Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2

by Julia Child

  For 6 to 8 servings

  1 sheet of baked puff pastry 12 by 16 inches in diameter (Napoleons; Steps 1 and 2)

  A ruler or cutting guide

  A pastry wheel or very sharp knife

  Cut the baked puff pastry either into three 4- by 16-inch strips, and cut each strip into squares 4 inches to a side; or cut the pastry into four 3-inch strips 16 inches long, and cut each into 4 rectangles (making 12 squares, or 16 rectangles).

  The cheese fondue filling

  3 to 4 Tb grated Parmesan cheese

  A lightly buttered baking sheet

  Preheat oven to 375 degrees about half an hour before you wish to serve. Have the filling and grated cheese ready. Place half the puff pastry pieces on the baking sheet. Spread a 3-tablespoon lump of the filling on each, but leaving a ¼-inch free border of pastry all around. Lightly press a second piece of pastry, best side uppermost, on top. Sprinkle on a half teaspoon of grated cheese.

  Bake for about 15 minutes in preheated oven, upper-middle level, until cheese topping has colored lightly and cheese filling is bubbling hot—be careful not to bake too long and burn the pastry. Serve immediately.

  (*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: You may form the mille-feuilles for baking an hour or so in advance.

  FEUILLETÉE AU FROMAGE—JALOUSIE AU FROMAGE

  [Peekaboo Cheese Tart of French Puff Pastry]

  Another delicious puff pastry for first courses, luncheons, or for slicing and serving with cocktails is the feuilletée. Quick to assemble, when you have puff pastry dough on hand, it is done exactly like the jam tart.

  For a 6- by 16-inch, tart, serving 6 people

  1) Forming the tart

  ½ the recipe for simple puff pastry, or reconstituted leftovers

  A dampened pastry sheet

  A table fork

  Either ½ to ⅔ the cheese fondue filling;

  Or 4 to 6 ounces Roquefort cheese or blue cheese, and 1 egg beaten with ½ cup crème fraîche or heavy cream, salt, pepper, and Tabasco

  Roll half the pastry into an 8- by 18-inch rectangle ⅛ inch thick. Roll up on pin, and unroll topside down onto dampened pastry sheet. Prick all over at ⅛-inch intervals with tines of fork, going right down through to pastry sheet.

  Either spread the fondue filling on the pastry, leaving a ¾-inch border all around; or cut cheese into thin slices and spread over pastry, leaving border.

  Turn borders of pastry up over filling at sides; wet corners, and turn ends over, sealing corners with fingers. If you are using Roquefort or blue cheese, spoon the egg and cream over it, tilting pastry in all directions, allowing liquid to flow all over enclosed area.

  Roll out second piece of pastry into a 7- by 17-inch rectangle ⅛ inch thick. Flour surface lightly, and fold in half lengthwise. Measure opening of filled pastry and mark folded pastry to guide you. Cut slits in dough from folded edge as shown, making them ⅜ inch apart and half as long as width of opening in tart.

  Wet edges of filled bottom layer of pastry with cold water. Unfold top layer over it; brush off accumulated flour, and press pastry in place with fingers. Then with back tines of a fork, press a decorative vertical edging all around sides of tart. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes before baking.

  (*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: When chilled and firm, may be wrapped airtight and frozen for several months. Remove from freezer, glaze, and bake as in Step 2.

  2) Baking and serving—about 1 hour at 450 and 400 degrees

  Egg glaze (1 egg beaten in a small bowl with 1 tsp water)

  A pastry brush

  A table fork or small knife

  A rack

  A serving tray or board

  When oven has been preheated to 450 degrees, set rack in lower-middle level. Paint surface of chilled tart with egg glaze; wait a moment, and give it a second coat. Make cross-hatchings on top of sides and ends through glaze, and set in oven. In about 20 minutes, when pastry has risen and started to brown, turn oven down to 400 degrees. Cover loosely with foil or brown paper if surface is browning too much. Sides should be firm and crusty. Slide onto a rack when done. Serve warm or tepid, cutting into crosswise slices.

  (*) Tart is best when freshly made, but you can store it for several hours in a warming oven at about 100 degrees.

  Garnitures for Bouchées and Vol-au-Vent

  RIS DE VEAU À LA FINANCIÈRE

  [Braised Sweetbreads Garnished with Quenelles, Truffles, Mushrooms, and Olives]

  This is certainly one of the great classic fillings for bouchées and large vol-au-vent, and delicious when properly done. Unfortunately, like Beef Wellington in the hands of the profane and cynical, gummy sauces, clumsy flavoring, and bad pastry have ruined its reputation. We urge you to give it another try, and you will understand why it has long been so popular with great chefs. You may not want to add all of the items listed, but you will have a delicious creamed sweetbread filling even if you do not do the full financière, which could also include cockscombs and white kidneys (crêtes et rognons de coq), although we have not listed them in the ingredients.

  MANUFACTURING NOTE

  This is the kind of filling that you can prepare the day before serving. We shall not give proportions of how much filling is to go into each pastry, because there is no way of knowing what size and how many you are to make; leftover filling will be just as good the next day, with scrambled eggs or as the filling for an omelette.

  For about 1½ quarts, serving 6 to 8

  1) The sweetbreads and the sauce base

  2 lbs. soaked and peeled sweetbreads braised in wine, stock, and aromatic vegetables, Volume I, page 410

  2 cups fresh baby mushrooms, or larger mushrooms quartered

  2½ cups liquid as follows: the cooking stock from the sweetbreads plus half veal or chicken stock and half milk to complete the measure

  A heavy-bottomed 3-quart saucepan, enameled or stainless

  4 Tb butter

  5 Tb flour

  A wooden spoon and a wire whip

  ½ to ⅔ cup heavy cream

  Remove sweetbreads to a plate, and strain cooking stock into a bowl. Return stock to braising dish. Trim mushrooms, wash rapidly in cold water, and quarter if necessary. Add mushrooms to liquid in braising dish and simmer 5 minutes. Dip or strain them out, and add to sweetbreads. In the heavy saucepan, melt the butter, blend in the flour, and stir over moderate heat with wooden spoon until flour and butter foam together for 2 minutes without browning. Remove from heat, and as soon as this roux stops bubbling, pour in all the hot braising liquid at once, blending vigorously with wire whip until perfectly smooth.

  Return over moderately high heat, and stir with wire whip as sauce thickens and comes to the boil. It will be quite thick. Thin out, still simmering, with spoonfuls of cream; sauce should coat spoon fairly heavily.

  Salt and white pepper to taste

  If needed: More white wine, Sercial Madeira, more stock, a pinch more thyme or bay leaf

  Taste sauce very carefully for seasoning and strength. It may need simmering with more wine, or strengthening with Madeira, veal stock, a little beef stock, or herbs. If so, simmer it, stirring, and tasting until you are satisfied. The egg yolks, butter, and the other ingredients will give it more interest, but it should be delicious at this point. (You will need about equal quantities of sauce and garniture.)

  2) The rest of the garniture, and final flavorings and enrichment

  1 or more truffles and the juices from the can

  Veal or chicken quenelles, poached, and cut into ½-inch pieces, Volume I, page 189 (or canned imported quenelles of veal or chicken), 1 to 1½ cups, depending on how much you have or need

  ⅔ cup small green pitted olives simmered 5 minutes in 1 quart of water

  Salt and white pepper to taste

  Drops of lemon juice

  2 egg yolks blended with ¼ cup heavy cream in a small bowl

  2 to 4 Tb soft butter

  Hot bouchées or vol-au-vent

  Optional: truffle slices o
r a fluted cooked mushroom cap (Volume I, pages 510–11) for each serving

  Cut the braised sweetbreads into ½-inch slices or into ½-inch dice, and set aside. Fold the mushrooms into the sauce. If you have several truffles, slice one and use for decoration later; dice the rest into small pieces and add to the sauce along with their juices. Fold in the diced quenelles and the olives. Bring to the simmer for 3 to 4 minutes to blend flavors, and taste very carefully for seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and lemon as needed. Remove from heat, beat several spoonfuls of hot sauce gradually into the cream and egg yolks, then fold the egg-yolk mixture back into the saucepan along with the sweetbreads. Reheat, folding slowly, to below the simmer. Remove from heat and fold in the butter, a spoonful at a time. Spoon into the hot bouchées or vol-au-vent, and serve immediately, topped, if you wish, with truffle slices or fluted mushrooms.

  VARIATIONS

  Garniture Dieppoise—Garniture aux Fruits de Mer

  [Creamed Seafood Filling]

  Adapt the marmite dieppoise, with its sole, halibut, shrimp, scallops, mussels, and lobsters, to the preceding recipe. Follow the marmite recipe, Steps 1 and 2, then boil the cooking liquid down to 2½ to 3 cups, and proceed with the sauce in the preceding recipe, Steps 1 and 2. Use sliced truffles or fluted mushrooms to garnish each serving.

  Garniture de Volaille, Financière

  [Diced Chicken in White-wine Sauce with Quenelles, Truffles, Mushrooms, and Olives]

  Poach chicken pieces in white wine and aromatic vegetables, following the recipe for poulet poché au vin blanc, Steps 1 and 2. Peel and dice the chicken, and then proceed as for the sweetbreads, simply substituting chicken and chicken stock for fish and fish stock.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Meats: From Country Kitchen to Haute Cuisine

  BRAISED BEEF

  Boeuf Braisé, Paupiettes, and Daubes

  WHETHER IT IS ONE LARGE PIECE or a dozen small ones, whether you use red wine or white, whether or not you marinate it, lard it, flour it, thicken its juices at the beginning or at the end, all beef that is braised undergoes much the same process, and if you have done one you can do all. This is comforting to remember when you run into a new pot roast or stew: it is only the small differences in method, garnishing, or flavor that distinguish one recipe from another. For example, the fine boeuf en daube à la provençale sounds as though it were quite a different dish from the boeuf à la mode in Volume I on page 309, but you will see they are very much related: while the beef for the daube is larded with ham, and is put into a thickened sauce from the beginning of its braise, the sauce for the boeuf à la mode is thickened at the end of the cooking. Again, in a comparison of beef stews you find the boeuf bourguignon in Volume I braising in a flour-thickened sauce, while the boeuf aux oignons follows the simpler pattern of having its sauce thickened at the end with beurre manié (flour-butter paste). The methods are actually interchangeable, and you can conduct any braise exactly as you wish; the more techniques you have absorbed, the more you are master of la cuisine.

  MARINATING THE BEEF BEFORE COOKING

  An aromatic wine marinade adds its own special flavor to beef, and is always an effective tenderizer for the tougher cuts. Marinate or not, as you wish, for any of the following recipes, using the formula for the daube, and dry white wine rather than red, if you wish. For the marinade to be effective, stew meat or meat for paupiettes needs at least 6 hours, and a roast, 12 hours. Several days of marination in the refrigerator will be even more penetrating, and the marinade will also preserve the meat a little longer. In other words, rather than freezing it, if you are a once-a-week shopper, marinate it. Drain and dry the beef thoroughly before proceeding with any recipe. Substitute the marinade vegetables and wine for whatever is called for in the recipe, and if carrots are not one of the ingredients listed, for instance, add the marinade carrots anyway, since such details are of small importance.

  LARDONS, PORK FAT, BACON, AND SUET

  Lardons, those stick-shaped bits of fat-and-lean pork 1½ inches long and ¼ inch thick, are typical of French stews. Their rendered fat browns the beef, and their flavor adds a subtle touch to its sauce. Fresh, unsalted, and unsmoked pork belly is the cut to use if you can find it, otherwise substitute chunk bacon, cut, and blanched (simmered) 10 minutes in a quart of water to remove its salty, smoky taste. (Fat-and-lean salt pork, if very fresh and fine, is another alternative, but it must also be blanched.) Pork fat for larding and for draping over the meat is discussed in the charcuterie chapter. If you prefer suet, although it tends to shrink up, use fat from the outside of a rib or a loin of beef.

  BEEF CUTS FOR STEWS

  Most markets have ready-cut stew meat all packaged by the pound, and there is no telling what it is. If you want to order your own, the following are some recommended cuts.

  Cuts from the round (hind leg)—la cuisse

  TOP ROUND, tende de tranche. This is rather expensive, but furnishes solid pieces of meat with no muscle separations.

  BOTTOM ROUND, gîte à la noix. This also furnishes solid pieces, but the cooked meat will tend to be somewhat grainy; be sure not to overcook it, to avoid an accentuation of this quality. The eye of the round, part of this cut, rond de gîte à la noix, is not at all recommended for stewing because of its excessive graininess.

  SIRLOIN TIP (also called KNUCKLE), tranche grasse. Lower parts and outside of this cut, when clear of gristle, can be used for stewing.

  HEEL OF ROUND, nerveux gîte à la noix. The hind shank when boned and de-gristled makes excellent, gelatinous stew meat, but benefits from a marinade and longer cooking.

  Cuts from the chuck (shoulder end)

  SHOULDER BLADE, paleron; SHOULDER ARM, macreuse and jumeau; CHUCK RIBS, basses côtes or côtes découvertes; NECK, collier. There are numerous fine stewing cuts from this section, but usually only Jewish or European butchers know them. Especially recommended are the chuck tender, a conical muscle lying along one side of the shoulder blade; flunken or flanken, the top of the chuck short ribs; arm pot roast.

  Cuts from the underside and short ribs—caparaçon et plat de côtes

  These include the brisket, poitrine, which is really too grainy for stewing but fine for braising whole; the plate, tendron, with its mixture of fat and lean and its cartilaginous bones, which make for good sauce consistency; and the flank, flanchet, which is not for stewing in pieces but may be stuffed and braised whole if it is not scored and broiled for steak. The short ribs, plat de côtes couvert (ribs 7 to 9), are excellent in a stew but take up a lot of room in your casserole because the bones are left in; however, they have excellent flavor and the meat with bones makes a delicious sauce.

  BOEUF AUX OIGNONS

  [Beef Stew with Onions and Red Wine]

  This is the most elemental of beef stews, with its lardons of pork that render the fat that browns the beef that simmers in wine, along with onions, herbs, garlic, and a hint of tomato. Delicious just as it is, the inclusion of other elements changes its character as well as its name, making it, in fact, the perfect stew for our game of theme and variations. Buttered noodles, buttered peas, and little tomatoes go beautifully with this stew, but if you wish to branch into more exotic preparations you might choose one of the eggplant recipes, such as the sauté en persillade, or the broiled eggplant slices, accompanied, perhaps, with individual servings of potatoes in the form of pommes duchesse. A full and hearty red wine like Beaujolais, Côtes-du-Rhône, or Mountain Red is called for here.

  For 6 people

  1) Browning the beef and other preliminaries

  5 to 6 ounces (⅔ cup) lardons (1½-inch sticks of blanched bacon ¼ inch thick)

  Olive oil or cooking oil

  A large (11-inch) frying pan (no-stick recommended)

  A heavy, covered, 5- to 6-quart casserole (such as a round one, 10 by 4 inches)

  Brown the lardons lightly with a tablespoon of the oil in the frying pan; transfer with a slotted spoon to the casserole, leaving fat in frying pan.

&
nbsp; 3½ to 4 lbs. boned and trimmed beef stew meat cut into chunks about 2 by 3 by 1 inches (see list of cuts)

  Paper towels

  1 tsp salt

  ⅛ tsp pepper

  While lardons are browning, dry meat thoroughly in paper towels, and when lardons are done, raise heat under pan to moderately high. When fat in pan is very hot but not smoking, add as many pieces of beef as will fit easily in one layer. Turn every 2 to 3 minutes, browning meat nicely on all sides. (Add a tablespoon or so more oil if needed.) As some pieces are browned, transfer to casserole and brown additional ones until all are done and transferred to casserole. Toss and turn the meat with the salt and pepper.

  2) Assembling braising ingredients

  2 cups sliced onions

  2 large cloves garlic, mashed