The Galley

Look for it in stores le Printemps '09

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is one of those holidays celebrated on the same day in France and the US. I thought I would take advantage of the festive spirit and bake a batch of cookies for my new French class. We are still in our first week together and that getting-to-know-you stage so something sweet can't hurt.

I decided on a simple butter cookie and then added lemon zest and topped with dark chocolate hearts. The recipe is adapted from Epicurious. It is very straight forward and I refrigerated the dough over night and sliced and baked them this morning. Now as long as they make it through the bus ride this baking endeavor will be a complete success. I think they turned out pretty cute...just like my new French teacher! Hope he and our motley crew enjoy.

Happy Valentine's Day.

For butter cookies: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/108915

Trying to Fill His Creative Shoes

I visited the city of Bescancon this weekend and simply loved it. What more could you ask of a city than a citadel turned zoo. High on a hill above the city sits a citadel built in the late 1600s. Just before walking through the second series of enterances there is a deep revine, look down and you'll see three baboons walking amongst the winter grass and climbing around the lower stone walls. It was something out of a wild and slightly twisted dream. Above is the man partially responsible for all the animal insanity: Vauban a mastermind of military engineering

Chedder Cheese Lattice

Back in February or March of last year I visited the Jura mountains. There we visited a cheesemaker (picutred above) specializing in Comte and Maurbier. Both these cheeses are nutty and, depending on the age, slightly sweet. Maurbier has a blue line of ash running through the middle of its slightly chewy flesh. I realize one uses flesh to refer more often to fruit but the decadence and slighlty overwhelming flavor of the cheese makes me feel flesh can be used in this instance.

Our cheese making friend was a very serious man. After observing the cheese making process through a glass partition we were lead down stairs and then outside to take a look at the aging cheeses. They are kept in large rooms with shelves on three sides. We poked our heads into onto two of the perhaps ten aging rooms. Two was enough! Though the brown butter colored cheese rinds looked lovely stacked on shelves of the same color the smell was anything but lovely.

I am a girl who is partial to a lot of strange and often unpopular smells. I loved the smell of horses and find barns cozy and comforting rather than dusty or musty. I find the aroma of stewed cabbage makes me feel at home. But the cheese, the hundreds of ripening Comtes, was too much for me.

I love Comte. It has a wonderful texture and is very versitile but there is a time and place where only one cheese is right for the job. I made chili a few days ago and it turned out wonderfuly. Of course there were no black beans and the can of white beans I added had been cooked in goose fat. I threw in a long green chili and clove after clove of garlic and let it simmer and simmer and in the end it tasted very authentic.

To serve I added green onions and avocado. I had some mini tortilla chips from Monoprix on the side. What was missing from the picture? Chedder. While Comte is perfect for wine tastings and raclet will melt nicely over almost anything I wanted Chedder. A aged Vermont White Chedder would have been perfect or even a sharp yellow...Even the man from Jura would like chedder if he'd only give it a try.

The Perfect Bite

While I have been a bit neglectful in my blogging I have been busy writing. The spring semester is upon us in Dijon and suddenly I am very aware of my eventual departure from France. I have until to July to master French, create connections with a foodie magazine, prepare for my honors thesis, and successfully publish a short story in a literary review.

I am optimistic, though perhaps not very realistic. My high hopes as well as the high probability of defeat has me thinking about biscuits, a staple of the south and a much missed food in France.

Biscuits should be one of those food items you can through together fast and get perfect results every time. You always have the ingredients on hand, biscuits take little to no time to prepare and everyone loves them. The lightness of the biscuit itself combined with the buttery flavor is undeniably rib-sticking good. They pare well with savory or sweet though I prefer them as a side with ham or eggs rather than slathered with butter and jam.

With all the wonderful properties combined in a biscuit why do I still long for them? Why am I not writing this post with a biscuit in my hand? I’ll tell you why—I can’t bake a biscuit to save my soul.

Perhaps it has something to do with being raised by northerners in the south. While everyone else was eating country ham or ladling on the country gravy my family was preparing abelskivers. This is a sweet yeast doughnut made in a special cast iron pan. They are light and delicious and the baking process was always a family affair. I’ll save these for another post because what I now is the perfect biscuit.

I think that my fascination and intimidation with biscuits stems from a Martha Stewart Living magazine that ran an entire article about biscuits. It offered five or six different kinds from drop biscuits and delicate angle biscuits to buttermilk and cornmeal biscuits.
As I didn't have a family history of biscuit making to turn to I opened the magazine and starting sifting and kneading. I tried each recipe and, with the exception of the drop biscuit, none of them met my expectations. They were all very short and more chewy than flakey. Nothing like the impressive photos accompanying the article. I wonder now why I questioned the recipe follower (me) rather than the recipes I was following.

My feelings of failure came flooding back to me when I picked up the January issue of Gourmet Magazine. It is a special Southern Cooking issue that I thought would feed my nostalgia once I was back in France. Instead it fed my frustrations.

On the cover of the issue is a picture of jam smeared biscuits. Below the picture in simple black lettering Four Steps to Perfect Biscuits is printed. Looks can be so deceiving. According to the chef Scott Peacock lard, a soft and sticky dough, the use of a rolling pin, and a good cutting technique (don’t twist the cutter!) are the keys to perfect biscuit.

I’m not sure about all that. Now that I am back in Dijon I have yet to source good lard. As soon as I do I will set about giving Peacock’s biscuits a try. I have garnered my own small success in biscuit making using Ina Garten’s herbed biscuit recipe. I’d say my biscuits were good and not great only because they biscuit were cooked on top of a chicken stew. The combination of the savory sauce, root vegetables and chicken with the dumpling like biscuits was scrumptious. My six year old cousin kept asking for another and another. Children have very discerning taste don’t you know!

Following my happy biscuit experience I believe I am ready to give biscuits a go on their own. My secret to the perfect biscuit? Start small. Small batches and small biscuits means better control of ingredients and a higher probability of a high rising biscuit.

Adapted from Ina Garten’s Chicken Stew with Biscuits
For the biscuits:

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced

3/4 cup half-and-half

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the butter and mix on low speed until the butter is the size of peas. Add the half-and-half and combine on low speed. Mix in the parsley. Dump the dough out on a well-floured board and, with a rolling pin, roll out to 3/8-inch thick. Cut out twelve circles with a 2 1/2-inch round cutter.

Arrange biscuits on baking pan. Brush them with egg wash, and return the dish to the oven. Bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, until the biscuits are brown.

Best Biscuit Recipes

Crusty Buttermilk Biscuits
Gourmet January 2008

The cliché, in this case, turns out to be true: Biscuits benefit from TLC. Peacock recommends White Lily flour, one of the lightest available, along with lard for a flaky texture so fluffy and airy that the biscuits almost float off the plate. One bite may well move you to tears—either with memories of your southern grandmother, or with regret for not having had a southern grandmother.

Makes about 15 biscuits

Scott Peacock

5 cups sifted White Lily flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (sift before measuring)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder (preferably homemade; recipe follows)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 cup cold lard1 1/2 cups well-shaken cold buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 500°F with rack in middle.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add lard, coating it with flour, then rub between your fingertips until coarsely blended with some 1/2-inch lumps.

Make a well in flour mixture, then add buttermilk, stirring just until a dough forms (it will be soft and sticky). Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead 8 to 10 times. Roll out dough with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch round (1/2 inch thick) and, using a fork dipped in flour, prick all the way through about every 1/2 inch.

Cut out as many rounds as possible with a 2 1/2- to 3-inch round cookie/biscuit cutter dipped in flour (do not twist cutter).

Bake, almost touching, on an ungreased heavy baking sheet, rotating sheet after about 6 minutes if browning unevenly, until crusty and golden-brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Brush tops with melted butter and serve warm or at room temperature.

Cooks' note: Flour mixture with lard can be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.