Some days you see a recipe and weather be damned.  That’s what happened to me when I was flipping through Richard Olney’s homage to Lulu Peyraud, Lulu’s Provencal Table and saw:

“Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream”

Yes, I’m a sucker for breadcrumbs.

I cooked the dish that very night to bid adieu to L’s mother, flying back to Sydney the next day.  I made a few small adaptations, and the results were absolutely delicious and comforting.  This dish will be back on the menu again in future, no question.

Ingredients
2 halibut filets (enough for 4 people)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup coarse breadcrumbs (ideally French baguette or rustic/farm bread)
1 lemon, sliced into thin rounds, ends discarded
3 tbsp butter
3/4 lb mushrooms, half shiitake, half white mushrooms, trimmed, cleaned and finely sliced
1 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Lulu stresses having coarse and irregular breadcrumbs, which she makes by rubbing together two broken ends of dried out baguette.  In my case, I didn’t have bread quite dry enough, so I pulled apart some bread into small pieces and placed it in the oven on a baking tray to lightly brown and then broke up the pieces a bit more.

Clean and dry the filets, place in a baking dish, then rub with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Spread the breadcrumbs over the fish, then place the lemon slices on top in an overlapping pattern.  Distribute 1 tbsp of butter, cut into small pieces, around the top.  Pour the wine around the fish and place into the oven.

Your cooking time will depend on the thickness of the fish. If they are 1 inch thick, expect about 12 minutes.  If they are 2 inches, expect more like 20 minutes.  The most critical thing is not overcooking the fish!

Olney suggests basting, which I did but decided it wasn’t necessary, although if the liquid dries up you’ll want to add more. Olney writes “if the liquid threatens to dry up, add some boiling white wine to the dish”, but I say boo! to that.  I’m not boiling up a wine I can drink (I don’t cook with undrinkable wine, not counting vermouth) when I don’t know if I need it or not! I would suggest having a little boiling water at hand in case it is needed.

About 5 to 10 minutes before removing the fish from the oven, add 2 tbsp of unsalted butter to a large heavy frying pan and melt over high heat with a splash of olive oil.  Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper.  Toss and stir the mushrooms around until they are fully cooked and any liquid released has evaporated, then remove from heat.

When you remove the fish from the oven, if there is much liquid in the baking dish, add that liquid to the mushrooms.  Return the mushrooms to high heat, reducing the liquid, and then add in the cream. Bring the cream to a boil, constantly stirring, and reduce. Olney suggests a “light-bodied sauce” consistency, but I made the mushrooms a little thicker — follow your own preference.

Remove the lemon slices and serve the fish, spooning the mushrooms and sauce to the side.

As you can see from the picture, we paired this with a very simple side of green beans, boiled and tossed with a touch of butter, salt, pepper. We would also suggest asparagus.

From a wine perspective, it really needs a strong white that can hold it’s own against the cream. We paired this dish with a full bodied Chardonnay made in French oak.

I’ve been reading Julia Child’s My Life in France and the difficulties she faced trying to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  In 1959, when Houghton Mifflin finally passed on the book, and before Knopf picked it up, Julia read a note from her champion at Houghton who explained the rejection, “They feel [the average housewife] wants ’shortcuts to something equivalent’ instead of the perfect process to the absolute.”

America’s culture has changed a lot since then, but anyone who reads Simone de Beauvoir’s 1947 America Day by Day will be struck by how much has remained consistent.  The business instincts of the Houghton execs remains somewhat true today if Rachel Ray’s empire is any evidence.  Thankfully, there is room for more ambitious efforts, as Julia Child and Simone Beck proved and as new author/chefs continue to show; a recent example is Paul Bertolli’s almost literary Cooking by Hand.

Ratatouille strikes me as a perfect dish to highlight the merits of the two mindsets (and there are indeed merits to both).  Sometimes I will throw together a ratatouille very quickly, let all the components stew together for a while unaided, and enjoy a perfectly good rendition.  However, with a little more effort and time, you can take the dish to a different level entirely.

On Friday evening, after picking up some lovely fresh vegetables from the local farm, I rolled up my sleeves and put together an adaptation of Lulu Peyraud’s ratatouille from Richard Olney’s cookbook Lulu’s Provencal Table. It is considerably more involved than my usual, but the result, which we ate the next evening, was the sweetest, most delicious ratatouille I have had in a long while.

Ratatouille, adapted from Richard Olney and Lulu Peyraud’s recipe

1 lb vidalia onion, halved then thinly sliced
6 garlic cloves, lightly crushed, peeled and minced
1 lb zucchini, preferably small to medium sized, quartered and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
1 lb young eggplant, preferably Asian/Japanese (unless you are French), halved if large, and cut into 3/4 inch rounds
1 lb plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cut into eighths
3 large sweet peppers (a mix of colors is nice; I used 2 red, 1 green), treatment below
Bouquet garni of 2 small sprigs each of oregano and winter savory, and 2 bay leaves, tied with kitchen string
salt
olive oil

In a large pot, warm up 3 tbsp of olive oil on very low heat and slowly cook the onions for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1 tsp of salt (I like cooking with kosher salt), the minced garlic, and the sliced zucchini. Continue to cook on the low heat, stirring occasionally.

While your onions cook, peel and de-seed the tomatoes. To peel the tomatoes, score an X in the skin on the bottom of the tomato, and place in boiling water for 30 seconds.  Let cool, and the skin should slip off quite easily.  Slice in half (if the tomato was the earth, and the stem is the north pole, cut at the equator) and use a finger to remove most of the seeds.  Chop each tomato into 8 chunks and reserve.

Char your sweet peppers under the boiler, on the grill, or directly on a gas flame (Lulu’s method is to char over wood embers, but not everyone has that luxury).  Place the peppers in a paper bag and let cool for several minutes.  Peel of the charred skins, and de-seed, being careful to preserve the juices from the inside of the peppers.  Reserve those juices (sans seeds), and slice the peppers lengthwise into narrow strips; reserve.

In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, heat up 2 tbsp of olive oil on medium heat. Saute the eggplant rounds (or pieces) on one side for a couple of minutes, sprinkling half a teaspoon of salt on top, then add another 1 or 2 tbsp of olive oil and flip the eggplant and cook the other side for several minutes until they are softened.  I add the oil in two steps so that one side of the eggplant doesn’t absorb it all. Add the eggplant to the stew pot with the onions, leaving remaining oil in the skillet.

If the skillet is fairly dry, add another tbsp of olive oil, get the pan fairly hot with high heat, and then add the tomatoes and half a teaspoon of salt. Saute, shaking the pan and stirring the tomatoes until much of the liquid has evaporated, but before the tomatoes disintegrate.  Empty the skillet into the stew pot.

Add the peppers and the reserved juices, and immerse the bouquet garnis.

Cook at a low simmer, uncovered, for 2 hours stirring occasionally and lowering the heat as the liquid reduces. Cook until all the excess liquid has evaporated and the vegetables are covered in a syrupy sauce.

Remove from the heat, taste for salt and stir in a little pepper. Let cool, and then refridgerate overnight.  Let the ratatouille come to room temperature the next day before serving.

Additional Lulu ideas: stir in some pitted black olives, some diced celery, and/or some more olive oil right before serving.

I barely know how to start this post, or write it. It was the story of the recipe that turned into three. Our saga begins with our protagonist (that would be me) adapting a Richard Olney recipe for stuffed savoy cabbage. Enter cabbage stage left. Enter stuffing stage right.  The audience gasps.

Now, I don’t know what kind of uber-cabbages Olney was eating in the south of France, but as my imaginary heckler would say, “zat stuffing will nevarre feet in zat cabbage! Zat ees not a vrai Franche cabbage!”

I had a lot of extra stuffing. I mean I had 6 pork pastries and a meatloaf worth of extra stuffing.  But like all good tales, our protagonist learned along the way and came to a happy conclusion. The learnings: that I prefer to stuff individual leaves to an entire cabbage, and that this stuffing makes a damn good meat pastry/pie!  Yes valiant readers, unlike a French movie, this tale ends happily (and with no cigarettes or accordian music either!).

In order to make this as readable as possible, I am going to start with the stuffing ingredients (which have been halved) and process, and then discuss two delicious uses.

Making the Stuffing

1/2 lb ground or chopped pork
1/8 lb guanciale (or good bacon), chopped
1/8 cup long grain white rice
1/8 cup farro (optional, otherwise use 1/4 cup rice)
5 large leaves of Swiss chard
3 of the best stems from the swiss chard, chopped
1/2 large onion, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp butter
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 medium-sized roma tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried oregano
chicken or vegetable stock
salt
pepper
nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, bring some water to boil and dunk the tomatoes for 30 seconds (having carved a shallow X in the flower end) in order to skin them.  Bring the water back to a boil, and boil the rice and farro for 12 minutes, then quickly drain. (Note: the farro is optional, but even at this small amount, it brings a nice flavor to the stuffing)

Parboil the chard leaves for 4 minutes, drain and cool, then squeeze out the moisture with your hands and chop.

On medium low heat, saute the guanciale (or bacon) until it is just browning (i.e. not yet crispy), then remove to the side.  Leave the melted fat in the pan, turn the heat up slightly and brown your finely chopped or ground pork, and remove to the side.  In the same pan and in the melted fat, saute your onions, chopped chard stems, garlic and butter on low heat for a few minutes.

Stir in the rice, farro, guanciale, pork, tomatoes, chard leaves, thyme, oregano and a pinch of nutmeg and cook for a minute or two, then turn off the heat, letting the mixture cool and tasting for salt and pepper.

[Differences with Olney: he does not pre-cook his stuffing, but I like browning the meat and believe that this process makes it safer to season the mixture with salt and pepper, ie you can taste it without worrying about the raw meat; I also added the use of farro and chard stems, and replaced salt pork with guanciale]

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Recipe 1: Pork Pastries with Pickled Onions

This was the recipe shown in the picture at the top of the blog post, and it made for an great meal.  A mmmfffffgh you can’t talk because your mouth is so happily stuffed kind of meal.  The below amounts will feed 4 ravenous adults.

Pâte Brisée Pastry
Enough for 12 to 15 5″ rounds
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour*
18 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 tsp salt
icewater

*Note on the flour: I know many people are trying to switch to weight, but I did not have a scale handy, and frankly, since some of my favorite cookbook authors each have their own ratio of flour to butter, I don’t think scientific precision is necessary here for a great result.

There are many ways to make pate brisee pastry. This currently is my favorite method but use whatever method you like best: chop the butter into 1/4 inch cubes and then place in the freezer for a few minutes.  Combine the flour and salt in a food processor, and then add the butter. Pulse quickly twice.  Add 2 tablespoons of water, then pulse, and repeat twice more.

Dump the loose mixture onto your work surface and push it together with your hands.  As needed, add small amounts of ice cold water and mix it in until the pastry dough is starting to stick together.  You do not want to overwork it, or add so much water that the dough is sticky, and there can still be some crumbly elements that are not yet sticking to the mass.  Push it all together into 4 separate balls, including as much of the crumbly elements remaining, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 375F.

Place your stuffing in the food processor and pulse several times until everything is more finely chopped and mixed.

Flour your work surface and roll out one of the balls to approx. 1/8″ thickness, leaving the others in the fridge until needed. You can make whatever size meat pies you want: little 3″ diameter circles like empanadas, or in my case, larger 5.5″ diameter circles that were made by inverting and pressing down with a rimless bowl.  Use a paring knife to trace the circle outline and remove the circle of dough to a different surface.

Withe 3″ circles, you might only want to use a heaping teaspoon of the stuffing. These larger rounds took 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of stuffing.  Wisk up an egg wash (just beat an egg) and apply it around the stuffing with a brush. Fold over the circle creating a half-circle, and use a fork to flute the edges and create the seal.  You can also apply the egg wash to the top and sides of the pie to get a beautiful golden color and gloss, although you can see with the top photo that I did not bother with that step this time around.

Place the pies upright on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 30 to 50 minutes, until nicely golden.

I served these pies with some pickled red onions, and the combination (taking them both in the same bite) was just fantastic. You can do a fast pickle, where you put the sliced onions in a hot mixture, or take a more patient approach. In this case, I applied Stephane’s pickling method for ramps, which you can find halfway down this post [link].

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Recipe 2: Stuffed Cabbage or Cabbage Leaves

Whether you want to stuff the entire cabbage or just the leaves, the first step is the same: remove the outer green leaves of the cabbage, trim the stem, bring a large pot of water to boil and then simmer the cabbage for 10 to 15 minutes, drain in colander and let cool.

To stuff the full cabbage, lay it atop a large square of cheesecloth and gently peel back the outer 20 or so leaves. Then remove the heart by slicing across the core, being careful not to cut through the stem holding your 20 leaves. You can then chop up some of the heart and add to the stuffing, if desired. Shape the stuffing into a ball, placing it atop the center, and reform the cabbage leaf by leaf. Enclose the cabbage with the cheesecloth and tightly tie off the top using kitchen string. This can be kept in the fridge overnight, or you can move ahead to cooking, covered in chicken or vegetable broth (you might need as much as 3 to 5 quarts depending on pot and cabbage sizes), for 3 to 4 hours at a very light simmer.

To serve, place it in a bowl and unfold the top of the cheesecloth. Place a plate on top of the bowl and flip. Remove the cheesecloth, and flip the cabbage back into the bowl.

Now, serving an entire cabbage has a nice rustic, family feel to it, but we decided we preferred individually stuffing cabbage leaves (or if you prefer, large chard leaves with the stems removed). The advantage of stuffing leaves is that you can just get two cabbages and use as many leaves as you need, not having to worry about matching stuffing amount to cabbage size (although that problem did lead to delicious pork pastries!).  Individual leaves also create nicely packaged portions.

To stuff individual leaves, mold the stuffing into individual meatballs 1.5 or 2 inches thick, and roll each one up in a parboiled cabbage leaf. Place in an oven capable pot, like a large dutch oven, and pour enough heated broth to cover. Place in an oven set to 325F and cook for an hour or two.

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Postscript: Meatloaf

As I mentioned, I did also make a meatloaf with extra stuffing (which had gone through the food processor, similar to pork pastry recipe), by mixing in two eggs, molding into a loaf on a baking dish, covering with bacon, and cooking for an hour at 350F.  It was a huge hit with my 4 year old, and I enjoyed it paired with a shallot, spring onion and mushroom pilaf.  I still prefer my normal meatloaf recipe, but this made for a nice change.

“Even vegetarians expend most of their ingenuity trying to destroy the vegetableness of the poor fresh things, welding them into horrible imitations of meat dishes in pathetic compensation for self-imposed deprivation.”
– Richard Olney on cooking vegetables, Simple French Food

Do you find that the longer it takes you to read a book, the harder it becomes to pick it up and start?  Some of you might have noticed that I’ve been referencing Richard Olney a lot recently. The truth is I’ve had his book Simple French Food for almost 15 years, collecting dust on my bookshelves all this time. I picked it up right after college when I decided to learn to cook, out of a sense of associated loyalty. Olney and my father (an editor) worked together on the Time Life Good Cook series, but I was very young at the time and did not meet him.  So novice-me bought the book and was intimidated right off the bat.  I scurried back to the familiarity and ease of my Julia Child, and kept this one on the shelves.

Fast forward to a month ago, when I picked it up in earnest. What a change! All of a sudden, it wasn’t scary anymore.  Quite the contrary, to the older, more experienced me, this book is brilliant, accessible and often funny.  A book like this does not go out of style.  I read it basically cover to cover, and was quite inspired.  I like that Olney often explains his reasoning and purpose behind a decision, rather than just dumping out some ingredients and assembly instructions. Verdict: an oldie but very goodie.

P.S. Another book of Olney’s that I love, and which has not collected so much unjustified dust, is Lulu’s Provençal Table.

It has been way too long since I posted some recipe links, though my list has been stacking up. Here are a few from the pile that inspired me:

• Tartelette: Ratatouille (since I don’t bake, Tartelette tends to be fun window shopping for me, but this one I jumped at!)
• Lucllian delights: Ricotta Clafoutis with Pears, Figs and Ginger (what, a dessert on Constables Larder!?!)
  
• The Wednesday Chef: Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez’s Chana Punjabi
  
• Kalofagas: Lamb and Artichokes Avgolemono
• The Left Over Queen: Vegetable Tagine, Vermont Style (this may have to wait until next winter, but I don’t want to forget it)
• Gourmet Worrier: Stuffed Zucchinis / Qarabaghli mimli bil-laham (great looking comfort dish that will be good with the zucchini bounty that happens every summer)
• Simply Recipes: Curried Pork Empanadas

Following on from Elizabeth David, Richard Olney was assigned the entrée (in the French meaning of the term). Flipping through his cookbook Simple French Food for inspiration, I came across this description: “one of these little puddings, prelude to an amicable chunk of rare meat, might take many a jaded gastronome by surprise.” Well, zucchini are abundant at Gill’s farmstand, and our menu certainly included an “amicable chunk of meat,” so Dick’s zucchini pudding soufflés sounded just the ticket.

Well, delicious it certainly was, but as a soufflé, it was something of a flop (pardon the pun), hence the renaming of the recipe. As an aside, if you’re ever tempted to cook from Richard Olney, bear in mind that “simple” is a complete oxymoron for this publication. Any recipe that reads in part “prepare the béchamel as usual” with no further guidance is not for the novice. These recipes also require a fair bit of stamina and concentration.

Zucchini Puddings

Zucchini:
1 lb of zucchini
Salt
2 tbs butter

Béchamel
2 tbs butter
3 tbs flour
¾ cup milk

3 eggs, separated
Salt/pepper

Sauce
2/3 cup tomato puree (home made – see below)
1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

The first step is to prepare the zucchini: grate about one pound of peeled zucchini (Olney recommends hand-grating or using a Mouli-julienne, but he was writing in 1974; two cycles of the Cuisinart saved me about 2 hours). Arrange the grated zucchini in layers in a bowl, sprinkling each layer with salt, and let stand for 30 minutes. Then work the zucchini with your hands to get the liquid out of it: squeeze it repeatedly “until it is swimming” in juice, strain it a couple of times through a sieve, and press well “to rid it of flagrant moisture.” This is a fairly labor-intensive step and takes a while to get the zucchini properly dried out. Next, sauté the zucchini over a medium flame in a generous amount of butter (well, it is French cooking) until well dried out and starting to color, about 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Next, the béchamel. In a saucepan over a medium flame, melt the butter, add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon for a minute or two to make the roux. Turn down the heat and add the milk to the roux a little at a time until well combined (this works best if the milk is warmed up for about a minute in the microwave first. Continue to stir until thick and creamy – this will happen fast with only 3/4 cup of milk. You can also use a whisk to keep the sauce free of lumps. Remove the saucepan from heat as soon as the béchamel has thickened and let it cool slightly. Then, mix in the 3 egg yolks one at a time. Season with salt and pepper. Then stir in the cooked zucchini.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add about a third into the béchamel/egg/zucchini mixture to loosen it up, then gently fold in the rest of the beaten egg whites. Take care with this step – do not let yourself become too distracted by interesting political conversations or attention-seeking 3-year-olds and over-mix the egg whites, or the puddings will not rise and you will have to change the name of the dish from souffle to pudding. Don’t worry if you do – they will still taste good.

Pour the mixture into well-buttered ramekins (or a single larger souffle dish). Place the ramekins in a large shallow baking dish. Pull out the oven rack half-way, put the dish on the rack and then pour in enough boiling water to immerse the ramekins to two-thirds of the way up the sides (a bain-marie). Cook at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until the surface of the puddings is firm and springy to the touch. Take ramekins out of the bain-marie and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Turn the oven up to 450F.

While the puddings are cooling, make the tomato sauce: whisk together the tomato puree and cream, season with salt, pepper, cayenne. You can used canned puree, or make your own as we did by cooking up 2 tins of skinless plum tomatoes, a handful of basil and several sprigs of oregano, a few pinches of salt and sugar. Bring this to a boil, then simmer for an hour. Run this through the food mill, then cook it down further for another hour or two until it has a nice thick consistency (this yields much more than you need for this recipe, but tomato puree is quite useful to have around, so we made extra).

Turn the puddings out of the ramekins and return them to a baking dish large enough to hold all of them comfortably. Pour over enough tomato sauce to coat the puddings well, allowing the sauce to run down around them in the dish. Top with grated parmesan cheese and return to the oven for 20 minutes or so, until the surface is browning and the sauce bubbling. Plate and serve, spooning some of the tomato sauce around the puddings.

We served this with a viognier wine with decent acidity. The puddings (aka souffles) might not have puffed up to full glory, but they disappeared quickly from the plates.