Quiche Lorraine

The classic quiche of bacon, eggs, and cream.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 C creme fraiche
Cream to thin out the creme fraiche (typically about 3 T)
Pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 lb bacon, in lardons
pie crust, either store bought or homemade

Preheat oven to 375 F and blind bake the crust until lightly golden (about 10 minutes for a room temperature docked crust without pie weights).  While this is baking brown the bacon over medium low heat, then drain.  Beat together the creme fraiche, cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper, and eggs.  Scatter the bacon on the crust, and pour over the cream mixture.  Bake at 375 until the filling is just set, about 25 minutes.


Variations:
While it would stop being a traditional quiche lorraine you could vary the recipe some by adding sauteed mushroom and/or grated gruyere. Be careful with the salt if using gruyere.

French-Style Garlic Sausage

There aren't any amounts to this, as I wasn't measuring when I made it, and you usually have to adjust it by cooking some and tasting it.  The dominant flavors should be garlic and thyme with an under tone of red wine.

Pork shoulder
Salt pork
Thyme
Garlic
Nutmeg
Salt
Pepper
Rich red wine like a burgundy 
A slice or two of slightly stale bread

Grind together the garlic, pork shoulder, salt pork, and bread; I used a coarser grind and only ground it once.  Mix in the spices and check the seasoning by frying up some.  Casing the sausage is optional.

Tomato Bisque

A nice simple creamy tomato soup.  There isn't a whole lot to it, so you need to use the best ingredients - homemade chicken stock and san marzano tomatoes.

Ingredients:
1 onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced
4+1 cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz can whole peeled san marzano tomatoes
2-3 C chicken stock
5 T butter
4 T flour
3/4 C cream, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste
1 bay leaf
3/4 t smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 t thyme

Melt the butter and saute the onion, four cloves garlic, carrot, and celery until lightly browned.  Add the thyme and stir for a few seconds.  Add in the flour and stir to make a roux, cooking it for a few minutes.  Add the chicken stock and hand crush the tomatoes into the pot, then add in any juice that was in the can.  Add bay leaf, paprika, salt, and pepper.  Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes or so to blend the flavors, then puree in a blender or with an immersion blender.  Add in the cream and the last clove of garlic and bring back to a simmer, then check the seasoning.  I like to serve it with toasted bread and cheese, whether baked brie or just a grilled cheese.

Caesar Salad

The salad itself for this is nothing special, just shredded romaine lettuce (two heads works well for this much dressing), grated romano or parmesan cheese, and croutons (preferably homemade, I may post a recipe for those at some point, but it's not hard to figure out how to make them), but the dressing is something special and requires a little work.

4 anchovies, minced and crushed with the flat of the knife
the juice of half a lemon
1 T minced and crushed garlic
1 t worchestershire sauce
1 t dijon mustard
1 egg yolk

Beat these ingredients together in a large bowl, then start to slow drizzle in olive oil, forming an emulsion.  You'll have to add it very slowly at first, then you can add a little more in.  Beat the oil in until the sauce is smooth, thickened, and creamy.  Taste it for both balance of flavor and salt (if it's still aggressively fishy you probably need more oil).

French Onion Soup

I tend to eat a lot more soup in the winters, but even then most of them don't blow me away; this one did.  I was just playing around looking for something to eat that would use up some of the gallon and a half of homemade chicken stock in my fridge, but damned if it isn't by far the best French onion soup I've ever had.

4 C onion, thinly sliced
6 C chicken or beef stock (homemade preferably, this is such a simple soup that store-bought probably wouldn't bring enough flavor to the party.  Also, if you're using chicken stock make sure it's made with well browned chicken)
2 t dried sage, rubbed
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cloves garlic, poached for 20 minutes and smashed
1 bay leaf
3 T butter
1/2 C glace de viande or glace de volaille (you could leave it out, but it just wouldn't be the same)
1 C burgundy
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and brown the crap out of the onions slowly over low to medium low.  About a minute before the onions are done add in the chopped garlic.

Add in the rest and simmer for 45 minutes.

Traditionally this would then be topped with toasted bread and gruyere, then broiled to brown the cheese, but I thought it was just fine with a little cheese thrown in and a side of crispy garlic potatoes.

A Great Meal: Pork and Onion Confit on Polenta with Sides

This was a great meal, pork confit and onion confit on top of creamy polenta with glace de viande sauce, served with Spanish garlic soup and mushrooms in sherry and garlic sauce.

The downside?  This takes a lot (A LOT) of prep before hand, and you have to manage your time and space using all four burners.  In addition to the stuff made well ahead, make sure you have all the mise en place for the mushrooms ready.

So the first step is to make your glace de viande; it's a beast of a recipe and it'll take you a couple of days, but most of that time is just sitting around while things simmer.  It also makes a lot and it freezes well.

Next, you'll need to make the pork confit and onion confit; both of these can be made ahead, keep well, and will make more than you need.

The next longest thing, and one you can't make ahead is the creamy polenta, which I'm just swiping from Emeril, but I halve the recipe, use sour cream instead of creme fraiche, and add a splash of cream.  Once you get this started, start up your garlic soup; you'll want to get to the point where the broth is in and everything except the eggs and the toasted bread have been added to the broth.  Now just cover it and keep it warm.

Eight to ten minutes before the polenta is done, start up the mushrooms.

In the last five minutes of making the polenta, bring the soup to a gentle simmer and crack the eggs in to gently poach (you may have to flip them toward the end of poaching - you want the whites cooked and the yolks runny).  Immediately after that, melt just a little pork confit fat into a small skillet, add a small handful of the onion confit, followed shortly by a larger handful of the pork confit.  You just want to get this warm, any more and you'll dry out the pork.

Plate the polenta, add the pork and onion on top, then toss 2T of glace de viande and a little over 1 T of butter into the skillet from the pork and combine it.  Spoon the mushrooms out on to the plate, and drizzle the glace over the pork and onions.  Ladle up the soup, making sure to get an egg, whole, in the bowl, and top with a piece of toasted bread.

French Apple Cobbler

A classic apple cobbler with a golden slightly crispy topping.  This one is also a hit made in a dutch oven in a camp fire.

Ingredients:
Apple Filling:
5 C tart apples, peeled, sliced thinly (I use granny smith)
3/4 C sugar
2 T flour
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla extract
1/4 C water
1 T butter, softened
Lemon juice

Topping:
1/2 C flour, sifted
1/2 C sugar
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T butter, softened
1 egg, slightly beaten

Peel and slice the apples; I find this takes long enough that I end up tossing them with a little lemon juice to prevent browning.
In a medium bowl, combine filling ingredients. Dot apples with 1 tablespoon butter.
Combine topping ingredients, beating until the batter is smooth
Dot batter in small spoonfuls over the apples, spacing evenly.  It will spread and brown during baking.
baking. Bake 35 to 40 minutes at 375° F or until apples are tender and crust is golden brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Steak au Poivre (Pepper Steak)

This is my favorite way to make steak: pepper encrusted steak cooked in the French style and served with a creamy pan sauce.  This works equally well with venison loin, and I typically serve it with some simple potatoes and sauteed asparagus; mushrooms also tend to pair well with the cream sauce.

Ingredients
1 good steak, I like strip steak, but you could use filet or other tender steak, but if you use a big one like t-bone you'll probably want to double the sauce
1 T coarsely cracked pepper
Vegetable oil, or other high smoke point oil
salt
a splash cognac or dry sherry
3 T heavy cream
1 T dijon mustard
1 shallot, halved and sliced into half rings


Instructions

Press the pepper into both sides of the steak and let it sit for a couple of hours.
Put some oil in a steel or cast iron skillet over medium high to high heat, and while the oil heats sprinkle salt and pepper on the steak to taste.  Pat to make sure the pepper adheres to the steak.  It's important to use a heavy skillet that isn't non-stick; this is going to be hot enough to destroy teflon.
When the oil is just short of smoking add the steak and sear the steak on both sides to desired doneness (which is medium rare).  Fight the temptation to poke, prod, and move the meat; you're going to flip this steak exactly once.  When it's on the second side and getting close to where you want it add the shallot into the pan around the steak.  Remove the steak to rest, leaving the shallot.
Deglaze the pan with the cognac or sherry, then tip the pan to ignite (or use a long lighter).  Be careful, the fireball can be impressive, and you probably like your eyebrows, but it does make this a good dish if you feel like showing off.  Whisk the bottom of the skillet to release the fond.
Add the cream and mustard; whisk to combine, cook for a couple of minutes, check the seasoning, then pour over the steak and serve.



Note:
You can make more than one of these at a time, just make sure you don't crowd the pan and multiply the sauce as necessary.

Zucchini and Lardon

A rich but simple side dish which can be served with a variety of  cuisines.

3 smallish zucchini, quartered and chopped
6-7 T salt pork, finely chopped (1/4" cubes)
2 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and pepper to taste.

Throw the salt pork in a skillet (not non-stick), and saute until brown and crispy. Add the shallots and garlic, saute for a minute or so, add the zucchini, salt, and pepper. Cook until the zucchini is the desired texture.

Pork Confit

Pork cured in herbs then slowly poached in fat.  It may not be terribly good for you, but sometimes you have to indulge.  You can make this with either loin or shoulder, with loin being better for things like slicing to put on sandwiches, but if you want to make rillettes you're really going to need to make it with the shoulder.  This recipe is a slight modification of the one from Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn -- THE guide to curing meats, and as the weather gets colder and more suitable to hanging meat to dry, one you should definitely go buy.

Ingredients:
2.5 lbs of pork loin, or 4 lbs if using shoulder cut in to four slices for loin, or cubed for shoulder
2 T kosher salt
3 bay leaves
6 T flat leaf parsley
4 T fresh sage
1.5 T black pepper, ground or crushed
4 T shallots
5 cloves garlic
1/2 t pink salt (insta cure #1, a mix of salt and 6.25% sodium nitrite)
enough fat to fully submerge the meat, preferably rendered duck fat, but lard will also work (at some point I also want to try using fat rendered from beef marrow bones when making stock/glace)

Food processor together the herbs, shallots, and garlic, then add in the salt, pink salt, and pepper and processor briefly.  Rub the meat with this mixture and refrigerate for three to four days.

Remove the meat and rinse off all the seasoning, then dry.  Melt the fat in a pot or dutch oven, add the meat, and bring just to a simmer; the meat must be fully submerged.  Remove from the heat and place in an oven preheated to 180-200 F.  Cook until fork tender, approximately 4 hours for loin, and 4-6 for shoulder.

At this point you can remove the meat and separate out the meat and the juices from cooking, making sure to reserve both.  The meat can be re-submerged in the fat and kept in the fridge for weeks or months (the original purpose of confit was to preserve meat), while the juices can be used as a seasoning for the meat, either mixed into rillettes or sprinkled onto the meat while pan searing.  If you do this with shoulder the juices will also have a considerable amount of gelatin, which helps to produce a rich velvety sauce.  Keep in mind that the juices and the meat will be fairly salty from the curing, so taste to make sure you don't over salt.  The fat can be reused, but again, it will pick up salt.

Glace de Viande

This one is a beast to make, but it will make 3-4 servings of the base for some of the best sauces you'll ever taste. This is, essentially, a stock that's cooked down until the natural gelatin thickens the sauce, but you'll have to make the stock yourself as store bought stuff doesn't have the gelatin or the depth of flavor that you need. You'll also need a big soup pot to hold everything.

Ingredients:
8 lbs beef bones, a mix of marrow bones and joint ends (you don't want the typical soup bones that are a little chunk of bone with a bunch of meat around it)
1 lb onion, rough chopped
1 lb carrots, rough chopped
1/2 lb celery, rough chopped
8-10 sprigs parsley
1 bay leaf
15-20 peppercorns
3 cloves garlic
1 t dried thyme

Instructions:
Roast the bones in a 400 degree oven for 3 hours. Add the onions, celery and carrot plus 2 cups of cold water to the roasting pan (carefully, there may be some splattering from the hot fat in the pan) with the bones and return to the oven for another hour.

Transfer all of the bones and veggies to a soup pot as well as all the juices and anything you can scrap off the pan, add the rest of the ingredients and add enough water to cover everything by an inch or two. Simmer for 8 hours, adding water occasionally if needed, and skimming off any scum that floats to the surface.

Kill the heat and strain out all the veggies, bones, and other solids and pitch them, then chill it down in the fridge to solidify the fat so it can be easily removed. Now take the stock and bring it to a high boil for three hours or so until the volume is reduced to about a pint.

The finished glace de viande can then be turned into specific sauces: add in the drippings from a roasted chicken, some poached garlic, and a few tablespoons of butter and you have a sauce for the chicken; use some burgundy to deglaze the pan after cooking some steaks, then add in the glace and a couple tablespoons of butter and you have bordelaise sauce for the steak. Leftover glace de viande freezes well.

Beef Wellington

Now that the holidays are approaching, it's time for a nice impressive main course for a special occasion, which definitely calls for beef wellington.

1 beef tenderloin
1 sheet puff pastry
1/4-1/2 lb prosciutto (enough to wrap the tenderloin)
2 T oil
salt and pepper
1 egg beaten with a little water

marinade/sauce:
1/3 C olive oil
1/2 C chopped carrot
1/2 C chopped onion
1/2 C chopped celery
1/4 t thyme
1/4 t sage
1 bay leaf
3 cloves
6 peppercorns
1 t salt
1 C dry vermouth
1/3 C cognac
one can beef broth
corn starch

Duxelles:
1.5 lbs mushrooms, minced
4 T butter
4 T shallot, minced
1/2 C madeira wine
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the celery, onions, and carrot for the marinade with the herbs, then cool. Add the rest of the ingredients for the marinade except the beef broth and corn starch, cool, and add the beef. Marinate over night, reserving the marinade at the end.

Remove the beef from the marinade and dry. Season the beef tenderloin with salt and pepper; allow to sit at room temperature for an hour. Heat the oil in a steel skillet until extremely hot; sear the tenderloin on all sides then remove and allow to cool. Save any juices which run off the meat while cooling.

Use 2 T of the butter to saute the shallot and minced mushroom. When thoroughly cooked down add the wine, salt, and pepper. Remove from the heat, cool, then mix in the remaining 2 T butter. It should be noted that cooking the mushrooms should be done over medium to medium low heat, and will take some time.
Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap, and on that, lay out the prosciutto in an overlapping pattern such that every section ends up with two layers of prosciutto on it. Spread the mushroom mixture evenly over all of it. Put the beef tenderloin in it, folding the thin end back on the meat to achieve an even thickness of meat. Tightly roll it in the plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes to set. Remove from the plastic wrap and wrap in the puff pastry (it may need to be rolled out to the length of the tenderloin).
Cut a few vent holes, and brush with egg wash. Bake 20 minutes in a 425 degree oven, then lower to 375 and bake an additional 20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown.
While the beef is cooking, combine the marinade with the beef broth and simmer until a volume of 2 C is reached, adjusting seasoning. Strain and degrease, then thicken with cornstarch to desired consistency.
Serve the beef with the sauce on the side.