tomato_kumato

I don’t know what possesses me to try new potato gratin recipes. I have a perfectly good recipe that I adore, and now every time I try a new one, I get disappointed. I tried an apple and fontina one at epicurious a few years ago and the same thing happened. It’s not that the dish was bad… the people I made it for loved it. It just wasn’t mine.

Take this recipe for Potato au Gratin with Chanterelles. I had it bookmarked for a long time, and then chanterelles were on sale at my weekly market, so I decided to try it out. The Canadian gobbled it right up, but there was something that just wasn’t right for me.

I’ve decided that instead of messing around with new recipes, what I should be doing is combining recipes I like with things I already know work. I loved the taste of the chanterelles with the potatoes, so next time, I’ll be adding celeriac and chanterelles to my tried and true gratin recipe. Who knows… maybe I’ll even give that sweet potato and apple idea another go. But lesson learned… a favorite is a favorite for a reason.

I love markets.

I love taking my big canvas bag out and perusing the different stands, buying up cheap, fresh produce and meat and fish (and containers of thirty eggs). The Canadian calls it “Emily versus the market.”

Every week, I go to the market near my house. I have to walk about ten minutes to get there, and it’s a nice walk, right across the Champs de Mars. Sometimes, I go twice a week. Whenever I invite the Canadian, he grumbles and stands aloft. He doesn’t help me pick anything. He says he “doesn’t do well at markets.” I tell him that this is ludicrous. He likes food. He should like looking at food. He says he likes looking, but he wants to be able to pay for everything all at once. I tell him I’ll pay. He says if I pay, he doesn’t want to pick things, because he feels bad about me paying for food that he wants. I say, then he should give me money. He says, “then why don’t I give you money, you go, and I’ll stay here and wait for you. Bring me a present.”

I go to the market alone a lot.

On Thursday night, I made Jaden’s Tropical Salmon (coming tomorrow to a blog near you) for me and the Canadian. The Canadian did the dishes (he lost a bet and has to do the dishes for a week. It’s nice.) Then we packed up and went out to the airport for seven hours.
Why, you ask? The Canadian Sister is here visiting us from Barrie, Ontario! She’s never been to France before. She was arriving at six in the morning, and since it takes an hour to get to the airport and the RER doesn’t start running until 5:30, we left the night before. We set up camp in the arrivals terminal, I raided the vending machine for snacks, and we waited.

When she finally got here, she came with me to the market. She didn’t want to sleep, she said. She wanted to get over her jet lag right away.

I like her.

The Canadian gave us money and took a nap.

The Canadian Sister is much better at the market than the Canadian. Maybe it’s a girl thing. She helped me pick produce, made faces with me at the cheval (horse) in the butcher’s case, got made fun of for speaking English with me. (”Américaines? Canadiennes? Allemandes? Anglaises?”), and she picked the steaks we had for dinner.

I never appreciated steak when my mother made it. We had it about once a week, but it was as normal to me as chicken. Now that I know how much it costs, steak dinners are few and far between. But the Canadian Sister likes steak, and I like the Canadian Sister, so we got three entrecôtes.

I’m always afraid of undercooking steak (yeah… that last post pertains to steak as well), so I got myself a recipe. The steaks were incredible. I served them with the Mushroom Hash from the Wednesday Chef, and the meal was delicious. And no, I didn’t undercook them… they were perfectly medium-rare. Even though I did almost set the kitchen on fire (something on the bottom of the pan caught on fire, and for some reason I was perfectly calm as the bottom of the frying pan erupted into flames, and I just sort of held it aloft until it settled down. I imagine this is what Giada di Laurentiis must do if this ever happens to her. Or someone on severe anti-anxiety medication. It is very anti-me.)

The Canadian Sister is sleeping now, and the leftover steak is sitting in the fridge. I think I may go snack on it while I wait for her to wake up.

Belgian Steak (adapted from Everybody Eats Well in Belgium by Ruth Van Waerebeek)

4 sirloin steaks
3 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper
red wine
good mustard

Bring the steaks to room temperature. Heat the butter over medium heat until melted, then turn the temperature up to high and add the steaks. Cook for one minute on each side, and then add salt and pepper and turn the temperature down to medium. Cook the steaks until done, turning every so often. For medium rare, about six minutes in total. Remove the steaks and allow to sit for several minutes to redistribute the juices. Meanwhile, add about a tablespoon of mustard to the pan and deglaze with a cup of red wine. Stir to combine and serve on the side.

Sorry everyone! I’ve been so bad… I’ve been getting back up to speed reading everyone’s updates (sorry for the lack of comments… I had a lot to read) and I feel badly seeing how busy everyone else has been while I’ve been doing a lot of nothing.

Since I’ve been back, the only things I’ve made have been pasta and fried eggs. The Canadian’s birthday was last week, and I bought a cake! Yes, it was an amazing cake, and yes, it was very French of me to pass off the baking to a professional, but still, it was out of character. You see, I’ve had a very busy few weeks back. Upon arriving in Paris, I hardly had a chance to unpack before I whisked myself off to Paris with Britney to see the Spice Girls! I was in the 6th grade the last time they were popular, and so was everyone else there, apparently. Everyone knew all the words, and it was probably the best concert I’ve ever been to.

We stayed in an amazing hostel, St. Christopher’s, which not only was fun and amazingly clean, but also served up a very good (and very reasonable) hummus with pita appetizer in the bar. I got my hands on a Cornish Pasty this time and we got a decent curry at a chain place (I’m sure to Londoners it was awful, but Britney and I loved it), but I still have to go to Goulder’s Green Chinese food. I also introduced Britney to the wonders of Wagamama, and she has come up with a plan that involves a commuting Londoner bringing her Wagamama for dinner every day to be picked up at Paris Gare du Nord.

I got back to Paris with a terrible cold, but I still set off for the other trip I’d planned: Amsterdam. (This was when I thought the Canadian would be in Amsterdam, not sitting on my couch and boiling the plastic cheese grater to get the Comte off it. Mom, please send me a metal one… the Canadian needs special toys for his special needs.) I went with a friend and took advantage of the loose laws there, and therefore ordered the tray of food you see above. (Applesauce not pictured. Mixed with mashed potatoes=heaven.)
Wow… all this is getting very bloggy. The point of the matter is that I’m back now, and I have an antipasto party to tell you about.

This all began, as so many strange ideas do, in my father’s head. He picked me and my sister up from the city and drove us out to Long Island, where we would be met my my mother, brother and sister the following day. He had decided that “we” would be making a typical Italian antipasto. He gave me a sketchy shopping list… things like “eggplant rollatini-eggplant, cheese.” I knew that he couldn’t do this alone, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it myself. Grudgingly, I decided to fulfill his wishes, and asked him exactly what he wanted. Long story short, in the end I made everything, and my father ceremoniously plated the braciole, eggplant rollatini, stuffed green peppers, stuffed mushrooms, and stuffed clams. I stood by the side, saying nothing, but as my brother praised the rollatini and my sister gorged herself on mushrooms, my mother leaned over to me and whispered, “Good job.”

This picture is awful, but it’s the only one I got of everything. From the top right, it’s stuffed mushrooms, baked clams, stuffed green peppers, braciole, and eggplant rollatini. And my father was right about one thing: the key is mixing all the sauces (tomato, braciole au jus, and clam juice) on the plate and sopping it up with good Italian bread. (We get ours from Sullivan Street in the Bronx.) Here are the recipes… they’re approximate, but they work. I cheated on the clams and braciole and got them from the store, but you could just as easily make them yourself as well.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Halve three green peppers and lie them in a baking dish. Stuff with a mixture of one part hot Italian sausage and one part ground beef, Italian breadcrumbs, grated parmegiano reggiano, and an egg. Cover with tomato sauce and bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Eggplant Rollatini (the hit of the night)

Slice three eggplants lengthwise into strips about a quarter inch to a half inch thick. Make sure they’re all the same size. Dredge each slice in flour, then beaten egg, then Italian breadcrumbs. Bake for ten minutes on each side at 375 degrees. In a separate bowl, combine equal parts ricotta cheese and grated mozzarella. Add a few tablespoons of parmegiano reggiano to taste, and season with black pepper and a chiffonade of fresh basil. Place about a tablespoon of the cheese mixture at the end of each of the rollatini, and roll. Place them, seam side down, in a baking sheet. When all of the rollatini have been rolled, cover with tomato sauce and bake at 350 until the cheese is melted.

Baked Stuffed Mushrooms

Remove the stems from about twenty stuffing mushrooms (large white mushrooms) and bake the mushrooms on a baking pan for about ten minutes to dehydrate them. Chop the stems finely and sautee in butter and olive oil with one large onion and a few shallots. Turn off the heat and add enough breadcrumbs to soak up the liquid in the pan, about half a cup to a cup. Add parmeggiano reggiano cheese to taste… a couple of tablespoons. Stuff the mushrooms until heaping with the mixture, and bake for about another fifteen to twenty minutes at 350.

I am in love with this blog. I already posted about the Belgian Brownies, which, coincidentally, I plan to make again tonight for our Halloween festivities. But I also ended up raiding her archive for this Mushroom Ragú recipe, which I made for the Canadian when he moved here last week.

The Canadian loves mushrooms, however, like most boys, he also likes meat. I was a vegetarian for years, so I just can’t eat meat every day… it makes me feel ill. So what am I supposed to make the three or four nights a week when I just want to eat vegetables and the Canadian wants some animal flesh? Honestly… we haven’t quite figured it out yet. He seems content to add salami or pâté from the plate of cold cuts I keep around here to anything he doesn’t deem meaty enough, and then I get to eat my veggies and pasta in peace.

We both, however, loved this Mushroom Ragú pasta. I pulled out all the stops and used fresh pasta, which was totally worth it. Yes, once the Canadian realized there was no meat, he added some pâté, but we both loved the tastes. I felt that the sauce was a little bit dry, and, silly me, for the first time ever, I didn’t save any pasta water. Oh well… there’s always next time. And with this dish, there will definitely be a next time.