The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

FFwD – M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken

Returning to the fold…I joined French Fridays with Dorie back in October 2010, right at the beginning.  I cooked and baked along with everyone consistently for several months…and then I tapered off…and, eventually, stopped.  Not on purpose, not for any reason that I can remember.  I just had lots of other demands on my brain, I think, and something had to go.

But I missed it, I missed the fun of cooking “together” with a whole bunch of other people…and I missed the food.  So not too long ago I decided I needed to get back into the routine.  I may only participate once a month, but that’s okay.  As long as I participate.  Besides, it’s nice to have someone else decide what’s for dinner now and then!

And to kick off my return, I made this week’s selection, M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken. 

FFwD – Tourteau de Chèvre

Hm.

It doesn’t look like I think it’s supposed to look.

For French Fridays with Dorie this week we were to make a Tourteau de chèvre. 

Now, despite what you might think, that doesn’t mean Cake of Goat.  I don’t think anyone’s invented that one.  Maybe a Pie of Goat – you know, like a chicken pot pie, or a shepherd’s pie – exists somewhere…but not Cake of Goat.

No, the cake is made with, among other things, goat cheese.  Pretty interesting, huh?

And a bit more appetizing than a cake made of goat.

FFwD – Salted Butter Break-Ups

This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is the Salted Butter Break-Ups, and can be found on pages 400-401 in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.

I haven’t participated in several weeks, for one reason or another, and I was overjoyed – yes, overjoyed to be able to join in this week.

These cookies are a snap to put together, and because you don’t have to scoop them or cut them out into shapes (unless you want to cut them out – the dough would work just fine for that), they’re quick to prep and get into the oven.

They’re also quick to disappear.  I made them yesterday, and after my kids’ lunches are packed, I don’t think we’ll have any left.

Here’s what’s involved…

FFwD – Orange-Almond Tart

Or, in this case, it’s a Clementine-Almond Tart.

And yes, it’s supposed to be French Fridays with Dorie, not French Saturdays, but, well, if you’ve read my last post, I figure you understand why I didn’t get to writing this and posting it yesterday afternoon.

Anyway, I decided to make the tart with clementines rather than oranges simply because that’s what I had on hand. 

FFwD – Chicken B’Stilla

Ohhhh, I totally forgot what day of the week it was.  The snow days we’ve had over the last couple of weeks keep throwing me off track, at least mentally, and yesterday I kept thinking it was Sunday, because everyone was home, and so this morning I had no idea WHAT day it was, and plus I was up at 4:29 am to play with fire and pig meat and then make cheese, and then at some point today it suddenly hit me:

IT’S FRIDAY!

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE DAY!

CHICKEN B’STILLA DAY!

FFwD – Michel Rostang’s Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

One of the nicest things, so far, about cooking my way through Dorie’s Around My French Table with the wonderful French Fridays with Dorie gang is that I usually have all or most of the ingredients already on hand.  It’s so nice!  Take this double chocolate mousse cake.  I didn’t need to get anything for it.  The ingredient list is very short – chocolate, eggs, sugar, coffee, butter, salt.  That’s IT.

And it’s a good thing, because I made this, along with last week’s gnocchi, last Wednesday, which was A Day Of Much Snow in these parts, and no one was going anywhere.

French Fridays with Dorie – Gnocchi a la Parisienne

For French Fridays with Dorie this week, we made gnocchi.  But not the gnocchi I usually make – you know, with potatoes.  Or, sometimes, sweet potatoes. 

This version has no potatoes at all.  The gnocchi are made with pate a choux, the same dough used to make things like eclairs, cream puffs, and gougeres.

Those kooky French cooks!

FFwD – Paris Mushroom Soup

I ended up skipping a couple of French Fridays with Dorie weeks in December.  I didn’t want to – in fact I’d made most of the December recipes ahead of time.  But then the holidays kind of took over and I slacked off in the Dorie department. 

So I was quite determined to get back on track this month.  And what a lovely way to start – mushroom soup! 

And it couldn’t be simpler.

FFwD – Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts

It was so nice to have something relatively quick and easy to throw together this week!

For today’s French Fridays with Dorie I give you Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts. 

And then I take them back, because they’re so good, and so addictive.

FFwD: Speculoos

It’s Friday, and I’m finally posting another French Fridays with Dorie recipe again.  I think it’s been a month since the last one, and I’ve got a few of November’s recipes – the images, anyway – hanging around, wanting to be loved by a little girl or boy…no, wait, that’s the misfit toys.

Anyway – I was totally happy to see that one of December’s recipes was a cookie recipe.  I bake a lot of cookies in December, and it’s nice to have a new recipe or two to play with.

Enter the Speculoos!

FFwD – Pumpkin Gorgonzola Flan

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie selection is the Pumpkin Gorgonzola Flan.  At least, that’s what I’m posting this week.  We were given the option this month of posting in any order, so some of the other members may have the Flan up, others will have something different.  Exciting, no?

FFwD – Caramel Topped Semolina Cake

Years ago…a lot of them, actually, I had a new apartment back here in my home state of RI, and that year I hosted dinner for my mom’s birthday.  I remember I roasted a leg of lamb, and we probably had potatoes in some form with it…maybe Brussels sprouts too, and maybe some orange vegetable as well.  Or maybe there was salad.  I don’t remember those details.

I do, however, remember the dessert.

FFwD - Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake

Marie-Helene would be quite welcome in our home.

Especially if she showed up with an apple cake.

Of course, we don’t know Marie-Helene, and she doesn’t know us, so the odds of her arriving at our door, still-warm-from-the-oven gâteau aux pommes (I’m dabbling in French) are pretty darn slim.

Good thing Dorie gave us a recipe so I can make this myself!

French Fridays with Dorie – Hachis Parmentier

It was a bit crazy in the kitchen the day I made Hachis Parmentier. 

Vocabulary homework, spelling reviews, math problems, an upcoming social studies test, school picture orders (they want me to pay how much???), and I don’t remember what else was going on, but I felt like I was being pulled and tugged at and many demands were made for my EXCLUSIVE AND UNDIVIDED attention from humans and cats alike, mostly about food.  (When do we eat?  What’s for dinner?  Mom, I’m hungry!  Meow!)

Oy!

Oh, yeah, and on top of all that, my camera wasn’t working.  It would work, and then it wouldn’t.  I switched batteries, changed lenses, removed the memory card and put it back…I even, I am ashamed to say, smacked the side of the camera (gently) in frustration. 

“Well…just bring it somewhere tomorrow to have it fixed,” Bill said, with the shrugging, what’s-the-big-deal? attitude of someone who HAS NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF CRISIS THIS IS!

I still don’t know what was wrong, but after lots of taking things out and off and putting things back on, my dear camera decided to work again.

PHEW!

We now return to our Hachis Parmentier, already in progress.

I made a bit of a change, by the way.  Instead of using water and beef bouillon, I just used 6 cups of beef stock, which we had in the freezer.  (In the “stock freezer,” actually.  Chicken, beef, fish, crab, and clam stocks.)  Other than that, I kept things the same. 

Here’s the strained broth, by the way.  I kept the carrots and celery and chopped them to smaller pieces, to include with the beef in the filling.  I didn’t really need to cook the stock as long as indicated in the book, because I was already using beef stock and the flavor was fine.  So the vegetables, as a result, still had plenty of flavor.

By the way, until I got smart and looked it up, I avoided saying “Hachis Parmentier” out loud because I didn’t know how to pronounce it.  Well, I kind of figured out the “Parmentier” part.  Par-men-tee-ay.  Or Par-men-tyay.  But “Hachis” was a puzzler.  Ha-chis, with the ch like “chick” or “cheese,” or (here’s the Scot coming through) was it more of a gutteral “K” sound?  Hackis?  It didn’t work for me.

Then, tired of mumbling “Hmbmbmbm Parmbmbmbm” all the time (because I often go around muttering the names of dishes I’m going to cook.  It’s either that or allow the strange lyrics Julia comes up with take root in my brain and drive me further along the journey to madness), I looked up the pronunciation.

AHA!  HA-shee PAR-men-tee-yay!  Well that sounds sensible.  And more French than “Hackis.”  I was happy just to be able to say it. 

No more mumbling!  I said it loud, I said it proud:

HACHIS PARMENTIER!  HACHIS PARMENTIER!

And then my children begged me to be quiet and my husband threatened to take away my copy of Around My French Table, so I stopped.

Here’s the sausage, the chopped cube steak, the carrots and celery, and the tomato paste, about to blend together deliciously.

Now, fast-forward, past the actual – and really, very easy – making of Hachis Parmentier – to the writing of this post.

It suddenly occurred to me that while I could say the name of the dish,

HACHIS PARMENTIER!

I didn’t know what it meant!  I hadn’t looked that up.  And, frankly, “hachis” doesn’t sound all that French to me.  (And I’m such an authority.) 

Anyway, I looked up the words, and everything fell into place in my slow-to-catch-up brain.

Hachis refers to a minced or chopped mixture of meat and herbs.  (Corned beef HASH, anyone?  Duh!)

Parmentier refers to a food “garnished with potatoes.”

A-HA!

Well then.  I’m happy now.

And below, speaking of potatoes, there they are.

Boiling!

Going through the ricer!

All ready to go! 

I could eat them all, just like that.

But no, I had to complete the recipe, and quickly, just in case the camera decided to go on strike again.

Here’s some butter and Gruyere.  Mmmm.  Shreddy.

And now, – the assembly.  I spooned the meat mixture – the hachis, or, more accurately, the hachis avec carottes et céleri.  I don’t know if that’s a correctly constructed phrase, but it’s certainly looking like a correctly constructed meal.  Let’s continue.

Time to garnish with potatoes.  My favorite part.  I spooned the potato mixture into the dish, on top of the meat (and veggie) mixture, and smoothed out the top.

Then I sprinkled the grated Gruyere on top and added the bits of butter.

I really would have happily dug in right then with the same big spoon I used on the mashed potatoes moments ago, but I knew it would be even better if I waited.

So into the oven went the Hachis Parmentier, and I scurried around in a housewifely manner, setting the table and fretting about all the dishes I would have to do later.

I don’t know if this happens to you, but it seems like no matter how simple a dish might be to prepare, if I am rushed or stressed or tugged-upon-by-many-hands-both-large-and-small while preparing the meal, I use WAAAAAAAAAAY more bowls and spoons and spatulas and knives and pans and EVERYTHING than I could possibly really need.  Really.  One bad day I used two frying pans, the food processor, seven wooden spoons, three whisks, two plates and twelve knives just to make a peanutbutter sandwich.  Just peanutbutter!  Not even jelly!  Okay, I exaggerate.  Only eleven knives.

BEEP.

That was the oven timer.  I took a peek, rotated the pan to get more even browning (oooooh, browning potatoes and cheese!!!!) and set it for another ten minutes.

After a really fragrant eternity, it was done.

And because my camera had been so, so…recalcitrant earlier, I was afraid to even switch lenses, just in case.  So the pictures I took while the Hachis Parmentier cooled a bit on top of the stove are not very good.  But still.  You get the idea.  Golden brown, cheesy, potatoey yummiliciousness.

My husband and children were, by this time, already seated, pounding their spoons and forks against the table, demanding nourishment and threatening mutiny.

I brought the hot bowl (actually, it’s my favorite souffle dish) to the table and served it up. 

We all burned our mouths.

Joyfully.

Well, okay, full disclosure:  Alex (predictably) didn’t like the Parmentier aspect of the dish.  But he liked the hachis.

I ate his potatoes.  I hate waste.

Ohhhh, what a tremendous meal this was! Rich and meaty, with the fluffy potatoes and the crispy golden-brown bits of cheese on top (Dorie is right – that’s the best part), hearty and filling and satisfying. 

I should have doubled it.  Or tripled it.  Maybe I’ll make it again next week. 

Yes, I think that’s a good idea.

Care to see if other French Fridays with Dorie members have waxed as rhapsodic as I have?  Click over here to check out the other posts!

 

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French Fridays with Dorie – Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when I took a look at this recipe.  Really.  Actually, “happy” doesn’t begin to cover it.  It’s happy plus…familiarity.  Like seeing an old, very dear friend.

FFwD – Gerard’s Mustard Tart

My sister tasted a slice of the Gerard’s Mustard Tart the day after I’d made it, and she paused, mid-chew, and said it was the best thing she had ever eaten.

I’m inclined to agree.

Gougeres for French Fridays with Dorie

Mmmm, gougères!  So impressive, so fancy sounding, and yet so easy to put together.