Squab, a euphemism for a 4-week old, tender nestling pigeon is on the menu this week. I've only fed pigeons, never eaten one so it was a new adventure for me! Along with the squab, I prepared a partridge and a regular chicken for comparison.

The birds were sprinkled with salt, shallots and tarragon, then rubbed all over with butter. Finally strips of bacon (that had been simmered in water for 10 minutes to remove some of its smokiness) were placed on top to add flavor. The poultry were roasted in a 400°F oven until the juices ran clear (about 30-40 minutes).

The mushrooms, canapé and sauce make this roast poultry so much more delectable! The mushrooms are easily sautéed in butter and oil and then set aside. For the canapé, I chopped up some fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes and made a bruschetta using the recipe's ingredients instead of the requested chicken-liver version. Frying the bread slices in clarified butter added extra richness. To deglaze the roasting pan, I used the pan juices, homemade chicken stock, a dash of leftover veal stock and a splash of port and let this mixture simmer until reduced by half. Finished with butter, this sauce was perfect ladled over the meat.

Recipe: Coquelets sur Canapés (Roast Squab Chickens with Chicken Liver Canapés and Mushrooms)

Serves: 6 (I halved the recipe.)

Ingredients:

Paul Brent, a seasoned and well-respected reporter in the Ottawa area, called me on Wednesday to see if I would like to be interviewed for a segment about blogging, cookbooks and Julie and Julia. The next day, he came to my home to film me making a recipe, as well as discuss my role as a food blogger in this new era of blogging and books. One of the questions Paul was exploring is this: I hope not. I still use a cookbook regularly. I love browsing the pages of beautiful and inspiring cookbooks before bed. I like to write notes in the margins. The stains on the pages of my cookbooks give them personality. I even have several cookbook ideas that I'm exploring and hope to get published someday!

The food blogging world brings new stories and visuals to classic and well-loved cookbooks. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I is complete with directions, techniques, instruction, and information, but it doesn't have any pictures. Now, through food blogs, there are hundreds of photographs and stories from kitchens around the world that work as a companion to this hefty volume. 
The online food world is another resource for becoming a better cook. Television didn't replace books and neither will blogs. I made this Apple Charlotte last year as part of the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum, but this time I didn't make a classic Charlotte. Instead, I made little tarts using my square tart pan. This was so much simpler than using a Charlotte mold and just as tasty.

Recipe: Charlotte aux Pommes, Crème Anglaise au Rhum (Apple Charlotte with Rum-Flavored Crème Anglaise)

adapted from Le Cordon Bleu at Home (affiliate link)

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

There's a buzz in the food world around Julie and Julia, the movie coming to theatres Friday, August 7. I can't wait to see it. And thanks to Leanne Cusack from CTV News at Noon, I'll get to see a sneak preview.

I met Leanne today to talk about my link to this movie as a featured blog on Sony Picture's official trailer website and to demonstrate a French recipe from the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum that I'm working through. Here is a link to my segment on CTV News at Noon.

I was also on "A Morning Ottawa" with Angie Poirier this morning where I demonstrated both Leek and Potato soup (which will be another post another day) and Crème Caramel.

Live TV is a bit of an adrenaline rush. All of a sudden, the lights are on, the camera is pointed towards you, a host is asking questions about you and your work, you're working through the key points of a recipe, and in no time at all the four to six minutes are up. I'm just thankful for the professionalism of all the hosts who make being on air so much easier.

You can read all about Crème Caramel from this post that I did last year.

Recipe: Crème Caramel

from a New York Times article by Julia Child called "Eat, Memory: Sacré Cordon Bleu!"

Serves: 6

I have to say I wasn't looking forward to Oeufs Mollets Florentine. Poached eggs with spinach covered in sauce and broiled. How exciting is that? But then, the newest member to Whisk Wednesdays, Melissa of From Laptop to Stovetop, emailed everyone after making it earlier this week raving about how good it was: "OMGAWD. Holy cow. They were a FABULOUS brunch! So rich, decadent, and well worth it!! We had NO idea." She went on to explain all her tips and gotchas and got everyone excited about making this classic French recipe.

This dish is a popular brunch item like Eggs Benedict but uses spinach instead of ham and is often called Eggs Florentine. For Julia Child, it was one of the recipes that caused her to fail at Le Cordon Bleu. And then later she made Eggs Florentine for a friend and it didn't turn out: With all this history, it was more interesting to get into the kitchen and see how I would fare.

Sauce
We've already learned how to make béchamel and Mornay sauces so this was just a refresher. Basically, you make a roux, add some milk, and whisk away. Season it with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Then, add a liaison of cream and egg slowly so that you don't curdle the egg. Finally, you add the cheese. I kept the sauce warm in a thermos while I prepared the rest of the dish.

Spinach
For this recipe, the spinach is boiled, drained, cooled, squeezed, and then sautéed. According to Peter Hertzmann, all these steps were required because spinach used to be a lot tougher than it is today. I used baby spinach and I would skip the boiling-draining-cooling-squeezing stage next time.

Eggs
One of the ten basic ways of cooking eggs is soft-boiled, called oeufs mollet in French. Boil the eggs five to five and half minutes, cool, and peel. Here is a great article that shows the different cooking methods for eggs and how each should look. Mine turned out more like medium-cooked eggs rather than soft probably because they sat in lukewarm water too long while I finished the rest of the recipe. Next time I would make the eggs last.

Breadcrumbs
The ingredients list in the cookbook didn't list breadcrumbs, so I scrambled at the end to make some quick homemade crumbs by toasting half an English muffin and then blending it. [Melissa had warned about this, but I forgot, and I guess I didn't read the recipe thoroughly enough before I started.]

Broiled and browned

After preparing the gratin dish with butter, I added the spinach and set the eggs on top. Then I poured on [too much] sauce [forgetting that I had made a full batch of sauce but not a full recipe of eggs and spinach]. A sprinkling of cheese and breadcrumbs, and it was ready for the broiler. Again, I used old cheddar since that's more popular around here than Gruyère. Five minutes later, it was done.

Recipe: Oeufs Mollets Florentine (Soft-boiled Eggs with Spinach and Mornay Sauce)

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

Breadcrumbs

Sole Belle Meunière means "sole prepared in the manner of a pretty miller's wife." It turns out I live 15 minutes from a working 19th century flour mill said to be haunted by a miller's wife named Ann Crosby. So I hopped in the car and visited this heritage site that still sells freshly-milled flour and daily bread—you can't get much more local than that!

Watson's Mill in Manotick, Ontario, is a functioning gristmill that produces tons of stone-ground wheat flour every year. I was able to purchase whole wheat flour milled only two days before and enjoy a photo walk as well.

This recipe is all about simplicity. Using the flour from the mill to dredge the sole caught from the neighboring river. Throw in some mushrooms, a ton of butter, and a squeeze of lemon, and this is the simplest Cordon Bleu recipe yet. And also the first meal Julia Child had in France in November 1948, which she described as the "most exciting meal of my life". Here's the description in her book My Life in France (affiliate link): Fillet the fish
First the fish. Sole is easy to find around here, but you can use any flatfish, such as flounder, or a smaller fish like trout. The recipe explains how to fillet the fish, but I didn't do this step. I went to the fish counter at the store and bought them already filleted. I wasn't feeling up to dealing with fish and bones this week, so I took the easy route. I was a little worried because the fish had a very strong smell that was not pleasant! I didn't have time to go to the specialty fish store I usually go to but picked the sole up at the local big-name grocery store. (I didn't need to worry since after cooking, there wasn't an unpleasant smell or taste at all.)

Dredge the fish
After sprinkling the fish with some salt and pepper, I dredged it in flour. The flour keeps the meat from sticking to the pan, protects the tender meat inside from the oil, and allows it to get brown.

Cook the mushrooms
In a separate pan, I cooked the mushrooms in a bit of butter and oil until all the moisture had evaporated. A sprinkle of salt and pepper, and they were ready to plate.

Pan-fry the fish
Unlike last week with a vat of oil, pan frying uses a lot less oil and some butter for flavor, and is also considered a dry heat cooking method. Using a frying pan, I browned the fish on both sides, keeping the pan hot enough so that it wouldn't stick.

Brown the butter
The key to this recipe is the beurre noisette. Beurre noisette is just butter that's been browned and literally means "hazelnut butter". Simple, effective, delicious. Once again, Manotick, Ontario played a part in this post, specifically the Black Dog Bistro. A couple weeks ago, we went there for dinner, and with the bread came this unusual spread. I couldn't put my finger on the taste, but I knew I had tasted it that afternoon. Earlier in the day, I was caramelizing sugar and hardening it for my Crème Brûlée photo. And this spread had the same overtones. It turned out to be caramelized butter or beurre noisette. It had been melted and refrigerated, then served at room temperature. It had the consistency of mayonnaise, but it was sweet. We gobbled it up, and it's become a restaurant destination we plan to visit more often.

Garnish with lemon and parsley
To add a touch of elegance to the plate, the book says to score the lemon decoratively and then slice them thinly. So, I scored them and sliced them and chopped up the parsley.

Links
Here's a great video showing how to make Sole Meunière. Also, Manggy from No Special Effects has a wonderful post about Sole Meunière.

Recipe: Sole Belle Meunière (Pan-fried Sole with Nut-brown butter and Mushrooms)

I halved the recipe so what's shown will serve 3.

You can find the recipe for Sole Belle Meunière (Pan-fried Sole with Nut-brown butter and Mushrooms) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home (affiliate link). To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Beurre Noisette and a funny sign outside Watson's Mill
Tasting Notes
The nuttiness of the butter drizzled over the crispy pan-fried sole was delicious! And it's so easy to make. I served the sole with baby new potatoes and green beans, which tasted wonderful with the beurre noisette.

Next Week (October 29)
• Beignets de Langoustines, Sauce Tartare (Langoustine Fritters with Tartar Sauce)

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $802.30 + $9.50 = $811.80

Butter used so far: 8 pounds, 3 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

More to Explore:

• Index of Recipes
• Visual Recipe Index