Julia Child’s Potage Parmentier – Leek and Potato Soup

I ran across an old recipe for Julia Child’s delicious Potage Parmentier – leek and potato soup, and decided to try it out.

My previous experience with Julia’s recipes has been that they are very complicated with a lot of work involved. This one was surprisingly simple. It’s a perfect way to warm up these chilly autumn evenings.

POTAGE PARENTIER

1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 pound leeks, carefully cleaned and diced
8 cups water
salt and pepper
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons heavy cream
6 tablespoons each, parsley and chives

Simmer potatoes and leeks in salted water for approximately 45 minutes, until soft
Purée the vegetables with an immersion blender or in an electric blender. Note: when using a blender, fill container only half way and put a tea town over lid while blending to avoid burns.

Return soup to pan and over low heat, add butter in bits, add cream and then correct seasoning.

Pour into bowls and sprinkle top with parsley and chives.

Cucina de Jacqueline - Pasta Dough

My friend Annie has a pasta attachment for her Kitchenaid stand mixer that she has never used and wanted to learn how to make homemade pasta, so Laura (another friend) and I held a pasta making class last night at my place. We consulted several pasta making recipes and finally combined several to create the dough. Our recipe is below.




Laura had made a luscious wild mushroom sauce (sugo al fungi) that brought our fettuccini to life. It was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Annie prepared a green salad with deep red beets and a variety of greens and heirloom tomatoes, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette. I supplied a special bottle of Cline Cellars Tasting Room Staff’s Merlot. The tasting room staff made the wine a couple of years ago and it is pretty good, if I do say so myself! Desert was a nectarine cake baked by Laura. It was a delicious feast!





Homemade Pasta

Ingredients

3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour*
4 extra-large eggs – room temperature
1-teaspoon water - or a little bit more if the dough is very dry

*Note: Marcella Hazan, the famous Italian cookbook author, says unbleached all-purpose is fine; she also says that semolina flour is appropriate only for factory-made pasta and will frustrate you at home.

Marcella advises you to mix the dough on a flat work surface by building a mountain of flour, making a crater in its peak, dumping the eggs into the crater, and mixing them gradually with the flour. This method hasn’t worked very well for me because somehow the eggs always seem to run out of the crater.

Alternative method: crack eggs into your food processor. Pulse until well mixed. Add flour and water all at once and pulse several times until eggs and flour are well incorporated. Take lid off processor and pinch dough with your fingers. If it sticks together it is ready. If not add ½ teaspoon of water and pulse several times.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board and begin kneading. Knead for approximately 8 minutes. Dough should be silky smooth and slightly sticky.

Cover with a tea towel and let rest for about 30 minutes.

Now it’s time to roll out the pasta. Cut the dough into approximately six equal parts and spread out clean, dry dishtowels or a tablecloth, for the pasta to rest on. Dust lightly with flour. Begin by putting each lump of dough through the widest setting on the pasta machine. Fold it into thirds like an envelope and feed the narrow end through the widest setting again. Repeat 2 or 3 times. Decrease the roller width a notch and put it through again. Continue to decrease the rollers’ thickness until the dough is quite thin—thin enough to see the pattern of the tablecloth through the pasta strips. The gradual progression from thicker to thinner is, Hazan says, one of the things that make homemade pasta so good, so don’t try to speed things up by skipping some of the intermediate thicknesses.

Let the sheets of pasta dry for at least 10 minutes, turning them over from time to time. The pasta is ready to cut when it no longer sticks to itself but is not yet so dry that it cracks.

There are two choices of cutters with my Kitchenaid pasta maker: fettuccini and spaghetti. We used the fettuccini attachment.

Insert the sheets of pasta dough into the cutter and gently catch the strands as they come out. Place on a lightly floured sheet pan. Toss gently with flour and create small “bird nests” with each sheet.

Cook the pasta in lots of boiling *salted water for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes, until it is al dente. Drain and toss immediately with the hot sauce and/or butter

*There is no salt in the pasta dough so salting the water is an important step.

Rijad Dar Surya - Marrakech

Lunch at the Rijad Dar Surya – Marrakech

It was a hot, sunny day at the villa and we were all lazing around the pool. At lunch, served in the pavilion, we found a selection of our Chef Zara’s delicious salads, including wonderful concoction of sweet oranges tossed in olive oil with black-pitted Kalamata olives. It tasted wonderful and was an immediate favorite with the Wild Writing Women.














Orange and Olive Salad

Ingredients

4-5 medium oranges, peeled and cut into cubes
1 cup black pitted Kalamata olives - halved
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1-tablespoon ground cumin
1-tablespoon ground red pepper flakes
4 tablespoons olive oil


Whisk olive oil, cumin, and red pepper together in a large salad bowl until the mixture turns blood orange in color and the flavors really start to combine and become aromatic. Mix in the oranges and olives. Toss until well coated and the oranges release some of their juices. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour then refrigerate until ready to serve.

Apricot Season Again - JAM's JAM

I went to the farmer's market last Wednesday and found out that the famous Patterson apricots from the San Joaquin Valley were at their peak. Oh joy! I bought 12 pounds of the beauties and made 20 jars of jam on Friday. If you are interested in making some for yourself, please check out my past blog, posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Apricot Season - JAM's JAM

Preserved Lemons

Remember the preserved lemons I mentioned eating at the cooking school Maison Arabe? Preserved lemons are often used in classic Moroccan cuisine. Our teacher/chef Mohammed assured me they were easy to make so when I got home I decided to preserve some.

My friends Jackie and Katsu have several beautiful lemon trees in their garden and they provided me with a basket filled with beautifully ripe fruit.

Next step was to go through my notes and find preserving tips and I also spent some time on the Internet researching the procedure.

I now have two large jars of lemons, soaking in salt and their own juices. According to plan, they should be ready to eat in about four weeks.






Preserved Lemons
Ingredients
8-10 Meyer lemons, scrubbed very clean
If you don’t have Meyer lemons, regular lemons will do
1/2 cup kosher salt, more if needed
Extra fresh squeezed lemon juice, if needed
Sterilized quart canning jar

Method
Place 2 Tbsp of additive-free Kosher salt in the bottom of a sterilized jar.

One by one prepare the lemons in the following way. Cut off any protruding stems from the lemons, and cut 1/4 inch off the tip of each lemon. Cut the lemons as if you were going to cut them in half lengthwise, starting from the tip. Don't make the cuts so long (going into the ends) that the lemons separate into pieces; you want to keep the lemons whole. Make another cut in a similar manner, so now the lemon is quartered, but again, attached at the base.

Gently open the lemons and generously sprinkle salt all over the insides and outsides of the lemons.

Pack the lemons in the jar, squishing them down so that juice is extracted and the lemon juice rises to the top of the jar. Fill up the jar with lemons; make sure the top is covered with lemon juice. Add more fresh squeezed lemon juice if necessary. Top with a couple tablespoons of salt.

Tightly close the jar and let sit at room temperature for a couple days, turning the jar upside down then upright several times. After a week, put the jar in your refrigerator and let sit, again turning upside down now and then, for at least 4 weeks, until lemon rinds soften.

When ready to use, remove a lemon from the jar and rinse thoroughly in cold water to remove salt and seeds.

Gently open the lemon and use to adorn your cooked dish. They are especially delicious with chicken but can be used on meats and fish too.

Stored in the refrigerator they will keep for up to year.

In the Souk of Fes, Morocco

The souk of Fes is a tangled web of alleys and pathways leading in every direction. It's easy to get lost in this amazing place. Fortunately I had a guide to lead me in and out. I was a bit overwhelmed by the incredible assortment of goods for sale. I was particularly interested in the foods offered but hesitated to buy anything because sanitation was pretty primitive. There was a wide assortment of meats (including camel), fish and poultry. Piles of fresh vegetables and beautiful melons. Jars, bags and baskets filled with herbs and spices in every variety and color.

Motorized vehicles are not allowed within the souk so goods are transported via donkey. The alleys are very narrow so I spent a lot of time flat against the stalls making room for the donkey's and carts. At one point I was so tired I thought of climbing onto one of the donkeys but couldn't figure out how to do it gracefully! Then I considered one of the empty carts but remembered that Queen Marie-Antoinette had made her last journey in a similar rig, so I trudged on.




Even small children are put to work.










Thread in every color was available here. Many people brought little swatches of fabric to find just the right match for their sewing projects.







Oh my -- the olives are my favorite! Absolutely delicious flavored in herbs, spices and scented oil.









A Moroccan lemonade stand!






Vew of the Medina of Fes. The souk is tucked away inside the walls of the Medina.

A few of us attended a class at La Maison Arabe cooking school and learned how to make a delicious chicken tagine.





The knife I'm holding was VERY sharp!



We used the roasted peppers in our tomato salad.






The preserved lemons were my favorite part. I must learn how to make them!







Oh my! This dish was totally delicious! I was thrilled with my creation as were the other students. I can't wait to make it again at home.







We peeled oranges, cut them crosswise into pieces, then sprinkled cinnamon and powdered sugar all over them. They were refreshing and a perfect ending to our exotic luncheon.









Here is the chicken recipe:

Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 80 minutes

Ingredients

400 grams of chicken cut in chunks
½ preserved lemon
½ red onion
a bunch of parsley and fresh coriander
1 clove garlic
½ tsp black pepper
1 tsp ginger powder
1 heaping tsp turmeric
pinch of saffron
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp ghee
4 tbs water

Mode of cooking

Cut preserved lemon in half and separate flesh from peel. Reserve peel and chop flesh. Put chopped lemon in a tagine (or Dutch oven or creuset) add in finely chopped garlic, parsley and coriander finely chopped and all the spices. Then coat the chicken in the marinade and add in finely chopped onion.

On medium heat sear the tagine for about 20 minutes, turning the chicken over from time to time. You need to be close to tagine otherwise it'll stick. You can always add a little bit of water and keep searing. After 20 minutes of searing, add about ½ of a liter of cold water and simmer for 60 minutes. When chicken nicely browns and the sauce is thick add in lemon peel and 10 (more or less) olives and cook for another 5 minutes.

Bon appetite.

A Day in Marrakech

These watermelons were incredibly sweet. Notice the size of the knife used to cut us some samples!




The pool in the garden is our meeting place -- calm, cool and refreshing!





This is Zara, our resident chef. She prepared a lovely dinner using lots of the veggies we bought at the farmer's market.

The meal was delicious!




A good night hug from Jamel, our resident healer massage therapist. Life at the rijad Dar Surya is heaven!

This is not the Marin County Farmer's Market

The farmer's market here in Marrakech is quite different from the one in Marin County! It's full of exotic spices and piles of fresh veggies and fruits along with assorted merchants selling everything from plastic tubs, electrical wire, shoes, goats and sheep! We bought beautiful tomatoes, a sweet ripe watermellon, carrots, squash, purple onions and an assortment of other treats. It was a remarkable experience.