This story originally appeared in The Orange County Register.

The homely russet potato is not much to look at — especially when you compare it to the swirling architectural beauty of a head of Romanesco broccoli, or the seductive lipstick-red of a radish. But the russet’s allure lies beneath its skin: a creamy, unblemished flesh so versatile, it can transform into a bevy of appetizing eats using just about any cooking method invented.

Yes, these grubby little tubers clean up real nice.

One of my favorite russet makeovers is the galette, where potatoes take a cue from the Romanesco’s structural swirl. To make a galette, potatoes are cut into thin slices, then arranged in an overlapping spiral to form a circular tart. Between potato layers, you can use your imagination to add aromatics, herbs and cheese to flavor. I love the combination of onions, garlic and rosemary — it’s a fragrant classic that never disappoints in a potato dish. This combo also works well if you plan to serve the galette with meaty main courses like beef and lamb.

Now, it’s true that traditional galettes are prepared with a pastry crust, but this isn’t necessary when you’re using russet potatoes. When the galette is baked, the potato slices act as both crust and filling — the top and bottom layers crisp and brown into a crust all its own, while the galette’s center remains pillowy and light. After baking, the galette is inverted to showcase a smooth, even surface of golden potato goodness. (And I promise, inverting it is a lot easier than you may think.)

There are a few methods for making a potato galette, but the breeziest is baking with a nonstick cookie sheet. The sheet acts as a blank, wide canvas for you to create your masterpiece, and the Teflon coating keeps individual potato slices from sticking to the sheet when you eventually flip the galette over onto a serving plate.

This is also a recipe where you can brush up your knife skills. Making thin, wispy potato slices may take a bit of patience if you’re a newbie, but the end result is well worth it. And don’t worry if your slices are uneven or slivered. You can arrange slices to mask these imperfections – but only if you want. In my experience, the flawed, rustic galettes are the best ones. (more…)

Every now and then I wish I could poke little children with spoons. Why? Because there are few things in this world that we like to see inflated. A soufflé is one of them. A bratty little puffy-cheeked child is not.

Somewhere in time, children learned that the way to personal satisfaction was to fold one’s arms, inflate your cheeks and take as deep a breath as your little lungs will allow. You’d hold your breath until you got your way, no matter what kaleidoscope color action was happening on your face. Often, there would be a pleading parent in the immediate vicinity. This is called the Face-Off, and it ends horribly each time — with either a passed-out toddler or a bruised adult ego.

Ego-wounded adults, this is where spoons come in. We know that poking any soufflé with a spoon results with its collapse almost upon contact. My clever mother knew that the only way to deflate me during these patience-trying times was to poke me — lightly, but firm — with a spoon (or a pointer finger, if a spoon was not available). This resulted in giggles, which signaled that I had started breathing again. Mom, 1, me, 0. The experiment concluded with positive results every single time.

Children and souffles weren’t meant to remain inflated for long periods of time; they have to depuff at some point. With both subjects,  a little prodding allows the depuffication to happen sooner rather than later. I hope this information is helpful to the moms and dads who suffer through the public tantrums of their children (like the family I ran into at the supermarket a few months ago).

(Click “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

(more…)

Being in a sour mood doesn’t always have to mean that you want to plant crossed arms in front of your chest or scrunch up your face and hold it there for as long as you can. Being in a sour mood can be a good thing.

Like when you’re in the mood for something sour, for example.

I for one am a big advocate for putting sour cream in quick breads like muffins, pancakes and coffee cake. Sour cream adds a moistness (fat! Yes!) and tang without even a mutter of its presence. If it’s added in the right quantity, you won’t even know it’s there. It’s ummph, and just because it’s pucker-worthy doesn’t mean it’s having a bad day.

(Click “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

(more…)

Hey all! Here’s my latest Food 101 column, published in The Orange County Register’s print edition today. It’s not on the OCR site, so I’ve placed it here. Enjoy!

Go for croque
By CYNTHIA FUREY
Special to the Register

Not many can resist the call of buttery, crunchy sandwiches oozing with Gruyère and piled with lacy slices of Black Forest ham – especially the ones that require a knife and fork. These lunchtime and brunch-time French staples, called croque-madame and croque-monsieur, are simple ham and cheese sandwiches with toppings to dress them up. A bonus: The sandwiches can easily be prepared at home, usually for a fraction of the cost that a single croque would fetch at any restaurant.

Croque-madame and croque-monsieur are toasted in the oven so the ham heats through and the cheese melts into a blanket of gooey bliss. Croque-madame has an egg on top, its yolk serving as a sauce. Ditch the egg and ladle on some Mornay sauce, and you have a croque-monsieur. Because there is little preparation time, you can make both croque versions without spending all afternoon over your stove.

Traditionally, croque-madame’s egg is served sunny side up, but an egg cooked over easy works just as nicely. Part of the fun of eating a croque-madame is piercing the yolk with a fork and watching it dribble over the sandwich and rest in a puddle underneath. The other fun part is sopping up the puddle with the sandwich bread.

For the croque-monsieur, you will be making a Mornay sauce, which is essentially a béchamel sauce with cheese added. A béchamel is a milk- or cream-based sauce. It’s considered one of the five classical “mother sauces” – the others are Espagnole, made with brown stock; velouté, white stock; hollandaise, butter; and tomato sauce. With the addition of other ingredients, hundreds of sauces are derived from these five.

Start the béchamel by making a blond roux, made of equal parts butter and flour. Heat this mixture until the flour’s starchy flavor cooks away, leaving behind a nutty smell and flavor and an ivory or off-white mixture. The roux will help thicken the sauce once the milk is added, and the little bit of Gruyère added at the end will transform the béchamel into a Mornay. Once the sauce is ladled onto the sandwich, an additional bit of cheese goes on top to give that gorgeous, bubbly look when the sandwich is heated under the broiler.

You can serve these sandwiches with a spring salad, with french fries or as appetizers: Cut the sandwiches into smaller servings, skewer with a toothpick or wooden skewer and place on a tray. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

(more…)

In high school, an old boyfriend took me to a tiny, fancypants French restaurant in a neighboring beach city, named after a wine we couldn’t pronounce. Based on that fact alone, we knew it was going to be a worthy (and expensive) place to spend our first anniversary.

The two of us were completely out of place in this cramped dining room, tucked away from view in a corner nearest the bathroom. Other diners were either yuppies discussing business deals over elegantly plated dishes, or the retired crowd, with men in khaki pants and women dripping in jewelry. All of them carried on their conversations looking completely at ease, as if they knew the scene in the dining room was built for them to be part of it. I looked at my beau, who upon being seated, had immediately buried his face in his leatherbound menu. Though I sensed he was also uncomfortable, he said not a word about it.

It’s funny how totally unrelated things can trigger a memory. If you can believe it, that awkward memory surfaced after I sat through an IHOP commercial. The ad is for the restaurant’s all-you-can-eat pancake promotion where a man eats a stack that magically regenerates right before his eyes (see clip). He’s got this baffled look on his face that I’m sure I had when I was stumbling through those French words all those years ago.

The pancake guy’s good fortune stuck with me throughout the week. Who doesn’t have a meal they would love to eat all over again, either because of the food or company? I’d pay to relive the first date I had with my current boyfriend, where we wolfed down wood-fired hot dogs with bacon and mushrooms. Or when I sat down to a chicken roulade meal in my best friend’s new home with her new husband, an ocean away from where we met. Or even that awkward meal I had at that now-shuttered French restaurant, just so I could choose a dish based on something I liked, rather than through a meticulous system of tallying how many ingredients we recognized in each description. I bet that regenerating-pancake guy doesn’t know how good he has it. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

(more…)