After getting The Family Meal last October, and cooking the second meal in the book, the chocolate cookie recipe (cookies au chocolat), produced molten pools of goo, rather than cookies. That really bugged me, I remade the recipe about three times, and threw out a couple of attempts — got pissed and started scouring the internet. Other than a few glib, rah-rah reviews, no one had done this recipe and made it work. And no one had taken the cookbook in hand and seriously started parsing it out.

Hence this part of the blog — cooking through the entire book (now complete).

Eventually it seemed like a good idea to get a French version of the book to see if the many recipe errors were there as well, or if I simply had translations errors that were introduced when converting to imperial measurements for the America version. I received my copy of Repas de famille last week, and by and large, those errors are still there. Not all, but enough to leave me scratching my head. Maybe a few more posts on that.

The Cookies

Comparing the two books, there is serious oddness in how both the recipes are scaled — theoretically –by ONE FIFTH from 100 to 20 cookies. Some of the ingredients in the French version come down by 1:10, some by 1:5, and some that don’t make any sense at all. This pretty much parallels that same acid trip scaling that the English (American) version suffers from.

So let’s just not scale it down, and go right to the 100 cookie version — that smaller version is too weird to decipher — besides, everyone likes 100 cookies, right?

So, looking at the French version, and comparing it to the American version, only the quantity of dark chocolate has been screwed up in the metric-to-imperial measurements: the quantity of dark chocolate is listed in the American version at 1.1 pounds, where it should be 1.8 pounds (825grams). The callout for the white and dark pieces is actually translated correctly. It’s not really relevant here, since the error lies deeper.

This is where I think the serious error occurred: in the recipe there are two chocolate callouts: one for the dark, and one for dark and white pieces. The recipe, however, tells you to take two-thirds of the dark for melting, and add the rest with the white. There is no mention of simply using the 225 grams of “white and dark pieces” called out in the ingredients. The amount of chocolate has then, in all likelihood, been inadvertently upped by one third or so.

Let’s back up and say that the TOTAL amount of chocolate called for is 825 grams, and that there is possibly 150 grams of white chocolate in the mix (see the picture). So now you have roughly 750 grams of dark chocolate, 150 of white. If you take one third of the 750 grams of dark chocolate and roughly chop that with the white, you melt the 500 grams with the butter and put the remaining 250 grams with the white for folding in later.

The only other thing is that the five-spice mixture and instant coffee in both recipes is called out at 1 c. à. c. (translates directly to 1 tsp. or 5ml). That seemed stupid since the instant coffee must act as some sort of binder [[2016 Edit: Bullshit — it was just for flavor]], so I upped both to 1 c. à. s. (translates to 1 Tbl. or 15 ml).

It worked.

Unlike the other failed attempts, the frozen mixture pulled away cleanly from the parchment paper (that you wrapped it in for freezing), and after baking for 10 minutes at 350º — they looked like the picture as well. COOL THEM OFF as fast as you can. They kicked ass.

Mystery solved, here are the proportions for 100 from the French version (and my corrections to the chocolate quantities). Also, freeze the dough overnight, it needs it.

Vanilla bean: 1
Eggs: 5
Sugar: 400g
Butter: 85g
Dark Chocolate 75% ( I used 72%): 750g
White Chocolate: 150g
Flour: 85g
Five-Spice powder: 1TABLEspoon
Instant coffe: 1 TABLEspoon

Last one.

Sad to see this end, but other than going back and putting the whammy on the chocolate cookie recipe that initially drove me write this blog, this is the end of parsing out Ardriá’s copyediting train wreck. It’s been good, I’ve learned a hell of a lot.  Also, I’ve got a french version of this cookbook coming, if there recipe errors are not there, I may post a list of recipes with a guide. Or something.

Just one or two substitutions, and nearly no staggering recipe zombie callouts.

BASIL!!

The first course is a Waldorf Salad — not too much to watch out for. The zombie callouts are there, but I don’t think it’s going to move the flavor needle that much. The only head shot that will blow up this dish are the walnuts: make certain that tannin-bitter brown flake/peel is OFF the walnuts, or that bitterness will clothesline the whole thing. Really.

Next course may be the best seafood dish in the book. You always hear people raving about “linguini with clams” — I’m a believer after this one. Again with the building blocks of sofrito and picada (used half the picada called for) — and this time it was just awesome. Just awesome. I didn’t have the Filini pasta, so I took regular spaghetti and broke it into 1.5 inch lengths — also, still no mussels, so I had to use steamer clams, otra vez. Same with using Better-than-Bullion’s Lobster base in place of fish stock. No matter, NOTHING was stopping this epic freight train of culinary detonation. Just do it — you won’t be disappointed.

Last dish, last course — good in an el Bulli wink & nod sort of way. Bump the sugar up to 3 Tablespoons for the serving for six, and just follow the pictures. Great finish to a very interesting cook book. Maybe one more post on that.

Ciao.

Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Erratas

Grill what?

The next-to-last dinner in the book: and another good one; just one substitution, and plenty of zombie proportions.

First course: grilled lettuce hearts — wow — just when you thought you’d see it all. Nothing much to see, outside of one recipe flutter — use 3 Tablespoons of whole-grain mustard when you make the dressing, otherwise just follow the pictures. Kinda earthy, but good.

Next is the major substitution: had to go with short ribs instead of shank — it couldn’t be helped. Also, use whatever liquid-to-instant potato ratio that is called out on the box — the ratios are way out of whack here due to the kind of instant potato used. There are more curveballs here: the amount of wine should be 3 cups for serving six, and 10 for serving 20 — and even that takes FOREVER to reduce. The water callout is the same: should be 4 cups for six servings, and 12 cups for serving 20. The water also takes an eternity to reduce as well. I shorted what was called out by a cup or so in both cases and still had put that in a large skillet and reduce it for quite a while, then separate it, and return it back to the skillet and thicken it with xantham gum.

On the bright side, it was really, really good.

Last dish — total harpoon of awesomeness to the chest. REALLY outstanding. Weapons-grade plutonium levels of nuclear outstanding. Zombie quantities for six corrected to: 7ish oz of chocolate, 2/3 cup of cream, and basically the egg whites you didn’t use making the dressing for the lettuce hearts. Other than that pay attention to the storyboard when it says “set aside to cool awhile” and “set aside at ROOM TEMPERATURE until needed.” Then stand back — it’s the best one yet.

Killer.
Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Erratas

Roast This

Another good set of dishes, with another great dessert that somehow only has three ingredients.

First course is easy enough and pretty much error-free except for the vinaigrette. Maybe it’s supposed to be roughly 1:8 on the vinegar-to-oil ratio, but traditionally it’s 1:3. Your results may vary, depending on the serving size: the ratio ranges from 1:8 to 1:4 and beyond. I went with 1:3 — and it turned out really good — don’t forget to pad your baking time by 10 minutes or so.

Second course — substitutions were dried pink lentils for canned, and Better Than Bullion’s lobster base for the fish stock (which probably helped); the only error was for the sofrito: go with a heaping 1/2 cup on the serving for six. I had to break down and bear the shame of actually buying salmon, and in late April, too. This is not the time of year to be eating Sockeye let alone paying for it in this condition. This is the time of year to be thawing out any left over from last year, smoking it, and sending to the relatives who live in the Lower 48.

Nevertheless, I cooked the lentils in the broth before adding the picada and salmon, adding more water as needed. Not much to report, just a solid dish.

Last course — dessert — amazingness ensued once again. There is a special kind of alchemy that happens with eggs, cream, and chocolate. The errors were minor: I used four egg yolks instead of three, and 1.5 cups of cream for the serving for six. Other than that, KEEP STIRRING the egg mixture or the bottom will turn to nasty scrambled eggs, and WATCH YOUR ASS on the temperature. There is a funny little zone where the dish can go from magic to tragedy, depending on how hard you smack the egg’s proteins. Great stuff — I’ve gone from wishing my pudding tasted like the package mix to wishing the package mix could even vaguely approach my pudding.

Wild.

Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Erratas

No Substitutions

Remember the $50 ducks from “Duck with Chimichurri”? Well, their legs and thighs reprised their performance in the list of ingredients. Not certain that was intentional, but it worked out perfectly. Pretty neat set of dishes; I thought dessert would pound me, but it all turned out great.

Raw Omnivore

First course is a no-brainer of sorts, just cut up a melon (cantaloupe) and serve it with some Prosciutto (cured ham sliced REALLY thin). Try to go to the deli counter and bump up the quality if you can; it doesn’t take much. Great.

Saffron Alert

Second course: (Again, you need the soffrito and picada “building blocks” from the front of the book.) I took the legs/thighs that I had broken down from the earlier recipe that used just the breasts — and boned those out, and then cut them into 1 inch chunks. The rest is just following the pictures. There was a marginal recipe flutter with the soffrito callout — it doesn’t scale down anywhere near the measurements called for — I’d use 1/2 cup for the serving for six. But it probably doesn’t matter. Again, because of the Saffron Oddity in the picada, I used half of what was called for. Also, the rice-to-broth ratio was SPOT ON once again. Really good.


Last course: when I first looked at the recipe, I thought they had Fracked it up by not including flour. Not so. The measurements are correct, and the instructions are too. The only thing that bothered me was the “folding” issue and the “soft peaks” callout for the meringue. For the folding, the best I can surmise is that you take a spatula, run it towards you along the bottom of the bowl of “stuff”, and about three-quarters of the way to you, lift what you have straight up and over, moving away from you — rinse and repeat, GENTLY. For the soft peak thing, it’s was a tough call, I just ran the mixer full-out until the egg whites looked like a flacid octopus sitting in the bowl. Nowhere near the shiny styrofoam stuff you’d get if you let the egg white go a lot further — even just a minute or two — so WATCH IT CAREFULLY. I used a large zip-loc bag (just snip off one corner) for piping the mix into basically a range of cupcake molds, some nonstick, some with leftover St. Patrick’s paper cupcake liners in them. The sizes of the molds ranged from about a Tablespoon to “really big cupcake” — you’ve just got to wing it on the cooking times. The 17 minutes called out is way too long for the bite-size ones, and not enough for the bigger molds; also, there’s a translation error in the size callout. It mentions 4 inches in diameter or so, where the cakes shown are nowhere near that size.


Also, I only had 72% chocolate instead of the 60% called out — so the cakes where a little more Dostoevsky than Paula Deen.


Still Great.
Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Erratas

Make that Steamer Clams w/paprika, baked Tilapia…

Right away with the first course and its substitutions: Couldn’t find live mussels, so I went with steamer clams; same thing with the Sea Bass — even frozen — so I went with the mass produced farmed thingies AGAIN.

The errors are lurking about, per normal: for the serving for six, use TWO tsp of paprika, and THREE tbl flour, along with 1 1/4 cups of water; it makes a fairly thick sauce. I don’t think the parsley really matters, as long as you have something to represent. One tip on Italian parsley: at this time of year, if you check the regular parsley, you can usually spot a few bunches with some stray sprigs that look suspiciously like Italian parsley — they must grow them in the same field or something — at any rate, you can usually scrounge enough to make do.

The method is exactly like it describes — it makes a great sauce — just throw in the bivalves, and steam/boil until they mostly pop open ( 5-7 mins) — it’s pretty good.

Next course: one more time with the Tilapia, and unless we are stricken by famine, it will be my last experience. On the recipe errors, I guess it depends on the size of your pan. I shot for serving two (with just one Tilapia) but ended up using the proportions for six on the veggies, except for the herb sprigs and onion callout; lots more sprigs, and only one onion. Also, go about 10 minutes over on the cooking time. Otherwise do what he says, and it works — the veggies completely KICK ASS. I’m definitely doing this again with butterflies of King salmon or fillets of Red (Sockeye) salmon.

Dessert was just EVIL — the errors were minor, and the whole thing will probably gel without niggling. Just EVIL, can’t say enough good about this. The cream with the rum is a bit of a bitch slap, but combined with the sweetness of the custard it balances out. Also, don’t pitch the egg whites; they are used in the next recipe’s chocolate cake.

Just get a REALLY LONG digital candy thermometer. Outstanding.

Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Errata

Sofrito 2.0, and Tilapia, too.
   
More saffron-fish weirdness. Also, this one seemed to take more time than usual. This was another of several dishes where Adriá combines fish, picada, and sofrito. Each time he’s done this the flavors are pretty weird — but not awful — probably authentic and I just don’t know it. I wish the recipes in this book were reliable enough to judge whether in places I just don’t like the cuisine.

For the soup you need two of the “building block” recipes called out in the front of the book. One of the first things here was to grab the sofrito, which I had ran out of doing a previous dish. I had to make it again, and have just a couple of observations: DO NOT be afraid of using 14 cups of onions in the 7 1/2 cup serving size — it reduces like crazy; and the bay leaf called out goes from 10 to 1/2 — when the serving size only goes down by roughly a third. I cut the serving size for 7 1/2 in half and everything worked out fine, and simply scaled down the bay leaf as well.

For the fish, using the serving for six, I used 1/2 pound of whole shrimp, half a pound of “seafood medley” (bits and pieces of clam, squid, crab, and so on), and one whole tilapia.

Errors: there was an apparent error in the garlic callout — It went from 1 oz (probably 6-8 cloves) for the serving for 20, to NINE cloves for the serving for six. I used four/five (and had to pull the green sprouts out of those, so it probably came out alright.) There was also an idiocy issue with the “anise flavored liquor” — it calls for “two dashes” in EIGHT cups of soup. I don’t know how potent ANY seasoning could be to accomplish anything in those proportions — except maybe ghost chiles. I couldn’t taste that component, and the pictures in the book show the cook adding a hell of a lot more than even what the serving for 75 called for… Hmmm….

Nothing much else to see here; I stubbed my toe on the bread and used four slices (small loaf), and just followed the pictures. It worked and tasted “interesting”. Odd.

For the second course, nothing to say. There’s no way to screw up frying mushrooms and sausage; all the proportions are right and it was very, very, good. Maybe want to serve that with some bread.

Dessert — another dirt-simple presentation that KILLED. The next time you’re in a pinch, just slice some citrus, anoint it with honey, oil, and salt — top with crushed hard caramels — and you’re home free.
Pretty good.

Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Errata

I’m running across a windswept beach — I’ve got a couple frozen cornish hens under my arm; the bullets are flying, vrrrrt… VRRRT… Ferran Adria has a machine gun emplacement (or maybe he ordered his copyeditors to establish the position) to repel incoming. I can see the objective, but he’s being SO DIFFICULT. What the hell happened in the production process of this book?


Anyway, I battled through and produced another great meal.


First course was simple; most people have the ingredients in their fridge/pantry right now — but probably not in this combination. Blanched (and shocked) green beans, or wax beans, or “Perona” beans, with potatoes and a “Chantilly foam.” For the foam you need a CO2 whip cream canister thingy — and a mixture of mayonnaise, lemon juice, and heavy cream. The proportion errors are here, and they’re pretty odd this time: between the servings for 2 and 6 the amounts for the lemon juice and whipping cream don’t change, while the callout for the mayo does. Crazy. I went back and scaled the proportions for 75 down to 6, and for the foam it came to 1 cup of mayo, 0.875 cup of cream, and 1/4 cup of lemon juice — it worked. Killer dish.

Ras el hanout

Never heard of this spice combination before yesterday — very cool blend of spices, although, looking at the Wikipedia article, the mixture varies a lot. I took mine from a quick web search and used the recipe with the most ingredients (attributed to Christine Benlafquih):

• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamon
• 2 teaspoons ground mace
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon ground white pepper
• ½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• ½ teaspoon ground anise seeds
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

This mix is used in both the quail and the couscous, I measured everything out, using whole spices where I could, and dumped it my coffee grinder (used only for spices.)
For the quail, I used cornish hens, which are a little bigger than the quail shown, so the cooking time was a bit more. I didn’t pay attention to the callouts for oil, mint, or the spice mixture, but just drizzled/sprinkled until things looked right. I cooked them on a sheet tray under a low broiler, flipping them several times until a meat thermometer registered “done.” 


For the couscous, which we make a lot here, I went with our usual stock-to-couscous ratio. Also, the recipe for 20 calls for 6 cups of couscous, while the serving for 6 is only 1 cup — not anywhere near the rough 3:1 ratio. Again, scaling things down to 6 from 75 serving helped. The callouts are: 1/2 cup of pine nuts, 1/2 cup of raisins, 1 3/4 cup of couscous, and essentially that much stock, AFAIK, couscous to stock is roughly 1:1. Again this dish KILLED. Just awsome.


For dessert, another good one, just watch the callouts for sugar and butter if you’re using the for 6 serving size: 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1/3 cup of butter is right. The water called for is idiotic — it actually calls for MORE water in the serving for 6 size, than for the serving for 20. I scaled down the water from the serving for 75, and even then I had to remove the pears and reduce the caramel, otherwise the cooking time would have reduced them to mush. I’d start with about 1/2 a cup of water, and go from there. WATCH OUT when adding the water to the caramel, as it’s WAY above the boiling point of water, and creates a lot of steam. After cooking the pears in the caramel, you serve that with a sorbet, and a little mint. Really, really good.


Awesome. Just mind the land mines.

Porkula!

Another good one. The pork belly looked so ghastly in one of the photos (showing it after boiling), that I initially chickened out and bought beef short ribs for a substitute. I reneged, and bought some “side pork” from a local butcher shop. I checked, and from what I can gather, “pork belly” and “side pork” are at least roughly the same thing. But if you glazed pork chops or slices of loin in teriyaki, what’s the worst that could happen?


But first things first — the soup. Substitutions, per usual, I used Muir Glenn whole organic canned tomatoes and Better Than Bullion’s chicken base; I also had fresh rainbow chard, so I went with that. The ingredient quantities are alright — except for the garlic. Just for fun I took the six cloves (minus the green shoots) and weighed them — it came to exactly the same weight called out for the serving for 20. Huh… I used a third, so probably use 2-3 cloves for the serving for six size. Also, I did not use the cornstarch called out — the proportions looked shaky, I did use Xanthan Gum, and only a half teaspoon. The best I call tell, all Xanthan gum needs to thicken is just a little agitation.


It was really good — I had warmed my eggs up in hot tap water 15 minutes or so before boiling them for “three minutes” like he recommends, and despite being kinda a pain in the ass to peel, their texture was good, and really helped finish the soup. 


The pork belly, about midway through the recipe photo sequence, looked like cadaver pieces, and that it would coat the roof of your mouth with a layer of nasty lard, in perpetuity. Look at all that GREY FAT! Is there any meat there at all, or am I supposed to eat the fat? Blah.


I was wrong, really, really wrong. Except for the “how much meat?” part. I’m definitely going to clothesline some guests in the near future with this one. Very good, no recipe weirdness, and no way to screw it up.


The last course was odd in a good way: sweet potatoes for dessert. Basically bake the crap out of the potatoes — and I deliberately went way over the time called out — until the potato is pulling away from the skin, then top them with some whipped cream and honey. 


Really good.

What is Tagliatelle?  Also, the kids heard that I was doing “fish” again from THAT cookbook — and bailed. Uh, dad — we’ve got to go color eggs with the kids at the Holy Saturday camp…  Must have been the squid tentacles from last time. They DID stay for first course — Mario Batalli’s Carbonara recipe is a semiweekly staple here, and is crack for kids. The threat of more creepy seafood bothered them, but they knew better than ditch a good Carbonara.

Here we go:

First course is dead on: don’t fudge, just do what the pictures tell you, and use the proportions called out — particularly the salt and pepper in the bacon/cream sauce (is that sauce EVEN LEGAL?) I held back on the salt, thinking the bacon would handle that — but it really didn’t — it still needed just a bit of salt to set it off. Just a knock out — everybody oohed and aahed — pasta doesn’t get much more sinful than this.

I did try to run the wikipedia article for Tagliatelle past the local merchants, but it rang NO bells. I did finally source some Chinese “eggnoodles” recently, and thought “hell, I’ll just check the cooking time on those and use them. But, as the culinary gods would have it, apparently “eggnoodles” from Hong Kong only contain “wheat flour and tapioca flour” — no mention of eggs. ODD.

I did find that the ordinary wavy/short egg noodles — for the traditional casserole application, found in the Italian section of most supermarkets — cook in the same time as called out in the recipe, so I went with that. No, they aren’t anywhere as long as what’s in the picture, but they cooked up just fine.

Second course: “fish sandwich” — basically a breaded piece of fried Cod on top of a fried pepper (I ended up using poblano peppers) on top of a piece of toasted bread, served open face with mayonnaise. Unbelievably good, in a humble, solid, authentic sort of way — really great.

Third course: you make an almond milk, whisk in some sugar, and serve that with a nutty ice cream and candied almonds. We went with honey roasted almonds and walnut ice cream. In Adriá’s method, you take peeled almonds and grind them into a rough meal, then soak that meal in water for 12 hours.  After that you use an immersion blender to puree that into a milk (after straining it out.)

I’ve had some experience with the Matthew Kenney style raw vegan diet, and know for a fact that you can make a kick ass almond milk in a more straightforward way — but not having the whole almonds, I used almond flour, soaked that in water, strained it, and went from there. The only observation is that the almond milk is great with the ice cream and candied almonds, but was a little grainy. Nothing to freak out about.

Very good.