Week 10: Extended and improved

We’ve taken an executive decision here at chez Maureen to extend week 10 from seven days to eight or nine. There were simply too many things to do in week 10 for it to only last seven days: brunch on Sunday with friends, a business trip to Kazakhstan, an overnight guest, a dinner with colleagues, a sick babysitter, Saturday afternoon company, Aunt Bridget’s birthday and another business trip to Morocco–there’s no way we could fit it all in.

Which leads me to some busy household advice for entertaining:

1. When preparing a dinner menu, it’s nice to think seasonally. I thought asparagus risotto, apple and rhubarb crumble. When the babysitter calls in sick, don’t feel bad about buying seasonal ingredients from the frozen food aisle.
2. Bakeries save marriages. It’s true that home-baked goods are nice but holding a marriage together requires concessions. Leave baking that second cake to a professional.
3. Prepare a salt-baked salmon for dinner. It requires minimal preparation, wows guests and even keeps itself warm if everyone shows up just when it’s time to put the toddlers to bed.

And the recipes to keep all those guests happy:

Apfelstrudel (Apple strudel)

Porc en croûte de pommes de terre (Pork in a potato crust)

Saumon en croûte de sel (Salt-baked salmon)

Apfelstrudel (Apple strudel)

Once I had decided to make Apfelstrudel I set out on the arduous task of finding a suitable recipe to spoil. I wouldn’t say that I’ve eaten a lot of strudel in my life but as I browsed through applicable candidates, I discovered that I already had a pretty fixed idea about what I was looking for. A bit like going shopping for a pair of shoes that you’ve already designed in your head. Or reading one parenting book after another until you finally find the one that validates your parenting style. Conclusion: the best remedy for trying to find a recipe that fits the end product you already have in mind is to just write your own! (Probably applies also to buying shoes and feeling good about your parenting decisions.) I’m far from claiming that I’ve come up with a new and brilliant way to make Apfelstrudel, more like I’m just not sure who to give credit to for the cobbled-together-from-various-sources recipe that follows. The recipe follows most closely the German version on the website essen-und-trinken.de.

Flour, 2-1/2 cups (300 g)

Salt

Oil, 5 Tbsp (I used olive oil but in retrospect it would probably have been better to use canola oil or maybe even coconut oil)

Butter, 3-1/2 Tbsp (50 g)

Raisins,  2 oz (50 g)

Rum, 4 Tbsp (I didn’t include rum. I know, shocking. But since I was serving the strudel to three toddlers and a pregnant woman I resisted. If you like rum, use it to soak the raisins in for a bit before mixing with the apple slices.)

Walnuts, chopped, 2 oz (50 g) (If you prefer, you can also use almonds. Don’t hesitate to be daring. You can even roast them a bit in a hot pan.)

Butter, 7 Tbsp (100 g)

Breadcrumbs, 2 oz (50 g)

Sugar, 1/2 cup (110 g)

Lemon, 1

Apples, 2 lbs (1 kg), whatever variety you need to get rid of first (If you have the luxury of buying the apple of your choice in a reasonable quantity from your local supermarket, Boskop or Elstar are the recommended varieties.)

Cinnamon, ½ tsp.

1. Combine the flour, a pinch of salt, 4 Tbsp of oil and 2/3 cup (150 ml) of lukewarm water in a bowl. Kneed the dough until it is smooth and a bit shiny, but not too long or it will be too stiff. Form into a ball, cover with some oil and place on a plate. Pour hot water into a pot, dump out the water and turn the pot upside down over the dough ball. Let the dough rest at least 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
3. Melt 3-1/2 Tbsp (50 g) butter in a pan. Add in the breadcrumbs and roast gently. Mix in 1/4 cup (50 g) of sugar and let the mixture cool.
4. Zest the lemon and press 4 Tbsp of juice.
5. Peel, core and quarter the apples. Slice into ¼ inch (5 mm) slices.
6. Combine the apple slices, lemon zest and juice, raisins, walnuts, the rest of the sugar, cinnamon and a pinch of salt in a bowl.
7. Melt 7 Tbsp (100 g) of butter. Lay a very large kitchen towel or a small tablecloth onto your work surface. Lightly flour the towel. Between the rolling pin and your hands the goal is to get the dough paper thin and into a roughly square shape of 24 inches x 24 inches (60 cm x 60 cm). (The square shape requires some imagination but I did manage to get the dough pretty thin.)

8. Brush the square with half of the melted butter. Spread the breadcrumb mixture onto the bottom fourth of the square, leaving a 1-1/2 in (3 cm) wide edge.

9. Spread the apple filling on top of the bread crumbs.

10. Fold over the edge and with the help of the kitchen towel, roll the square into a strudel.

11. Place with the seam facing downward onto a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Brush off extra flour. Brush on the rest of the butter.

12. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
13. Sift powdered sugar on top.

13. Serve with any sort of decadent cream-based topping. Whipped cream for wimps, ice cream or vanilla sauce for the brave.

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Porc en croûte de pommes de terre (Pork in a potato crust)

I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for some time. The idea of cooking in crusts impresses me as being very complicated and therefore sophisticated. It turns out that it is actually quite straight-forward and the results are well worth the effort. If I’ve understood correctly, the theory is that the crust forms a mini-oven of sorts around the meat which keeps everything juicier than an ordinary unprotected roast.

The pork filets mignons were delicious. Moist, perfectly pink, excellent. As for the crust, I’ll be perfectly honest, it sounds better than it turned out. I’ve noticed that when it comes to cooking blogs there can be a tendency to extol and perhaps here and there exaggerate the virtues of even sub-par dishes. But since the end goal here is really just to eat potatoes, apples and carrots, I can be honest. The crust could have been better. Once Chez Maureen has its own test kitchen I’ll perfect the recipe. For now, if I made it again…first, I would not forget to add in the salt and pepper (a forgivable oversight, but with a significant impact when it comes to shredded potatoes…), then I would add a shredded onion, a little nutmeg maybe even some rosemary to the crust. One could even try making the crust with mashed potatoes instead of shredded potatoes. Let me know how it goes.

That said, the original recipe is from Toute la cuisine au fil des saisons.

Pork filets mignons, 2, 14 oz. (400 g) apiece

Potatoes, 1 lb (500 g)

Egg whites, 2

Butter, 2 Tbsp. (30 g)

Flour, 3 Tbsp.

Olive oil, 2 Tbsp.

Pine nuts, 2 Tbsp.

Rosemary, 1 sprig

Salt & pepper

1. Brown the filets mignons with the olive oil in a frying pan. Turn them regularly to brown evenly. Remove, dry, season with salt and pepper.

2. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Place aluminum foil in the bottom of a pan and cover with the melted butter.
3. Peel and rinse the potatoes. Shred them. Add 1 Tbsp of flour and the egg whites. Salt and pepper and mix. (Really, don’t forget this step.)
4. Mix the rest of the flour with chopped rosemary in a plate. Roll the filets mignons in the flour.

5. Place them in the pan and cover completely with the potatoes, pressing firmly.

6. Bake 25-30 minutes.
7. Remove the filets mignons carefully without damaging the crust.
8. Serve in slices with roasted pine nuts.

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Saumon en croûte de sel (Salt-baked salmon)

The first time I ever saw a fish baked in a salt crust was in an Italian restaurant in Sicily. We had gone with a good Sicilian friend and he did the honor of ordering the entire meal for us. I highly recommend, should you ever find yourself in a foreign country, that you quickly make a native friend in whom you place all of your confidence when it comes to ordering food. Believe me, the locals always know best. In this case our trust was rewarded by not only the impressive presentation but a deliciously moist fish experience.

Six years later, I finally tried my hand at a salt-baked fish. And the result was just as good as I remembered. A friend over for dinner even took a picture of the fish with his smartphone. I’m pretty sure that is the highest compliment you can pay to a dish, and its cook, these days.

The most complicated part of preparing the dish is gathering the ingredients. In our case, we bought a whole fresh salmon from the weekly market (prepare without too much delay because three days in the fridge is a smell you will not quickly get rid of). The fishmonger pulled out the major organs. No need to descale since the skin won’t be eaten but leave the head and tail intact. Many different fish can be salt-baked: flounder, sea bass, bream, whitefish, tilapia, to name a few.

We used a fairly rough grain of salt, but the recipe will also work with fine table salt.  Then 2 beaten eggs per kilo (2 lbs) of salt. A salmon that fits just barely in a standard oven when placed on an angle on a large baking sheet requires at least 2 kilos (4 lbs) of salt. Add a bit more salt to make sure you get a good crust.

Salmon, whole, 3-4 lbs (1.5-2 kg)

Salt, at least 4 lbs (2 kg)

Eggs, 4

Lemon, sliced

Herbs, roughly chopped – thyme, basil, sage, whatever is wilting away in the crisper box

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
2. Combine the salt and the eggs.
3. Cover the largest baking sheet you have with aluminum foil. Place a layer of the salt-egg mix onto the baking sheet where the fish will lay.
4. Place the fish on top.
5. Fill the cavity of the fish with the lemon and herbs.

6. Cover the fish with the rest of the salt to form a crust. The head and tail will stick out from under the salt blanket.

7. Cook for 45 minutes.

8. Remove from the oven. Before removing the crust, discarding the lemons and herbs and serving the fish, allow ample time for your guests to photograph the fish.

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When Week 11 starts:

Hungarian casserole

Dorset apple cake

Tempting potato cake

Marmelade de pommes râpées au gingembre (Apple-ginger marmalade)

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