Paupiettes de veau

THERE IS NO RECIPE for paupiettes de veau in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but if there were, it would probably be this recipe, by her partner-in-crime Simone Beck, which the latter published in her own 1972 cookbook, Simca's Cuisine.

Right from the start, Simca's book became one of my favorites and I featured some of her recipes on my restaurants' menus. Her cooking is as delicate as the book's design and I'm sure that she's responsible for the light quality of many of the recipes in Mastering.

I don't make paupiettes de veau very often: veal prices are out of sight and if I go to the trouble of flattening a slice of pork, I'd rather make my famous crunchy wiener schnitzel with it (my two secrets: 1) dip scallops in seasoned flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs; and 2) deep-fry in fresh vegetable oil).

But here's Simone Beck's recipe for

Paupiettes de veau ou de porc à la tourangelle*
Recipe for Veal Paupiettes
(Small rolls of veal or pork stuffed with onions and cheese, in cream sauce)

For 6 (double the quantities for hearty appetites):

About 1/3 cup vegetable or peanut oil (80 ml)
About 5 medium-sized yellow onions (to make 2 cups, chopped)
6 veal or pork scallops, about 3 x 5 inches (7.5 x 12.5 cm), to be rolled
Salt
Black pepper
6 TB Dijon mustard
1 TB fresh oregano, minced (or 1 tsp, dried)
6 very thin slices imported Swiss cheese
4 TB butter
Bouquet garni of thyme, 1/2 bay leaf, oregano

1. WARM 2 or 3 tablespoons of the oil in a heavy-bottomed ovenproof skillet with a lid (large enough so paupiettes can cook in a single layer).

2. ADD the chopped onions, and cook them very gently, stirring occasionally, until they are tender and lightly colored (about 15 minutes). Remove them with a slotted spoon, set them aside, and season with salt and pepper. Do not clean the pan.

3. FLATTEN the veal or pork scallops between pieces of waxed paper [or plastic] with a mallet, a heavy bottle, the side of a cleaver, or a rolling pin, to make them as thin as possible. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper.

4. BRUSH each scallop with mustard and sprinkle lightly with oregano. Reserving 1 cup of onions for later, spread each scallop with a thin layer of onions and cover with a slice of cheese. Roll up the scallops into paupiettes and secure them with toothpicks or tie with string**. (It's easier to brown them if you use string.)

5. PREHEAT the oven to 350 F (180).

6. PUT THE paupiettes into the pan in which the onions were cooked, adding more oil if necessary, and brown them on all sides over moderate heat (about 15 minutes). Remove the meat to a plate and clean the skillet.

7. MELT the butter in the skillet, and add the meat, the remaining onions, and the bouquet garni. Cover with a piece of waxed paper***, put the lid on the skillet, and set it in the preheated oven. Cook 35 to 40 minutes for veal; about 45 minutes to 1 hour for pork, according to the tenderness of the meat. The meat will be done when it is easily pierced with a sharp knife.

Put the paupiettes on a warmed serving dish, discarding the strings or toothpicks. Spread the onions around the meat and keep the platter warm while making the sauce.

Sauce

2 TB flour
1/4 to 1/3 cup heavy cream (60 to 120 ml)
Juice of 1 medium-sized lemon, strained
1 cup beef bouillon, fresh or canned (250 ml)
Salt, freshly ground black pepper
Chopped parsley

1. PUT the flour in a small saucepan and gradually stir in the cream to make a smooth paste. Stir in the strained juice of the lemon and set aside.

2. POUR the bouillon into the skillet in which the meat was cooked, and set over heat. Let boil half a minute, scraping the bottom to deglaze. Pour 4 or 5 TB of the bouillon into the flour mixture and mix well; then pour back into the skillet and simmer, stirring constantly, while the sauce thickens. Taste, and correct the seasoning.

Serving

Cover the paupiettes with the sauce and serve them sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Variation

Omit the mustard and replace the Swiss cheese with goat cheese.

Paupiettes de veau in the slow cooker?

Why bother? What takes a long time with paupiettes is the preparation and you can't skip that part, plus the sauce has to be made separately.

Those lucky French women!

If you were living in France, or even in Montreal or Québec City, you could stop by the butcher shop on your way home from work and pick up some nice pre-flattened and pre-trimmed scallops, along with some sausage meat ready to turn into stuffing, or you could buy pre-stuffed and tied paupiettes, ready to cook, or even some fully cooked and sauced paupiettes de veau, ready to reheat.

Then you could go next door and pick up some fresh noodles and a nice salad, and by the time you'd had your apéritif and appetizer, dinner would be ready!

---

* A la tourangelle means "from the Touraine", that beautiful region of France that is celebrated for its many châteaux.

** This is what they should look like after tying:

*** Nowadays we'd use foil or parchment paper

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Homemade Butter In 15 Minutes

IF YOU'RE WONDERING why anyone would make homemade butter when the stuff is so easily available, it's because you don't live in my small village. There are only two brands here, and every once in a while they develop an off-taste. I hope it's something picked up in storage, and not due to some new chemical in the milk.

I use very little butter nowadays: a smidgin on my gorgeous homemade bread, of course; a generous dollop in mashed potatoes, naturally; a wee dot on vegetables... and that's about it. I don't make a lot of cakes and pies, but I would use it there too. For cooking, I've been using mostly virgin olive oil since way before it became fashionable, when it was still an expensive luxury.

Back to our homemade butter. I hadn't made any since the seventies. I thought I had learned to make it from Julia Child, but I checked and I can't find a recipe for it in any of her books. It doesn't matter, since I remembered as if it was yesterday.

How To Make Butter In 7 Easy Steps

If you know how to make whipped cream, you know how to make butter – butter is simply heavy cream that's been overwhipped!

1. Start with at least two cups of heavy cream (whipping cream or 35% cream) at room temperature. You can use a food processor or a stand mixer. I used my KitchenAid and started with the whisk, then switched to the paddle.

2. You need high speed to coax the cream into separating so don't try this with a hand whisk.

Persevere and in a few minutes of beating, you will see yellow globules start to form, and some liquid will appear.

3. At this point I switched to the paddle and placed the whole thing in the fridge, including the paddle, just long enough to harden those little globules.

4. Continue beating until the butter comes together enough that you can see you will be able to pour off the buttermilk without pouring off some of the butter. (That's the best way I can describe that.) REDUCE THE SPEED or the buttermilk will start flying out of the bowl.

Pour the milk through a moistened cheesecloth or a fine strainer while holding back the main part of the butter with something like a skimmer. Pour the milk into a clean container -- that's good stuff!

5. Once you get a nice mass of butter, pour off all the buttermilk and, keeping the butter in the bowl, go over to the sink and start washing your butter under cold running water in order to get rid of as much of the milk as you can. (If you don't, your butter will go moldy and rancid very quickly and it will burn too easily.) To do this, you massage it with your hands, separating it into small pieces, and you keep changing the water until it runs clear.

6. Now you have to get rid of the excess water. You do this by pushing the butter against the walls of the bowl with a spatula or wooden spoon. Do this several times until you don't see any more droplets.

7. If you want salted butter, now is the time to add some salt. Do it a little bit at a time and keep tasting till it's the way you like it.

Salt does help preserve the butter, plus it tastes better on bread. You could salt part of it, and leave the other part unsalted.

Variation: Cultured Butter

To make cultured butter, add 1/3 cup plain yogurt to every quart of cream, stir it in well with a wisk, cover with plastic and leave overnight in a warm room. (Use a squeaky clean glass or stainless steel bowl for this.) The cream will thicken slightly or develop a thick skin on top. The next morning, proceed as above or refrigerate until you're ready, but be sure to let it return to room temperature before making the butter.

Storage

I turned my production into four small logs which I wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, and then I froze three of them. That way, I'll be sure that my butter is always fresh. The logs are nice because each slice is a perfect little pat.

How Much Does Homemade Butter Cost?

Making butter at home is probably not going to save you money. It all depends on the price of 35% cream where you live. But here, I found that it cost about 50% more than store-bought butter, and we pay more here for everything than in the big city.

However, that cost is comparable to premium or cultured butter.


What About The Yield?

Out of one litre of cream (one US quart), I got 350 grams (about 12 ounces or 3/4 pound) of butter.

I also got 2 cups (500 ml) of very nice milk as a by-product. This buttermilk is the not the same kind as commercial buttermilk, which has been cultured to make it sour. But it's not skim milk either, it's rather rich and yummy and tastes better than the store-bought stuff. (The buttermilk from cultured butter is closer to cultured buttermilk and can be used in recipes calling for buttermilk.)

How Does The Butter Taste?

The plain version was good because it didn't have that off-taste, but it wasn't as tasty as a good dairy-made butter; salt would have improved it I'm sure.

Cultured butter is another matter. It was as good as the store-bought cultured butter.

Would I Make Butter Again?

Of course, if I had my own cows, I would definitely make my own butter.

But if I lived in the city I would just buy premium or cultured butter there. After all, the cream from the big dairies is hardly pure stuff any more. I don't know when this happened, but it went from plain, 100% cream to: "Cream, milk, carrageenan, mono and diglicerides, cellulose gum and polysorbate 80."

Organic cream anyone?

A Gift Of Butter?

Homemade butter makes a great gift! Turn it into herb butter – my favorite is with garlic, parsley, lemon juice and grated lemon rind, and salt. Great on steaks, fish, just about everything! Pack it in a pretty crock and the recipient will remember you long after the butter has run out.

A good place to look for seasoned butter recipes is your favorite butter company's website, like this one. Just type "seasoned butter" in the search box.

A Final Tip

Taste your cream before you turn it into butter! See why in this previous post.

Boeuf Bourguignon Slow Cooker Recipe: This Is It!

In an earlier post, I promised you that I would keep looking for a good recipe for preparing beef bourguignon in the slow cooker.

Well, hang on to your hats, because I have found it! And I have tested it, and it's fabulous! It's as good as the Julia Child recipe, and that's saying a lot.

So I gave it its own section on my Beef Bourguignon blog.

http://beef-bourguignon.blogspot.com/p/beef-bourguignon-slow-cooker-recipe.html

The Julia Child Boeuf Bourguignon Recipes

Did you notice the plural? 

YES, there is more than one Julia Child Boeuf Bourguignon recipe.

THERE'S the one published in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I, in 1961, and there's the one she published in 1975, in her lesser-known book, From Julia Child's Kitchen, which she wrote without the partipation of either of her previous co-authors, Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle.

IN THE latter book, she has a section on beef stews, and Boeuf Bourguignon is just one of six stew recipes.

• Click here for the recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
• Click here for the version from From Julia's Kitchen.

BON APPÉTIT!

Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Burgundy Style)

I got this sudden urge to make Boeuf Bourguignon.

Nothing to do with Julie and Julia, which I haven't seen yet. It was the boneless cross-rib roast on special at the local SaveEasy: I was buying some to grind into hamburger meat, and then I thought I should buy an extra package and make a stew.

The only beef stew that came to mind was Boeuf Bourguignon, which is really funny since I hadn't made it since 1979, the year I sold my first restaurant and moved to Mexico.

I made it from memory and it was so fabulously good that I thought it should be my first recipe here.

Afterwards, I checked online recipes, and that's when I discovered that everybody who saw Julie and Julia wanted Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon recipe.

I didn't need the recipe (I own Mastering the Art of French Cooking and I confess that my bourguignon recipe is hugely inspired by it) – but I did order Julie and Julia .
 
WHAT ABOUT YOU ? Do you have a favourite beef bourguignon recipe?