October 21st: First Session: Thad (baby wrangling), Julia (entree), Brooke (side), Rick (dessert)
~Entree (Julia)~
Chicken Cutlets with Sauce Espagnole
(The Great Victorian Cookbook by John Midgley)
R&B picked this up for 1$ at Half Price Books!
THE INGREDIENTS:
2 chicken breasts (I pounded these so they'd be a bit flat. I ended up only serving half a breast to each person- chicken breasts are HUGE these days!)
olive oil, for frying
some good bread, sliced into 4 medium thick pieces (I used olive oil bread from the store)
fresh breadcrumbs, to coat (a cup or so?)
salt and freshly milled black pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne (I didn't use this- R&B don't even have it in the house, because B is a wimp!)
1/4 tsp. mace (I just used a bit of nutmeg)
4 egg yolks
to garnish:
chives
2 lemon quarters
some Sauce Espagnole (this is the most important part)
THE INSTRUCTIONS:
First, fry the slices of bread in your 4 tablespoons of fat (oil or butter). Set the bread off to the side- probably already on the plates you're going to serve the dish on. Make sure you don't pull too much butter off with them. After you're done, you should have soaked up all your delicious fat. Then, mix together your breadcrumbs and seasoning. Heat some more oil in the pan. Dredge the chicken in the egg yolks, and then the breadcrumbs.
When the oil just starts to smoke, add the chicken. Fry both sides for about a minute, then reduce the heat and fry gently for 15-20 minutes or so, turning several times. Serve the chicken atop the pieces of fried bread, with the nice hot Sauce Espagnole in a pool at the base of the bread (but not on the chicken! It'll make it soggy!)
Sauce Espagnole
2 T butter
1/2 carrot, peeled and diced
1/2 onion (or a decent sized shallot, which is what I used)
1/2 celery stick (I didn't have one, so I just skipped it)
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs parsley (I used dried)
some lemon peel (this is vital! strips of peel, mind- not zested)
1 sprig thyme
2 t. flour
1 cup beef stock
1 t. tomato puree
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
4 mushrooms, very finely chopped (again, I skipped this. I hate button mushrooms)
2 T dry sherry (I used red wine vinegar, and it was brilliant. In future, I might use apple juice instead)
salt and freshly milled pepper
Heat the butter in a small nonstick frying pan and, when foaming, add the vegetables, herbs and lemon peel; fry until golden brown, but do not burn. Off the heat, stir in the flour, then return to the heat and stir around until well browned. Add the stock, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms and sherry. Season and bring to a boil. Partially cover the pan, reduce the heat to minimum and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the volume has reduced and the sauce is very dark. Strain and serve.
Cook's comments:
The sauce was the big deal with this. It took most of an hour to make, between slow cooking and an assload of chopping. Still it was worth it. I cook because I really, really like eating, and this was So. Good.
Party Club's comments:
Rick: It was one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. Ever.
Brooke: Spectacular. So amazing. A taste sensation! Seriously, this dish was so good that it nearly single-handedly demanded we have future Cookbook Parties.
Thad: Delightful and savory. A fine entree that I would have again at a moment's notice. Truly enjoyable. Fine Family Food.
~Side (Brooke)~
A Light and Tangy Potato Salad
(Also from The Great Victorian Cookbook by John Midgley)
THE INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 lb. baby new potatoes, well washed but left unpeeled
3 T. olive oil
2 T. white wine vinegar
1 t. prepared English mustard
salt and freshly milled black pepper
1/2 cup sour cream
small bunch of fresh chives, snipped
leaves from 3 sprigs of mint, chopped
THE INSTRUCTIONS:
Boil the potatoes until tender but do not overcook them. Drain well, then put them in a bowl. Beat the olive oil with the vinegar, mustard and seasoning. Pour it over the potatoes while they are still hot, turning them to coat. When they have cooled, fold in the sour cream. Add the chives and mint, season lightly, and mix thoroughly. Serve immediately or refrigerate until the salad is required.
Serves 4.
Cook's comments:
This is very different from any potato salad I've ever had before. Not saucy or goopy at all, with a wonderful, rich flavor. It even smelled tasty. The shopping run brought back baby potatoes, but even cut in half they were still a bit big for the recipe. I'm not sure that the proper tiny size of potato is easily available in the groceries around here. The smallest potatoes you can find are a requirement. The finished salad was extremely delicious, but the 3 sprigs of mint seem to have been too much; the taste was over-minty. I am definitely planning on making this again!
Party Club's comments:
Rick: Crap! I mean, I liked it. Naw, it was really good. It could have used more actual herbs, and smaller chunks of potato. But other than that, I really enjoyed it.
Julia: Good, but a bit heavy on the mint. I would have liked a bit more chive.
Thad: While I am not generally a large fan of potato salad, I did quite enjoy the dish. I thought the mint worked well. I could have used smaller potatoes and a little more seasoning.
~Dessert (Rick)~
Apple Strudel
(The Vegetarian Gourmet Cookbook by Paul Southey)
Also purchased by R&B for 1$ from Half Price Books
THE INGREDIENTS:
The Pastry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
10 T unsalted butter
2/3 cup warm water
a little confectioners sugar
The Filling:
2 cups fresh wholewheat breadcrumbs fried in 4 T. unsalted butter until just beginning to crisp
1 lb. cooking apples, peeled, cored, chopped and soaked in the juice of 2 lemons
1/3 cup raw brown sugar
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds
1/3 cup seedless white raisins
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
1 t. ground cinnamon
THE INSTRUCTIONS:
Sift the flour into a warmed bowl. Melt 4 T. of the butter in the water and pour it, little by little, into the flour, stirring all the time. Knead until you have a smooth dough. Take it out of the bowl and knead for 10 minutes - the dough should be soft and pliable, so add a little more warm water if it feels dry. Return to the warmed bowl, cover and leave it for 30 minutes.
Lay a clean cloth about 3 ft. square on a table which you can walk around. Sprinkle the cloth with flour and place the rested dough in the center. Gently roll it out to a square and the place your hands under the dough and carefully stretch it outwards. Melt the remaining butter and brush a little of it over the dough if it looks as though it is getting dry. Continue stretching until the dough is so thin you can almost read through it. Try to keep it the same thickness all over with slightly thicker edges to work on.
When all the dough is of a uniform thickness, brush it lightly all over with most of the melted butter and cut off the thick outer edges. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Straighten shape and sprinkle the breadcrumbs along one side, followed by the apples, the sugar, the almonds, the raisins and spices, keeping the filling neatly along one end of the strudel. Then, by lifting up the cloth, gently roll the strudel up so that the filling is trapped between layers of very thin buttery dough. Form the roll into a horseshoe and gently ease it onto a well-buttered baking sheet. Brush the top liberally with the remaining melted butter and bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.
Remove from the baking sheet, sprinkle the top with confectioners sugar and serve hot or cold with lightly whipped cream.
While this recipe seems rather a performance, it is not nearly as difficult as it might appear at first sight. Practice the first time with half quantities; if holes appear in the dough, repair them by making a patch with a piece from the edge, otherwise the hole will grow. Some cooks work section by section; I work from the center outwards, and in Austria it is generally done by four people working around a square table. When you have mastered it, you will realize why the strudel is one of the most popular pastries in Europe.
Cook's Comments: Breadcrumbs really dried this recipe out, and I don't see the raisins helping that since they would have pulled more moisture from the apples. I ended up skipping the raisins for Brooke's sake, though we have since found out that she doesn't mind them when they rehydrate in a strudel. The crust was good though overcomplicated, since a basic pie crust works just as well, especially when brushed with a butter-sugar syrup. The instructions were also not the clearest.
Party Club's comments:
Brooke: The only great thing about this dish in my mind was the Breyer's Natural Vanilla ice cream I put on top of it. The crust was okay, but the entire filling of the strudel was just this awful dry powder. Essentially inedible, as far as I'm concerned. I blame the recipe tho, not the cook.
Julia: Dry. We served this with ice cream, and it was basically tasty (I mean- apples! cinnamon! hard to fuck that one up, right?) but it was kinda weird and crumby in the middle. Not a super awesome strudel. All props to Rick, but this was the clear loser of the first Cookbook Party.
Thad: Too dry. He should have left the raisins in, or found an adequate substitute. And my baby ate all the ice cream off of it.
Votes:
The entree was the clear voted winner- the Sauce Espagnole was delectable. Really, really good. The combination of the tangy sauce with the fried bread and the chicken was total Win.
The dessert was voted the loser. The Vegetarian Gourmets were declared to suck.
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