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In which our hero decides to experiment with mixed results.
It was hard to make it look even this pretty.
The word mousse, not mouse as in the little hairy rodent (that second “s” is pretty important) is most commonly associated with chocolate; as in “Chocolate Mousse”. It’s a pretty common dessert and can be found everywhere from your local greasy spoon to the world’s most high wattage celebrity-chef populated, Zagat rated, haute cuisine eateries.
But I was a little sick of desserts after last month so I decided that I couldn’t possibly do another dessert. Hence began the search for the savoury mousse. These are also found at high-brow michelin-rated locales, but rarely if ever at the local mom ‘n’ pop joint, so the recipes are harder to locate. For the first time since beginning this blog, which I can’t believe and simply have no excuse for except that my kid buried it under a bunch of other books on the bookshelf thereby causing me to forget that I owned it (sacre bleu!), I went to my Larousse Gastronomique, the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia of Food. I love Larousse. The recipes are short, no-nonsense and written for people who know what they are doing (i.e. not terribly exact or detailed because you’re just supposed to know anyway). The pictures are really pretty.
I might be alone in my opinion of Larousse’s recipes, at least insofar as I appreciate their simplicity and tendency to vagueness and ambiguity. While I can’t claim to actually be one of those highly educated chefs who does, in fact, know what they are doing, I do have a certain tendency to … not follow directions to the letter. So Larousse’s “open-to-interpretation” versions are generally perfect for me.
Larousse says that to make a chicken mousse, you do the same thing that you would do for a fish mousse, but you use poached chicken instead and season it with some curry and nutmeg. What it says for a fish mousse is that you mash the meat up with a mortar, mix in some egg whites, press it all through a sieve, refrigerate for 2 hours, put the bowl in an ice bath and use a wooden spoon to stir in whipping cream, pour into a lightly greased mold, bake at 375 in a bain marie for 20 minutes and let sit for 10 minutes before turning it out and serving it warm with an appropriate sauce. I am really not paraphrasing very much at all. This is why I love Larousse.
What follows is my own variation on this basic recipe for Chicken Mousse – that is, this is what I actually did interspersed with comments about what I would do differently next time [in italics because this is important stuff if you are going to try this yourself].
Curried Poached Chicken Thighs
1. Sauté two finely minced shallots in 1 tbsp. each of olive oil & butter until translucent.
2. Add 1 large clove garlic, minced, 1 stick celery, minced, 1 medium carrot, minced.
3. Season with s & p, chopped fresh basil & fresh parsley, 1 tsp. each of dried tarragon & oregano, & 2 tbsp madras curry powder.
3. Sauté all until beginning to caramelize, stirring constantly to keep spices from sticking to bottom of pan and burning. Deglaze pan with dry white wine (I didn’t have any so used dry cream sherry which isn’t so bad).
4. Add 1 med. tomato & 1 small tart apple, diced. Cook 2 – 3 minutes & add 1 – 2 c. water or stock. Boil moderately until liquid reduced by 1/4 (about 3 minutes).
5. Add 4 or 5 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, turn heat down to simmer and cover pot (in other words, poach the chicken); cook ten minutes & then turn chicken over, spoon sauce over top, cover & cook for another 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
6. Taste to check seasoning. If you used water, not stock, you may find, like me, that you need more salt & curry powder.
My version of the mousse:
7. Toss chicken thighs & veggies into food processor & blend, adding liquid from pot as necessary to ensure the mixture blends easily. [This is what I would have done differently - it didn't really need the extra liquid because there was already a lot of liquid from the veggies - I should have just reserved ALL the liquid & then reduced it as per step 8 below].
8. Reduce remaining liquid until it is thick & almost sticking to bottom of the pot. Add dry white wine (I ran to the store to get some because I needed whipping cream & eggs anyway) & reduce again until sauce is thickened, add to mixture & blend until smooth. [Again - I should have reduced it more so that I had less liquid].
10. Add 3 egg whites, one at a time, while blending. [Even if you reduced all the extra liquid like I have suggested, you probably would want one more egg white than this].
11. This is the point where Larousse says to mash stuff through a sieve – but I don’t have a sieve so I just left the food processor on for an extra long time & hoped for the best.
12. Refrigerate 2 hours.
13. While the chicken mixture is refrigerating – make a Chanterelle Mushroom sauce: Sauté minced shallot in butter/olive oil until transclucent; add two large handfuls of finely chopped Chanterelles & sauté until brown bits are starting to stick to bottom of pan; deglaze with dry white wine (be generous) & reduce until liquid almost gone; add heavy cream (or whole milk) – about 1/2 c. – and reduce until almost gone; add more heavy cream (or whole milk) & cook until thickened; s & p to taste.
14. Put bowl with chicken mixture in an ice bath & use wooden spoon to stir in 500 mL heavy cream.
14. Pour mixture into plain lightly greased mold & bake in a bain marie at 375 for 20 minutes.
15. After 20 minutes is up, check & decide the whole thing looks too sloshy & put back in for 10 more minutes.
16. At 33.27 minutes, decide you are pushing it & take the molds out of the oven. Let sit for 10 minutes.
17. Nervously examine first mold & realize that, although no longer sloshy, there is a suspicous amount of liquid still lurking in the pan. Dump it out onto the cutting board for a picture anyway. Look aghast at the result.
*sigh*
18. Use the other, non-yet-turned-out mold to attempt to plate something for a picture. Realize that Larousse did NOT advise to put all that poaching liquid into the mix & should have compensated for same by reducing liquids more & by adding more egg whites (see notes in recipe above).
19. Serve on top of crostini. Add Chanterelle Mushroom sauce & garnish with balsamic roasted red onions & braised swiss chard. Eat it all up & decide that despite it’s entirely unsuccessful mousse-i-ness, it is damn tasty! Will make again with less liquid & more eggs.
Chalk it all up to a learning experience. xoxo B.
There’s an element of randomness, of luck of the draw, to our allocation of national food days on the blog. Which helps explain how I, a vegan+meat eater (i.e. no dairy or eggs… is there a proper word for this?? Anyone?) ended up assigned to November 30th’s foods: Chocolates, and Lemon Cream Pie.
Now, I love … no, make that looooove lemon cream pie. Lemon meringue pie. Lemon tarts. This lemon goat cheese cake at Stage Wine Bar. Really, any kind of lemony deserts. But I don’t have the willpower, nor the eggs in my fridge, to make a lemon cream pie.
So I started to investigate vegan chocolates.
I’ve never made homemade chocolates before. Tempering chocolates intimidates me – anything that takes 3 pages to explain in my beloved Joy of Cooking is likely something too fussy for me. So it was easy for me to try to replicate the simplest of chocolates (and in my opinion, one of the yummiest!): Chocolate Truffles.
The best reviewed recipe I could find online was this one. Very simple – melt together chocolate and nut milk, cool, roll into balls with cocoa. I didn’t have any cashews, so decided to forge ahead, making instead with almonds. I also opted to split the resulting liquid truffle and stir in a little dark rum into one portion to see if that was tastier.
Three hours have now past since I slipped the bowls of chocolately goodness into the fridge, and I’m very sorry to report that they have not firmed up to a workable degree. The consistency is of mashed potatoes… a scoop will hold it’s shape, but there is no possible way to roll them in a ball. Flavor wise, the rum version is far superior to the regular. The texture is a little grainy – truffles in my mind should be extremely smooth- but are still quite edible.
I’m going to let them cool overnight, and maybe tomorrow morning will bring a change. If not, I might just smear it across some buckwheat waffles I’m planning to make tomorrow morning. It’s basically Nutella after all!!
~Deanna
UPDATE – SUNDAY MORNING
The truffles never got any harder. But it’s no loss. NO LOSS AT ALL, because the waffle idea was pure brilliance. I added a the last of the wild blackberries from B’s patch, and it was heaven 
[Eds.: Sage, our brave brave scrapple guest blogger, is back and again talking about breakfast food today...]
French Toast, Pain Perdu, Eggy Bread, Gypsy Toast, Poor Knights of Windsor, Amarilla, Drunken Virgin, Bread with Fur, Female Dog, Rascal’s Slices, Breadfish, Nun’s Toast, Gilded Sippets, Ducklings… Bread soaked in an egg batter and then fried is known by many names, and is a worldwide and ancient phenomenon. In my research I found references to variations of this dish from all six continents, and if against all odds there is an Atlantis buried beneath Antarctica I bet french toast was eaten there too.
Undoubtedly the food’s origins were humble. French toast is the classic way to use up bread that has gone stale, and for much of its history it was seen as peasant food. Many of the names it has been given illustrate this reputation. But that hasn’t stopped cooks from across the ages making it into a delicacy fit for kings. The oldest apparent reference to french toast comes from a cookbook from ancient Rome, when cookbooks were written by and for the literate aristocracy. A more recent reference from 1450 calls for the inclusion of rose water in the batter and saffron-tinted rose syrup for topping. So it’s safe to say that people of all stripes have enjoyed french toast for a very long time. Check out foodtimeline.org for some interesting food history trivia.
Not surprisingly, different regions have different takes on this food. Here in Canada we tend to douse it with maple syrup and powdered sugar. In Australia a combination of bananas and bacon is a common topping, and in Portugal it’s often cooked with cinnamon and topped with Port or Madeira and eaten cold. Some parts of the world use wine in place of the milk.
Many nations prefer savoury versions. In Hungary it is often made with salt, pepper, onions and tomatoes, and served with mayonnaise or ketchup. In India the egg is beaten with milk, salt, green chili and onion, and ketchup is the condiment of choice. Beef, beans, Marmite and duck fat are other savoury toppings found around the world. Some sandwiches, such as the Monte Cristo and Mozzarella in Carrozza make use of egg-battered breads.
It is the savoury possibilities that excite me. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I’m often adapting sweet dishes to suit my tastes. (Don’t get me started on savoury waffles!)
To me, the beauty of french toast is that the milk can be a carrier of lots of flavour, infusing the bread with wonderful base flavours that can be accented with toppings. Salt, pepper and Parmesan are a great start. Take a look at this recipe for an example that looks delicious! The last time I made french toast I chopped mushrooms and onion fine, sauteed them, then added the milk and kept it just below a simmer for a while. Once it was infused I blended it with my trusty immersion blender, and topped the finished toasts with sauteed mushrooms, miso gravy and chives.
When he heard that I was doing a savoury french toast for today’s entry, L made two requests: First, that it include poached eggs, and second, that I make a sweet version as well, because what kind of french toast entry doesn’t acknowledge the sweet french toast tradition? So today you get two versions. Both are written as baked, but could just as easily be pan fried like most french toast.
Sage’s Baked West Coast Toast – makes 8 slices.
First the savoury: Taking a cue from the poached egg I went for a very west-coast brunch-y kind of dish and opted to top my toasts with cold-smoked salmon, the poached eggs, and a lemon-dill hollandaise.
Put 1 c of milk in a small saucepan. Add about 1/4 of a white onion – keep the chunks large as it will make them easier to remove later. Also add about 1/3 cup large chunks fennel root, some fennel fronds, some dill, salt, pepper and a bay leaf. Warm the milk, but don’t let it quite simmer. Add some S&P, and maybe some onion powder if you want to intensify the flavour. Steep it until you lose patience. Half and hour is great, but you could get away with less.
Remove the big chunky stuff, including the bay leaf. Let it cool, then whisk in 4 eggs.
Set your oven to 500.
Cut eight slices of bread about 1/2″ thick or slightly thicker. I used Terra Bread’s Black Olive loaf, which is basically a U.S. style ciabatta bread made from a sourdough starter and flecked with large chunks of scrumptious black olive. It gives the finished dish a hearty texture and the olives are reminiscent of the capers paired with so many smoked salmon dishes. If you’re using a softer, more tightly crumbed bread you may want thicker slices, and you’ll get fewer slices of bread before running out of batter.
Soak the bread in the batter, and really let it absorb. Meanwhile, cover a baking tray (or 2) with parchment paper and lightly grease it. (If you don’t have the paper, grease the pan(s) really well). Arrange the soaked bread on the tray. If there’s a bit of batter left in the bowl you can pour it over the slices.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, flipping once after about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, poach your eggs and make your hollandaise. I just make blender hollandaise, but I make it really really lemony and for this recipe I added chopped fresh dill.
The bread should come out of the oven puffed and golden. Arrange it on the plate, top with salmon, eggs, sauce, and a sprig of fennel frond.
Yu-um. L says: “Can we have hollandaise soup topped with hollandaise?”
Round one was immensely satisfying, but I still had a sweet french toast to prepare, so in a pleasant sort of stupor I got cracking on the Indian-inspired french toast that L introduced me to almost 6 years ago. Ahead of time I had infused my whipping cream with a bag of double-spice chai, and it was cooling in the fridge.
Indian-spiced French Toast – makes 4 or 5 slices
Blend together:
1/2 c milk
2 eggs
1 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Dredge in this mixture 4-5 slices of cinnamon-raisin bread. Make sure the batter really soaks in. Bake as per the previous recipe. Meanwhile whip the chai whipping cream and make a strawberry sauce. It’s November, so for me that means frozen berries, lemon juice and a bit of sugar, simmered down. I betcha B’s cardamom praline sauce would be amazing on this.
Top your toasts with the sauce and whipped cream, add some maple syrup if you desire, and dig in!
~Sage
P.S. So far the winning scrapple recipe is a riff on Tacos Al Pastor, using 2 kinds of chiles, tomato, onion, pineapple juice and herbs to season a blend of scrapple mush and diced bacon. I was too lazy this day to make my own corn tortillas, but if you’ve never tried it, I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s surprisingly easy and the result kicks the ass of store-bought corn tortillas.
