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. :)