Not A Cooks Blog ... Mastering French Cuisine With Julia Child ... (Once A Week): Week 7: A French Monk's Sword

"Rating a French tarte" is not really a text message you want to get sent from your partner. However I was guilty of the crime. I was guilty of not only mis-texting (is that a word?) I did mean to say "eating" rather than "rating", but I was also guilty of sitting in the sun eating a slice of lemon French tart which cost me an exorbitant price. A small gift to self as I was driving down to the capital this week. It's the price you have to pay for the research activities one has to do for French cooking.

This week for dinner Jan, Geoff and Giles - our neighbours from Millstream garden joined us. They are the best neighbours you could ever have - they are always supportive and do extra-ordinary things for us, like the time they help put out our house fire! But they are also amazingly creative and talented. They have their own business and produce a number of lotion and potions - I highly recommend to visit their shop or their website millstreamgardens.co.nz

I was turning to the French monks this week for inspiration (via Julia of course), where rooting is big and, also to my surprise, so was cooking lettuce. Being vegetarian these monks foraged for their meal which always had a root and green mix. The main was utilising this blend with sword fish. I must say I was excited going into Hawke's Bay Sea food . Going into fish shops previously had almost been as intimidating as walking through the multiple beauty counters you get in the front of department stores. You are surrounded by an array of products you have no idea what to do with. At least in the fish shop you are in less danger of a heavily painted female pouncing at you with brushes and concoctions in hand. With a sense of purpose, Caroline and I spent some time appreciating the displays of fish before purchasing two large fillets of swordfish.

I was perfecting my egg white technique (as the gateway to souffles) by making another Mousse au Chocolate. However this time I really wanted to do the frozen mousse with the attractive ladyfingers. Ladyfingers are not normally displayed in our house (I am pleased to say) and Caroline was rather taken back with this terminology questioning if they are taking the mickey out of women!
I was debating if I needed to amputate my lady fingers, as despite being on the hunt for the exact mould that Julia had, I couldn't find one in time and resorted to purchasing an overpriced removable push up base metal round tin that was not high enough. I presented to my guests the dilemma ... should we trim off the ladyfingers so we could unmould it and have the nice formed chocolate top OR we should remove from tin but leave the same way up. The consensus was that trimming the lady fingers could be a painful exercise with the remark that the too long ladyfingers gave the dessert a rather fortified pa look - kiwiana - I had created the next pavlova iconic recipe equivalent!

It was another gastronomic delight filled evening. We also enjoyed Moules a la mariniere (fresh mussels steamed open in wine and flavourings) as an entree accompanied with French bread. Jan and Geoff brought over some delicious cheese which were purchased from "over the moon" (you can find them in Putaruru) and homemade crackers - which I have been requested to make for school lunches! Of course to drink there was wine and water with Giles providing a tasting of his home made cucumber wine - which was very refreshing . I do believe the French monks when sitting down to enjoy their sword fish with accompanying roots and greens probably would have had their jolly little number to swirl it down as well.