Dinner with Julia
What do Ina Garten and Martha Stewart have in common? Both
women describe cooking through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French
Cooking when they were young as foundation to learning to cook.
Julia Child is an inspiration to most home cooks of a
certain age. I found her so inspiring that at one time, I had all of her
cookbooks, including a first edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking,
and had read almost every biography written about her, My Life in France, being
my favorite. And yet! I confess that until this week, my cooking adventures in
Mastering were limited to her omelet recipe, her iconic recipes for onion soup
and Beef Bourguignon.
When the Food52 Cookbook Club on Facebook chose Mastering as
its cookbook for the month, I jumped at the chance to finally use Julia’s first
cookbook for its intended purpose.
I decided to start with something easy, a poached egg. I
purchased the best organic eggs I could afford, read the recipe several times,
and began. After I’d turned three expensive eggs into a shredded inedible mess,
I gave up and used the silicone egg cups my friend Pat had given me.
My attempt at scrambled eggs met the same fate. Suddenly, I
doubted my ability to cook. Julia Child was kicking my butt and leaving me
humbled after thirty years of confident cooking. What to do?
I took a deep breath, sat down and decided to begin again.
In my mind, I planned a dinner with Julia. I would make simple dishes that
would demonstrate that I’d embraced a new beginner’s mind, and had learned the
importance of carefully reading her recipes, written in a narrative style
rather than in the numbered steps we find today. I would pay attention and be
fully present throughout the cooking experience.
As a result, I relaxed and created this simple, yet elegant
and delicious, dinner using recipes from her cookbook. As you’ll notice, these
recipes don’t use expensive ingredients (I chose blackberries because they were
on sale), yet I would have been proud to serve to Julia each dish. I imagine we
would have enjoyed a lively conversation and a bottle of wine and every bite of
food. I hope you will, too.
Potato and Leek Soup (Potage Parmentier)
Three simple ingredients create a rich satisfying soup
perfect for a winter night in front of the fire.
Ingredients:
3 leeks
4 medium-sized potatoes
2 quarts of water or chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste, a scraping of fresh nutmeg if you
have it.
Finish with 2 Tablespoons of butter or 3 Tablespoons of
cream
Directions:
Chop the leeks and potatoes into medium-sized chunks. Wash
the leeks thoroughly in a colander as they often hide dirt in the layers. Add
potatoes and leeks to medium-sized pan, add water (or stock) bring to a boil
and then let cook at a simmer for 20-30 minutes until the potatoes can be
easily pierced with a fork. Use an immersion blender (or food processor or
standing blender) to blend the soup until smooth, finish with butter or cream,
if you wish. The butter or cream (or both!) adds a final note of richness to
the soup. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your taste. I promise, this soup is
delicious!
Chicken Breasts Sautéed in Butter (Supremes de Volaille a
Brun)
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons Clarified Butter aka Ghee (this can be
expensive, so in a pinch, use butter and a little bit of oil, which will help
the butter not to burn and brown as the chicken is cooking)
3-4 chicken breasts
Flour for dredging the chicken breasts
Salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon
3 Tablespoons of chopped parsley
Directions:
I like to pound the chicken breasts a few times to flatten
them to a uniform thickness. Then salt, pepper, and dredge each breast in
flour. Melt the clarified butter in the bottom of a frying pan, on a
medium/medium-high heat. (You don’t want the butter to burn) Fry each chicken
breast in the butter turning a few times so that each side is a pale golden
color and cooked through. Move to a serving plate. Remove the pan from the
heat, squeeze lemon juice into pan, add chopped parsley, and pour over chicken
breasts.
Brussels Sprouts in Cheese Sauce (Choux de Bruxelles a la
Mornay, Gratines)
If you’ve hated Brussels sprouts, try this recipe. You’ll
love it, after all, cheese.
Ingredients:
1 ½ lbs of Brussels Sprouts – trim the bottoms and cut in
half
2 cups Mornay sauce (a simple Bechamel sauce with ½ cup
Swiss cheese mixed in)
¼ cup grated Swiss cheese
1 Tablespoon butter
Directions:
Julia uses a three-step process to cook her Brussels
sprouts: blanching, braising, baking. First, quickly blanche the sprouts in
boiling water for 6-8 minutes. Drain and run cold water over the sprouts to
stop cooking. Then place the sprouts in a buttered covered baking dish and cook
for 20 minutes in a 350F oven, this is the braising phrase. While the sprouts
are braising, make the Mornay sauce: In a pan add two Tablespoons of butter and
three Tablespoons of flour and cook the flour for 3 minutes. Then add two cups
of milk (or stock) and stir rapidly until the flour completely disintegrates
into the milk and thickens into a sauce. Just before you’re ready to add the
sauce into the sprouts baking dish, stir in the grated cheese. Pour the sauce
into the baking dish, add a final sprinkling of grated cheese, and then bake
for 10-15 minutes at 425F to allow the cheese to melt.
Blackberry Custard Tart (Clafouti aux Myrtilles)
Ingredients:
2-3 cups blackberries (put in freezer for 30 minutes before)
1 ¼ cups milk (or half and half)
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1/8 Tablespoon salt
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F, blend all ingredients above in a bowl,
so that you have a custard. Butter the bottom and sides of a 8 or 9 inch baking
dish. Pour a thin film of the custard into the bottom of the baking dish and
place over stovetop burner on low, just long enough for the custard to form a
film. Remove from the heat, then add the berries and sprinkle the 1/3 cup of
sugar over the berries. Pour the rest of the custard over the berries. Bake for
an hour. Remove from oven and top with powdered sugar before serving.
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