Tournedos Sautes Aux Champignons Tournedos Sautes Chasseur

Fancy title for Filet Steaks with Mushroom and Madeira Sauce

  

According to Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cookbook, "a handsome presenation for these steaks would be a platter decorated with whole baked tomatoes, artichoke hearts cooked in butter, and potato balls sauteed in butter," but I'm just going to add blanched greend beans and scalloped potatoes (learned from betty's cooking from youtube-- apparently a multi-generation family recipe).  

Super easy to make: These potatoes were presoaked in salt bath to remove some starch load and makes for more biteable (vs. mushy) texture.  Made by layers in a casserole bake pan- potatoes, frozen butter cubes (distrbutes evenly and easier to handle), minced garlic (optional), dash of sea salt, bits of fresh parsley and powdered with all-purpose flour.  Layer after layer, then soak in milk bath.  Bake at 375 F for 1.5 hrs.  Added white pepper powder for a slight kick taste.

 

I liked the sauce for this dish.  Needs a good watch over the timing.  Multi-step process. 1. Butter + oil in thick pan to sear steaks (5 minutes each side on med-high heat).  2. Remove steaks, quickly add salt/pepper, then we'll use the remaining oil in pan.  3. Add 1/2 cup of beef broth + 1 tbs tomato paste.  High heat until left with gooey paste (3 tbs). 4. Add 3/4 cup Madeira wine + 1/2 tbs arrowroot or cornstarch (I just used potato starch).  Heat up high 1 minute to remove alcohol.  6. Add in sauteed mushrooms.  7. Pour over steaks. 

To quickly dry salt waterdunked potato, lined them up on clean towel, then folded up the towerl horizontally. Much faster than traditional paper towel method for every few potatoes.

 

These button mushrooms looked cute today, so they're included here.

Slice of Apple Pah-Aiiii

Taking a dive into the Joy of Cooking!  Recently got this book as a bday gift and thought it could use some sprinkle of flour and other fun ingredients on the pages.  As with almost every thing here, here's a first attempt at making a pie.

Very simple stuff going in: main ingredients + sugar + cinnamon + salt.  I like to dunk the apple slices in mild salt water to avoid getting knife marks. 

Pie crust (flour+pinch of salt.  add bits of frozen unsalted butter + chilled veggie shortening for equal distribution.  Simplified: I used a food processor hitting low, pause, low, pause... until we get a crumbly cornmeal texture.  Also an easy way to avoid hanging/breaking dough when inserting the dough into pie pan/dish is rolling up the dough and unrolling as you pass over the dish. 

For a juicier filling, precook apples (~6 apples) in covered high heat until you can smell its natural fragrance (~5-7 minutes), then add in sugar (3/4 cup), sea salt (1 tsp), cinnamon (1 tbs) and heat for 3 minutes, then quickly pour over baking sheet to cool at room temperature.  Apple texture should be soft with shapes still retained.  Green granny apples give it a nice tart kick.