Thomas Keller, take 2

OK, so the last Thomas Keller recipe we did was a little disappointing.  It was from Ad Hoc at Home, and it was a chicken dish.  So maybe it wasn't such a bright idea to do another chicken dish from the other book of Keller's that we have, Bouchon.

But this one was whole different kettle of fish, if you see what I mean.  It's Roast Chicken with Summer Squash and Tomatoes (p. 195):

This is Keller, though, so nothing is straightforward.  First, you turn to p. 192 for the basic Roast Chicken recipe:

But that recipe tells you to look at p. 325 to make the brine, the day before you are going to eat.  The ingredients are classic Keller brining material: honey (not sugar), salt, thyme, parsley, garlic, etc.

 Combine, boil, then let cool and refrigerate.  Next day, take one chicken:

Plunge into brine for six hours:

Actual photo unavailable

Then take chicken out of brine, rinse, pat dry, season the inside, truss, season the outside, and place in a skillet ready for the oven:

Ah yes.  Before preparing the vegetables to accompany the chicken, you have to make an olivade (turn to p. 14).  This is a delicious concoction of fromage blanc, olives, capers, parsley, red onion, chives, etc.  I did this the day before, and we had even had some with french bread and a glass of wine.  No doubt the wine explains why there are no pictures of the making of it.

Meanwhile, while the chicken is roasting, you need to start preparing the herbs for the vegetables.  For this, it is essential to have one sous-chef, because it really helps with THYME (this is my finest joke ever), and we were short on THYME as you can see from the THYME-piece on the wall.

Basically, we had to cut up various summer squashes and tomatoes to bake in the oven once the chicken was done:

Thyme for a new joke 

Here are the squashes, before and after the addition of herbs, seasoning, and oil.

There was a little 'kitchen strife' over the preparation of the squashes.  One of the chefs supported the idea that the vegetables should have oil drizzled on them first, and then the seasonings, in order that the seasoning stick to the vegetables.  The other chef rigidly demanded that we follow Keller's own instruction, which reads 'Sprinkle the zucchini with salt and pepper and drizzle generously with olive oil'.  After a Gordon Ramsey style altercation, we compromised and did it my way.  Finally, the tomatoes were prepared:

Next, the moment of truth.  The chicken emerges from the oven:

There is no more beautiful sight in all of cooking 

Then the summer vegetables went in.  Meanwhile, Judy had been preparing potatoes, roasting them on the range in a Dutch Oven:

 Things were coming together!  I prepared a jus in the cooking pan:

And already it was time to take the vegetables out, top the tomatoes with olivade, and then put the tomatoes back in the oven to warm through.  Then, the ritual butchering of the chicken:

And... plating:

Before I met jus

After I met jus

Verdict: heavenly.  The chicken was salty and succulent and bathed in thyme soaked jus.  The vegetables were lovely; maybe the tomatoes were the least successful.  They hadn't really baked much in the oven (we think that it's because the oven wasn't hot enough).  But the olivade was good.  One burning question remains.  Was it worth the THYME?

"French Home Cooking: Some Cryptic Suggestions"

The same evening as we made the ginger cookies, we made a dish from the book 'French Home Cooking', which is a very special book.  It was given by my grandmother to my mother, I think when she got married (the book was published in 1962 which was the year when Mum and Dad got married).  It might even have been a wedding present?  Anyway, it is inscribed as follows:

Now, my grandmother was no fool (she was one of the first women to attend Oxford University, reading PPE at St Hugh's in the 30s).  'Inspiration' is a good word to describe what this book has to offer.  Take the following 'recipe' for Saumon Grillé (Grilled Salmon): "Grill salmon and serve, hot, with a cucumber sauce".  That's it.  No instructions as to how to grill salmon or how to make a cucumber sauce.  No indication of how long the dish takes to prepare.  No pictures, no anecdotes.  No funny stories about that time the author had to prepare a cucumber sauce but there were no cucumbers in all of Paris, or that time when she accidentally served the dish cold instead of hot, with hilarious results.

Anyway, we finally settled on the 'recipe' for Escalopes de Veau à la Viennoise (Schnitzel, to you and me):

It's the one in the middle on the left.  The instructions read: 'Prepare escalopes in the Viennese way.  Serve hot.'

First up, prepare breadcrumbs.  Line up alongside flour and egg:

 Then unwrap the veal:

 Dunk scallops in the order flour, egg, breadcrumbs:

 Then fry:

"Fry until ready"

Here they are in all their glory:

 We served them with roast potatoes and stir-fried red cabbage, with a lemon quarter:

My theory is that in the 60s, the household cooks (invariably women, then, I suppose) actually knew how to cook.  There were no ready-meals in the supermarkets and no microwaves.  So you could write a recipe book with the barest of instructions; people bought the book for tips on whether the dish was served hot or cold, or whether it had a cucumber sauce or not.  If this is right, then since I managed to fry these escalopes OK, that means that I am currently at the level of the average 60s housewife in terms of cooking ability.  I'm quite proud of that!

"Deserts from Canyon Ranch" [Geddit?]

OK, so this happened a long time ago, so I am not entirely sure what happened.  But basically, we had to make something from the Canyon Ranch dessert cookbook.  Here we faced two obvious problems: one, we hate desserts, and two, everything from Canyon Ranch is supposed to be healthy.  "Healthy Desserts"?  That sounds suspiciously like an oxymoron.  But we pressed ahead, and chose to do 'Triple Ginger Cookies':

First, I prepared one of the ginger ingredients, the minced fresh ginger:

Then I minced some crystallized ginger too:

There might be some powdered ginger too in the lefthand receptacle but it's hard to tell

Meanwhile, Katherine was measuring out some cream cheese:

This was being added to butter, cream cheese, brown sugar, egg yolk, and molasses:

Cream everything together:

 Then roast potatoes:

This was a long time ago.  I'm still trying to fit all the pieces together.

 The cookie mixture eventually becomes nice and sticky:

Add flour and baking soda:

 Finally, add the three gingers:

Mix together to arrive at the final cookie mixture:

Next, spoon the mixture out into attractive lumps on the baking tray:

We had no idea how they were going to look when they came out.  To our surprise, they came out perfect:

They were delicious: very soft, very chewy, and very tangy.  And very healthy, with only a cup and a half of brown sugar and 1/3 cup of molasses, and 1/3 cup of butter, and...

In an amazing culinary feat, at the very same time as we were making the cookies, we were making a recipe from 'French Home Cooking'... See the next entry!