Tag: american

Julia Child’s Coq au Vin: 1961

I’ve been meaning to do a recipe by Julia Child – an absolute stalwart of 20th century American cooking – for a while, but other things kept cropping up. Truthfully, I also felt a little daunted by her recipes, which seemed to go on for pages.

Child co-authored Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, but it was initially rejected because, at over 720 pages long, the publisher thought it read too much like an encyclopaedia than a recipe book. This was especially problematic given its target audience: inexperienced household cooks trying French cooking for the first time.

French cooks Beck and Betholle had collaborated with Le Cordon Blue trained Child because they wanted to create a French recipe book that would appeal to American audiences. It was hoped that Child would be able to offer appropriate translations and alternatives to ingredients that were hard to come by in America. To ensure the recipes could be replicated by anyone, no matter how inexperienced, the three authors placed a great deal of emphasis on precise measurements and detailed instructions. This approach helped make the book a success in the end (that’s putting it mildly: it sold over 100,000 copies within 5 years and spawned multiple editions), but at the cost of brevity and ‘lightness of touch’, which are now highly valued by lazy busy cooks like me. Hence my apprehension.

The Julia Child approach

In the end I shouldn’t have worried. The recipes may be long but, like the woman herself, they are also straightforward. In preparation for cooking Child’s Coq au Vin, I did a little bit of research and watched a clip of her making crepes to get over my irrational fear that everything she made was fiddly. She moved fast, but her approach to cooking was essentially the same as I’d grown up with: bung stuff in a pot in the right order, whisk it up a bit, and cook simply. There were no fancy gadgets used, no careful dressing of the plate with alarming smears of sauce or foam, no discussion of “dressing the plate” at all, actually. As the woman herself said about nouvelle cuisine: “It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate – you know someone’s fingers have been all over it.”

In interviews she came across as friendly and warm, and when I read she had coined the phrase “a party without a cake is just a meeting” and advised those who were wary of using lots of butter in cooking to “just use cream” instead, I knew I could follow her recipes with wholehearted confidence.

Julia Child’s kitchen on display at the National Museum of American History. One day they’ll make my kitchen a museum feature too, I’m sure. Credit here.

Coq au Vin…

…Is a dish that was made for autumn. It’s rich, it’s comforting, it’s hearty. It’s something my dad tries to make every year once the weather turns, but he calls it chicken stew and his usually includes half a tin of beans, or an opened jar of olives in an effort to “use them up”. Though dad’s chicken stew is delicious (see, I can be nice about my family!) it’s not always 100% authentic, and I’m fairly sure it’s a recipe he follows from his own instinct rather than Julia Child’s version.

I found Child’s instructions a little bit confusing initially as the ingredients were only listed as and when they were being used, rather than all at the start. This made shopping for them a bit frustrating; I had already been down the veg aisle to get garlic when I realised I’d need to return to it for onions, so I continued in the one way system until I could loop round to collect them. Aha, I thought, butter next. But then I read on and realised I’d need to go back again to collect herbs. Cue more shuffling down aisles I didn’t need to visit in the name of Being A Good Citizen. Okay, sure, a sensible and methodical cook would have prepared the recipe in advance so they could see what they needed from the shop before they arrived but we all know being sensible or methodical isn’t quite my style; I’ve clearly inherited my dad’s ‘see what’s in the house and stick it in a pan’ approach to cooking.

Julia Child’s version

To start with I sliced bacon into lardons and simmered it in water for 10 minutes. Child’s instructions were very exact – there wasn’t any of this vague ‘cook for approximately the time it takes to sing happy birthday twice, or until the bacon turns a dark shade of taupe and seems cooked-but-not-too-cooked’ malarky. It was the absolute opposite to some ancient and medieval recipes I’d done before, where no clear instructions were given at all, and I almost felt ungrateful for begrudging its rigidity.

Once simmered, the lardons were sautéed in butter and then removed from the pan. The chicken breast, cut into chunks, was browned in the fat of the lardons which were then re-added to the pan and cooked together for 10 minutes. I added 70ml of cognac to the pan and winced as I followed instructions to “avert your face [and] ignite the cognac with a lighted match.” I tried to set the dish on fire five times, but each time the match just fizzled out. Eventually I gave up and reconciled myself to the fact that I was just going to have to put up with the extra alcohol content. Shame.

After abandoning my attempts at flambéeing (which would have inevitably ended up with me losing my eyebrows anyway), I added wine, chicken stock, and other bits and bobs and left the lot to simmer for a while as I focused on the brown braised onions that Child recommended be served with the chicken. She recommended using pearl onions, which I couldn’t get hold of, so I used shallots instead. As well as onions and a sprig of parsley to garnish the plate, she also suggested serving the dish with sautéed mushrooms but I didn’t because, well, gross (and we also had some broad beans to use up instead.)

At this point I want to say that the house smelled like 1960’s France but I think, given the lack of cigarette smoke in the ingredient list, it probably didn’t. It still smelled bloody amazing, though.

When the chicken was done I took it out of the pan and placed it on a serving dish, covered with foil to keep it warm. I boiled the remaining liquid until it reduced to about a pint. I added some blended butter and flour – a beurre manié, apparently – to the liquid and whisked until it was thick enough to coat a spoon. The thickened sauce was poured onto the chicken, which was surrounded by onions, and served.

Such a restrained plate. I ate it out of the pan with a wooden spoon once I’d finished this.

The verdict

In a conclusion that will surprise exactly no one, this was delicious. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, probably because it felt like over 50% of it was just alcohol or butter. The chicken was tender and fell away in chunks and the bacon just melted into the background. The sauce was thick and rich – tomato-y and winey – which only highlighted how buttery and sweet the onions were as an accompaniment. The whole thing was divine. Seriously. I know I can be a bit OTT, but it was. The next day it was still just as good eaten as leftovers and I actually had a mini argument with my husband when I realised he’d eaten more than his half.

Would I make this again? Do you have to even ask? True, at times it felt a little like I was cooking with a benign drill sergeant, and I was definitely much more tired by the end of it from double checking and the exact timings. I also found it a bit odd that the ingredients popped up when they were used, rather than listed at the start, because it made me feel like I was playing a stressful round of at-home Ready Steady Cook – suddenly lurching to get the flour out the cupboard and weigh it out whilst peeling shallots or whisking sauces. Overall, though, it was worth it.

E x

P.S. No, I haven’t seen the film…yet.

Julia Child’s Coq au Vin

For the Coq au Vin
85g bacon
1kg diced chicken
56g soft butter
70ml cognac
700ml red wine (Burgundy, Beaujolais, Chianti)
235ml chicken stock
1 dessert spoon tomato paste
2 cloves mashed garlic
Sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
28g flour

For the braised onions
450g pearl onions or shallots
1.5 tablespoons butter
1.5 tablespoons olive oil
120ml of beef stock
1 bay leaf
Sprig of thyme

  1. Remove the rind from the bacon and cut into lardons.
  2. Simmer in 900ml of water for 10 minutes. Remove and pat dry.
  3. Fry the bacon in 28g of the butter until brown.
  4. Remove the bacon and add the diced chicken to the bacon grease. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and fry until brown.
  5. Return the bacon to the pan with the chicken, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
  6. Add the cognac and, if you like, set it on fire. Good luck.
  7. Add the wine, chicken stock, garlic, tomato paste, bay leaf and sprig of thyme and cover and cook for 30 minutes.
  8. Begin on the braised onions. Heat the oil and butter in a pan.
  9. Add the onions, whole, and cook for 10 minutes, coating them well.
  10. Pour over the stock, add the herbs, and cook for 40 minutes until the onions are soft but still hold their shape and most of the liquid has evaporated.
  11. Begin on the beurre manié. Mix the flour and remaining 28g of butter together to form a paste.
  12. Remove the chicken from the liquid and place on a serving bowl. Continue cooking the liquid until it has reduced to about a pint’s worth of liquid.
  13. Whisk the beurre manié into the liquid until it thickens enough to coat a spoon.
  14. Pour the thickened liquid over the chicken and serve with the onions.

Meat Loaf: 1967

Before today I’d never made or eaten meatloaf before. Growing up, my whole experience of it came from watching American films from the 90’s where it was always presented as a bit of a disappointment: dry, bland and uninspired, occasionally with ketchup. None of my friends ate it either so it became something I thought of as semi-fictional, in a boring kind of way. I think there was only one film where meatloaf was made to seem dangerous and exciting, but it was part of a messy, short lived scene that ended with a pickaxe and bits of Meat Loaf all over the walls and floor. Other than creating some mildly conflicting emotions in 12 year old me (who, let’s face it, knew she shouldn’t be watching a DVD that featured so much leather and red lipstick on the front cover), this particular scene didn’t really change my opinion of the dish overall.

I’m unsure why I thought of meatloaf as this slightly ugly, dull meal in comparison to the fancy sounding terrine when they are such similar dishes. It’s probably because the word “terrine” evokes French elegance, upmarket restaurants and crisp white napkins whereas the word “meatloaf” sounds like something we’d all be fighting over in the dystopian wasteland of a nuclear winter as part of a futile effort to avoid resorting to cannibalism. Or maybe I’ve just thought about it too much.

“It’s really boring” I told my husband. “At least, I think it is. You probably won’t like it.” I showed him the ugly photo of lumpy meatloaf in Marguerite Pattern’s 1967 edition of Quick and Easy Cookbook in Colour.

“Well why are you making it then?”

I showed him the photo of Wurstel Sausage in Aspic which had been the alternative for my foray into the food of the 60’s and 70’s. He agreed I’d made the right decision.

A third 70’s dinner option. Credit here.

In theory meatloaf has been around for centuries because dishes of compressed minced meat have existed since ancient times. In Apicius there’s a recipe for Brain Sausage involving pulverised minced brain which is shaped and cooked in a pan and sliced into portions to be eaten cold. I would do anything for my love of historical cooking, but I won’t do that. I needed a modern, non-brain version to make instead.

Our modern idea of meatloaf first appeared in American print in 1899 – coincidentally just after the invention of the meat grinder. From then on it became a firm American staple, appearing in cookbooks and on dining tables for decades after. It wasn’t until 1939 that meatloaf made it to British print, however, by which time it had cemented its place as a versatile but fairly inelegant meal. The recipe I used for today’s meatloaf, taken from Quick and Easy Cookbook in Colour, appeared under the title “Made-up meat dishes” which did little to change my perception of meatloaf as something that wasn’t quite real, but I was prepared to change my mind. Besides, I was using my gran’s old cookbook which bore tell tale splatter marks from when meatloaf had been all the rage in the 70’s.

First I melted 1 oz. of margarine in a pan, added two chopped onions and cooked them until they were soft but not brown. I then added 3 oz. of mushrooms, flour and milk to form a white sauce and cooked until thickened. So far, so easy. I was actually quite pleased to see that the first two ingredients were vegetables and not meat; it somehow made the unappetising image in the book a little less daunting.

Once the onion/mushroom/white sauce mixture cooled slightly I added a combination of minced beef and sausage meat, a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, two eggs, 3 oz. bread crumbs, a teaspoon of mixed herbs and 1 oz. of parmesan cheese (“Oh, you’re making a fancy meatloaf then”, my mum said when she found out the ingredients.) I then added 3 tablespoons of tomato puree which gave everything a disconcerting pinky/orange hue and reminded me of Rocky Horror again, before squidging it all into a loaf tin and baking for just over an hour.

Hmmm.

The thing I hadn’t appreciated about meatloaf is that it’s often meant to be served cold. Patten’s recipe called for the meatloaf to be chilled in the fridge for a couple of hours once cooked before being sliced and served with a salad. I had intended to serve this for dinner, and by the time it was done it was already 7pm. I didn’t think my family would appreciate waiting another two or three hours for a meal that I’d done nothing but complain about since starting. It’s fair to say expectations weren’t high and tacking on an additional countdown to inevitable disappointment wasn’t something I fancied doing to my family – so I served it hot.

Sliced warm, it didn’t quite keep its intended loaf shape – entirely my fault, but not very helpful in boosting the overall attractiveness of the meal. That said, it didn’t look as awful as I’d imagined a whole tin of squashed meat would. There was a pretty satisfying brown and crunchy top to the meatloaf which, once broken, revealed a surprisingly tender and moist interior. I was delighted to find that the crumbly dryness I’d been expecting was no where to be seen – it was like eating a lasagne without pasta and was quite delicious.

The mushrooms and white sauce lent the whole thing a pleasantly silky texture as well as preventing dryness. The tomato paste gave a surprisingly strong “vegetable” taste that threatened to distract from the beef and sausage meat, a combination that worked quite well, although I would have preferred more sausage meat than Patten used in her recipe.

I wanted to see what it tasted like cold, though, so a couple of hours later I cut a slice from the refrigerated leftovers. The flavours had intensified, with the beef becoming more prominent in particular and the tomato taking a welcomed backseat. The texture had become a little chunkier and less smooth too – it was somehow more robust. Overall I think I preferred it cold, as Patten had intended.

Tastier but still kind of ugly when cold.

Despite my limited pop culture references leading me to believe meatloaf was a bland meal, I didn’t find it bland at all and my husband and daughter seemed to wolf it down. However, the overall presentation and fact that it was best eaten cold meant that it would be out of place at a dinner party.

If I was going to a picnic though, and wanted something that tasted great but didn’t make me look too try-hard, I would absolutely make this again. Likewise, I could see this being a much enjoyed family meal if I had time to prepare, cook and chill it properly. And that, I think, is the beauty of meatloaf. It’s not trying to be anything more than it is – occasional family meal, satisfying picnic lunch, theatrical aging rock star – it’s all good.

E x

Meat Loaf

28g margarine
2 onions
85g mushrooms
28g plain flour
1/4 pint of milk
2 eggs
Teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Teaspoon salt
Teaspoon mixed herbs
28g Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
3 tablespoons tomato puree
85g pork sausage meat
450g minced beef
85g breadcrumbs

  1. Melt margarine in a saucepan and add the onions, chopped. Cook until soft but not brown.
  2. Dice the mushrooms and add to the softened onions. Cook for 1 minute.
  3. Add the flour and stir through the mushrooms for 1 minute. Keep stirring to prevent lumps forming.
  4. Once the flour has been absorbed, add the milk and stir constantly until the sauce is thick.
  5. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
  6. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C.
  7. Add the remaining ingredients to the onions and mushrooms and mix thoroughly.
  8. Press the meatloaf mixture into a loaf tin and bake for 1 hour – 1.5 hours.
  9. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the tin before transferring to a wire tray. Wrap the meatloaf in greaseproof paper and place in the fridge for 2 or 3 hours before cutting into slices.