tammy circeo: telling life stories

French Fridays with Dorie: Lyonnaise Garlic & Herb Cheese

The recipe for French Fridays this week goes right along with my whole "simplicity" theme from the last three days. Score!

I love Boursin cheese and who in their right mind doesn't? It's rather a splurge with all that creaminess and herb deliciousness. Growing up in France and smelling all the stinky cheeses (that, in the end, taste very good), Boursin was a welcome cheese to our childish palates. Who knew you could make something so very similar right at home?

I used part-skim ricotta cheese, after letting it drain for a while, then added in shallots, garlic, parsley,  and chives (I skipped the tarrgon because licorice is not my favorite flavor). A bit of red wine vinegar and olive oil stirred in and the whole mess of it seasoned with salt and freshly ground pepper made me one happy camper reminiscing about all things French.

You can eat the cheese on bread, of course, like any cheese, but you can use it as a dip for crackers or vegetables and I think it would a fabulous spread on a sandwich. Dorie suggested stuffing tomatoes with it and that sounded wonderful. I kept it super simple, though, and served sliced tomatoes with a bit of the cheese dolloped on each slice.

Here's my own "bonne idée" ... mix a tablespoon or two with your eggs before scrambling. DELICIOUS!

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays with Dorie: Double Chocolate and Banana Tart

Dorie's desserts tempt me so! What from the photos in her book and her descriptions or stories of them ... And if "double chocolate" is in the title, I find myself between a rock and hard place.

If you had a dessert sitting in your fridge made from a chocolate pate sablé, caramelized bananas layered in it, covered up like a secret with bittersweet chocolate ganache, and then topped off with fresh sliced bananas glazed with apricot jelly, you would totally understand the dilemma facing one who is being careful with her food intake ...

Isn't that beautiful? And you can imagine how rich it is given the amount of ganache under those glazed bananas!

So, I took myself out from in between the rock and the hard place and indulged in a thin sliver. It had to be done.

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays with Dorie: Almond Sole Meuniere

I'm sure I've mentioned it before and if you've watched "Julie and Julia", you'll likely remember the scene where Julia is experiencing Sole Meuniere in France for the first time. I spent way too long trying to find that scene to upload for you! And so as to not devalue the time spent, I'll share this one instead ... it's only 1:03 long ... and another of my favorite scenes.

"What is it that you REALLY like to do?"

Moving along ... The Sole Meuniere scene has her exclaiming about how wonderful everything tastes in France and gushing over the fish. I couldn't agree more on the point that Sole Meuniere is an absolutely heavenly dish and Dorie's combination of Sole Amandine (with almonds) and Meuniere is a winning one.

The term "meuniere" refers to a miller's wife. You know, the guy who mills wheat? So, the term implies that the fish will be dredged in flour before it is lightly sauteed. This particular recipe includes the almonds so they are added to a bit of flour and lemon zest.

It helps to dry the fish by laying it out on paper towels first ...

... then brush it with egg yolk ...

The almond mixture stick to it so much better. I also love the suggestion to just coat it on one side. (Mama Trudy's platter is just perfect for dredging the fish!)

This preparation of fish calls for brown butter but use it wisely and carefully. You don't want the fish to stick to the pan, of course, but neither do you want it to absorb too much.

A squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of parsley makes for a beautiful platter.

I made some roasted potatoes to accompany the fish, but steamed some spinach for myself in the same pan I cooked the fish in. And yes, it was worth it to see two pounds less show up on the scale! (Granted the two pounds weren't a direct result of the steamed spinach with this meal, but rather a culmination of such choices.)

Dorie suggests making sandwiches with any leftover fish. I wasn't sure I agreed, but I'm slowly learning to trust that she knows what she's talking about. So I made a Rouille (an aioli with saffron or roasted red peppers added ... named "rouille" because of the color "rust"), toasted the bread and added tomatoes and lettuce.

Yeah, she was right. It was delicious!

Emily and her fiance joined me for the leftover lunch and he said he didn't know when he had had such a wonderful lunch. Should I be concerned about flattery?

French Fridays with Dorie: Asparagus with Bacon

Oh Dorie. As if asparagus wasn't tasty enough on its own, you had to go and add bacon to it. You sneaky Dorie.

I loved the simplicity of this presentation. It is perfectly acceptable to serve a steamed vegetable without dressing it up at all, but adding bacon, lightly cooked onions, and lemon juice makes this spring vegetable so tasty.

And what has adding bacon to anything ever hurt?! Nothing. 

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays with Dorie: Soupe a l'Oignon

What a classic cafe meal ... Soupe a l'Oignon. I love the deep flavors of the roasted onions and the golden cheese on top. Eating this anywhere is delightful, but having it in a cafe in Paris is just about the best food experience one can have. Our favorite was at Cafe Hugo in the Place des Vosges ...

I can usually make it through two or three onions without crying, but cutting five was enough to warrant a makeup redo, even with my sharp knife!

I've made Soupe a l'Oignon before and thought Dorie was wise to include such detailed instructions about employing patience while the onions cooked. She said it could take an hour or more on super low heat, but when mine looked like this after an hour ...

... I knew they were nowhere near golden enough and certainly not cooked down enough. So I left them on low while I taught music. This photo is from two hours in the pot ...

Finally, I was able to be in the kitchen watching the pot so I turned the heat up for a while.

I'm still not sure I achieved the color I really wanted, but it was certainly closer than before. From then on in, it was just a matter of minutes before we were eating.

Of course, at the Cafe Hugo, it is served piping hot in the classic bowls with the lion's heads on the sides, a bit messy with the broth dripping down the sides and the cheese cooked onto the edges. I have one bowl like this, but it is too big for one serving AND I was serving four! So I thought I would get some smaller ones with a gift certificate that I got for Christmas. That didn't quite work out since the bowls are pricier than I thought! I had the brilliant idea of going to the thrift store to find some, but there weren't any there. Floating a toasted piece of Gruyere toast in the soup bowl was our presentation solution. It worked out quite well, even having used gluten-free bread since Emily was eating with us.

I rounded the meal out with a classic carrot salad with vinaigrette and rolled jambon, all superbly paired with Rhone red.

We felt perfectly francais with our soup dinner and the fact that it was Soupe a l'Oignon made it that much more cozy on a very cold February evening.

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays with Dorie: Mussels with Chorizo

I've recently been making the mistake of checking all the details of my life "en retard" ... that means that I'm just a bit late. There are many things in life that we can't control, but the ones that we can control ... like deciding which evening of the week to plan the French-Fridays-with-Dorie meal ... is one of them.

It's a small task, really, to decide which evening to eat what, but I fail at small tasks rather often. Give me a large task and I'll ultimately come out with flying colors, but these little bitty tasks often catch me in my weakness.

[An "aside": when I used to decorate the venue for our school auction, I had a "right-hand-woman". I called her Adele ... because that was her name, but now that I know the strong voice that is "ADELE", I know why they share that name. :) Truly, I couldn't have done that job without her beside me making notes, reminding me of important things, and backing me up every minute. She was the best ... and still is!)

This week's Dorie recipe was Mussels with Chorizo. I love mussels and I'm so-so on chorizo, but since our local Tapas bar serves up a great Mussels with Chorizo small dish, I considered myself in safe territory.

(PS ... I found that my fish bone tweezers did a great job of saving my fingers from the effects of bearding the mussels.)

The mussels are steamed in a mixture of sauteed onions, red pepper, garlic, thyme, chorizo, and white wine ...

... I'd say they were quite happy. :)

This dish is great eaten with fettucine (a bit more filling) ...  

... Or just with a bit of bread. I chose a small piece of multi-grain crunchy bread so I could stick more closely to my lower-carb way of eating.

The recipe called for four pounds of mussels to feed six people so I halved it since only Ken, Aly, and I were home. We still had tons leftover!! This recipe will feed an army, apparently. :)

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays with Dorie: Quatre Quarts

First thing I have to say is "What a lovely cake!"

Second thing is in response to some of Dorie's notes that state that this is the type of cake a French mother would whip up for her children to enjoy as an afternoon snack ... What?! Those sweet French kids are sure lucky if their mom makes this for their snack. Especially if she flavors it with Cognac. ;)

Truthfully, this cake can hardly get any easier to make if the list of ingredients is any indication: eggs, butter, flour, sugar. Vanilla flavoring, or cognac or brandy if you want, and a little baking powder for the rising. The name "Four Quarters" is such because in theory, there would be equal parts eggs, butter, sugar and flour.

The hard part could be ascribed to the eggs if beating egg whites isn't your thing, but I used the electric mixer for that and the copper bowl for whipping the egg yolks and sugar.

I found that I needed to mix a little of the melted, cooled butter in before I got a good whip going because the egg yolks and sugar clumped up in the whisk.

Folding the egg whites in can be delicate, but again, it's not terribly difficult.

A little sprinkle of brown sugar on the top before baking ensured a beautiful crunchy crust.

Dorie warned that it would be dry according to our standards, but the inside was fabulously soft and moist, unlike most homemade French cakes I ate while living there which were most often burnt on the outside and dry on in the in.

After a few bites, Ken said, "I think that's my new favorite cake." I must agree that it is supremely delicious even without any sauce, fruit, or ice cream. Perfect for an afternoon snack as well as a special dessert.

Dorie's description was excellent: "a cake with a lovely crumb, a light spring, the comforting flavor of basic ingredients, and a look so sweet and plain that you'd think the cake had the word home etched into its slightly domed top."

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays with Dorie: M. Jacques' Armagnac Chicken

A recipe that starts with vegetables, seasonings, fresh herbs being lightly sauteed in a large pot ...

... and continues with chicken nestled in, and cognac poured over it, then baked at a high temperature for a short time ...

... is a recipe that I will have a hard time ignoring. This dish was a soulful, warming, almost stew-like comfort that I'm sure I'll turn to again and again. As Dorie suggested the classic combination of Armagnac and prunes, I put some in the dish just before popping it in the oven. They dissolved down and added a slight sweetness to the sauce that was just perfect. The vegetables cooked just enough to be tender and the potatoes were very soft without being mealy. I chose to use split chicken breasts on the bone rather than a whole, cut chicken simply because no one in my family cares very much about dark meat. The flavor was not compromised and the meat was very tender.

[I'm getting this year off to a rockin' start in that the first two recipes for French Fridays are being posted a week en retard. So sorry. Don't give up on me yet, though ... tomorrow's will be on time!]

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays With Dorie: Bubble Top Brioches

In Dorie's forenotes to this recipe, she states that when a Frenchman is asked if he/she has ever made brioche at home, the answer is unequivocally, "Non! Why should I when the baker on the corner spent years in school learning how to do it?!" The Frenchman has a point, bien sur!  

I'm not one to be intimidated by yeast, raising times, incorporating butter, turning it out, letting it rest, chilling it overnight ... those things are only time-consuming and not scary. However, making brioche IS scary! Especially after the fiasco that this recipe was in my kitchen. I followed all of the instructions except for the chilling overnight: I chilled it over TWO nights. Lack of time ... Mistake #1.

Dorie instructed us to make three little balls to put into each muffin tin--like Parker House Rolls. No fear, right?

"I got this."

To let them rise, I heated the oven to 200 and turned it off because my house was rather cool. I put the tins in to rise and promptly forgot about them. Oops. I guess that is Mistake #2.

They rose more than I think they should've, but I moved ahead to baking. When they came out of the oven, Aly was drooling, but the dough was all over the top of the muffin tins and I literally had to cut the non-bubble tops off in order to pry the bottoms out.

My brioche tasted wonderful, and my Aly asked me, "Will you try it again?"

Darn tootin' I will! Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of failure to get you going!

Bon Appetit!

(This recipe was for last week, but I'm only now posting since I experienced last SATURDAY, therefore not in time for last Friday's post ... Mistake #3.)

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)

French Fridays With Dorie: Matafan

When I read the recipe assignment for this week, I had no idea what I was making. What the heck kind of name is "Matafan"? Dorie had to tell me that it was a play on the words "matin" (meaning morning in French) and "faim" (meaning hungry in French). She says it's a kind of snack food to tie you over from your cafe au lait in the matin to the midday meal. I never ate these while I was growing up in France ... you learn something new every day.

Then I read the recipe ... "fluffy potato pancakes". Pshht. That's easy. I grew up eating Potato Cakes ... made by my southern mama. She taught me to mix leftover mashed potatoes with some eggs, maybe some bread crumbs or flour, some onion ... fry those babies up and you have a super yummy, waist enlarging, leftover reducing culinary treat.

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa ... Hold your horses! Dorie has other ideas. First of all, she calls for salt-roasting the potatoes, which a technique that I love to use, incidentally. No leftover mashers here. You fill a large baking pan with sea salt, then nestle the potatoes in cozily and roast them until the skin is hard and the interior is soft. The salt absorbs some of the moisture from the potatoes and you are left with a fluffy potato interior.

She then suggests pressing the potatoes' interiors through a potato-ricer. I don't have one and my neighbor's husband doesn't know what a potato-ricer is so he couldn't find one in his wife's stash of culinary tools. (She had gone to the movies ... smart woman!!) I used Dorie's alternative suggestion and pressed the potato interiors through a strainer ...

As Dorie said, "This method is tedious, but effective." She was right. It takes a bit of muscle and determination, but it works wonderfully to give you an upper body workout and riced potatoes.

The next step is to incorporate whole eggs and egg yolks, flour, and warm milk. Finally, egg whites (belonging to the aforementioned yolks) are whipped and folded in to create a batter that is light and fluffy. They are cooked in a skillet by spoonfuls, allowing for the perfect browning on both sides.

I served them with skillet-seared steaks finished with a red wine sauce and accompanied with a green salad. The red wine sauce was so good with the Matafan.

Simple and simply yummy.

NOTES:

• Learn from my error and don't double the recipe unless you have a football team to feed. I only had myself and my two girls ... we don't eat that much potatoes!
• Be sure to use plenty of seasoning. Salt, for sure, and perhaps some other herb as well.
• Serve the Potato Cakes with a meat and its sauce. It's a great combination since the Potato Cake soaks up the meat juices very well.

Bon Appetit!

If you're new around here or are wondering what French Fridays with Dorie is ... It's an effort to use one of Dorie's recipes from her cookbook Around My French Table each week. The recipes are decided on by popular vote on the website French Fridays with Dorie. Purchase your book HERE and play along! According to the rules of the group, I'm not allowed to post the actual recipe ... mes regrets.)