50 French Recipes, French Food Recipes | Saveur.
French cooking is considered among the finest and most elegant in the world. If you are celebrating Bastille Day and want to try your hand at some traditional French recipes, Saveur has posted 50 classic French recipes that you can give a try and reach new gastronomic heights. Check it out!
Biscuits are great to go with just about any type of meal at any time. I like to make a big batch of biscuits so that we have them around to have with various dinners or to go with breakfast with an egg and some bacon or just warmed with some butter for a nice snack now and then. The great thing about biscuits is that there seems to be an endless number of biscuit recipes and most of them are really easy to make any time you might like one. It is usually just a matter of having a few ingredients on hand to get started and you can have them for any meal you like. I liked this recipe from Bon Appetit for salt and pepper biscuits for a little bit of a different flavor.
Salt and Pepper Biscuits
3/4 cup sour cream
4 tablespoons heavy cream, divided
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper plus more
2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for surface
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Flaky sea salt
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Whisk the sour cream and 3 tablespoons of the heavy cream in a small bowl. Pulse the baking powder, kosher salt, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and 2 cups of flour together in the food processor until they are combined. Add the butter and pulse the mixture until it is the texture of coarse meal with a few pea-sized pieces of butter remaining.
Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Using a spoon, mix in the sour cream mixture, then gently knead the mixture a few times just until a shaggy dough comes together. Use a light hand with this part so you get tender biscuits; be careful not to overmix the dough.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface until the dough is about 3/4-inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter, cut out the biscuits, re-rolling the scraps as needed so you can use all of the dough. Place the biscuits on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and brush the tops of the biscuits with the remaining 1 tablespoon of heavy cream. Sprinkle the biscuits with the sea salt and more black pepper. Bake until the biscuits are golden brown on the tops and the bottoms, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve the biscuits warm with butter, if desired.
You could make this dough about 6 hours ahead of time if you want and just chill it until you are ready to use it. You get a really nice tangy flavor from the sour cream in the biscuits and I liked the mix of the salt and pepper with each one. I cut smaller biscuits than the typical 2 inches of biscuits so I got more from my batch. The recipe indicates you can get 8 2 1/4-inch biscuits if you use the larger cutter. they were perfect to go with our meal and are great to have with soups, stew, chili or just to have on the side of any beef or poultry meal that you have. As I said, they are also great for breakfast with some egg, bacon or sausage or just by themselves with a cup of coffee or tea. You do want to be careful with the kneading and overmixing so you do not get tough biscuits, which has happened to me before. A light touch seems to work best here.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Most people really only give much consideration to Irish soda bread on St. Patrick’s Day and may not think about it much the rest of the year. The problem is that most of the soda bread you find in local stores this time of year is very dense, very dry and very crumbly and just does not taste that good. Even some of the mixes I have tried over the years have been disappointing and I wanted to try to make one this year that would have the great crust a soda bread should have but the tender bread that was not tough to eat. I came across this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen last week and it was simple, basic and sounded perfect so I went about giving it a try to see how the bread would be.
Skillet Irish Soda Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk
1 tablespoon melted butter, optional
Heat the oven to 400 degrees and adjust an oven rack to the center position. Place the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour using your fingers until it is completely incorporated and the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the buttermilk. Work the liquid into the flour mixture using a fork until the dough comes together in large clumps. Turn the dough onto a work surface and knead it gently and briefly until the loose flour is just moistened. The dough will still be scrappy and uneven.
Form the dough into a round about 6 to 7 inches in diameter and place it in a cast iron skillet. Score a deep cross on top of the loaf and place it in the heated oven. Bake the bread until it is nicely browned and a tester comes out clean when inserted into the center of the loaf, about 40 to 45 minutes. Remove the skillet from the oven and brush the top of the loaf with the tablespoon of melted butter, if desired. Cool the bread for at least 30 minutes before slicing it. Serve the bread slightly warm or at room temperature.
I have to say it was the best soda bread I have had in a long time. No it does have raisins, or currants or any of that other stuff in it, but it doesn’t need all of that and that is more of the American version of Irish soda bread anyway. The crust on this bread has a wonderful crunch to it just like you want without it being all crumbly so it doesn’t fall apart when you slice it. The bread itself is nice and tender as well and goes really well with your corned beef and cabbage meal, if that is what you are having. You can make this on a baking sheet if you don’t have a coast iron pan or want to use one, but I think the crust comes out great thanks to the cast iron pan. If you can eat it while it is still warm it is that much better, but this will be okay for a day or two covered before it starts to dry out if you want to make it ahead of time. This will be my go to soda bread recipe from now on.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Work has been overwhelming the last few days and I have barely had time to breathe, let alone cook and blog. I have a little bit of time right now as I have gotten caught up between projects, doing laundry, trying to get the house clean, picking Sean up from play practice and dealing with a wife and son that both have some type of virus so they sound like frogs. On top of that I really need to find time to go and get my haircut in all of this mess! Anyway, when I have found time to cook over the last few days I have been able to try out some recipes and one of them was perfect for when I made some pulled pork for dinner. I decided I wanted to make my own rolls for this one and found this great easy recipe from King Arthur Flour for beautiful burger buns. it is a very simple recipe that gives you great soft buns that are perfect for any type of sandwich and you can have them done in a couple of hours. With he breadmaker, they are even easier.
Beautiful Burger Buns
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3 tablespoons melted butter, for topping (optional)
Mix and knead the water, butter, egg, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt and yeast together – by hand, mixer with a dough hook attachment or by breadmaker making a basic dough – to make a soft and smooth dough. Cover the dough and let it rise for 1 to 2 hours or until the dough has nearly doubled in bulk. If you are using the breadmaker, you can use the rise function during the basic dough course for this.
Place the dough on a cutting board or work surface and gently deflate the dough and then divide the dough into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball and then flatten the ball so it is about 3 inches across. Place the buns on a lightly greased or parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Cover the buns with a damp kitchen towel and allow them to rise for about an hour until they are noticeably puffy.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Brush the buns with about half of the melted butter, if desired. When the oven is up to temperature, bake the buns in the oven for 15 to 18 minutes until they are golden brown. remove the buns from the oven and brush them with the remainder of the melted butter, if desired. This will give the buns a satiny, buttery crust. Cool the buns on a wire rack before using.
If you want to make slightly smaller buns, which is what I did, divide the dough into 12 pieces instead of 8 and bake them for 12 to 15 minutes instead of the 15 to 18 minutes. you could go over even smaller if you wanted slider buns and cut the dough into 24 pieces and bake them for 12 to 15 minutes if you like. I have to say the resulting buns were really good. they were perfectly browned and cooked, soft on the outside with a nice crust and ideal for the pulled pork that we had for dinner. These would also be great for hamburgers or really any type of sandwiches that you might like to serve on them. they are so easy to do you could put them together just about any weekend that you have time to do them and then freeze some to use the rest of the week when you need them. Sean is already planning on his lunches for the rest of this week with them.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe (hopefully it will be tomorrow). Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Our Best Irish Recipes – Bon Appétit.
St. Patrick’s Day is under 2 weeks away so now is a good time to start planning out some of those great Irish recipes in advance of the day that is everything Irish. Bon Appetit has put together 18 recipes that are Irish-inspired recipes to help you celebrate the day with great drinks, corned beef and fun desserts. Check it out!
Yesterday I wrote about the breadmaker that I received for Christmas and have been using pretty regularly since then. I have tried a few different recipes, including the basic white bread recipe that Sean and Michelle both use for their lunches and sandwiches. I prefer something a little different from just white bread, so I decided I was going to give the rye bread recipe a try. The one they list in the book for the breadmaker is pretty basic and simple so I decided to go along with that, but I also wanted to combine it with a recipe that I found at King Arthur Flour for a sandwich rye bread. The resulting recipe listed below is really just combination of the two recipes.
Basic Sandwich Rye Bread
1 1/2 cups water
4 1/4 cups bread flour
2/3 cup rye flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon caraway seeds (optional)
To use with the Zojirushi breadmaker, measure and combine the ingredients into the baking pan in this order: water, bread flour, rye flour, sugar, salt, Dijon mustard and butter. Make a depression in the middle of the flour and place the yeast in the depression. Make sure the yeast does not touch any of the liquid. If the dry yeast contacts water the results from the breadmaker may not be ideal. Insert the baking pan into the unit and close the lid. To select the desired course, press the SELECT COURSE button to set the arrow to the BASIC WHEAT. Press the start button and allow the breadmaker to proceed through the cycles of preheating, kneading, rising and then baking. If you are using the caraway seeds, when it is time to add the ingredients such is the seeds, the breadmaker will beep for 30 seconds and ADD will flash in the display. Open the lid to the breadmaker and add the appropriate ingredients. Allow the machine to proceed through the baking cycle and carefully remove the baking pan when the machine has indicated that the baking process is complete. Remove the bread from the baking pan and allow it to cool.
Granted, this particular recipe is designed for the specific Zojirushi breadmaker that I am using, but I think it could be adapted to fit with other breadmakers. The breadmaker takes 3 hours and 40 minutes to complete everything for this particular recipe. In the end, the result of the recipe was very tasty. The bread had a nice crust and crunch to it on the outside while the inner layer of the bread was done perfectly. I used this for my sandwiches pretty much all week long and have made it again since that initial recipe because I like the result so much. It certainly does provide a savings considering what the cost of a typical rye bread is here at the local stores. One loaf seem to last for me about 7 to 10 days so I think we certainly got a lot out of it. I did not add the caraway seeds to mine though I do like to have rye bread that way on occasion and I am sure it would taste just fine. I enjoyed the bread with chicken salad and tuna salad but anything you want to use the bread for would be perfect. You could also adapt this recipe to make it without a breadmaker. If you are interested in that particular method, here is the link to the original recipe at King Arthur Flour.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
I am finally getting around to finding some time to blog about some of the things that I got as gifts this past holiday season. I know it might seem a little late for something like that, but one of the things I received is a breadmaker. The breadmaker is something that I have talked about getting for a long time since we do seem to go through quite a bit of bread in this house and I do not know about where you live, but here the price of bread can get quite expensive. Even just for a regular loaf of rye bread it can cost over $3. I came to the conclusion that I could make a good quality bread right at home on my own for less money, but if I had to spend all of the time doing all the work it would really cut into my day and maybe it would not be worth it. That is why the breadmaker seemed like a good investment. I looked around at various models before I finally decided to add to my Amazon wish list the Zojirushi breadmaker. I really like the model that had the ability to make a larger loaf of bread and a more traditional horizontal loaf, unlike other makers that make a vertical loaf with a big hole in where the kneading takes place. That is why I chose the model that I got and here is my quick review of what it has to offer.
The Zojirushi BB-CEC20 model has everything I could hope for in a bread machine. To start off with, it was packed better than most any other small appliance that I have ever come across. There were all kinds of protection for the machine on top, around and on the bottom of the box. The machine is quite heavy itself so I needed to be careful with it when I took it out of the box and decided to place it on the butcher block kitchen cart that we have as its best location. The breadmaker comes with an instructional DVD that takes you through the basics of how to use the machine, all of its parts, how to set it up properly and a couple of the basic recipes. The DVD is pretty short and does not really provide you with that much more information than what you would get out of just reading the operating instructions book that comes with it. The operation instructions cover everything that you would need to know and give you several different recipes that you can use for all kinds of basic breads. It covers everything from white bread, rye bread, whole wheat bread, cinnamon raisin bread and more. It also gives recipes for some basic dough so that you can make pizza dough, pretzels, rolls, croissants or other types of bread that you want to form into different shapes such as baguettes, ciabatta and the like. You could also do some basic pound cake recipes or quick breads like banana bread or zucchini bread. There are even recipes for sourdough starters and a homemade course cycle which allows you to program each of the cycles to adapt better to your particular bread recipes.
Now on to the basics of the machine itself. I really liked how simple it is to put everything together and the baking pan that is inside the machine has a nice nonstick coating on the inside to help you easily remove breads that you have baked or even doughs that have just been kneaded. The machine also comes with a 1 cup measure and a tablespoon/teaspoon for you to use for your measurements. The actual use of the machine could not be much easier than it is. I started off with the first recipe that I tried using the basic white bread recipe that comes in the manual. The basic white bread recipe is also posted right on the side of the machine so you do not always have to have access to the manual if you just wanted to make a simple sandwich bread. All you needed to do was put the ingredients right in, although they do need to be placed in a specific order in order to guarantee proper mixing and rising (water, flour, sugar, salt, dry milk, butter and then yeast in the center of the flour). I then plugged the machine in, and you get your choice of choosing not just what type of course you would like to make, whether it is a basic bread or a quick bread (you can use rapid rise yeast for the quick cycle) but you can also choose what type of crusty want for your bread, choosing light, medium or dark. Once you have selected that it is just a matter of pressing the start button and letting machine do its thing. The basic white bread recipe takes 3 hours and 45 minutes to do all the mixing, kneading, rising and baking. Once the bread is complete the machine beeps to let you know that it is finished. You can just pop open the lid and take the baking pan out, though you want to remember to use oven mitts while you are removing the baking pan as it will be quite hot. Because the baking pan is nonstick you do not have to struggle to try to get the loaf out of the pan. I also like the fact that the kneading paddles are small so it does not leave a giant hole in the bottom of your loaf of bread from where the dough was resting. The kneading paddles are also very sturdy and do a great job throughout the process. The final product was excellent and even though I am not a big fan of plain white bread, I have to admit that the bread came out quite nice and had a really good crunch to it. We have made several loaves of white bread since the Christmas holiday and Sean takes some for a sandwich for lunch just about every day to school. I would definitely recommend this particular breadmaker over the others that you find on the market today. Though the price can be a lot more, with this model costing nearly $250, it is certainly worth the investment and will pay for itself over the long-term if you use it regularly. Zojirushi also has a number of recipes posted right on their website that are not in the manual that you can try out. I have included a couple of pictures of the machine along with a picture of some of the white bread that we made recently. Tomorrow I will post the rye bread recipe that I used to make some tasty rye bread.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
One of my favorite snacks since I was a kid has always been the hot pretzels we used to get of the streets of New York City or when we went to the ballpark. I can remember going to Shea Stadium and getting a hot pretzel that was made over hot coals in the shopping cart from one of the vendors outside of the stadium. Sure they were a little bit burnt but the smell and the flavor is something that stayed with me and I really enjoyed it. I have made pretzels at home before and while they have not been able to replicate that shopping cart experience, they have been pretty good. With the Super Bowl this past weekend, I was looking for a snack that we could make that would go well with the game and I came across this recipe at King Arthur Flour for a very simple pretzel bite that takes no time at all to put together. I actually did most of the work in my new bread machine, which I will write more about tomorrow and in the coming days with recipes that I have tried in there.
Homemade Pretzel Bites
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
7/8 to 1 cup warm water
1 cup boiling water
2 tablespoons baking soda
Coarse, kosher or pretzel salt
6 tablespoons butter, melted
To make the dough by hand, or with a mixer: Place the all-purpose flour, salt, sugar, yeast and warm water into a bowl, and beat until the ingredients are well combined. Knead the dough, by hand or machine, for about 5 minutes, until it is soft, smooth, and quite slack. Flour the dough in place it in a bag and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
To make the dough with a bread machine, place the all-purpose flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and warm water into the pan of your bread machine. Program the machine for a basic dough and press Start. Allow the dough to proceed through its kneading cycle (there is no need to allow the dough to rise), then cancel the machine, flour the dough, and give it a rest in a plastic bag, as instructed above, for 30 minutes.
While the dough is resting, prepare the topping. Combine the boiling water and baking soda, stirring until the baking soda is totally or almost totally dissolved. Set the mixture aside to cool until it is lukewarm. Preheat the oven to 400°. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with vegetable oil or nonstick cooking spray, or by lining the pan with parchment paper.
Transfer the pretzel dough to a lightly greased work surface, and divide it into 6 equal pieces. Roll the 6 pieces of dough into 12 inch to 15 inch long ropes. Cut each rope crosswise into about 12 pieces. Pour the cooled baking soda solution into a pan large enough to hold the pretzel bite dough pieces. Place the bites into the solution, gently swish them around, and leave them there for about 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the bites to the greased or parchment lined baking sheet, and topped them with pretzel salt, coarse salt or kosher salt. Bake the bites in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until they are golden brown. Remove the bites from the oven, and roll them in melted butter. Place the pretzel bites on a rack to cool slightly. If you are not going to eat them immediately store them in an airtight container until you are ready to serve them.
The process was really easy using the bread machine, but it does not seem like it would be much harder if you did this by hand or with a mixer. The pretzels turned out perfectly with a really nice chew to them and they had that golden crunchy outside that you like to have in a pretzel. You could easily leave off the salt if you did not want them salted or substitute something like cinnamon-sugar or just plain sugar if you prefer to have a sweeter pretzel. The total time did not take that long, only a little bit more than an hour or so, so you can put these together for just about any type of occasion, party, buffet or snack that you might feel like having. I know I will be making them again pretty soon.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, and enjoy your meal!
If it were up to me, I could pretty much eat sandwiches all of the time and probably every day. They’re great for breakfast, lunch or dinner and very often we will have different variations of sandwiches for dinner during the week to make things a little bit easier to fit into our crazy schedules. Chicken sandwiches are always a personal favorite and there are a lot of different things you can do with them. Sean really liked the fried chicken sandwiches I have made in the past and I have done them on biscuits before, but when I came across this particular recipe at Chow.com, it seemed like a really easy one to do and it made use of the boneless chicken thighs that I already had on hand. The recipe makes both the biscuits and the chicken and both are really simple to do so that you can have in easy meal just about any night of the week.
Fried Chicken Biscuit Sandwiches
For the biscuits:
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup cold butter (1 stick), cut into 12 pieces
1 cup cold buttermilk
For the fried chicken:
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Kosher salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup buttermilk
Vegetable oil or canola oil
To serve:
Sliced dill pickles
Hot sauce
Honey (optional)
For the biscuits, preheat the oven to 425° and arrange a rack in the middle of the oven. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a food processor, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pulse to combine the mixture. Scatter the butter pieces over the top of the flour mixture and pulse until the butter is pea-sized. Add the buttermilk and pulse the mixture just until a moist, shaggy dough comes together.
Alternatively, in a mixing bowl, the whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Scatter the butter pieces over the top of the flour mixture and toss to coat them in the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender, and working quickly, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it is pea-sized. Drizzle in the buttermilk and stir the mixture just until he moist, shaggy dough comes together.
Dust a work surface with flour. Scrape the dough onto the surface and dust the top with more flour. With floured hands, pat the dough into a circle 1-inch thick. Using a 3 1/2-inch round (or fluted) cutter dipped in flour, cut out as many biscuits as possible. Press straight down through the dough — do not twist the cutter, or the biscuits will not rise properly.
Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them at least 1-inch apart. Gather the scraps into a ball, pat it into a 1-inch-thick circle, and cut out more biscuits. Repeat as needed until you have 6 biscuits in total. Bake until the biscuits are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Set the biscuits aside to cool on a wire rack.
For the fried chicken, arrange the chicken in a shallow baking dish and sprinkle it all over with salt; set the chicken aside at room temperature. In a shallow bowl, stir together the flour, paprika, cayenne pepper (if using), and thyme. Pour the buttermilk over the chicken and toss the chicken to coat it well. Add the vegetable or canola oil to a large, straight-sided cast-iron skillet or frying pan. The oil should be 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep, reaching slightly less than halfway up the sides of the pan. Warm the oil over medium heat until it reaches 340° on a candy thermometer. When the oil is ready, lift a piece of chicken from the buttermilk, letting the excess drip off, then dip the chicken into the flour mixture, coating it completely. Shake off any of the excess flour. Fry the chicken until it is cooked through and golden brown, turning the pieces halfway through the cooking process, about 6 to 8 minutes in total. The interior of the chicken should register 155° on an instant-read thermometer when you remove the chicken from the oil; the temperature will rise to 165° as the chicken rests. Drain the chicken on a paper towel-lined plate.
To serve, split the biscuits and place a piece of the fried chicken on the bottom half of each biscuit. Add dill pickles, hot sauce, and the optional honey, or any other condiments you may like, cover the chicken with the biscuit top, and serve.
There is nothing quite like having a piece of fried chicken, and having it on a flaky, moist buttermilk biscuit just seems to make it even better. I always add pickles to my chicken biscuits and they go really well with coleslaw either on the side or right on the biscuit itself with the chicken. Adding a little hot sauce to the mix also can kick it up just a bit if you like that kind of flavor, though the honey is also a nice touch and Sean did add some honey to the top of his piece of chicken and he said it went really well with the biscuit. You can serve these pretty simply with coleslaw or potato salad or any other type of salad you might like, or even some homemade or store-bought French fries if you prefer. Overall I think it is a great sandwich you could even do for a buffet or a party if you are all getting together to watch the game or hang out.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, try to stay warm (it is about 4° here in New York without the wind, and with the wind it is about 15 below), and enjoy your meal!
Fun, unusual and forgotten designations on our calendar.
Happily Ever After Lives Here
a little bit naughty a little bit nice
Letting Life Lead
Simple and delicious dinner inspiration
onedadskitchen 