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Blinis “Demidorff”
These thick little pancakes, topped with sour cream and caviar, absolutely scream New Years!
The dish, although a classic, makes its debut in the Oscar winning foreign film “Babette’s Feast.”
I was first introduced to these small gems when asked to actually reproduce the dinner from the movie. An incredible challenge, because mindset and techniques sent me back more than a century….
If ever given a chance, watch the movie!
8 oz buckwheat flour
1 oz yeast
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup lukewarm water
In a bowl, mix all ingredients into a porridge-like consistency, cover with a towel and let it rise for 4 hours.
Then add:
8 oz flour
1 cup heavy cream
5 egg yolks
pinch of salt
2 table spoons of melted butter
After mixed, then add:
1 cup lightly whipped cream
5 egg whites, whisked to a stiff peak
Cover the mixture, let it rest for 20 minutes.
After the dough has risen, add a pad of butter to a frying pan. Once melted and at a medium temperature, drop a soupspoon full of the batter into the frying pan. When the top of the blini is covered with bubbles, flip them over.
Cook the blinis until batter is used or desired count has been reached.
Serve each blini warm with a dollop of sour cream and a spoonful of caviar.
Some might like to sprinkle a little chopped egg and shallots on the dish. I advocate leaving it with just the sour cream, along with the caviar.
Lobster Thermidor
Some items always find their way onto menus at such occasions. And lobster dishes many times are counted amongst prestigious options of choice. One of my favorites is “Lobster Thermidor,” a very impressive dish, a bit of work, but any hostess or host will gain respect for undertaking a project like a proper “Thermidor.”
The other benefit is that it can be made ahead and baked right before served, without compromising the dish.
Lobster Thermidor originates in 1894 at “Marie’s” a Paris restaurant near the theatre “Comedie Francaise” to honor the opening of the play “Thermidor” by Victorien Sardou. The play took its name from a summer month in the French Republican Calendar, during which the Thermidorian reaction occurred, overthrowing Robespierre and ending the reign of terror …..
“Lobstedo just fine.”
Lobster Thermidor
Court Bouillon
3 cups white Burgundy
2 cups water
1 large onion, cut in 1/4
1 carrot, cut in 1/4
1 stalk celery, cut in 1 inch pieces
small bunch of parsley
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp. thyme
6 peppercorns
1 Tbsp. fresh tarragon
2 live lobsters, 2 lbs. each
Mushrooms
1/2 lbs sliced fresh
1 Tbsp Butter
1 tsp lemon juice
Salt to taste
Sauce
5 Tbsp butter + 4 Tbsp Butter, separated
6 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp heavy cream + 1/2 cup separated
1 Tbsp dry mustard
2 egg yolks
Pinch Cayenne pepper
1/3 cup Cognac
1/2 cup grated Gruyère cheese
In a large pot simmer all bouillon ingredients for about 15 minutes. Add lobster and cover
and steam for about 10 minutes until done. Remove lobster from bouillon, set aside.
While lobsters are cooking, stew the mushrooms in the butter, lemon juice and season with salt for about 5 minutes.
Remove mushrooms with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Add any mushroom juice to the bouillon, and reduce the broth to about 2 cups. Strain into a pot.
This is now the base for the sauce to be made.
In another pot, cook 5 Tbsp butter and flour slowly for 2 minutes without browning. Add lobster broth and simmer gently for 5 minutes, add Tbsp cream. Set aside.
In a saucepan whisk together egg yolks, mustard, 1/2 cup cream and cayenne. Add the lobster sauce to the egg mixture. Add it slowly while mixing, reheat mixture (DO NOT BOIL).
Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
The Lobster
Split the lobster lengthwise, keep the shell halves intact, remove the meat from the tails and claws, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces, set shells aside.
In another pan, sauté lobster meat with 4 Tbsp butter for 3 minutes, add the Cognac carefully.
Final assembly
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees. In a large pan mix lobster meat, mushrooms and sauce.
Wrap the lobster shells with tin foil (this will help shells stay in place).
Spoon the filling into the shells, sprinkle with the grated Gruyère cheese, place in the middle of the oven and cook for about 10 minutes until the cheese has taken a golden brown color.
Serve immediately.
Chocolate soufflé
Did you know… that soufflé is a French word which literally means “puffed up,” and is a culinary term in both French and English (as well as many other languages) for a light, frothy dish, just stiff enough to hold its shape, and which may be savory or sweet, hot or cold.
There is no mistaking a hot soufflé, but cold ones are difficult to distinguish from a mousse.
The basic hot soufflé has as its starting point a “roux” – a cooked mixture of flour, butter and milk.
This is cooled slightly and blended with egg yolks and savory or sweet flavoring ingredients, which are already cooked or do not require much cooking.
The result resembles a thick rich sauce. Stiffly beaten egg whites are then folded in. The mixture is baked in a high sided dish. It rises mainly through simple expansion of the air in the egg foam.
This type of soufflé was a French invention of the late 18th century. Beauvilliers was making soufflés possibly as early as 1782. Recipes for various kinds appear in Louis Ude’s “The French Cook” of 1814, a work which promises a “new method of giving good and extremely cheap fashionable suppers at routs and soirees.”
Later, in 1841, Careme’s “Patissier Royal Parisien” goes into great detail on the technique of making soufflés, from which it is clear that cooks had been having much trouble with soufflés that collapsed. The dish acquired a reputation for difficulty and proneness to accidents which it does not really deserve. Conversely, a successful soufflé has a certain prestige and glamour.
The unjustified reputation for frailty which hot soufflés have attracted may partly be due to nervous cooks who open the oven door while the soufflé is cooking to see how it is progressing.
This will lower the temperature in the oven and disrupts rising.
A soufflé has to be left undisturbed for the full cooking time and then served promptly. A soufflé will collapse if it is undercooked, or if it is kept waiting after cooking.
Credit to “The Oxford Companion to Food.”
The following recipe is adapted from Auguste Escoffier, the master of the modern French cuisine, and also the recipe used at TWOCHEFS restaurant.
The favorite being chocolate flavored.
1 stick of butter
1 cup of flour
1 cup of sugar
2 cup milk
1 cup bitter sweet chocolate
A smear of vanilla bean
10 egg yolks
10 egg whites, beaten to a soft peak
8 buttered and sugar coated 6 oz. ramekins
Combine milk, sugar and vanilla and bring to a boil, set aside.
Melt butter in a saucepan, add the flour, mix until thoroughly combined (roux). Add the milk mixture gradually while stirring until the mixture has reached a smooth consistency.
Remove from heat.
In an electric mixer add chocolate to the base and mix slowly for 3-4 minutes, add egg yolks one by one, mix for another 3-4 minutes.
By hand with a whisk mix in 1/3 of the stiff egg whites, then with a spatula fold in remaining egg whites (batter is now ready for baking).
Pour batter into coated ramekins and bake in a preheated oven at 325 F. for 15 – 18 minutes in the center of the oven with convection mode activated if available.
Serve immediately.
Along with souffles spoil yourself with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Enjoy.
Jan Jorgensen
TWOCHEFS
For information visit www.twochefsrestaurant.com
