As usual, lunch with Sophie again: I decided to have another go at my mille-feuille au trois fromages again (just to make sure that it was as good as I thought) and, somewhat to my surprise, it was. Provided you like cheese, anyway. It's a simple but relatively elegant dish which doesn't take much time, and the only exotic ingredient is the batusson. I suppose you could use cottage cheese beaten up with herbs to replace that, but as cottage cheese is rather exotic around here I can't say with any certainty.
In any case, all you need to do is stack up some phyllo sheets: paint one with melted butter, sprinkle with paprika, herbes de Provence and a bit of gros sel, put another sheet on top of that and repeat the performance ... four or five sheets should do the trick. Cut this into three rectangles and pop them into a hot oven for about ten minutes, until they go nicely crispy. While that's going on, chop a small red bell pepper and fry that up in butter till it goes soft, then stir it into about 200gm of batusson.
And when the pastry's ready, put one rectangle onto a serving dish (one that can go into the oven, please) and carefully spread the batusson over it: put the second sheet on top and cover with sliced mozzarella, then put the last sheet on top of that and sprinkle liberally with parmesan and a bit more paprika. Put the whole thing back in the oven for five or ten minutes to heat everything through before taking it out and eating it. It is a bit rich: makes a good light lunch in itself, or a flash entrée for dinner.
Anyway, I promised you filet de porc normande, amongst other things, so here goes.
First of all, a warning: you will need some white wine for this one, so get a couple of bottles in just to be sure. It also does need to be flambé, so make sure you have some calva to hand - or failing that, some whisky. Good stuff, not the bottle you keep for uninvited guests.
To begin, you'll need a pork fillet or two. Around 700 gm should be fine for four. Now take a sharp knife (is there any other kind?) and pare off all the sinew and any fatty bits around the meat. There's what's called the "chain", which is a very thin strip of meat attached to the actual fillet: you may or may not be able to get some meat out of that as well, if not the dog'll love it.
Now you need to cut the meat into half-inch slices against the grain this is important, to ensure that it's tender) and then cut the slices into strips. Once that's done, you should have a large pile of pork strips, which is good. Put them in a bowl (or, even better, a plastic tub with a lid) and contemplate them while you check out the wine. Personally, I'd go for something not too dry - a reisling would probably be good. And don't worry about authenticity - it's not as though they actually make wine in Normandy. (You could, I suppose, use cider. But that wouldn't be as much fun.)
Okay, now you need to flour the meat. This is why a plastic tub with a lid is a good idea: you put the meat in, add a quarter-cup of flour, some salt and herbs of choice, then put the lid on and shake it all about so that each strip of piggy-meat is nicely floured. You can do it in a bowl, with a fork, but it's harder and messier.
From here on it's remarkably easy. Heat some butter in a pan along with a bit of oil (so the butter doesn't burn) until sizzling, then fling the meat in and stir constantly until nicely browned on all sides. When it gets to that point would be a good time to add a quarter-cup of alcohol, wait 30 seconds and set fire to it. Do not hover over it whilst doing this, unless you feel you'd look better without eyebrows. Which is, I suppose, perfectly valid as a fashion statement, even if it does make you look like a prat.
Once the flames have been extinguished, add a half-bottle of white, turn the heat down low, and let the mess simmer. You have about half an hour during which you've nowt to do but stir it occasionally: you could profitably use this time finishing off the first bottle of white, opening the second, and getting whatever it is you plan on eating with it ready. Traditionally, that'd be buttered noodles, and I must admit that I can live with that. The other possibility is plain rice, but the noodles are better. You could also get a salad ready, and maybe fry up some apple slices in butter and finish them off with a dusting of sugar so that they caramelise.
I said to open a second bottle because you may, during that half-hour or so of cooking, need to top up the level in the pan, let alone your glass. You will also need to get some button mushrooms ready: this may involve opening a tin of them or, if you feel that way inclined, slicing and frying up some fresh ones. Either way, now would be a good time to sling them into the pan with the pork, which should be bathing in a fairly thick wine'n'herb sauce by now. We'll do something about that too, which is as simple as stirring in about 20cl of thick cream (they don't call this "normand" for nothing, you know).
Turn the heat up a bit and stir well until the whole mess thickens nicely again, at which point you could arrange the caramelised apple slices on top (these are optional, but I rather like them. Margo won't eat fruit with her meat, so she misses out.) and dust the whole lot with chopped parsley before serving. Don't forget the noodles. With lashings of butter, please.
The other thing I promised was clafouti. Way back when this was a simple peasant treat: fruit in some mangy batter, cooked in the oven. Everyone agrees that the original comes from the Auvergne, and that the fruit concerned has to be cherries. Unpitted. Personally I can't be having with that, and if I do make one with cherries I will in fact pit them first, mainly because I can't be arsed putting a spittoon next to every guest along with the dessert plates.
Of course, the original was just a thick pancake batter: egg, milk, and flour. We've evolved since then, and the recipe has forked (that's IT-speak for "has diverged in multiple directions") to produce some rather startling results. I have even seen clafouti, in an otherwise reputable patisserie, which was in a pastry case; this is an abomination. Not a good idea. I mean, just call it a flan and be done with it, why not? A lot of them tend to be rather stodgy, and I suppose there's nowt wrong with that if you like stodge, but we like this version, which is light and fluffy.
The other vexed question concerns the fruit. As I said, the original involves cherries and I must admit that it is delicious, but not everyone has a cherry tree close to hand (and anyway, the cherry season is short and it seems a shame to eat this only during a three-week period) nor a freezer full of cherries. Although bottled or tinned cherries work rather well. But in fact any firm fruit works well, and apricots exceptionally so. Or at least, that's the general opinion around here. And tinned apricots are, let's face it, easier - and cheaper - to get hold of than cherries.
First off, you will need to butter a large baking dish. I use one that's about 50cm x 25cm. It serves four, after everyone's taken seconds. Whatever, butter it, then sprinkle the butter with castor sugar and swirl that around a bit. It should caramelise during cooking, which is good.
Now it's time to make the actual batter, which is actually rather simple. Two cups of flour in a bowl with maybe a 1/4 cup of sugar, some cinnamon (which is not at all traditional but I like it), maybe some orange-flower water or a drop of lemon essence, and three egg yolks. Use a balloon whisk to mix all that together and add milk, whisking all the time, until you get something a bit thicker than thick cream, then whisk in about 50gm of butter, softened and cut into small chunks. Set that aside and turn your attention to the three egg whites (which I hope you didn't chuck, that'd be a waste): beat them well until you get, as they say, "stiff peaks", which just means that when you pull the beater out the beaten whites form a peak which doesn't slump sadly back into the mass. At which point add 1/4 cup of caster sugar and beat that in too.
I hope you can remember how to put a soufflé batter together, because that's what you have to do now. Scoop about a third of the whites into the batter and stir in with a rubber spatula until well mixed, then pour the result onto the rest of the whites and incorporate gently. You don't want enormous lumps of beaten white sitting sullenly around, but neither do you want to get rid of all those lovely microscopic air bubbles trapped in there which are going to make it rise when cooked.
Having got this far, open a 500gm tin of apricot halves or, in season, halve some fresh apricots. Note that if you're using fresh one you may need to sprinkle a little extra sugar over them when they go in, 'cos the little buggers can be acid: if you're using tinned ones, do try not to cut your wrists on the sharp edges. Anyway, pour half the batter into the buttered baking dish, arrange as many apricots as you think necessary on top, then pour the rest of the batter over and smooth it out a bit. At this point you can stick it into the fridge if required; it'll sit there happily for an hour or two without deflating.
Whatever, when the time comes to cook it, stick it in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, until it's starting to set and the top is going golden. It should also have risen rather nicely by then. So now take it out of the oven, sprinkle heavily with icing sugar, and put it back in for another five minutes. Then remove and serve to general applause.
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