Extra Schmaltz!

We had this wonderful, hearty dish during a brief stop for lunch in Mulhouse in the Alsace region during our Europe trip this year. Using a recipe from an actual Alsatian, Hubert Keller , we found that our version actually far surpassed the simple fare we had in Mulhouse. The principle of the Baeckeoffe is similar to the Jewish cholent tradition: make a casserole in a earthenware or enameled dish, seal tightly, and allow to cook untouched for several hours (traditionally, by leaving in a baker's oven Friday before sabbath, then retrieve Saturday after sundown, when you are allowed to pick things up again). I opted not to seal the pot with dough because my lid has no vent (see original if you want to try). The heavy cast iron lid provided a plenty good seal. This dish takes some pre-planning because it should marinate overnight, but it is well worth it. Also, amazingly, I was able to find Alsatian Riesling at Total Wine! Protective and delicious layer of potatoes. The fin...

There is a restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, called "Mediterranean Cafe" aka MedCaf and they have perfected how to do 'fast food' right. They make huge batches of homecooked food, and have such quick turnover that it's always really fresh. Every day they have 4 specials, in addition to some standby items that are always available - it's hugely popular, and at lunch time there's often a bit of a line out the door. One of my favorite dishes that they had, which was a special and so only available certain days, was a chicken apricot pie. I don't think this is an authentic dish in any particular country, but represents the kind of fusiony approach that make MedCaf so popular. This is the recipe from my third time making it, since the first couple just didn't come close enough to what I remember. This recipe requires one unusual ingredient, "Qamar ad-din" paste. It's basically unsweetened apricot fruit leather that is normally used to...

I highly recommend making this recipe if you fulfill all of the following criteria: 1) You just got a whole mess of new kitchen equipment 2) You live a stones throw from more Asian supermarkets than you can count 3) You took Friday off and have a French-themed dinner party the next day 5) According to the DSM-IV you are at least 80% BONKERS This is definitely food-as-art , not sustenance. Plan way, way ahead. Remember the 'bonkers' part? Must contain the feet of at least 3 animals. 2-3 lbs. pig trotters, ideally split 2-3 lbs. meaty beef stew bones OR 2-3 lbs. veal bones (if you can find them--good luck!) 2 lbs. chicken feet 2 lbs. chicken legs, wings, or backs 2-3 lbs. yellow onions 2 lbs. carrots 1 bunch celery 1 bundle parsley handful of whole thyme stems ~20 black peppercorns 2 bay leaves 4 whole cloves 1 c. vermouth or dry white wine 1 lb. lean ground beef 3 eggs whites AND shells 1 can diced tomatoes 1 tsp. tarragon leaves 1 medium daikon r...

This is not necessarily a definitive recipe - I just made it to good result the other night, and had to sort of distill a few recipes to do it. I'm not sure if I needed to cook it longer, but it wasn't quite as crisp as baguettes normally are - however, I liked it, and it was a little less harsh on the roof of my mouth. Ingredients: 1 4oz package of dry yeast/2.25 tsp yeast from a jar 1/2 c. warm water 3.5 c. flour 2.25 tsp. salt 1.25 c. water 1 egg white. 1) Combine 1/2 c. warm water and yeast (I added just a little honey to keep the yeasties happy) 2) Mix flour and salt, then add yeast water and normal water, mix. 3) Knead until pliant. Let rise until tripled, or until you get sick of waiting and it's at least doubled. 4) Punch down, rise again until doubled. 5) Punch down, cut into three pieces (or as many pieces as you want loaves). Let rest 5 minutes. 6) Use a rolling pin to roll the pieces out into long thin rectangles, then roll them up to make long thin tubes. Pinch...

This is a pretty traditional preparation of mussels; steamed in white wine, shallot, and garlic. In this case I added tomatoes, which may or may not qualify this as moules marinieres depending on who you ask. This is pretty much a template recipe with infinite potential variation on flavors. If you like anis, substituting pastis or similar (ouzo, arrack, etc) for the white wine is very tasty. Your mussels must be clean, de-bearded, and alive. The best way to get beards off is a to do a twisting pull with a pair of pliers (demonstrated at about 4:45 in this video by Lil's favorite, Alton Brown). Definitely at no point should they be placed in water; this will kill them, and dead shellfish become poisonous very quickly. You can briefly rinse them in a colander however. Perfect cleanliness is neither possible nor essential, and being overly fastidious will likely just kill them. Let them sit out for half an hour or so before prep, so that the live ones close up tight. Sort through fo...

This, like most French foods, is a quintessential peasant food that, through whatever process it is that idolizes french shit, is thought of as something vaguely patrician. Fish soup is exactly what it sounds like; what poor fishermen and sailors eat when they arrive in port. This particular version is considered Provencale, originating in Marseille and the surrounding area. I guess northern sailors eat different stuff. Maybe whale. The basic idea is to take as many different kinds of the cheapest fish you can find, and cook them down whole with some veggies until its a mushy slurry, and then strain it finely so you're left with a super savory, fishy broth. I will demonstrate the traditional method of service as well. I found some french language recipes, and they all basically go like this: Onion Tomato Garlic Lots of different fish - only big ones gutted, small ones whole. Brown the fish bits, add veggies and sweat until clear, simmer the whole mess without lid adding water as it...

The outcome of this recipe can only be described as a foodgasm. It's a traditional French dish and now it's one of my favorite ways to prepare steak. Anoka Meat Market was selling something called "butter steak", and I figured, butter + steak = how bad could it be? It was some kind of well-marbled strip cut and the price was right. Over the past couple of weeks I kept hearing references to Steak au Poivre, and figured I'd put my outrageous spice collection (and my awesome wooden mallet) to work and try out the recipe. Side note: If you're curious about the mallet, Dan made it in his wood-turning class to replace the mochi pounder, which didn't survive the trip back from NY. It comes in handy a lot, and I mainly use it to crush spices and pound sauerkraut. We're working on making an even better design (the one in these photos is a prototype). The recipe is very simple and based mainly on Julia Child's version. She calls for a combination of pepperc...

Made a tasty green bean dish based on the harissa (tunisian chile sauce) I found in the supermarket. I'll try those ingredient lists Lillian seems so insistent upon. Some garlic Some sausage Green beans Onions Harissa Couscous In this particular case I would estimate I used 400 g of green beans, 2 smallish merguez sausages (sorta a maghrebin chorizo; in fact I bet chorizo would be great for this dish) amounting to about 100 g, 4-5 cloves of lightly crushed garlic, 1 small onion, and a good spoonful of harissa. So I sweated/lightly fried the sausage garlic, and onions (julienned) until the sausage was cooked, the onions becoming clear, and the garlic soft. The green beans, halved and with the stringy bit at the end cut off followed. I gave the whole a dash of red wine and balsamic vinegar (add those to ingredient list), set phasers to 3 (out of 10, so medium lowish?), and let it all cook with periodic tossing. Green beans are done when you bite them and they don't taste like gra...

At least one thing is cheap in (this part of) France: Shellfish! At 2E40 a kilo, mussels are a downright bargain. I actually went to the big fish farm at Sete where they are grown about an hour away from Montpellier so I can attest to their freshness. So last Saturday I threw a little party chez moi, where I fed 9 people with nothing but mussels (6 kg) and bread (and pasta for anybody who wanted it). Total bill for food: about 20E, making it approximately the cheapest meal any of us have eaten since we arrived. So, mussels are pretty damned easy, and I didn't actually get many pictures (since I was cooking batches as the party was in swing) making this a somewhat useless post. I do get to gloat, however. So here are all my ingredients for the mussel portion of the night's entertainment: Those are leeks, some kind of green onion thing ( I didn't even catch the name in french) lemons, and so many mussels my kitchen did not come equipped with a large enough container for them ...