A spectacular piece.
I have to make a note to self with this birthday.
My mum and dad delivered to me Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Volume one and Volume two.
They are hefty beasts and they have proper paper. Even the paper smells like paper.
I did all my favourite things this 52 bday. I decided it was my luxury day. Andy was so into it!!
Day off exercise and gardening (it rained which was a helper). My favourite space is here, on our wee island in a wee village.
So, I skipped my run. Showered (of course) and popped on my silk jammies which mum and dad sent to me. I also popped in my pearl earrings I’d kept for a while in a ziplock bag in my case because they almost came off once.
We were all prepped, we heated up our pastries for brekkie (cooked with burre noisette)….We made apple strudel from scratch for lunch ( freaking amazing).
Then for dinner…. We made osso buco 2 days ago so it could sit in its juices in the fridge. We made a fennel and potato dauphinoise on the day. With cheese and butter. Bizarrely the fennel was so beautifully balanced it tasted like we had popped a hint of nutmeg in there, no fennel. Sublime.
Honestly, this whole dinner was amazing and my day was PERFECT. I sat around in my silk pjs, read my Julia Child’s cook books, we did a bit of baking, we both watched “The Holiday” yet again and were happy campers. We don’t change much from kids to adults. This would have been a pretty dreamy day if I was 10 (different location etc but….)
We have tried it 3 times now. The only failure was the overnight cooking at 50deg for 10 hours. It over proved and didn't cook at all. I know my bread and I realise this traditional cooking technique was not in a 50 deg oven as per the "traditional recipe" as cooking in the leftover coals from the fire would have been higher at first, then they lowered during the night. So, the first time I cooked it at 200deg for 1 hour. It was amazing. The second time I cooked it overnight in a 50 deg oven for 10 hours and I had to tip all our beautiful efforts including the laminated dough and burnt butter in the bin. It was RAW. So third time we rolled it out like we do with strudel until it's as fine as silk then shoved all that brown butter on top. It was good. ONLY because we are obsessed with this bread we are gonna try again. They are utterly addictive. To heat up these sweet-salty buttery things for brekkie is something else. The only thing I need to do is shove it in the freezer and serve it up each morning because I am so into carbs with burnt salted butter I would scare myself!!
Our neighbours have a house full of very expensive art and collections from all over the world. For example, they had an original "egg" chair, they have artefacts from Africa to Asia to Australia. But they also have the most amazing paintings, handed down through the generations.
Few (if any) in the village have been invited to their place. We have been lucky to have quickly found friendship. They are awesome people. We help each other out when needed. Joey and dad have been into their house, they can attest to their art collection (which is monitored under a security company). We were one day called by Philippe to ask if we could do a quick check because they had the alarm from security and their time delay was more than we could pop over. Anyway. That's the background, We have lovely (and rather wealthy) neighbours.
So, the other day when Andy was working outside Philippe, who was looking a tad hot and bothered said over the stone wall (there is a tiny road between our properties, it's not like we are looking over fences or anything and we both have a huge amount of privacy) that they had a problem with their fireplace.
They have two fireplaces. One in the kitchen and one in the I guess you'd call it a lounge, I'd call it a museum. It is this room we are talking about. They are so precious of this room that they do not have fires for fear of damage to their art, artefacts and original furnishings.
Therefore, because they do not have fires, it's a huge open chimney with bees and honey dripping down the internal walls, which they knew about and were OK with and proud of the bees (we all love bees they are the foundation of existence for humans).
The problem is suddenly the whole internal whatever the fuck caved in the other day. So. Our guess is many many years of birds nests and bat shit and beehive stuff and bat shit and bat shit (because the bats love Signeville and Philippe and Francoise as do everyone else around here it would seem love bats).
We are guessing it's decades of shit that finally fell through after living in the chimney for so long without them using or cleaning out the fireplace. Once it started it just must have kept on coming. They've been cleaning up for days now and taken bags of stuff to the dump. We hear the vacuum going most afternoons too (they usually snooze in the hot afternoons we think). They rarely argue but we sit outside in the afternoon out the front under the tree where we get a nice breeze and shade and we can here Francoise giving Philippe instructions for this and that.
So. If you have an open fireplace with an open chimney. If you live in a rural area with lots of bees and bats and birds, get the chimney cleaned once in a while by professionals even if you're not using it!!!
I had to write this down because it's this sort of thing I'll forget and it's this sort of thing that makes this place so cool.
I was watching cooking shows (as I do) and saw a programme on Jerusalem. OMG, the food was amazing. I was particularly taken by Israeli Kubaneh, a sort of a cross between a bread and croissant but using dark brown caramelised butter. I was utterly transfixed and had to make this amazing bread.
So, I found a recipe. Cooked my awesome French high fat salted butter nice and properly brown. Did the mandatory taste test (it’s a tough job) and tasted like salted caramelised deliciousness (yum!!!). Knowing bread making techniques as I make it every few days anyway and I make the tricky sourdough stuff I went out of the recipe box and proved it overnight for extra flavour in the fridge.
I followed the next recipe steps the next day but knowing how to use wet dough (which it was) I didn’t flour the surfaces. I divided it, stretched it, folded it buttered it (and then some more, no kidding) then shaped, buttered, popped it in the tin, buttered again (and then more when cooking).
They are amazing. Like beautiful caramelised croissant wee breads. I had to shove the whole lot (after a wee tasting session) into the freezer so that I didn’t gob them all off.
I will reheat them creating crispy bottoms of that caramelised butter freshly for a wee breakfast treat. We like our breakfast treats because we eat breakfast so late is usually leads into lunch an hour or two later so we can enjoy a little treat.
Next time…..
So, I read more on this incredible traditional recipe. It says stretch the dough like Andy does when he makes apple strudel, so it’s paper thin. Then butter it, roll it, cut it, butter it. And (here’s the key I think) cook it overnight in a 50 degree oven (10 hours) in a covered pot. I’m absolutely fascinated by this bread. I have limited freezer space but I’ll be surprised if I hold off trying this technique for too long. Fascinates me like crazy dough.
Traditionally eaten with a spicy condiment for breakfast (ummm yummmm). Sort of reminds me of roti canai in Indonesia, the delicious buttery dough served with a wee spicy loose dahl. But mostly here, it reminds me if croissant. Whichever way, these are unreal.
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