Saturday, April 05, 2003

So I just finished doing some Julie/Julia housekeeping, and we’ve got 196 recipes to go.  I’ve done 332.  Just to save you a little arithmetic, that means that yes, I somehow miscounted originally.  There are 524 recipes in MtAoFC, not 536.  Many apologies for the honest mistake, and if you never want to read this stupid-ass blog again, I’ll understand. For those willing to stick with it… Friday night was Quenelles aux Huitres, Fish Quenelles with Oysters.  When I glanced at the recipe earlier in the week, I’d assumed it was fish quenelles cooked along with oysters, but oh it’s much more exciting than that.  Quenelles aux Huitres is actually fish quenelles with oysters in the middle.  Jump back! Eric and I got home at exactly the same time Friday night.  Coming out of the subway I spied him walking down an empty Long Island City street bopping his head and jamming out, toting bags of heavy groceries.  The song he was singing?  That timeless classic, “Caroline,” created in honor of our new niece.  The lyrics: “My name is Caroline, I’m a big fat baby, a big fat baby….”  My husband, ladies and gentlemen.  Let’s give him a hand. The first step to making the Quenelles aux Huitres was to shuck the oysters.  Julia doesn’t go into the way to shuck an oyster, but The Joy of Cooking does.  It involves an oyster knife, an instrument I do not possess.  I tried using a regular old knife, but I couldn’t even find the seam between the two halves of these crusty scary things.  (Eric had bought the oysters from the fish store by his work.  When he asked for them, the woman meaningfully intoned, “They’re seventy-five cents each.”  He wasn’t sure whether she meant, “Are you sure you want to be shelling out the big bucks here?” or “Are you sure you want to risk your health on oysters we’re giving away for mere pennies?”)  So I steamed them for a couple of minutes, and then they opened much easier.  I scraped them out of the shells, rinsed them off, and poached them for two minutes or so in water and vermouth. Whereas mussels look like female genitalia as painted by Schiele – untoward colors, almost violently biologically -- the oysters, once they’d been plumped up in the poaching liquid, were like vaginas interpreted by O’Keefe, delicate and ruffled, floral and clean.  Beautiful, really.  I then boiled down the poaching liquid until it had reduced by half.  Meanwhile, I made up the quenelle paste.  Pureed the fish – boneless this time, cod – in the Cuisinart.  Brought a half cup of water to boil with a couple of tablespoons of butter and some salt.  Dumped in a half cup of flour, mixed up together over high heat until it was a solid mass.  Beat in one egg plus one egg white, then the pureed fish and some salt and pepper.  Stuck it in the fridge for half an hour or so to chill. “The War Room” is on the TV.  This is a fucking great movie. When the paste is chilled I beat in a couple of tablespoons of cream.  Then I scooped up some paste in a spoon.  Placed an oyster on top.  Put some more paste on top of that and formed into a ball with a second spoon.  When it was egg-shaped and smooth I dumped it into some barely simmering water.  I did this with six oysters, then made some regular non-oyster quenelles, just to add to the sense of jeopardy. The oysters didn’t stay all that well in the quenelle balls.  I don’t know if the paste was too thin or what, but clumps of it came off, exposing the oysters.  But they swelled up and look like dumplings, albeit messy ones, so I guess they were okay.  When they were done I drained them for a few minutes on a towel while I made up a béchamel with milk and the concentrated oyster-poaching liquid.  This I thinned out with cream.  I poured a quarter of it out into a casserole dish, placed the quenelles on top, then the rest of the sauce.  Grated some cheese and dotted some butter over it, and broiled it for a few minutes.  We ate the quenelles with a salad. Eric was very enthusiastic about these.  He thought they were Great.  I guess.  I think I may have gotten a bad oyster.  I’d never had one of these before – being a person who generally oysters – and it wasn’t like I got deathly ill or anything.  But one of them was very bitter and nasty.  So after that I was a little quenelle-shy.  Alas, we will not get the opportunity to get me over that problem, because now we’re on to veal quenelles, which I imagine will be far easier to take. On the lamb front, I finally got scared and put the lamb in the fridge for the last day of its marination.  Tonight we’ll see if I was too late.  Eric, by the way, has a tip for all potential quenelle makers and their spouses: make sure all the dishes from the night before are washed before you get into quenelles.  Otherwise you’ll be washing dishes until it’s time to make the lamb Saturday night. Which, speaking of, it’s just about that time.   4:38:47 PM    comment []