Happy Friday! I hope you all had a good week. Things are settling back to normal around here and I made two French Fridays with Dorie recipes!
Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis
This week the group made Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Parsley Coulis. You may be thinking that we just made something with Jerusalem artichokes. Well, yes we did, last month. Now that we are getting down to the last few dozen recipes from the book, we are being strategic about which recipes we do, to make sure we don’t miss certain ingredients when they are in season. Also, certain “odd” ingredients (like Jerusalem artichokes, for example) have been hard sells, and we are finally having to bite the bullet and make those recipes. So, two Jerusalem artichoke recipes in two months.
This soup was actually quite similar to the Celery-Celery Soup we made last month. Same techniques, just a variation in ingredients. This one had butter, two large onions, a bit of celery, on leek, garlic, Jerusalem artichokes, and chicken broth. We made a parsley coulis (parsley pureed with olive oil and salt) to drizzle over the finished soup.
What a pleasant surprise! After the so-so results from the Celery-Celery Soup and the Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes, I didn’t have high expectations. But Jerusalem Artichoke Soup had a lovely flavor that both my husband and I enjoyed very much. The parsley coulis and a dollop of heavy cream finished off the soup very nicely.
Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake
This past week I also did a make-up recipe from way back when French Fridays first started: Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake. This is a simple cake chock-full of apples. There are almost more apples than batter!
Dorie recommends using four different kinds of apples, to get varying textures and flavors. I took her advice and I loved the results. She calls for four “large” apples, but I used one large and three that were smaller. Some people have had trouble having too many apples and not enough batter, and I feel that using a few smaller apples helped with this.
Why did I wait so long to make this delicious cake? It’s easy enough to make at the spur of the moment, and a perfect way to enjoy apples at their peak. The touch of rum in the batter really added a nice flavor. I love simple cakes, and this one was a winner!
If you would like to try Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake, you can find the recipe here. The recipe for the soup can be found in the book Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan.
From Scratch 