I’m now at serious risk of becoming ‘The Bacon Blog.”

In any case, with my entire family housebound due to various coughs, sneezes and sniffles, and with li’l me fighting off all these germs, I thought some oniony soup might be just the thing today.  Onions have that sort of pungency that, whether effective or not, just convinces me that it’s fighting infection and fortifying me from within.

The recipe calls for a pound of potatoes and a pound of leeks and/or yellow onions.  Potatoes: check.  Leeks: I had about 2/3 lb, so added a small yellow onion, sliced thin, to round it out.  I picked this recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking from memory because I assumed it would contain bacon.  (Potatoes + onion + bacon = what I recall as a pretty unbeatable flavor combination.)  I was wrong!  No bacon, not even any cream or milk; the entire recipe is pareve.

The recipe really is quite straightforward; slice potatoes and leeks/onions, simmer in a 4 qt pot with 2 qt of water and a tablespoon of salt, remove and mill/puree.  Voilà.

But I just couldn’t let it be, not with the sampler pack of Bacon Salt
staring me down.  I took a half cup of the onions and cooked them in a tablespoon of oil for about a minute, then added a tablespoon of Hickory flavored Bacon Salt
.

Even frying in oil, this stuff does not smell like bacon.

Nonetheless, I let that cook for a few minutes, then went ahead and added the potatoes, the balance of the leeks and onions, and the two quarts of water and proceeded to simmer as directed.

The resulting puree wound up just a shade off the not-quite-white it would otherwise have been.  I guess the bright red of the Bacon Salt counteracted the green to a nearly neutral.  And I must share that with the addition of bacon salt, the soup did come out smelling and tasting as if, somewhere in the process, real bacon matter had been introduced.

I solicited a second opinion from my husband Ben, who concurred; I trust his baconometer better than my own as he makes no bones about consuming whatsoever animal substance he sees fit, and so can compare to recent bacon experiences.

Not quite what the recipe intended, but it’s good, and it’s vegetarian and kosher, potato-ey and onion-y; a bracing soup for a weakling day.  Two thumbs up from the Katz clan.

But then, it was also the most delicious, and probably the most fattening, so there you go.

One of the first things this recipe calls for me to do is slather the salted inside of my chicken with a Tbsp of butter, and truss it up.  This sort of set the tone for how I had to approach the recipe – this was a battle, and I needed to be atop my game at all times in order not to be tricked into doing something to defile the beautiful, potentially kosher deliciousness of this chicken.

With my wits about me, I “buttered” my bread chicken with Philly olive oil instead.  Not a particularly neutral oil, but the richest one I had on hand.  Since I don’t think there’s a comparable substitute for the flavor and texture of butter, I figured I’d just go for the luxe.

I placed the chicken in a slightly-larger-than-the-chicken-sized baking pan, strew about some sliced carrot and onion, and slid the whole she-bang into my preheated 425-degree oven.  (The first 15 minutes were the biggest pain in my chicken-roasting life, because the recipe required that I brown the top and each side of the chicken for five minutes before reducing the heat to 350.  Thomas Keller, whose recipe I previously used as my general guideline, does not require this very hot acrobatic feat.)

In prepping the chicken, I trimmed off some of the enormous wads of fat that surrounded the opening of the cavity.  I assumed I’d render this later and fry something awesome in it (schmaltz, or chicken fat, is the flavor equivalent of golden indulgence.)  Little did I know what lay ahead of me.

That’s a lie, though, because as Julia Child recommends in the foreword to MtAoFC, we must read recipes in their entirety before proceeding, in order not to be blindsided by an unexpected ingredient or unfamiliar technique.   So I did know that I’d be instructed to prepare basting liquid using 2 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of cooking oil in a small saucepan.  What I hadn’t realized was that I would render the schmaltz in the saucepan with the olive oil and use it as my basting liquid – there, we have something that truly does give butter a run for its money.

Rendering schmaltz is honestly one of the great joys of my life.  I usually do this in my cast-iron grill pan (designated for meat meals, of course.)  Not only is it convenient to pour out the hot liquid fat through the pan’s groove, but the process sustains the seasoning of my pan.  Most satisfying of all is watching an enormous whitish fat globule melt down until it’s just a crispy flake of skin or meat surrounded by boiling, popping chickeny fatty essence.

But I digress.  Needless to say, this is the first chicken (or any item, really) that I’ve ever basted.  In fact, for something roasted, which typically connotes a fast and easy process of popping something in a preheated oven and maybe adjusting the temperature a little ways down the road, this was a lot of work!  After those first 15 minutes of frequent flipping action, the heat turned down to 350 and the bird was lying on its right side.  I basted it every 8-10 minutes, first with the liquid I discussed above, and with the pan juices after the stovetop preparation ran out.  Halfway through the remaining roasting time, I salted the up-side and flipped it over onto its left side, and 15 minutes from the anticipated end of roasting, I salted the up-side and returned it to the breast-up position.

I felt a little dubious at this point because while the sides were nicely browned and crisped, the breast side was kind of pale (though cooked) and un-crispy looking.  Not to worry, however, because in the last 15 minutes of roasting it came together nicely.  I wish I’d taken a picture when I took the bird out – it was without reservation the most beautiful poultry I’ve personally ever prepared.

While all these chicken-roasting antics were going on, I was also preparing a brown stock.  (I’ve never heard of brown stock before reading MtAoFC.  As far as I can cobble together, brown stock is a stock prepared by browning chicken parts and onions and carrots, then cooking them in pre-prepared stock to make a richer, well, stock.  I detest using a word in its own definition, but near as I can tell, brown stock is made using a pre-existing stock.  So I do the best I can.)  I attempted to cut up giblets of a chicken, but my meat cleaver made barely a dent in the neck and the gizzard.  I gave up and browned them whole, boiled them in the stock whole, and discarded them afterward, you guessed it, whole.  It smelled and tasted extra super chickeny, which is the ultimate goal of this entire exercise, according to Julia Child.

When the chicken came out to rest before carving, I cooked minced shallots in 2 tbsp of the pan juices, then added a cup of the newly made, and strained brown stock.  This was 1+ cup of liquid, reduced down to 1/2 cup, then seasoned with salt and pepper.  The recipe wanted me to enrich it with butter at the last second before serving, but instead I added a tablespoon of the fat skimmed from the strained stock.  I would hardly say that the sauce lacked for richness.  One spoonful over the top of the golden-crisp chicken, the rest in a Pyrex vessel (I have no gravy boat, sadly.)

I called it “the hardest damned chicken” but that doesn’t really convey what I mean.  No part of this process was difficult, by any stretch.  It did require an active engagement with the chicken with which I am generally unaccustomed.  I worked hard to follow the instructions on this chicken, and it was worth it.

The Roast Chicken Experience called to mind what I consider to be a central theme of Julie and Julia, which is the distinction between that which is simple and that which is easy.  This chicken was simple – instructions straightforward, tasks so basic that anyone can do them – but it wasn’t easy.  You can’t sit back and put your feet up and read a good chunk of novel while waiting for the end of the roasting time.

If pressed to make a larger point, I might add that keeping kosher is simple – simply follow rules! – but it isn’t easy.  But this is a post for another time.  Right now I’m remembering my delicious chicken and sauce prepared 100% dairy-free, appreciating the hard-won simplicity and the bonus of rich flavor and superior texture that were the return on my investment.

So, here goes!

Inspired by Julie and Julia, the memoir by Julie Powell and new film featuring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams; as well as by an enduring love of food, cooking, and doing it myself (whatever “it” is); and now as always fueled by unlimited admiration for Julia Child and her impact on the life of the home cook in America; I’m undertaking this blogging adventure to see what the limits are for engaging in and learning from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking while also adhering to Jewish dietary observance.

This is a pretty tall order.  Last night I made Gateau de crépes a la Florentine – and to summarize it is comprised of some flour, butter, milk, spinach and mushrooms; no meat – and yet the recipe did call to prime the hot pan by rubbing it with some good old pork fat instead of or in addition to using oil.

Naturally, I used oil and omitted the lard, but I think this is instructive of the nature of my project.  French cooking and Jewish cooking are at complete odds with each other; French seemingly hedonistic in its call and response to food simply for the flavor, texture and pleasure of the experience.  Jewish cooking seeks the flavor, texture and pleasure but with the additional project of attaining them without mixing meat and dairy, to name just the most basic of limitations.  French: complete indulgence and satisfaction.  Jewish: calculated and hard-won delicacy.

So the crépes Florentine.  I pre-made the crepe batter combining milk, water, eggs, salt and butter in the food processor and letting it sit refrigerated for the afternoon.  The harder work was more immediate in anticipation of dinner; think three hours sweating over a hot stove top in my un-air-conditioned brick oven of a house and you’ll have a good picture.  From 4-7 pm last night is now a blur to me of flipping crepes (successfully made in my well-seasoned cast iron pans without any sticking casualties!) blanching spinach, sauté-ing mushrooms and onion, and of course building a cheese sauce from the basic butter-flour roux on up.

I stacked crepes with alternating layers of the spinach and mushroom fillings and buried it all in cheese sauce (sauce Mornay, to be precise) topped it with shredded Swiss cheese, and browned it in a hot oven for 25 minutes.

I’m not sure how to give you a sense of this creation – except to say that the recipe called this 6 servings, but I ate less than a tenth of it and was completely satisfied by the richness of it all. (Use that much butter, cream and oil and you better get some satisfaction out of the experience.)  To give you a better sense, let me say this: my lactose intolerant husband, who hates spinach and generally lobbies for meat in every meal, thinks it was the best thing I’ve ever made.  This is saying a lot not only because it was vegetarian and enough dairy to cramp his stride for weeks, but since he raves and brags about my roast chicken, which is admittedly also very good.

The real trick will be to find a way to make crépes that in themselves are pareve (neither milk nor meat, therefore able to be served with both.)  The dairy-only recipe was kind of a freebie, since realistically I would have skipped the pork fat whether for this project or otherwise.  I haven’t projected a timeline for this undertaking because of this problem: recipes can be made kosher in two ways: eliminating meat or eliminating dairy.  The fun will be experimenting and deciding what variations taste best; the struggle will be someday actually finishing it, since it has the potential to take a very, very long time.

But this was an auspicious first stab.