A taste of France

 

Apparently for the foreseeable future, I am to be on a soft diet—you know, lots of yogurt and applesauce and protein drinks. This strict limitation does not inspire my curiosity about new recipes nor my willingness to cook, so I may be hard put to come up with recipes for my Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog. But I don’t want to give it up. So for the next couple of months, I’m going to be recycling old recipes, stealing cooking hints and odd bits of knowledge from other sources, and doing what I can to keep all of us interested in the food we eat.

That said, it’s appropriate now for me to celebrate the forthcoming launch (late June) of the fifth in my Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries. Titled, Irene in a Ghost Kitchen, it has a fierce culinary rivalry, old family resentments and endangered children, and a stalker who’d love to get his hands on Irene. Chance and Henny combine to try to keep her safe despite herself.

But Irene in a Ghost Kitchen also has food—lots of French food, even a cooking school, and, of course, recipes. To whet your appetite for food in the French manner, I pulled a couple of recipes from an earlier Irene book, Irene in Danger. Both gougères and gibelotte are mentioned often in the new book.

 

Gougères

Gougères are small appetizers made of a rich dough called choux pastry and cheese, traditionally Comté, Emmentaler, or Gruyère. The ingredients are simple, but making the pastries involves a lot of beating by hand.

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

¾ tsp. salt, preferably kosher

Pinch of nutmeg

1 c. water

1-1/4 c. flour

4 eggs

1-1/2 c. Comté, Emmentaler, or Gruyère cheese, grated

½ tsp. fine black pepper

One egg yolk

          Combine the first four ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook, just below a boil, until butter is melted. Stir in the flour. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture forms a ball in the middle of the pan. Dough should not be sticky. Let it cool slightly, because you will be adding eggs but don’t want the dough to cook them before you can stir them in.

Remove pan from the heat and beat the eggs in one at a time, beating vigorously after each egg until it is thoroughly incorporated into the dough. Do not try to hurry the process by adding all four eggs at once. After the last egg, stir in cheese and pepper.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Irene shapes the dough into one-inch balls by hand, but Henny prefers to use a piping bag with the ½” round tip. You may also cut the corner off a plastic bag and use it as a home-made piping bag. Place dough balls 2” apart on baking sheet as they will expand.

Make an egg wash with remaining egg yolk and 1 tsp. water. Brush onto gougères before baking.

Bake at 400^o for 20-25 minutes. When done, they will be golden brown. You can test for doneness by breaking one open: it should be dry on the inside.

Recipe makes about 50 gougères, but people will eat several at a time.

 

Gibelotte

A gibelotte is a French stew of either fish or rabbit. For American tastes, you could substitute chicken, although Madame would dismiss it as unworthy. Veal, although expensive, would be another choice. This is a basic recipe; if you wish you may add sliced mushrooms, or baby carrots, or tiny new potatoes.

4 lbs. meat of your choice, in serving size pieces

Four strips bacon

2 Tbsp. flour

2 c. chicken broth, prepared or made from condensed base

2 c. dry white wine

1 bouquet garni*

2 Tbsp tomato paste

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ c. heavy cream

Toss the meat pieces in flour, salt, and pepper.

Fry the bacon until the grease is rendered (if you keep bacon fat in the refrigerator, as Irene does, you may use that). Remove bacon and brown meat in fat.

Add remaining ingredients except the cream. Simmer the gibelotte over low heat until meat is tender and thoroughly cooked, usually about an hour and a half. You may also bake it at 325^o.

Remove meat to a platter and tent to keep warm; remove bouquet garni from the sauce and strain the sauce. Add cream. Transfer to a saucepan and heat until slightly thickened. Pour sauce over meat and serve.

*Bouquet garni: use kitchen string to tie together a spring of Italian parsley, a bay leaf, and two sprigs of thyme. Or use a tsp. each of thyme and parsley and a bay leaf.

Bon Appetit!