bag. I found the single grocery store in town that carried mussels and went yesterday before the meal to purchase them, and the woman at the seafood counter was wonderfully helpful. The recipe called for 6 quarts of mussels, but when the employee did the calculations this came out to 11 pounds! We decided that the standard half pound per person would be sufficient and I decided to go on the generous side and ordered a little extra. Then, I went directly home and put these little guys on ice immediately. MAFC recommends that two hours before cooking the mussels they should be scrubbed, de-bearded, and soaked in water so that they will “disgorge their sand.” I think this step may be a bit superfluous in the age of fresh-water cultivation but I did it anyway. In fact, I went the extra mile and added flour to the water which is supposed to improve the disgorging process and feed the mussels so they become even fatter.

The current recipe is a simple combination of vermouth, shallots, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, pepper, and butter (halved). All of these ingredients go in a big pot until the alcohol boils. Then throw in the mussels, shake a few times, et voila! Five minutes later they are done. The mussels’ shells should open when cooked but the organism should not cook so long that it becomes tough. These cooked for just the right amount of time and were the perfect texture and the broth was perfectly seasoned.

 

Beautifully opened mussels strewn with sauce

I cheated a tad on the fries and just bought frozen ones from the store. I decided that, since there was no recipe for fries in MAFC, I was off the hook for making them from scratch. I compensated for this shortcut by making homemade mayonnaise (same word in French) for the fries, another loan from the Belgians.  Julia writes: “Mayonnaise like hollandaise is a process of forcing egg yolks to absorb a fatty substance, oil in this case, and to hold it in thick and creamy suspension.” I’ve seen cooks make mayonnaise before but have never tried it myself. The chapter on sauces describes it as one of the easiest sauces to make. It certainly seems easy, really just whisking olive oil into egg yolks with a dash of vinegar, salt, and mustard. The trick is that the oil must be added very slowly and the whisking must be continuous. After almost 15 minutes of hand beating this mixture, I had a very thick, small dollop of mayonnaise. Unfortunately, I found it rather bland and it just tasted like oil and egg yolk. MAFC has a number of variations on this recipe that include adding herbs and other greens such as pickles or capers to the mayonnaise. I may try to perk up this little yellow blob in the coming days but otherwise I have been disenchanted with the results.

 

The bright yellow sauce is the mayonnaise.
French style mustard is on the left and
Hienz Chili sauce is to the front.

My good friend Jacklyn brought a lovely white wine to pair with the seafood and it was very refreshing indeed! We were also joined by our classmate Shweta who brought some lovely little pastries and her almost three-year-old son, Veer. Both the dessert and the boy were very sweet! Veer refused to try the mussels even after I made chomping monster noises with them and his mother said they taste like chicken, but he was content to nibble on the fries. The grown-ups all seemed to agree that the mussels were delicious and the sauce was worth sopping up with some good bread.

 

Wheat baguette recommended for soaking up the sauce

I was a little rushed with the photography this week and wish the plating were more attractive.  Hopefully, you can get a sense of the picnic atmosphere of this spread. One of my favorite aspects of eating mussels is a trick my host father taught me where you use one empty shell to extract the meat from another shell. The French eat finger food in style! 

The spread

Filets de Poisson à la Bretonne and Riz Duxelles

The two dishes I made last night are symbolic of the experiences I had studying abroad in France in two very different parts of the country. The poached white fish with vegetables takes its name from Bretagne, the far northwest region of France called Brittany in English. When I lived in the south of France, I had many dishes that included rice which was surprising to me at the time and I have wanted to replicate some of the French flavors that were added to this basic grain.

MAFC calls for sole for most of the white fish dishes but encourages flounder as an acceptable American substitute. Le boyfriend and I visited several grocery stores in the Minneapolis suburbs trying to find flounder, or at least one of the other listed substitutes in the cookbook. Not having much luck, we decided that tilapia would be the closest fish we could find. I had never poached fish before but it was really quite simple. The fish was placed in a small metal baking dish that had been buttered and layered with green onions on the bottom. More green onions were sprinkled on top and then the fish was dotted with a little butter (less than was called for, of course) and covered in water and white wine. This pan (notice it was metal this time unlike the goose pan disaster in the last post) was placed on the burner and brought to a simmer. The recipe becomes à la Bretonne with the addition of julienned carrots, onion, and celery and sliced mushrooms that have been cooked slowly in butter. The vegetables were placed atop the fish and the pan was covered with wax paper and placed in the oven for about 8 minutes.

Poached fish and vegetables drained of liquid

When the fish came out of the oven, I drained the cooking liquid into small pot and reduced it to almost a cup. The authors instruct to then beat in a paste of butter and flour, some cream, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. This makes a bercy sauce which they describe as “the simplest of white-wine fish sauces.” However simple it may be, this sauce was wonderful! The poached fish and vegetables were then re-covered with the sauce, sprinkled with swiss cheese, and then placed under the broiler for just a few minutes more to make a nice gratiné, or browning on the top.

 

Gratinéed fish - love the lightly browned spots!

A few ingredients in the kitchen

Michael thought the fish tasted fine but I thought it was a little bland. We both agreed that the sauce was fantastic and had such a unique flavor of tartness from the wine and lemon and richness from the cream. The vegetables were also delicately cooked to the point of melting in your mouth.

The rice was not much trouble and turned out to be the perfect side to the fish and delicious with the sauce. I’ve always had difficulty making rice as it often becomes mushy or overcooked. The authors of MAFC recommend the following steps for “foolproof” steamed rice. First, the rice, water, and salt are placed in the saucepan and brought to a boil. They indicate that the rice should only be stirred once and then brought to a simmer, covered, and cooked for only 12 minutes more. My rice still became slightly starchy but it was perfectly al dente with this method. Then, I simply added diced mushrooms that had been squeezed in a cloth to remove moisture and sautéed in butter with some green onions. The rice was then seasoned with a little salt, pepper, and parsley. All done!

 

Rice with garnish

Plated meal

Look at that beautiful sauce!

Overall, this was one of the simpler meals I’ve done so far and it was every bit as delicious as the others. We had a little side salad of mixed greens and drank the rest of the Belle Sera pino grigio that had been used to poach the fish, which had a wonderful flavor to it that was not too dry. We started watching Band of Brothers last night and found it quite appropriate to see a show about the invasion of Normandy while eating French food! More French history next week…