Chicory Gratin

Oh my God, I'm always late with blogging.
It was already Sunday that I made a new 1000 recipes dish from Belgium.

Chicons au Gratin

First of all, I don't like chicory very much. But as I 'vepromised myself, I'm going to try every dish except for the tripes.

Well it wasn't all that bad, I guess. The chicory was still a little bitter, but drowned in cheese and sauce only half that bad. I made a roux, which I usally ruin, but this time it was fine! It tastes like I could inject butter directly into my veins, but hey... it had vegetables, right?!

All you need to do ... make a roux, stirr in milk, wrap chicory in ham, put it in a casserole, pour over the sauce and cheese and bake! Done!

Maybe I should also blog about other things than cooking to fill this blog. Let's see.

Tomorrow will be codfish!

Moules-Frites

French Fries with sautéed clams and selfmade mayonnaise.

Today saw three completely novelties. For the first time I've made my own fries, my own mayonnaise and cooked clams!
Clams and fries were from 1000 recipes and are usually eaten together as Moules-Frites in Belgium and Northern France. I guess it's their fish'n'chips or our currysausauge.

Mayonnaise was from "Mastering The Art Of French Cooking."
Mayonnaise like hollandaise is a process of forcing egg yolks to absorb a fatty substance, oil in this case, and to hold it in thick and creamy suspension.

Mayonnaise is a really easy thing to make, when your arm muscles are fit and healthy! I was surprised how easy it went, but I think my upper arm will have twice its size tomorrow. Seems like I gotta work out or start buying my mayonnaise ... well, luckily I don't like it at all and usually have ketchup. But this time we were out of ketchup and the idea popped into my mind.

The clams ... yes ... I'm still not sure how I got them in first place. 1,5kg of mussels cooked in 1l of white wine and seasoned with 150g butter. It was just too much wine for me. I prefer drinking it to pouring it over some poor clams, who are too dead to actually get drunk.
It tasted just sour and alcoholical.

Fries didn't work out as well. They didn't get crunchy ... or at least a little tasty. Plus I put on way too much salt.

I'm still not decided, what comes next. :)

Salade Liègoise and Kempen Powerbroth

Saturday, I've made the first meals from 1000 recipes and it started with Belgian Salade Liègoise and Kempen Powerbroth ... well I'm sure bouillon is the proper term, but powerbroth is the literal translation from German.
So, what gives you the power from the broth ... I have no idea! It consists of like 1 ton of white beans ... and mainly that. You put in some extra leek, bacon (you need Ardennes bacon, but try to find that), Croûtons and that's it. Simple, fast and quite dull. I couldn't eat it up...

The salat was very interesting, I've never had cold potatoes in one. Well of course, I'm German and we love potatoe salat, but there needs to be some mayonnaise or yoghurt or vinegar and oil in it. I actually think for Germans having cold potatoes is like running someone over...

It wasn't that bad actually, but I also couldn't eat it up, too. Well, I was also quite ill and happy to just eat something!

Beans, potatoes and yeah ... bacon.

Tomorrow "Bifteck Sauté Au Beurre" with "Petits Pois Frais à l'Anglaise" and "Purée De Pommes De Terre à l'Ail".

Potage Parmentier à la Julia Child

I know I've been quiet for some days now altough I've promised to started cooking. Well I did, but I got sick on Friday, so I've decided to stay in bed and not to blog.
Today I'm still a little dizzy, but way better so I can tell you about my recipes.

Last week, I made Potage Parmentier from Julia Child's book and Salade Liègeoise & Kempener Soup with White Beans from 1000 recipes. I've just started to translate all the 1000 recipes titles into their real names, but it's just impossible, so you gotta live with my own translations!

Oh by the way, I've looked through the whole 1000 recipes (which actually more than 2000 pages) and I've realized, that I yes! already made 21 out of it... so I only have 979 to go which is going to be so easy, I'm not feeling like I have to cry right now kick that damn book in the next corner of my aparment, where I'll find it in another 10 years.
And just one thing .... there is one recipe I WON'T DO! Tripe. I'm sorry, they're disgusting, they look exactley like what they are and after cooking it smells like a tannery. I can't, I won't, I'm sorry.

So, let me try to remember the Potage Parmentier, which is just a show off word for potatoe soup with leek.

Leek and potato soup smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make.

That said I had no doubt I would totally rock this dish. Everything went really smooth, I cut tons of potatoes and leek and I had 2 carrots left, they went to carrot heaven as well. Then the recipe told me I needed a 3- to 4-quart saucepan or pressure cooker. You know, I'm German, we don't calculate in quarts. So I took my biggest pot and thought it was alright. It was ... stirring was a no-no and moving the pot would made a mess, that would have send me to carrot heaven, but the soup was cooking!
Luckily that was all to do and after I've mashed the whole thing with a wooden hammer (that I, clever I am, stuck in a plastic bag before) it was ready to go.

I have to say, it's really delicious, but maybe, just maybe ... it's more of an entrée than an whole meal. Just my idea, everyone else loved it!

The 1000 recipes meals will be tomorrow. :)

Cookbook Mix

After thinking and thinking, I've decided to try recipes out of both books, since I couldn't pick the best one.

I think I'll still go with cooking myself throught "1000 recipes to try before you die" although "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" sounds better and more classic. But no way, it has a whole chapter on brains ... in times before BSE reached the world it might have been just disgusting but no I can't think of eating brain with out thinking "Damn it, NO!" Zombies can have my share.
So I'm skipping the brains, livers, kidneys and whatever they had ... I can live with eating liver and anything but I don't need to cook several recipes with it.

"1000 recipes to try before you die" has just a few disgusting dishes I might wanna try when really spicy or I'm terribly drunk. Snails, anyone?
Plus, it's not ordered by type, but country, which might come in handy!

So, tomorrow I'll start cooking with the very first recipe from Julia Child's cookbook: Potage Parmentier and I'm going to make a picutre of the result!

Saturday, I'll be making the first dish from 1000 recipes ... the book starts off with Belgique. I've checked some recipes and not everything is really typical ... so I might change some ingredients from time to time.