oh, thomas...

I am obsessed with Thomas Keller. I first heard of him about a decade ago (wow, that makes me feel old!) when researching things to do in Napa Valley (for those who don't know, the thing to do is go to The French Laundry in Yountville). Sadly, we did not make it to TFL, being college students and all (the prixe fix option would have likely exceeded my monthly income at the time).

Fast forward several years to cruising around Pinterest and I came across a few recipes. I pinned, but never got around to making them. 

I recently got my hands on 2 of his cookbooks from the local library- The French Laundry and ad hoc at home. I haven't attempted any of the TFL recipes yet, but as I type am working in recipe #6 from ad hoc (when Justin is away, I play. Better cooking than shopping).

My first creation was the roast chicken. It was delicious. And only required a handful of ingredients- stuff you should always have on hand!

First the chicken rests at room temp for 1.5. Don't skip this step. Then pay the chicken dry- both inside and out ( ps don't rinse the chicken, trust me on this one). Once you think the chicken is dry give it one more good pat down. Season the bird liberally with salt and pepper, both inside and outside the cavity. Throw in a few sprigs of thyme and truss that baby up. Rub a little oil on the bird ) use your hands) and top with 4 tablespoons of butter. While you are at it, throw on some more salt and pepper for good measure.

Gorgeous bird with minimal effort. I usually don't eat chicken skin, but I couldn't resist a few nibbles.

Next up I made chicken stock- a boring and straight forward recipe- worth the effort though.

I also made chicken pot pie- so delicious! I almost cheated and used store bought pie crust but you do not cheat on Thonad Keller! Spend the extra 15 minutes and make your own pie crust- my grandma always told me that things that are worth doing are worth doing well (not really, but that sounded like good grandmotherly advice I could pass down to the girls one day).

I even blanched the celery. True story.

Look at that golden goodness.

No cream of soup in this recipe- the sauce is a delicious bechamel. 

Today's meal was chicken soup with dumplings. The dumplings were made with pate a choux (cream puff dough). Right about now I'm wishing I took French in college.

The soup was straight forward, but time consuming. Simmer the broth and mirepoix for a good 20 minutes. Discard mirepoix (a mixture of carrots, celery, etc.). Apparently the veggies give all their flavor to the stock and are just a mushy mess not suitable for human consumption after that much simmering. Then a roux is added to thicken the soup and add a silky texture. Whilst the soup is simmering, make and cook the dumplings (not in the soup pot). The secret ingredient is stone ground dijon, don't skip this- I've spent years omitting ingredients from recipes if I didn't have it on hand (this is a trick I actually did learn from my grandma) but seriously, the mustard makes the dish. Chop up some carrots, season with a crushed garlic clove (whole), thyme, salt, pepper, and honey. Cover with cold water and simmer for 14 minutes. I didn't even think I liked cook carrots, but these are good! They get infused with garlicky goodness. Audrey couldn't get enough. I'm going to make these carrots as a side dish on the regular (one of the best parts of Keller's recipes is that they can be deconstructed and you can use portions). Full Disclosure: I did skip the step of peeling and blanching the celery for this dish. I ran out of pots. Keller says to clean up as you go, lesson learned. 

I also made his chocolate chip cookies. I think it is pretty impossible to mess up a chocolate chip cookie, but what sets these apart is using bars of chocolate (cut into chip sized pieces) and dark brown sugar. It does not call for vanilla, which is validating, as I spent most of my cookie making years omitting the vanilla. My cookies spread out a bit more than I would like- I will have to do some experimenting- the next batch I will cook directly on the baking sheet vs. on the silpat (silpats are amazing and have several applications though, so don't hesitate to buy one). 

Right now I am working on some brioche. Apparently brioche is a hybrid of bread and cake. It has 2.5 sticks of butter and 6 eggs. I've never made bread from scratch before, so I guess I couldn't tell you if that is a lot of product, but it seems like a copious amount of butter and eggs. The dough has 30 more minutes to rise, then it gets pounded a bit and goes back in its floured bowl to rest in the fridge overnight. My cousin and her little guy are coming to visit tomorrow, so after her arrival the dough can go in loaf pans (I only have one. Oops) and hang out for 3 more hours before baking. Then we are going to make the worlds most fabulous grilled cheese, with Gruyere. If I have enough butter (I've gone through 10 sticks in the past 3 days) I'll make some buttermilk biscuits too (to go with the leftover soup and for brunch). 

One of these days I will get around to making his buttermilk fried chicken- it just seems a bit intense, so I will build my cooking prowess with a few more beginner friendly recipes. Now back to his restaurants, I hope to make it to The French Laundry someday, but he owns several more pocketbook friendly restaurants (ad hoc, bouchon, addendum). I've told Justin that the next time we go to Las Vegas we are going to Bouchon and I am ordering the fried chicken and waffles. Not that we have a Vegas trip planned or anything... but I know what I am going to eat! Addendum is connected to ad hoc (just down the road from TFL)- it's not so much a full service restaurant, but more of a grab and go for lunch, so visit a local winery ahead of time and then save on corkage fees and have your wine and chicken al fresco. Hmm, I think it might be time to book that flight to California...