Homemade French bread (baguette), country pate, blueberry mostarda, cornichons and mustard
After taking some time off from this blog and even baking/cooking for the past month or so, I made the above platter as a starter for dinner this past Friday (alright, so I didn’t make the cornichons or the mustard, but I did make everything else).
In making the pate, I learned that Nate loves it and has even added it to his vocabulary.
As for the French bread, it’s not the best I’ve ever had but it’s above what I can purchase at a grocery store, and it really isn’t that hard. Reinhart’s recipe is easy to follow. The only problem I encountered is that I could only bake 2 loaves at a time, while the recipe calls for 3. This meant that the 3rd loaf continued to proof while the first two baked, and proofed so much that it flattened a little in the oven. Had I known this I probably would have slowed it down by placing it in the fridge. It’s still tasty though.
For our main course I made Suzanne Goin’s recipe for Stuffed Chicken Leg “Poule au Pot” from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything: Bittman Takes on America’s Chefs. This is really probably my very favorite thing in the world to eat, but I have to admit that making it in a home kitchen is a time consuming process as there’s a lot of components (first you have to debone chicken legs, then make stuffing, a compound butter, sage broth and the cornichon mix).
Stuffed Chicken Leg "Poule au Pot"
For dessert I made strawberry tartlets and yet again have failed to take a photograph of a dessert. It was delicious though.
