Whisk Wednesdays: Sauce Béarnaise and Coeur de Filet Henri IV

      Well, well, well, this week's Whisk Wednesdays meal, Class 12, Part 2 was • Sauce Béarnaise (Warm emulsified sauce derived from Hollandaise sauce) page 250; • Coeur de Filet Henri IV (Filet mignons with artichokes, and Béarnaise sauce) from the Le Cordon Blue at Home cookbook, pages 250-252.  I also included the Pommes Pont Neuf (French fries) on page 253 as they were shown in the photo and included in the directions. 

      This was all most excellent...even on the first go around, we are counting this a resounding success (well, except the part with Justin).  I am still amazed at how easily this all came together and how great it all worked.  A keeper.  Definitely.  (Except the part with Justin.)

      The featured part of the meal, of course, since we are learning sauces, was the Béarnaise sauce, and let me tell you, it seemed quick and easy since we made Hollandaise last week, working up to a few more ingredients in the Béarnaise, such as peppercorns, shallots, white wine and white wine vinegar, tarragon, and chervil.  I only made half the recipe as I knew that we could not be trusted to only eat half if the whole was sitting there...four tablespoons of butter between three people seemed much more diligent than eight, and if truth be known, four Ts would have worked with four people also...there was plenty to go around.  

      We bought only two of the four 7 oz. steaks the recipe called for as Matt was not here, and while Mark can put away a 7 oz steak, Alex and I can easily split one with leftovers for Pippin and Vash.  We guessed right on that.  

      I have never before shopped for, selected, peeled, or cooked artichokes, so this one was a new experience for me.  It went well...turns out artichokes are very easy to prepare with the Le Cordon Bleu instructions, and step-by-step photos on page 520.  While they look a little strange beginning to end, the taste is wonderful, and I will definitely be making artichokes more often, with or without sauce, and hopefully without Justin, more on that later.

      The potatoes were also very easy...who knew you could make French fries from scratch?  Okay...confessional gasp...I have only fried anything about twice in my life as we are not big on fried foods around here, but the guys do like French fries, so I am thinking this might be a skill I could use in the future.  (I am not a French fry person, but hey, if I cooked them, I figured I should eat one, right?  I ate three!)  I liked the idea of cooking those potatoes twice, once for 7 minutes to cook them and then again right before serving for 2 minutes to color and crisp them.  Works for me...a lot less to do at the end of prep time.  

      I made a little lemon/mustard/evoo/white wine vinegar salad dressing for the watercress. 

      Dessert you ask?  Sorry...our chief dessert eater was not home from Arizona when I made this meal on Sunday night, so we opted for Monday being a dessert day.  (On Monday I made the TWD Mixed Berry Cobbler as I could be certain that at least half of it would be gone that day with Matt home, the remaining half the next, which is a good thing with cobblers.) 

      If you would like to check out the other Whisk Wednesdays bloggers, click Shari,Shelley, Sara, and Becke...yes, we are up to 5 of us now...why don't you join us?  We'd love to have you.  We all sort of have our own little niche within the group...Shari is the researcher/writer/photographer/creative guru; I myself am just trying to follow the book nicely and learn as I go (something I have been always fairly good at in the past); Shelley is trying to hone more cooking skills which match how she enjoys eating and she is trying to do so in a budget-minded way that fits in comfortably with her family's likes as well; Sara is The Wine Maker's Wife and is helping to educate us all with pairings of wine and food; and Becke is a Foodie with a blog that would beg you to even try to disagree with that statement.  There's room for everyone at Whisk Wednesdays, so you needn't fear that you won't fit in, because you will! 

      Oh, and for those of you who want to know about cooking without Justin, I highly recommend it.  Justin is our plumber...apparently artichoke leaves, stems, and whatnot, are NOT a good match for garbage disposals...now you know, if you didn't before, like say, me.  As my husband said, "Maybe 'we' should have thought this through a bit before jamming those down there."  You think?  Yep, maybe "we" should have...so nice of him to use the "we" instead of the "you" form as I felt badly enough for not thinking that through...really, one little moment of thought would have been good here, hindsight and all.  So Justin and I recommend adding artichoke peelings to the list of "potato peels, apple peels, celery, onion skins, carrot peels, rice, noodles, etc., etc." that do not belong tossed into the garbage disposal.  I did ask Justin just why we have disposals if we can't put those things down there...his reply was something along the lines of "To keep me in business."  Hmmm...am thinking those "starch and string-related items" are probably going directly into the garbage can here from now on.  Hindsight and all. 

     Please note:  The photo shows the meal on a small salad plate, i.e. those are not the largest French fries in the world, but rather I like to use the smaller plates for myself, so if you are gauging size/portions, please keep that in mind, it is not a regular dinner plate.

      Next Week (July 2) from Le Cordon Bleu at Home 
                • Sauce Mayonnaise (Basic emulsified sauce) page 31
                • Salade Messidor (Summer Harvest Salad) page 30-31