COOKBOOK/A TABLE - Chicken Livers a la Française!

Bonjour! I love chicken livers, preferably with onions, and I love that it is such a simple and satisfying dish to make. For this adventure, I looked to Julia Child for inspiration, as I so often do, and The French Chef Cookbook (which features recipes from her show, by episode—Chicken Livers a la Française is The Eighteenth Show).

 

Julia’s recipe calls for sauteed mushrooms and ham, but I substituted sauteed onions for those and set to work. I also used a fine Amontillado we had lying around instead of Madeira (that we didn’t have). My version below is definitely less involved than Julia’s. You’ll work quickly, but your guests might think you’ve spent hours in the kitchen to prepare such a sumptuous, elegant meal in the French method. 

Serve on top of a molded ring of rice or a bed of spinach, and perhaps garnish with peas or asparagus tips!

Do enjoy!

Sauteed Chicken Livers

For 4 to 6 people
Ingredients
1 lb chicken livers, about two cups
Salt and pepper
½ cup flour in a plate
A large sieve
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon cooking oil
A heavy 10-inch enameled or no-stick skillet
1 cup onions, sauteed in butter until yellow and tender
Half cup beef stock or bullion
1/3 cup Amontillado (or Madeira, or a dry sherry)
One tablespoon fresh minced parsley

Method
Dry chicken livers on paper towels. Just before cooking, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, roll in flour, then shake in a sieve to remove excess flour.

Melt the butter and oil in the skillet over moderately high heat. When you see the butter foam begin to subside, add the chicken livers. Toss frequently for three to four minutes until livers are lightly browned; They are done and just springy to the touch of your finger. Do not overcook. Add onions, pour in the stock and the Amontillado, and simmer for one minute. Taste and correct seasoning. Reheat just before serving, then remove from heat and toss with parsley.

A Friend Writes...Where's the Beef?

In Pittsburgh, there are apparently many mysteries--just ask Michael Chabon about his marvelous book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh--however, this simply made, hearty beef stew from Pittsburgh is not among them. If you have a mind to, check out The Odd, Mysterious & Fascinating History of Pittsburgh page on facebook (where my friend found this recipe), and here's a link to what some may consider a variation of this preparation that I made, the French Boeuf a la Bourguignonne from Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook. 

In the meantime, say hello to Pittsburgh's own television host Kay Neumann!

Kay Neumann's Beef Stew

1 tablespoon shortening (we used canola oil)
1 1/2 pounds lean beef, cubed (about 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick)
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups water
1 small-medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 cup carrots, sliced (about 2 or 3)
1 1/2 cups potatoes, diced or cut (we diced about 3 medium potatoes in 1/2-inch cubes)
1/2 cup celery, sliced (about 1 stalk)
Place the flour in a deep bowl. Add the beef and toss to coat. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the beef and cook until beef is browned (stir almost constantly so the flour won’t clump). Add the water, chopped onions and remaining ingredients except the vegetables. Cover and cook over medium heat for 1 hour. Add the vegetables and cook another hour.
Note alternative: After the beef was browned, some people added all remaining ingredients, including the vegetables. Cook the stew, stirring occasionally on low to medium until the vegetables were soft, about 1 1/2 hours.

Do enjoy!

Try To Remember

Soubise! Duxelles! Brunoise! Mirepoix! As simple as these classic French vegetable mixtures are, I can't seem to keep them inside the rattletrap I call my head. Maybe I should try to remember them by creating one of those systems that help you remember, but at the moment, I can't remember that either. Ah yes, a pneumatic phrase--no, that's not right--a mnemonic phrase.

A friend and I were trying desperately to piece together the ingredients for each mixture over our New Year's in a remote locale on the Jersey Shore, alternately merging some elements that didn't belong with one another, summoning up generously admitted probable falsehoods and otherwise becoming progressively irritated as we tried googling back and forth with what limited online access we had available to us. None of it sounded exactly right to me. I emailed her when I returned home, having pulled out The French Chef Cookbook by Julia Child as I so often do, once again beseeching it to come to any rescue. I've forgotten it all again now, so I'm writing it down with the fervent hope the exercise will help me remember on my own!

Various Mixtures
Adapted from The French Chef Cookbook by Julia Child

Soubise
This is a stuffing of braised rice and onions that JC paired off with the duxelles (see that recipe below) to make Veal Prince Orloff, but soubise is quite good on its own. For now at least, I leave you to track down the Prince yourself.
Ingredients
1/4 cup dry raw white rice
4 Tb butter
3 1/2 to 4 cups thinly sliced yellow onions
1/2 tsp salt

Method
"Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Drop the rice into 3 quarts of boiling salted water, bring rapidly back to the boil, and boil, uncovered, for exactly 5 minutes. Drain immediately. Melt the butter in a casserole or baking dish, stir, in the onions and salt to coat with butter, then stir in the rice. Cover and cook for about an hour in pre-heated oven...onion juices contain enough liquid to moisten the rice. Soubise is done when both rice and onions are tender and lightly golden. Set aside until needed. (If served as a vegetable rather than a stuffing, you may wish to stir in a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese, and some cream along with salt and pepper to taste.)" Sounds good to me!

Duxelles
Here we have sauteed mushrooms that make about one cup to serve as a stuffing with a fancy name. How is this hard to remember?
Ingredients
2 cups finely diced fresh mushrooms (about 1/2 lb.)
2 Tb butter
An 8-inch no-stick or enameled skillet
Salt and pepper

Method
"A handful at a time, twist the mushrooms in the corner of a towel, squeezing out as much juice as you can; this is so the mushrooms will be as dry as possible, and will not dilute stuffing. Then saute them in hot butter, stirring frequently for several minutes, until pieces begin to separate from each other and to brown very lightly. Season to taste and set aside. (Any leftover mushrooms may be frozen; use in soups, sauces, or other stuffings.)"

Brunoise
A combination of aromatic vegetables such as this works very well when simmered with a white wine sauce to pour over a light, white fish. While the grocery list of items needed for the brunoise may be a little longer, the preparation time is still very short.
Ingredients
Cut these very thinly, such as a 1/16th-inch dice, making just shy of 2 cups total: 2 medium onions, 2 medium carrots, 1 medium celery stalk, 8 parsley stems
A smallish sauce pan which may be heavily covered
2 Tb butter
1/2 bay leaf
1/4 tsp tarragon
1/8 tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
1/4 lb. fresh mushrooms cut into 1/16-inch dice

Method
"After cutting the first group of vegetables into the finest possible dice, cook them over low heat with the butter, herbs, and seasonings for about 20 minutes. They should be perfectly tender and the palest golden color. Then add the mushrooms and cook slowly for 1o minutes more."

Mirepoix
Suggested as an integral part of a roast beef casserole, the final mixture here is the easiest of the lot. I believe the ham is optional.
Ingredients
2/3 cup each of finely diced celery, carrots, and onions, and 1/4 diced boiled ham

Method
"All [ingredients] cooked together in 2 Tb butter until very lightly browned."

Use these mixtures as a base for your favorite dishes or follow the recipes for Veal Prince Orloff, Sole Filets de Sylvestre, or Roti de Boeuf Poele a la Matignon found in the extraordinary pages of The French Chef Cookbook. What ever you do...try to remember!

Taking Stock

Baby borders on near obsession when it comes to making stock. His passion, I think, is wrought from a meditation on the slow simmering of a collection of ingredients overnight, a comfortable bounty that serves as a base of so many dishes and reductions--as well as a tribute to family and the things that they taught him along the way, growing up, even if he was merely observing, peeking into a pot.

For me, I've never tasted better. As Baby tirelessly teaches me patience, here, in honor of kitchen and kin, I offer the wealth of good, patient stock; a guideline and an encouragement to make several different kinds, to either be used with a sense of immediacy or to freeze and have on hand at a later time, when occasion requires.

Chicken Stock
2 lbs. chicken wings
2 rotisserie chicken carcasses (reserve the meat to make chicken soup later with noodles)
1 large onion with skin, quartered (root bottom removed)
2 large carrots, broken in half
3 ribs celery with greens, broken in half
1/2 leek, well rinsed to remove dirt
1 turnip, halved
1 parsnip broken in half
10 whole black peppercorns
Salt to taste

Place all ingredients in an 8-quart stock pot (except for salt, add at the end). Add cold water, covering ingredients by one inch. On medium low flame, bring to a simmer (never boil) and continue to simmer for at least three hours, skimming fat and foam off of top as you go. Drain through a colander to remove large pieces, strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove smaller bits. Add salt and pepper (if needed) to taste. Cover and let cool. Refrigerate overnight. The next day, remove hardened fat from the top to reveal the golden gelatinous goodness beneath. The more gelatinous the better! Stock may be reheated and used for your favorite soups, or frozen for up to three months. If space in your freezer is an issue, stock can boiled and reduced by half to be reconstituted at a later date.

Beef (or Veal/Lamb/Pork) Stock*
8 lbs. of marrow bones (beef, veal, lamb or pork bones, depending which stock you're making; leg bones are the best to use) and 1 lb of bones with meat on them (such as rib meat)
1 large onion with skin, quartered (root bottom removed)
2 large carrots, broken in half
3 ribs celery with greens, broken in half
1/2 leek, well rinsed to remove dirt
1 turnip, halved
1 parsnip broken in half
10 whole black peppercorns
Salt to taste

*If you like, for the beef stock, a tablespoon of tomato paste may also be added.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place bones in baking dish or cookie sheet in a single layer. Cook for approximately one hour until bones are nicely browned. Place bones in an 8-quart stock pot. Add remainder of ingredients (except for salt). Add cold water, covering ingredients by one inch. Over medium low heat, bring to a simmer, and continue to simmer for six hours, or as we do, place over lowest flame overnight. Drain, strain and refridgerate, and as with our chicken stock, proceed as you may.

For tips on a Maine Lobster Stock that I improvised, intended for a bisque, click here.

And of course, I turn to the great lady herself for a classic lobster stock, with my comments in italics:

Julia Child's Lobster Stock from The French Chef Cookbook
For about 1 cup
Lobster shell trimmings and debris (I've sauteed them in a skillet first until fragrant or put them under the broiler)
A stainless-steel or enameled pan
1/3 cup each of celery, onions, and carrots (I've used just onions, doubling the amount)
1 cup dry white wine or 3/4 cup dry white vermouth (I go for the wine)
1 bay leaf
6 sprigs parsley (I've used dried parsley)
1/2 tsp dried tarragon (Try Penzey's Shallot Pepper, which is laced with dried tarragon)

Chop the shell debris into 2-inch pieces and place in pan. Add the vegetables, wine, herbs, and water to cover. Boil slowly for 40 minutes, strain, then boil down until liquid has reduced to about 1 cup.

An Afternoon with A & P

Baby's father (A) was coming to town with his wife (P), to meet up with her daughter, her daughter's husband and their two children. It was all very last minute and as we had just thrown our Derby party, we wanted to serve something easy but elegant for family, 'natch. I think we quite succeeded, and simply so as well.

Julia Child's Quiche Lorraine (The Eighty-seventh Show) with crumbled fried bacon, eggs and heavy cream was an excellent starter, inverted on tea cup plates, which we chose to serve cold and without a crust. We also used less cream and dispensed with the chilled butter chips as the recipe encourages, we merely rubbed the ramekins with softened butter. All told, it was easy as pie and delicious as quiche.

I'm a huge fan of clever leftovers; the hearty remains of the Southern Shrimp from the Derby with a fresh batch of instant grits made their way onto comfortable spoons again to the delight of a new audience.

We sat with sumptuous crab cakes poised on a shallow pool of horseradish sauce before getting down to business. The medium rare grilled Filet Mignon entree was served with a side of scrumptious lobster mashed potatoes and asparagus, roasted with lemon zest, and lemon- and oregano-infused oils.

Homemade thyme-infused peach sorbet quite finished us off.

Ah oui, mesdames et monsieurs, a perfectly affable afternoon in which to serve Quiche Lorraine!

Soundtrack: Stephane Grappelli, Shades of Django; Henry Mancini, Combo!; Frank Sinatra, Sinatra Sings Cole Porter; Blues in the Night, The Johnny Mercer Songbook; Falling in Love with Glenn Miller.

Queen of Sheba Cake

"What on earth is a Champagne party?" I exclaimed to Baby as I read about the Queen of Sheba cake (The Hundredth Show) in Julia Child’s The French Chef Cookbook. She scribes, “The Queen of Sheba is a dessert in itself, or can be the main attraction at a tea, coffee, or Champagne party.” Who has Champagne parties these days and what’s more, what do you serve? The answer began to appear quite readily, when an extraordinarily generous friend gave Baby and me 250 grams (roughly 8 ounces) of caviar as a gift. That’s what you serve at a Champagne party! I tried my best to spoon my way through the tin, but it was evident I was going to need some help!

We made the cake of rum, almonds, and chocolate on Friday. It was definitely labor intensive and a little tricky trying it for the first time (we experienced a snag melting the chocolate, not trusting ourselves) but the results were well worth the trouble. As it baked, we started plotting out the menu and calling people to come for brunch on Sunday. For starters, we knew to dress the central caviar platter with toast points, chopped red onion, capers, lemon wedges, and blini (buckwheat pancakes). This particular blini by the way, another gift that accompanied the caviar, was news to me. Unlike the blini that I’m familiar with, that are about the size of a Sacajawea dollar and topped, these pancakes were rolled out like elegant parchment, to be gently folded and filled.

Amidst the outreach of invitations, I was suddenly struck with the memory of a Martha Stewart gathering that she had mapped out in her book Menus for Entertaining, the chapter entitled, Come for Champagne and Caviar. So, I guess I had heard of that sort of party before, but it’s an old book, and I’m older still. We plucked out the recipe for Beet Horseradish sauce, as piquant as it is pleasantly pink, with sugar snap peas for dipping. I also made the Salmon Rosettes with Dill & Mustard Sauce, on pumpernickel rounds.

Baby loves making his potato pancakes, and offered to make them (and you won’t find any better, believe me). This time he topped them with a marinated, fine dice of tuna tartare and drizzled a blend of Stonewall Kitchen wasabi cream and sour cream, and placed them on a tray over a bed of parsley. The Reader’s Digest Secrets of Better Cooking supplied Stuffed Eggs with Caviar. Spoonfuls of the most buttery, delectable miso-glazed cod were passed around, I also futzed some smoked salmon with the dill and mustard sauce and tossed in a few of the blueberries that our friend had brought. That’s right, salmon and blueberries—try it.

We freely poured both Champagne and Mionetto prosecco, with offerings of juice, such as blood orange, grapefruit and Fuji apple (and the lightest splashes of elderflower-scented St. Germain liqueur) and watched the spread disappear as our guests came and went, having shared with us this most lovely afternoon.

Et voila, mes dames et monsieurs, a perfect Champagne party well suited for a Queen of Sheba cake!

Soundtrack: Great British Bands Play the Music of Noel Coward; Evil Under the Sun soundtrack; Sinatra Sings Cole Porter; The Great American Composers – Cole Porter