Basic Béchamel Sauce

In my quest to make Croque Monsieur for lunch today, I have to master the Béchamel! Béchamel is one of the 5 mother sauces in French cooking, meaning it is one of the base sauces from which many others can be derived. 

The 5 mother sauces are: Béchamel, Velouté, Tomato Sauce, Hollandaise and Españole Sauce. I am pretty good at making a basic Tomato Sauce, but in all honesty, I have never made any of the others except from a packet!  Scandalous! 

A basic Béchamel Sauce (often just called "white sauce") is a milk or cream based sauce that is thickened using a blonde (or white) roux. A roux is just a mixture of butter or oil and flour that is combined and cooked for a period of time, then used as a thickening agent in sauces. A blonde roux is just a roux that has not been cooked for very long, in fact hardly at all. This compares to a brown roux, the thickening agent in gumbo, which is cooked for 30 minutes or longer depending on the chef.

Everyone seems to have an opinion as to what proportions of flour to butter to milk should be used. I have experimented with a few different combinations this week, and the one that I found works best for me is 1 tablespoon butter to 1 tablespoon flour to thicken 1 cup of milk.  Same concept and proportions apply when making gravy too.

Also, stay away from 1% or skim milk and use whole milk.  Your Béchamel will work using a 1% (I did that Thursday when I made Mac'n'Cheese) but a creamier milk produces a creamier sauce.  And it is not like we eat this stuff everyday, right? So go for it!  As Julia Child said, "Everything in moderation - including moderation."  I love that quote.

The sauce that the 1:1:1 ratio produces has the creamy consistency I want - it is pourable and perfect for gratins or adding cheese to to make a Mornay Sauce. The mark that you should shoot for is a lumpfree sauce that coats the back of a spoon.

Basic Béchamel Sauce

In a sauce pan, warm milk over medium heat until just below the boiling point.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In a separate sauce pan, melt the butter over a medium-high heat.

Add the flour, and stir around vigorously with a wooden spoon.  

The roux will look creamy at first, then a bit grainy.  Once you see that you will  know that the butter has absorbed the flour and the roux is ready.  

Remove from heat immediately so as not to add any colour to the roux.

Slowly start to add the hot milk to the roux pan, stirring constantly, and scraping the bottom of the pan to make sure you incorporate all the roux.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, then cook for 2-3 minutes.

Once the sauce boils it is at its maximum thickness, so if you find your sauce is too thick (unlikely) add a bit more milk, or if it is too thin, add a bit more roux.  Season with salt, white pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

Preserved Lemons

Preserved lemons are an integral part of Moroccan cuisine.  Preserved lemons are basically lemons that have been pickled in salt and their own juices. The peel, pulp, and juice squeezed from the lemons can all be used in dishes such as tagines, soups and stews.

I even had them recently in a salad dressing at an upscale (and definitely not Moroccan) restaurant in Toronto called ByMark, and I've seen them used in cocktail recipes also.

I've never made preserved lemons before but - again - it is one of those things that I've been meaning to make for years. So I am using a recipe from Epicurious created by Paula Wolfert.  No alterations - shocking, I know.

If you are going to make preserved lemons, you need to plan ahead as they require time to "mature" on your counter top for a period of time, and I've seen times that span from 5 to 7 days to a few months.

Meyer lemons are apparently the best to use as they have thin skins and are extremely juicy. Sadly my local grocer did not have Meyer lemons nor even organic ones, so I am using regular run of the mill lemons this time. We shall see!

Thanks to Kevin at Closet Cooking for sharing his experience as a first time preserver of lemons. The tip he gleaned from his research into the recipe was that you could tell the lemons were ready when the pith was no longer white. I'll have to keep an eye for that.

Ingredients:

6 lemons
2/3 cup kosher salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice (from 5 to 6 additional lemons)
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

Dry lemons well and cut each into 8 wedges, cutting off any protruding stems or bumps. In a bowl toss wedges with salt and transfer to a glass jar (about 6-cup capacity). Ideally, you want the lemons to be packed very tightly. Compress the lemons as you add them to the jar to release their juices. Add lemon juice and cover jar with a tight-fitting glass lid or plastic-coated lid. Let lemons stand at room temperature 7 days, shaking jar each day to redistribute salt and juice. Add oil to cover lemons and store, covered and chilled, up to 6 months.

Cook's Note:  This recipe took very little time and has turned out to be one of the best adds in my kitchen.  When I don't have fresh lemons in the kitchen and I need lemon for a recipe, I pull these out and slice them really thinly.  The other thing to remember when using them is that they are packed in salt, so rinse them well under warm water and be careful about the amount of added salt you include in a dish that uses the Preserved Lemons.  All in all indispensable for me now.

Justin's Junior Chef Bloggette - Chicken Cacciatore

Hi!  My name is Justin and I am 10.  I like to cook in the kitchen with my mom.  Sometimes we bake, sometimes we make dinner but my specialty is making gravy.  And I have knife skills!  My mom and I have decided that once a week we will make dinner for our family together, and try out a new a easy recipe that is fast and doesn't cost a lot.  I think when I am older I am going to make these kinds of simple meals for my family.

Tonight we made Chicken Cacciatore based on a recipe by Massimo Capra.  He is a chef in Toronto at a restaurant called Mistura and he has a crazy moutstache!  We didn't have all the ingredients for the recipe so we just put in what we had and it was awesome!

My mom has a secret that uses in dishes like this - she keeps the rinds from pieces of parmesan cheese and freezes them, then she adds them into dishes like this for extra flavour.

Here's what you need:

3 chicken quarters, skinned and cut into pieces (or 8 skinless chicken thighs)
1 medium onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1 box button mushroom, cut in halfs or quarters depending on how big they are
1 can tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
2 bay leaves
rinds from 2 pieces of Parmesan cheese (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

In a large non-stick frying pan, add oil and brown chicken on both sides.  Add garlic and onion and continue to sauté.  Add sliced peppers, sliced onions and mushrooms.  Pour can of chopped tomato over and combine.  Add oregano and bay leaves and Parmesan rinds.    Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, making sure the chicken is falling off the bone.  Right before you eat, be sure to take out the bay leaves and Parmesan rinds.

My mom ate hers with sautéed rapinni (blech) but we had ours with pasta.  Yummy.

Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri Sauce

Another VERY snowy day in Toronto - the roads are WAY too much of a mess to drive down to the market to pick up beef tenderloin, so we decided to make something involving the pork tenderloin we have on hand instead. After a very very long week of sickies in the house, I want something tasty but simple, so we have settled for a Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri sauce.

Same as I talked a while back about different cultures having their own version of the trinity in cuisine, so do most have their own version of a green sauce.  The French make Sauce Verte, the Germans Grune Sosse, and in Mexico there is the tomatillo-based Salsa Verde.  My two favourite variations of the green sauce, however, are the Italian Salsa Verde (parsley, capers, anchovies and garlic base) and Chimichurri which originated in Argentina and Uruguay.

Chimichurri is served primarily as a sauce for steak, but it works equally well with chicken, fish and pork tenderloin.  Generally, the sauce is parsley based, but as with most things, is open to interpretation and most savoury herbs work well.  I like the addition of cilantro to add brightness and a fresh flavour to the sauce, and sometimes I add mint if I have it on hand.  I also prefer the addition of lime juice over lemon juice to compliment the freshness of the cilantro.

Pork:

2 pork tenderloins
2 tbsp olive oil for searing
1 recipe for Spice Rub

Spice Rub:

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon salt
2 cloves garlic, smashed and rough chopped
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Chimichurri sauce:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/4 cup onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, stems removed
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro, stems removed
• 1 bunch fresh mint, stems removed

For spice rub:
Combine all ingredients in with a mortar and pestle and...uuhh...smush....grind...pound.  I am very fortunate to have a beautiful black volcanic rock mortar and pestle that weighs about 20 lbs. and gives me a good work out. The alternative is to whiz the mixture in a coffee or spice mill.  We have two coffee grinders - one we use for coffee and the other we keep for grinding spices.  Works quite well.

Rub pork all over with spice rub, being sure to use all of the mixture.  Allow to marinate for several hours before ready to cook.

For chimichurri sauce:

Combine all ingredients in blender; blend until almost smooth. 

To cook pork:

Preheat oven to 450°F. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to a large oven-safe sautee pan over medium-high heat. Sear pork on all sides, about 2 minutes. Place skillet with pork in oven. Roast pork until thermometer inserted into center registers 155°F, about 10-15 minutes. Remove pork from skillet and and allow to rest on a cutting board for 5-10 minutes to allow the juices to reabsorb. You an tent the tenderloin with foil if you like to retain heat.

Once rested, slice pork on the diagonal and serve with Chimichurri sauce and your choice of sides.

And honestly, the pork is good with or without the sauce.  The rub can stand on its own with a little bit of liquid added to the pan juices.  It was extremely tasty an simple and quite possibly going to be on the camping-cottage rotation this summer.