I seem to be doing a lot of writing related to dealing with life in the aged state. Could this be because I AM in the aged state? This will bear observing. 🤔
The title of this post is the title of Marcel Proust's monumental seven volume novel written at the turn of the last century. It was originally translated as 'Remembrance of Things Past' but now as 'In Search of the Past'.
Cooking has been a bit like that as I deal with age related declines. I still love to cook (and eat!) and I bring that to our day-to-day eating. But there is this longing to do the kind of big meals, epic presentations I did in the past. Unfortunately the physical need to be on my feet, and do the tasks necessary for these put a major toll on my body. Then there is the fact that even if I cook that way, there is no way Wife and I can eat that much food.
Despite that I was in the mood to do something a bit extra. Wife is in her before travel, get all the accounting and house care planning mode, which means she is mono-focused. I mentioned I at least wanted us to do something for Valentine's Day and sent her three proposed menus. To my surprise she actually looked at them and made a choice. Here is the chosen menu.
First Course - Shrimp Cocktail
Main Course - Casserole Roasted Chicken and Baked Potato
Dessert - Peach Pudding
There was a bit of a twist with each of the courses.
For the first course, I made a poaching broth flavored with onion, garlic, and pimenton de Campello. This last is a made up name. It is a pimenton (smoked paprika) I got during our last stay at El Campello at the local market. It is a very cool ingredient. Unlike most Spanish Pimenton, it is quite mild and subtle. Yes, it has the smokey flavor but it never overpowers.
I put my shrimp into the poaching liquid and turned off the heat. I let it rest for 5 minutes and put the shrimp into an ice bath. Shrimp out and dried, they were stored in the fridge. I cooled the poaching liquid and save this too. All this was done a day ahead. On the day of the meal, I marinated the shrimp for an hour in the poaching liquid before draining and drying it. This resulted in the shrimp being very moist and having a subtle flavor. I served it traditionally American style on shredded lettuce with cocktail sauce of horseradish and ketchup. I love traditional cocktail sauce especially on lettuce.
A casserole roasted chicken is recipe that comes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is a classic I have made many times but not in the last 15 years. If you have not cooked from this source, the recipes can seem deceptively simplistic in terms of flavoring. Yet the technique results in massive flavor.
In this case, one rubs down a chicken with butter, salt, pepper, and an herb (I used thyme). You truss the chicken and brown all sides in a large casserole. Chicken is put to the side and one lightly sautes onion and carrot with salt, pepper, and your chosen herb for five minutes until the vegetables get soft. The chicken is put back on the vegetables. A piece of foil is laid over top. The casserole covered and put into a medium oven for about an hour and a half (depending on the size of the bird) and cooked to the proper internal temperature. And that's it.
The result is a chicken that is totally moist and infused with flavor. I carved up the bird and put it into a serving dish and covered it with juice from cooking then brought it to the table.
I have cooked so many things from this cookbook I don't know why I was so amazed that it tasted so good.
The peach pudding was an experiment. After the chocolate pudding experience with 2.3 at Thanksgiving, and knowing the massive amount of peaches in our freezer, I conjectured I could adjust the technique to come up with pudding from peaches. I took enough defrosted and drained peaches to account for about a third of the liquid volume required in the chocolate pudding recipe. Then I put in the milk for the rest along with the sugar and corn starch. It cooked up fine as far as texture. However, it was a bit too subtle. I took some tweaking to get the sweetness right. I think maybe 50-50 peaches to milk would be better. It could use some peach extract (if there is such a thing). Or maybe a strong peach or berry sauce with it. It was a worthwhile experiment.
Of course, all this led to a de-I that was beat and in pain (especially my just recovering foot), and enough food for at least two other couples.
Wife decides a meal of such proportions deserves its own monumental monolith
I'm still glad I made it.
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