As discussed in a number of posts, I bought and cut apart two ducks, using them very completely, like a peasant would, wasting almost nothing. The 4 legs were turned into confit, which was very easy to do. The confit in turn was used as the key ingredient for a cassoulet. This is an adaptation Read More …
I read an article on the internet extolling the virtues of Marcella Hazan, the Italian cookbook author, and the article mentioned in passing how great Athony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook is. That inspired me to buy a copy, and this is the first dish I have made from it. So far, so good. What I Read More …
This is how I used up the stock and odds and ends of duck meat after I separated out the breasts for duck prosciutto and the legs for confit. I was following a recipe from The Essential Pepin for Duck and Bean Casserole except that I had more stock to use up so the final Read More …
After taking apart two ducks to make breasts for duck prosciutto and legs for confit, I had two duck livers. In the true peasant spirit, that represented some food which should not be wasted, so I made paté out of them following a recipe in The Essential Pepin. The paté made a nice lunch on Read More …
For a family dinner, I was recently looking around for a good way to serve carrots, and I spotted a Pierre Franey recipe on the NY Times recipe website. It was both simple and very tasty. 1-1/2 lbs. of carrots, peeled and thinly sliced ½ tsp. sugar ¼ cup water 1 Tbs. lemon juice 2 Read More …
Coquilles St. Jacques is a French classic which I used to make with some regularity, but had not recently. I spotted a recipe in Saveur magazine which included mushrooms as well as scallops, and since Carol is quite fond of sautéed mushrooms, I thought it would be a nice welcome back dinner after her visit Read More …
Back in February, the Wall St. Journal published a “Slow Food Fast” recipe about making a variation of salad nicoise suitable for the winter, since it used only pantry ingredients and broccoli, which is readily available in the winter. I thought this was a good idea since it was a salad based on a vegetable Read More …
This is the version of baguettes that I have been making the most often lately. The starter was from breadtopia.com and I followed their Almost No Knead Baguette recipe except that I substituted 250 g.of the sourdough starter for the poolish in the original recipe. (The sourdough starter has 100% hydration, i.e. equal weights of Read More …
This was adapted from Mimi Thorisson’s new book, French Country Cooking: Meals and Moments from a Village in the Vineyards. The main change I made was cooking the pork sous-vide at 140 degrees rather than panfrying it. I also forgot to soak the prunes before making the sauce, so I cooked them longer in sauce, Read More …
I was in a Middle Eastern grocery last week and saw that they had rabbit in the freezer case. That inspired me to make this French classic. This version is adapted from Marie-Pierre Moine’s excellent book Cuisine Grand-Mere: Traditional French Home Cooking. As indicated by the title of the book, this is not Read More …