Menus from an Orchard Table

This has got to be my favorite recipe in this book so far. I’m sure it’s a combination of preparation and cooking method for this particular recipe, and getting used to the style of the book as a whole, but it came together perfectly.

It’s also one of the few recipes in which the mirepoix (there go those fancy French words again! It just refers to the mixture of onion, carrots and celery that form the base of a dish) is still part of the final dish, as opposed to strained out and tossed away after their flavor has been extracted. Neil especially likes this part, since throwing out food (even when it’s flavoring agents that have done their job and are just soggy shells of their former selves) always irks him.

We planned from the outset to make the ragù preparation of this dish, and the vegetables made an awesome textural addition to the seared, then oven-braised meat.

The finished meat came off the bones and shredded perfectly, and the sauce was absolutely divine. We made a quick batch of pasta while we were waiting for the braise to cook, and our fresh noodles with the rich sauce was a flawless execution of rainy day (which it was) comfort food.

If we know eachother (or if we don’t, and you’d like to meet), bring over a bottle of red and an oxtail any time. I’d make this again in a heartbeat.

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Naramata Bench Syrah Braised Oxtails – page 200

This one’s out of the Sides section of the book, but it makes a great main for a quick weeknight meal too. And I’m so craving a big dose of spring and summer, green beans and tomatoes seemed like a perfect plate of wishful thinking.

There’s really not too much to it: beans, tomato, bacon, egg, anchovies, dressing. Unlike most of the recipes I’ve tried in the book so far, this one is far less complicated than it sounds (the others are exactly as complicated as they sound, sometimes more-so).

At one point I thought I might’ve been in for a long side-trek through the wilds of mise-en-place when the recipe asks for two tomatoes “cut into a concassé” (instructions for which are on a different page) but it turns out that just means “peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2″ dice.”

There are actually a lot of French cooking terms sprinkled through the book, always with explanations and instructions. Ordinarily I’d find writing like that utterly precocious, but in this book it just adds to the earnestness with which Heidi Noble uses her French culinary training and the spirit of generations of French chefs to create beautiful, delicious dishes out of the bounty in her own backyard.

Admittedly, being so early in the season, my imported beans and tomatoes gave only a glimpse of the goodness that’s to come, but I’m definitely looking forward to creating this again in the heat of July, out on the patio, or in a picnic at the beach.

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Haricot Vert Vinaigrette Served À L’Alsacienne – page 162

Just in time for Easter, I figured I’d try out one of the rabbit recipes from this book. I’ve always heard that rabbit works a lot like chicken in terms of cooking function, and the recipe actually states you can use a chicken if you can’t find rabbit where you are.

(Jen’s tip: the book doesn’t mention this, but if you use a chicken, use the breasts as you would the loins, but cut the breast halves in half again lengthwise. Double the amount of pancetta and end up with four rolls instead of two.)

Turns out everything I’d heard was correct, the rabbit meat was very similar in texture and colour to chicken, and the anatomy isn’t entirely unfamiliar. The “wings” attach a little differently, and instead of breasts on the front, there are loins running down the spine to take off.

But the rabbit came with an added bonus: giblets! I haven’t seen a chicken with giblets of any sort for a long time, so to open up the carcass and find those little chef’s treats inside was… well… a treat!

Good thing too. We fried them up with some thyme, LOTS of butter and finished them with lemon juice while everything else was cooking. The sustenance was really welcome, since this recipe took FOREVER.

The gist of the preparation is to sear, then braise the rabbit limbs, and at the same time to make a short stock with the carcass. Near the end of the cooking process, wrap the loins in pancetta and cook those off. Finish everything off by combining the braising liquid with the stock, and reduce the hell out of those. Add the crème and mustard (among other things) and reduce again.

I left about 30 minutes to complete all the reduction steps, because I am clearly not smart enough for this particular recipe. I was left with fully 4 litres of liquid to reduce, none of which could be reduced at a full rolling-boil without breaking it. All told, the entire reduction process took about 2.5 hours. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!

We were actually so hungry that I forgot about taking pictures of the sauce, but I did manage a shot of the final plate, with the rabbit & sauce over some roasted root vegetables.

We didn’t really feel like this recipe was “worth waiting for” considering the colossal cock-up on the timing, but if you leave yourself enough time for all the reducing, the rabbit is a really delicious alternative to chicken. I’ll definitely make rabbit again, though I’ll read the sauce recipe a little more carefully next time.

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Braised Rabbit with Crème Fraîche, Dijon and Thyme – page 220

I’m pretty excited now that we’re well on our way into Spring! Here in Vancouver the weather has just started to cooperate and bring us some much-needed sunshine after the coldest March on record. Spring’s also when a lot of people come out of hibernation and start getting social again – and our group kicked things off with a wonderful Spring Local Food Potluck hosted by fellow cookthebook.ca author Jen.

I decided to make the Goat Cheese Pannacotta recipe for this one. It’s easy to get local goat milk here, and since the recipe works with either soft goat cheese or goat yogurt, I figured I’d make my own yogurt to put in it.

The yogurt vs. cheese thing turned out to be a lifesaver, since my yogurt didn’t actually set! (It’s still a hit & miss homemade foodstuff for me). But I was left with just enough curd to to put in the recipe with the goat milk, and it turned out beautifully.

In fact, this whole thing was incredibly simple. Alongside creme brulee, pannacotta is another dish that looks & sounds far more complicated than it is.

Mix up your ingredients & pour into buttered ramekins (my ramekin supply falls far short of the 12 that are called for here, so I used 6 dessert bowls), refrigerate to set.

The book recommends serving them over roast beets, sliced up carpaccio-style. I just chopped mine into chunks to make life a bit easier – the last thing I want to be doing in the middle of someone else’s party is fussing over plating a complicated buffet dish.

Next time I plate this though, I’ll definitely spoon the beets over the pannacotta, or maybe drizzle them with some beet-juice or balsamic or something, so they look a bit less stark and other-worldly (which I suppose is a risk one takes with gelatin/molded food).

But what my plate lacked in beauty, it totally made up for in taste!

This is a bit sacrilegious coming from someone whose husband grew up on a goat dairy, but… I’m just not a huge fan of goat-dairy products. It tastes like goats smell. Not that I mind the smell of goat, or farms in general, but for whatever reason goat milk, cheese and yogurt just don’t do it for me.

However, when you mix those up with a bit of lemon juice and zest and a few other bits and bobs, then gelatinize and chill – wow. These little cakes were so incredibly light and mild and delicious. I was completely surprised by them! And they were still a perfect pairing for the beets.

So perhaps there’s still hope for me and the goats after all.

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Goat Cheese Pannacotta – page 191