French dinner

One night this week, I made an all French dinner. For the appetizers and dessert, I used choux paste (you may remember this from the cream puffs, before)

For appetizers, I made a savory dough and added gruyere and parmesan cheese, and created gougeres. The savory choux paste has no sugar and more salt and some pepper, and then you fold in the cheeses.

For dessert, I crafted profiteroles, which are sweet choux paste dough split open, with a scoop of ice cream inside and chocolate sauce on top. Yum!



For the main course, we had blue cheese souffle, with a side of baby greens with vinaigrette.



The vinaigrette was awesome! The souffle - meh. I thought it tasted kinda like scrambled eggs. Hubby thought it was tastearrific.

Blue Cheese Souffle

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the dish
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan, plus extra for sprinkling
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup scalded milk
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch cayenne pepper
Pinch nutmeg
4 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
3 ounces good Roquefort cheese, chopped (or other blue cheese)
5 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Butter the inside of an 8-cup souffle dish (7 1/2 inches in diameter and 3 1/4 inches deep) and sprinkle evenly with Parmesan.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. With a wooden spoon, stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Off the heat, whisk in the hot milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, the cayenne, and nutmeg. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly, for 1 minute, until smooth and thick.

Off the heat, while still hot, whisk in the egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in the Roquefort and the 1/4 cup of Parmesan and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Put the egg whites, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on low speed for 1 minute, on medium speed for 1 minute, then finally on high speed until they form firm, glossy peaks.

Whisk 1/4 of the egg whites into the cheese sauce to lighten and then fold in the rest. Pour into the souffle dish, then smooth the top. Draw a large circle on top with the spatula to help the souffle rise evenly, and place in the middle of the oven. Turn the temperature down to 375 degrees F. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes (don't peek!) until puffed and brown. Serve immediately.

Green Salad Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons Champagne or white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1 extra-large egg yolk, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup good olive oil

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard, garlic, egg yolk, salt and pepper. While whisking, slowly add the olive oil until the vinaigrette is emulsified. Toss the greens with enough dressing to moisten and serve immediately.

The recipes above call for room temperature eggs, which beat easier with more air, and emulsify easier. To bring eggs to room temperature fast, cover them in a cup or bowl with warm water and let sit for about 10-15 minutes.

You can find the profiterole and gougere recipes here and here.

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs, eclairs, even funnel cakes, are all made from a pastry dough called "Pate a Choux". It's a French phrase that means "paste of cabbages", or cabbage paste. It is so named as the little cooked pieces of pastry are said to resemble little cabbages. You might also hear it called simply "choux paste" (pronounced like "shoe").

Pate a choux gets it's rising entirely from the evaporation of water - there is no leavening. The ingredient list is remarkably short - water, butter, sugar, salt, flour, and eggs. The process is rather different than probably any other pastry you've ever made. Pate a choux can be made for either sweet or savory fillings - that is the purpose of these little gems, they are simply a shell for some really tasty inside bits.

For eclairs or cream puffs, you'll fill your choux paste with a pastry cream. Savory puffs are often filled with herbed cream cheese or blue cheese mixture. Or even meats.

Pate a Choux for Sweet Filling
yield - 4 dozen bite-sized cream puffs

1 cup water
3/4 stick butter (6 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cup flour
1 cup eggs, about 4 large eggs and 2 whites

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Boil water, butter, sugar, and salt. Add flour and remove from heat. Work mixture together and return to heat. Continue working the mixture until all flour is incorporated and dough forms a ball. Transfer mixture into bowl of a standing mixer and let cool for 3 or 4 minutes. If you add your eggs to too hot mixture, you'll get scrambled eggs, so be sure it's cooled. With mixture on stir or lowest speed, add eggs, 1 at a time, making sure the first egg is completley incorporated before continuing.

Once all eggs have been added and the mixture is smooth, put dough into piping bag fitted with a rather large round tip. Pipe immediatley into golfball-sized shapes, 2 inches apart onto parchment paper or Silpat lined sheet pans.

Cook for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees F and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Once they are removed from the oven pierce the bottoms with a paring knife immediately to release steam. Let cool completely before filling.

Pastry Cream Filling
batch size - 10 ounces

3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine milk with approximately half the sugar. Heat, stirring frequently until boiling.

Blend together the remaining sugar and constarch before adding the egg. Use a wire whip to beat smooth.

While stirring the egg and starch mixture, slowly add about 1/4 of the hot milk mixture. Return the warmed egg and starch mixture back into the boiling milk. Stir constantly until it thickens.

Place in a suitable container and cover the surface of the pastry cream with plastic wrap. Press the plastic wrap tightly onto the surface of the cooked pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming.

When cold, remove wrap, add vanilla, and beat until very smooth and creamy. Fill a piping bag fitted with a smallish round tip, and poke the tip into the bottom of the cooled cream puffs. Fill until the puff feels heavy. You can also use a ziptop bag fitted with a tip instead of a piping bag.

Paris Finds

I thought I would share some of the things that made it back with me from my recent trip to Paris. I had a whole bag just for foodstuffs. Some are gifts, some are for me to hoard until the next time I take the transatlantic trip...

Pasta from the Cipriani restaurant.
They have it here in Williams-Sonoma, but it was half the price at the awesome cafe/restaurant downstairs at Galleries Lafayette. Gift for a friend...



Moutarde, for making interesting vinaigrettes. These are herb- and cassis-flavored.


My sisters and I HAD to have some Chocolat Noir Special K after we read about it here.


The requisite stash of CHOCOLATE. I plan on making this last until I see another trip on the horizon.


Les Schtroumpfs!!!
In case you always wondered what The Smurfs were like in French.