Southern Fried French

Cooking in Le Confinement

Selfie with Vegetables, and the next delivery is imminent! And my "fried green tomato" is already turning red.

 

Your French Mot du Jour: Le Confinement, which is lockdown lingo. Meals come around really often in Le Confinement, don’t they? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been cooking like a maniac,  and struggling to keep up with looming mealtimes.

Worried about food shortages, I signed up for a weekly local farm delivery here in Charleston. In which they deliver a box of 15 pounds (7 kilos) of assorted veggies each week, whatever they’re growing. I can tell you that no matter what shortages occur, we will not starve to death. Fifteen pounds is a LOT of veggies. 

So each week on the day before the next delivery, I’m frantically cleaning out the veggie drawer. Soups, salads, pickles, gratins, whatever I can dream up.

Refrigerator Pickles, to tackle a mountain of cucumbers.

And what I dreamed up this week is infinitely versatile: veggie turnovers, with a bit of meat or fish if you like.And if you use pre-made piecrust, you can turn out a terrific turnover in a half hour. I use Pillsbury here, but puff pastry would work too; in France I would use a pâte feuilleté.

We’ve blogged about turnovers before, which were never a French thing, until I discovered that the local traiteur  (a fancy catering shop) in Beaune now carries round puffy ones  for a quick lunch, in all sorts of varieties.

This week I stuffed mine with zucchini, broccoli, white onions, garlic, and a layer of thinly sliced deli cheddar I happened to have on hand. They were crunchy, creamy, and cheesy all at once. You could also use leftover meat or fish or vegetables, chopped fine, and avoid the stovetop all together.

The possibilities  for layering in flavors are as endless as those veggies that are multiplying in my fridge. While we were tucking into them, Ron and I brainstormed some other good combinations for you. But check your fridge for inspiration!

 

RECIPE: Personalized Turnovers

Traditional French pastries are the sweet ones stuffed with apples, called chaussons aux pommes, but now savory ones are popping up. 

 

For this week’s turnover version, which makes 3 large turnovers, I chopped some zucchini up small, and diced a small white onion. I sliced a few florets of broccoli very thin.  I threw in a tiny bit of leftover chicken. I added sea salt and ground pepper and sautéed all this in a combo of butter and olive oil, for maybe 4 minutes, adding chopped garlic for the last minute. 

Then I put it into a bowl and added a couple of tablespoons of sour cream and a squeeze of Sriracha sauce. I cut the pie crust into 6 wedges. I put the filling on 3 of them and laid thin deli slices of cheddar on top. Then I topped them with the other wedge, crimped the edges, put a slit in the top, and baked them for 15 minutes at 375, until they were golden and bubbly.  If you have leftover topping, heat it up and serve it over a biscuit or toast for tomorrow’s lunch (which will be here before you know it!).

Here are some other combos—no recipe needed! Instead of sour cream, mayo or even Greek yogurt would work as a binder, and any sort of cheese you have on hand will do. Just be sure to chop everything small. Everything should be pre-cooked. You can also add a salsa or creamy sauce on the side,  for dipping.

—Shrimp, celery, summer squash (or any veggie), onions, gruyère

—Chicken pie turnovers, with carrots, peas, onions, parmesan

—Italian sausage, sautéed bell peppers, onions, basil , grated mozzarella

—Chopped salmon, scallions, dill, asparagus, gruyère

—Leftover beef and chopped steamed or roasted potatoes, then stir in a little tomato paste or marinara sauce, grated cheddar or parmesan

 

In the Comments: Jane has many an interesting gougère tip for us. Colleen has solved a cheese puff mystery. Zing makes hers with the added decadence of  bacon. And my sister checks in with some family secrets. Iris and Mary James think 5 eggs is too many and I agree, so I tried them agin, using a recipe from Alain Ducasse. Perfection! Here is the photo, cookies no longer:

Favorite READS: If you want to lift yourself out of lockdown for a moment, our loyal reader Natalia has a book for you: Paris in Bloom by Georgianna Lane. "Complete eye candy!!" she says, and she's right! And for anyone who is contemplating air travel, especially to Europe (as we are), you will want to read Karen McCann's hilarious account of her trip from Spain to the states in the middle of the pandemic.

And for another pleasant and beautiful distraction, please check out the work of some of our readers who are fabulous artists. Three new ones to try:

Mary Salas

Gail Wendorf

and my dear friend, Susan Altman

 

Gougère Cookies

French gougères which I did not make (photo, Brown Eyed Baker)

I did not learn to cook from my mother.

My mother, Mickey, was proudly from the ""I Hate to Cook" school. She mostly stuck to a rigid program, the simple, boring, 7-day menu. 

But at some memorable point in my childhood, someone in her bridge club improbably taught her to make homemade chocolate eclairs, pastry and all, and she got on an eclair kick for a while. In other words, though she didn’t know it, she was actually making a French pâte à choux (of course she filled them with instant pudding and topped them with canned chocolate frosting, but hey). Pâte à choux is also the base for those iconic Burgundy apero nibbles, gougères, little gruyère cheese puffs that you can find in any Burgundian boulangerie.

She never taught me to make the puffs, but the point of this story is: if Mickey did it, WE CAN DO THIS. Imagine impressing your guests with homemade French gougères,  or make them without the cheese for that blissful French dessert, chocolate profiteroles. Or even eclairs.

I decided to try making gougères after watching a demo last summer at one of those wonderfully campy  French village fêtes. Monsieur le chef, wearing a ridiculous looking hat which he claimed was essential to the process, taught us to make gougères at a table in the town square. He beat the dough with a flourish, but forgot to add the eggs and instead put the cheese in first, so the dough was absurdly sticky. A half hour later he was still struggling to get the dough from spoon to baking sheet, and grumbling something about refusing to do it next year unless they got him a new oven. I think we can easily improve on his technique.

 

So I turned to the American-in-Paris French cooking wiz, Dorie Greenspan, for a recipe.

Things were going well until I finished the "dough", which was in fact, a liquid. Hmm. I re-checked my recipe: I had put only half the flour they called for. Which of course was the first ingredient to be added.  So right at the end, I dumped in the rest of the flour, and a little more for good measure since my dough was still pretty thin. I guess I can't say another word about Monsieur le chef.

Ron likes to say, "If you can read, you can cook". Maybe it's the reading that's my problem?

But I soldiered on, and predictably my wayward gougères did not rise an inch. So we renamed them gougère cookies. They were actually very tasty, and we polished them all off. I'm sure when I make them again, they will be perfectly plump. Or perhaps I'm doomed to follow in my mom's footsteps?

So give this recipe a try, but beware: read carefully!

 

RECIPE: French Gougères

My gougère cookies. I do not recommend them.

Dear readers, I don't know how these will turn out if you actually follow the recipe, but I hope you will let me know.

• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely grated cheese, such as Gruyère or cheddar (about 6 ounces; see above)
• Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
• Bring the milk, water, butter, and salt to a rapid boil in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over high heat. Add the flour all at once, lower the heat to medium-low, and immediately start stirring energetically with a wooden spoon or heavy whisk. The dough will come together and a light crust will form on the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring—with vigor—for another minute or two to dry the dough. The dough should now be very smooth.
• Turn the dough into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or into a bowl that you can use for mixing with a hand mixer or a wooden spoon and elbow grease. Let the dough sit for a minute, then add the eggs one by one and beat, beat, beat until the dough is thick and shiny. Make sure that each egg is completely incorporated before you add the next, and don't be concerned if the dough separates—by the time the last egg goes in, the dough will come together again. Beat in the grated cheese. Once the dough is made, it should be spooned out immediately.
• Using about 1 tablespoon of dough for each gougère , drop the dough from a spoon onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches of puff space between the mounds. Using about 1 tablespoon of dough for each gougère, drop the dough from a spoon onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches of puff space between the mounds. Slide the baking sheets into the oven and immediately turn the oven temperature down to 375 degrees F. Bake for 12 minutes, then rotate the pans from front to back and top to bottom. Continue baking until the gougères are golden, firm, and, yes, puffed, another 12 to 15 minutes or so. Serve warm, or transfer the pans to racks to cool. 
   
  Serving: Gougères are good straight from the oven and at room temperature. I like them both ways, but I think you can appreciate them best when they're still warm. Serve with kir, white wine, or Champagne.
  Storing: The best way to store gougères is to shape the dough, freeze the mounds on a baking sheet, and then, when they're solid, lift them off the sheet and pack them airtight in plastic bags. Bake them straight from the freezer—no need to defrost—just give them a minute or two more in the oven. Leftover puffs can be kept at room temperature over night and reheated in a 350-degree-F oven, or they can be frozen and reheated before serving.

 

In the COMMENTS: Our readers have tons of ideas for what the French call "le confinement". Mariella has a great film club idea for movie buffs, and I especially love the “3 things” challenge. Mary finds peace in her woodland garden, and I imagine is busy painting too—see her beautiful landscapes and fanciful dancers here. Natalia is reading to her pups—I wonder what Vino the Bambino would make of that? Have to try it. Frank, I’m sorry you missed your trip (as we probably will) but your story of shy onions and 100 gladiolas tickled me. Debby, like us, is into chatting, with wine. Heather may have the most brilliant idea: go wild with ice cream! Anne’s taking out her frustration on her weeds, Connie’s making sourdough. Vicky, your squirrel relocation project certainly gets the unique award! Tom in France has an international dinner party going, plus French lessons—can we get in on those please?  Rachel is also learning a new language: birdsong! Kathy has rediscovered her neighborhood.

The thing that struck me about this week’s comments: how upbeat and positive everyone is, even in the midst of a frustrating time. I’ll never run out of useful and creative things to do as long as I stay in touch with y’all.  As Doris says, “Bloom where you’re planted!”.

 

PS: Speaking of pastry, a couple of posts ago, Natalia sent in a recipe for a Serbian dish called a Burek. She included the recipe, and now we have a photo. The recipe is reprinted below. Sounds exotic and delicious!

"A recipe from our Serbian roots is called Burek.Half a container cottage cheese,blended with an egg.Brush with olive oil, an Emile Henri dish 5 1/2 by 8 inches.Line bottom with three sheets phyllo dough,overlapping sides and ends..Brush with melted butter.Spoon in cottage cheese/egg mixture.Fold one sheet of overlapped phyllo dough over top.Brush with butter.Spoon on cottage cheese mixture.Fold over another layer of phyllo dough. Brush with butter.Repeat till cottage cheese mixture is used up.Top with final layer of phyllo dough.Brush generously with butter.Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 10 or so minutes ,till golden brown.Serves one hungry person,or two if accompanied by side salad."