Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Fricadelles de Veau a la Nicoise, Epinards Etuves au Beurre, and Tomates Grillees au Four, or: Mastering the Art of French Cooking During the Latter Half of One’s Fifteen Minutes, All While Missing The LAST EPISODE EVER Of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I ululate in dismay.  For it's true -- I missed it.  Oh, I know the basic plot points.  I know about Caleb splitting, and the lame Angel appearance, and Spike’s amulet, and all the slayers, and Anya, and Sunnydale going bye-bye.  But I didn’t actually see any of it.  Instead, while Eric sat around with the network people watching this historic event, I slaved away in a hot kitchen, under the watchful eye of a time-lapse camera.  Not that I’m bitter – as my brothers says, “With great stardom comes great sacrifice.”  At the end I am always alone.  In every generation there is a Chosen One.  And the Kitchen Slayer produced a mighty fine dinner, I might add.  I think mostly it was particularly good because, showing off for the camera a bit, I threw in a bit more butter than necessary.  Two sticks, all told.  And if anyone tells you adding two sticks of butter to your dinner doesn’t make it taste better, don’t listen – they’re lying.  Here’s how you make Fricadelles de Veau a la Nicoise, Veal Patties with Tomatoes, Onions and Herbs: Saute a half cup of minced onions in butter for ten minutes under low heat.  Add a couple of tomatoes that you’ve peeled, seeded and chopped, a clove of chopped garlic, some salt and some basil.  Cook all that on low heat, covered, for five minutes, then uncover and cook on high heat until the liquid the tomatoes have released evaporate.  Turn this out into a bowl, and mix in a cup of stale white bread crumbs that you’ve soaked for a few minutes in half a cup of milk.  (Julia says you can also ground up a half a cup of cooked rice with the veal.)  Mix in a pound of ground veal, and some minced-up saltpork you’ve simmered for five or ten minutes to get rid of all the salt.  Actually, Julia wanted me to have the veal ground up with pork fat, but I don’t have a meat grinder, and I didn’t want poor Eric to have the responsibility of asking some grumbling outer-borough butcher to do that for him.  Mix in an egg, some parsley (or not, if you happen to have forgotten to buy any) and salt and pepper.  Make them up into patties.  The meal mixture was a little loose, I found, and probably would have benefited by chilling a bit, or by a coarser grind to the meat.  But I managed to make them hold together into patties.  Dredge them in flour – carefully, if you’re afraid they’re going to melt into meat mush – and fry them up in a quite-hot skillet with butter and oil.  When they’re done, throw in some beef stock (I’m still using my meat glaze) and boil until reduced and thickened, scraping up all the schmutz off the bottom of the skillet.  Stir in some more butter and done. But before all this happens, you’ve made Epinards Etuves au Beurre – Spinach Braised in Butter.  Boil some spinach.  Drain in cold water, squeeze out the extra water.  Cook in a pan with some butter until the water evaporates and the spinach begins to stick to the bottom of the pan.  Throw in three or so more tablespoons of butter, cover, and turn the heat to low.  Cook fifteen minutes or so.  Salt and pepper.  Also, Tomates Grillees au Four – whole baked tomatoes.  Cut out the stems of the tomatoes, leaving the smallest hole possible.  “Sprinkle salt and pepper into the stem hole,” which sounds dirty.  Get the tomatoes all slickery with olive oil, which feels dirty to do, in a nice way.  Lay them stem hole down on a baking sheet and bake for ten minutes, until their skins are just beginning to split.  This, by the way, is what we ate for breakfast nearly every morning when we visited New Zealand, and an excellent breakfast food it is.  It is also not a bad dinner food. Also, egg noodles.  With butter. All this I “plated” oh-so prettily – placed the patties on top of some of the spinach, with a bit of the sauce, and a tomato, and the noodles.  Lovely.  Super-glisteny.  Spinach with butter.  Noodles with butter.  Tomato without butter, providing just the right lack at just the right time.  And veal patties with pork fat in it is really just super good.  I managed to get the food crew to eat – and drink – and smoke just a bit – and the sound guy, whose wife is a vegan, poor guy, say that putting the tomatoes in the veal patties made them taste so good.  Well, sure tomatoes in veal patties are nice, but sweetheart, don’t let your wife fool you:  veal patties with pork fat are what really take the cake. Eric and I toasted butter and Buffy – twice actually, since the camera guy didn’t quite get the clinking of the glasses the first go-round – and then we all sat around and shot the shat, and the camera guy – who was imbedded in Iraq before he got imbedded in Long Island City – told good imbedding stories, and it was lovely.  But I didn’t make the coffee soufflé.  Sorry. But somebody, please – tell me you taped “Buffy!” And so I’m not not telling you guys the who’s and where’s and what’s with the TV crew and the news article because I’m being coy – I just don’t want to jinx the damned thing.  I shouldn’t be telling you about it at all probably, but how can I not mention the reasons behind not watching Buffy?  Surely you would all find that strange?  I’ll let you know when something’s definite – promise.   8:01:27 AM    comment []