Three Course

1. Saucisses espangoles et crevettes
2. Soupe au pistou
3. Crêpes à la sauce aux fraises

Appetizer

Okay, the French titles make it sound rather fussy. The first course was an opener focusing on protein, here chorizo from Spain and garlicky shrimp over a bed of creamy Parmesan polenta with piperade - a peppers and tomato stew.

This drier version of chorizo excuses a fragrant smell of smoked paprika, to which I do what? Add more! The EVOO and natural rendered fat are the perfect medium for adding in marinated shrimp (marinated in EVOO and garlic, black pepper). I use a coarse-grind of quick-cook polenta, and in addition to chicken stock as the medium, I add a little cream and parmesan cheese.

The piperade I made for a future recipe, as it’s time consuming to make well. I took several red peppers, onions, a green anaheim chile pepper, and fire-roasted whole (canned) tomatoes and cooked them for sometime until their flavors had melded. This recipe always calls for piment d’espellete which I can never find; so I used a triple-threat combination of paprika, red chile flake, and cayenne to mimic the mystery flavor.

Anyhow, it was very flavorful, and made the dish elevate to 5-star status for my dining companions.

The Main Course

Yes, the main course was a soup. I’m always passing over this recipe and finally took Dorie Greenspan for a run and tried her version of a hearty vegetable soup with a homemade pesto swirled in at the end. I served this with rosemary rolls (rosemary was one of the herbs included in the soup). It was really good. I thought it would be minestrone, but it was something different. Well received.

Onions and garlic start the party; then a broth is added, then layers of vegetables. Zucchini, tomato, beans, dried pasta, and more came to the rescue… and even corn!

I made a pesto from the standard ingredients (basil, garlic, pine nut, parmesan, EVOO, and even a little parsley). It gets added to your bowl at the table.

The Dessert

My guests bought me a crêpe pan for my birthday in August, so I felt obliged to make that the dessert. Okay, I already owned a crêpe pan, and I returned theirs… but still… any excuse is a good one to make crêpes.

I took the boozy Greenspan route and used her recipe for sweet crepe batter that adds rum and Grand Mariner. Lemon zest. No sugar, either. I found the batter worked well enough, but I preferred my own recipe adopted from Thomas Keller’s for savory crepes. The texture was simply different. But alas, these were still good.

I acquired an organic version of Nutella at Whole Foods - and used that as a basic stuffing. Atop that, I made a strawberry sauce using fresh strawberries, Grand Mariner, sugar, and butter, that had first been turned into a caramel. It still maintained strawberry texture but with a cooked, and consequently concentrated, flavor. Win-win. 5 stars for each course.

Filet of Beef with Mushrooms

Cooking a steak is a simple meal preparation, and in this case, I matched it with French green beans and mushrooms. The star ingredient is a sauce, which helped glaze the mushrooms and in a further reduction, mounted with butter, the steak.

Ingredients

• shallots
• garlic
• herb (terragon)
• peppercorns/salt
• cabernet wine
• beef stock
• EVOO, butter
• 2 mushrooms (crimini, porcini)

The sauce starts with 40/60 beef stock and red wine. Reduce! When it’s mid-way through, we add some aromatics, like black peppercorn, some of the rehydrated porcini mushrooms (I only found the dried variety), a garlic clove, mashed, and an herb of choice. Strain this when you reach the desired consistency. From the picture, you can see the almost-stickyness of this sauce, which had been mixed with a little butter at the end.

The green beans get parboiled in salted water before cooking at the end in butter, shallots, and garlic. I added some aged balsamic sea salt. The mushrooms get sautéed with the same shallots and garlic, but are cooked until they burnish with color, and then I added a lighter-mixture of the reduction sauce. I reduced it with the mushrooms until it was sticky, and seasoned the ‘shrooms with pepper and salt.

It was a delicious preparation, without having to buy/make a demi-glace or do much except start the cooking process with making a reduction.

I wanted to make the raspberry napoleon featured in Keller’s Bouchon cookbook.

He makes the layers using real-butter puff pastry, baked for almost 50 minutes between two sheet pans (use parchment or silpats).

For the last 5-7 minutes, you cover the layer with corn syrup to create an impenetrable barrier.

This is the first time I made it, but in all actuality, it wasn’t hard. Assembly was okay. The most challenging part was making the pastry cream (a custard with cornstarch).

You let the pastry cool, and then get ready to cut your three slices.

Use a serrated knife; and start piping-on the pastry cream.

The pastry looks dark, but that’s the color it was in the cookbook, too.

By the time it’s served, you’ve got raspberries in the top layer, and you can garnish with powdered sugar or even chocolate sauce. I did both.

Before serving, here’s a shot of the side-view. It was great.

Find Bouchon in a 2-cookbook set on Amazon.

A guest: “What is in this [chicken]?”

Me: “Why does something not taste good?”

He said, “No… it’s absolutely perfect…”

And from across the table, “This is the best chicken I’ve ever eaten… whoa.”

So, this is the secret of my chicken success. And this doesn’t mean there’s only one way to do this, but it’s my way. And it is good.

1. Use a good quality bird. I chose a free-range, Kosher bird. Kosher means it has been brined, which si a step I’d rather not have to mess with.
2. Keep it simple. Put aromatics in the cavity (in my case, thyme and lemon), and salt and pepper the bird liberally.
3. Tie it up. A trussing needle is not required.
4. Roast at a high temperature (475 or 500 degrees F) for roughly an hour. You want to get a temperature of about 155 degrees before taking it out to rest.
5. Wait.
6. Carve the bird in serving pieces.
7. Ladle-over the secret sauce.

Each time I do variations on the “sauce,” but there are always a few common ingredients. Shallot, garlic, lemon juice, fresh thyme, and butter. This time I also added a wine-stock reduction. Dijon mustard. Pour this over the carved meat, and serve. Sop-up the sauce with baguette. Don’t bother with potatoes or starchy vegetables. Go French.

I made this salad based on an idea I saw elsewhere. I can’t remember where!

I roasted cauliflower, after coating it in olive oil, salt, and pepper for 45 minutes. I then broke it up into small pieces, and mixed it with canned (and rinsed) garbanzo beans. Slice up baby tomatoes, add those. Mash a clove of garlic into a paste with salt, and add that to a bowl to make a dressing. Chop parsley, and add it to the dressing bowl. Same with lemon juice, salt, pepper, and an egg yolk.

I dressed some greens with my lemony dressing after blending it with a whisk and olive oil. I topped it with dressed vegetables, and then took pains to tuck-in slices of speck (smoked prosciutto) into the salad.

I have to say this salad was delicious.

I might make a few changes for next time…

• Could heat be added, by tossing the almost-done cauliflower with a curry spice mixture 10 minutes until they were done?
• Could I soak the beans and cauliflower in the dressing for a longer period, so when warm, they absorb more of that flavor?
• Might I add a little red onion?

This dish was inspired by what I had around and what I remembered looking good in a recipe online or in a cookbook. Doesn’t matter where it came from… sometimes you have to forge your own path towards deliciousness.