Cooking the 'French Laundry Cookbook' part 2

A continuation of this previous post.

What's a vday dinner without desert. Since the meal I had prepared was pretty heavy, I was looking for something light and fresh to finish. Thomas Keller's recipe for a Lemon Sabayon Tart with Honeyed Marscapone Cream fit the bill. Too bad the gf isn't a big fan of tarts. I should have known better. On to the tart!

First of all, I burnt it. The pinenut crust was burnt. the top of the saboyon was burnt. You can see the burn crust in the picture. I scraped off an entire layer of burnt sabayon. I tried to eat it, but the crust was burnt all over. I do have to say the sabayon was very nice without the crust.



Of course with more crust dough in the fridge, I had to attempt it again later in the week.

My problem this time was that the lemons weren't as fresh.



This time I didn't burn it. But my lemons were not as fresh. I do love this desert though. I think next time I'll have to make it in individual portions. That way I can easily give some away since you end up with a lot of dough with the recipe. Then again this might turn into a party desert only.

Cooking the 'French Laundry Cookbook' part 1

For Vday, I had decided to cook the gf a nice meal. I broke out Thomas Keller's 'The French Laundry Cookbook', something we've owned for a couple of years now but have been too intimidated to try to cook from. The dish of the night was Keller's take on Mac & Cheese, Butter Poached Maine Lobster with Cream Lobster Broth and Marscapone-Enriched Orzo.



I have to say, that I started way too late in the day in order to do this correctly. The Creamy Lobster Broth needs to reduce twice, which left the gf and I very hungry (remedied by a quick gnocchi appetizer!). As it started late into the night, I became impatient and the Broth ended up being more watery than I had expected. Even with the wrong consistency, the broth was very strong and very rich. Its sort of scary how rich and thick its supposed to be. I can see why the portions need to be small, as opposed to my large portions.

I tried Keller's method of cooking lobster, which would have been great if I didn't overcook it in the Beurre Monté. But on the upside, now I have a quite a bit of clarified lobster butter.

I also failed on the parmesan crisp. Burning 2 patches before giving up.

The only hints I can give anyone is to give yourself plenty of time and do as Keller says and strain & skim all the time.