I love visiting a traditional butcher shop. The smell and sight of beautifully cut meat not to mention the quality service and assistance. Armed with my JC cook book at the page for "Filet steaks with mushrooms and Madeira sauce" I discussed the proportions and best steak to use. The butcher produced an eye fillet and went about cutting up 6 beautiful round, luscious juicy steaks.
This is not a cheap option however like anything expensive you invest in there is always a good rationale or two that you can immediately come up with to make yourself feel better - like significantly increasing the haemoglobin of your family, and that you would have easily have spent that much and more if we went out to dinner.....
Preparing the main was not time intensive so for once I had time to get myself presentable before our guests David and John arrived. However I did have one anxiety moment when I realised that I had to saute the bread rounds and I didn't have the clarified butter and had to make it myself. I was delightfully surprised that it didn't take 6 hours to prepare and that I just had to melt butter and strain off the milky residue (because that is the part that burns more readily).
Although the main didn't involve a day dedicated to the cause - a few extra pairs of hands to assist to enable everything to come together at the critical time was required. David, John and Imke provided the instruction (which also saved the book from my greasy paws) and the team were able to vertically construct the piece de resistance with the accompanying peas and potatoes.
The translation of mousse is foam...and according to Julia your end product needs to be so smooth, light and fluffy that it brings tears to your eye. To get this desired result you have to beat, beat and beat some more. I was beating egg yolks, beating the sugar and coffee mix, beating continuously the egg yolks and the chocolate over a gentle heat. The recommendation is that when you are continuously handbeating for 8 - 10 mins (that long!) you think sweet thoughts. I quickly moved from feeling that I was participating in a dominatrix training programme to being a mindful beater and observing the changes happening in the pot in front of me. Beating to get the ribbon effect ... beating the egg whites so that they have a satin finish and make little peaks. Beating so much - I do believe that my right bicep is going to be disproportionately bigger than my left unless I train myself to be an ambidextrous beater.
The result - pretty good according to my taste testers that night. However according to eldest daughter "it would have been better if I had used plain milk chocolate"!
We completed the evening with David providing an informative knife education session - who despite knowing for years I had completely forgotten that in the beginning of his working life he had been a qualified chief!
PS: Happy Birthday Julia Child for the 15th August
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