Foie de Veau : Sautéed Calf's Liver : Lesson 14 : LCB at Home

This was a tough one (not literally). Liver's not a favorite of anyone I know. Alas, this dinner won't cause anyone to convert.

Other than the liver (which was, in reality, not horrid), it was good eatin'.

Coquilles Saint Jacques Dieppoise : Scallops with Mussels and Shrimp in Cream Sauce

This was very popular - fish soup more or less. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be and the "sauce" should have been thicker. You can see that it had oily spots on top too, which means that it wasn't properly emulsified and maybe the cream/sauce was about to separate. Thus, despite the less than ideal appearance the flavour was great. Honestly, one can't go far wrong with a combination of shrimp, mussels, mushrooms and scallops in a cream sauce.

All the stuff can be prepared in advance (hours) and put together and heated with the sauce a the last minute - very convenient.

Yes, that's a sprig of parsley on top; tacky, I know, but I have a ton of parsley growing in the garden and really must do something practical with it - step 1... decorate stuff.

Foie de Veau au Vinaigre et aux Deux Pommes : Sautéed Calf's Liver with Roasted Apples and Potatoes

What can I say? It's liver. So, put a sprig of parsley on top and hope for the best.

It would have been great to get full sized (not thinly sliced) liver. These thin ones are touchy to fry (sauté). It worked just fine; 1 minute 30 in one side (high heat) and 1 minute on the other side. They remain a bit pink in the middle and were very good - given that it's liver.

Then the sauce; interesting. - one part apple cider vinegar to two parts veal stock and deglaze the pan. Reduce until saucy. Ends with a slight acidic vinegar touch to a sort of sweet tasting sauce. Works very well with the veal.

The hit of the evening was the roasted apple and potatoes. Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, cut in 6ths; toss (fry) in hot butter and oil then roast at 450F for 15 minutes. Do the same with potatoes, but for 30 minutes (they said to boil them first but I forgot - so I simply fried them for a bit longer than planned before they went into the oven for roasting). That's the apples on the outer ring and the potatoes piled in the center - they look rather alike.

Soupe de Fraise Cécile : Fresh Orange Ice Cream with Strawberry Sauce

A great dessert from the chefs at Le Cordon Bleu.

Orange Ice Cream on a puddle of strawberry coulis (just blended strawberries and powdered sugar) with chunks of berries. A great combination.

The fresh orange juice ice "cream" was made without cream. It's more or less the same procedure at the famed Crème Anglaise that we've done so often - but with orange juice instead of cream. Next time I will double the recipe to make a whole liter [quart] because it disappeared in a flash.

The fine folks at Donvier were kind enough to send me a new, gratis [no charge], paddle that had given out on this ice cream machine. Very kind of them; they made a happy customer out of me and happy ice-cream-consumers out of 5 other people. An ice-cream maker is great fun and surprisingly easy to use. A good return on investment too.