Saturday, November 30, 2002

Ah, the time-honored traditions of the day after Thanksgiving.  We watched “Die Another Day” – a decent enough flick; with Pierce Brosnan’s forearms and Halle Berry’s, well, everything, you can’t go that wrong – and ate leftovers.  Of course my husband had gorged himself on goose in the morning, so there wasn’t as much to go around as there might have been, but I’m not bitter.  Not at all. And I went and made Souffle au Chocolat.  My first soufflé.  It turned out pretty good, I think.  I mean how would I know.  But it puffed up and it tasted like chocolate, so great.  Of course soufflés are one of those classic “difficult” dishes, but it turned out to be easy enough, though it did make a lot of dishes.  I managed to melt the semi-sweet chocolate in the double boiler without burning it.  I mixed together cornstarch and milk, boiled it briefly, then stirred in the chocolate.  I whipped up egg whites.  With my electric mixer.  Julia would really prefer I use a wire whip, and one of these days I’ll make myself do it that way, but for now I chose the way of the lazy.  I beat some egg yolks into the chocolate mixture, then folded in the whites.  Poured it into a buttered and floured soufflé dish and baked for forty-five minutes.  That was it.  It was yummy.  I think contemporary tastes would prefer a mix of semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate – this was a little candy-bar-ish for me – but yummy nevertheless.  Not something to do on Thanksgiving, though. So here I am, about a quarter of the way through the Project.  I’ve done 166 recipes, which puts me a little ahead of the curve, except of course that I’ve got some doozies coming up.  The last of the lobster recipes.  A braised beef recipe that entails marinating the beef for 12 hours, braising it for five, then cutting out the middle to make a meat box, baking the box and making up a filling to go inside it.  Insanity.  Whole, boned chickens.  Not to mention sweetbreads, and knocking over the liquor stores to get enough cash to buy truffles.  What a long, strange trip it’s been, and it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Woo-hoo!!! 10:29:45 AM    comment []