Category Archives: French Fridays with Dorie
french lentils {ffwd}
Lentils are my favorite bean. I love lentil soup, lentil salad, and even lentils as a side. This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is “a basic recipe” for French lentils, which I made as a side.
Dorie suggests using French Le Puy lentils instead of the brown lentils you usually see at the grocery store. I know that some Doristas had trouble sourcing these, but fortunately, my local Whole Foods always has these in the bulk section where I buy them by the pounds. I love them, particularly in lentil salad, because they hold their shape instead of getting mushy. I agree that they are worth seeking out.
This recipe’s preparation is similar to my usual method, but also a little bit different. I’m always up for trying new ways of doing things before deciding whether to adopt some or all of the experiment for a new and enhanced “usual” method.
For this version, first the lentils are boiled for two minutes, then drained before continuing. This is to give the lentils a cleaner flavor. I’m not sure I could tell the difference, but I might try it again.
The lentils are simmered with an onion studded with a clove, a carrot, a celery stalk, a smashed garlic clove, and a bay leaf. Once they are tender, some brandy is stirred in for just a minute, before draining the lentils again. My question about this step is: what’s the point of the brandy? I didn’t notice any residual taste. Even though I didn’t use fancy brandy, just Christian Brothers, it still seemed like a waste of brandy.
At this point, cook’s choice: discard the vegetables or chop them up. I chopped them up, mixed them into the lentils, and adjusted the seasoning.
The lentils made the perfect accompaniment to duck confit, beet salad, and braised kale. This dish, or maybe it was the whole meal, felt like a baby step towards welcoming the crispness in the air as summer comes to an end and autumn is upon us.
As far as adjustments to my favorite method, I would try the initial quick boil and drain step again before making a final judgment on that step. I usually simmer my lentils with chopped onion and carrots (and a bay leaf). I found the chopping of the warm (well, hot, I was impatient) vegetables fussy, though I did enjoy the flavors, so I might start adding chopped celery and garlic to the mix. but not whole vegetables. Also, no brandy unless I just stirred it into the warm lentils. So, mixed results on takeaways for me.
To see how the lentils came out for the other Doristas, check out their links here. We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
I was at Squam Lake in New Hampshire overnight with a couple of my morning boot camp buddies. This morning, we hiked to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain, and this is the view back over the lake. Gorgeous, no?
View of Squam Lake from Rattlesnake Mountain (NH)
chicken en papillote {ffwd}
I was seriously challenged by this week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie: Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote. It’s not that I didn’t think I’d like it. It’s that, first of all, I have a kitchen overflowing with fresh produce from my farm share. This week we picked up 10 POUNDS of tomatoes, yes, that’s 10 pounds, and I’d just finished up last week’s 6 pounds. That’s in addition to 3 pounds of potatoes, another 10 cucumbers, another 7 items plus a slew of pick-your-own. Clearly, it’s the peak of the summer harvest season. And I won’t even mention the vegetables from last week that I haven’t quite used up… The second thing is that Howard isn’t wild about the flavor of curry. So, it was hard to get my head around making a dinner of chicken steamed in foil packets with peas (not in season fresh, and how can I buy frozen vegetables with all the fresh ones in the house?).
What to do? Well, I channeled my inner Cher and decided not to follow directions. I had a red onion and a red pepper on hand, so all set there. I liked the idea of the green peas, so I sliced up some cooked green beans into pea-sized slices for color. What else would go with those? I decided to add a handful of halved cherry tomatoes and some Kalamata olives. Given the landscape of these ingredients, I substituted crumbed herbes de Provence instead of curry powder. Et voila! I think I’ll call it chicken provençal en papillote.
I have 8 bell peppers that I plan to stuff tomorrow, so I made a double batch of this rice pilaf using pistachios and adding some diced red and purple peppers, using some of it as tonight’s side. The rice was quite moist, so it will make a good stuffing in addition to an excellent side.
We’ve made a few other recipes from AMFT en papillote. I always forget what a great technique this is. The only thing is that I think one big packet would be fine. I didn’t plan on presenting each diner with their own packet and ended up combining both packets into one bowl for serving. Even though I halved the recipe, we still had plenty of leftovers, so for us, the serving size in the recipe was on the large size.
If you make up the packet(s) in advance, as I did, dinner is a snap. Just remove the packets from the fridge and let them bake while you make the accompaniments. And now that I’ve successfully modified it, I hope to remember to use this method again and again.
To see what the other Doristas did with their chicken, check their links here. The original recipe can be found in in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
A Plateful of Happiness 