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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

I cooked today.

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
There was a thread about the food we cook while in quarantine, but I can't find it any more. Anyway, this is what I cooked tonight:

3937

Poulet marengo.

3938


Gratin de choux-fleur.

 

Peter Dexter

Well-known member
Finding threads is a recurring problem on this forum. Once you read a post in "New Posts" it disappears into the nether world. I wish Asher would fix this issue and make posts appear sequentially. That said looks yummy. Bon appetit!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Finding threads is a recurring problem on this forum. Once you read a post in "New Posts" it disappears into the nether world. I wish Asher would fix this issue and make posts appear sequentially. That said looks yummy. Bon appetit!
Chances are someone complained too much and I gave in and listened to them. We live in different time zones, and sometimes inadvertently sense of fun and humor don’t blend well!

Generally my surgery is clean. Here I couldn’t undo the web of complaints and “reports” until Nicolas got me to scroll down....after I had, in frustration, deleted the thread!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Finding threads is a recurring problem on this forum. Once you read a post in "New Posts" it disappears into the nether world. I wish Asher would fix this issue and make posts appear sequentially. That said looks yummy. Bon appetit!
Weird as I never got any problem whit the "What's new" menu :
But well, if Asher comes to delete threads, we're lost!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
My wife is a great cook!


4066


Asher Kelman: “Cinnamon Poached Pear”


Tonight we had poached pear, cinnamon flavored with vanilla Greek yoghurt topped with chocolate chips and crushed roasted almonds!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Duo de saumon, sauce aux baies roses sur son lit d'asperges vertes. Servi avec un côtes de Gascogne.

FEEC363D-DD65-4A15-93C3-6F36E321B45F.jpeg
(Doesn't the name sound better in French? This is fish closed to its past date and leftovers...)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jérôme,

Looks so healthy and delicious!

.....and yes, even naughty things whispered in one’s lover’s ear are better in French!

Does that fold over as a sandwich or is it tackled with a knife and fork and a linen napkin on one’s lap?

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
I had some extra courgette and bell peppers and I thought that, maybe, they would make good lasagna. This is the story in pictures.

As in most French dishes, it starts with sliced garlic. I added a little chili from the plant seen in "home flowers".

B3C3F9DB-D5AE-4DBF-99E1-A733D58BA2DA.jpeg

Then, of course, fried onions in olive oil:

2F575F0B-5F26-433B-B4A4-4E606690017E.jpeg

And bell pepers:

9F0A6810-55D6-4475-A91E-AC16A8A493BC.jpeg
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
As I said: the extra courgettes, diced:

5F7D00CE-6315-46F2-B128-5DC2E19F8D7E.jpeg

While I was frying these, I was also doing béchamelle sauce (cooks have two hands for a reason...)

2AFF8444-220C-4DE3-B225-B135F69D1D90.jpeg

And minced beef (although, maybe next time I'll try it with fish)

33CA2C3D-361D-40C4-941D-278DF47C2489.jpeg
 
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Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Then, build the layers of lasagna:

2728D13E-A42F-46C9-B3DA-4B54814EEB8C.jpeg

Add the béchamelle sauce with grated cheese:

AD2F1371-A0D9-40A4-9CF4-9F13B25BA4D1.jpeg

And bake in the oven till done:

CC74F59D-650D-4734-88DA-02C8C912BD4E.jpeg
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The bechamel is a wonderful ingredient. I am so impressed with your devotion to the menu! However, it took me by surprise! I thought it was actually as Greek as monasteries or the Acropolis itself, high up on death defying cliffs!

I must look at béchamel history! I feel I must catch up!

“The earliest mention of the name appears in Le Cuisinier François, published in 1651 by François Pierre La Varenne (1615–1678), chef de cuisine to Nicolas Chalon du Blé, marquis d'Uxelles. The foundation of French cuisine, the Cuisinier François ran through some thirty editions in seventy-five years The sauce originally was a veal velouté, with a large amount of cream added.[6]” (more here)


No one I know here, (except my elder son, whose hobby is “cordon-blue-level” cooking), would ever make such a sauce. American families do not generally spend that effort!

The very best restaurants here of course do! I have only heard Béchamel source as an essential ingredient from Greek Moussaka!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Béchamelle ist not very difficult to make, actually. Medium heat, melt 30g of butter, add 40g of flour, cook for a minute or two and add half a liter of milk, while stirring continuously. It is easier if one uses a flour which minimises clumps but clumps can be dissolved with a blender (the kind of external blender which goes into the pot).

The secret is to keep stirring or the bottom of the sauce gets too hot, flour cooks there first and you have a layer of pasta at the bottom with milk on top.

Indeed I use béchamelle to top Moussaka.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Béchamelle ist not very difficult to make, actually. Medium heat, melt 30g of butter, add 40g of flour, cook for a minute or two and add half a liter of milk, while stirring continuously. It is easier if one uses a flour which minimises clumps but clumps can be dissolved with a blender (the kind of external blender which goes into the pot).

The secret is to keep stirring or the bottom of the sauce gets too hot, flour cooks there first and you have a layer of pasta at the bottom with milk on top.

Indeed I use béchamelle to top Moussaka.
What gives it the special flavor?
 
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