Good morning everyone.
Welcome back to Taillevent. Today we will talk
about two very simple recipes simple that are part of our childhood
memory but at the same time are two classic recipes from the French
cuisine repertoire: the cordon bleu and potato puree. Let's start with the
cordon bleu. There are two ways to make it:
one is with veal and the second is with chicken.
In this case we will use a veal rump to give a wink to our Milanese cutlet. Clearly using a veal rump
the first thing to do is remove the bones and clean it.
You will see that it is very simple: you just
have to follow the bone and then the latter basically
falls off by itself. Clearly we'll keep aside
all of the scraps and use them to make a veal sauce
for the cordon bleu or another veal preparation. We have to remove the extra fat without forgetting the outside part, the rind, this part here, we should clean it at the same time. If you notice,
there is a film and it can be removed in a very simple way without
making any effort. Another interesting
thing is this nerve here. It must be
removed completely because when cooked
with heat it retracts and therefore the rack, instead
of being nice and flat, would bulge. So let's remove this part here, only leaving
the part we need. Once we boned and cleaned it,
we're cutting it into homogenous slices. Let's try to keep it at a
0.5 maximum thickness. Once all the slices are ready, we're beating them
between two sheets of transparent film, or baking paper
and in this case of biodegradable plastic. Something important to do to prevent the meat
from sticking to the sheet is to wet lightly with a little water. Let's place the slice, some water. I'm turning it around
so that the wet part is on the inside and then I am beating gently. You always have
to be careful not to beat centrally
but you have to try and beat outwardly, inwardly, left and right to stretch and widen the slice. As for the thickness, we can always keep it around 0.2 0.4 cm.
At wish, given the fine cut of the meat,
I could also close it simply like
this and stuff it, however, it would
remain a little too small and my idea is that the meat is simply a wrapper to then place the baked ham
and cheese inside. Once prepared and placed the slices aside,
let's start with a second ingredient, very important for the cordon bleu: baked ham.
In this case we're using a baked ham, a Jambon Blanc de Paris because it is made in Paris, precisely in the 11th arrondissement,
and this is one of last producers of baked ham in Paris. before using the slicer, clearly, I'm removing the rind. I always prefer
to remove the rind with a serrated knife because I can enter it in a much
more fluid way and we are sure that it will not
slide. Clearly we will use the
rind together with the veal scraps in this case and we are adding them in end,
almost as an infusion, to give our veal fond some more aroma. We're slicing our ham with a slicer, not too thin because we want to maintain a consistency in the mouth.
What is typical about this product is exactly
to have a good bite. Once our ham is sliced, let's move on to the third fundamental
ingredient for the recipe, the cheese. In this case we're using
a Comte, aged 16 months, because it
has a taste that is slightly more lactic and more delicate.
We make it with some emmenthal,
Gruyere or with a cheese that obviously in Italy
could be Asiago, meaning a cheese that can be easily
melted with heat. We're cutting our cheese into slices that are not too
thick and specifically we will also keep
the rind because that is is where all of the aromatic palette
of the cheese develops. The cheese, as it cooks, will clearly melt, the crust instead will become just a little softer
and the idea is identical in Italy
with minestrone when you add the
crusts as you cook it. At the end of cooking
the crusts will not be melted, they will only
be softer and they will have added
a lot of flavor to our minestrone. All of our elements to make a cordon bleu are ready: the slices of veal, the baked ham and the Comte. Now we can assemble our cordon bleu. Let's take our veal slices and cover them with baked ham, being careful to leave half a centimeter free between the
edges to be able to then seal tightly. Let's add the cheese
and close it like a wallet. Once stuffed like a wallet, we're placing it on a tray
and proceeding with the other slices. Last stage before cooking is the breading, a classic English breading, meaning flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, which in this case is some panko, Japanese breadcrumbs that is slightly thicker. Salt it, salt generously. The important thing is that it becomes liquid
so that the yolk incorporates well
with the white and breaks. So, let's sprinkle the flour everywhere. Eggs and breadcrumbs. In this case we will make a simple
English breading, not double, so the passage in the breadcrumbs
and in the egg is one only. The idea is to make
a single breading to be able to taste
and appreciate more directly our veal and our stuffing. After the decorative cut,
we're placing them in the fridge to rest
for about an hour. This stage is very important to allow our breading to
adhere perfectly to our cordon bleu. We told about the cordon bleu, now only the potato puree
is missing. Usually a potato puree is made with potatoes cooked
in water, peeled and if necessary, dry the potatoes
slightly in the oven. In this case, potatoes will be cooked in salt at 160 to
180°C for about an hour. Once they are cooked,
you will see that the skin is completely dry, but also that
a little potato crust formed. As a result we will not peel them simply, but we will make
an incision in the center, we will open them in
half like a book and then with a spoon we will take the pulp out. The idea of cooking
the potato in salt is to use the moisture and the
vegetation water of our potatoes and concentrate their taste. The choice of
potato, thanks to this cooking is not so
important because even if we were to
have a potato that is a little more watery,
due to cooking with salt the result will still be excellent. And now let's
pass it through a sieve. This is the most
tiring job that maybe could make a lot of people
turn up their noses. Why passing it through a sieve
and not using a simple vegetable mill? Just
look at the mesh of a sieve and you'll find
the answer yourself: by using the sieve you'll obtain
a much smoother puree. Since we're not satisfied,
we're now collecting the pulp that we have already
passed once and we'll give it one more go.
We're doing this simply to obtain a
smoother puree without it being floury,
without it having lumps. We're collecting the pulp
and placing it in a saucepan. The pulp is ready,
now we need to move on to the most important
phase: the whipping. Two options: butter only, Robuchon-style,
the king of potato puree. I prefer to make it with a hint of milk and lots of butter. Let's slightly dilute our pulp with a little hot milk.
I'm adding very little. The idea is only to facilitate the amalgamation
of the butter. We can already see that
it is much smoother. Let's incorporate
the raw butter, the same that we used for the béchamel and we're adding a little at a
time. Let's start whipping. Temperature
is very important. Let's avoid boiling our butter because by boiling
we run the risk of making our puree sour. Let's move on and
off the flame to avoid hitting a
temperature that is too high. The important thing is,
you have to fix it and fine tune it during the realization to see if
we need to add to it butter or milk to get to the ideal consistency. The proportion is two-thirds of the weight of the potatoes
in milk and butter. The consistency is right, now let's salt. So, a pinch of salt and I would say it's done. if we don't use immediately,
we're adding some more tufts of butter here and there and we're covering it with a disc of baking paper to prevent it from drying out
and creating crusts. Don't forget that If
you place your puree in the fridge, the
butter will solidify and once you take it
out of the fridge, don't make the
mistake of adding milk because once the butter heats up, it will become
liquid again and you'll have a watery puree. Our puree
is ready, keep it heated. Let's
cook our cordon bleu. We will cook our cordon bleu in a pan with oil and
butter, a third of butter and two
thirds of oil. The oil must not cover
the slice, so it must be approximately two-thirds of the thickness of the slice. We
heated up the olive oil and now we're adding the butter. We can't think of frying at 180°C because if we had to fry at 160-180°C with butter, the butter would be burnt. Once our butter start bubbling, let's add
our cordon bleu. Here, as well, we're playing
with the flame, raising and lowering.
The important thing is that our butter and our oil always bubble but
at the same time cover our cordon bleu. This is for me the heart of French
cuisine, butter that whips and cooks but doesn't burn. Now halfway through cooking
we're turning them. Here we are, almost.
They're starting to be well browned. Once cooked, we're placing them on a tray with absorbent paper. The interesting thing
about a cordon bleu is that they are also not
perfect they are not machine made and here already some cheese is
starting to come out. Now let's move on to the plating. Let's take a nice generous spoonful
of potato puree, placing it in the
center of our serving plate and arranging our cordon bleu around it. Let's take a spoon, dip it in cold
water and we're making a crater in our potato puree. And we'll finish it with a spoonful of veal sauce. When cut, it stays
juicy, soft and stringy. We have seen together this great classic of the French cuisine repertoire,
but also of our childhood. Enjoy making it at home with your
family members it's simple but it's so tasty that everyone will be pleased. In the cover story,
number 45 of Italia Squisita there is
the story of Taillevent and of the whole Brigade,
please don't miss it! Greetings to all friends of
ItaliaSquisita! See you next time!
