The Fumbling Foodie

Sauté of Grated Zucchini and Chopped Spinach

Or as Julia Child would call it, "Courgettes aux Epinards".

This is right out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two.  It is surprisingly tasty.  My Sweet Lady Wife - who is not a zucchini fan - raved about it.

And it was easy to make.  With the grating disk in my food processor it took all of about 30 seconds to grate all that zucchini.  

Because you are adding salt to the zucchini after grating in order to draw out the moisture, it's probably best that the butter at the end be unsalted.  My favorite unsalted butter is Life in Provence  Unsalted Butter, produced in Ré in Poitou, South of Brittany.

Sauté of Grated Zucchini and Chopped Spinach

2 lbs zucchini
1 lb fresh baby spinach
3 Tablespoons Olive oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, pressed or mashed
3-4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Sale and pepper

Cut the stem and tip off each zucchini and grate them.  Toss the grated zucchini with 2 teaspoons of salt. Let drain in a colander for several minutes.  Take one handful of the grated zucchini at a time and squeeze out most of the liquid.  Place the zucchini on a paper towel.

Drop the baby spinach leaves into boiling water and leave them there just for a minute or so until they are limp.  Drain and run cold water of the spinach to stop the cooking.  Let it cool and drain a bit.  One handful at a time, squeeze the liquid out of the spinach and then coarsely chop it.

Put the olive oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat.  When the oil is hot, add the zucchini and garlic.  Stir frequently.  When the zucchini is almost tender add the spinach and mix together well.

Put a lid on the pan and turn the heat to low and let it cook until the spinach is tender, stirring frequently.

When it's ready to serve, remove form the heat and stir in the butter. Salt and pepper to taste (I added neither)

My Last Plate It Up! Cooking Class, Part II

First an apology: I'm sorry I have been away for a while. My business is kinda taking off, and for the past couple of weeks it has consumed almost every spare minute. I'm back though.

This is part two about my last cooking class at my favorite gourmet kitchen tools store in downtown Glendale, AZ. Part 1 can be found here

Simple ingredients. Simple preparation. Distinctive results. That's what I thinkof when I think of French Bistro cooking. I could learn a lot from Chef Bernard. LIke how to make fish stock when no carcass is available:

Fish Stock

1 extra portion of fish that you are preparing for the meal
thyme
water
1 celery stalk, coarsly chopped
chopped parsley

Boil the ingredients in water for 20 minutes. Strain.

Sea Bass with Saffron Sauce and Baby Vegetables
Look at that picture. See how beautiful it is? I learn so much about presentation just from watching him. Yes, I know: there are no quantities for most of the ingredients. Chef Bernard is teaching me to cook by taste.

4 portions sea bass
asparagus
baby carrots, boiled until crisp-tender
haricot vert or snow peas
broccoli, boiled until crisp-tender
fish stock
3 pinches Spanish saffron
whipping cream

Reduce the fish stock and add the saffron and cream.

In a separate pan, saute the vegetables. FIrst the asparagus for about 3 minutes. Add the snow peas and saute for about 4 minutes. Then add the carrots and broccoli.

Using a non-stick pan, sear the bass in a little olive oil over high heat.

Pour a little sauce on the plate. Place a portion of the vegetables on each plate. Place the bass on top of the vegetables.

My Last Plate It Up! Cooking Class, Part I

Not like in 'the most recent'. 'Last' in like 'No More'. Heather is moving my favorite gourmet kitchen tools store to a new location. The good news is that she is going to be right in the heart of everything: on GLendale Ave, right across from Murphy Park, right next door to that terrific new wood-fired brick-oven pizzeria.

The bad news is she's not going to hold cooking classes (for now, she says). So a couple of weeks ago, my Sweet Lady Wife and I went their for our last cooking class: Date Night, by Chef Bernard Chirent. I have taken several classes from Chef Bernard and they are always fantastic. This one was no different. I always learn a lot from him and he has probably helped more than anyone else become a better cook. That night, for example, he had to come up with two entirely new dishes because the expected ingrediants were not available. Me? my brain would have locked up. Chef Bernard, on the other hand, just took it in stride and delivered substitutes with grace and ease.

Papillote of Smoked Salmon, Cream, and Chives

Thin slices of smoked salmon just the right size. Rolled 'just so'. Filled with whipped cream, chives, and a tiny bit of freshly-squeezed. lemon juice. This is not cooking class. This is art class. There is so much more to cooking than simple food preparation that I need to learn. One of the biggies is presentation. I learn so much about presentation from Chef Bernard. I've yet to find a book that will teach me what I learn just by watching him spend twenty seconds plating up a dish. If I could win the lottery tonight, I would go to work for him just to learn.

When he opens his French Bistro in a couple of months, I hope that he does not mind that I bring my camera.

Chicken & Mushroom Crepes with a Sherry Cream Sauce

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner! Not satisfied with the results of The Great Crepe Experiment, I worked on it a little more. Those that know me understand my drive to focus on a problem until I get it right can be rather aggravating at times, but in this case it was worth it.

I started with a recipe from Cooks.Com and embellished a bit. My lovely wife thought the results were great.

Chicken & Mushroom Crepes with a Sherry Cream Sauce

For the Crepes:
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter

For the Filling:
8 oz fresh button mushrooms
4 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup finely chopped onions
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sherry
2 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 each green, yellow, and red bell pepper

To make the crepes:

Melt the butter. In a blender, blend the eggs, milk, water, flour, salt, and the melted butter until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour to give the air bubbles in the batter time to dissipate.

Set an 8-inch crepe pan over low-medium heat and wait for the pan to come up to temperature. Lift the pan off the heat, lightly butter the pan, and and pour 1/4 cup of batter into it. Swirl and tilt the pan until the batter has coated the bottom, then set it back down on the burner.

After a minute or two and using a thin spatula, lift the edge of the crepe to see if it has browned very slightly. If so, flip it over using a couple of thin spatulas. When the other side has browned, remove the crepe to a plate.

Repeat until the batter is gone. You can safely stack the crepes by placing a sheet of wax paper between each one.

To make the filling:
Grill the chicken breasts and dice them. Clean and dice the bell peppers. Clean and slice the mushrooms. Melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and onions, saute for about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low. Blend in the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the milk, bouillon cubes, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occassionally until the mixture has thickened. Stir in the sour cream and sherry. Ladle off about a cup of the sauce and set it aside.

To the remaining sauce, add the diced chicken and the parsley. Mix well. Spoon a couple tablespoons of this filling onto each crepe and roll it up. (At this point the crepes can be refrigerated and the saved for later. If so, warm them in the microwave before continuing)

Meanwhile saute the diced peppers in a separate pan until tender but still slightly crunchy. Set aside.

Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Place 2-3 filled crepes in the saute pan for about 2 minutes until they have lightly browned. Remove then from the pan and saute the remaining filled crepes in this manner.

Place two filled crepes on a plate. Pour a little of the reserved sauce over them. Sprinkle some of the sauted diced peppers over the crepes and serve.

Makes 8-10 crepes.

The Great Crepe Experiment

I wrote earlier that La Madeleine here in Phoenix has lost their lease. I was really fond of the place. It was just about the only unpretentious French restaurant I know here in Phoenix.

And though I was very fond of the place, I must admit it's food was only above average. Take the Chicken Crêpe Riviera for example: Roasted garlic, parsley, broccoli and fresh diced tomatoes sautéed with rotisserie chicken in a pesto sauce. Served with Rice Provençal and steamed broccoli.Sounds great. I was underwhelmed. "I can do better", I thought.

Here is the Mark I version. Not bad, but it could be a lot better.

The filling was diced grilled chicken mixed with a Sauce Veloute, some white wine, chopped tarragon, an egg yolk, and a little cream. (Things were flying hot and heavy at this point and I was really winging it.)

I ladled a couple spoonfuls onto each crepe, rolled them up, and then sauteed each one in a little butter (nothing lo-cal here).

The sauce poured over the top was basically some leftover sauce veloute thinned with a little cream.

On the whole, they were acceptable, but a little bland and because the sauce veloute is white, the presentation was a little lacking. I also need to use more filling so that it it peeking out the ends a bit.

My Chocolate Madeleines

A couple of weeks ago, Bea at La Tartine Gourmande made the most beautiful chocolate madeleines. I was seduced. So on my last visit to Plate It Up! I bought a silicone madeleine pan.

Bea's receipe is super easy to follow. While mine did not come out as beautiful as hers (If she is reading this perhaps she'll tell me why), they tasted really good. All 18 were gone in a few hours.

Sole Meuniere

My local supermarket had some fresh sole filets yesterday and that reminded me that I had not yet tried to make Sole Meuniere myself since the French cuisine cooking class. Now what to serve with it? It looked like they had just received a fresh shipment of apsparagus, so I grabbed that too.

Thumbing through the recipes I've collected off the 'net, I cam across Ruth at Once Upon a Feast's recipe for Leek, Mushroom, and Swiss Chard Soup. Ruth unfortunately left the mushrroms off the ingredient list, but as a 'shroom lover I figured half a pound would be enough. An interesting thing happened. As I got down to the final step where you are supposed to add the cup of cream, I first stated the soup. It had this wonderful earthy flavor that begged to be served as is. So the cream stayed in the fridge and we enjoyed a lower-calorie version.

One of the remarkable things about this meal is not that it was great-tasting and better than I've had in most restaurants, I spent all of about $27 serving this meal for four people.

Since I've hyperlinked to the recipes for the sole and soup, I'll put just the asparagus receipe here:

Roasted Asparagus

1 bunch thin asparagus
3-4 tablespoons dry white wine
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450F. Break the tough woody base end off each asparagus spear. Place the asparagus in a large bowl. Sprinkile with salt and pepper. Add the wine and oil and toss.

Put the asparagus in a baking dish and place on a middle rack in the oven. Roast about 5 inutes until crisp-tender. Sprinkle a little shaved parmesian on tap and serve.

French Cooking Class Part IV

This is the final installment in a series of posts describing the French Cuisine cooking class I recently attended at Plate It Up! a gourmet kitchen tools store here in Glendale AZ and taught by Chef Patrick Karvis.

You can read Part 1 here.
You can read Part 2 here.
You can read Part 3 here.

For the final course, Chef Patrick showed us how to prepare Steak Au Poivre. The steak is prepared using a sear-roasting technique and then using the fond to create a pan sauce.

I again failed to take photos, so I recreated the dish with a few variations tonight at home. While we used New York Strip in the class, I chose to use a small whole beef tenderloin cut into sections. For demi glace, I buy Demi Glace Gold at my local gourmet supermarket.

Steak Au Poivre

4 steaks, New Your Strip of Beef Ternderloing cut into pieces or similar
1/2 cup demi glace
1/2 cup Jim Beam
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teasp[oon minced shallots
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 375F. Season one side of the steaks with salt and pepper. Go heavy on the pepper. Put 2 tablespoons tea oil or other high smoke-point oil in a saute pan over high heat. Put the steaks into the saute pan peppered side down and season the other side. Let the steaks cook for about 4 minutes. When they release easily from the pan it is time to turn them over. Cook the other side for about four minutes. Put the entire pan into the oven. Using an instant-read thermometer, remove the steaks when they have reached the desired temperature (see this post for temperatures).

Remove the steaks from the pan, put them on a plate and tent with foil. Return the pan to medium-high heat. Add the shallots and garlic. Add the Jim Beam and deglaze the pan. Allow the sauce to reduce for about a minute and then ignite. When the flames have extinguished add the demi glace and heavy cream. Allow the sauce to reduce for another minute. Add the butter, thyme, and parsley. Pour over steaks.

Shown here served with buttered peas and brown-braised onions just like Julia made.

French Cooking Class Part III

This is Part 3 of a series of posts describing the French Cuisine cooking class I recently attended at Plate It Up! a gourmet kitchen tools store here in Glendale AZ and taught by Chef Patrick Karvis.

You can read Part 1 here.
You can read Part 2 here.

While we were still groaning from the gastronomic ecstacy of the mussels, Patrick showed us a very simple way to prepare Sole that is really delicious. It does not rely upon a cream-based sauce for its flavor, instead it relies upon gobbs of European butter, reknown to be high-octain in terms of its butterfat content.

One important thing to note: it is important to use a medium heat so that the butter does not brown too quickly.

Sole Meuniere

4 Sole filets
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley

Season the filets with sale and pepper and dust them with flour. Add the butter to the pan on medium heat, let the butter melt then add the sole.

Cook for about three minutes per side. Remove the fish from the pan. Add the lemon juice and chopped parsley.

Serves 4

French Cooking Class Part II

This is part 2 of a series of posts describing the French Cuisine cooking class I recently attended at Plate It Up! a gourmet kitchen tools store here in Glendale AZ and taught by Chef Patrick Karvis.

You can read Part 1 here.

After Chef Patrick had our appetites all reved up from the salad, it was time for the next course, Mussels Au Vert. Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in slurping every last drop of the broth from this dish that I totaly forgot the camera.

This was my wife's first encounter with mussels and I was pleasantly surprised that she liked them. Of course the high quality of preparation did not hurt. Patrick suggests Prince Edward Island mussels for this dish. The other suggestion is to use European butter. It is higher in butterfat and it a lot yummier than our American butter.

Mussels Au Vert

3 pounds mussels, cleaned and de-bearded
olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup white wine
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley
salt & pepper

Saute the garlic and shallots in the olive oil until tender but not browned. Add the mussels and white wine. Cover and let steam for about 5 minutes. Take the mussels out and place into a serving bowl. Add the butter and herbs to the pan and season with salt and pepper. Pour this over the mussels and serve with some baguette that has been cut into inch-thick slices and lightly toasted.

Serves 4