Channeling our inner Julia Child

My friend Kari gave me a copy of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" last week and we thought we would finally put her recipes to test. I'm sure the recipes are fine, but I have never cooked anything from Julia Child before and the mere thought of it had always left me feeling nervous and intimidated. When Shunsuke saw my copy of the cookbook on the countertop, he loudly asked if I can do this. It is about a thousand pages of instructions with very little pictures. I initially thought it would be so difficult because I don't have a visual of how the dish should end up looking like. But, since I have an extra pair of hands and another brain to toss ideas around, Kari and I faced our fears and attempted to make a meal from Julia Child's cookbook.

Kari was nice to host the dinner at her place. The pictures were taken in her lovely kitchen. On the menu that evening was: fish poached in white wine, sauté vegetables, potato gratin and grand marnier soufflé. We also made a salad to start though it wasn't from Julia's book.

To start, Kari made a beet and pear salad. She roasted the beets in the oven for about an hour and shredded them along with pears. A light vinaigrette to toss the simple salad and topped with slivered almonds and some blue cheese. Big Yum!

Kari cutting the potatoes using a mandolin for our potato gratin.

Finished gratin. Julia Child uses eggs in her gratin which I thought was quite different. It gave the dish a very nice and soft spongy texture. Definitely different from the typical ones with béchamel sauce which tends to be heavier. 

White wine poached fish. It was very simple to make. All you need was fish (we used cod) white wine, water, butter (of course) and shallots. I understand that this may be the traditional French way of poaching fish, but I thought it didn't do much for the fish. The fish had very little flavor and tasted bland. I will make this recipe again with a few alterations, using some herbs and stock to flavor the fish. 

Saute Vegetables- Julienned carrots, fennel, zucchini and yellow squash. The fennel adds a light licorice flavor to the vegetables.

Finished dish. We plated it the best we could. 

Although the fish was a disappointment, the Grand Marnier soufflé was definitely the highlight of the meal. It was light, fluffy and delicious. I have to say that this recipe was much easier than the other soufflé recipes I've tried. It was so good. I'm still dreaming about it.

When I first started cooking this meal with Kari, I thought I would never use Julia Child's cookbook again. The book didn't have pictures of the dishes we are making and the style of which the recipes were written was very different, making it a little harder to follow. But, having made that soufflé and seeing how well it turned out, I changed my tune. It is not as difficult as I thought and I would try more recipes in the future. You just have to get used to her style of writing. Yes, and  I also have to make sure I stock my fridge with butter. Tons of butter because it ain't a Julia Child's recipe if you don't have at least half a stick of butter in there!

Thank you Kari for the book and for hosting the dinner party. It was very fun! Bon Appetit!