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By John, 24 November, 2022

Chicken Breasts Archduke

"Chicken Breasts Archduke"Here's another French dish with a creamy sauce, this time sparked up with paprika. You bake the breasts in a savory onion-butter-paprika base, then use that base on the stovetop to prepare a creamy sauce.

When you're done, you'll have a lot of sauce, but it goes great over rice or with boiled new potatoes. If you want a more elegant presentation than shown here, you can serve the breasts with minimal sauce and pass the rest in a gravy boat.

By John, 20 November, 2022

Chicken Breasts a la Vallee d'Auge

"Chicken breasts with mushrooms and a cider cream sauce"This dish of chicken breasts with mushrooms and a cider cream sauce is a hearty fall or winter dish. The chicken breasts (or thighs) are sauteed in butter with mushrooms, then flamed with calvados and braised in cider until tender and cooked through. Then the sauce is finished with heavy cream and an egg yolk to thicken it, making it awesome comfort food. 

The sauce is delicious, so consider serving this with rice or potatoes, or crusty bread - you will want to get every bit of the sauce!

By John, 13 November, 2022

A Feast of Normandy

"Poisson a la Dieppoise"In late February of 2022 we had a feast to explore the classic cuisine of Normandy. As usual we had multiple courses including fish, meat, vegetables, a dessert, and regional drinks. Here's how we did it:

Before dinner, we gathered in the living room to catch up over a slate with a Pate Campagne, three Norman cheeses (Camembert, Pont Leveque, and Livarot), and some chilled Dubonnet. Dubonnet is not from Normandy, but it's a popular aperitif throughout France and I had some in the fridge.

By John, 13 November, 2022

Poisson a la Dieppoise

"Sole a la Normande"This recipe is built from three simpler recipes. First you poach the fish and save the poaching liquid, then you turn the poaching liquid into a Sauce Parisienne. At the same time on another burner, you make 1 quart of Mussels in White Wine. Then you enrich the Sauce Parisienne and add mushrooms, truffle, and shrimp.

I made this for our Feast of Normandy. This is double the size of the base recipes because I make it for dinner guests.

 

By John, 13 November, 2022

Poisson a la Parisienne

"Poisson a la Parisienne"If you have made the Fillets of Sole Bercy, then this richer, more elegant Parisian version will be easy. It's essentially the same recipe but the sauce gets a little more attention, including thickening it with egg yolks.

After you make a Sauce Parisienne, you can garnish it in various ways to make it Normande, Dieppoise, Nantua, Bonne Femme, etc.

I made this one with halibut, but any white fish will work.

By John, 11 November, 2022

Red Cabbage Braised with Apples and Chestnuts

"Red cabbage with chestnuts and apples"This Chou Rouge a la Limousine is a wonderful hearty fall-and-winter recipe to accompany roast pork or pork sausages, or roast goose. It's one of my favorite things to prepare when the cold weather finally returns to Plymouth!

It's easy to turn this into a full Porc Braise aux Choux Rouges dinner by cooking a 3-lb pork loin in with the cabbage.

By John, 11 November, 2022

Spinach with a White Butter Sauce

"Spinach in white butter sauce"Here's a delightful side dish that can accompany many northern dishes (that is, dishes of the northern butter clan as opposed to the southern olive oil clan). It can be made with fresh or frozen spinach, so it's a handy recipe for when you have surprise dinner guests.

By John, 11 November, 2022

Swordfish Provencal

"Swordfish Provencal"This is from the French Riviera, with the typical bright flavors of sunny Provence, but less complicated than the similar Sicilian Swordfish alla Ghiotta. 

The sauce from this, if you have any leftover, is great on black squid-ink pasta, along with any leftover swordfish. I often cook some shrimp with the swordfish with the plan to have leftovers on pasta.

By John, 11 November, 2022

Marinade for Swordfish or Tuna

These big predator fish can have a strong fishy flavor that improves when it's marinated for an hour or two. One batch of marinade is enough for two good-sized steaks or 1.5 pounds of cubed fish.

By John, 11 November, 2022

Steak au Poivre

Steak au Poivre is awesome and awful - you really need to know what you are signing up for.

Steak with cracked pepper can be a fine combination if you keep everything in balance. This classic French recipe does just that. Rather than burn the aromatic pepper by searing it with the steak, you cook the steak properly and then dress it with a peppercorn cream sauce.

Some recipes call for crusting the steak with crushed peppercorns and then grilling it or searing it on a hot griddle. That's a bad idea. The best flavor of pepper comes from the volatile oils that provide that peppery zing. But exposing volatile oils to a screaming hot griddle burns them into smoke leaving only charred pepper-husks. Try it yourself and see. Then try this recipe.

Note: Black pepper is no friend to wine. Green and pink peppercorns work better, but they're not awesome. In my opinion, this recipe is best with no wine, but some fine cognac works wonders...   

By John, 22 October, 2022

Pasta alla Turiddu

"Fusilli alla Turiddu"This feisty Sicilian (is that redundant?) recipe was inspired by the feisty protagonist in the classic opera Cavalleria Rusticana. Here I made it with the corkscrew pasta fusilli because it seemed to fit the theme, and because the long pasta works well with this chunky sauce.

By John, 13 October, 2022

Peas Braised in Butter

"Petite Peas in Butter"This simple dish serves as the base for any number of derivatives to accompany all sorts of dinners. It easy to make with the frozen petite peas from the supermarket even in the dead of winter.

By John, 21 September, 2022

Ployes

"Ployes"Ployes are a sort of buckwheat pancake from New Brunswick, Quebec, and Aroostook County, Maine. They are traditionally served at any time of day with any sort of topping. I show a couple here with apple butter, which was great with coffee for a light breakfast, but I've read about ployes topped with berries and cream, creamed fish, beef stew, and plain butter.

These were made with a packaged mix from Bouchard Family Farms of Fort Kent, Maine, and they were quite excellent.

By John, 18 September, 2022

Old Colony Club Clam Muddle

"Clam Muddle"Here's another old Plymouth dish made with fresh local sea clams. This was served for many years at the venerable Old Colony Club in Plymouth.

It's not hearty like a clam chowder. This has no potatoes or other vegetables or meat in it, so it's not much for a lunch on its own.  It's a delicate soup course served rather like a consomme, to open a larger meal. I serve Clam Muddle in cups rather than in bowls.

By John, 18 September, 2022

Clam Pudding

"Fran Barnes Clam Pudding"This is another old Plymouth favorite. There's a Clam Pudding Pond in Plymouth, and one of my friends lives on Clam Pudding Road!

This is a combination of ground sea clams and finely crushed crackers, bound together with egg. There's no leavening in it, so it does not puff up in the oven, but nevertheless it's not heavy. This is good served as a luncheon dish with salad or soup or as a side dish to a main course, and leftovers are delicious fried up in hot butter!

I don't remember seeing this in any of my old Plymouth cookbooks, but Richmond and Annette knew it well, and others in their circle remembered it. 

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