Series 2: Part 4 Salade Nicoise

Balmy summer evenings extending into March called for some fare that was light but tasty. Julia's rendition of Salade Nicoise - a Mediterranean Combination Salad from Nice - seemed ideal being both "nourishing and beautiful".
 In the 20 odd minutes that Julia has to instruct us on how to create the most famous of the composed salads, viewers are treated with video clips of Julia browsing the Nice market places. Hands are dipped into buckets of capers, olives, and whole salted anchovy's. Back in the kitchen Julia assembles the key ingredients for the salade - lettuce, blanched beans, tomatoes, potatoes, tuna, hard boiled eggs, anchovy, green herbs and of course the French dressing.
The lettuce is the first to arrange on the platter, with Julia taking the opportunity to show case some of latest lettuce drying devices. This is absolutely hilarious with the last item trumping the rest. This lettuce drier is unique in that you create the centrifugal force by pulling on a rope like you were starting a lawnmower. And according to Julia this Swiss design was created by "little old ladies in white tennis shoes" (go figure that statement!) Once you have your lettuce in place it is just the matter of arranging it all on the platter.
Tonight we had a shared dinner with our neighbours who supplied some delicious home made sausages. This worked beautifully with the Salade Nicoise. Of course we took the opportunity together to watch Julia's show "Stuffing a sausage" as our evening entertainment.... and review the episode Salade Nicose where my presenting salad was found to be as composed as Julia's! And as it was yet another beautiful balmy evening we set up our theatre outside and watched Julia underneath the stars.

Series 2: Part 3 Bouillabaisse

In keeping with the Oceania theme after completing another swimming challenge in the Pacific Ocean with my swimming buddy Anne, it seemed appropriate to have a dinner focused on the bounty one can acquire from such an environment. I was hoping for a less dramatic ending for the meal than the ending of my swim, where in my eagerness to cross the finish line to carve off a couple of seconds I did a dramatic dash and promptly tripped on the mat and face planted! Lucky for me I wasn't in first position coming out of the water (fat chance) so it was not witnessed by the entire swimming entourage.


In the French Chef television series one, Julia dedicates two episodes to fish. The "whole fish story" episode provided the fish fundamentals. It was difficult to concentrate on the content as I couldn't stop being distracted by the numerous alliterations that Julia used with the word fish and I was too busy enjoying and having a chuckle that I had to do a few rewinds of the DVD.... "French are fond of fresh fish, "Flat fish family" "Flexible fish knife" "Fabulous fish professor" "Fish frame" ... with Julia even admitting that "everything you do with fish seems to start with a "f". They were tips not only how to prepare, gut and cook your fish  but also how to eat it. A highlight of the show was the inclusion of a video of a French Poisson professor - she knew her fish and skill-fully whipped her knife around whilst handling the fish with a delicate and respectful manner. She demonstrated "fixing fish" which included wrapping the boned fillets of a fish around its still attached fish head so it resembled a rams head with curled horns. Another dramatic display was threading the fillets back through the fish open mouth!
With a knowledge of the fish fundamentals  I decided to cook the Bouillabaisse for the meal.
Bouillabaisse originated as a simple, Mediterranean fisherman's soup made from the catch of the day and flavoured with the typical condiments of the region - olive oil, garlic, leeks, onions, tomatoes and herbs.
First you make the aromatic broth - boiling the soup ingredients for about 40 minutes. For the fish addition for the broth I used  x2 snapper heads. Once the soup has been strained it was time to cook the fish. Julia recommends you should pick six or more varieties of fresh fish. There was only 3 of us eating so I reduced the fish variety to whole Tarakihi, deep sea cod pieces and mussels. Once we had gutted the Tarakihi and cleaned the mussels they all went into the boiling broth. Once cooked, the fish was removed to a platter and the broth served in a tureen which was lined with croutes - and after the obligatory pose for the camera... it was served and eaten immediately.
There was an unanimous decision that this was a fabulous flavoursome fish feast, fit for felicitation.

Gutting

Snapper heads

Caroline and Anne

Series 2: Part 2 - Bread of Life

The Potato Show was the title for the first episode from Julia's television series - "The French Chef 1". Apparently the potato only became fashionable around 1771 and was referred to thereafter as the "bread of life".  Julia found over 200 hundred French recipes for the potato but limited the 1/2 hour TV session to four recipes. These consisted of a combination of scalloped and grated potato dishes.


I choose to cook the "Crepes de pommes de terre" -  grated potato pancakes. Eldest daughter Caroline approved of this as it ticked the potato and pancake box.
4 oz of cream cheese was required to be mixed with one egg with the grated potato at the ready. You had to move smartly as Julia warned that potatoes brown quickly and that would cause "bad psychology for the cook" and I definitely did not want that!


Once you had grated the potato you had to squeeze the living daylights out of them to remove the water. This was referred to as the "amusing part" and I carefully followed Julia's food hygiene requirements of using a clean towel for this part as "not to offend anyone". Once squeezed and mixed with the other ingredients it was simply just the task to pan fry. After watching Julia attempt a few flips with "the courage of her convictions" and losing some of the potato across the kitchen I decided a relaxed non-adrenalin infused turn over with a simple fish slice would do the trick.


The potato pancake went down nicely as an accompaniment to the steak and salad we had for dinner that night... and it got the tick of approval from one of the most discerning food critics (and you thought Michelin rating was difficult!)

Approval from the food critic

Grating

Squeezing

Pan frying

 

Series Two - part one: Madeleines

As the summer holidays end and it is back to the normal routine of work, school, homework, so starts up the continuation of the French culinary cooking challenges. At the end of last year I splashed out on a series of DVDs of Julia Child "The French Chef" - as well as "The way to cook". This is over 1000 minutes of viewing time! I am expecting these to not only be informative but delightfully entertaining, with Julia' typical bloopers and down to earth wit.




The three day long weekend to celebrate Waitangi day seemed a good time to get back into cooking. However my DVDs have not yet been unwrapped and although I had thought I would recommence cooking this week I haven't prepared myself in anyway. However I did have a back up plan. At a recent shopping expedition I managed to secure a Madeleine pan half price. However to my dismay Julia had not included a recipe in her repertoire. Not too worry, I had my French patisserie book - however it required honey (damn), lemons (damn) and ground almond (damn)... plan C - Madeleine pan had recipe included... all ingredients readily available (although I had to shake the last drop of vanilla essence out the bottle). They are relatively easy to make but the mixture does require some resting in the refrigerator before cooking.






Madeleines have been described as a little romantic French cake, and are unique with their delicate shell shape. They are moist due to the "beurre noisette" - butter melted and cooked until nut brown.

Family were busy preparing for outdoor activities and although not quite the romantic ambiance one would get from sitting in a café in Paris - I attempted to capture some sort of refinement by placing a few on a bone china plate which family could enjoy on the go... and the left overs ideal for the school lunches tomorrow.

In two straight lines...