Saturday, October 19, 2002

Now that cooking is not just something I do but the central fact of my life, I am more keenly aware than I used to be of the exquisite pleasure it would be not to cook.  Imagine being a French farmwife in 1712 or whatever the fuck and after a lifetime of cooking everyday, every meal, going to one of these new-fangled restaurant jobs and sitting down to a meal someone you didn’t even know had made, to order, for you.  Wouldn’t you be spoiled for life?  Would cooking ever again be for you the unthinking rhythm of life it had been before, or would you forever long, as you sweated over pot and pan, for a coq au vin prepared by some guy named Jacques that you never even saw?  Like the memory of a really brilliant prostitute – satisfaction you don’t have to think about, someone else doing all the work, and all you need is money? Longing for a restaurant.  Actually, it’s not such a bad place to be – at least it’s pretty unique, for a young 21st century New Yorker. Which brings me to: Timbales de Foies de Volaille – Unmolded chicken liver custards (only with scallops) Endives a la Flamade – Braised Belgian Endive (only not really Belgian) I worked until almost seven on Friday, and had to run errands, and with this and that didn’t get home until after eight.  The scallops, to my chagrin, had not begun to rot, so I was obligated to cook the fuckers.  This recipe sounded unbearably French and schmancy.  We’re basically talking about a scallop mousse with béarnaise.  I tried, really I did, to get out of it.  But when I said, “Oops, we don’t have enough eggs for the béarnaise” (I said it just like that, of course, italics and all), Eric was out of his seat in a moment. “I’ll get them, my love!” And with that, he’s out of the apartment before I can say, “But wait!  I don’t really want to make béarnaise!”  Ah well.  Husbands.  Oh so helpful just when you wish they wouldn’t be.  So the first thing was to cook the scallops, which I did by boiling them in vermouth and water, with shallots and bay leaves, for 3 or 4 minutes.  Then I quickly whipped up a béchamel, which is not difficult but does require two pots – one for the roux, one for the boiling milk. Oh, and so here’s something I haven’t confess to you my faithful readers since beginning the Julie/Julia Project.  I have a problem with Julia’s rouxes.  For some reason when I use the proportions she suggests, the roux winds up just lumps of buttery dough.  Why is this?  I’ve never had trouble with roux before.  All I can think is that either butter or flour was different in 1967 (when the edition of Mastering the Art… that I use was published.)  Any thoughts are much appreciated. Anyway, after I made the sauce, I set it aside to cool while I put the scallops and some eggs and egg yolks in the blender and ran it through.  Then I added the béchamel, some cream, and some Madeira, and blended that.  The truffle was optional, so I skipped it.  (Anyone with a trove of unwanted truffles or a really sharp-nosed and lucky pig should let me know….)  Then I poured that stuff into a soufflé dish, because I didn’t have a 4-cup ring mold or 8 ramekins, and let it wait in the refrigerator. For the endives – I got red endives, they were all that Zeytuna had – I just stuck them in a casserole with a bit of water and some butter and let the water come to a boil and simmer for a few minutes.  The recipe called for a fourth cup water for 12 endives, and I only had 4 endives, so I put in less water, but the water boiled away like instantly, so I had to add more.  Then I covered the endives with a round of waxed paper and put the casserole cover on and stuck that in the oven.  (Something GREAT I learned from Julia – waxed paper rounds.  This actually I learned from her show, which I watched if you can believe it for the first time the other week.  She showed how you fold a rectangle of waxed paper in half, then in half again, then again and again, until you have a narrow, long triangle.  Then you hold the triangle of paper over the pot with the pointy part in the center, and trim the outside until it just reaches the edge, and when you unfold it, it’s a perfect circle.  I get excited every time I do this.) The endive was supposed to bake covered for an hour, which was patently absurd.  I let it go for 45 minutes, which was far too much.  When I took off the cover, I could see through the waxed paper that they were blackening on the bottom.  But I am a slave to Julia, so I stuck it back in with just the paper covering, just as she told me.  I also put in the scallop mousse thing-y.  The two dishes baked side by side for 20 minutes or so. This is when I made the béarnaise.  I’ve already made béarnaise, so I won’t go over it now.  It went smoothly.  I took the endives out early, because the burning smell was getting to be a bit much.  They looked nice and browned on top, but had turned to coal on the bottom.  The mousse thing took a little longer.  When it was done, I sliced it into pie slices and scooped the slices onto plates, topped them with béarnaise (don’t forget the italics) and placed some slightly shriveled, shiny-black-on-the-bottom endives beside them.  Parsley sprinkled over all. The mousse was good.  Mostly, I found, it tasted like béarnaise.  I think that making the mousse/custard with chicken livers would have resulted in a stronger flavor – the scallops rather got lost.  The endives were surprisingly good, even with the blackening.  I continued to be shocked at how good long-cooked lettuce can taste.  So, on another note, I promised I would do this and now I am.  Pete is a hell of a writer, and a sentimental Irishman under all his hipster verbiage, and I read his blog faithfully, even if he did reveal my shameful past life full of twixes and Blue Bell ice cream.  Oh, and here’s hoping that all of pj’s popular friends keep checking me out.  My blog, I mean….     7:16:16 PM    comment []