Featured recipe: Cassoulet
By Faith Bahadurian Special Writer
Yes I can! That’s the spirit of Ginette Mathiot’s classic cookbook for French home cooks, “I Know How to Cook” (In French, “Je sais cuisiner”) First published in 1932, the book became the de rigueur gift for new brides who needed to have at hand a trove of recipes from their culinary heritage.
What’s that? You thought French women were born knowing how to cook? Not so, apparently, and since the culinary world was dominated by male chefs, as Julia Child quickly learned in post- WWII Paris, and because servants were increasingly rare, many middle-class women lacked familiarity with home cooking. Much as “The Joy of Cooking” and other books codified American cookery in the home, “I Know How to Cook” did the same in France.
Julia’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” recipe for cassoulet, for instance, was six pages long (remember, she trained as a professional chef, not a home cook), whereas Ms. Mathiot’s is a mere half page. But no worries, while things may be streamlined, the essence of French cuisine is intact, and the book is quite thorough, for instance, in the inclusion of numerous recipes for variety meats in addition to the cuts we more commonly find in the supermarket. Game is also well represented, as are soufflés, aspics, and other elegant fare.
“I Know How to Cook” has now been translated into English by an editorial and culinary team headed up by well known French food writer Clotilde Dusoulier (chocolateandzucchini.com). The resulting tome, beautifully published by Phaidon, runs to almost 1,000 pages and surely contains everything that a young woman — or man — starting out in a first kitchen needs to know about French home cooking. Colorful illustrations lend an upbeat note, and there are several sections of homey photographs, often with the food still in the pan it was cooked in.
Bon appétit!
The recipes below are alll adapted from “I Know How to Cook,” Ginette Mathiot (Phaidon 2009).
BROILED LAMB KIDNEYS
(Rognons Grillés)
Serves 6.
(Note: I don’t know how it came about, but sautéed lamb kidneys was a favorite breakfast when I was a child. We cut them in pieces, fried them in butter, and served them over toast with a healthy squeeze of lemon juice. FB)
1 pound, 10 ounces lamb kidneys
Oil for brushing
Salt & pepper
Maitre d’hotel butter (butter mixed with parsley and lemon juice)
Preheat the broiler. Clean the kidneys by splitting them in half; remove any outer membrane and fat. Brush with oil on both sides. Thread them onto 6 skewers, leaving some space between. Broil them on very high heat for 3 minutes on each side. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with the maitre d’hotel butter.
QUAILS WITH ASTI SPUMANTE
(Cailles À L’Asti)
Serves 6.
8 quails, cleaned
3½ ounces bacon
1/3 cup butter
¾ cup Asti Spumante or other sweet sparkling white wine
¼ cup of any stock (except fish/seafood)
White truffles, peeled and sliced, to taste
Salt and pepper
Wrap bacon around quails and truss with kitchen string. Melt butter in a skillet and brown quails over medium heat for 10 minutes. Pour in the wine and stock and arrange the truffle slices around the quails. Season with salt and pepper and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Arrange in a deep serving dish and serve hot.
CASSOULET
Serves 6.
2½ cups dried navy beans, soaked overnight
1 carrot
1 onion, studded with cloves
5-ounces slab bacon
1 bouquet garni (parsley, thyme, bay)
¼ cup goose fat
1 pound, 10 ounces pork or mutton, cut into 2-inch pieces
7 ounces onions, chopped
1 ounce garlic, crushed
1 cup tomato paste
5 ounces raw garlic sausage or Toulouse sausage
1 pound 5 ounces goose or duck confit
Salt and pepper
Rinse and drain beans, and place in large heavy pan with carrot, onion, bacon, bouquet garni and enough water to cover, a scant 4¼ quarts. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour, skimming off scum. Remove and discard carrot and onion.
In a separate pan, melt goose fat over low heat, increase heat and pan-fry the pork or mutton in batches until browned. Add chopped onion, garlic, tomato paste and generous 2 cups of bean cooking liquor. Simmer for 10 minutes, then transfer to the pan with the beans and bacon and add sausage and goose or duck. Draw off some of the cooling liquor, leaving just enough to cover the meat. Bring to boil, cover, simmer over low heat for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove sausage and bacon and cut into pieces. Arrange alternate layers of beans, cooking liquid, pork or mutton, confit, and bacon and sausage pieces in a large ovenproof dish. Season carefully with salt and pepper. Finish with a layer of bacon and sausage. Cover and bake for 2 hours, then remove lid and bake another 15 minutes before serving.
POACHED APPLES
WITH RICE PUDDING
(Pommes au Riz)
Serves 6.
Scant ¾ cup short- grain rice
Generous 2 cups milk
Scant 2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ tablespoons butter
6 sweet apples, evenly sized
Make a rice pudding with the rice, milk, ¼ cup of the sugar, and vanilla. Grease an ovenproof dish with the butter and spoon the pudding into it. Peel and core apples without damaging the flesh. Put apples in a nonreactive pan with 1 cup water and ¼ cup of the sugar. Cover and cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. When apples are just tender, remove from syrup and arrange on rice pudding, and sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake 15-20 minutes, until browned.
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