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Our January 2011 Challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a traditional recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

I have had duck confit in France, and it was really tasty. When I made it with the duck available here it was ok, but not as good.  Cassoulet is a signature dish and is on many restaurant menus in the southwest of France, but I never have ordered it because there are so many other dishes to try.

I have made Cassoulet before as well, and it was good but not really memorable.   This time I followed the recipe from Anthony Bourdain that is in the Daring Cooks recipe.  I made confit using chicken rather than duck, and used a combination of olive oil and butter rather than the difficult to find (in this area) duckfat.  For beans I used navy beans.

The chicken confit was cooked in a slow cooker, varying the temp setting between low and high, trying to keep it from boiling.  The aroma of the confit was devine.  For the Cassoulet I used a good pork sausage that had no gluten fillers in it.  The confit was made one day, the beans the next, then the Cassoulet assembled the next, and baked again the following day for a comfort food dinner party.

The final baking smelled devine, and the Cassoulet was delicoius.  Everyone had seconds, always a good sign!.  I really liked the fact that on the day of the dinner all I had to do was reheat the Cassoulet and make a salad to go with it. 

Greg and I ate the leftovers the next two days, and they just got better.

In terms of next steps, the confit was interesting, but the Cassoulet would be great without it as well.  I will definitely make this again when I want a conforting meal with friends.

Here is a link to the daring bakers recipes.  Thanks to Jenni and Lisa for getting me to make Cassoulet again with a better method.

http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/21_Confit___Cassoulet_DC_Jan_2011.pdf

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

I have to compliment Dave and Linda, their explanation and pictures were great, and a nouveau souffle baker would be able to follow their directions easily.

I have made souffles before when I was younger and trying to learn about French cooking.  Souffles were considered very exotic, so of course I wanted to make some.  My early attempts all turned out, and chocolate was the one I remember making. However, since I have mot made many since, I guess that although they are interesting, souffles are not at the top of my extensive food loving list.

For this challenge I wanted to try a seafood souffle, inspired by some of the ones I saw in the Daring Cooks posts.  I decided to look through my several French cookbooks, and guess what, there were very few souffle recipes in them.  Finally I went to my foundational French cookbook, Julia Child’s  Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and of course she has a wonderful section that thoroughly explains souffles and gives a generic recipe and variations. So, I ended up using her recipe but using cornstarch and buckwheat flour to make it gluten free.  For the additions I used 3/4 cup of canned crab (ok ok for purists, it was what I had in the cupboard!) and about 1/4 cup of chopped up marinated artichokes.  I spiced it with a tsp of Dijon mustard, and some fresh grated nutmeg (see, I am not a cooking Cretin, I did use fresh grated nutmeg!).  As you can see from the picture, all the sizes of souffles rose to the occasion, and watching them in the oven was the best part of the cooking entertainment experience. The souffle tasted delicious and had a delicate texture and good flavour (ok I have to admit fresh crab would have been better.)

The other souffle memory I do have is that my mother often made a family favourite dessert called lemon pudding.  Well guess what, turns out it was a souffle and we all loved it.  I think one time my brother wanted a whole batch of lemon souffle for himself on his birthday. If you want a souffle recipe they are on the Daring Cooks website now.

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.  The recipes are here http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/15_Nut_Butters_-_July_2010.pdf

I have made some nut butters before, but this challenge prompted me to try some additional butters and to use them in recipes.

The recipe for Chicken with Pecan Cream and Mushrooms appealed to me first, so here it is in the above picture.  The pecan butter was easily made in the food processor, and the remaining recipe was easy to do and quick. The resulting taste test proved that this is an easy and tasty meal.  Although this was very good, I might turn up the spicing a little next time as it was a little bland. It is gluten free as long as you serve it on a non gluten starch (I used mashed potatoes, my favourite, after all I am from PEI.)

Newest designer vegetable (I saw this in a cooking magazine headline!) Look at the greens on the plate, they are not green beans, they are garlic scapes from my garden. These are the flowering stalk of hard shell garlic that Greg plants in the fall.  The scapes are usually ready in late June here, and it is important that they are picked when the stalk does a 360 turn and just before the flower bud gets too large.  They are delicious, the flavour is like asparagus with built in garlic.  They freeze well using green bean instructions (ie, parboil, cool in ice water, and bag.)

The next recipe I tried was the Asian Noodle Salad with Cashew Dressing.  This recipe is a definite keeper!  I happened to have some good cashews in the freezer, so I made the cashew version.  This makes a delicious dressing that is good on hot or cold noodles, or as a dipping sauce.  The only change I made to the recipe was to reduce the sugar from three tablespoons and instead used 2 teaspoons.  I do not like really sweet sauces, and anyway with sugar on the healthwise front less is more.  I put them on boiled and cooled whole wheat salba noodles, but this would be a gluten free meal on rice or quinoa instead, I occasionally have to have a wheat fix and let Greg make do with another starch!

For the understudy salad to make the picture appeal to your eyes first (let’s face it, isn’t that what you look at first  on my blog?) I raided the garden for greens (I found arugula, romaine, leaf lettuce, and spinach), even though they are a little bitter given the recent hot weather.  I also added mint leaves and nasturtium garnishes, and they actually added to the taste very well, especially the mint leaves.

Asian Salad with Cashew Nut Butter and Mint Leaves

Thanks you to the Natasha and Margie, this was a really interesting challenge and I am even going to make the rest of the recipes!  Overall, Nut Butter rocks!!