lyonnaise garlic and herb cheese

Posted on 25/05/2012 by

There are different kinds of cooks, those who preserve their cookbooks, and those who abuse their cookbooks. I fall squarely into the second camp. Nobody who has ever looked at my cookbooks would have to wonder if I use them or not. In fact, you can even tell which recipes I have made the most by which pages have the most stains & notes on them. I write notes in my books for just about everything; tips for next time, add more of this, less of that, etc… I also tend to categorize the recipes. I’m not very scientific about it, but over the years my category system has pretty much broken down into the following groups:

  • Amazing -  we will definitely make it again
  • Good, solid every-day fare – we will definitely make it again
  • Good, but – not worth the price or effort, or sometimes just because the ingredients are too hard to find here
  • Calorie Bombs – these are pretty much always good, but also usually one-time only affairs
  • Meh – I don’t think this one really needs an explanation
  • Fail – something went horribly wrong

As you can see, my ´´good, but” category covers quite a broad range of sins, and this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese fell squarely into it.

Why, you might ask. Well, because it was GOOD. Very GOOD! Exactly my kind of food in fact. In addition, it was not difficult or time consuming and it did not require any fancy ingredients. BUT, I can also buy it pretty easily at the grocery store.

Le Tartar, in case you have not met, is a french herb cheese spread. The consistency is light and airy, something like a whipped cream cheese, and much smoother than Boursin. It is supermarket cheese, so not high brow by any stretch of the imagination (no AOC designations for this one). I discovered it when I studied abroad in France many years ago, and I was delighted to find that it is available in my grocery store here in Germany. Smeared on a torn off stub of baguette or a nice farmhouse loaf, heaven!

So back to my original point. Dorie’s recipe was very good, but it falls into the category of so many foods which I can’t be bothered to make at home, because it is too easy to purchase at the store. Dorie’s cheese will have plenty of company in this category: fresh pasta, mayonnaise (once was enough), creme fraiche, to name but a few.

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double chocolate and banana tart

Posted on 18/05/2012 by

Where did the week go? It’s suddenly Friday morning and I haven’t written a word about this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Double Chocolate and Banana Tart. Luckily though, I already made the tart last weekend, otherwise this would be short post indeed.

Quite a few of my fellow Doristas were really looking forward to this one. I, strangely, was not. No idea why, but chocolate and banana has never been a particularly winning combination for me. Now chocolate and raspberry, or chocolate and strawberry, or chocolate and coffee… yum! But somehow chocolate and banana has never topped my list. However, Dorie has an absolutely gorgeous photo of this tarte in her book, which makes it impossibly not to be at least mildly curious about this recipe, which is chocolate crust filled with caramelized bananas, chocolate ganache and then topped with fresh bananas. Doesn’t sound at all bad does it?

A quick read through the recipe reveals it to be one of those hurry up and wait recipes. First you need to make the tart dough, and then let it chill… then you need to bake the tart crust, and then let it cool… and then (if like me you decide to take Dorie up on her Bonne Idee to use nutella) you need to spread nutella over the tart crust, and then let it chill… then you need to make then caramelized bananas, and let them cool… and then fill the tart with chocolate ganache, and then let it chill…(phew, we’re almost done I promise)… and then top the tart with fresh cut bananas, brush with apricot glaze, and allow glaze to cool… and FINALLY you get to eat the darn thing!

To be honest, I didn’t let the glaze cool. By then I had had quite enough of waiting around for this recipe to be done and, more importantly, our guests had arrived, so we just dug in.

The verdict? Everyone who was not involved in the preparation of this tart thought that it was delicious! Chocolaty, rich, decadent, and delicious. Those of us who were subjected to all that waiting thought that this one was very tasty, but possibly a bit too high maintenance for regular consumption. Let’s just say that it would have to be a mighty special occasion for me to be willing to pull this recipe out again.

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almond sole meuniere

Posted on 04/05/2012 by

Never a good idea to go grocery shopping while hungry. Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof…

I swear, I have no idea how those chips made it into the bag. Or how the bag got opened so quickly once I got home. Very curious indeed.

So why did I break my rule never to shop while hungry? Well, there it was, Thursday night, and I had not yet made this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Almond Flounder Meuniere. In fact, I had basically given up on this week and just thought that I would have to catch up with everyone else this weekend. But then a little office miracle happened, my inbox started to clear up and my telephone quieted to a dull roar, and I actually managed to get out of work in time to make it to the grocery store. No easy feat in a country where the stores seem designed to avoid customers at all costs.

Luckily Dorie’s recipe was easy and quick, otherwise I might have done some serious damage to that bag of chips. Her idea is a cross between trout amandine and sole meuniere. I picked sole simply because that is what looked best at the store. As instructed, my sole got a coating of crushed almonds, then into the pan for a couple of minutes and voila, dinner is served. Actually, my side dish took longer to prepare. I made what in my house is called croatian Potatoes, but is in reality a modified version of what we had in Croatia. My version was made with boiled potatoes, spinach, garlic, and olive oil.

Pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself. Dorie’s fish was simple and delicious. A perfect weeknight meal if one can actually get to the store on time. And my potatoes, while not authentically croatian, were close enough make me happy. I could definitely see making this meal again.

I’m back to add a note about my side dish which seems to have stolen all the attention from my fish. My husband and I have been to Croatia a few times now and we have fallen in love with the food, particularly the food of the Istrian region. But this side dish of potatoes & chard is one that we found all along the coast and it seemed to be THE standard side dish for fish. An internet search for the recipe led me to a fellow expat food blogger’s site and to this lovely but simple recipe. As you can see, the traditional way to go is chard, but since chard is out of season at the moment, I had my potatoes this week with spinach.The key seems to be the olive oil, use good oil (doesn’t have to be the crazy expensive stuff but it needs to have a good flavor to it) and use way more of it than you would normally consider.

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navarin printanier

Posted on 27/04/2012 by

My husband has been a big supporter of my French Fridays with Dorie adventures. He loves to eat and is generally very open to different foods. He has gamely tried every single recipe I have made and lent a hand in the kitchen on more than one occasion. This project has reminded me just how lucky I am to have found a man who isn’t a stereotypical meat-n-potatoes-only type. In fact, just two weeks ago, as he was scarfing down the sardine rillettes, I had to smile and say a silent little thank you to cupid.

And then there are those other times when I am reminded that he’s still a guy after all, and that some stereotypes exist for a reason. The last time I was reminded of this fact was at the beginning of April, when we were discussing the FFwD line up for the month…

  • the German: What are we cooking this month?
  • me: Um, let’s see, the first recipe is asparagus with bits of bacon.
  • the German: That sounds good, what else?
  • me: Next comes sardine rillettes.
  • the German: What’s a rillette?
  • me: It’s a spread made with meat, but we’re making it with sardines.
  • the German: Interesting, what else?
  • me: Coconut friands, I think it’s a kind of cookie made with coconut.
  • the German: Sounds weird, what else?
  • me: Navarin Printanier, it’s a lamb stew.
  • the German: Finally some real food!

And there you have it. He might not be a meat-n-potatoes-only type, but he certainly is a meat-n-potatoes-preferred type.

But, moving on. Did anyone else notice that there were no pictures in the book for any of this month’s recipes? What’s up with that? I like pictures. It gives me a visual goal to aim for. Thank goodness for google, which gave me a variety of pictures to chose from, all clearly painting the picture that this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Navarin Printanier, is a lamb stew. To be specific, lamb stew made with spring vegetables.

Does spring stew sound weird to anyone else? Isn’t stew supposed to be winter fare? Am I the only one?

Well, I was the only one in my house because my husband loved this dish. The lamb was tender, the veggies were flavorful, and even I was impresses by how tasty the sauce was. He was thrilled to finally get a little “real food” and I thought it was probably the best lamb stew I had ever eaten. Which is as high a compliment as stew can get from me. Especially in April.

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coconut friands

Posted on 20/04/2012 by

Coconut whats? What the heck is a friand? This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe started with a google search. I had never heard of friands before and, since Dorie did not include a picture of this recipe, I had no idea what the heck I was supposed to be making.

According to the brilliant minds over at Wikipedia, a friand is the australian version of the french Financier. Not exactly a huge help since I also don’t know what a financier is, but at least they had pictures. Looks kind of like an oval-shaped muffin. I’ll be interested to see what our australian Doristas have to say about this recipe.

Dorie’s friand is made with shredded coconut and, may I say, not a small amount of it. In fact, it rather took over the dough. Luckily I have never had an aversion to coconut so I carried on as instructed.

The only addition I made was at Dorie’s suggestion. In her Bonne Idees she points out that chopped fresh fruit can be added to the tops of these cakes and the perfectly ripe pineapple sitting on my counter was just begging to be let in on the fun.

The batter came together very quickly and I spooned it into buttered muffin tins, topped off with a little chopped pineapple, and then into the oven. 35 minutes later my friands were a beautiful golden color.

A little later I made some tea and piled a few friands on a plate to enjoy as a lazy Sunday afternoon snack. Up to this point I really had no expectations of this recipe one way or another and had no idea how it would taste.

Verdict? De-lish! Surprisingly good! My husband and I both loved these. The little cakes were much moister than I had anticipated and had a great, vaguely tropical flavor. The next day they had dried out a bit, but were still tasty dunked into a cup of tea. I’m almost embarrassed to say that the two of us polished off the whole batch in just two days!

Thanks FFwD! Another winning recipe which I never would have picked on my own.

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tastes like chicken… of the sea

Posted on 13/04/2012 by

Well here we are, the dreaded week. This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is… dum dum dum… Sardine Rillettes. Some of you may have noticed by now that I am actually the one who was crazy enough to nominate this recipe and, given the panic that it seems to have invoked, I feel the need to submit a plea in my defense.

You see, it was not that long ago that Tuesdays with Dorie wrapped up. I never participated in TwD, but I was certainly aware of it and read a few of the articles which came out as it was coming to an end. The end of TwD had me thinking about where our little group will be in 3 years as we are wrapping up French Fridays with Dorie, and I was wondering which recipes we would be making together in those final months. And suddenly it occurred to me, the way things are going, with us voting each month for our favorite recipes, the end might be a little scary. Because really, is chopped liver ever going to win a vote? I don’t think so. Aspic? Not a chance! But this project is about cooking the entire book and that means that all those scary recipes have to come up some time. Would we rather sprinkle them in with the others or do we want to save them all for the end?

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would rather have a nice chocolate mousse, or that gorgeous cover recipe, to look forward to at the end of this project. Does this make sense? Is anyone else with me? Can we agree to make some of these scary recipes before the end? I really hope that I’m not the only one because, while I may be brave enough to nominate sardines, I don’t think that I have it in me to nominate aspic. Someone else might have to step up for that one

All right, enough procrastinating, bring on the sardine rillettes (recipe published here). Maybe now would be a good time to point out that rillettes, a dish usually made with pork, is basically just a meat spread. Kind of like a pate, but the consistency is not as smooth and you should be able to see the shredded chunks of pork.

Having heard that sardines vary greatly in quality I decided that I would give this recipe a fighting chance and buy the most expensive sardines I could find, which frankly, were not all that expensive. In the end I ended up buying the ones in the prettiest tin… check it out, cool huh? But once the tin was open, no longer so pretty. At that point the only one who was excited about this dish was the cat who, having heard the sound of a can opening, starting twirling himself around my feet, hoping to get a taste of whatever was being made. Let’s just say it… the fact that the cat was interested in this recipe did not bode well for it.

But I bravely (if also a little squeamishly) drained and deboned the little fishies and set them aside while I mixed up the rest of the ingredients: fresh cheese, shallots, scallions, lime juice, and some chopped herbs. Without the sardines, it was actually looking quite tasty. But I couldn’t ignore the sardines forever, so I finally added them in and mixed everything around. It is at this point that Dorie suggests that we taste test the mixture to see if it needs more seasoning or citrus. For the briefest of moments I actually thought about letting the cat do the taste testing for me, but then I remembered that I’m a grown up. Darn.

And after all that build up… it tasted like tuna. Really, like canned tuna. Not like some scary fishy pungent nightmare, it tasted like tuna. Good grief, I just about laughed at myself for getting so worked up over nothing.

We served our sardine rillettes with toasted baguette and assorted antipasti. All in all a quick and simple weeknight meal. Dorie has once again shown me that I need to be a little bolder in the kitchen and not be so easily frightened by a scary sounding title.

And yet, oh Dorie, I am still dreading the aspic.

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asparagus and bits of bacon

Posted on 06/04/2012 by

Hallelujah, the asparagus is here! That delicious harbinger of spring. That promise of tasty fresh produce to come. This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Asparagus with Bits of Bacon, was the perfect warm weather welcome.

As I think I have mentioned before, asparagus in Germany is almost always white. In fact, a homesick american expat in search of green asparagus could find herself laughed out of the produce aisle. Sigh.

If you are unfamiliar with white asparagus, let me just tell you that it is a tad higher maintenance than green asparagus. To begin with, it has very tough skin and must be peeled before cooking. Luckily I was able to get the resident German to tackle that job for me. And then it needs longer to cook, my chubby spears took about 12 minutes.

Dorie’s recipe calls for basic boiled asparagus to be dressed in a simple vinaigrette and then topped with crispy bacon and sauteed onions. Sounds lovely as is. But I thought that it would be even lovelier with a fried egg. As strange as it may sound, one my very favorite springtime dinners is sauteed asparagus with poached egg. The flavors pair perfectly and make a quick but delicious weeknight meal. So why not try it with a little bacon throw into the mix?

Why not indeed! This meal was a delicious and welcoming transition into spring. I look forward to much more asparagus to come before the season is over.

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