Pain Perdu to the Rescue

It’s a dessert … it’s breakfast … it’s pain perdu. It’s one of the sexiest things you can make from bread. And if you didn’t know its potential, you might totally pass it by.

Literally translated as “lost bread,” it's often made from day-old slices thought to be of little use to society in their current state. But pain perdu is no lost moment. And it knows exactly what it’s doing: namely seducing with thick, buttery slices. But where pain perdu truly gets its oomph is with the addition of Cointreau. It's an important breath of boozy citrus, and definitely worth adding in.

It's also an easy way to feel quite pleased with yourself first thing in the morning. After all, it’s pretty much French toast, just a bit boozed and buttered up. Though, you still have to be careful. Yes, it's true I made this for breakfast ... on a Tuesday. But the self-satisfaction lasted precisely until I ran my fingers through my hair and realized I had honey in it.

This is an important lesson, folks. While pain perdu may be easy to make, one has to remember his or her personal Kryptonite. (Which, for me tends to involve sticky sweeteners ... and making brioche.)

Luckily, it’s hard to mess up such a simple item. Egg and butter typically taste pretty good. Even with honey in your hair.

Pain Perdu

2 eggs

~1/4-1/2 cup whole milk

2-3 tbsp Cointreau

1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp honey

Pinch of salt

4-5 slices brioche bread

Butter for pan

Seasonal fresh fruit plus powdered sugar to garnish

Combine eggs, milk, Cointreau, vanilla extract, honey, and salt. Dip bread in mixture and let soak for a few minutes. Add bread to preheated pan that has been coated with butter and cook until golden (about 3 minutes/side). Garnish as desired.

Makes 4-5 slices of pain perdu

Notes:

-The Cointreau and brioche really adds something special, so try not to leave it out.

Happy Anniversary, Have Some Beluga Lentils

I surely did not think I’d be discussing lentils at this juncture. But it’s official, this is the one-year anniversary of A Plum By Any Other Name … and I’m about to suggest to cook a seed. I had figured to usher in this event, I’d probably write about something truly impressive. A gorgeous three-tiered cake. Or an effortless plum crostata.

At the very least, I thought I’d have brioche for you, which I finally got up the nerve to make again after a disastrous first attempt that required transport through Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief. I’d like to say the results this time around were glorious, but—while the brioche wasn’t bad and was certainly edible—it wasn’t quite right. So it will likely get reincarnated as pain perdu, which is a step up from being whirled into gazpacho, the fate of attempt #1, but I digress.

The more important message here is that one thing I was certain I wanted for this blog was a list of go-to recipes. Recipes that would be like old friends. Recipes to keep in your back pocket, knowing even if you didn’t see them regularly, they’d be there if you needed them. So while I’ve failed at brioche (again) and have slacked in the celebratory dessert department, I’ve found a lot of great recipes that have enriched my life.

Enter: beurre maître d’hôtel and beluga lentils. Consider it a recipe for the Rolodex. It’s transformative and yet easy going enough for any occasion. It’s heavenly on fish, and carrots, and chicken, and pretty much anything that can take a little butter. Eating food graced with its presence is like getting to spend spring in Paris. In fact, it’s a celebratory dish in its own right, a feat that the French manage to pull off quite regularly.

The recipe itself is from Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking. It was originally published in 1960 with David, a British cookery writer who lived in France while studying history and literature, stressing the glory of simple French food. And so I can’t think of a better way to usher in year two than with her—who I hear was a bit of a wild woman—and a simple recipe that plays very well with others. Consider it a new old friend. (And a bit more reliable than brioche.) The brioche will come one day, I’m sure. But for today, lentils are where I am at.

And if there is one thing I’ve learned this past year, it’s that if you can take the heat, stay in the kitchen. You won’t always find the food that you've imagined, but if you keep at it what you'll find is well worth the wait. And so it’s been a wonderful first year, lentils and all. Thank you for coming along.

Beurre Maître D’Hôtel (parsley butter)

4 tbsp butter

1.5 tbsp chopped (very very finely) parsley

A few drops of lemon (the juice can also be used below)

Rinse a bowl out with hot water, add your butter and parsley (which David stresses should be very finely chopped) and work together with a fork, adding a few drops of lemon until well combined.

Lentilles Maître D’Hôtel (lentils with parsley butter)

Adapted from Elizabeth David

1.5-2 cups beluga lentils

Kosher salt

1/2 cup chicken stock (plus additional if cooking the lentils in stock instead of water*)

Juice of half a lemon

2 tbsp chopped parsley

For the lentils, spread them out on a plate or sheet pan and pick out any pebbles or grit you find. Soak the lentils in cold water for about an hour.

Drain them and put them in a pan with about 4-5 cups of water (or stock). Salt your liquid and bring the lentils to a boil and then simmer until the lentils are tender but not mushy, adding more liquid if needed. This took about 30 minutes for me, but it will depend on the freshness of your lentils. Once your lentils are cooked, drain any leftover liquid.

Return the lentils back to your pot, add 1/2 cup of stock and simmer the lentils again until the stock is absorbed. (If the lentils are in danger of getting mushy, just drain the excess liquid.) Put about 3/4 of your parsley butter (the remainder destined for something else wonderful) and lemon juice into the lentils and stir until it has just melted and forms a little sauce. Sprinkle with additional parsley. Taste the lentils and add additional salt and/or lemon, if necessary. "Serve at once in a hot dish," per David.

Notes:

-While any lentils could be used here, ideally you'll want a lentil that retains its shape when cooking, like French Puy lentils. Though, if you can find beluga lentils they are stunning and hold up to their regal namesake.

-You could certainly cook the lentils in stock. *Honestly, I can't remember whether I used water or stock, though I have a sneaking suspicion I used a non-committal ratio of half water half stock.

-I admit I've previously sort of scuffed at sorting through lentils. This time, I figured I'd listen to David. And it made me wonder just how many pebbles I've swallowed in my past.

-I had to add a quote from David about the butter here. "We all know how to make parsley butter. But do we always do it really well or know its many uses?" Well, you don't say!

Gazpacho: Brioche Resurrected

I am mourning a loss. Scratch that: two losses. I lost my goldfish, Claude, of a year and a half, this past week. All that knew him loved him; he was a fish among humans. There is still some debate over his death; some hypothesize heat exhaustion, while others claim involuntary fish slaughter and others, yet, fear he died from loneliness over the long July 4 thweekend. I am not kidding.

During all this doom and gloom, the unthinkable happened. A cooking cataclysm. The nail in the proverbial culinary coffin: bone-dry brioche. I don’t know what I was thinking attempting such a mountain in this frail state. For me, making starches from scratch is unthinkably tricky. It took me months to get fresh pasta under my belt, my gnocchi still needs work, and my pate brisse continues to taunt me with its tough, gluey exterior. A bread dough involving butter? I was asking for it.

While I’ve accepted the murkiness of Claude’s death, the mystery of my brioche haunts me still, a dense buttery ghost. It's truly perplexing how I managed to make DRY bread despite the use of over a half pound of butter.

I killed this brioche. (Involuntary brioche slaughter?) And yet, I am still grieving the loss. Behold the stages of grief:

Denial: After letting the dough sit for 3 hours something didn’t seem right. It wasn’t pliable. It seemed … tough. It must be all that butter, I reasoned. Not used to working with all that butter.

Anger: I took the dough out of the fridge the next day. Something was clearly rotten in the state of Denmark. It seemed even harder than the day before (stiff as a board comes to mind). I checked the pastry flour package again. “A good source of whole grains.” Damn you, Anson Mills. I blame the fiber, all 4 “holy” grams per serving. Blast.

Bargaining: Maybe if I just let it rise a little longer everything will be okay. It’s 85 degrees outside; that should help. Everything will be okay if I just let it rise a little longer. Please, just rise.

Depression: Dry, dense, barely edible brioche. The reality set in, storm clouds darkening further. It—literally—rained in my apartment (again, I am not kidding). I went off in search of my secret stash of saltwater taffy. I downloaded trashy realty TV shows featuring thin, over-privileged twenty-somethings. I watched them argue over boyfriends and bad jobs. I felt fat.

Acceptance: I’m still struggling with this one, occasionally regressing back to anger and depression. On an intellectual level, I know pistachio taffy and Whitney Port won’t bring my brioche back. Continuing on this destructive path will only make things worse.

Ah bread, you are supposed to be a symbol for life. I acknowledge I am just not ready to fully accept this as a loss. And so I buried my failure, whirling what was left of my crummy brioche (and perhaps a little bit of my dignity) in with some summer vegetables and reincarnating it as a light, refreshing gazpacho. So there.

Be forewarned brioche, you have not seen the last of me.

Andalusian Gazpacho

1 peeled cucumber, chopped

1-2 seeded habanero peppers, chopped

4-5 tomatoes, chopped

1 small red onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, diced

Salt to taste

1 peach

2 cups brioche, 1" cubes

1 lemon, juice plus zest

2-3 tbsp sherry vinegar

1/4 cup basil leaves

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt, pepper and red chili pepper to taste

Ice cubes

Mix first 5 ingredients; salt liberally. Let sit 30-60 minutes. Drain excess water. Squeeze peach to release its juice over brioche; let sit. Blend tomato mixture with brioche in a blender or food processor. Add peach pulp, lemon zest and juice, sherry vinegar, basil, olive oil and additional salt, pepper and red chili flakes to taste. Add ice cubes (I used about 8; this will chill the gazpacho and help emulsify it). Chill.

Yield about 5 cups

Notes:

I tried to strain the mixture after I was done blending, but my sieve was too small; it still was good.

I know this isn't a traditional Andalusian gazpacho, but it is what I was working with this day. This is a recipe to definitely taste as you go to get the seasoning right.