First time was very easy, although, it required a lot of chopping, peeling and slicing. Who'd have thought a fruit salad can take two hours to prepare? I'm trying to be as close as possible to the instructions on every detail. So, if the book says you have to slide the orange in a specific way, that's what I did.
The recipes of this weekend were (I'll add the French name to look fancier)
- Cucumber Salad with Mint (Cocombre à la Menthe)
- Roast Chicken (Poulet Rôti)
- Spring Peas with Lettuce, Chervil and Onions (Petits Pois à la Française)
- Fresh Fruit Salad with Cointreau (Salada des Fruits)
Roasting the chicken was easy, trussing it (aka tying the legs and wings) not so much. I found two videos on the web, because the explanation from the book was too hard to decipher. At the end I realized that if you tie the wings and legs well, it really doesn't matter how you did it.
I used frozen peas instead of fresh ones. I just thought that it would be hard to find and they might not taste so good because they've been sitting on the grocery shelf for a while.
Results
By far, the best part of the meal was the Peas w/ Lettuce and Onion. Everybody just loved it. The chicken tasted like roasted chicken. No better, no worrse. The cucumber salad end up tasting not what I expected. It was very bland. And, finally, the Fruit Salad was not good, probably because the fruits were very acid and I forgot to add the sugar.
Technical data
Guests: Daniel, Manu & Hiram
Total cost: $47
Item hard to find: Chervil (not super hard, but had to go to two markets)
Utensils bought: none
Appliances bought: none
Best Dish: Spring Peas with Lettuce, Chervil and Onions
Worst Dish: Cucumber Salad with Mint
January, 2008
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