*****First off I just want to let you all know that I'll be on the KBOO FOOD SHOW tomorrow WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16th at 11am talking about PDX food and drink and my book. So if you're able to tune in please do. If you don't catch it and want to listen after the fact there's a handy dandy audio file you can catch here. Onto les ouefs...*****
There's more than one way to fry an egg. And there's more than one way to fry a hard boiled egg. We've been watching the late-90s television series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home the past few weeks. I never saw this program when it originally aired and I'm really enjoying it.
Unlike most current TV food shows this one allows you to be in the kitchen (Julia's home kitchen) and see entire processes and dishes through. In other words, the only music is at the beginning end, there are no crazy extreme close-ups or frenetic shots. It's the real deal and who better to learn kitchen wisdom from than Jacques Pepin and Julia Child. Charmed.
I've read all sorts of Julia Child books and articles but I'd never read anything by Jacques Pepin so I decided to pick up his 2003 memoir The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen a couple weekends ago at Powell's Books for Home and Garden. I ran into a couple fellow food folks while there, one of which recommended picking up a Grace Young book. Next time.
I'm really enjoying Pepin's memoir. So much so that I recently prepared a recipe from the book for a lazy and lucky weekend breakfast -- Les Ouefs Jeannette. Jeannette was Pepin's mom and this delicious hard boiled egg dish is a complete original.
For it I whipped hard boiled egg yolks with chopped garlic, milk, chives from the garden and then some, returned the blend to the halved eggs, and reserved a bit of the filling for the dressing.
Then I fried the eggs stuffed-side-down while making a warm dressing with the remaining filling whisked with olive oil and Dijon-style mustard. We plated the eggs, drizzled them with the dressing and ate them up with some buttery toasted baguette and andouille sausage. Mmm.
Although I haven't given you the complete recipe I think you can take it from here and be creative. It's a great book and I hope to one day own the TV series so I can turn to it like a cookbook. Two big thumbs for both. Two big thumbs UP for both.
Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, 22 episodes www.julia.cookstr.com
The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin 2003, Houghton Mifflin