Day 22

So this looks suspiciously like chicken pot pie filling. In fact it is Poule au Pot. Chicken in a pot. Its delicious and comforting. I took my leftovers and piled them into leftover pie dough and made a pot pie. It was lovely. I could not take a picture of it though as I did not have time before it was eaten. Just think chicken stew + pie dough + 375 for about 45 minutes. Super easy. The original stew was made by boiling a chicken with whole veg until cooked. Then remove chicken and pull apart. Keep chicken meat and use veg if desired. Saute pearl onions and mushrooms separately "a blanc". Add their leftover juice to your stock and bring to a simmer. "A blanc" means that you put a little water, butter, salt and pepper into a fry/sauce pan with the stated veg and simmer with a parchment lid until tender. Don't brown the veg or will not be "a blanc". It would be "brun". Once stock and veg juice is simmering add cream (not much) and roux to thicken. Whisk to incorporate roux and once thickened as needed allow to simmer for a few minutes to cook out flour in roux. Season as needed. Add back in chicken and veg and BAM. Can you imagine if Emeril was your cooking teacher every day? You'd try to drown yourself in a huge vat of brown stock. Or poke your eyes out with lobster claws. Which one would you rather do?

So then we started on a quick dish: Rosti. Its not technically French, its Swiss. But I guess they like to eat it in France. Last time I had it I called it hash browns. Its super good though. So satisfying. Julienned potatoes, salted and peppered, and fried til crispy in a small frypan. We flipped it in the pan all fancy style. At home I would never have been nervous about that. But at school no one said they felt comfortable giving it the pan flip. SO- they all stared at me while I got stressed since I was ready to flip. In my crazy head they were all watching to see if the potato cake landed on my face, scalding me with hot clarified butter and causing me to lose one or both of my eyes, while seriously disfiguring me. Luckily, I just flipped it and it was fine. Then all the smug fucking classmates proceeded to sack it up and flip as well. Thanks guys. Let me go first while you stare at me with no encouragement waiting for me to take the chance you are afraid of. Assholes. It was scary. My stomach had butterflies. Anyway, it turned fine. And tasted great. This might be better than late night french fries.
Mine would have been more evenly browned if I had squished it down into the pan harder. Next time I guess. After potato cake came scallops Provencal. Its a pan sauce dish so its done and done in no time flat. Scallops go into a pan, get seared (real hot pan), add shallot, thyme, garlic, niciose olives and fry, deglaze with wine, add chopped plum tomatoes with their juice, simmer, and dish it up.

Look at that drama. The scallops look like meatballs in this picture. Sick. Whatever. They are scallops. In a scallop shell no less. Over a bed of rock salt and pretty spices like star anise and bay. I was slightly concerned that if you actually served it to people at restaurants that the bed of spices would be too aromatic for some. I have way too many questions.

Oooohh. Tomorrow? escargot and boeuf bourguignon and poulet chasseur. Jealous? Duh.