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Lynn Deasy is a freelance writer, author, foodie, and garden tinkerer. She lives in a 600 year old house in southern France with her husband, Christophe. Currently, she is looking for a literary agent for her memoir CA VA? STORIES FROM RURAL LIFE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE which examines the oddities of French provincial living from an outsider’s point of view through a series of adventures that provide more than a fair share of frustration, education, admiration, and blisters…. yes, lots and lots of blisters. Lynn blogs every Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes Friday.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

On the other side of simple


Blanquette de veau
On Monday, I boasted the goodness of simple French cooking.  Simple is good, but I also enjoy the other end of the spectrum: the classic dishes that have a list of ingredients an mile long and take all day to make.  Of the known classics, my favorite is blanquette de veau, or veal stew.  It’s classic French country cuisine, using common vegetables and finishing in the dish off with a rich sauce; in this case, its cream based.  What’s amazing about this dish is not that its popularity partially comes from it being the “ultimate French comfort food”, but in my view, the variations of this dish.  I’ve seen it served with capers, Roquefort cheese, and all sorts of vegetables.  Every working French chef has revisited this recipe, swapping out one cut of meat for another while trying to modernize it or tweaking the list of ingredients of the usual suspects one comes to expect in this dish.  Nothing strays too far from the original, which is telling.  There is a lot to be said for the weekday dinners that take a short time to make, but there is also a choral of songs to be sung for the Sunday lunches that need to be started around 9am to be on the table at a reasonable time.  Complicated can be good too, really good, and when that comes in the form of a slow cooked veal, a plethora of vegetables, and a hint of dried herbs covered in a rich cream sauce, I’m in.

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