Friday, August 30, 2002

Julia says Potage Parmentier "smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make."  On this she is correct.  What you do is this:  peel a couple of potatoes and slice them up.  Slice some leeks, rinse them real good to get rid of the dirt.  Throw these two ingredients in a pot with some water, along with some salt.  (Julia says 1 tablespoon for 2 quarts of water , three cups leeks, three cups potatoes.  Inveterate salt fiend that I am, I was shocked to find this to be too much.  If you try it for yourself, rein in.)  Simmer this for 45 minutes or so, then either "mash the vegetables in the soup with a fork" or pass them through a food mill.  I don't have a food mill.  I've got a potato ricer, which is one of those gadgets we have that mostly seems to take up far too much precious Brooklyn shelf space for the good it does.  So that part was sort of a pain in the neck.  The Cuisinart tempted.  But Julia warns against it, enthusiastic though she is about the appliance much of the time.  She allows as how it will turn soup into "something un-French and monotonous," and though I am suspicious of any suggestion that uses the construction "un-French," when I'm done with the ricer I can see what she means.  There are bits still, green bits of leeks, pale bits of potato. The only other thing (and dear God, don't forget this!) is you need to stir in a nice hefty few tablespoons of butter or cream in there, off the heat, just before you serve it.  Then sprinkle with some chopped parsley, if you want.  It's pretty good -- I'd recommend it.  And that's it.  Scrum-diddely-umptious.  Even my Eric, who has not been able to keep down a glass of water all day, is keeping down his Potage Parmentier.  It's that good. So the fish.  The Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons, I should say.  I screwed this one up, I'll go ahead and admit it.  Which is not to say it wasn't good.  The fucker has a cup of butter, half a cup of cheese and very nearly a stick of butter in it, so how bad could it be?  But the fact of the matter is, I over-poached my poisson.   She said explicitly to poach the fish -- flounder, it is -- in its vermouth and clam juice -- I love recipes that use clam juice, it's so retro or something -- for "8 to 12 minutes depending on the thickness of the filets.... Do not," says Julia, "overcook; the fish should not be dry and flaky."  Well, I cook that fish for 8 minutes, and how you do think it turned out?  Yup.  This flounder would give my college acting teacher a run for his money.  So I cover that and drain off the juices, boil those down.  Here I screw the pooch again by putting the beurre manie -- that's a paste of softened butter (no! not butter?!) and flour that's meant to thicken the sauce -- in before I'd boiled the juices down.  "Damn!" thought I.  "Now the sauce might not thicken!  Well, I'd better throw a bit more of that beurre in!"  (In case you haven't connected the dots, that means I'm actually using more butter than Julia Child calls for.)  Turns out it thickened up nicely.  Too nicely, in fact -- I had to, as Julia said I might, thin it with just a wee half-cup of cream.  I salt and peppered, squeezed in a bit of lemon juice, then poured the cream sauce over the overdone fish. Put some grated swiss cheese over that (well, actually imported Fontina cheese, I'm ashamed to admit.  To think that in Bay Ridge, for God's sake, the local grocery has no Swiss cheese, just imported Fontina?!  Oh, the humiliation!)  Some (sigh) butter dotted on top of that.  Run it under the broiler for a minute or so, and there you have it. My husband, as I think I've mentioned, is sick.  He didn't get to eat the fish.  Which serves him right for having a hyper-acidic stomach and not dealing with the thing like an adult, this here being another story that I don't need to get into on this blog.  Upshot being, I got leftovers out of my ears, and me with poached eggs in bechamel sauce, roast chicken, broiled tomatoes, gratined potatoes and creme brulee to get through this weekend. I think we need a roommate.   10:10:52 PM    comment []

Re: pinky's comment to my 8/29 comment -- touche.  I was just thinking that very thing today on the subway.  I will turn over a new leaf after tonight's meal -- a two-courser, this one:  Potage Parmentier (Leek and Potato Soup, suitable as it turns out for these strange-o cold days we've been having) and Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons (Fish filets Poached in White Wine with Mushrooms). Which I will most likely end up eating alone, since my Eric is having one of his Stella days where he can't keep down water.  A twenty-eight year old man who can't get himself to a doctor to do something about a chronic problem -- I got no sympathy.  Leftovers, anyone? I've been trying to prove that I'm not just making this shit up in my head by taking photos; you can see my first attempt at posting them in the last entry.  Any suggestions from the code-savvy on how to make this actually work? 3:18:48 PM    comment []

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