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• Fool­proof Pastry
• Scram­bled Eggs
• Cheese Souf­fle
• The Stove-Top Anna
• Upside-Down Apple Tart
• Split Pea Soup

Fool­proof Pastry

Now, hav­ing tried Child’s pte brise recipe from her lat­est book, The Way To Cook (Knopf), it will be pie crust done in the food proces­sor for me. Here’s my vari­a­tion on Child’s recipe, which makes enough dough for a two-crust pie:

Place 2 cups of all-purpose flour in food proces­sor. (Child uses cake and pas­try flour for ¹⁄₂ cup of this; I don’t think it’s nec­es­sary.) Add 6 ounces (³⁄₄ cup) of diced chilled but­ter and 2 table­spoons sugar. Pulse 5 to 6 times to break up but­ter roughly. Add 2 ounces (¹⁄₄ cup) of chilled veg­etable short­en­ing. Turn on machine; imme­di­ately add ¹⁄₂ cup iced water. Pulse 2 or 3 times.

Form dough into ball, wrap in plas­tic wrap and chill 2 hours. (I didn’t do this but it does make dough eas­ier to han­dle.) Roll out on floured board, han­dling as lit­tle as possible.

I used a com­bi­na­tion of North­ern Spy and McIn­tosh apples for my fill­ing (4 to 5 medium apples) tossed with 1 tea­spoon ground cin­na­mon and about ¹⁄₄ cup sugar. Brush top of pie with an egg mixed with a lit­tle milk, cut three slits in the mid­dle and bake about 50 min­utes at 350F. Serve warm with a scoop of top qual­ity vanilla ice cream.

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Julia’s Scram­bled Eggs

Per­fect scram­bled eggs are ten­der and creamy, really a kind of bro­ken custard.

The only secret is to do them slowly over low heat, so that the eggs coag­u­late into soft curds.
You don’t want the eggs too deep in the pan or they will take too long to cook, and if there is too shal­low a layer they will cook too quickly.

A one-inch layer is easy to han­dle and a non-sti ck pan is cer­tainly my choice: the 10-inch size does nicely for 6 to 8 eggs.

Plain scram­bled eggs are lovely for break­fast but chopped green herbs are always an attrac­tive addi­tion, espe­cially pars­ley, chives or tar­ragon; add them along with the sea­son­ings as you beat the eggs before scram­bling them.

8 eggs
Salt and freshly ground pep­per
1 tbsp or more but­ter
1 tbsp or more heavy cream (optional)
3 or 4 tbsp chopped fresh herbs: pars­ley, or pars­ley and chives, chervil, tar­ragon or dill (optional)

Break eggs into medium bowl, adding salt and pep­per to taste; beat just to blend yolks and whites.

Set fry­ing pan over mod­er­ately low heat; add enough but­ter to film bot­tom and sides.
Pour in all but 2 table­spoons of beaten eggs.

Slowly scrape bot­tom of pan from edges toward cen­tre with spat­ula, con­tin­u­ing slowly as eggs grad­u­ally coagulate.

It will take them a minute or so to start thick­en­ing; don’t rush them.

In 2 to 3 min­utes, eggs will have thick­ened into a  lumpy cus­tard; cook a few sec­onds more if they are too soft for your taste.

Fold in  reserved 2 table­spoons of beaten egg.

Adjust sea­son­ing; fold in but­ter, cream and herbs, if using.

Serve at once on warm (not hot) plates.

Accom­pany with, for instance, bacon or sausage or ham, broiled toma­toes and but­tered toast wedges.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

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Julia’s Cheese Souffle

There are ver­sions of this sweet and sim­ple dish – a Child trade­mark — in almost all of her many cook­books includ­ing my favourite: The Way To Cook (Knopf; $59.95).  I recently saw her demon­strate it on Emeril Live! — the hugely pop­u­lar TV show hosted by her buddy, the irre­press­ible Emeril Lagasse. Inex­plic­a­bly, the souf­fle flopped on that occa­sion but it should work if you fol­low this recipe. With a tossed salad and hunks of crusty baguette, it makes a lovely light lunch or sup­per. I didn’t bother mak­ing a col­lar for the bak­ing dish, which makes for an ele­gant pre­sen­ta­tion as described by Child, but it looked and tasted great. You’ll need a 6-cup souf­flé dish or straight-sided bak­ing dish.

About 1 tbsp soft­ened but­ter
2 tbsp finely, freshly grated parme­san cheese
2½ tbsp but­ter
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup hot milk
¼ tsp paprika
A pinch of grated nut­meg
½ tsp salt
Pinch of ground white pep­per
4 egg yolks
5 egg whites
1 cup (about 4 oz/125 g) coarsely grated gruyere cheese

Pre­heat oven to 400F.

Grease bot­tom and sides of bak­ing dish with soft­ened but­ter. Sprin­kle on grated parme­san, turn­ing dish so cheese adheres to its sides and bottom.

In medium saucepan, melt 2½ tbsp but­ter over medium-low heat. Add flour and cook, whisk­ing, until mix­ture foams, about 2 min. Remove from heat. Whisk in hot milk. Return to heat, bring to boil, reduce heat and sim­mer 1 to 2 min. or until thick­ened. Remove from heat; stir in paprika, nut­meg, salt and pep­per. Stir in egg yolks, one at a time, until combined.

Using man­ual or hand-held elec­tric mixer, in medium glass bowl, beat egg whites until stiff and glossy. Whisk about a quar­ter of them into sauce in saucepan, then del­i­cately fold in remain­der alter­nately with grated gruyere. Care­fully turn mix­ture into pre­pared bak­ing dish.

Reduce oven tem­per­a­ture to 375F. Bake souf­flé 25 to 30 min. or until puffed and nicely browned. It will fall slightly as it cools. To serve, hold serv­ing spoon and fork upright and back to back in mid­dle of souf­flé and pull it apart.

Makes 4 servings.

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The Stove-Top Anna

The fol­low­ing recipe from The Way To Cook (Knopf; $59.95) comes with this intro: “This is a frying-pan take-off on the famous Pota­toes Anna, in which a mould of sliced pota­toes is baked in a hot oven and then unmoulded like a cake.”

As Julia would say: “Bon appetit!”

Child sug­gests adding a layer of about 4 oz/125 g sliced gruyere cheese. Potato slices should be about ¼-inch/5 mm thick.

2½ lb/ … kg thinly sliced peeled pota­toes (about 10 cups)
3 to 4 tbsp each: but­ter and olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pep­per
Freshly grated nutmeg

Place sliced pota­toes in large bowl of cold water. Drain; wrap in tea– or paper towels.

Melt but­ter with olive oil in microwave or on stove in small saucepan. Add about half of mix­ture to 10-inch/23 cm non-stick skil­let so it forms a layer about ¼-inch/5-mm thick. Cook over medium heat and, work­ing quickly, arrange over­lap­ping layer of pota­toes in skil­let start­ing at outer edge, shak­ing from time to time to pre­vent stick­ing. Brush layer lib­er­ally with butter/oil mix­ture; sprin­kle lightly with salt and pep­per. Repeat lay­ers, adding a lit­tle nut­meg to mid­dle layer. Shake skil­let gen­tly; cook 3 to 5 min­utes over medium-high heat to ensure bot­tom is crusting.

Cover skil­let; cook over low heat 40 to 45 min­utes or until pota­toes are soft. (Keep an eye on heat to make sure bot­tom crust does not burn.)

To serve, run spat­ula around edge and under­neath pota­toes. Unmould on to large, warmed serv­ing dish.

Makes about 6 servings.

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