Sole Meuniere

One of the most memorable dishes from the Julie and Julia movie was the first one we see Julia Child eat: sole meuniere. It's based on Julia's recollection of the meal in the memoir My Life in France. In both the book and the movie, Julia is served a whole sole, delicately cooked in butter and lemon. It's the first time she falls in love with food.



It made me want to try sole meuniere at the earliest opportunity. I wasn't ambitious enough to attempt a whole sole, so I used fillets instead. It was still delicious, even if the presentation isn't as grandiose as in a proper French restaurant.

Sole Meuniere

Ingredients:

• 2 fillets of sole
• 2 1/2 tbsp butter
• 1/2 small lemon, cut lengthwise in half (so 2 quarters)
• about 1/4 cup flour
• chopped parsley to garnish
• salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a pan just large enough to hold both fillets.
2. Dry the fish thoroughly and season both sides with salt and pepper. Dredge fish in flour, shaking off excess.
3. When the butter has stopped foaming, slide the fillets into the pan, "presentation side" down. Cook until golden brown and crisp, 2-3 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, thinly slice one of the lemon quarters on the horizontal (so you get little triangles).
5. Flip the fish over and cook another 2-3 minutes, until that side is also golden brown. Turn off the heat.
6. Swirl in the remaining 1/2 tbsp of butter, add the lemon slices, and top with parsley. Squeeze lemon juice from the remaining wedge of lemon over both fillets.

Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

I've had a good friend of mine visiting the last couple of weeks, and though it would have been easy to let ourselves eat out for every meal, I was determined to make at least two homecooked meals. I made 'perfect' mac & cheese, chicken marsala (recipe to come), 3 kinds of ice cream, salads, Zuni Cafe buttermilk mashed potatoes, and pecan honey sticky buns.

The last actually required that I also make a loaf of buttery brioche, because it uses one-half recipe of that dough. Yes, these sticky rolls are extra sinful because brioche is its base. The chilled dough is rolled out, filled with even more butter, cinnamon, and sugar, then cut into rolls. The rolls are placed in a baking dish with the honey glaze and pecans, and the whole thing is baked for 30 minutes. The rolls are unmolded immediately after coming out of the oven, the glaze bubbling all around them, and happily devoured by anyone standing nearby.

One of the great things about this recipe is that you don't have to make a ton of rolls at once if you don't want (for instance, if you're only serving one or two people). They don't keep well after they've been baked, so you don't want to make a lot if they're not going to be eaten right away. However, immediately after you've made the dough log (or even after cutting the log into individual buns), you can wrap the dough and store it in the freezer until you're ready to make another batch, and adjust the amount of glaze accordingly.

















Pecan Honey Sticky Buns from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours

Makes 15 buns

Ingredients:

For the glaze:

• 1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 8 tbsps unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1-1/2 cups pecans (whole or pieces)

For the filling:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tbsps (packed) light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 3 tbsps unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the buns:

• 1/2 recipe dough for Golden Brioche loaves (below), chilled and ready to shape (make the full recipe and cut the dough in half after refrigerating it overnight)

Method:

1. Generously butter a 9x13-inch baking pan (a Pyrex pan is perfect for this).
2. To make the glaze: In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the brown sugar, butter, and honey to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. Pour the glaze into the buttered pan, evening it out as best you can by tilting the pan or spreading the glaze with a heatproof spatula. Sprinkle over the pecans.
3. To make the filling: Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a bowl. If necessary, in another bowl, work the butter with a spatula until it is soft, smooth and spreadable.
4. To shape the buns: On a flour-dusted work surface, roll the chilled dough into a 16-inch square. Using your fingers or a pastry brush, spread the softened butter over the dough. Sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar, leaving a 1-inch strip bare on the side farthest from you. Starting with the side nearest you, roll the dough into a cylinder, keeping the roll as tight as you can. (At this point, you can wrap the dough airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months . . . . Or, if you want to make just part of the recipe now, you can use as much of the dough as you’d like and freeze the remainder. Reduce the glaze recipe accordingly).
5. With a chef’s knife, using a gentle sawing motion, trim just a tiny bit from the ends of the roll if they’re very ragged or not well filled, then cut the log into 1-inch thick buns. (Because you trim the ragged ends of the dough, and you may have lost a little length in the rolling, you will get 15 buns, not 16.) Fit the buns into the pan cut side down, leaving some space between them.
6. Lightly cover the pan with a piece of wax paper and set the pan in a warm place until the buns have doubled in volume, about 1 hour and 45 minutes. The buns are properly risen when they are puffy, soft, doubled and, in all likelihood, touching one another.
7. Getting ready to bake: When the buns have almost fully risen , center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
8. Remove the sheet of wax paper and put the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat. Bake the sticky buns for about 30 minutes, or until they are puffed and gorgeously golden; the glaze will be bubbling away merrily. Pull the pan from the oven.
   The sticky buns must be unmolded minutes after they come out of the oven. If you do not have a rimmed platter large enough to hold them, use a baking sheet lined with a silicone mate or buttered foil. Be careful - the glaze is super-hot and super-sticky.

Golden Brioche Dough

Ingredients

• 2 packets active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch water
• 1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch whole milk
• 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature but still slightly firm

Glaze for the loaves:

• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon water

Method

1. Put the yeast, water and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer and, using a wooden spoon, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the flour and salt, and fit into the mixer with the dough hook, if you have one. Toss a kitchen towel over the mixer, covering the bowl as completely as you can– this will help keep you, the counter and your kitchen floor from being showered in flour. Turn the mixer on and off a few short pulses, just to dampen the flour (yes, you can peek to see how you’re doing), then remove the towel, increase the mixer speed to medium-low and mix for a minute or two, just until the flour is moistened. At this point, you’ll have a fairly dry, shaggy mess.
2. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula, set the mixer to low and add the eggs, followed by the sugar. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for about 3 minutes, until the dough forms a ball. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter in 2-tablespoon-size chunks, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding the next. You’ll have a dough that is very soft, almost like batter. Increase the speed to medium-high and continue to beat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 10 minutes.
3. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl (or wash out the mixer bowl and use it), cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until nearly doubled in size, 40 to 60 minutes, depending upon the warmth of your room.
4. Deflate the dough by lifting it up around the edges and letting it fall with a slap to the bowl. Cover the bowl with the plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Slap the dough down in the bowl every 30 minutes until it stops rising, about 2 hours, then leave the uncovered dough in the refrigerator to chill overnight.
5. The next day, butter and flour two 8 1/2-x-4 1/2-inch pans.
6. Pull the dough from the fridge and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Cut each piece of the dough into 4 equal pieces and roll each piece into a log about 3 1/2 inches long. Arrange 4 logs crosswise in the bottom of each pan. Put the pans on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat, cover the pans lightly with wax paper and leave the loaves at room temperature until the dough almost fills the pans, 1 to 2 hours. (Again, rising time with depend on how warm the room is.)
7. Getting Ready To Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
   To Make the Glaze: Beat the egg with the water. Using a pastry brush, gently brush the tops of the loaves with the glaze.
8. Bake the loaves until they are well risen and deeply golden, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the pans to racks to cool for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pans and turn the loaves out onto the racks. Invert again and cool for at least 1 hour.

Butter ... the Popovers and Apple Kind

This repast is reminiscent of a late-night snack Trix and I had in New York. The Popover Cafe, located on the Upper East Side, was recommended to us, but unfortunately it was a big letdown. We don't know if they were having an off night or if the person who recommended it truly liked their extremely dry, almost burnt popovers. The only reason they were edible at all was because of the apple butter they were served with. (Ironically, the food we saw other people having that were not popovers, actually looked very good, even though the person recommending the restaurant specifically said that the rest of the food wasn't good; it was only the popovers that were worth eating. Given our short time in New York, however, we didn't waste a meal finding out if the regular entrees really were any good, or if they only looked good in comparison to the cardboard we were eating.)



Happily, homemade popovers and apple butter are actually very simple to make -- and are worlds better than what we had at the Popover Cafe.

These homemade popovers are made from Wondra flour, which I've never thought to bake with. It comes in a cardboard cannister, and advertises itself as ideally used to make gravies and sauces, because it's a special kind of flour that doesn't clump in liquid. That is, in fact, why I had it, because I'm fairly new to making gravy, and needed all the help I could get. The recipe is from Rose Levy Beranbaum. She describes Wondra as "a granular form of flour developed by General Mills. It dissolves instantly in liquid because it has been subjected to a process called agglomeration. It is produced essentially by misting flour with water and then spray-drying it with compressed air, which separates the flour into particles of even size and shape that will not clump when mixed with liquid." Therefore you need not worry that there is any leavening done by chemicals -- there isn't. If you don't have or want to use Wondra, that's fine, but in that case the dough will need a 2-hour or so rest before baking (whereas with Wondra, the popovers can go into the oven immediately after mixing).



The perfect popover, in my mind, is crispy on the outside and hollow and satiny on the inside. It's drier than regular bread and other pastries, but not dry. Its hollow insides are perfect for filling with melting butter and sweet preserves.



Perserves such as apple butter. I've never understood the name -- why butter? We don't call it strawberry butter or grape butter, so why is apple different? There isn't any dairy in apple butter -- just fruit, sugar, and spices. Well, no matter. It's delicious no matter what it's called.

And there are few things in life that go more perfectly together than warm popovers and apple butter. Perfect for breakfast and tea time!

Butter Popovers

Makes 6 regular-sized popovers or 12 mini-popovers

Recipe by Rose Levy Beranbaum (from her book, The Bread Bible)

Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 3 tbsp Wondra flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp granulated sugar
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 large eggs
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled but still liquid, divided

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. If you're using a dark pan (such as the nonstick one I use), preheat to 400°F instead. Set a rack on the second level from the bottom of the oven.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Slowly add the milk, whisking steadily. Using handheld beaters or continuing with the whisk, add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each addition, until the batter is smooth. Beat in 2 tbsps of the butter, which may clump a bit -- that's okay. (If you don’t plan to use the batter immediately, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Beat it lightly with a whisk before using.) To make things go faster and easier, pour the batter into a pitcher with a pouring spout -- my 2-cup measuring cup worked perfectly.
3. If you're using a 6-well popover pan, spoon 1 tsp of the remaining butter into each well. If you're using a 12-well muffin/cupcake pan, spoon 1/2 tsp of butter into each well.
4. Use a pastry brush to thoroughly coat the inside of each well with the butter.
5. 3-5 minutes before baking, line the oven rack with aluminum foil. Place the popover/muffin pan on top of the foil. Warm the butter until it begins to brown, but do not allow it to burn.
6. Remove the pan from the oven, and fill each well about halfway. Bake for 15 minutes.
7. Lower the temperature to 350°F and continue baking for 40-45 minutes for standard popovers or 20-25 minutes for muffin-size ones. The popovers should have puffed to about 3 times their original size.
8. 5-10 minutes before the end of the baking time, make a small slit in the side of each popover to release steam and dry the insides a bit. Don't open the oven until this point, or you risk deflating the popovers.
9. When the popovers are done, remove the pan from the oven. With a pot holder, gently lift them from the pan one at a time and place on a wire rack to cool a little. Serve while warm, with butter, apple butter, or your favorite jam.

Apple Butter

Makes enough to just about fill a regular-sized jar of peanut butter.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 lbs apples (such as Fuji or Jonagold -- if you use a tarter apple such as Granny Smith, you might want to use more sugar)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cloves (optional)

Method

1. Preheat a slow cooker by setting it on High.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, salt, and spices.
3. Peel and core the apples. Chop into 1-inch pieces. Do this as quickly as possible, so that the apples don't oxidize too much. Drop the pieces into the sugar mixture as you go.
4. Mix the apples in the sugar mixture until well coated, then transfer it all into the preheated slow cooker. Put the lid on.
5. Cook on high for 1 hour. The apples will have released plenty of liquid. Give them a good stir.
6. Turn the heat to Low and cook for another 9-10 hours. In that time the apples will soften even further and turn to a mahogany brown.
7. Remove the lid and let it cook for another hour. Using a whisk, stir the mixture to break up the pieces of apple. Hopefully much of the liquid will have evaporated. That wasn't the case for me, so I transferred it to a small pot, set it to simmer, and let it bubble away uncovered for another hour. If you do this as well, make sure it doesn't burn. (You don't want the butter to have too much water/liquid -- it should really have a jam-like consistency.)
8. To finish, transfer the mixture to a food processor and process until smooth. This step isn't necessary if you like chunky preserves, but I like the texture best when it's smooth and uniform.
9. Store in an air-tight container. Lasts about 3 months.

Fresh Butter

What's sweet and creamy and delicious homemade?



That ain't vanilla ice cream! But it's just as lucious and decadent.

It seems strange that I've gone so far as to render lard, and yet I haven't made an even easier fat that's just as -- if not more -- delicious. I am, of course, talking about butter.

I've thought about it before. I've nearly made it a couple of times -- by accident -- when I was making whipped cream and stopped paying attention for a few seconds. I'd look at the thicker-than-I-prefer whipped cream and wonder, if I let this go on a few more minutes, would it turn into butter?

The answer is yes. It's just as simple to make butter as you might think. And with the advent of the food processor, it's so ridiculously easy that I'm not sure why more people don't do it. Maybe all it takes is hearing that someone else did it -- my impetus was a LJ entry someone had made to the food_porn community -- in which case, consider this my good deed for the day, if this post makes even one person try to make their own butter.

Directions: Take one pint of heavy whipping cream, the fresher and colder, the better. Pour it into a food processor (a Magic Bullet, blender, or even just pouring it into a cold bowl and using a hand mixer would work as well). Pulse on high until the liquid cream becomes light whipped cream, then thick whipped cream, then a bunch of curds that sort of resembles watery scrambled eggs, then finally, butter. The remaining liquid is buttermilk -- but sweet and wonderful, quite unlike the buttermilk you buy in stores. Strain the buttermilk out, through a strainer or cheesecloth (which you can use to squeeze out more buttermilk from the butter), and save for a later purpose. Rinse the butter with water until it runs clear, to make sure that all the buttermilk is gone.

Once you've got your finished butter, which will be a light yellow in color, you can season it how you like. Add salt, garlic, honey, herbs, whatever you like. I plan to portion mine off so I have a good variety of butter, to see what I like best.



This site recommends that you store your butter with water to keep it tasting its freshest by keeping air out. And here's a handy conversion: 1 pint of cream = 1 cup of butter (2 sticks) + 1 cup buttermilk.

Fresh butter tastes light and sweet and wonderful, and has a pure, clean flavor that just can't be matched by store-bought butter. Really -- try it yourself! As for what I did with my butter first, I mixed 3 tablespoons with some salt and spread a generous portion onto a slice of toast (homemade Norwich sourdough), and, well, words can't do it justice. Maybe a picture will help.