Welcome back to Cooking With the French Chef, in which I review episodes of Julia Child’s original show, cook out of the new edition of the French Chef Cookbook and share the results with you. Past posts can be found here.
Sooner or later, as we all know, something won’t go according to plan, and obviously the kitchen is no different. Or we might work ingredients from one meal into the next. Robin Miller is the patron saint of that hat trick in my opinion, but Julia was at least one of her predecessors.
Here’s the episode, which first aired on August 23, 1965, the second episode of Season Four:
Mmmmkay. I never thought I’d see Julia using packaged anything, but OK. Lead on, Mrs. Child.
First up, we have what’s essentially a souffle made with instant mashed potatoes, but which Julia gave the rather grand title of Tambour Parmentier, or Mold of Instant Mashed Potatoes. Or, as Julia also referred to it, an edifice.
Behold our ingredients:
This recipe was going to be improvisation within improvisation. Not only had I forgotten to buy heavy cream, but Julia said specifically to bake this thing in a cylindrical dish. Well, I don’t have one of those. My square casserole would have to do.
Speaking of which, it was time to butter and breadcrumb the dish. Yeah, breadcrumbs. I kept having to remind myself that I wasn’t making a cake, although in that case I’d have been using flour. Oh my word, there was a lot of butter here.
Next came the preparing of the mashed potatoes. Julia said to make them with less liquid than the package directions, because we wanted a rather firm mass.
Here’s the thing, though: I’m not a big fan of measuring instant mashed potatoes. Our box, at least, has no pour spout, and the flakes either trickled or gushed with no medium. In the end I hoped I had the right amount, and it worked. The potatoes were definitely firm. Almost too firm. I felt tempted to slice them. And that was after I added the half-and-half, egg yolks, and Julia’s favorite Swiss cheese.
And they were heavy. Those potatoes hit that buttered casserole with gusto. I spread it out, realizing too late that I probably didn’t salt it enough, and sprinkled a little bit of kosher salt over the top, hoping it would help.
After an hour in the oven, the edifice was ready. Julia said that the tambour should rise about an inch and be nicely browned on top, but those potatoes were so dense that there was nowhere for them to go. Well, nowhere except a plate. I felt too lazy to get a platter out and made do with the first clean dinner plate I found.
The edifice came out easily, although when I pulled off the waxed paper a lot of the breadcrumbs went with it. I wasn’t too worried, though, because Julia’s potatoes looked pretty clean when all was said and done. We had ours with fried pork chops seasoned with Old Bay, homemade brown gravy, and some grape tomatoes.
Take a good look, because two of these ingredients will be back for an encore. And on a side note, Old Bay goes really nicely with pork chops.
Anywhoo, next we have the Ragoût á l’Improviste, or Leftover Roast Meat Simmered With Wine and Vegetables. It wasn’t so much a recipe as a template with a basic cooking process. The word “optional” got bandied about a lot.
More ingredients…
The first thing was to prep everything, so the pork chops were cut into chunks, as were a bell pepper and onion. It was very uncomplicated and almost tranquil.
Browning was very much a thing as well, and while the onions and peppers caramelized in my trusty Dutch oven, the chunks of pork got a bit of a fry, some flour, and a deglazing with Chianti.
This was kind of a revelation, because I’ve never used Chianti before. It’s a lot drier than I was expecting, but it’s got quite a flavor. I predict my bottle will find its way into some Bolognese sauce in the near future.
Anyway, once everything got into the Dutch oven, along with some thyme, bay leaf tomato paste, garlic and rosemary, it didn’t take long to smell amazing. We got to smell this thing for a whole hour.
Believe it or not, some of the liquid came from the canned veggies, which really gave it all an interesting taste. It felt kind of odd not draining these things into the sink, but the payoff was huge.
It was definitely about layers of flavor. Towards the end of the cooking time, I sauteed the carrots and mushrooms in a skillet with butter and pepper, and then once the ragout was done they joined everyone in the pool.
When it came time to plate, out came those potatoes. Heh. Yeah, about those. After sitting in the fridge overnight, they solidified even more and almost looked like cornbread. So yes, they got sliced. I gave each bowl a square.
Oh. My. Word. This was a great meal. It’s very rich and hearty, and in no way does it let on that it’s made with leftovers. It’s pretty similar to Campbell’s Vegetable Beef soup, only Campbell’s obviously doesn’t use Chianti. My son in particular was very enthusiastic and had seconds.
Way to go, Julia! I can definitely see myself adapting this with other meats, and maybe some buttered noodles instead of square potatoes.
And appropos of nothing, I think we need dessert next month. Just saying.
A new Club 15 post is coming out tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then.
The French Chef Cookbook, The French Chef, Volume One (DVD) and The French Chef, Volume 2 (DVD) are available to own from Amazon.
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