Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2

by Julia Child

  Be very careful here that you roll the dough evenly and that the final combined thickness of top and bottom layers is no less than ¾ inch; when the dough is thinner you risk breakage and leakage problems later on. (If by any chance you muff this on your first try, briefly knead dough into a ball, chill an hour or more to relax it, and start over again.)

  2 to 3 Tb lard or shortening

  A baking sheet with raised edges (to catch cooking juices)

  Scissors

  Grease inside of mold and baking sheet, and set mold on sheet. Fold dough lightly in half lengthwise and center in mold. Unfold and ease it gently into place by lifting sides of dough, being careful always that you do not stretch the dough and make it thinner at any point. Clip off a gob of extra dough and use it as a tampon, rather than your fingers, to press dough against pastry sheet and sides of mold.

  Leaving a 1½- to 2-inch overhang, trim off excess dough with scissors.

  The sheets of fresh pork fat

  Place an oval of pork fat on the bottom of the mold, and line the sides. This fat is your insurance against crust-cracking.

  2) Filling the mold

  The pâté mixture and the strips of garniture (see notes preceding recipe)

  The lined pâté mold

  A bowl of cold water

  With your pâté mixture made, your garniture in strips, and your mold ready, you can now assemble the pâté. Have a bowl of cold water handy to dip your hands into when you spread in the meat mixture. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

  Fill the mold, starting with a layer of pâté, then a layer of garniture strips, a layer of pâté, another of garniture, and a final layer of pâté mixture. Fill mold just to rim, making only a slightly domed shape in center: if mold is too full, juices will bubble out over crust during baking.

  1 imported bay leaf

  A sprig or 2 of thyme (or ¼ tsp dried thyme)

  The second oval of fresh pork fat

  Place bay leaf and thyme on top of pâté; cover with the second oval of pork fat.

  The reserved dough (or chilled leftover dough)

  The paper pattern (size of mold opening)

  A pastry brush and cold water

  A table fork

  Roll the reserved dough out ½ inch thick, cut into an oval following pattern, and place on top of pork-fat oval. Paint circumference with cold water and fold edges over, pressing first with fingers to seal, and then with the back tines of a table fork.

  (NOTE: Cover must be thick so that it will rise only a little, otherwise you will have too large a gap between meat and top of crust after baking. Another reason for making it thick is that it will barely cook through and thus will not crumble when you eventually slice the pâté.)

  Pastry cutouts made from leftover dough

  Egg glaze (1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water)

  Make pastry cutouts of any shape you wish. (Illustrations are in Volume I, page 574.) One by one, paint bottoms of cutouts with egg glaze and press in place on top of pâté, completely covering seam where edges of pastry overlap.

  2 greased chimneys 1½ inches high, such as metal funnels, metal tubes from a pastry bag, or aluminum foil

  With a sharp-pointed knife, make 2 holes ¼ inch in diameter in top of pâté, going down through to touch the meat; insert chimneys. They allow cooking steam to escape rather than to gather in the crust, possibly bursting it. Just before baking, paint top of pâté with egg glaze, being careful none drips down into mold.

  (*) AHEAD-OF-TIME-NOTES: Pâté mixture, garniture, and dough may be made a day or two in advance of baking, or pâté may be assembled (but not glazed), covered, and refrigerated for a day or two if meat is fresh. Add 20–30 minutes more to baking time if pâté has been chilled before going into oven.

  3) Baking—1½ to 2 hours; oven preheated to 375 degrees

  Useful: A meat thermometer

  A pan, spoon, and bulb baster for removing fat from pan

  Place in lower middle or middle level of oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until crust begins to color, then lower thermostat to 350 degrees for rest of baking. Inspect pâté every 20–30 minutes: suck up fat from baking sheet with bulb baster and wipe off sheet with paper towels. An accumulation of fat can burn bottom of pâté, and it also smokes up the kitchen.

  Pâté is done when juices begin bubbling up into funnel; they should be clear yellow. Check temperature by removing funnel and inserting meat thermometer, which should read between 160 and 165 degrees.

  3) Cooling the pâté—the aspic

  Remove pâté from oven, but do not attempt to slide pâté off baking sheet or to remove mold from pâté at this point, since you might tear or crack the crust, which must remain intact. Let cool completely for several hours or overnight, then chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

  A funnel

  4 cups wine-flavored aspic (2 Tb gelatin dissolved in ¼ cup port or Cognac combined with 3¾ cups beef bouillon)

  A bowl of cracked ice

  During baking, the meat shrinks slightly from the top and sides of the crust, and you want to fill this space with aspic, which is delicious both visually and gastronomically. When pâté is thoroughly chilled, and with the mold still in place, insert funnel in a chimney hole in top of pâté. Being sure aspic has been well tested for consistency so that it will hold its shape when cold, stir over cracked ice until almost syrupy and on the point of setting; pour through funnel into pâté, tilting pâté in all directions, allowing aspic to run all over and around it. Chill again for several hours.

  Finally, when aspic has chilled, remove pin from mold and carefully nudge sides of mold from sides of pâté. Once mold is off, pâté will hold its shape perfectly.

  4) Serving

  To serve, cut pie-shaped wedges going around circumference of pâté. For a rectangular pâté, cut straight across, as though it were a loaf of bread.

  5) Storing

  Pâté en croûte will keep a week to 10 days at 37 degrees. It is the aspic that might go off first, and then the crust with the meat juices in it. If you wish to keep leftovers a little longer, remove the crust, scrape off the aspic and the fat-covering, and wrap the meat in plastic or foil. A cooked pâté can be frozen, but will never have the same fresh texture again.

  FORMING AND BAKING THE PTÉ WITHOUT A MOLD

  Although the hinged mold is easier to manage, baking a bottom case of dough to act as a mold works very nicely and is not difficult to do. The dough is formed on an upside-down casserole or bread pan, upon which it is baked, just as upside-down pastry shells are formed and baked. The baked case is then lined with fat, filled with the pâté, draped with a close-fitting sheet of dough, decorated, and baked as usual.

  1) The bottom case of dough

  The pâté à croustades à l’envers, Formula 7, for 20 ounces of flour

  A 6-cup mold, such as an oval casserole or bread pan, greased on the outside with lard or shortening

  Roll ⅔ of the dough into a circle 2 inches more in diameter than the length of your mold, and 1½ inches thick. Form a pouch exactly as thick and exactly as illustrated for the spring-form mold. Press lightly onto mold and trim off excess dough with a knife or pastry wheel. Cover and chill 2 hours or overnight (to relax dough and prevent shrinkage during baking). Set as is, mold still upside down, on a baking sheet in a preheated 425-degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until pastry is starting to color. Turn thermostat down to 350 degrees and bake 10 minutes more, or until pastry just loosens from mold but is not cooked through: it holds its shape but is not browned. Cool 15 minutes on mold, then unmold carefully onto a rack and cool 30 minutes until pastry is firm and set.

  2) Filling the case

  Lard or shortening

  A baking sheet

  Pâté ingredients listed in preceding recipe, including sheets of pork fat and paper pattern

  Grease just the area where pastry case will sit on baking sheet, and set case on sheet. Following directions in preceding recipe, cut pork fat to fit bott
om, sides, and top of pâté, line the case with the pork fat, and fill with pâté mixture, topping with a sheet of pork fat.

  3) The cover, and finishing the pâté

  Chilled leftover dough and remaining dough

  Egg glaze, pastry brush, pastry cutouts, chimneys, as described in preceding recipe

  To discourage a gap from developing between top of meat and crust after baking, roll out a preliminary cover of dough ¼ inch thick, to fit top of pork fat. Set in place on pâté. Then roll remaining dough into a sheet ¼ to ⅜ inch thick and large enough to cover top of pastry case and to fall ⅔ the way down the case all around. Paint sides of case with egg glaze and arrange covering sheet of dough over pâté. Trim edges all around with scissors, then press dough in place against sides of case. Decorate with cutouts, insert chimneys, glaze, bake, cool, chill, and fill with aspic as described and illustrated in preceding recipe.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Choice of Vegetables

  WHEN YOU BUY VEGETABLES FRESH and cook them lovingly, you may find yourself more renowned for your remarkable zucchini stuffed with almonds than for your spectacular crêpes Suzette. And why not, when flaming desserts are becoming status symbols and hand-whittled fresh vegetables more and more of a rarity? Recipes for vegetables consume over 100 pages in Volume I, and describe some of the ways to prepare rice and potatoes as well as almost everything to do with artichokes, asparagus, green beans, and spinach, plus how to braise endive, how to turn a mushroom, and where to peel the chestnut. There are gaps, however, and while the present chapter will fill some of them we are more interested in giving you fresh ideas for old favorites than in completing the vegetable roster. Although we have included a number of classics, like pommes Anna, most of the recipes here are new ones that you will not have seen before—the sautéed broccoli, for instance, the unusual purées starting with gratin de potiron d’Arpajon, the spinach with onions. While some dishes are as elaborate as the stuffed artichoke bottoms, others are as fast and simple as the grated zucchini. Seldom-honored notables like rutabagas, chard, and pumpkin receive attention, and stuffed whole cabbage gets a revolutionary, new, and fully illustrated treatment. Here, then, are more recipes for fresh vegetables, beginning with broccoli and ending with a splendid dish of cold artichokes.

  BROCCOLI

  Choux Brocoli–Choux Aspèrges

  Although green sprouting broccoli, asparagus broccoli, Italian broccoli, Brassica oleracea var. italica, or whatever you wish to call just plain green broccoli has been around for centuries, it was not widely known in this country until the early 1920's. It is now so popular that an average of one pound a year is consumed by every man, woman, and child in America; over sixty thousand tons of fresh broccoli are sold in retail markets; and heaven knows how much goes into frozen TV dinners. Despite its renown here it continues to remain almost unknown in France (where it is spelled with only one “c”); that is their loss, because fresh broccoli, properly prepared, is certainly one of our most attractive vegetables, both visually and gastronomically. With its delicate cabbage flavor, it is more tender in taste and texture than cauliflower as well as being far more colorful. It goes beautifully with such subtleties as fish in fine white sauces, chicken breasts, brains, and sweetbreads; in fact, anything that spinach does to dress up a dish, broccoli does equally well, sometimes better. Thus, whether or not it ever becomes a French vegetable, we shall give broccoli the full treatment à la française.

  BUYING BROCCOLI

  Broccoli is in season all year round; although its low months are July and August, its high season is winter, when we are most in need of fresh green vegetables. California is by far the largest producer, but considerable amounts come from other Western states as well as from New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.

  When buying broccoli, choose clean, firm, smooth, fresh-smelling dark green or purplish-green bunches with fresh-looking, closely bunched, all-green bud clusters. Over-mature broccoli will have thick, woody stems that are often hollow; the buds will be partially open, yellowish, and have a rather strong odor. Broccoli is perishable, and will become limp and bruised-looking and develop an unpleasant stale-cabbage smell if not properly handled. In markets it should be kept in humidified refrigerator cases and/or frequently iced. Bring it home from the market as soon as possible, refrigerate in a plastic bag immediately, and plan to cook it within 2 to 3 days.

  The usual bunch of broccoli, containing several stalks tied together, weighs between 1½ and 2 pounds and will serve 4 to 6 people.

  PREPARING BROCCOLI FOR COOKING

  When we speak of the delights of fresh broccoli properly prepared, we are talking about peeling the stems and stalks before cooking the broccoli. If you have subsisted on unpeeled broccoli, you will find that peeled broccoli is an entirely different vegetable which cooks in 5 to 6 minutes, remains fresh and green, and is tender from stalk to tip. In fact we have the same feeling about unpeeled broccoli that we do about unpeeled asparagus—neither is a gastronomical object.

  To prepare broccoli for cooking, you may quarter the whole stalks lengthwise from butt to head, and peel each stem of each piece. We, however, prefer smaller pieces for easier handling and more even cooking. We suggest that you begin by discarding the tough leaves, retaining only such small ones that seem as tender as the buds. Then cut off the top 2½ to 3 inches of each head, usually at the point where the branches separate themselves from the central stalk. Halve or quarter the branches lengthwise, depending on their size, to make them all no more than ½ inch in diameter at the base. Using a small knife and starting at the bottom of each branch, peel off the skin in strips, coming almost up to the flower buds. Cut off and discard the tough half inch at the butt of each central stalk and strip off the skin, cutting deeply enough when necessary to expose the tender whitish flesh. (Slightly off-season broccoli that has fresh, tight bud clusters may have very thick central stalks with hollow cores; quartering lengthwise and deep peeling, however, will make the stalks tender and edible.) Cut stalks lengthwise into pieces ½ inch in diameter, and then into bias (diagonal) pieces about 1½ inches long.

  Place the prepared broccoli in a covered bowl or plastic bag and refrigerate until you are ready to cook it. Wash rapidly under cold, running water just before cooking.

  COOKING METHODS

  Peeled broccoli cooks so fast, 5 to 6 minutes, that if you are serving it simply, with melted butter or a sauce, you should cook it only just before serving. If this works in with your schedule, it is easily accomplished between courses, otherwise pick one of the alternate methods, where the broccoli is sautéed or finishes in the oven.

  CHOUX BROCOLI BLANCHIS

  [Blanched Broccoli—Plain Boiled Broccoli]

  When you have not peeled your broccoli, you must resort to all sorts of subterfuges such as boiling the stalks while steaming the heads, steaming the whole vegetable, or pressure cooking; by the time the stalks are done the heads usually droop, the color has darkened, and the broccoli has lost much of its fresh taste and texture as well as those nutrients considered so important by the very people who feel the peel is the best part. When you have peeled your broccoli, you may use the French method of green-vegetable cookery—blanching. Because peeled broccoli is so tender, we recommend the wire salad basket for plunging it into its boiling bath and snatching it out again.

  For 4 to 6 servings

  1 bunch (1½ to 2 lbs.) fresh broccoli

  A wire salad basket (or a vegetable rack, or a large skimmer)

  A kettle containing at least 4 quarts of rapidly boiling water and 2 Tb salt (1½ tsp per quart)

  Cut, peel, and wash the broccoli as described in preceding directions, and place in salad basket. Plunge into the rapidly boiling water over highest heat. As soon as water returns to the boil again, boil slowly, uncovered, for 4 to 6 minutes (depending on freshness of broccoli). It is done when a knife pierces the stalks easily. Taste a piece as a test: it should be just tender, with a slight crunch of texture. Remove imme
diately from the boiling water and serve as directed in one of the following suggestions.

  (*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: If by some chance you plan to serve the hot broccoli with a sauce, and cannot do so immediately when it is done, let it cool, spreading out on a tray if necessary so it will cool quickly. Keep the water boiling. Return broccoli to salad basket just before you wish to serve and re-plunge it for a moment in the rapidly boiling water so that it will just heat through.

  Serving suggestions for plain boiled broccoli

  Brocoli au Citron—Broccoli for Dieters. Broccoli, like asparagus, is great for dieters because it has its own natural flavor, which a little lemon juice will enhance. Arrange the hot broccoli on a hot serving dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and decorate with wedges of lemon.

  Brocoli au Beurre Noir—Broccoli with Brown Butter Sauce. Before cooking the broccoli, melt 5 to 6 tablespoons of butter, skim off foam and pour the clear yellow butter off the milky residue and into another saucepan. When broccoli is done, arrange it on a hot serving dish; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and drops of lemon juice. Heat butter until it turns a light, nutty brown and pour it bubbling hot over the broccoli. Serve immediately.