Cook the Books! What Else Did I Make In January?

So we’re almost at the end of our first month of the Cook the Books challenge! What a whirlwind it has been! Remember, when we introduced you to it all at the end of December? We were so young and innocent back then…

I’ve told you about a few things I’ve made so far. Cheese Topped Onion Soup. Deconstructed B.L.T. and Eggs. But wait, there’s more! I’ve really gotten up close and personal with this book!

Since the month is quickly coming to an end and we will all soon start thinking about dumplings, I thought I’d tell you a little about all the other stuff I’ve made in Dorie Greenspan’s seriously awesome book, Around My French Table. If I wouldn’t have already ordered this book and now have my very own tattered and stained copy, I certainly would have bought it for myself by now.  Yep, it’s that good.  Here’s what I’ve made.

Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup. Page 98.

Last weekend, I decided to see what Dorie could do with Asian food. Let’s start positive. The Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup may end up being my single favorite thing from Dorie’s book.

Dorie mentions that, due to the history of France colonizing Vietnam, it’s common to find little Vietnamese restaurants in even the smallest towns in France.  And that the “bones” of Vietnamese cooking are present in a lot of French cooking, as evidenced by the French use of Vietnamese spices, condiments and seasoning.  Dorie mentions that this soup her combo homage to two soups she gets at her local neighborhood Paris Vietnamese spot, pho and la sa ga, a coconut milk soup.  She gets it right, because this combination is delicious.

This soup was very easy to make. The flavors were spot on; it was like a slightly heavier/creamier take on pho, which sometimes you want, especially on a cold night. Double S really loved this one too and made me promise to add it to our dinner repertoire.  Done and done!

Making a bouquet garni, cuz I’m fancy now.

Yep, those are the awesome large soup bowls I picked up at Dong Vinh.

I got/had all the optional garnishments Dorie suggests, but seriously?  The soup is so good it doesn’t need any garnishing, other than some fresh mint and basil prior to serving.

But here’s a brag for the homemade chili garlic sauce and chili oil I made last fall!

Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles.  Page 322.

I also tried Dorie’s, admittedly barely Chinese, take on shrimp with cellophane noodles. Dorie mentions how freely French chefs will add ingredients or techniques from other cultures in their attempts at fusion, and this recipe comes from that spirit.

I eat and cook a good amount of Thai and Vietnamese food, mainly noodle dishes and pho. There are great markets near my neighborhood and at many other local neighborhood in the Seattle area as well, that it make it easy to get the few more obscure ingredients you might need.  This one called for dried wood ear mushrooms, cellophane noodles, and  a few spices you probably already have at home, including Chinese 5 spice.

Re-hydrated mushrooms.

I made the called for tomato puree with my own garden tomatoes I froze last summer.  Wow, I’m glad I decided to preserve tomatoes by freezing.  So easy!

The only thing I needed some guidance on here were the cellophane noodles. This is one of the recipes in the book that was not further illustrated with a photograph and it suffered for that. Although I’ve bought noodles many times at Asian markets, I never called them or heard them called “cellophane noodles,”  so I Googled “cellophane noodles” and the first photo that came up was a picture of the very thinnest cellophane noodle. That kind of noodle is what I ended up using and I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’d also recommended to thoroughly read the recipe. Duh doy.  I must have just thoughtlessly assumed the whole package of noodles would go into the recipe. When I saw all the (delicious) sauce being absorbed into the very thin noodles and becoming a sludge of rice like substance, I checked the recipe and saw that the recipe only called for 3 oz of noodles and I had jut put in a 16oz package.  Mother effing shit!  That kinda ruined the recipe. The sauce had an interesting flavor that came from the Chinese 5 spice and the other added spices. I’d make it again if I ever had a package of more fitting (read: quite a bit thicker) cellophane noodles. The shrimp absorbed the sauce, and the sauce is delicious.  When buying Asian noodles, think of them like the more familiar Italian noodle.  Here, you want a cellophane noodle about the size of a spaghetti noodle, as the sauce is supposed to sit on top of the noodles like good old fashioned spaghetti.

My picture looks ok, but this was taken before all the sauce was absorbed up by the noodles.

Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar. Page 182.

I like pickles and pickling, mason jars, out of the ordinary food experimentation, and large projects. Thus when I saw the recipe for Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar, I knew I had to give it a shot. What I didn’t know was how easy it was!  It wasn’t a large project by a long shot.

Dorie mentions that this dish is a take on gravalax and tartare.  Double S is Scandinavian, so I thought she’d like this one.  Dorie was also not wrong on how much this dish impresses.  The presentation is killer!  Double S was already planning what future dinner parties we could attend and take this as an appetizer that will get us accolades from our friends.  Plus this is the Northwest and we have access to great local salmon.  Bonus!  I got a one pound fillet of sockeye salmon at my local farmer’s market.

The salmon sits overnight in a half salt/half sugar rub, then the next day you add some fresh spices and onion and carrots, and top with olive oil. The rub preserves the fish. The onions flavor everything.  And you are left with a flavored oil you can use for many other things.  Dorie suggests dressings and marinades.

The salmon is mellowed out by the process, so this recipe could fly with those who do not like “fishy” fish. It was great on good fresh bread and with a slightly tart and fruity white wine.

Cafe Salle Pleyel Hamburger.  Page 240.

My efforts with the hamburger had mixed results, but I don’t think it was the fault of the recipe. The only problem I had was that the burger fell apart, both as I grilled it and on the bun.  Bummer.   I used frozen meat (which has a tendency to fall apart), and I added more cornichons than were called for because I love cornichons. This of course made the patty wetter than ideal. I loved the flavor of the meat but not the texture, which was more like meatloaf. If I tweak my technique, this is a definite keeper.

Oh and fresh grated good Parmesan Reggiano on a burger, brilliant.  I’ve never been a fan of a big honking piece of orange cheese on my burgers, other than the occasional piece of blue, but fresh grated parmesan was an eye opener.  Plus, I liked how even a small essence of ketchup, which I’d otherwise never put on my burger, from the dried tomatoes, was welcome.

I made the onion marmalade and used some more of Dorie’ recipe for mayo, which I still had on hand from the Deconstructed BLT and Eggs.  Still awesome!

And then for the big January dinner party with Meg and our lucky significant others!  Total. Success.  Here’s what I made!

Lime and Honey Beet Salad.  Page 121.

The beets turned out fantastic. One thing I like about this cookbook is how Dorie provides a spotlight for a lot of the vegetables she uses in the cookbooks, with tips for assessing ripeness and potential deliciousness, as well as various cooking techniques. I’ve made beets a thousand times, but I ended up roasting the beets for this salad using Dorie’ slightly different technique for roasting, and I liked the subtle smokiness the technique added to the salad.

Photo by Meg.

Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port.  Page 254.

The short ribs were amazing. The meat turned out a pretty close approximation to the idea I have in my mind of the word tender. Dorie mentions that she has tinkered a lot with the spice mix she uses for this one. Well, I loved the one she finally decided on here. These leftovers are going to be amazing. Dorie herself a predicts the lovely lucky situation you’ll be in with leftovers of this beef, and shares recipes using the leftovers. I liked that choice. Also, here’s a plug for Bob’s Quality Meats if you’re in the greater Seattle area.

Dorie highly recommends making these a day ahead if at all possible.  I did so, and I agree.   The flavor was amazing.  The smells will make you sad that you are not eating them on the night you braise them!

Plus, again, a jaw-dropping dish that isn’t hard to make.  Once you brown them off a little in your broiler, you’re just waiting, whilst delicious smells waft through your house.

Tres bien!

The Go-With-Everything Celery Root Puree.  Page 354.

The purée was good. You got a real hit of celery flavor with this dish. I may have added slightly more celery root than she calls for though, due to the sizes of the roots I purchased. I would perhaps attempt to balance the celery and the potato more if I made this one again. I like how she adds a whole onion; it makes a delicious addition to the dish.

This was another really easy dish to make, once you had the ingredients.  After the veggies are boiled, just whirl it in your food processor to a state of creamy deliciousness.

I served the puree topped with the short ribs and the gravy.

Double S and I, plating with stern concentration!  Photo by Meg.

Vanilla Eclairs.  Page 473.  I made chocolate and vanilla cuz I like to go over the top.
Finally, and the dish I was most scared to make, came the eclairs. They ended up tasting delicious, but too small to be eclairs. I’m now sure if I somehow made a mistake when making the dough, or if I didn’t have a big enough pastry tip.

The pate a choux, right before it hit the mixer.

Dorie mentions the need for a 2/3 inch pastry tip for a pastry bag. Problem is I couldn’t find a tip that large in any store. The pastry creams and chocolate ganache were phenomenal though.

I couldn’t have done this one without Double S.  She piped out all the pate a choux, and cut and filled the eclairs.  Double!!!  S!!!

We all had a debate as to whether the chocolate or vanilla eclairs were better.  Shocker: It was a tie!

These were so good. Photo by Meg.

I’m kind of in awe of this book so far. There have been only a very few many minor misses in the dishes so far, and most were caused by something I need to work on in the kitchen, like paying more attention to detail.

I’m gonna try to squeeze in a few more recipes before I start thinking about dumplings.  Speaking of dumplings, stay tuned for my introduction to February’s Cook the Books Challenge cookbook, Asian Dumplings, on Friday January 25.

And as we’ve told you, if you’ve cooked along with us this month, please send us a link to your post at cookthebookschallenge@gmail.com by January 25th, or (if you don’t have a blog) tell us what you made in the comments section on Meg’s round up post, which will be up on January 30th.

Cook the Books! Deconstructed B.L.T. Salad! I Don’t Like Mondays!

Ok, friends, so last we spoke about Around My French Table, I was telling you how long and (kinda but not really) arduous was the process to make Dorie Greenspan’s onion soup. Fear not! If you spend some time getting all cozy with this (thus far amazing and versatile, IMHO) cookbook, you’ll learn that there are plenty of recipes that, (1) you can whip up on a, say, Monday night, (b) with ingredients you prolly already have in your kitchen, and (c) turn out delicious and make you very happy that you made the wise choice to whip them up on a weeknight.

Hey, why should Mondays always get shit on? Around the homestead, you’ll often find Double S and I sipping wine and listening to music whilst we cook and eat, gleefully not caring that the next day is only Tuesday. But hey, I work for the man too, and I’m not gonna lie. I don’t like Mondays.

Right, Bob Geldoff, his power mullet, and the rest of the Boomtown Rats?

Right Zooey Deschan…I mean Karen Carpenter! COUGH*Zooeycoppedherstyle!*COUGH

You know what I’m talking about, Bangles!

Oh, and thanks for the early heads up to this then 11 year old that I liked girls! Va va va voom, 1986 era Susanna Hoffs!

Anyway, what was I saying?  Ah yes, I have a cure for your case of the Mondays!

On a recent Monday night, yeah just the day after Double S and I got back from our big Yellowstone trip, I grabbed Around My French Table and looked for something fairly quick and easy. And holy shit did I find it…and it was delicious!

Boiling eggs and frying bacon!  Slightly easier than spending 2.5 hours carmelizing onions…  

Deconstructed B.L.T. and Eggs, page 133.  Everyday vinaigrette, page 484.  Mayonnaise, page 490-491.

I think deconstructing foods is fun. There was a Top Chef challenge once were the contestants had to deconstruct classic dishes.  I saw it, learned about deconstruction, and was very intrigued.  Dorie’s recipe here is basically that challenge, but lucky you…Dorie already deconstructed the classic B.L.T., gave you the recipe, and pushed you out to Judge’s Table and Tom Colicchio ain’t even mad that you didn’t come up with it yourself!

Hey! Nice job, you!, sings Tommy C. Editor’s note: This is what you get when you Google the following: “Tom Colicchio happy”!

So, deconstruction.  What’s up with that?    Here’s how Tom Colicchio describes it in his often hilarious and braggy Top Chef blog:

Deconstructed food has been going on for a while now. It’s an approach to a plating style, as well as a way of personalizing a dish and making it one’s own. For example, I used to do a dish based on minestrone soup: the veggies became the garnish for a roasted rack of lamb, the soup itself became a sauce, and in lieu of the minestrone noodles, I made a goat-cheese ravioli. Deconstruction is a great way for a chef to put his or her own stamp on a classic.

He goes on to say, in describing a contestant’s attempt to deconstruct paella, that being able to deconstruct a dish hinges both on familiarity with the dish and on creativity:

It was clear that he didn’t really know how to make paella properly to begin with, which is important to know in order to then deconstruct the dish. He showed a stunning failure of imagination in his approach to the challenge – off the top of my head, I can think of countless ways to deconstruct paella.

I liked how the classic main elements of a BLT are deconstructed here.  Obviously, the classic B.L.T. is reinterpreted a salad.  A big salad.  Hey, I’m just like Elaine Benes in that I love a big salad!

The bacon is chopped and mixed throughout, and you get tastes of its salty awesomeness in almost every bite.

The role of the lettuce is played by the far superior arugula, and it’s spicy flavor is brought more to the forefront.

The tomato element of the classic B.L.T. sandwich is reinterpreted here in two ways: via fresh cherry tomatoes and via the ultra tomatoey presence of sun-dried tomatoes.  A note about seasonality is called for here in regard to the cherry tomatoes. Yes, I used a recipe calling for tomatoes in January, which I usually never do. But, I really wanted to try this recipe, and it’s not like those little plastic boxes of cherry tomatoes from Mexico in the grocery store are going anywhere. If you simply must have a tomato in January, they are your way to go. Meg and I had a hard time with the seasonality issue in picking the cookbooks. Almost any cookbook would be better cooked through in the summer, when you have tomatoes and basil and cukes and corn and melons and just all around bounty and freshness at your fingertips. So we knew we had to have some cookbooks for these winter months. Around My French Table has a few recipes that I’ve already bookmarked for use in the spring and summer. But for this one, I couldn’t wait. Sorry Michael Pollan!

“Damn you OhBriggsy! Damn you to hell!”

The bread element of the sandwich becomes croutons.  Bread in a sandwich is very important to me. A couple shitty pieces of bread or a bad roll can ruin a sandwich or a burg for me. Oh, and you will hear about it ad nauseam!  Ask Double S!  Here, my advice is use good bread to make your croutons.

Finally, my BLT has to have mayo, and here Dorie uses mayo as a topping to the new presence of eggs.  The mayo topping the eggs mixes with the good bread of the croutons, then you get a bite of crispy bacon and extra tomato-y goodness, as you use tomatoes in two ways.  And voila, the BLT sandwich becomes something slightly different and elevated from what you’ve known it as over the years.  Success!

To her deconstructed B.L.T. salad, Dorie adds eggs,  which are a delicious addition, reminding you of the classic bacon and eggs in your breakfast, and how good eggs are outside of their breakfast domain. And I love hard-boiled eggs. I know a lot of people don’t like them. And I know it’s kinda gauche these days to not like a runny egg topping everything you eat, but I’ll take a hard-boiled egg any day of the week. I love adding acidic and other flavorful additions to their yolks. Here, in the salad, you add little dollops of mayo to top each of the egg halves. Genius!

Plus, I made homemade mayo for the first time by following Dorie’s recipe for it. Recommended!  Her mayo recipe is cool because it encourages you to play around with the oil, in terms of what kind and how much. At her suggestion, I used peanut, olive, and canola oils. Delicious.

Bust out your whisk! It’s satisfying!

Although, that’s another thing. I love mayo. I always have a smirk on my face as I hear people proclaiming their hatred of mayo. Do not hate on mayo when I’m around, yo! It’s just oil and eggs and salt! What’s to hate about that? It’s a gullet moistener! Sometimes that’s needed! Her recipe for mayo turns out really good.  Good old-fashioned Hellman’s works for me too, when I don’t wanna do all the whisking hers calls for. Others swear by Kewpie Mayo, Japanese mayo which is supposed to be creamier and tangier. It’s made with rice vinegar instead of distilled vinegar, and is mixed with sriracha to make the spicy sauce at a lot of sushi spots.

This recipe was a success, and very easy to make.  I liked it right off the bat because Dorie states her preference for using arugula instead of lettuce. Many a delicious B.L.T. and salad has been ruined by a shitty piece of iceberg lettuce or nasty faux fancy radicchio. Viva l’arugula!

Arugula topped with chopped housemade (fancy!) roasted cherry tomatoes.

I love the stuff. Double S and I have vowed to get a good plot of it growing in our garden this spring, because we love it in salads, in pastas for bite, and especially on pizza. Fresh arugula on pizza is pretty much perfect.

And about our garden. Garden planning, man. It was just Christmas and then it immediately it seems that if you don’t have your garden planned out by January and your seeds purchased and a smug attitude about it all, then you’re screwed. Double S and I have tipsily started planning out our 2012 garden in broad strokes, but we need to get on it more seriously.  And yeah, we tipsily talk about gardening! Welcome to your late 30s! We’ve had our backyard garden now for three seasons. This is usually what it looks like in late May, when we’ve brought the lettuce starts up from their prior home, in the basement under grow lights.

I’m always really proud of myself when I take this picture. The above is from May 28, 2011. Then I’m always kicking myself when I don’t succession plant and have only bitter lettuce left in July, and no arugula left. Not this year, chums. More about gardens later.

Speaking of gardening, Dorie here calls for oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I used the ones we grew in our garden last summer, then preserved by roasting with a slight drizzle of olive oil and some kosher salt at the end of the season. Roasted, but not oil packed. Because they aren’t as strong as the ones suggested by Dorie, I’d use more than what the recipe calls for when I make this again. They are delicious and were great in the salad, but we were left wanting more.  See, I used what I preserved from my own garden!

“OK, I like you again, Briggsy!”

Otherwise, if you keep a fairly well stocked kitchen, you’ll have most of these ingredients on hand. If not, big whoop, hit the grocery store you lazy ass!

I used bacon we had from Blue Valley Meats. Do you buy local meat in your area? Blue Valley is some of the best here in WA. I used an old loaf of bread we had in the fridge for the croutons. We often will buy day old, thus cheaper, loaves of quality bakery bread specifically to use for croutons and breadcrumbs over the course of a few weeks. Croutons are a great way to make a salad a meal, says I, sounding like some happy homemaker in a commercial. Seriously, yo. Croutons are the bomb! Ok, now I’ve gone too far in the other direction.

Here, Dorie directs you to cook the croutons in a little bit of the leftover bacon grease. Awesome! My family makes German food on Thanksgiving, and one of the the key ingredient in the main dish, kartoffel klösse (wow, I never knew how that was spelled, thanks Internet!), which are basically potato dumplings, is the delicious crouton inside each one that was cooked in bacon grease.

However, maybe it’s cuz I’m a tree hugging hippie or that there was too many croutons in this big salad, but I got a bit overwhelmed by the greasy baconess of these croutons and had a bit of a stomach ache afterwards because of them. Not French! I think next time I make this salad, I will use my normal go to way of making croutons: mix equal parts olive oil and butter, and add fresh minced garlic, salt, and paprika. Toss the bread in the mixture and bake for about 10 minutes. Or perhaps better yet I’ll use half bacon grease and half some other kind of fat, so the taste of the croutons still calls to mind the bacon.

Finally, you top this big salad with Dorie’s own Everyday Vinaigrette.  I’ve made this a few times now and I love it.  I’m always tossing together homemade dressings, and this simple one has entered the rotation.  I’d usually use balsamic in a vinaigrette like this, but here I like the use of red wine vinegar, and I toss in some garlic.  Good stuff!

Warning: When you make this beautiful salad, you’ll be hesitant to toss it all together and ruin your work of art.  Dorie talks about bringing the assembled salad to the table to toss (and to wow your guests!).  I agree!  Then take pictures!  Then get your ass to the table to eat; this one’s delicious.

All in all, this one is a keeper! Especially in the summer when we’ll have arugula and tomatoes in the garden. And hey, I have been looking for an excuse to make my own bacon again!

And there you have it, a deconstructed B.L.T. salad.  On a Monday night!  Dinner is served!

By the way, there’s still time to participate in this month;s challenge!  This cookbook is so good.  Here are the deets:

As Meg and I have said, we will both be blogging about our exploits with this book throughout the month.  Make one recipe or make a whole dinner party for your friends, but whatever you do, tell us about it!  By Friday January 25th, send us a link to your post: cookthebookschallenge@gmail.com.  And by January 30th, check back in for a comprehensive round-up, featuring your post and the posts of all your virtual friends.  Fun!