August-September 2023 COTM - THOMAS KELLER MONTH

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
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ONION CONFIT p. 312 from BOUCHON

These onions are ethereal! A bit of work–about three pounds of onions sliced very thin–and a bit of time–they cook for a good two hours. getting a stir every twenty minutes or so. But they are worth it! With just a few bay leaves, some thyme and peppercorns, the result is onions that are soft and smooth but still somehow retain a bit of texture. And the flavor is wonderful–sweet onion to the nth degree. So far, I’ve used them as a garnish, in quiche and to top focaccia. I made them in a really heavy cast iron skillet which worked like a charm

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Sounds also like a good base for French onion soup.

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What kind of onions are recommended? I’m wondering if yellow vs sweet might be better. I usually find onions way bigger than I need, usually sweet, but think they would perfect for this!

ETA I found this version online, and type of onion isn’t specified.

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LEEK RISOTTO Food 52
I thought this was a Thomas Keller recipe but now I’m not so sure, maybe just the whipped cream part?

Anyway, this recipe seemed simple enough for me to tackle. It called for 5 cups of stock but a reviewer said was too much, to use 4 cups so that’s what I did. Instead of opening a bottle of white wine, I used white Vermouth. Recipe said 1 shallot but they vary in size, wish recipe had said a cup measurement. Only deviation: I used 2 garlic cloves, through garlic press after sauteing leeks.

I tried whipping 1/3 cup cream with whisk but nothing was happening so I had to use mixer, had to add more cream to get it to work (now what do I do with leftover?). I don’t know if it’s worth it to dirty mixing bowl instead of just adding the cream at the end.

It was tasty but I guess I’m not a huge fan of risotto.

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I love the pattern on this bowl.

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Come on over to the September voting thread.

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I used regular yellow onions.

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39

Ad hoc meatballs with our house tomato sauce. Much smaller than the original version. This is a freezer staple which is now, happily, restocked.

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Edit: There were 39 meatballs out of this batch. Usually there are 36 but there was a bit more meat this time.
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40

ROASTED SHRIMP SCAMPI

I had some nice jumbo shrimp that I was looking for a recipe for, and wondered if Keller had any shrimp recipes - ta da!

I was very skeptical of the recipe, though. I mean - shrimp scampi is easy and tasty, and this recipe is a bit of a fusspot with the compound butter situation. You make a compound butter of roasted and raw garlic, lemon juice, and parsley (which I forgot), place the shrimp on a bed of breadcrumbs, add a few pats of the butter, sprinkle with more breadcrumbs, and broil.

Still, I had roasted garlic earlier in the week when I roasted tomatoes, so I was halfway to the compound butter already. I decided to leave the lemon for the end (because why cook lemon juice) and instead zested the lemon into the shrimp. I also left the garlic butter soft and mixed it with the shrimp, because I wanted even distribution (and I had a lot more shrimp than he did in the demo).

Well, this was really good! The only “downside” was that I was expecting buttery, garlicky shrimp juices that I would toss with the pasta I was serving the shrimp with, but - duh - the breadcumbs absorbed all that, so I had to butter (and garlic) my pasta separately.

He has this whole fussy thing where he says to butterfly the shrimp and arrange them a certain way to ensure even cooking, which I thought was probably a crock but kind of did anyway. Given that I had a lot more shrimp crammed into my baking dish, it took a lot longer than the 3-4 mins he called for, and I decided to toss them about halfway through so the ones at the edges didnt’t overcook, but they did cook very evenly.

I’d make this again (this way), but with twice the garlic! And rough, toasted pangrattato-type crumbs or panko would probably be better than the really fine breadcrumbs I had at hand.

Served with bucatini and sauteed spinach.

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SCRAMBLED EGGS

Yeah, yeah, it’s weird to pick scrambled eggs as a dish for COTM, but with Keller as the theme I’m interested in picking up different techniques and new approaches to things I already enjoy eating. So, scrambled eggs.

What he does differently: strains the well-beaten eggs (I do this for chawanmushi but never though to for scrambled), uses cold butter in with the eggs to slow down the custard formation, and finally cold creme fraiche (I used heavy cream) when the custard is pretty much done, to stop further cooking. He also whisks briskly to never let curds form, so what you’re eating at the end is a soft custard.

Too rich as written for everyday eggs, but I may employ the straining going forward because I really don’t like gunk in my eggs. I also prefer curds in even my soft scrambled eggs, so I’ll skip the whisking next time.

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@Saregama your sentiment about his fussy approach to things rang a bell for me and I realized that way back in the day, when she was cooking from and reviewing cookbooks as The Tipsy Baker, Jennifer Reese had the same reaction but kept finding (as I think you and others have) that as irksome as the fussiness can be, it mostly pays off. I fell into a lovely rabbit hole of re-reading her Thomas Keller adventures. I really wish she still wrote on that blog, she is so entertaining! The Tipsy Baker posts on Thomas Keller cooking adventures.

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I really miss her blog. She has a whole new life now in Brooklyn.

I just read through those posts of hers cooking Thomas Keller recipes … so funny, talking about how much work, tedious details, mountains of dirty dishes to wash BUT usually the dish tastes fantastic!

I’m sorry that years ago I wasted good money buying Ad Hoc At Home … recipes are much too complicated. I still want to make the chicken pot pie but without a double crust (I don’t think that much crust is necessary) and I will just use TJ puff pastry on top.

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I miss it too! Does she still write anywhere, do you know?

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If she does, I’m unaware.

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46

Well I can’t really help making some adjustments when I think the process is too long or unnecessarily unwieldy for the home kitchen :joy: — or there’s a chance to improve flavor at the cost of presentation (like his pats of compound butter that are quite obviously not evenly distributed over the shrimp, so what happens to the shrimp that don’t have any compound butter on them?).

But there’s definitely learning to be done on other things, like the arrangement of the shrimp and the straining of the eggs and the blending of eggs for quiche (for enough time) and so on, that improve the outcome that I may not have done on my own.

I found a couple of cooking from Keller blogs, but had not see Tipsy Baker’s, so thank you for the link! (I never followed her but I know many baking regulars did on CH.)

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BROWNIES (AD HOC)

This was too similar to my favorite brownie recipe including some of my tweaks not to try. My go-to-recipe is Alice Medrich’s best cocoa brownies, to which I often add chocolate bits or pieces (and round down butter). The ingredient proportions between the two recipes are very similar, other than a bit more butter in his case and a bit more sugar in hers.

But, it’s Keller, so of course it takes more work :joy: In the Medrich version, butter, sugar, and cocoa are heated together first, then the eggs beaten in, and finally the flour added. Keller has a more cake-like approach with the eggs and sugar beaten, the butter half melted and half not, and wet and dry ingredients combined in parts, alternately. (His are also baked longer.) Yep, fusspot :rofl:

Anyway the end result is quite similar in texture and flavor (I dialed back the salt slightly to taste) not only to Medrich’s brownies but also to his own bouchons. I’ll give this another shot soon – I scaled down to 1 egg proportions for a brownie batch I was making for someone, from which I tasted the trimmings. Maybe the texture is slightly different – the first try didn’t seem different enough to warrant the extra work vs. the one-bowl brownies, but I may have to eat a few whole brownies from the next batch before I make that decision :smiley:

ETA: I just went back and looked at the bouchons recipe, and it’s virtually identical to the brownies except that they’re baked in small molds so it’s less oven time.

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Has anyone made the leek bread pudding from Ad Hoc?

I’m planning for the roast chicken in the next week, and torn between bread salad (Zuni inspired but simplified) or the leek bread pudding. Though potatoes under the chicken would be much easier.

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All 3 options sound fantastic. The only one I haven’t tried is the leek bread pudding, so I’m going to nudge you to try that (and live vicariously).

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Haha, yeah what was attractive to me was that it was new as well. But I am rethinking whether I will be into the soggy inside texture of bread pudding… maybe, but not sure.

Also I do love my cheat version of that bread salad so much… those schmaltzy croutons… but I’d have to make the bread first.

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I’ve never made a bread pudding with a soggy texture, and I’ve made lots of bread pudding, including baked in a water bath. Unless you just mean not crisp.