Salted Butter Breakups, Beggar's Pasta, and Cheese-Chive Bread (FFWD)

 Just because I haven't been posting doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. Somehow, I made all of these recipes on time, but for reasons unknown haven't made it to the posting stage. It's not like it's especially difficult, and it's not as though I haven't had time. I have. I think it's more that none of these recipes have left me especially impressed to the point where I rushed to tell you about it. Which isn't to say that they're bad, just kind of underwhelming. Maybe it's this last bit of winter that's given me the blahs.

Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port (FFWD)

 Once upon a time, beef short ribs were dirt cheap. Nobody knew what to do with them. They are extremely fatty, and short cooking leaves them tough and practically inedible. Then, according to Bill Buford in his book Heat (a great work and a quick read), one chef in New York City decided to braise some and sell them. Suddenly, New York City was swept up in a short rib craze, and every fine dining establishment adapted their own version. As is often the case, it took a few years for the sensation to reach the rest of us. It's mostly great that we've learned about short ribs, but it's also terrible because the rise in popularity has caused the price to skyrocket. People, we have a short rib CRAZE on our hands.

 In other short rib news, apparently the First Lady of these United States likes the occasional short rib dinner. I'm not going to get too political here, but eating short ribs does NOT make her a fat hypocrite. Can't we all occasionally enjoy some delicious braised short ribs? (Not you, vegetarians.) Especially on a pile of creamy celery root puree and braised kale, with a generous helping of sauce. Which is how I served mine. They were delicious. And I am not obese.

Anyway, one thing about this particular recipe which was a total revelation was the use of the broiler for searing the ribs. In the past, recipes I followed advised me to sear the ribs in batches, which is time consuming and really messy. Dorie, in her infinite wisdom, had us use the broiler to render off some fat and get a tasty sear on the meat. Some people would argue that this would leave you without the fond in your cooking pot, which would be a missed opportunity to enhance the flavor. Seriously, I doubt that you could tell the difference. These are so amazing!
Even though I can't give you Dorie's recipe, if you want to make short ribs check out this slideshow from Bon Appetit.

Pancetta Green Beans (FFWD)

Well, sure I made these at the beginning of the month, but you can't expect me to post things on time. Between training for The Big Climb (check out my donation site here!), getting ready for a show and a competition with my chorus (including helping to make new costumes), and generally trying to seize the day, I'm amazed I have time to cook all this stuff let alone blog about it. I don't know how the moms in the group do it all! You ladies are awesome! Still, I'm so grateful for the French Fridays with Dorie group because I am cooking all kinds of fun and delicious dishes! 

 Yet, I have a really hard time getting exciting about green beans in February. Perhaps if I lived in the southern hemisphere where it's the middle of summer right now, things would be different. Here in Seattle, it is about as far from green bean season as one can get. After scouring the stores for acceptable specimens (I try really hard to buy domestic produce, but occasionally purchase some Mexican produce in the dead of winter) I found some Mexican organically grown green beans for a mere $5.99 a pound. (YIKES!) Which is better than the 12 oz. of haricots vert I saw at one store for $15. I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of paying exorbitant amounts of money for a product that is merely passable. Still, if I see another beet or turnip I might cry. That's about all that's fresh at my farmer's market right now and it is getting old. Still, I am happy to see the tulip stand adding color to things and promising that winter won't last forever.

In another attempt to remember the tastes of summer, I made this fillet of wild Alaskan Coho (also known as silver) salmon to serve with the green beans. Everything was very good. (How can you go wrong with pancetta? It's practically bacon!) My pancetta was a little lean and very thinly sliced, so it was hard to keep from burning it, but the green beans were cooked to perfection. It's hard to get the right balance between squeaky, undercooked beans, and limp, overcooked beans, but the cook time on this recipe worked great for me. I look forward to eating these beans again in September!

Orange-Almond Tart (FFWD)

 Maybe, like me, you were skeptical when you saw the baked oranges. Who bakes oranges? Why gild the lily when they are so good raw? Skepticism be damned. This tart is AWESOME. Maybe it's the 2 sticks of butter involved? Couldn't hurt. The flavor I mean. Could definitely hurt my waistline. Why does a tart possibly need so much butter? It's all about the butter cookie crust. Yeah. I said it.

 This tart is a beautiful butter cookie crust, holding in a puddle of luscious almond cream, topped off with navel orange slices. It was so good I couldn't stop eating it. Don't read this part, but I actually threw the last quarter of it away to stop myself from eating it. (Because that quarter of a tart contains half a stick of butter, and I won't tell you how much of the tart I DID eat.) It was dangerous having it around because every time I opened the fridge I'd have "just a sliver." Turns out those slivers can add up.

 I guess I'm just not sure whether I'm endorsing or condemning this thing. It's a little bit like crack, but the good news is this tart probably won't leave you jobless, stealing bikes from little kids so you can pawn them and get your next fix from your neighborhood dealer Javier. I can't make any promises, though. One good thing about this tart is that it is pretty fussy to make. There are a lot of components, and they really need to be well timed to get this thing together in a reasonable time frame. Thus, I probably won't be making it on a weekly basis. (My taste buds doth protest.)

 Dorie suggests that you could make this tart with other fruits, and that opens up a bevy of seasonal opportunities. I've got designs on making it with plums when I get back from Alaska in August. (Is it nerdy to plan things this far in advance? Don't judge me until you've tasted this tart.) If you are lucky enough to be in cherry country during cherry season, (one downside of summers in rural Alaska is I don't really get to eat quality cherries in the peak of their ephemeral season) this would be absolutely amazing with cherries.

If you're really inspired by this tart, and you think you can handle it, check out an apple version of a similar tart here, and make it with a pate sablee, like this one from Martha Stewart.

Basque Potato Tortilla (FFWD)

Maybe you're thinking that this doesn't look like a tortilla. Well, newsflash for you. In Spain a tortilla is a tasty omelette that usually involves potatoes and sometimes includes ham, cheese, spinach, and more. Think of it kind of like a frittata, except that it's usually served at room temperature as a snack instead of as a breakfast food.

Don't tell the Basque people, but I totally ate tortillas in Madrid, which is decidedly not Basque country. If there's one thing that really riles up the Basque (well, honestly there are a lot of things that rile them up) it's calling something they've invented Spanish. Still, until this particular specimen, I'd always figured that this was a Spanish dish, since I'd ever eaten it in Spain or seen it being referred to as Spanish. Turns out it is probably from Navarre, a Basque state in what is now known as northern Spain.

Regardless of who invented it, I gobbled up a lot of these during my two weeks in Spain. Mainly because they were cheap and readily available at every market, and kept just fine at room temperature for most of the day. I wasn't exactly on a culinary tour, I was so broke that some days I just ate yogurt and crackers. (Notably, a lonely and unobserved Thanksgiving in Florence was passed with just some yogurt, a vending machine espresso, and a vending machine chocolate pastry purchased with whatever spare Euro coins I could scrounge up.) Still, it built character, and I learned to appreciate simple things like room temperature potato omelettes.

I forgot how much I love these things until this recipe came up for French Fridays (what is this? Basque Fridays? I feel like I'm on to something.) and I started reminiscing about the tortillas I've eaten. This one was not exactly ideal, but probably less because of any recipe flaws and more because of my ineptitude. The potatoes stuck to the pan and didn't brown they way they were meant to (apparently the Basque like to brown their potatoes first, whereas the Spaniards usually don't), I didn't add enough salt, I overcooked the eggs. (Sponge eggs! Yum!) And oddly, this recipe doesn't necessitate the nerve racking flip that most tortilla recipes require. Instead, Dorie finished the top under the broiler, like a frittata. This resulted in a different tortilla shape, but essentially the same flavor.

I'm going to keep pursuing tortilla nirvana, (definitely going to try the potato chip version soon) and you should too. Check out Deb's recipe here, and not one but two different process walk-throughs, one at Fine Cooking, and the other at Serious Eats.

Chicken B'Stilla and Chocolate Mousse Cake (FFWD)

 

So, this French Fridays project has turned into a lot of "French Saturdays" or "French two weeks later on a random Wednesday" sort of posting schedule for me. But I am pretty much up to date on the recipes (I still need to make speculoos cookies, but I am a little cookied out after Christmas). The funny thing is I generally make my recipes on time (early even), but I don't take many photos and I usually blog a little late. So this week I have this week's recipe and last week's.

Gnocchi a la Parisienne (FFWD)

 This week for French Fridays with Dorie, we made Gnocchi a la Parisienne. Unlike Italian gnocchi, French gnocchi does not contain potatoes. This kind is just poached pate a choux. (Remember pate a choux from the gougeres?) Dorie bakes hers in a bechamel.

 I have made a lot of bechamel (admittedly, usually on the way to a mornay- that's bechamel with cheese AKA mac and cheese sauce), and this bechamel recipe just wasn't quite right. I KNEW as I was making it that it wasn't quite right, but somewhere between the gnocchi and the carrots and the salad and the salmon I just.... didn't fix it. Lots of others at FFWD had troubles with goopy bechamel as well. The recipe just isn't perfect. (We still love you Dorie, nobody's perfect!) In the end the finished dish was... underwhelming. The gnocchi were barely distinguishable from the baked sauce. It was kind of like a buttery custard, and not the pasta and sauce effect I intended.

 But! All is not lost because I finally made the spiced butter-glazed carrots that I was supposed to make in December, and they were totally delicious! Furthermore, once I make the speculoos I will be totally caught up on my FFWD recipes! Yay! Randy doesn't even like cooked carrots most of the time, but he raved about these. I never would have thought to put ginger and cardamom seeds in carrots.