Not A Cooks Blog ... Mastering French Cuisine With Julia Child ... (Once A Week): Series Three: Part Two: Cordon Bleu

In an attempt to encapsulate some of the spirit of the Rio Olympics, page 15, course 55 of the Cordon Bleu Cookery Course series provided the recipe for Brazilian bananas. It was rather challenging to recreate any feel of Rio as Hawke's Bay was in the middle of a weather warning with severe rain downfalls, dropping temperatures, snow to 200 metres and intermittent power outages. However being a simple recipe and having all the ingredients, a fire pumping out the heat I bear with!
You just need to slice the bananas thickly into coupe glasses and sprinkle over some rum. Make some coffee cream, cover the bananas and finally scatter a few browned flaked almonds on top. Serve chilled.

I was convinced that I had sufficient food stuffs, that I should be able to make something for the main without having to leave the house. All the answers were in this particular course 55. For some strange reason I had purchased a cabbage. No one in the family has a particular bent for cabbage, apart from the old coleslaw in summer, I wouldn't use cabbage in any recipe I could think of. I must have been influenced by the seasonal cheapness of this vegetable and tossed it into shopping trolley having a belief that I would be creative and not leave to rot only to turn into expensive sheep tucker. Well on page 4 voilà there was Cabbage Lorraine. I enjoyed throwing the whole cabbage into a big pot of boiling water for a few minutes then cutting into quarters and packing into a ovenproof dish. I then poured over the prescribed concoction of onion and stock and baked until the cabbage was tender.
In ready supply in the freezer was our home killed sheep (has featured in a past blog as the run away sheep often seen in the garden). On page 13 there was a recipe for "Lamb Goulash". Keeping with the traditions learnt by Julia the meat is patted dry first before browning. The lamb was cooked within a blend of onion, garlic, paprika, tomato puree, stock, bayleaf and s&p. This was a tasty hearty number with the Cabbage Lorraine and accompanying new potatoes which did a fine job of soaking up the juices.
Being confident that the power would last to enable me to cook the dinner, we did an impromptu dinner date with our neighbours next door. On eating the Brazilian bananas we all could appreciate that in a hot tropical environment bananas cold would be suitable and yes indeed a banana themed dessert would be appropriate for those athelets in Rio. However after just witnessing the rerun of the French gymnast who broke his leg doing the vault I could not help but compare the devastating symmetry between the shape of his swinging leg and with the shape of a banana! He too may feel a need to be doused in rum!