Beef Wellington is a truly spectacular dish for a special occasion, like Christmas dinner. (We made a double batch of this recipe for 14 adults, and had a little left over.) I also have in the blog a simplified version using puff pastry which makes a very nice dinner for two people (Mini Beef Read More …
This is the filling which goes between the slices of beef in Beef Wellington, following the recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This is enough for stuffing a 2-1/2 lb. beef tenderloin. The photo shows the raw beef slices with the duxelles stuffing. 1 lbs. mushrooms, cleaned and finely Read More …
This enriched bread is a recipe from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and is less rich than her true brioche, which has three times the butter. We have used this dough instead of puff pastry for Beef Wellingtons, including at this year’s Christmas dinner. It is very eggy, and Julie recommends Read More …
Pain a l’Ancienne is essentially a baguette made using cold water and a slow fermentation in a refrigerator to develop additional flavors vs. a shorter fermentation using warm water. This is an adaptation from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, which is an excellent book. I baked it in a Fourneau oven, which is Read More …
Yesterday turned cold with wet snow falling heavily, and Carol thought she would like French onion soup for dinner. This would be a warm bowl of comfort food and would use up some of the excess onions we bought for Thanksgiving. It took a while to actually start cooking since first we had to buy Read More …
This version of pizza is popular in France and is a favorite of my nephew Alexandre. For one person, this was made with 2 oz. of ground beef which was lightly cooked, and then a raw egg was put on top of the pizza when it was about half cooked. He also added some yellow Read More …
I had some leftover Herbed Yogurt Cheese (Suzma) , which I thought might make a good topping for Tarte Flambe, and I was right. I think this illustrates the point that there is a wide range of soft-ish cheeses which go well with bacon and onion as a topping for a flatbread. This is how I Read More …
Pork rillettes are like a French version of the Southern classic Pulled Pork, except served in small portions on bread or crackers like a very simple pate. Rillettes are easy to make since all they are is pork which has been slow cooked with some flavorings, shredded, and then preserved in little jars with some pork fat Read More …
Tarte Tatin is a classic French dessert, but it is really a very straight-forward version of apple pie which is quite doable in a car camping situation. Sweet Tarte Crust 1-1/4 cups all purpose flour ½ tsp salt 2 Tbs sugar 10 Tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into small slivers 1 egg yolk 3 Tbs Read More …
This is one of my favorite pizzas. I made this a bit more Italian-style than Provencal, since I had a half cup of tomato sauce in my refrigerator to use up. Here is how we made it for 2 persons last night Pizza dough for two people (from Pizza for One or for Many Read More …