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French Fridays: Croque Monsieur – David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen

April 17, 2016 by Renee

Croque Monsieur

Croque Monsieur“A grilled ham and Swiss, please.” No, this not your typical, lowly, grilled ham and cheese sandwich. This sandwich becomes, oh, so much more, when Frenchified.

The Croque Monsieur is, by far, the most popular and most quintessential of Parisian bistro fare after the roast chicken and steak frites. The sandwich consists of thin slices of ham and gooey Gruyère nestled between hearty slices of country bread, and slathered with a creamy béchamel sauce. You can turn it into a Croque Madam by topping it with a sunny side up egg. Serve it with a side of leafy greens, and you have a quick meal-so French in its simplicity and sophistication.

In Paris, pain Poilâne is the bread of choice. With good reason. Their beautiful loaves provide a slightly crunchy yet chewy crust with the hint of sourdough and a tender middle. After a few days (if it lasts that long!) the crust grows firmer and the sourdough becomes tangier making it the best bread for flavorful tartines or breakfast toasts with jam and butter.

Poilâne’s main shop is on the rue du Cherche-Midi, in the heart of the 6th arrondissement, and is always one of the first places I visit when I am there. I can’t resist picking up a whole loaf and one (or three) of their divine, buttery, apple tartlets.

Poilâne

In NY, I am lucky enough to have several terrific bakeries to choose from when I am in need of a good bread. Two such bakeries are located on opposite ends of Manhattan. Orwashers (http://www.orwashers.com/) is on the upper east side and Pain D’Avignon is on the lower east side (http://www.paindavignon-nyc.com/). Despite these distances, separated only by a subway ride, I am lucky in that I can pick up bread from both bakeries at my favorite food market, Fairway on the upper west side.

I love the bread from Orwashers and many of their loaves come wine- and beer-infused, which is really interesting and fun to pair with different cheeses and meats. They do have many traditional bread recipes as well, and while they are also famous for their massive hand filled doughnuts, their black and white cookies are the best in the city. (IMHO) But you do have to make the trek up to their store to enjoy those!

If you find yourself on the lower east side, hidden away in the Essex St. Market, you can find the first retail outlet for Pain D’Avignon. Long before this shop opened, Pain d’Avignon had been supplying prestigious NYC eateries like Eleven Madison Park and Momofuku with bread from their wholesale bakery in Long Island City. Their sourdough breads and croissants are truly terrific.

For this iteration of the Croque Monsieur, I am making one sandwich from each, a Pain D’Avignon Sourdough and an Orwashers pain de campagne. They both had different levels of sourdough flavor; the Pain D’Avignon was much more like a SF sourdough and lighter in color and texture while the Orwashers’ pain de campagne had more crumb and a grainier texture. Both are just right for making this amped up grilled cheese!

Croque Monsieur-3046

The béchamel for this recipe is made with a dash of cayenne pepper instead of the traditional nutmeg but you can also add a dash of nutmeg if you would like. Just be careful not to add too much salt as the ham is also salty.

A few years ago I received Panini press and it’s been sitting in my basement pantry for quite a while so I pulled it out, cleaned it off and used it for the first grilling of the sandwiches. In the recipe, David doesn’t just say to brush the slices with butter, he says to brush them without restraint with melted butter. And that’s exactly what I did!

Once the sandwiches were golden brown and toasted, I moved them to a cast iron skillet for final cheese melt under the broiler.

Croque Monsieur

The first bite, the crunch of the crust, the buttery toast, the oozing cheese and béchamel and the salty ham, it’s what grilled cheese dreams are made of. At least, French ones.

Croque Monsieur

This week’s recipe can be found on page 137. For details on recreating this and other recipes, check out the CookTheBookFridays site and see others who are also cooking the book-

You can also buy the book here:

MyParisKitchenDavidLebovitz-269x337

 

 

 

 

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Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links to my Amazon Associate’s account. This means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using these links.

 

Filed Under: Eat, Kitchen Sink, Bread, Cook The Book Fridays- My Paris Kitchen, Meats Tagged With: Croque Madam, Croque Monsieur, David Lebovitz, French Fridays, My Paris Kitchen

Bruschetta with Grilled Zucchini and Ravioli with Asparagus

March 28, 2016 by Renee

Ravioli with Asparagus

Ravioli with Asparagus-2817

We’ve made pasta by hand three nights in the past week. Having made David Lebovitz’s Herbed pasta as a side to the delicious Belgian Stew with beer we had last weekend, and remembering how easy and fun making pasta by hand is, we’ve become a little obsessed this week. There was a simple fettuccine with garlic and brown butter and then there was spaghetti Bolognese and last night, moving up the scale of effort, there was ravioli.

Don’t be intimated by making pasta or even ravioli at home. The process is fairly quick and once you get the hang of it, you can make your dough in the time it takes to boil the water. I picked up this inexpensive ravioli maker years ago – it is so simple to use and makes perfect ravioli!

My girls had a good time making the sheets of pasta, cranking the machine and making sure the dough didn’t dry out too much. There were many giggles while kneading the dough and working together to feed it into the pasta machine. They quickly learned that the end had to be relatively thin to get the dough started in the machine, and that if it was too thick, it was really hard to crank.

They created beautiful long sheets of pasta to use with the ravioli mold. Then they carefully spooned the filling into each indentation and covered it with another sheet of pasta before rolling out perfect little pouches. They were a good team and made about 4 dozen raviolis.

While the kitchen table became the assembly line for the pasta making efforts, the counter became a bruschetta bar. Because, you know, the workers get hungry making all those sheets of pasta, filling them and rolling them into perfect little pouches.

In addition to tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, one of my favorite variations is to grill thinly sliced zucchini, give it a good dousing of olive oil with mint and lemon juice, and serve it with fresh Burrata on toasted bread.

Bruschetta-2745

Bruschetta with Zucchini and Mint

Ingredients
1/4 cup fresh mint, cleaned and chipped fine
Juice of 1 medium lemon
Salt and Pepper, to taste
2 zucchinis, sliced thinly length ways, (by hand or using a mandolin)
1 Italian Bread cut into 1-1 1/2″ slices
1 Burrata, buffalo mozzarella, about 8 oz.
Method
• In a small bowl add the oil, mint, and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
• Brush one side of the zucchini slices with olive oil and place on the grill oil side down and cook until dark grill marks appear, about 5 minutes. Brush the top side with oil and flip the piece over on the grill and continue to cook until dark grill marks appear. Transfer each piece as it finishes to a large plate.
• Once all the zucchini slices have been grilled, pour the oil, mint and lemon vinaigrette over them.
• Brush the bread slices with oil and grill on both sides until crispy.
• To serve, add a spoonful of Burrata to the grilled bread, add a few slices of zucchini, and drizzle with additional olive oil, if desired.

Bruschetta-2772


Ravioli with Asparagus

Ingredients for the Ravioli Filling

1/4 cup walnuts, chopped fine and toasted
1 cup Ricotta cheese, firm, drained
1 egg yolk
3 tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the Pasta Dough

2 cups “00” flour
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs water (or more if needed)

Ingredients for the Asparagus

1 bunch asparagus, sliced diagonally in thirds
1 garlic clove, sliced thin
1/4 cup fresh sage leaves
6 tbs butter, divided into thirds (2 tbs each)

Method

1. Make the filling.

• In a heavy duty frying pan, over medium high heat, add the walnuts to the dry pan and cook until golden and fragrant, about 1-2 minutes, being careful not to burn them.
• In a medium bowl, combine the toasted walnuts, ricotta, egg and parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

2. Make the pasta dough.

• Combine the flour, eggs, yolks and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and begin mixing the dough with a fork. Once it is well combined, begin working the dough with your hands (you may need to add a little more water if the dough is too dry or add more flour if it is too wet- a teaspoon at a time for each) and form into four large balls.
• Working with one piece of dough at a time, flatten one of the balls into an oblong shaped piece and starting at the widest setting on a pasta machine (0) run the dough through twice on each setting until you reach (7) or about 5mm thick.
• Lay the sheet over the ravioli mold and using the top mold press to make the indentations for the filling. Slice off any extra dough and if long enough, save it for the top, or refold into a ball to keep reusing.
• Add the filling to the indentations, 1/2-3/4 tsp of filling for each ravioli.
• Add another sheet of dough on top of the filled ravioli and using a rolling pin, roll over the mold to cut the pieces.
• Set the filled ravioli aside to dry while you repeat the process until you are out of filling/dough.

3. Make the asparagus.

• In a large sauté pan over medium high heat, add 2 tbs of butter and melt gently until foaming, 1-2 minutes. Add asparagus and garlic and toss until coated, cook 2-4 minutes until brightly green and still crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
• Add 2 tbs butter and melt gently until foaming, 1-2 minutes. Add the sage leaves and fry until crisp, 1-2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
• Keep the pan handy, there is no need to wash this yet as you will mix the pasta and asparagus here.

Put it all together

In a large pot, boil salted water. Add the ravioli and cook until al dente, 3-5 minutes. Remove the ravioli with a slotted spoon and place onto a plate. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water to add to the pasta sauce.

Add the remaining 2 tbs butter to the sauté pan and melt gently. Transfer the asparagus, pasta and cooking water to the pan. Toss well to combine over medium heat.

Serve hot topped with the fried sage and add some freshly grated parmesan. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Ravioli with Asparagus

Hope you will try it and will let me know how it turns out! Buon Appetito!


Filed Under: Eat, Appetizers, Bread, Pasta Tagged With: Asparagus, Bruschetta, Burrata, Pasta, Ravioli

NaBloPoMo- Challah And Apple Jelly

November 2, 2013 by Renee

DSC_0427There is nothing better than the smell of fresh bread wafting through the house. I’m pretty sure it’s one of those things that realtors use, like chocolate chip cookies and vanilla scented candles, to invoke subliminal emotions of family, warmth and a sense of home to prospective buyers. Never mind that the house only has one bathroom, I smell bread baking-sold!

I used to make challah every week. Everyone loves it when I do but it has been a while since I’ve made it.  The weather has turned chilly here so I’m all too happy to keep the oven on throughout the day now.  Inspired by a new cookbook I received to review about the art of making bread, I decided to revisit my old, trusted challah recipe first.

It’s quite simple and takes just a few minutes to prepare the dough. But it does take a good two hours for the dough to rise. While you could spend that time reading or sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea (in my dream life), I find that keeping on top of the ever growing pile of laundry takes precedence and this recipe gives me enough time to throw a load in, make the dough, switch the load, clean the kitchen, fold, braid, twist and bake the bread, put the laundry away and have a slice of freshly baked bread the minute it’s done.

A wonderful reward!

I made two loaves on Friday and one was devoured with dinner last night. The other I started late this afternoon with large melty pats of Beurre d’Isigny (a luxurious French butter) and a hefty spoonful of apple jelly (David Lebovitz’s divine recipe) that I made a few weeks ago after going apple picking.  It was hard to only have two pieces!

Apple Jelly

My photos for the original challah recipe post are terrible-it’s one of my first recipes on the blog- and I had no idea what I was doing back then. Funny though, I was so caught up in the making of my dough and trying to make a tiny dent in the laundry that I actually didn’t shoot new ones yesterday as I intended. Ah well. These things happen.

I did remember today, though barely -the one photo at the top- taken with my iPhone- as I devoured a slice. One of these days I will reshoot the entire recipe.

The new book looks wonderful and I feel like I have the hang of baking bread back. So, I’ll mix my dough tomorrow night after I get home from a day trip to Philly and hopefully will get to bake it Monday. I am excited to see how it turns out. These I will take pictures of!

 

Day #2 NaBloPoMoNaBloPoMo_November_large_0

Filed Under: Eat, Kitchen Sink, Bread Tagged With: Bread, Challah, Challah. Sweet Egg Challah, NaBloPoMo

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