Sunday, August 19, 2012

Salmon and Sorrel Troisgros

Café Boulud Cookbook: Recipe 2
I made this recipe on July 21st- I am behind in posting my Daniel Boulud recipes due mainly to moving to another state and getting settled in.  But as for the recipe- Boulud says to use a non-stick pan to cook the fish.  I didn't have a non-stick pan and thought that my relatively non-stick Lodge pan would be just fine.  I was wrong.  You need a true non-stick pan for this recipe.  The Salmon is cut thin, like pork or veal cutlets would be, and thus the fish cooks quickly.  Despite the my fish sticking to the pan I somehow cooked it perfectly even if it did not look perfect on the plate (as you can see in the photo). The sauce was supposed to go under the fish, not on top, but i used the sauce to cover my aesthetic errors instead.  The sauce was good but we didn't know what the sorrel brought to it, and Paul rightly brought up that the sauce should have been thicker and richer.  Boulud calls for the sauce to simmer for a mere 15 minutes, which we both thought was way too sort a time for a french white sauce.  That or butter, more butter!  If you are good at cooking fish and making sauces, i'd give this recipe a try.  If you don't have a non-stick pan, definitely skip this recipe, or cook the salmon however you like it and make the sauce to go with it.

Creamy Lemon and Raspberry Tart

Café Boulud Cookbook: Recipe 1
This didn't look or taste special, and when I make a tart, I want it to be special.  Made with a Pâte Sablée tart shell that didn't fully bake- I guess it needed to be in the oven longer, despite my following directions correctly.  That was the first problem, and correctable, so not a big deal.  The lemon base was very tart.  I like my lemons tart, but this was perhaps a bit too tart.  The raspberries, which I got fresh from the Farmers Market were only ok and didn't not bring the flavor that I expected.  Usually when there is a tart in the house it gets devoured.  But this one stayed around for a few days.  The good news is that it improved with age, though not enough to try repeating the recipe.