Bifteck Hache A La Lyonnaise

I will admit I was a bit shocked to find hamburgers in a French cookbook. I was amazed to think, "Julia Child cooked hamburgers?!"

But these are no ordinary run-of-the-mill-slap-on-the-grill burgers. These were ....almost indescribable. But I'll try.

I was a little surprised when the recipe (and this one I followed to a T.)  called for cooking onion slowly in butter. Why not just add raw onion? I still don't know and maybe sometime I'll experiment and use raw onion. But now that I think about it, why mess with a good thing?

If cooking onion first surprised me a little, adding butter to the meat mixture surprised me greatly. I do buy lean hamburger, but there is still fat in there. Why add more fat? But I obeyed this recipe. I added butter to the meat mixture, and then I cooked them in more butter.

All this cooking things in butter and putting butter in every thing has made me determined to not only eat French food, but to eat like a French person.  You know why you never see overweight people from France? They eat smaller portions than those of us living large in America.  Julia Child talks about serving size a little.

She says, "Most of the recipes in this book are calculated to serve six people with reasonably good appetites in an American-style menu of three courses.  The amounts called for are generally twice what would be considered sufficient for a typical French menu comprising hors d'oeuvre, soup, main course, salad, cheese and dessert. ...If a recipe states that the ingredients listed will serve 4 to 6 people, this means the dish should be sufficient for 4 people if the rest of your menu is small, and for 6 if it is large."

I've never cooked multiple courses in my life. It seems so decadent to me. And isn't it funny, here in America we tend to start with salad and then have the main course, while in France they have the main course and then salad.

Anyway I slightly digress. The hamburgers. Words can't begin to describe the taste sensation. The only words I can think of to utter about these delectable round patties of meatly goodness are To. Die. For.  But because that is all I can think of to utter, I'll post a picture of them. And if you ask nicely, I'll get you the recipe, because I'm a kind-hearted soul. (who happens to smell chocolate very strongly right now.)

There are my delicious patties cooking away. They look white because you roll them in flour before adding them to the pan. I thought it would give them a weird texture but it didn't.

When the hamburgers are finished you cook down some beef stock to drizzle on the top of your hamburger. Very tasty.

That picture does not do it justice. Trust me.

Heavenly! Now don't you want to go cook real food?

Poulet Roti

Is it roast or is it chicken? I say it's both. And since the recipe very clearly and plainly said, "Roast Chicken", I am right if not redundant.

Last night I made Poulet Roti. Now if I spoke French, or if you spoke French we'd all know what I just said. Since I don't speak a lick of French and in fact I'm not even a smidgen French, it's a good thing Mastering the Art of French Cooking has English subtitles. What I made was Roast Chicken. I'm putting myself out a limb here but I'm betting the word "poulet" is chicken. It just looks like poultry.

Julia starts this recipe with these words, "You can always judge the quality of a cook or restaurant by roast chicken. While it does not require years of training to produce a juicy, brown, buttery, crisp-skinned, heavenly bird, it does entail such a greed for perfection that one is under compulsion to hover over the bird, listen to it, above all see that it is continually basted, and that it is done just to the proper turn." I assure you I did not hover over my bird. I didn't even baste it.

Why, you ask? Because I've never basted anything in my life and in fact I don't even own a poultry baster. I have looked at them as recently as this afternoon, but have as yet to make the leap.

I would love to have some witty story to share about how I found my chicken, but really it isn't witty. I just went to the grocery store and voila! They had whole chickens. I plopped one in my cart, after looking them all over, comparing size and price, and then deciding on the first one I picked up. Only by that time the pile was in such a jumble I had to really search all over again for the bird. Only to find it on the very bottom. I then just plopped it in the buggy and away we went in search of butter, then on to the check-out.

I used to be quite afraid of cooking a chicken. Growing up, I don't remember ever having roast chicken. Oven fried chicken, yes, but roast chicken, nope. We had fried chicken often enough I thought the song, "Chicken every Sunday, Momma, every things all right" was written about my family. I was especially afraid of cutting up a whole chicken. I knew enough to know it is less expensive to buy a whole chicken and cut it up on your own, then to buy one all ready cut up. (I think I lost some people back at buying a whole chicken, if it doesn't come in a zip lock bag, have funky shapes, and go in the microwave they aren't sure it's food.) I still have yet to cup up a whole chicken, and yes I'm still afraid to but maybe I'll be brave some day.

Since I've been afraid to cut up a whole chicken and yet I keep buying them, I've had to find a way to cook them whole. I first tried roasting a whole chicken using the recipe from The Joy Of Cooking. It looked simple and easy enough for anyone to try and be a success at. Since I'm relatively new to the whole foodie world, and cooking I need a lot of easy dishes I know I can make and succeed. Nothing fires up the desire to cook more than one good dish made well.

Roast chicken became my good dish made well. I loved to follow the easy recipe. I mean this recipe is easy-peasy. Only 4 ingredients and none of them are bizarre. First, one raw chicken. (kind of makes sense to me...) salt, pepper and butter. I got so I could follow that recipe without opening The Joy Of Cooking.

I moved to Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her recipe is a bit more involved and detailed than the other one. But I was determined to try it. Until I read things like "baste every 8-10 minutes..." and "...smear butter inside the chicken....". Uhm hey, no thanks. I have no desire to stick my hand inside a chicken. I know, I know, there isn't anything in there but the very thought of putting my hands inside a chicken, where the heart and lungs, liver and other vital organs were does not appeal to me in the least little bit. Sends shudders through me even now. She also has you "truss" the poor chicken. Alas, I had nothing with which to truss the poor bird so he remained un-trussed. I'm sure he was thanking me for it.

So again, in using Mastering The Art of French Cooking, I improvised earlier than Julia said to. Directions are so hard to follow sometimes. All in all though, I think the bird was a success. The meat practically fell off the bone and begged us to eat it. But the biggest show of success...it was done on time!!

Judge for yourself on it's delectable goodness....

Finally....

I am finally getting around to admitting I am indeed a foodie. They say admitting it is the first step, so I am well on my way toward a 12-step program of some sort. Do they have those for foodies?

I am also finally making my foodie tendencies public (and really how much more public can you get than posting it on the world wide web for all the world to see) and starting a blog. My desire is to blog my way through recipes. Good, bad and not-ever-gonna-try-that-one-again recipes. Mostly because if Julie Powell can do, why can't I? Not that I necessarily want to be famous and write a book about adventure, or have a movie made after my experience. And mostly because I have The Joy of Cooking and I'm finding it to be a joy. Really.

I know. I'm the one who told her mother, "Don't bother teaching me how to cook. I'm going to grow up and marry a rich man. And we'll hire a cook." Well I did grow up. And I did get married. But the rich part? Nope, hasn't happened yet, at least not monetarily. So out of a strong sense of self preservation, I have learned to cook. I'd like to think I've learned to cook well, but that is up to others to decide.

In an episode of Gilmore Girls, Lorelai says: "No, I wanna really cook. Like on the Food Channel. I wanna saute things and chop things. And do the BAM! I wanna arrange things on plate so they look like a pretty little hat. I wanna be the Iron Chef." Now she is holding a box of Hamburger Helper, which in my opinion is not even real food much less real cooking. But I relate to that.

Oh and I also have Julia Child's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It will be interesting to try the recipes in there, a very Irish girl cooking french food. The story of my obtaining that cookbook is quite a story in itself. It seems it was sent to me anonymously. My birthday was a week ago and two days before the big day the UPS man stopped at my house. I was sure he was just delivering a book for me to read for review. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out Mastering The Art of French Cooking. Imagine my extreme surprise to find nothing in the envelope (that had the return address of Amazon.com) that would tell me who sent the book. I still have no idea who sent it. I have exhausted all my possible suspects and they all deny it.

Anyway. I have a small tendency to ramble about nothing in particular. Who am I kidding? A small tendency? My middle name should be "Ramble."

The other day I made Quiche Lorraine. I used the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I knew it would be a hit when I was able to make the crust. Yes, I made the crust. I made a pastry crust. And it turned out.

I read in the cookbook that one should not improvise any recipes until they have actually made them a few times. I did not obey that rule. The recipe called for all purpose flour, but I thought to myself, "If I'm making a pastry crust, doesn't it make sense to use pastry flour?" So I did. Organic pastry flour to boot. Oh and it called for 1.5 sticks of butter and 1/2 cup of oil, I used all butter. I just don't keep vegetable oil on hand. I did have some olive oil but it was flavored and somehow I don't think Julia would be proud if I used it.

Okay and it called for a pinch of pepper, I kind of got carried away with it. But it was still really, really good. I would label it a success.

Count one for the Irish girl cooking french.