Random Cookbooks - Julia's Kitchen Wisdom & Good Eats 2

Catching up on two weeks' worth of random cooking:

Last week I drew Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, a brief book by Julia Child focusing on basic techniques of everyday cooking. Because I'm trying to eat more fish, I chose:

Fish Fillets Poached in White Wine

For sole, trout, and other thin boneless fillets, 5-6 ounces per serving. Cooking time: about 10 minutes.

For 6 fillets. Score the skin sides of the fish and season with salt and white pepper. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of minced shallots in the bottom of a buttered baking dish; lay in the fillets, skin side down and lightly overlapping. Scatter another tablespoon of shallots on top. Pour around them 2/3 c. of dry white and 1/3 c. of fish stock, chicken stock, or water. Cover with buttered wax paper and bring just to the simmer on top of the stove, then set in a preheated 350F oven. The fish is done in 7-8 minutes, when just lightly springy to the touch and opaque. Drain cooking juices into a saucepan and boil down rapidly until almost syrupy. For a simple sauce, whisk in droplets of lemon juice and minced parsley and, if you wish, a tablespoon or two of butter. Spoon over the fish and serve at once.

I used trout and chicken stock. This turned out pretty well, though I think I like my trout better sauteed or pan-fried than poached. I'm finding trout and salmon are my favorite fish despite their strong fishy taste because they have such a nice, meaty texture, and the poaching gives it more of that soft, flaky fish texture I'm not so crazy about.

(I really wish I could wave a magic wand and make myself like fish and shellfish better. I'm going to France, Spain, and Portugal next year. My taste buds are looking forward to the inland bits more than the coastal ones, which makes me sad.)

This week Alton Brown's Good Eats 2: The Middle Years came up, and I chose:

Bananas Foster

2 T. unsalted butter
1/4 c. dark brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated
1 T. banana liqueur (I substituted water)
2 under-ripe bananas, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 c. dark rum
1/2 tsp grated orange zest

1. Melt the butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet over low heat. Add the brown sugar, allspice, and nutmeg and stir till the sugar dissolves. Add the liqueur and bring the sauce to a simmer.

2. Add the bananas and cook for 1 minute on each side, carefully spooning sauce over the bananas as they are cooking. Remove the bananas from the pan to a serving dish.

3. Return the sauce to a simmer and carefully add the rum. If the sauce is very hot, the alcohol will flame on its own. If not, using a stick lighter, carefully ignite the sauce and continue cooking until the flame dies out, 1-2 minutes. If the sauce is too thin, cook 1-2 minutes more, until it is syrupy in consistency. Add the orange zest and stir to combine. Immediately spoon the sauce over the bananas and serve with waffles, crepes, or ice cream.

I had some leftover plain polenta I needed to use up, so I cut it into rounds and sauteed it in butter to use as a base for the bananas foster and frozen yogurt. It was a good idea, but I cut the polenta a little too thick, and I probably should've sweetened it a bit when cooking instead of counting on the sauce and frozen yogurt to provide all the sugar needed. Still, on the whole, this was a quick, delicious dessert which I will make again.

Random Cookbook of the Week - Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Of all the cookbooks I own, the only one that intimidates me more than Mastering the Art of French Cooking is The French Laundry Cookbook. I'm just an ordinary American, you see. I cannot master French arts. OK, I'm probably about 1/128th French, give or take a generation or two, on my father's mother's side. Some Huguenot refugee got mixed in with the standard Celt, Anglo-Saxon, and Creek and/or Cherokee blend you expect in a deep-rooted Alabama family. When all that "freedom fries" crap was going down a decade or so ago, I started taking outspoken pride in my fractionally French heritage, let me tell you. But I'm nowhere near French enough to give me, oh, chef genes.

But, hey, I do realize that Julia Child's whole point was that anyone can cook, so I took a deep breath and attempted the very first recipe in the book:

Potage Parmentier (Leek or Onion and Potato Soup)

3-4 cups or 1 lb. peeled potatoes, sliced or diced
3 cups or 1 lb thinly sliced leeks including the tender green, or yellow onions (I used leeks)
2 quarts water 
1 T salt
4-6 T whipping cream or 2-3 T softened butter (I used butter)
2-3 T minced parsley or chives (I used chives)

Simmer the vegetables, water, and salt together, partially covered, for 40-50 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

Mash the vegetables in the soup with a fork, or pass the soup through a food mill. (I used a potato masher.) Correct seasoning. Set aside uncovered until just before serving, then reheat to the simmer.

Off heat and just before serving, stir in the cream or butter by spoonfuls. Garnish with the herbs.

Nothing intimidating about that at all, as it turns out. One of the simpler recipes I've attempted lately, really. Which is not to say I'm ready to charge deeper into the book and make a souffle or her cassoulet recipe that she recommends spending three days on, and I can happily live my life without ever eating a brain. I've eaten haggis AND lamb fries, so I think I've proven my culinary courage sufficiently. Even if my in-laws didn't tell me what the lamb fries were until I'd already eaten two.

Anyway, the soup tasted like mashed potatoes in liquid form, pretty much, albeit with a strong overtone of leeks. Very pleasant, though if I make it again I'll try some of the suggestion variations or additions to give it a bit more oomph.