Chicken Ballotine (Ballotines de Volailles et Pommes Savonnettes)

Ah yes, another elaborate French dinner with butter, creme, wine, and cognac. I'm glad this was too much work, if I could eat it more often I'd need a coronary bypass by the age of 40.
As with the last French meal, mes amis Tyler and Lily were the guinea pigs, and they both agreed it was better than the boeuf bourguignon.

Here's a general overview:

A few weeks ago I made another batch of stock, this time with beef and chicken. I froze half of it, then reduced the other half, by half. This made what is known as a demi-glace. The condensation of the collagen gives it the consistency of a jelly when it is cool, and it was used as the base of the creme sauce. I took half of the demi-glace and reduced that to 1/4, until it had the consistency of thick caramel. This is what is known as glace de viande. When it cools it is hard as a rock and keeps in the fridge longer than Walt Disney. Break a little chunk off and add it to liquid and you've got a supercondensed bit of meat flavor that forms the basis of many a sauce, including the one you see above in caramel-colored streaks.

The chicken is made by de-boning a whole bird while keeping the skin intact. The dark meat is combined with heavy creme and white pepper and pureed into a mousse. The mousse is layered on top of the breast, and the whole shebang is wrapped and tied in the skin of the chicken. It is then panfried in wine, cognac, and herbs, and served with the two sauces above.

The potatoes are delicious. The french name, pommes savonnettes, literally means "soap potatoes," because of their shape. This is much less appetizing when you know what it means, but the taste makes up for it. They are a bit time consuming, since you have to carve the potatoes into cylinder shapes, cut 1-inch coins, and bevel the edges. But after that, it's all very easy. It goes in an ovensafe sauce pan with some water, butter, and salt. Once the water boils, they go in the oven until the water has baked off and the potatoes are left to get crispy brown in the butter. They also tasted delicious with the two sauces. You want the recipe? Buy Jacques Pépin's book (see several posts below).

Five classes, the duties of being on law journal, and looking for a summer job aren't going to keep me from making the occasional elaborate meal.

Panang Curry Meatballs - Recipe

Kitchen Monkey is back from a long winter hiatus (although, I have a hard time calling what we've had in D.C. "winter"). Before the recipe, here's an update on what's new, foodwise and otherwise.

• For the first time, the Monkey is an uncle. That's right: my brother and sister-in-law had a beautiful baby daughter on Christmas morning! When she is old enough, she will no doubt feel enormous gratitude toward her uncle for featuring the news of her birth in a food post about meatballs.
• The New Year's Eve feast was both delicious and dangerous. I won't mention names, but one friend cut himself two or three times. Another had the skin of her hands aflame from some allergy to the butternut squash she was preparing. And Kitchen Monkey? After slaving in a kitchen for five hours, perhaps with too little sleep and too many glasses of wine, fell asleep at around 11 pm, only to be woken up just minutes before the countdown. The food was great though: a ginger green bean salad, which I will post the recipe for eventually; butternut squash soup; mashed potatoes; no-knead bread; and my piece de resistance, a giant leg of lamb marinated in yoghurt, spices, and onion, and grilled to perfection.
• Law school has resumed. In previous semesters, I lost much of my enthusiasm midway through the semester. This time is different. I've lost enthusiasm after the first week. I exaggerate, a little. The Immigration course and Legal Ethics both appear fairly interesting.
  

Now that you've been patient, you will be rewarded with a truly delicious meatball recipe. You may recall I had them at a potluck a little while back and found them highly addictive. Jennie, who brought the meatballs, was kind enough to get the recipe from her mother, who graciously approved of my posting it here. I thank both of them, and hope that many readers will try them. You'll notice it takes less preparation than many of the recipes I've been posting lately, so you have no excuse not to try them! But next on Kitchen Monkey, we're back to the absurdly complicated French stuff, this time a Chicken Ballotine with glace de viande. Happy New Year!

Panang Meatballs

3-4 lbs. ground beef, formed into balls, about the size of a golf ball
1 can coconut milk
4oz panang curry paste
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons kafir lime leaves (cut into shreds) (Whole Foods often has kafir lime leaves, but you'll more likely find them at a good Asian market. If you can't find them, the zest of two limes will give a different, but still nice flavor).
1/2 cup basil leaves
2 tablespoons brown sugar

1. Using medium heat, let four tablespoons of the coconut milk come to a boil.
2. Add in panang curry paste, stir.
3. Put the meatballs in, and stir until they are thoroughly cooked.
4. Add half of the remaining coconut milk. Keep stirring.
5. Add the fish sauce and the sugar.
6. Add the rest of the coconut milk.
7. When the coconut milk thickens, add the basil leaves and kafir lime leaves.
8. Give it a taste. You may need to add in more fish sauce or sugar depending on your preference
Enjoy!!!!!

All Tarted Up

This tart is actually six feet wide, using giant, genetically modified fruits.

Walking into a kitchen store gives me the same unabashed delight now that I had as a child when going to Toys R Us. The rush of excitement that came from going home with a new Transformer, set of legos, or Atari game has transformed into the giddy anticipation of heading home with a new knife, splatter screen, or saucepan. Maybe not quite as excited, but still, it's a fair analogy.

Well yesterday I came home with something truly frivolous, made all the more ridiculous by the fact that I only went to the kitchen store to get Christmas presents for family and walked out with nothing but this: a silicone tartlette mold. How often do I make tarts? Very close to never. I don't even usually eat or make desserts. Those of you who read Kitchen Monkey regularly probably know of my abiding distaste for most forms of cake.

But I digress. I've always liked these little fruit tarts, and a friend's potluck yesterday was ample excuse to try my hand at them. The recipe came from Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques (see previous post) and required an enormous amount of effort.

My friend Nick was recently lamenting a potluck he held where half the guests brought baguettes. I was sort of expecting a similar affair last night, particularly since most of the guests were law students, but to my delight the potluck offered an impressive array of delicious dishes. A perfect asparagus and red pepper frittata, a cous cous with complex flavors, latkes for hanukkah, and some Thai meatballs that were--and I say this without hyperbole--tastier than any meatball I have ever had in my entire life. Sadly, I failed to get the recipe, but am in the process of tracking it down.

Now then, the tarts. I may post the recipe at some point. For now, enough to mention that they were great fun to make, though next time I may try using a food processor for the dough to cut down on the substantial effort. The dough is a standard pie/pastry shell mixture (pâte sucrée et croûte), which I rolled to a quarter inch thickness and pressed into the mold with another piece of dough floured to keep from sticking. I then trimmed the edges and placed in each mold a piece of wax paper. I then filled the molds with black beans pressed down to keep the dough from melting inward, and baked for about 7 minutes. I then removed the beans and baked for another 10 minutes. The silicone mold is great. No sticking at all, and they popped right out. In the meantime I made a crème pâtissière, a standard vanilla pastry creme. A large spoonful of the creme went into each shell, I then arranged raspberries, blackberries, and bits of kiwi. Then I brushed the fruit with a glaze of melted strawberry jelly.

Cook Book Review: Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques

Jacques Pépin, whose eyes have no whites

I don't often buy cookbooks, and when I do I don't usually feel compelled to post about it. This one is a bit different, however.

After a Criminal Procedure exam on Saturday morning (how absurd is that?), a couple days working at the Superior Court, and a job interview with the D.C. Public Defender Service (for this summer), I have almost NOTHING to do for the next month. This means, of course, a great deal of serious cooking: and this, my friends, is where Jacques Pépin's book comes in.

There seems to be little method to my kitchen madness. I'm capable of enough dedication to make a coq au vin requiring three days preparation, but I burn at least half the grilled cheese sandwiches I make from carelessness. I make a fine ragu alla bolognese, but still consistently boil too much or too little pasta. I know how to apply a knife to an onion six different ways, but almost never make a perfect hard boiled egg. I bought this book in hopes of filling in some of the large gaps in my knowledge. My recent reading of Pépin's memoir, The Apprentice, alerted me to the book, and it arrived yesterday.

Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques is a combination of two earlier, out of print books, which cover all of the techniques and methods of French gourmet cooking in immense detail, with explicit step-by-step instructions and thousands of illustrative pictures. They range from the almost absurdly basic (how to peel an onion), to the practical (how to properly bone a chicken), to the whimsical (how to make decorative swans and flowers out of fruits and vegetables), to the baroque (how to lard a pheasant pâté and encase it in a decorative crust of breading). It's fantastic because, apart from multiple forays into coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, and various terrines and pâtés, I really haven't done very much French cooking. I've been a sushi chef, am reasonably familiar with Italian, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, Indian, and even some West African cuisines, but French cooking is largely terra incognita for me. I don't even know how to make a crêpe. Not true for long.

Some of these recipes and techniques I will never use (e.g. the pheasant pâté), but others I really look forward to. I especially want to master the art of making a good sauce. The foundation of this is a good stock transformed into a demi-glace and perhaps even a glace, which I hope to get started on this weekend. From there, who knows. I'll start with some simple roasting and eventually work my way toward good pastry dough and maybe even boudin.

Hopefully by Christmas I'll have mastered a couple of these dishes well enough to impress my French sister-in-law, who is an excellent cook in her own right.

KM's Five-Pepper Chili: Recipe

I call this Five-Pepper chili because it has five kinds of peppers in it. Yes, I know, it's clever. It took me forty seconds to think of this name, but that's OK. I was willing to devote this kind of time and attention to finding the perfect name because this is the best chili I have ever had.

Maybe I am biased, but I am also capable of admitting, when the occasion arises, that I have made something that is less than fantastic, or even out-and-out slop. For example, just the other day, a combination of apathy and distraction (Tom Waits was on NPR) led to the most awful omelette I've ever made. I wouldn't have served this omelette to my worst enemy.

But I digress. The point is, this chili is GOOD. I'm sure you've had better chili. Or rather, I'm sure you think you have. Chili is one of those things where everybody thinks they make the best version. That's as it should be, and I'm only too happy to partake in that proud tradition.

On another note, the picture above demonstrates what it might look like if Caravaggio did a painting of cornbread and chili, which I'm certain he would have, had such things existed at the time. Seriously. He was into still life, and was fond of using white, red, black, and light tan colors. It also has his trademark geometric angles and deep chiaroscuro contrasts.

OK, I obviously need some sleep. Here's the recipe.

(Addendum, written following day: I really did need some sleep. When I posted this last night I included tomato peppers as one of the ingredients. I meant "cherry" peppers. Nick was kind enough to bring it to my attention. Tomato peppers do not in fact exist. Thanks Nick).

KM's Five Pepper Chili: Recipe
(note: this makes a LOT of chili. Probably enough to feed 12 people)

2 lbs. stew beef, cut into approximately 1/2-inch cubes and salted.
1 lb. ground beef
2 Tablespoons coriander seeds, ground
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
Extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch Parsley, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 red bell peppers, chopped
4 jalapenos, minced
2 dried ancho chiles, minced
2 cherry peppers, minced
5-7 canned chipotle peppers with sauce, minced
2 large onions, chopped
2 cups kidney beans
2 large cans diced tomatoes
8 oz. beer (I used Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - Delicious!)
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
7 Allspice berries
1/3 cup tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste

(If you have a dutch oven, such as a Le Creuset or All Clad, the initial stages can be done on the stovetop with the stewing done in a 225 degree oven. If you're using a large pot, such as a stock pot, then the stewing will be done on the stovetop at the lowest heat setting)

(1) put a generous amount of olive oil in the pot and brown the beef chunks, in batches if necessary. Remove.
(2) put more olive oil in the pot, once it is hot, add the cumin and coriander, and let it fry for 1 minute, then add the ground beef, stirring until it is browned. Remove.
(3) Add more oil, then add the onions. Carmelize. Remove.
(4) Add more oil, then the chopped peppers and parsley. Sautee until soft. Remove.
(5) Add the garlic and all the minced chili peppers. Sautee for two minutes. Add the beer, and simmer for two more minutes. NOTE: If you want this to be really hot, leave the seeds in. If you want it to have a medium heat, leave the seeds out or add just a few.
(6) Add all the former ingredients back into the pot, along with the kidney beans. Add the beef stock, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, allspice, and oregano.
(7) Bring to a low boil, then turn down to a simmer (whether in the oven or on the stovetop), covered, for one hour. Then simmer uncovered for another hour. You may choose to let it stew even longer. I think mine simmered for almost four hours. Serve with cheese and sour cream if you like.

Red Rice and Roast Chicken Soup - Recipe

How fortunate that I've become ill. You see, a couple days ago I roasted a chicken--the typical fare: garlic and rosemary inserted under the skin in several places and basted in its own juices along with some chicken stock--and had quite a bit leftover. If not for the fact that I seem to be coming down with a chest cold, I probably would not have stumbled on the idea of making this delicious soup, when I should have instead been studying for my Criminal Procedure and Evidence exams.

I have had a bag of Himalayan red rice in my cupboard for far too long (I bought it at a farmer's market in Sarasota) waiting for some enticing recipe to come along. My patience finally worn thin, I used it today in my own variation of the old standard: chicken soup.

Himalayan red rice is similar in texture and flavor to brown rice, and may even taste a bit nuttier. The rice you see above is uncooked. Once cooked, it opens up much like brown rice, which could serve just as well in this soup. There are other ingredients which could be substituted with the ones below. I just used what I had on hand.

Calvados is a French apple brandy with an alcohol content of about 40 proof. The kind I had in the cupboard was made strictly for cooking. I should have heeded the label's warning: "seulement pour les alimentaires." I tried a small shot and spat it out immediately (in a fine spray, for comedic value). It was flavored with pepper and a little bit of salt.

If it didn't make for a good apertif, it did add a great flavor to the soup. However, since some people don't have a bottle of calvados sitting around, I have to say that white wine or sherry would probably work just as well. Also, normally I probably would have used all chicken stock, but I had some beef stock left over from last week's bourguignon. It added a nice, extra richness to the soup.

Now if you'll pardon me, Kitchen Monkey needs to take an Emergen-C and a nap.

Red Rice and Roast Chicken Soup

Serves 6 - Cooking time approx. 2 hours. Prep time approx. 45 minutes.

1/2 roast chicken - shredded or chopped (I used the breasts for other meals, putting one on a salad, and used the thighs and drumsticks for this soup).
1 cup red (or wild brown) rice
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup beef stock
1/2 cup Calvados (or white wine or sherry)
1 sprig fresh rosemary - minced
small handful chives - chopped (you might use thyme instead)
2 bay leaves
4 medium-sized carrots - sliced
1 large onion - chopped
3 celery stalks - chopped
3 cloves garlic - minced
1/2 lb. mushrooms - oyster, porcini, crimini, or even just good old fashioned white
3 allspice berries
salt and pepper to taste


(1) Shred the chicken and set aside
(2) Combine stock and calvados in a large pot over medium-high heat.
(3) Wash rice repeatedly then add to the pot.
(4) In a large sautee pan, sautee the carrots, onion, and celery in olive oil for about 10 minutes, adding the garlic toward the end
(5) Once the pot is boiling, turn the heat down to low, and add the vegetables, the mushrooms, the herbs, and the chicken, along with some salt and pepper.
(6) keep at a simmer for at least an hour, preferably longer. Add salt and pepper to taste, eat with some good crusty bread, and start feeling better as soon as possible.

Incidentally, the picture below demonstrates that I used much more rice than the recipe above indicates. I wanted to use all the red rice I had on hand, but next time I would use less.