Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Sunday lunch was Boeuf Mode En Gelee, the long-awaited cold braised beef in aspic.  It tasted like cold roast beef.  If you didn’t eat the jelly surrounding it, it was fine. While we were eating the Boeuf Mode En Gelee, Helen called.  Helen and I would like you to consider, in this time of the many doomsday scenarios, the fact of Pakistan.  It’s a dark horse, but we are thinking a good bet. Sunday dinner was the last of the veal patties, Fricadelles de Veau Mentonnaise.  That’s veal patties with tuna and anchovies, for y’all out there who can’t catch the drift of the whole “Mentonnaise” implication.  Just like all the other veal patties – sauté some onions, throw in peeled and chopped tomatoes, garlic, basil and s & p, mix it with ground veal and pork fat and an egg and parsley and some rice – only you also add in a half cup of tuna and six chopped-up anchovies.  Make ‘em into patties, dredge ‘em in flour, and fry ‘em in a pan.  We fried up some sliced potatoes, and had tomatoes tossed with basil and olive oil, on the side.  The patties were quite excellent, actually.  As Eric said, a lot going on.  There was a fishy thing happening, but mellowed out by all the pork fat.  Interesting.  And while we were eating, we watched Julia.  One of her later shows, when she’s just about to keel over.  Rick Bayless was the guest.  And the thing is, you know I’ve been cooking with Julia with like nine months now, and there’s a tendency to take her for granted at this point.  But watching her is always an education.  This woman is a) endlessly generous, and b) endlessly curious.  God love her – I hope with all my being that I will have her love of life when I’m ninety.  Or even now.  Julia and Willie – two people we should learn from every day.  During this episode, Julia was obsessed with the epazote – “And they say it takes the gas out of beans – is that true?”  And she was always sticking her fingers in everything.  But her best single line of the night referred to lard, of course.  When discussing how afraid people are of lard, she said, with real warbling vehemence, “It’s just terrible!”  I love her.  So.  Much. And I finally got the fuck off my ass and made the Souffle au Café.  This is like all the other soufflés, except that you boil some of the milk you’re going to use to make the bouilli, the soufflé base, and let it steep with some coffee beans for five minutes.  Then you drain out the coffee beans, obviously, and use the milk for the bouilli – mix the flour with the milk, and sugar, bring to a boil and let it boil for thirty seconds or so, beating, at which point it’ll get gluey and thick.  Beat it off heat for a couple of minutes to cool it down, then beat in four egg yolks, one at a time, followed by a couple of tablespoons of butter.  Beat five egg whites with a pinch of salt and some sugar until stiff.  Fold them into the base.  Bake.  At twenty minutes I looked in on it, because it was time to sprinkle on the powdered sugar, and it was looking sad and anemic and flat, like a teen model.  But then during the last fifteen minutes of baking it popped right up.  Go figure.  And it was good, again, though not particularly coffee-flavored. Now that the Project is coming into the home stretch, we’re going to be tearing through these meat sections at an alarming clip – I just want you to be prepared.  We just sped through the veal and now we’re on to pork.  A couple of marinades, and then its on to Ham-o-Rama – enough hunks of pig to feed the whole entire world.    6:28:06 AM    comment []