Posted by Chanda
I just finished eating a juicy entrecôte (rib steak) and am feeling thankful to the French for this delicious cut of meat…but, then again…is it really French? And come to think of it, the French fries…I don’t think they are really very French either. According to Wikipedia, ‘entrecôte‘ is a piece of meat (beef) cut out between two ribs. And now, it turns out that what the grocery store sold to me as ‘entrecôte‘ is really a ‘contre-filet‘ or sirloin steak which is the portion of the sirloin on the side of the bone opposite the filet. Oh well, it was so very tasty anyway, especially since it was smothered in sauce Roquefort! Here’s my husband’s recipe for Roquefort sauce:
Ingredients
2 cups of softened French Roquefort cheese
2 cups of heavy cream
2 tsp black pepper
Pour the cream into a saucepan, throw in the pepper and boil until reduced by half. Then, add the cheese and whisk until smooth. Serve warm drizzled over a juicy, grilled steak.
Posted by Chanda
Why not add some French flair to your holiday dinner? Some very traditional French Christmas choices include dinde de Noël (Christmas turkey) which is prepared in a variety of interesting ways, chapon (capon) and any dish with foie gras including tatin pommes foie gras.
Here is a recipe for Tatin Pommes Foie Gras from the Marmiton website.
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
3 or 4 apples
10 ½ ounces of raw foie gras
1 puff pastry
butter
caster sugar
2 cups of sweet white wine
cream
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400ºF.
Peel the apples and slice them. Brown them on low heat in butter with a little bit of caster sugar.
Arrange them in a rosette in a cake pan.
Deglaze the frying pan with half of the wine and pour it into a saucepan. (Deglazing means that after you remove the foie gras, you add the wine to the hot pan. Scrape up all the brown bits. The wine helps lift them from the bottom of the pan and stir until it has all been lifted from the bottom of the frying pan. The wine will continue to reduce until you have only a small amount left.) Set aside.
Quickly fry the sliced foie gras on both sides.
Salt and pepper and place the slices on the apples.
Deglaze the frying pan again with the rest of the wine and add it to the saucepan.
Place the pastry puff on top of the foie gras and put it in the oven for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the wine in order to reduce the sauce. Add the cream and bind.
Remove the foie gras pastry from the mold upside down.
Serve accompanied by the sauce.
Joyeux Noël!
Posted by Chanda
When I was living in France for the second time in 2003 there was a Big Brother type show on television (Nice People) which I avidly watched and one of the guest housemates was a French cook named Maïté. Since I wasn’t eating there, I obviously fell in love with her personality as she’s bubbly, fun, quick-witted and she loves to cook and really gets you into it too. It was the only time I can think of where I ran out to a bookstore to specifically buy a cookbook. And I still have her cookbook La cuisine de Maïté. It’s a favorite of mine as it’s quite easy to follow and makes French cuisine seem so simple. You’ll be producing excellent four-course meals in no time! She has two other great books as well - Les desserts de Maïté and Les soupes de Maïté. She has a cooking show on French television called A table avec Maïté and has appeared on TV, in the movies, in films, on radio and just about everywhere. Read about her in French in Wikipedia. She’s quite a character!
Here’s her French Onion Soup recipe:
Ingredients
5 large onions
3 tablespoons of oil
1 knob of butter (basically a walnut-size clump of butter)
1 garlic clove
1 bouquet garni (a bundle of herbs)
1 glass of white wine
9 cups of vegetable broth
1/2 glass of Porto
2 cups of Gruyère cheese
5 slices of hard bread
Salt
Pepper
Instructions
1) Wash and finely slice the onions.
2) Place on a pot over medium heat and put in the oil and butter.
3) Throw in the onions and stir constantly as they brown.
4) Deglaze the onions with the white wine and the Porto. Add some salt and pepper.
5) Gradually add the hot vegetable broth.
6) Add the garlic and the bouquet garni and let boil for 15 minutes.
7) Cut the slices of bread into four pieces each to make the croutons.
Brown them a bit in a little oil over low heat. Add more oil if necessary as you brown them so they don’t burn.
9) Place the croutons, then the cheese, the soup, then croutons and cheese again in individual au gratin bowls.
10) Place the bowls under the grill for 5 minutes and serve.
Here is an interview with Maïté en Le Journal des Femmes.
And you can read the menu and get recipes from her restaurant at www.chezmaite.com.
Bon appétit!
