Half of a Great Cooking Post

With the extreme time required on the East Coast for Dad for the moment not required, I've been able to get back to something close to a normal schedule again. This means plenty of work but also getting into entertaining like we love to.

Our friends B and M who spend most of their time in Mexico were in town. B I may have mentioned in the past was a soldier in Europe about the same time that I was studying there so we share a love of French food (especially cheese!) and wine. Wife and I decided to do a real classic old school French meal. The traditional old school meal has five course. These are:

First course - usually a soup, a non-lettuce/greens salad or charcutrie (cured meat)
Main course - meat or fish with side
Salad - salad in this case is simple greens only (think a palette cleanser)
Cheese - always have to have cheese
Dessert

My plan was to do the full photo journalism blog post with pictures covering each step from beginning to end. And I started real well. Unfortunately sometime around the time of the midpoint of making the main course, I totally stop taking pictures! Can you believe that. I say fire the bum. Accept who else could I get to take pictures of me for free :(

So I'll put out what I have. Our first course we as a warm cream of potato and leek soup. Potato leek soup is one of the easiest...I mean easiest...dishes to make. It is the backbone of the French potage which is the plain old soup that I use to get one I was a student way back when. But with a little effort it becomes Cinderella at the ball.

Our stars - Leeks (grown by none other than Wife and harvested the day of cooking them - they stay in the ground during the winter) and potatoes

Clean the leeks well.
Put them and the potatoes in chicken stock (you can use water actually but the stock adds richness)
Cook for around 45 minutes at a medium simmer.
It is important to cook the leeks well if you are gussying this dish up or they might be stringy.
Flavor with salt and pepper to taste (I used white pepper to avoid black specks).

When done get out the trusty immersion blender and puree it.

Now the part that takes this to another level (Bwahahahahaha)
Strain it through a fine sieve.
This is a bit of labor because you need to force the solids through with rubber spatula.
The blender never gets the soup super smooth and it is that silky texture that takes if from everyday to high class.
Add a little cream at the end and finish with some fresh chives or as I did the finely chopped tops of onions wintering over in the garden.

Sorry no picture of end result :(
(You're fired de-I!!)

The next dish that I got pretty well is Wife's fabulous Schaum Torte. This is a lemon curd in a meringue shell. This is another of these dishes that is so incredibly simple yet fantastic.

First make meringue shells
That is done by whipping egg whites with cream of tartar until they are stiff peaks then cooking in a low oven until they get cooked through and are crisp and firm.
(Tell your husband that this may take hours ahead of time so he doesn't freak out when he can't get at the oven!)

Now make a simple egg lemon custard with the yolks from the eggs, the juice of three lemons and the zest from the lemons and sugar.
Let the custard cool.

Put custard in shells.

Put on dollop of fresh whipped cream (no canned stuff slackers!)
True story - We had a guest once who on being served this dessert took one bite, stood up, went over to Wife and planted a big ole kiss on her proclaiming it the best dish he'd ever eaten.
I kid you not.

The great Carbonade a la Flamande pictorial that never came to be :(

B was stationed in Brussels so this particular dish is a French Belgian specialty - a beef braised in beer. You would never know beer was used if you just tasted it. I got this recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking I by Julia Child. Please, if there is one book you are going to get that will take your cooking to whole new plane, this is it. It dates back to the 1960's. I still go to it again and again and again whenever I want to do something nice. It is the book that shows beyond all doubt that it is not the number of ingredients you thrown in, it is the technique you use. That's why I'm so pissed I failed with the last series of pictures.

This dish literally only has beef, onions, fat, garlic, stock, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, beer, vinegar, and a thickening agent (corn starch). But the method that is used is what takes it over the top.

Beef, chuck, boneless, cut into chunks.
Do not...I repeat DO NOT... use very lean meat for a braise. There is a chemical reaction that takes place when the fat and connective tissue breakdown via a long slow cooking that results in very tender meat with a great mouth feel. The fat all renders out and you can skim it off.

Tie your flavorings (just the parsley, thyme and bay leaf) in cheese cloth - a bouquet garni it's called if you want to impress your friends.

Brown your meat well in batches

Next take a good amount of onions ( about 1/2 pound per pound of meat)

(Sorry end of pictures)

Slice them and brown them in the pan the meat was cooked in for about 10 minutes. Take them out, add salt and pepper and crushed garlic (notice no sauteing of the garlic - one of those little technical things)

Put your stock in the pan and scrape off the browned stuff on the bottom from the meat and onions (its called the fond). Put that aside. Now layer half the meat, half the onions and repeat, salting and peppering between the layers. Add the stock. Add beer until the meat is just covered. Add a little bit of brown sugar to offset the bitterness of the beer.

Bring to a simmer. Cook in a 325 degree oven until fork tender about 2.5 hours at sea level, a good hour more for where I live at 6000 feet. Remove the meat from the broth, skim the fat off, thicken with corn starch dissolved in a little vinegar (for a slightly sharp note). Simmer the sauce for 4 minutes. Add the meat again. The whole thing can be made in advance at this point and warmed up just before serving - great so you're not away from your guests. I served it with buttered egg noodles.

This is comfort food taken to a different level just by some relatively simple techniques. B & M raved.