Veal Stew with Onions and Mushrooms : Blanquette de Veau à l'Ancienne : Lesson 9 : LCB at Home

This was very good. Very.

I've done this one before; in cooking school and out - - it's always a big hit. Flavourful. Not blindingly expensive. Can be made ahead. Freezes well. Reheats well. Great for transporting to a dinner someplace. It's pretty tasty cold too.

Not the most colorful of of dishes but that's because of the "blanquette" part of the name; as with so many traditional french dishes this thing is supposed to be a variety of shades of white (trending to brown).

It was served with white sushi rice to soak up the sauce; that's essential.

I wrote about this before in "Veal Stew" and "Blanquette de Veau - 2" although I never gave a recipe or how-to. Therefore…

---

Blanquette de Veau à l'Ancienne : Veal Stew with Onions and Mushrooms

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 2 liters [2 quarts] water, cold
• 2 carrots
• 2 onions
• 2 cloves
• bouquet garnis (tossed in loose, not in a "bouquet"), be generous
• 25 peppercorns
• 
  
• 2,25 kg [5#] boneless veal shoulder (considerably less once cleaned)
• 
  
• 1/4 C butter, plus a bit
• 1/4 C flour
• 
  
• 250 gr [8 oz] pearl onions, white
• 450 gr [1#] button mushrooms (really small ones if you can get 'em)
• water
• sugar
• butter
• 
  
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1/2 C crème fraiche

Procedure

1. Make what amounts to a vegetable broth with the water and... vegetables (and cloves and peppercorns)
   • Get it boiling then boil gently for 15 minutes - meanwhile
     
2. Clean the big chunk o' veal of all tendons, connecting tissue, separating tissue, most of the silverskin, all membranes in general and the inedible bits. Cut into 3cm cubes [1 1/2"].
3. Blanch the meat (meat into a pot, cover with water, bring to a bit of a simmer, turn it off)
   • Toss out the muck that comes to float on top of the water
   • Strain the meat; saving the liquid for possible use later
     
     
4. Add the meat to the vegetable broth, simmer for 30 minutes
5. Remove the meat (use, for example, a slotted spoon)
6. Saving the cooking liquid, strain the vegetables (toss the veggies - they're done)
   
   
7. Melt the butter in a large pan, add the flour (to make a roux) - whisking
   • Melt, bubble and dry this until it threatens to brown (2 or 3 minutes)
8. Add the meat & vegetable broth that you just saved, slowly, whisking, into the roux; it will magically thicken up sort of
9. Add the veal to the pot and cook, simmering, for another hour (until the veal is tender when poked with a sharp paring knife)
   • Add, if needed, liquid to just barely cover the veal pieces (use the liquid from blanching the meat - that you saved from way way earlier)
   • Season with some salt and (white) pepper
     
     
10. Now for the vegetable garnish... Cut the mushrooms, if necessary, to be the size of the onions
11. Each veggy into its own pan
12. 3/4 cover with water (they ought not float)
13. Add a tablespoon each of water and butter
14. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 5 minutes
15. Remove cover and boil vigorously until practically dry
16. Then stir/toss while the pan goes dry and the vegetables glaze (the mushrooms will take a fair while)
    
    
17. Everything can go on hold at this point; the vegetables and the meat
    
    
18. To finish: Glazed vegetables into the meat-pot; simmer 5 minutes
19. Check the seasoning
20. Remove the meat and glazed vegetables (for serving)
21. Reduce the cooked liquid to a saucy consistency
22. Mix the egg yolk, lemon and crème fraiche
23. Temper the mix with some of the liquid (add some of the hot sauce to the egg/cream mix)
24. Pour the tempered mix back into the sauce - whisking
25. Adjust seasoning (add salt, pepper)

Notes

1. The short version will seem less complicated
   1. Clean, cube and blanch the veal
   2. Make a vegetable broth - 15 minutes
   3. Add the veal - 30 minutes; drain, reserve the meat and liquid
   4. Make a roux, add the cooking liquid, add the veal, simmer - 1 hour (until tender)
   5. Glaze some mushrooms and some pearl onions
   6. Add glazed veggies to the mix - 5 minutes
   7. Remove meat and vegetables from cooking liquid (to a serving plate)
   8. Reduce liquid
   9. Enrich with (tempered) egg yolk, lemon juice and crème fraiche

---

Veal Scallops with Apples and Calvados : Escalopes de Veau Vallée d'Auge : LCB at Home : Lesson 2 : Part 3

Then there's the "main" course - the veal - with roasted apples and a mushroom sauce.

The veal is hiding under the mushroom/cream sauce; trust me, it's under there somewhere.

---

A big hit; the apples went over real well for something so deadly simple (must be the butter). The crème fraiche and the mushrooms "made" this meal.

And here we go - rough notes on... what I really did - and look down to the "Notes" section (after the Procedure section) if things appear to be confusing - they sort of were at moments.

Veal Scallops with Apples and Calvados : Escalopes de Veau Vallée d'Auge

Serves: 7

Ingredients

• butter
• 1/2 kg [1 #] button mushrooms, sliced thin
• crème fraiche (there's a whole convoluted story about that later on)
  
• 7 veal cutlets (although it calls for "veal scallops" and I obviously did not want "veal scallopini" because they're way way too thin). It was 1 kg [2 1/4 #]
• butter, more (surprised !? - no, not really)
• olive oil
  
• shallots, bruinoise
• calvados
• créme fraiche, more

Procedure

1. Make crème fraiche (yes, make it - since none is available, apparently, in all of Greater Toronto or the surrounding region [hmm, that might be a slight exaggeration]) - see the Notes, it takes a day
   
2. In butter, cook the sliced mushrooms until dry-ish; add some (1/4 C) crème fraiche - salt and pepper - set aside (did this way ahead)
   
3. Coat the cored, peeled, apples with melted butter (no sugar) and bake at 225 C [450 F] for 15 or 20 minutes - tender but not smooshy
   
4. Smash the veal cutlets to flatten them out some (evenly), season (salt & pepper) - not thin, but even
5. Sauté the veal (very hot) in butter and oil (about 50/50). Enough, all at once, in the pan that the pieces are not touching. Do in batches, cover "done" ones with foil. Drain excess fat off between batches (except the last batch). Don't cook past "medium" - they'll be tough. Err on the low side of doneness.
   
6. Remove the last batch of meat (& cover the meat). Toss the diced shallots in the sauté pan; cook 'til tender & not colored (lower the heat probably).
7. Deglaze with Calvados - in fact, flambé the calvados (first turning off the exhaust fan, please), in fact, have a sip of calvados (it's by the way, a sort of apple brandy)
8. Add the previously prepared mushrooms,
   the rest of the crème fraiche,
   boil for a minute or two,
   add back in the juices from the "waiting" veal,
   continue boiling for a minute (or, in my case, four) to reduce to a nice saucey consistency
   
9. Serve, sauce over the veal, with the apples artfully surrounding the veal on the serving platter.

Done

Notes

1. Crème Fraiche, is French and translates as "Fresh Cream" but it's not. It's fermented cream. It's sort of thick like sour cream but it's not sour. It's not widely available. It doesn't separate/curdle if boiled (normal cream or milk usually does). It's easy to make/fake.
   For 1 Cup (as used in this recipe)
   1. 1 C cream, whipping, 35%
   2. 2 T buttermilk
   3. 24 hours, covered, at room temperature (to thicken)
2. Allocate 1 apple per person, plus 2 apples for good luck. The apples should be grouped in a pan that just barely fits the whole lot of them. Cook until just about done then "hold" in the turned off oven until the veal's ready. They're done only with butter. Golden Delicious apples worked for me.
3. The veal "scallops"...don't exist (well, not here they don't). So I got cutlets; good thick ones too. They were sized at 3 to the pound; I got 7 of them. Once at the house they suddenly looked really large, about 6 ounces each [180 grams], so I cut each one in half. That make 14 (fourteen) pieces of meat! Way out of line with what people would eat. Ended up cooking 12 pieces in total; really could have got away with just 10 for 7 people.

---

I finally figured out that I ought not be writing the whole recipe straight out of the book (the book being Le Cordon Bleu: At Home) - it's their recipes I'm following as exactly as I can and I'm not injecting much original content. I might get stomped by some intellectual property lawyer types some day if I just write out their recipes - so, I'm going to go to the style of reporting "what I actually did" but leave out the part where I copy from their book. It is, after all, only fair. So, rush out and buy their book so you can follow along.

There will be lots, still, about the ingredients, tips, tricks and what went right, wrong, or otherwise during the experiments (meals); and what the victims (guests) liked - or not. We'll see if this style of presentation flies.

Final note: The blog, for the first time, has exceeded 1000 unique visitors this month (April); rarified atmosphere. Thanks and welcome to you all.

Technorati Tags: recipe,veal

del.icio.us Tags: recipe,veal

Veal Shanks Bourgeois : Roulles de Veau Bourgeoise : LCB at Home : Lesson 3 : Part 3

These were very very good - a success one might say - and several did.

Forgot to snap the picture until after they started serving - in the upper left of the shot you can see some already portioned out. As for the cooking, what I actually did was...

Veal Shanks Bourgeois : Roulles de Veau Bourgeoise : Veal Shanks with Pearl Onions and Mushrooms

Serves: 7

Ingredients

• 7 veal shanks (good sized ones), or a 2 kg piece [4 #] sawn into 7 slices; each about 4 cm [1.5 inches] thick
  
• 60 g butter [4 T, 2 oz]
• 30 g flour [1/4 C, 1 oz]
• 1 Bouquet Garni
  • 4 twigs dried thyme, 10 cm celery top [4"], 1 bay leaf, 4 sprigs parsley (biggish), wrapped in 2 pieces of the green part of the stalk from a leek, tied with twine/string
• 1 1/2 t Salt
• 1 t Black pepper, freshly ground
  
  
• 15 g butter [1 T, 0.5 oz]
• 350 g little button mushrooms, trimmed and cleaned[12 oz]
  
  
• 30 pearl onions, peeled
• 1 clove
  
  
• 2 egg yolks

Procedure

1. Veal shanks into a big enough pot, cover with water, bring to a boil
2. Reduce to a simmer - simmer for 15 minutes
3. Skim the (inevitable) gunk floating on the top of the water
4. Remove veal, set aside
5. Strain the cooking liquid (and save it for later)
   
   
6. Butter into a big frying/sauté pan (big enough to hold all the meat), medium heat
7. Add flour, whisk for a couple of minutes (avoid browning this "roux")
8. Whisk in 2 cups of the reserved cooking liquid
9. Return veal to the pan (I had to stack it in two layers - doesn't matter)
10. Add more cooking juices to just cover the veal (thus, a single layer would have been better)
11. Bring slowly to a boil
    • moving things around to keep the flour from sticking to the bottom
12. Reduce to a simmer
13. Add the bouquet garni
14. Add salt and pepper (remember to taste again before the end)
15. Simmer for 45 minutes
    
    
16. Meanwhile, 1 T of butter into a frying pan, high heat
17. Add mushrooms
18. Saute vigorously until they A) start giving off their liquids and B) that liquid has evaporated from the pan
19. Set aside to add to the meat stew later on
    
    
20. After the 45 minutes mentioned above, stick the clove into one of the onions & add the onions to the meat pot
21. Simmer for 15 minutes more
22. Check, with the point of a small sharp knife, that the meat is tender
    
    
23. Here's a tricky bit - 5 minutes before the meat is ready (you'll have to guess) add the mushrooms
    
24. When done, almost falling from the bone, remove the meat to a platter (leaving behind all the liquid)
25. Remove the onions and mushrooms (decorate around the meat)
26. Cover with foil to keep in the heat
    
    
27. Reduce the cooking liquid by a third or a half (mine was 2 layers deep so I had a lot of liquid to reduce)
28. Egg yolks: whisk (with a fork?) together with a ladle of the (hot) cooking liquid (called "tempering" the yolks)
29. Dump this mixture into the main pot, whisking over medium heat, bring it just to a boil again - remove from heat
30. Taste it - add salt probably - maybe some pepper
31. Pour over the veal, onions, mushrooms

Done

Notes

1. This is all really easier than it might seem with the number of steps in the procedure
2. Veal shanks are also known as ossi buchi, osso bucco, veal shin or/and "hind cut"
3. Straining is best done with a somewhat fine sieve (better that than a colander)
4. This is more or less a really simple veal stew
5. The bouquet garni content might vary in other recipes; for example, this one contains no peppercorns - it's fairly typical
6. Pearl onions are sometimes known as pickling onions. They're tiny.
   • If the onions and the mushrooms are about the same size that's visually satisfying
7. Feel free to substitute regular mushrooms, quartered, for button mushrooms
8. The cooking liquid becomes the "gravy"/sauce for this dish so reduce to the amount which seems appropriate for serving with the quantity of meat you've got and the gravy lovingness of those at the table

The Short Version

1. Simmer shanks until tender
2. Half way, do a roux of with some of the liquid
3. Add bouquet garni and season
4. Half way through the rest add onions (& the clove)
5. Meanwhile, sauté-dry the mushrooms (add at almost the end)
6. Remove meat. reduce liquids
7. "liaison" the sauce with egg yolks ("temper" the yolks first)

del.icio.us Tags: veal shanks,recipe

Technorati Tags: veal shanks,recipe