Sole Meuniére

A French classic made famous by Julia Child, à la meunière is a type of dish that is typically done with fish—sole and sometimes trout. In either case, the dish is meant to be a lemon butter sauce topping a thin, flaky white fish. A smattering of parsley finishes it off, although some add capers. This, I think, makes the recipe more like the fish version of chicken piccata. But, that’s just me.

After liberally salting the fish and dredging it in flour, sauté the filets in butter. This should only take a few minutes. Set the filets aside, keeping them warm by tenting the plate with a little foil or popping them in a warm oven. Add more butter to the pan then the lemon and zest.

Note: here’s where I think I went wrong with the recipe. Adding the lemon was fine; it just turned out to be too much of a good thing. The sauce was way too tangy for my taste. I grabbed a large lemon and should have used half of it or a smaller one. Having the citrus is a nice foil to the fattiness of the butter, however.

Here’s the recipe:

4 Dover sole filets, patted dry

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

⅓ c. all purpose flour

1 stick of butter, halved

¼ c. chopped parsley

1 lemon, juiced and zested

Pat fish filets dry. Salt and pepper to taste. Dredge in flour. Get your pan hot to melt butter then turn down to medium. Sauté fish until done, about 4 minutes. Set aside. Deglaze pan with juice and zest. Add the rest of the butter. Whisk until smooth and butter is incorporated. Spoon sauce over fish and add parsley to garnish.

Cassoulet

Winter and comfort foods go hand in hand. And, that is the perfect time for cassoulet. (Incidentally, National Cassoulet Day in the U.S. is January 9th. Coincidence? I don’t think so.)

Essentially, it’s baked beans with meat. But the French often take what was originally a peasant dish and elevate it with such ingredients as duck confit or foie gras. But, any meat product will do. Typically, a fat rendering from bacon with cannellini beans, onions, garlic, and Herbes de Provence is pretty much the base. You can add pork loin or shoulder, sausage, or even goose meat.

The recipe I used was Thomas Keller’s slow-cooker cassoulet. The upside is that it was a pretty simple recipe with pretty simple ingredients. (Although, I will say I was surprised to see panko crumbs on the list.) The down side? It needed about nine or ten hours to complete. A bit of a challenge when you realize you don’t have that much time.

Having made it, I would do a few things differently next time. While I would still use a pork shoulder (frequently sold as pork butt) for tenderness and not a loin, I would probably break it down with the diced tomatoes and other liquids and herbs in my favorite blue Le Creuset. (Keller didn’t use any herbs, but I definitely think it adds a good touch.) I might brown the bacon, onions, garlic, and beans separately and then add them later once the pork started to separate.

I once made gnocchi with pork ragù, which clearly I need to make again because I’m salivating just thinking about it. The pork simmered in the juices for a couple hours and eventually fell apart in the pot. Just a quick shimmy with a fork and there was complete yumminess ready to go. Treating the cassoulet in much the same way, I could simultaneously cook ingredients and then put them all together for the flavors to marry—and it still wouldn’t take 10 hours to do it.

Here’s the recipe:

4 lb boneless pork butt

Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste

2 TB canola oil

1 c. panko

4 oz. thick cut bacon, cut crosswise into ½ strips

3 medium onions, chopped

2 c. dry white wine

¼ c. tomato paste

1 TB Herbes de Provence

1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes

2 c. chicken broth

4 cans of cannellini beans

6 chorizo links, cooked and sliced

1 garlic head, halved crosswise

¼ c. flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Season the pork generously with salt and pepper and set aside.

Sautee the panko in the canola over medium heat until toasted, about 4-6 minutes. Set aside.

Sautee bacon until brown to render fat. Set aside on paper towels and reserve for later.

Brown all the pork and set aside.

In the rendered fat, cook the onions with 1 tsp. salt and the Herbes de Provence until golden and softened. Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half. Stir in the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and broth. Add the beans, pork, chorizo, and garlic. Continue to cook until pork falls apart easily with a fork.

Serve with baguettes and top with reserved bacon and a little chopped parsley. 

Bread Pudding

Whenever this staple dessert was listed on a menu, I happily avoided it. I’m not sure if it was the bread part of the description or the pudding. The closest I get to bread being a dessert is French toast. And pudding…well, let’s just say my biggest impressions of it involved the chocolate version in a Bill Cosby commercial.

Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to have a taste. Simply made and served with hard sauce, it was delectable, sweet, and satisfying. Essentially, it’s a great way to use stale bread. Regardless of the recipe, it breaks down to three essential ingredients that make up this dish: bread, eggs, and cream. You make a custard with the eggs and cream then soak the bread in it giving it the moisture it needs.

It’s not just a dessert, however. While it is often served that way, it has savory sisters. Ina Garten has a fantastic recipe for a mushroom, pancetta, and leek bread pudding that she usually serves for Thanksgiving. It’s crusty on top but moist inside. Stuffing perfection!

Bread pudding has many iterations in the dessert category and has a long history dating back well before the Civil War. There are bread pudding recipes in one form or another across the globe. Add chocolate, dried fruits, or nuts. Different spices like vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg are often included. Consider pumpkin, apple, coconut or even dulce de leche. For the hard sauce often served with it, rum, bourbon and whiskey are typically added. I used Grand Marnier simply because I had it on hand. Plus, it sounded really good.

Bread is a canvas for just about any flavor profile you can come up with. You can use cinnamon bread or a leftover baguette—anything leavened, really. In this case, I used brioche. I love that for French toast, so I pretty much assumed it would be phenomenal for this. Please note: the water bath is essential for the eggs and cream in the recipe. They get grainy without it.

Here’s the recipe I used:

Pudding:

4 large eggs

1 c. whole milk

1 c. whipping cream

¼ c. sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Pinch of salt

4 cups day-old bread

½ cup pecans, toasted, and chopped (optional)

Butter 8-inch square baking dish. Whisk first 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Place bread and pecans in prepared dish. Pour milk mixture over and let stand 5 minutes. Push down bread into custard. Refrigerate 2 hours, pushing bread into custard occasionally.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place bread pudding in large metal baking pan. Add enough boiling water to baking pan to come 1 inch up sides of dish with bread pudding. Bake until pudding is puffed and golden brown on top, approximately 50 minutes. Remove dish with bread pudding from water and cool slightly. Cut into squares. Serve bread pudding warm with sauce.

Sauce:

¼ c. unsalted butter

½ c. sugar

3 TB whipping cream

2 TB Grand Marnier

Pinch of salt

Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in remaining ingredients. Simmer until thickened, whisking often, about 3 minutes. Cool slightly.

Bacon Jam

Two words that are not usually put together in the same phrase: bacon and jam. It has definitely become a hot and happening condiment. Everything is better with bacon, right?

While this relish seems to be new to the culinary scene, it’s actually a riff on an Austrian dish called Verhackert. That dish, however, traditionally takes about two months of aging, only includes bacon, garlic, and salt, and is usually minced down to a fine consistency.

This recipe chops the bacon, cooks it down, and adds brown sugar and two kinds of vinegars. Honestly, with a base of bacon and onions, you can pretty much add a bunch of different ingredients. Maple syrup. Bourbon. Honey instead of brown sugar. Rosemary or sage instead of thyme. You could even whizz it in the food processor if you like it more spreadable. Get creative!

Here’s the recipe:

1 ½ lbs. bacon chopped

2 tsp. butter

3 lg. yellow onions, minced

1 tsp. salt

¼ c. brown sugar

¼ c. sherry vinegar

1 ½ tsp. Herbes de Provence

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 pinch cayenne

½ c. water

2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

Place chopped bacon in large saucepan over medium heat until bacon is crisp and fat is rendered. Remove bacon and pour out majority of bacon fat, leaving a little left in the bottom of the pan. Add butter and then sweat onions with salt.

Next, throw in your brown sugar, sherry vinegar, pepper, cayenne, and Herbes de Provence. (You can substitute with fresh herbs, if you like.) Stir in water and cook down until mixture has a jammy consistency. Remove from heat and stir in the balsamic and the olive oil.

Enjoy with crackers, baguettes, or just hunks of cheese. A nice IPA, a rich Cabernet, or even a glass of champagne would be perfectly acceptable pairings.

Awesome Sauce

Here’s a little gift idea: vanilla-spiked caramel bourbon sauce. Yes, I used all those luscious words in one sentence. This is the kind of condiment you have on hand for those quick-o desserts. Drizzle over ice cream, waffles, and pancakes. Dip in fluffy Madeleines. Or, just call it a day with you, the jar, and a spoon. Bet it would be pretty nifty in your morning coffee, too. And, it freezes pretty easily so you can always have it around.

Here’s the recipe:

4 c. granulated sugar

5 ½ c. heavy cream

1 TB vanilla extract (or beans from one vanilla pod)

1 ½ tsp. salt

6-8 TB bourbon

In a large saucepan, melt the sugar until it’s a deep amber color, about 20-25 minutes. Add the cream and just keep stirring. The hardened caramel will melt again. Once it is in total liquid form, stir in the other ingredients.

Let the mixture cool. Pour into half pint ball jars. Et voilà! Instant homemade gift!

Note: With the bourbon, make sure it’s a good grade. Anything cheap will probably taste cheap. And, watch the amount. Whiskeys can overpower your palette, so you may want to err on fewer tablespoons rather than more. However, if you’re hoping to drown out your mother-in-law after dinner, add as much bourbon as you like.

Make Meatloaf Great Again

Meatloaf has a long history. It was first noted in the fourth or fifth century A.D. in the Roman cookbook Apicius. Since then, a host of different minced and ground meat dishes arose. The advent of the meat grinder in the 19th century made the dish much easier. But cooks around the world have added wine, dried fruits and nuts, herbs, and even baked hard-boiled eggs inside.

I must admit meatloaf is usually the last dinner option on my mind. Growing up, my dad was the cook in our family. He occasionally made this staple offering and it was, frankly, drier than a North African sandstorm. I grew to hate it, even though I knew plenty of people who craved it. It’s the ultimate comfort food. Yet, other people had fond memories of moist meat and not a hockey puck posing as a meal.

So, it was my mission to find a recipe that did just that: make meatloaf great again. I first started with a classic 1950s, straightforward approach to it. It’s meat, fresh breadcrumbs soaked in milk, shredded carrots and minced onions, eggs, salt and pepper. (There is the addition of grated cheese. In this case, it’s cheddar. But, you could easily replace it with Parmesan or Pecorino Romano.) Plop it in a pan, stick it in the oven, and wait for the goodness.

This recipe also added a glaze made from ketchup, yellow mustard, and brown sugar. Anytime the same condiments used on a hot dog are called for, that’s when you know it’s old school.

Just a side note: I lined the pan with parchment paper. It just makes getting the loaf out easier with less mess.

Here are the ingredients:

3 slices of bread, crumbled

½ c. carrot, grated

⅔ c. onion, grated

1 c. cheddar, grated

2 eggs

⅔ c. milk

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

2 lbs. lean ground beef

Glaze:

½ c. ketchup

½ c. brown sugar

2 TB. yellow mustard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Soak the breadcrumbs in milk until saturated. Whisk eggs and add the remaining ingredients to the mixture. Add the soaked breadcrumbs, mixing thoroughly, before adding the beef. Place all mixed ingredients into an ungreased standard loaf pan lined with parchment paper. Press down to make sure ingredients are evenly spread throughout the pan. Bake 45 minutes with loaf pan on a baking sheet for any overrun.

In a small bowl, combine the glaze ingredients. Remove the meatloaf and coat the top.  Bake for another 30-45 minutes. (I took it out at 30 and let it rest. But if you like you’re meat more well done, you may want to bake it the full time.)

Enjoy this classic meal with mashed potatoes and buttered petite peas. Yum!