Author: Walter Thames

Among the many virtues of the movie Julie & Julia is the reverence paid to great cookbooks in a cook’s life and development. Great chefs share their best work and we get to enjoy the benefits. Last weekend, my guide was the wonderful French chef Daniel Boulud with his gratin forestier – a potato gratin cooked with mushrooms. I have long been a fan of potato gratins, particularly the gratin dauphinois variety that is simply good sliced russets cooked in cream with, typically, gruyere cheese. These gratins fill the kitchen with rich, warm aromas, whetting the appetite with the foretaste of a well-filled belly and a satisfied palette.

Boulud’s version, though, is a wonder – he layers thinly-sliced potatoes with a layer of wild mushrooms, drenched in cream and baked until soft, custardy and saturated with cream. I used three varieties of mushrooms – dried Italian porcini and shittakes and fresh baby portobellos. After reconstituting, the porcini and shittake are cooked separately in butter with a little salt and pepper. Likewise the portobellos. All three are then tossed with finely-chopped garlic and fresh thyme.

With a mandolin, slicing the potatoes is easy. After preparation, they are soaked in cream with salt, pepper and nutmeg. After that, it’s a simple matter of layering the potatoes with the cream and potatoes, coating the top with a thin layer of grated parmigiano, and baking slowly until cooked and light brown.

The guests loved it and so will you. Many thanks to Daniel Boulud.

best swiss jb rolex day date mens m118348 0150 36mm white dial is a truly classic and tasty watch.blackhawk omega tactical vest replica reddit has always been the most loyal representative of excellence in quality.

What does eggplant have in common with tofu, polenta, rice and, to some extent, chicken? It’s a neutral canvas on which a cook can paint different flavors and tastes.

If you make eggplant stacks, for example, you can easily experiment with flavors and textures by combining whatever you have in the refrigerator that’s compatible. And, there’s a good chance it will be good.

To make stacks, slice a globe eggplant or two in rounds, about 1/2 inch thick or slightly less. Cover the bottom of a large skillet with olive oil or a neutral oil (canola or grapeseed) and heat over a high flame. Add the eggplant and top with a little more oil – eggplant absorbs oil like a sponge.  Sprinkle with fresh or dried herbs. I like to use chopped rosemary, sage, basil and thyme, though dried herbs are fine too. Use oregano, thyme or savory if using dried herbs. Turn the eggplant and add some freshly-ground pepper and a little kosher or sea salt. Cook until brown and soft – the edge of a spatula should easily penetrate the eggplant.

Remove to a plate.

Now assemble the ingredients to layer with the eggplant. Use two or three cheeses – sliced fresh mozzarella, feta, goat cheese, provolone, Pamigiano Reggiano are all nice. Slice a tomato and cook until in a little olive oil until slightly charred. Use some fresh basil pesto. Add some marinara sauce.

Make the stacks: add a slice of mozzarella to a large eggplant round and top it with some pesto. Add another eggplant round. Top with a cooked tomato slice and sprinkle with feta cheese. Add a third slice of eggplant and top with pesto or marinara. Garnish with some fresh basil. Serve each guest a stack.

For variations, substitute thinly-sliced fennel or onion for the sauteed tomato. Add good olives (seeds removed) like a Nicoise with a dab of hummus for a layer. Top with some shrimp that have been coated in Cajun rub or garnish a stack with a fresh fried oyster.

It’s hard to miss with stacks, and your guests will be very pleased.

When you have a refrigerator full of vegetables, a few eggs and some cheese, be nice to yourself and make a frittata. Or be even nicer and invites some friends for brunch.

Frittata is essentially an egg & cheese custard filled with sauteed vegetables, and, if you like, sausage, chicken or meat.  Think of it as a quiche without the crust. And, because it lacks the crust, you don’t have to make one, or (heaven forfend), use a packaged pie crust.

Here’s what you do. Heat the oven to 450 and assemble all your ingredients. Sunday morning, I used two medium onions, three garlic cloves, one red and one green bell pepper, one zucchini, three small yellow squash, and a handfull of cherry tomatoes, all chopped into quarter-inch dice – except for the tomatoes which were halved and the garlic – finely chopped.

Using an iron skillet over a medium high flame, I heated two tbs olive oil and added the onion and garlic, sweating them until soft. Then the bell peppers, stirring for a few minutes and finally the squash. When the squash was slightly soft, I added two tbs of my house rub (a combination of salt, paprika, cayenne, garlic powder, oregano and thyme) and 3 tbs finely chopped basil.

While this was simmering, I whipped seven eggs with about 1/4 cup heavy cream and grated some Emmentaler Swiss and some parmigiana cheese. Use the cheese you have on hand, including cheddar, colby, provolone, muenster – cheeses with character but not too strong. If you use gorgonzola or blue cheese, be ready for the frittata to be overpowered. Good, but overpowered.

Now, stirring the eggs into the vegetable mixture, I folded in the Emmentaler , letting the mixture set for a minute while topping with the cut cherry tomatoes. Then into the hot oven for a 10 – 15 minutes until the center firms up and start to set. Turning on the broiler, I added the grated parmigiana, cooking until the cheese bubbled and started to brown. Removing the frittata, it should cool for a few minutes on the stove top. The sides will shrink a bit and you can cut the frittata like a pie in wedges and serve.

Frittata is lovely and filling as a main dish accompanied by some fruit, maybe cantaloupe or honeydew with blueberries.

It feeds eight brunch guests easily, or two for a couple of days.

Though in most cases a blog about what someone is eating day after day might be tedious, for a cook, a caterer and a food-obsessive, it may be of some interest. In my case, I have a reasonably low tolerance for eating the same thing over and over, so I can guarantee some variety. Dishes I prepare for others will also figure in this, so there will be food that is more complex. I like to experiment with interesting combinations of ingredients, so there’s a chance this could interest more than just me. And, Cooking Light did something similar in a six-week exploration of locally-grown food from Grow Alabama.

So please indulge me, at least for a few entries.

This morning, for example, I made a simple omelet for breakfast. I sliced four regular white mushrooms and sauteed them in olive oil with some thin slivers of hard, smoked chorizo. I get fresh eggs from Grow Alabama, a Birmingham-based CSA, and I whipped two with a fork, seasoning with ground pepper and a pinch of kosher salt. Heating olive oil in an iron skillet to almost smoking, I poured in the eggs, let them fill the skillet, then used the fork to pull some of the cooked eggs to the center.  Two thin slices of a Double Gloucester cheddar, a nice English cheese that’s sharp enough for the strength of the chorizo, finished the innards of the omelet. I folded it into a triangle, transferred to a small plate and browned two thin slices of french bread in the skillet to soak up all the remaining goodness in the olive oil.

Not a low-cal way to start the day, to be sure, but satisfying, fast and really good. It’s also incentive to work harder at the gym in the afternoon. And, it’s cooking from scratch, more or less. No mixes, egg beaters, fake cheese, fake butter, reduced-fat anything. The chorizo, cheese and bread were made elsewhere, of course, but the eggs, mushrooms, olive oil, ground peppercorns, salt without iodine, etc. make this a fresh meal – at least in the U.S.