Saturdays with Sophie ... Episode 6

Yet another quickie from Sophie's kitchen, and not only did I do it today but I actually thought to bring the camera with me! So I have actual documentary proof that it happened. (Although I've had to jump through hoops to get Firefox to allow me to upload it.)

Whatever, simple as hell - côtes de veau, asparagus (probably the last of the season, I'm afraid) and pommes de terre nouvelles. For this you will need - at least - some veal chops, not too thick. They'll probably wind up as côtes de veau milanais, but I can't be arsed to go off and check in my Larousse Gastronomique so you'll just have to take my word for it.

The veal chops are easy. Flour the little suckers and set them aside for a few minutes so that the flour coating goes a bit tacky (this means that everything else will adhere well); while that's happening beat up an egg with a bit of milk in a large plate. Now mix up some dried breadcrumbs with grated parmesan. (Or if, like Sophie, you don't happen to have any right now, just bog-standard grated cheese. It'll turn out fine either way.) Add some thyme or rosemary if you like.

Dip both sides of the floured chops in the egg, then on top of the pile of cheesy breadcrumbs and press so that they get a good coating on each side. During this step you can't drink as your fingertips are - if you're doing this correctly - covered with sticky eggy breadcrumbs. Even if you use a fork. But it shouldn't take more than five minutes, you should be able to hold out for that long. Stick 'em on a plate, they're not going anywhere.

Now it's time for les asperges - the asparagus. Little tender green ones, please, the great fat white mutant monsters have no place here. Snap them into one or two-inch lengths and put them in a frying pan - when they're all in, add some shallots or chives or whatever else takes your fancy, a bit of salt, a tsp of sugar and half an inch of water. They are not going to take long to cook, so put them aside too and enjoy another glass.

Incidentally, green asparagus were unknown in France until the last ten years or so. I remember being sent off to San Francisco about twenty-five years back and having lunch with Anne Rousseau, the sexy, blonde (and very Parisienne) secretary of my (soon-to-be) French boss, and ordering asparagus. When these green spears turned up on our plates she was absolutely aghast - "But Trévor, what are these? I ordered asperges!". I also remember arriving in France and trying to cook the albino abominations as though they were tender green shoots ie without peeling them (never having come across them before): one of my major culinary disasters. Tough and bitter as all hell.

Whatever, Sophie had laid her hands upon some freshly-killed new potatoes, which she'd sliced into smallish slices (think around half an inch), stuck into a frying-pan to brown in olive oil and butter (yes, salted!), then turned the heat down low, added some garlic and a sprig of thyme, covered, and let cook slowly for half an hour or so. While that was going on ... yes, I know, we must be borderline alcoholics.

OK, we are now good to go - assuming, of course, that the next bottle of wine is open, the bread's on the table, salad's ready ... honestly, do I have to think of everything?

Around here it gets a bit complicated, because you're going to have to do two things at once. Women have, apparently, been doing this for years, so it can't be too difficult.

First up, the asparagus. Put them on full-tit: what we're trying to do here is reduce the water and sugar to a syrup, which we'll later transform into an emulsion by adding a large knob of butter and boiling hell out of it.


I just hope you have another frying pan - sorry I didn't mention it before - because you'll need it. Heat it up good and hot, add some butter and olive oil, and when it's bubbling nice and energetically, slap the chops in. Depending on how many you're cooking and the size of your pan you may, evidently, have to do this in a couple of batches.

The veal will take about five minutes a side to cook, with the cheese melting into the breadcrumbs and the breadcrumbs crisping. When it's time to flip it over, it's probably time to add the cholesterol to the asparagus. (To my dismay, Sophie actually has some sort of "butter substitute" in her fridge, do NOT use that. It's really, really gross. But she also had some real butter, thank god.)

A few minutes later the asparagus will be done: you'll have a nice water/butter emulsion coating them (with caramel flavours from the sugar). The veal too should be crispy on both sides and nicely pink in the middle, and the potatoes (which I bet you forgot about) will be tender and aromatic.

I'm sorry to say that a bottle of rosé (Costière de Nîmes, if you're worried) died to bring you this meal. But it died happy and fulfilled.

Incidentally, I've never had any problems with using a slice of baguette to mop up the juices from a roast bit of lamb directly from the big Copco cast-iron skillet I usually cook it in. More traditionally, given that New Zealanders don't (or at least didn't, when I was growing up) have bread on the table at dinner, you'd take one of the roast potatoes that got cooked with the lamb, split it and stuff the slit with butter, then mash the potato into the juice with your fork and eat it from the dish. We don't have much left-over lamb jus around this house. I can't see the problem.

Whatever, I'd better go make chili con carne for brat n° 2.