The weather in Paris this year was really strange enough that I was ready to start making recipes for the summer, but on the evening of the highest temperature of 28 degrees, it rained again, and the temperature dropped again.
Summer has failed again, and we may have to stay in the spring forever.
FADA‘s KITCHEN
In the past, when I was in Guangzhou, I always liked to make a pot of cream stew on rainy days, looking at the black and pressed sky outside, blowing hot air while purring and sending it to my mouth, letting the cool breeze with rain dry a layer of sweat that was heated.
This cream stew can be said to be French, neon soul, starting from Continental White Sauce, loyal to the Asian casserole.
Tracing back to the roots, we must first talk about the traditional French dish, blanquette de veau - braised veal in white sauce.
The French white is blanc, and the blanquette is the deformation of blanc.
Veau is veal, which refers to small bulls that are not more than 6 months old, which is a by-product of animal husbandry.
Since cows need a fertility process to motivate them to produce milk, the surplus of baby bulls is raised in a special way and becomes the new favorite on the table - veal.
Unlike the beef we usually eat, the muscle fiber of the calf is relatively fine, and the content of myoglobin is relatively low, so the naked eye looks similar to the texture of pork, but it is more tender than pork. When cooking, bien cuit – fully cooked, and rosé – five ripe is the mainstay.
This dish of braised veal in white sauce begins with a four-piece set of French stew: onion, carrot, green onion and vanilla bunches simmered in large pieces until the meat puff pastry is beautiful.
Then use the sautéed batter in proportion to butter: flour = 1:1 as the base, and mix it with light cream or white sauce made of milk to make it thick and full of milk.
The mushrooms, which are served with salt, sugar and butter, become a French country classic – soft, crispy, fragrant, tender, with a hint of milk and vegetable sweetness, braised veal stew in white sauce.
The soul of French cuisine is the sauce, and the white sauce here is refined to become the soul of one of the most floped home dishes in Japan, the cream stew.
Cream stew
The ingredients for this dish are super simple, chicken thighs, a variety of vegetables, butter, flour, light cream or milk are all ultra-common ingredients that can be found when you open the refrigerator.
First, cut a piece of chicken thigh meat with salt, sugar, pepper, corn starch, oil to season and marinate, so that the chicken thigh juice is full of water.
When making meat, the flavor ≈ juicy, because with the addition of salt, the cell membrane will precipitate the cell fluid under the action of pressure difference, and if it is wrapped with powder and oil, the precipitated cell fluid will not be lost, becoming what we call "gravy".
Some meats with dry muscle fibers, we can also artificially increase the juice by "adding water".
With this principle in mind, we can easily come up with a one-size-fits-all cured meat formula:
The marinated chicken thighs are fried in a pan until golden brown, then fried with the chicken fat in the pot to stimulate the aroma of the onions, and then add the prepared roots and cookable vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots, taro, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage stalks and so on.
Then add water to almost all dishes.
Now it's time to make Soul White Sauce!
Remember the ratio first: 30g butter ➕ 30g flour ➕ 50g light cream or 100g milk.
Put the butter in a pan and turn on the heat. If the butter is placed under a hot pan, then... It will be mushy, very miserable! Be cautious!
Let the butter melt over medium heat and reduce the heat, adding flour several times, each time making sure the butter and flour have been mixed well before adding the next time.
Add all the flour and sauté for a while to remove the raw flavor of the flour and start adding light cream or milk in batches. As with flour, wait until you mix well before adding the next time.
Slowly boil the sauce to the point of thick hanging spoon, add salt, pepper to taste, conditionally can be ground into the nutmeg crushed, immediately increase the flavor a hundred times, forced to increase ten thousand times. (sorry for my exaggeration)
At this time, the vegetables are also cooked soft, put the chicken thigh meat that was fried at the beginning, add the white sauce, as well as leafy vegetables and easy-to-cook dishes, such as spinach, Chinese cabbage leaves, enoki mushrooms, etc., stir and mix, adjust the flavor and you can get out of the pot ~!
If you put too much water in the beginning, you can filter out part of the soup, add white sauce, and then gradually increase the soup according to the thickness you want.
The developed boy prefers a thinner texture, and the soup is smooth and slightly thick, like a thin mustard. It tastes creamy and creamy, but it has the freshness of vegetables, so it is not greasy. The chicken thigh meat is very tender and very flavorful, and the surface is fragrantly fried, with Grandma's soup, which has a special sense of contrast.
How about, on a rainy Mayday, you can also cook a pot of hot cream stew