Sunday, December 15, 2002

Friday was Souffle aux Epinards, spinach soufflé, and I have to tell you, it was pretty.  Damned.  Good.  What with having to blanch and sauté the spinach with shallots beforehand, and the mushrooms as well – because I went ahead and did the mushroom variation – it entailed a certain amount of dishes, the glorious thing about the Julie/Julia Project, I will say again, is that I have abdicated all responsibility for dishwashing, so that was no problem.  Once the mushrooms and spinach were done, it was a piece of cake.  I melted the butter in a pan, mixed with equal parts flour, poured in boiling milk and beat it, stirring in the salt, pepper, cayenne and nutmeg.  I took it off heat and beat in the egg yolks, and then the spinach and mushrooms.  And I beat up five egg whites until stiff, folded that and some grated Swiss cheese in to the rest.  Then I just put it in the soufflé pan and baked it for 25 minutes.  And it was fabulous.  I think I could become a real soufflé freak. The next morning I woke up from horrifying dreams of lobsters with a horrid headache.  The lobster.  The last recipe is coming up, and it involved unspeakable, torturous acts.  Between that and the chicken livers in aspic, I’m a bloody mess. I spent the day in hysterics over Christmas shopping.  The looming transit strike has everyone here freaking out, and shopping was a nightmare.  We couldn’t even get pommes frites to reward ourselves – there was a line down the block.  At the end of the day I wanted nothing more than a slice of pizza and a tall drink, but instead I cooked.  Poulets Grilles a la Diable, chicken broiled with mustard, herbs, and bread crumbs, and Tomates a la Provençale.  Two good things about the tomato recipe: first, you don’t have to peel the tomatoes, which felt very luxurious.  Second, they can be put together entirely ahead.  Slice the tomatoes in half crosswise, seed them, and salt and pepper them.  Mix together mashed garlic, shallots, bread crumbs, olive oil, and minced parsley – should have used basil, probably, but the batch I found at the store was bigger than my head, and I knew it would all go bad.  Scoop a spoonful of this filling into each tomato half, and drizzle with a bit more olive oil.  Then it’s ready to go in the oven whenever. The chicken didn’t feel at all like a Julia recipe – more like a Martha one, a bit more trouble than it was worth.  I began by basting a quartered chicken with butter and broiling it for a few minutes on each side.  While that was happening I mixed together some mustard, minced shallots, dried basil, pepper and cayenne.  When the chicken came out, I drained the cooking fat and beat half of it into the mustard mix.  This I spread onto the chicken pieces before dredging them in “fresh, white bread crumbs.”  I made the bread crumbs in a food processor.  I pressed the crumbs onto the chicken so it would stick, then put the chicken pieces on a rack on a roasting pan, poured half of the remaining fat on top, and stuck it in the broiler. It didn’t work out so well.  First of all, I can’t adjust the heat on my broiler, so I burned the first side.  And when I turned the pieces, the bread crumb coating fell off into the schmutz in the bottom of the pan.  I poured the rest of the cooking fat onto the pieces, and stuck it back into the broiler for a few minutes, hoping for the best.  The tomatoes went into the oven somewhere around then. I always forget what a fucking inconvenience it is to try to broil something and bake something at the same time. Anyway, the chicken was alright.  I think using dryer, finer crumbs would work better.  Certainly the mustard coating is worth doing again.  And the tomatoes were good and not much trouble at all.  Fresh basil would help.  We had rice, and I mixed up some of the soaked breadcrumbs from the bottom of the roasting pan into mine.  So, about this lobster.  I was planning tonight on murdering my last lobster, but I realized I’ve run out of cognac, and blue laws being what they are, one lobster in the big city is going to get to live to die another day.  I’m sort of perversely wishing for this transit strike, if only because I am amused by the idea of me walking across the Queensboro bridge with a lobster in my shopping bag.  Ho ho. 12:56:05 PM    comment []