Thursday, September 05, 2002

Oeufs a la Fondue de Fromage, Poireaux a la Grecque. (Poached Eggs on Canapes with Cheese Fondue Sauce.) I have eaten three eggs in the last three days; more or less the only eggs I have ever eaten in my life. (There was an incident in high school theatre that involved fragile egos and prairie oysters, but that wasn't so much eating as it was managing to swallow and not vomit.) And it's funny, coming to understand a food as an adult that most people have been eating all their lives. I had expected eggs to taste like they smell -- greasy, sulphurous; and like they look -- greasy, slimy. But they don't. My discovery is that eggs taste like cheese sauce. Mirabilis Dictu! The other thing I've been noticing is how really like a syllabus "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is organized. Of course, I've mentioned this before; it was the reason I chose to do the Julie/Julia Project. But in doing, I am struck with how the techniques build. Tonight I poached eggs for the second time in a week, and the second time in my life. I learned from the last time. I slipped the eggs in from just over the surface of the simmering water, was gentler with the spoon as I urged the white up over the yolk. I'm not going to say I got perfectly shaped oeufs. There were all sorts of strings and loose bits in the water, and one of the yolks was threatening to come free of its jacket of white. But when they were done, and I trimmed them up a bit, I had four more or less egg-shaped things perched nicely on top of four browned canapes. Progress was made. The cheese sauce was a bit different than the bechamel -- instead of making a roux, I blended cornstarch and cream for a thickener -- but still, there is a sensation of building on what I've been learning. I've been out of school for more years than I choose to calculate at the moment, and mostly I don't think I miss it, but in doing this I keep remembering how good it can feel to apply yourself to lesson plan, to follow through in an organized manner. Following through in an organized manner is not something I do much of these days. I should mention that this session did not begin smoothly. I had spent my second evening in a row scrounging around for beef marrow, a task complicated by the godforsaken location of my job, the narrow window of time I have to get up to some region that possesses real butchers before they close, and the alignment against me of all the stars controlling transportation. The commute home was perhaps a bit less pleasant than usual, as well, and by the time I got home -- where I was greeted by a diligently packing Eric, I should add -- I was in no mood for culinary adventure. But this is where poverty comes in handy for the Julie/Julia Project, because we had no money for pizza, so we had to resort to the ouefs and poireaux. The Poireaux a la Grecque brings up yet again one of the itchy problems of the Julie/Julia Project. This recipe comes in the Cold Buffet Chapter, and is one of perhaps a dozen examples of vegetables done a la Grecque, which means simmered and marinated in a spiced, lemony vegetable broth. I did mushrooms this way last week. Now, I had somewhat arbitrarily decided that in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," I would count as recipes only those that included ingredient lists. None of the a la Grecque recipes, after the initial one, do. But there were so many, and the techniques did vary slightly -- the leeks, for instance, baked in the oven rather than simmering on the stove. And besides, I didn't much feel like eating the celery root that's next in line. So, leeks. Again, I found the process a relaxing one. Making broth feels fundamental. Throwing ingredients in a pot, letting it simmer until it fills the house with the smell. Vegetable broth is perhaps not quite so primal as chicken or beef, all those bones, but it also takes much less time. The canapes are rounds of white bread cut out with a cookie cutter and sauted in butter. They should have been sauted in clarified butter, but by the time I got to that point it was 9:30, so I decided screw it. They turned out fine -- probably not so delicate as they would have been with the clarified, but hell, I'm not such a delicate girl. Mostly I like the shape of them, satisfying in their regularity, like ice cream sandwiches are -- brown and white, perfect lozenge shape, perfect even pinholes. Don't get me started. Anyway. Each canape was exactly the right shape for a poached oeuf. I spooned cheese sauce on top of each, then more grated cheese and a dot of butter on top that, then I ran them under the broiler for a minute. They were so damned cute when they came out! (By the way, I really do have pictures of all these things... anybody with tips on how to actually post them will be rewarded. Somehow.) It was ten o'clock by the time we ate; not perhaps the perfect time for the overtly brunch-like meal. But the leeks seemed to match the canapes, and the cheese sauce was thick, cheesy, and browned -- not complicated. Late morning or late night food. Now, I've spent my life avoiding looking at the plates of people eating poached eggs, so I don't know if I've done them right, if the yolks are supposed to be runny. But they tasted good to me, and my Eric, who's been eating the things all his life, had no problem. So I guess I did okay. 7:46:59 AM    comment []