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boeuf à la ficelle {ffwd}
Winter weather calls for hearty fare at the dinner table. With the arrival of another foot of snow on Wednesday, this week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie fit that bill. Have you ever heard of boeuf à la ficelle, or beef on a string? I hadn’t. No great surprise because Dorie says even in France, this is une recette perdue (a lost recipe). Beef on a string isn’t the most inspiring name. Believe it or not, we’re talking about beef tenderloin and winter vegetables poached in homemade bouillon.
The homemade bouillon was a bit of mystery. What’s the difference between bouillon and stock? The best answer I could come up with is that stock is made from bones and bouillon made of meat. The bouillon resembled stock, but in addition to some marrow bones, it also called for an oxtail, which is pretty meaty. The bones, oxtail, and onion are browned, then simmered with other vegetables and some spices. In the end, Dorie says to discard all the solids because they’ve given up their flavor. I’ll admit that as a good “dog mom”, I picked the meat off the oxtail pieces and scooped the marrow out of the bones to dress up Bella’s meals this week. She hasn’t seemed to notice any lack of flavor.
To make dinner, I simmered an assortment of vegetables, most of which I had in my mini root cellar in the basement (i.e. a big plastic container filled with sand next to the drafty door) in the bouillon.
For the beef, I used a tenderloin filet which was about half the size called for, but perfect for the two of us. I tied the beef up with string (to make it easy to retrieve from the pot, I guess) and poached it in the bouillon until it was rare.
This makes a lovely presentation: sliced beef surrounded with vegetables in a sea of bouillon. I served with Dijon and seeded mustard and horseradish to let us each season the bowl as we wished. I particularly liked the zing the horseradish and mustard gave to the bouillon in the bowl. And Howard rated this three thumbs up, very high praise!
We have enough beef and vegetables for another night of leftovers, and there is so much bouillon left, I see some beef and barley soup on the weekend’s menu. An everlasting meal. My favorite kind.
The recipe is available on-line here or you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To see what other Doristas thought of this recipe, check out their posts here.
paris-brest {ffwd}
Ambivalence. Dread. Fascination. Resignation. I’ll admit to a full range of emotions about this week’s selection for French Fridays with Dorie: Paris-Brest. What is a Paris-Brest, you ask? It’s a special pastry that was created in honor of a bicycle race. How French! Every four years, the bicycle race is held between Paris and, you guessed it, Brest, a city in Brittany, in northwestern France. OK, that’s the etymology, but what is it? Reminiscent of a bicycle wheel, it’s a ring of choux pastry (the same dough as cream puffs) filled with an almondy pastry cream.
So why the emotional range? Well, even though I’ve made it before, and it’s challenging, but doable, pate a choux is not my favorite dough. Pastry cream? A little intimidating to make, though I think we’ve made it before for FFwD (éclairs?) Not my favorite, loads of calories, and Howard showed no interest in sharing. One concession was to “minify” (nod to Mardi). At her suggestion, I planned to make one small ring for me, form the remaining dough into cream puffs to freeze and save for later. I was further inspired when I saw Christy’s mini rings on Instagram, piped into and baked in mini-tart pans. I had a plan.
First, I set out to make the caramelized almonds that flavor the pastry cream. I didn’t have any whole blanched almonds, only slivered, which have a whole lot more surface area than whole ones. I decided to double the caramel to be sure to have enough coating. It worked out perfectly. Wow! Those caramelized almonds were delicious. We, Howard and I, could have nibbled on the whole batch. The almonds even sparked his interest enough that I varied my plan and made two rings so Howard could try Paris-Brest too.
Almond Praline: Next Year’s Holiday Food Gifts?
I didn’t have the right kind of pastry tip, so for piping my rings, I made do with a ziplock bag and scissors to cut off its corner. It worked great.
The mini pastry rings were so cute. The center of bottom filled in, but when I sliced it in half to fill, the top still had its hole. I removed most of the dough in the bottom half of the pastry ring, filled it with the pulverized caramelized almonds mixed into pastry cream, and put the other half on top. Then, we waited an hour for the Paris-Brest to chill. A sprinkle of confectioners’ sugar to dress it up before serving, and we had dessert.
I will say that this is a gorgeous dessert. Certainly, it looked like it came from the closest patisserie, not my kitchen. As for how it tasted? It was as good as it looked, if you like this kind of thing. No matter how I try to spin it, custard just isn’t at the top of my list. However, it was a worthwhile experiment, and I impressed myself with a professional looking treat.
We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To see what other Doristas thought of this recipe, check out their posts here.
A Plateful of Happiness 