Julia Child's Buerre Blanc

Buerre Blanc is one of the five French 'mother sauces' and before you guess it, yes it has like a heart-stopping amount of butter. Simply translated, it means 'white butter'...sauce. You serve it on fish. Tonight I served it on baked salmon, but usually a white meaty fish like a seabass will work great. Julia Child described her initial 'religious experience' with food that turned her into a bona fied French chef was having sole meunière (filet of sole, deboned) with buerre blanc at a restaurant in Rouen. As a mother sauce, you would think it's very dainty, french and for lack of a better term, frou frou. But it's actually very simple and affordable and can spice up any thing. I had a veggie friend over for dinner tonight so while I poured it on my fish, I poured it on her roasted eggplant and she loved it (pats oneself on back). Julia Child somehow through her charm and wit finagled a very confidential recipe from one of the top masterchefs in France for her signature buerre blanc, but don't be intimidated, it's super easy, super delicious, and super fattening!
You'll need the following:

1/2 cup of minced shallots (cutting these is worse than cutting onions, wear goggles, trust me)
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
1/2 cup of dry white wine (I personally like a Robert Mondavi Chardonnay, but definitely not something that is too sweet or fruit forward, usually a Sauvignon Blanc will do, but you know me. I like my Chardonnay)
1/4 tablespoon of salt (again, try to get sea salt or some kind of coarse salt, no fancy pink salt necessary)
1/4 tablespoon of fresh white ground pepper (here's where you can cheat, white pepper is hard to find and expensive, go ahead with the black pepper just make sure it's fresh ground)
and FINALLY...
1 1/2 cups of BUTTER!!!!! (That's three sticks people)

The cooking is so easy it will shock you that this is a super fancy masterchef specialty. Brown the minced shallots, add in the vinegar, wine, salt and pepper and put on a VERY LOW heat to reduce it to a mixture that's about two tablespoons. (Forgot to add, please use unsalted butter, you're using salt in the recipe already). After you have the reduction. Put in the butter that you have cut up into pieces while it's cold (DO NOT USE ROOM TEMPERATURE BUTTER) Here's where it gets a little labor intensive. With a gentle whisk, mix in the butter piece by piece, and you should have about 15 pieces, but at the end of it all you'll have this beautiful yellow frothy, velvety, creamy, heavenly, gift from the gods that you'll want to drink with a straw but don't because you'll end up at the cardiologist's office. The acids in the wine and vinegar work on the milk solids of the butter, it's basically delicious chemistry. Pour over anything, your naked body if that's your thing. But it will elevate anything you add it to. That's a promise. Enjoy, and you're welcome! 

Mashuganuts

This is my recipe for nutty sugar cookies (insert stupid pun here) ok, that wasn't fair, my name for these things is a stupid pun. Anyway, these are seriously the easiest cookies you'll ever make and if you don't care at all AT ALL about carbs or sugar, then you'll eat a whole plate full, and good luck with that food coma. Ok I'm really not selling this well, but let's just put it this way. Next time you're PMSing/hungover/dumped bake a batch of these, put on Dawson's Creek reruns and have a good cry, not on the cookies though, they are supposed to be crispy on the outside melt-in-your-mouth goodness on the inside. 

Since baking is like chemistry, you have to measure shit. Sorry. So here goes. 2 1/2 cups of white all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, (brown sugar is for chocolate chip cookies) 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 1 egg, 1 cup of butter (don't you dare substitute butter for anything, i'd rather have these not made at all than you using margarine!), 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1 tablespoon of hazlenut extract. I like to use hazelnut because it contrasts with the almonds I put in, but really you can use any combo. Like almond extract with walnuts, I don't care go nuts. 

Mix the flour and baking powder, and melt the butter but just barely in the microwave (DO NOT NUKE IT)  just make it soft (again, insert pun if you must) and mix in with the sugar until creamy and smooth. OK there is just no way to make this not dirty is there? Then mix in the egg and the extract and then slowly add the dry ingredients incrementally until you have that wonderful cookie dough texture. Then, add a pinch of salt, just a tiny pinch seriously, and a few handfuls of nuts, I like to use as you know, almond slivers. It keeps me from eating them by the handful (I know, I'm weird). How do you make round cookies? Use two spoons. Keep transferring about a spoonful of the mixture from one to another until you have a damn near perfect ball (pun #4 woohoo!) then put on some wax paper or foil that has been greased or lubricated (my god this is really hard to do). Bake in an oven that has been preheated for 30 minutes at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes until the rounds of the cookies are dark and the cookie itself is flat. Then take out of the oven, let stand for about 10 minutes also and enjoy with milk...or wine. Now that I think about it, wine. Always wine. Just don't dunk.

Greek-Inspired Watermelon Salad

This is the best way to beat the heat people. It's also probably the simplest salad you'll ever make, so simple in fact I can probably give it to you in one paragraph. Basically get a watermelon. I like using mini watermelons but then there's just never enough. It's the perfect beat-the-heat food. It's cold and refreshing, and it's not to sweet. Cut out about 8 to 10 large cubes and put them in a bowl. Don't do anything else to them and don't shock them into ice, it's going to make them dry out. Now time for the Greek flair. Feta cheese, fresh mint, and extra virgin olive oil. Make sure all of these are of prime quality. I'm serious. None of this dried mint in a glass canister, no feta cheese crumbles, and no 'light' EVOO. You want to use the best Extra Virgin olive oil you can find because you're going to dress your salad in it, and it has to taste fantastic because you are not cooking with it. 

Mint needs to be so fresh you could smell it in the next room. Most grocery stores will sell fresh mint in bushels, and one of those is more than enough. You'll only need about 7 to 10 leaves. And most importantly, the feta should be a block in brine. That salty brine water will serve as such a great clash to the sweetness of the watermelon in this symphony of natural raw flavors. Cut up perhaps the equivalent of a handful of feta cheese and throw into the bowl. Feta crumbles on its own so you'll get those wonderful crumbs that will automatically coat the watermelon. Then, slice up the leaves of mint however you want, but make sure they are big hearty slices so that you get an explosion of flavor with every bite, and toss those in as well. Coat with a generous douse of EVOO and a pinch of coarse sea salt (no regular salt!) and mix gently with salad spoons. Ladle out a hefty portion and enjoy. The flavors combine so beautifully, also it's absolutely refreshing and uplifting. When temperatures reach triple digits, there's nothing better.

Bon Appetite!

High Tea with Cucumber Sandwiches

This is as English as it gets. High Tea is typically served between 4pm and 6pm, and it's a nice way to snack before dinner and also get a light caffeine kick. Usually it's served with cake or pastries, but I like my high tea with another English staple; the cucumber sandwich. It might sound simple, which it is, but it's very delicate, filling, and the perfect accompaniment to tea. Yesterday I stopped by my favorite patisserie in Palo Alto, called La Baguette (I think they recently opened one in Glendale) and got a loaf of white sandwich bread. It's unbelievably fresh, baked with delicate hands minutes before its sold, it's absolutely perfect for the sandwich. 

The sandwich: 

It's probably the easiest thing you'll ever make. Really the most important component is the bread. If you're all about gluten free, flax seed nonsense, you're never EVER going to make a proper cucumber sandwich. It has to be country-style white bread. Period. Not even sourdough will suffice. Crusts on, and stick it in the toaster. IMPORTANT: Do not toast all the way, it should still be soft with just a touch of crunch around the edges. You are not making morning toast. Next, butter each piece until fully coated, again, if watching the calories you don't have to slather it on there, a light layer will do. Slice the cucumbers not into perfectly round slices but into diagonal slices so they are easier to eat in between the bread. Lightly salt with coast sea salt and put on about two layers, then again take a few leaves of parsley, not too many and cover with the other piece of bread. Cut diagonally (although the traditional English way would be to cut straight down the middle but that's how I prefer it) and enjoy! 

The English Tea:

I don't know why people are so scared by making a proper cup of English tea, they are very intimidated about it, because it has to be served and prepared a certain way but the truth being it's actually a very simple process. I lived in the UK for a year, and there's only one way to serve tea. They do not have an array of different teas to choose from at the store like we do over here, there's only one kind of tea and that's what they sell. To them, it's called 'tea' to us, it typically goes by the label 'English Breakfast'. It's basically light black tea. It's not bold, it's very mellow, but very good tasting. I brewed some Yorkshire Harrogate which I picked up while in the UK but honestly some Tazo 'Awake' or any brand of 'English Breakfast' will suffice. Let it sit, do not at sugar. 

The proper way to drink tea is how you take it once it's brewed. It's important to take tea with milk, not half and half, not heavy cream, and not skim...Milk and only milk. So have that at the ready, then a couple of sugar cubes, depending how much you prefer, you can always decline the sugar, but never the milk. Usually you would drink the tea out of a very small and delicate tea cup so watch it with how much sugar you put in so that it's not Southern Style Sweet Tea. Mix gently and enjoy. If you really want to get into character, pinky's out, tea spoon resting on the tea coaster, and nibble on, don't chew your sandwich. 

Bon Appetite!

Summer Potato Salad with Parsley

A perfect accompaniment to sweet tea is a light starch-based salad. People always think of potato salad as being grainy, heavy, and too dressed. And that doesn't have to be the case. The key to a good potato salad is cooking the potatoes correctly. They should be almost undercooked. Right when the begin to soften, stick either the sharp part of a thin knife or a wooden stick to see if you can stick it all the way through if you can, immediately take the boiled potatoes off the heat and shock them into cold water. Try to cook them without the skin as that will release all of that grainy mess and make them less starchy. To accent the heaviness of the potatoes you want to use fresh spring ingredients like onion and parsley. Parsley is such a godsend, it tends to perk up any dish. It's up there with my three favorite herbs next to thyme and dill, and has a quality of freshness that can clean up even the densest and heaviest of dishes. Also, it's good for breath and garnish. 

So basically break off about 20 stems of parsley off a bushel and slice up half of a yellow onion (yellow is better for eating raw than a white onion, it tends to be not as acidic). Mix the two together and once you've chopped up your perfectly boiled potatoes (3-4) add them all together. 

The other ingredient I like to put in just for silky texture is about 2-3 hard boiled eggs, but you don't have to. The flavors go really well, and when dressing something with mayonaisse, like this salad it is always good to have some kind of egg component. Boil the eggs for roughly 15 minutes until hard but not overboiled to where they are green. Chop finely and add to the mixture. 

Now my favorite part, the dressing. Most people dress potato salad with mayonnaise perhaps a dash of paprika, and in most cases yellow mustard which I find beyond disgusting. My secret ingredient is Lowensenf Mustard that you can buy at any European market. It's imported Bavarian mustard that I first tried at Schmidt's perhaps the most authentic German restaurant in California on Folsom street in San Francisco. It is to die for. It is sweet, a little bit tangy, and full-flavored with just the right amount of crunch from the mustard seeds. A heavy dollop of that with two tablespoon fulls of mayonnaise, as well as a generous amount of seasoning with kosher salt (or preferably pink Himalayan salt) and fresh ground pepper and you're ready to mix until the salad is evenly coated. Serve on a piece of rye or pumpernickel toasted bread and a glass of sweet tea. It's the perfect light lunch for the hot weather.

Sweet Iced Tea with Peaches

Growing up in Texas I was first introduced to the concept of Sweet Tea. As someone who came from Russian, tea was basically a beverage to have with every meal, and the way you took it was in a small tea cup with loose leaf Arabic black tea that was very rich and bold in flavor with absolutely no sweetener or milk. It was designed to put some hair on your back. My mother to this day will drink it just like that with a piece of Russian candy on the side to act as a sweetening agent. So when we moved to Texas, I was relieved to be able to drink tea not only over ice, because iced tea is a staple in the south due to the insanely hot summer temperatures that wold reach triple digits by March, but also with a hefty amount of sugar that basically killed the tea flavor all together, so what I decided to do was combine the two things that I love about this concoction and allow for all the flavors to stand out whilst adding my own personal touch to it.

I am a big fan of loose leaf tea, I rarely use tea in a bag, unless it's one that I have to buy to go. With loose leaf tea, they use the larger dried leaves of the tea that contain the most flavor. Your best bet is to buy the tin canisters of tea from Peet's Coffee and Tea, they are (though a chain) very true to tea horticulture and history. One new one that I really enjoy is called Russian Caravan. Anyone who knows anything about Russian culture knows that Russians drink a lot of tea, probably more than the British, but the only difference is that they don't have any tea that is indigenous to them, most of their tea is imported from countries in the middle east. They only have one flavor that they enjoy; that is deep, dark and smokey black tea cultivated in the regions near India, they used to be taken by caravan by traveling salesmen and gypsies to Russia and sold in bulk in the outdoor markets by the shovel full. It's as authentic of a flavor that you're likely to find in the states unless there is an Arab market near your place that sells loose leaf black tea. 

There is an art to brewing. in a tea pot measure about 5 spoon fulls of the dried leaves to put into  a tea pot and fill to the brim with boiling water. The mixture must brew for at least 20 minutes until the leaves are completely moist.

Meanwhile in a large caraf cut up one peach or use a can of peaches already sliced. Sometimes it's better to use canned peaches because they're already soft and they have that wonderful sweet juice that they are swimming in to help the flavor of the fruit shine. I'm a bit of a purist so I prefer a fresh peice, which will basically be slowly cooked by the hot water. 

After the initial brewing of the tea ad at least twice the amount of sugar to the hot mixture. If you used 5 tablespoons of tea, use 10 tablespoons of sugar. If you're watching your calories feel free to use Spenda or honey even. Once the mixture has brewed for 20 minutes and the sugar has completely dissolved, pour the mixture over the peach and juice mixture (the juice should be about 1/4 of a cup if anything). This will cook and soften the peaches and mix with the tea flavor. Allow to stand for about 20 minutes until the mixture has cooled. 

Once the mixture is cool, and only after it is, is it ok to start adding ice, if it's not cool the ice will melt immediately and water down the beverage. The carafe should be half full at this point with the rest of the space saved for the ice so that the ratio is perfect. Pour into a glass and enjoy by the pool. It has the right amount of sugar and caffeine and natural fructose to give you a bit of a kick without being painful to drink.

Enjoy and Bon Appetite!