Baked Fettuccine with Meatballs, French Style

Baked Fettuccine with Meatballs, French Style

You may realize by now, in the winter I enjoy hearty repasts, but I choose not to be a slave to my kitchen.  My routine is simple. Make ‘em.  Stick ‘em in the oven. Drink heavily until it’s time to eat. 

I already shared a Baked Ziti recipe with you, but for the New Year I’ve got another that’s just as tasty and works with the same simple routine. Chances are most of these ingredients are already in your garage kitchen.

https://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2017/12/baked-ziti-easy-lasagna-alternative.html

This time we’re going to take some pasta and make it speak French, n’est pas?  So grab your Fettuccine or your close friend’s Fettuccine and let’s pack those noodles in your favorite oven. Easy recipe.  Not many ingredients. None of them are exotic or toxic, and the whole mess comes with instructions from yours truly, Chef Guillaume de Stroudé.

Baked Fettuccine with Meatballs, French Style

Preheat oven to 350ºF

Butter a 9 X 13 inch baking dish

For the sauce: 

28 oz can whole tomatoes, un-drained

4 cloves garlic, chopped

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1 heaping tablespoon Herbes de Provence

salt and pepper as desired

Put all the ingredients in a blender or food processor until well blended, set aside.

For the meatballs:

1 Pound freshly ground beef or pork or a combo

1 Egg

1 Cup breadcrumbs (no breadcrumbs?  Throw some stale bread or crackers in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to do some pounding)

½ Cup diced onions

A dash each of:

Salt, white pepper, chili powder, black pepper, Herbes de Provence

Mix all ingredients, then form the meat into any size balls you prefer and lightly brown in a skillet. Do not worry that they are not completely cooked as they will bake for 40-45 minutes.  Put your thumb and forefinger together and that’s about the size meatballs I used.

Prepare the noodles:

1 Pound package of dried Fettuccine (Boil in salted water about 9 minutes instead of the usual 12-13 minutes, then drain and put in a large bowl.)

Next:

5 Tablespoons butter, softened

2 Eggs, scrambled

1/3 Cup Parmesan Cheese

5 Cups shredded Gruyere Cheese, 1 ½ Cups reserved

Need this, but don’t mix it yet. 2 Cups small curd cottage cheese, divided in two.

Whip the the butter, eggs, and 3 1/2 Cups of Gruyere together.  Add to the bowl of noodles and mix well.

Putting it all together:

Put half the noodle mixture in the baking dish, spread one cup of cottage cheese, then about half the tomato sauce, sprinkle on half the remaining Gruyere cheese and put on half the meatballs.  Make a second layer in the same manner, with the meatballs on top. Sprinkle Parmesan on top.

Slide the baking dish in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until bubbling and beginning to brown on top.

See how easy that was!  But, to make the process go even faster, you can make everything hours before you bake it.

So, why do I say this is French style?  Lots more butter than anyone else in the world uses, plus the use of Gruyere Cheese instead of Italian alternatives, as well as herbes de Provence.   And you're saying, "Yeah, but the noodles..." Oh, be quiet!  The French eat pasta, but they say: manger des pâtes.

Here’s wishing both my faithful readers a very Happy New Year! Or as we like to say in Oui! Oui! Land, Bonne Année!

My Life in France by Julia Child, with Alex Prud’homme

France may be the most astonishingly different culture in all of Europe.  Not denigrating any other country and we all have our favorites.  Lived in Spain for years and love the country.  Lived in Germany and would never utter a complaint.  Great Britain?  Hell yes!

So, you see, I’m not claiming that France is the best or even that I like it the best.  I’m only saying that for my money France’s culture is the most astonishingly different.  Depending on your outlook, that can be either bad or good.  In my case, extreme enchantment. 

I’ve heard a lot of travelers remark that Parisians are rude and follow that up with:  It’s expensive and we hated it!  As though Paris is all there is to France. That opinion isn’t limited to Americans.  Heard it a lot from Germans. To aid you on your voyage of discovery, I offer this advice:  The French way is not like America’s or Germany’s way.  Accept that and you’ll relax and enjoy this strangely fascinating country and its people and way of life.

Unlike many of my fellow countrymen, I have always had a fabulous time in France, Paris included.

Recently I blogged about adventures in Provence and that laudatory book by Peter Mayle, A Year In Provence.

https://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2017/08/two-weeks-in-provence.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2017/08/chocolate-in-provence.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2017/09/a-year-in-provence-by-peter-mayle.html

Well, now I’ve got another book that will make you grab your bib and buy a First Class ticket on Air France:  My Life In France, by Julia Child, with Alex Prud’homme.

I’ll confess that I carried this book in my man-purse everywhere I went.  Couldn’t put it down and didn’t want to.  Those who know me will spew out slanderous accusations that Julia’s love of wine spurred me on, drove me to drink and drive.  You fools, that what a wife is for, so I can drink and ride and read!  I also took it to my favorite bakery cum coffee shop. Multi-tasking, reading in English, speaking to the irresistible women around me in German.  Yes, yes, men too.  But, always back to the book and my new friend, Julia.

Have both my loyal readers heard of Julia Child?  She’s the famous chef who almost singlehandedly brought French cuisine into America’s homes and kitchens, with her seminal work:  Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volumes I and II.

My Life In France, written by Julia and Alex Prud’homme, uses Julia’s multitudinous letters, reminiscences, and her husband’s letters and photographs to tell the often humorous and frequently intimate story of her love affair with the country and it’s cuisine. 

She started out as a normal American woman, with only a smattering of cooking knowledge. Her knowledge of France was a dark void.  As she wrote on Wednesday, November the third, 1948:  “As I gazed through the portal at the twinkling lights of le Harve I had no idea what I was looking at…In Pasadena, California, where I was raised, France did not have a good reputation.”

As she and her husband sat at a table in the Norman restaurant La Couronne, her husband translated what the waiter at the next table said to his patrons, explaining where the chicken they ordered was raised, how it will be cooked, which side dishes would go best with it and which wines would be suitable.

Her comment said it all about the difference between French and American culture.  “Wine?  With lunch?”

But, Julia was a woman of strong attitudes and stronger passions.  Once the tastes and flavors of the French kitchen enveloped her, her path opened and widened with the popping cork of each bottle, and the placement of each pot on the stove.

What I found so enticing about My Life In France is the intimacy of how it was written, as if a very famous chef offered a glass of wine, sat down at your kitchen table and told you her life’s story, amid lengthy struggles, staggering failures and heroic successes.  As some would say, My Life In France is a painting that includes warts and all.  Interesting? Fascinating?  Oh, hell YES!

Most of all, it’s a story of the development of a passion and following that passion like a lit fuse to a stick of dynamite, in spite of the nay-sayers and dream killers many of whom were family members.   The story is so unlikely and convoluted that it could only be replicated in the saccharine sweet pages of a romantic novel.

And speaking of romance, it’s also the tale of a lifetime love affair between Julia and her husband Paul, and the unlikely journey of togetherness, yet always keeping Julia’s passion in the forefront.

As she wrote so simply and eloquently:  “…the sole meuniere I ate at La Couronne on my first day in France, in November 1948…was an epiphany!”

Julia, wherever you are, I want you to know how much I enjoyed this little chat.  And, I dearly hope both my readers do, too. I hope they will all have their own epiphany and find the trail that leads them to follow even their most unlikely dreams.

And to that end, dear readers, I raise a glass….Á votre santé!

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

How often do you get the question:  Read any good books lately???  Your mind spins. Your face blanches. Have I read any GOOD books?  Repeating the question buys you time. The qualifier takes your spinning head and begs you to reconsider ignorance vs bliss.

You quickly excuse yourself to rush home to count table napkins.  Meanwhile, you’re thinking one of two things.  Number one:  Were the books I read any good? Or Number two:  Did I forget to read…let’s see, hummmm, have I read anything for the past thirty-six years? Does the Anthology of Little Known Mathematical Equations count?  Or, the video version of The Joy of Sex?

I’ve got a book that will solve your dilemma and make you say with pride and a gleaming smile, I read! A book!  It’s good!  Immediately, in the minds of your insufferably judgmental friends, you will no longer be thought of as just a leaf raker, a calloused thumbed TV lounger, or a swiller of screw-top wine.  You’re an intelluelle, an inter-something…..you're a really smart guy!

So, what’s the book?  A Year In Provence, by Peter Mayle and yep it’s been around since 1989, but some things don’t change.  The entire misunderstandable country of France and the funny way they talk. The quirky ways of the French through the eyes of an outsider.  The dry, rib-wracking, understated Brit humor.  The fun and foibles of visiting a foreign culture versus living there without benefit of room service.

You can’t mention France without starting the food conversation, especially in comparison to English fare.  To paraphrase the French opinion: It is well known the English kill their veal twice.  Once when they slaughter the animal and again when they cook it.

What is it about French food that captures and enchants us? Mayle and his missus soon learn during an evening with the neighbors.

“We had entire breasts, entire legs, covered in a dark savory gravy and surrounded by mushrooms.

We sat back, thankful that we had been able to finish, and watched with something close to panic, as plates were wiped clean yet again and a huge steaming casserole was placed on the table.”  He goes on to describe the rest of the almost never-ending, yet entirely sumptuous meal.  “That night we ate for England.”

But, this book is more than a description of the French table and the country’s undying passion for food. Mayle takes us through the settling-in, and from season to season, beginning with the hazards of buying a car in a country that prides itself on its inefficient bureaucracy.

And how about house repairs and overcoming the natural suspicions of the natives.  How about truffle hunting?

“During the season, from November until March they can be tracked down by nose…the supreme truffle detector is the pig, who is born with a fondness for the taste and whose sense of smell in this case is superior to the dog’s.  But there is a snag:  the pig is not content to wag his tail and point…He wants to eat it.  In fact he is desperate to eat it…and you cannot reason with a pig on the brink of gastronomic ecstasy.”

Or how about a discussion of house insurance?

“One reason, apart from idleness, why we had neglected the matter of insurance was that we detested insurance companies, with their weasel words and evasions and extenuating circumstances, and their conditional clauses set in miniscule, illegible type.  But Bernard was right…we resigned ourselves to spending the afternoon with a gray man in a suit who would tell us to put a lock on the refrigerator.”

Yes, the joy of this book is not only the unabridged humor that echoes off nearly every page, but the sense of being there, of living and breathing in Provence for an entire year, month by month, season by season, through high expectations and convoluted results.

Yes, you will say with certainty, I have not read a better book in a long, long time.

So, your former friend asks, have you been to Provence?  Oh, screw you!  I told you I read the book!!!!

La Bonne Auberge: A Jewel in the French Culinary Crown

La Bonne Auberge  (The Good Inn) sits unobtrusively in a drab suburb of Forbach, France, so close to Germany you can only tell you’ve crossed the border when the roasty smells of wurst and beer disappear.  Suddenly, it’s France and just as suddenly the food changes, and you’ve left behind the tried and true meat and potatoes. My German friends won’t like to hear this, but you haven’t just stepped up a rung, you’re on a different ladder, surrounded by ambrosial clouds.  I always say, the French can teach anyone how to eat.  At La Bonne Auberge even the French can learn a thing or two.

In this small inn, one does not eat; one dines amid the tinkle of sparkling crystal and glint of polished silverware.  Awarded a Michelin Star some time ago, it’s never lost that distinction.

A word about the Michelin star system for American readers:  One Star:  So amazing, you will insist on telling even complete strangers you happen to pass on the street.  Two Stars:  It’s here where God’s angels gather for a meal.  Three Stars: God has a permanent reservation, and the waiters call him by his first name.  That’s according to those who do the rating. 

My rating system is different, but what do I know?  FYI:  I’ve visited many Michelin starred restaurants.  And what is it I look for?

My ultimate question:  Would I return, even if my credit card were full and my bank account low?  For La Bonne Auberge, the answer is:  Three thumbs up and the next round is on me!!

Another question:  Would I invite a friend to join me and still pick up the bill?  For La Bonne Auberge the answer is:  It would have to be a friend who not only knows what Dom Perignon is, but knows how to spell it.  In other words, a close friend and congenial gourmet, with table manners worthy of a prince or princess.

Still another question:  Would I walk away thinking I could have done better?  After a meal at La Bonne Auberge, the answer is NON, NON, et NON.

Want to read some more specifics about Michelin Stars?  http://www.andyhayler.com/star-system

Isabelle (standing), a woman with a compelling sense of color and design,  and Lydia, whose bright eyes and warm smile shower you with imagination, innovation and culinary courage.

Let’s get to the meat of the matter.  Two sisters, Isabelle and Lydia both own and run La Auberge, with help from significant others.  They began circa 1980 or 81, when Isabelle was 19 and Lydia 21.  To clean things up in your mind, Isabelle is the sommelier, and maître d’, and interior decorator.  Lydia is the innovative magician in the kitchen. 

In Lydia’s case, Chef is far too bland a word.  What she brings to the kitchen is ingenuity, imagination, and sensuality that take your breath away with each glance and each bite.

La Bonne Auberge is more than a restaurant, much more.  Part artist’s atelier, part elegance, part design studio, and above all a dining experience that leaves you speechless, as you eat and sip your way from one part of paradise to another, each step of which is narrated by Isabelle’s lyrical voice.

You think this is just a restaurant?  Are you mad?  Insane?  This is culinary heaven, a lifetime event.   Ok, now you’re sure I’m exaggerating.  Point of fact, the two old friends who took me to luncheon at La Bonne Auberge last visited the inn some 25-30 years prior.  We were greeted at the door as visiting royalty.  Yes, everyone remembered my friends’ names!  Of course, we got kisses on both cheeks and warm embraces on the way in.

As we were seated, our eyes swiveled at the wonder of the interior.  Aperitifs appeared.  Lightly flavored Crémant, Alsace’s delightful rendition of sparkling wine.

“My how the place has changed,” one friend remarked.  Yes, it has.  Old photo albums quickly appeared at our table.  Thirty years ago, the restaurant was beautiful and pleasant, but ordinary.  Now, Cinderella has turned into a princess.  Now La Auberge is an elegant gallery of art in all its many forms.  In addition to the incomparable foods and dishes, huge canvases, alive with color, fill every wall.  Statues and ceramics.  But, rather than go on raving like a man who’s just won the culinary lottery, I’ll let the accompanying photos speak for the artistry that is La Bonne Auberge.

New York, with skyline and Central Park

Every detail, even the chair covering is exquisite

I'll come back in the Spring and enjoy the garden.

No detail is too small for Isabelle's practiced eye.

An olive tree grows in the central atrium.

I dare not attempt to name all the dishes or ingredients from Séduction, the six-course chef’s selection on the extensive menu.  The six courses include at least three or four individual tidbits in individual sauces.  Sacre bleu! In the French manner, portions, small and dainty, politely graced our china plates. 

The American appetite always growls for more … and faster.  The American appetite is indescribably foolish.  Relax. Sip the wine.  Enjoy Lydia’s artistry, as she fills your eyes with wonder and treats your taste buds divinely.  Listen attentively to the elegant descriptions provided by Isabelle.  Savor the silky blends of flavors you had never even considered before today.

Too vague?  Ok, let’s look at the mushroom plate, which the French call Cep, the Italians call porcini, the Germans Steinpilzen, and Americans call, ‘them brown mushrooms with big caps.’  Even this simple fare is graced with aromatic sauces that bring alive the woodland wonder of freshness and flavor.

Or the shrimp plate.  Only three shrimp, but you cut them time and again, relishing the small bites that capture the flavors of fig and mint and others whose names are forever lost to my mental acuity, but forever remembered by my palate.

From left to right:  Foie Gras wrapped in pasta, minced beef with beef liver, chicken gizzards

Oh, hell yeah!  1995 come alive once more!

Sorbet, accompanied by desiccated eggplant (aubergine) skin, encrusted with sugar.

Smoked trout in a melange of diced fruit and vegetable.

How dare I so rudely cut into these works of art???  I dared.

When the meal ended, both Isabelle and Lydia and company joined us for a few minor miracles of sweetness to accompany tiny cups of espresso.  We lingered for another hour or more amid laughter and conversation.  Believe me, you will too! Push aside the Michelin ratings.  Banish them.  This is dining at it’s very finest, an enjoyment of food and friendship that will last a few hours, but cling to your memory forever.  La Bonne Auberge.  

After lunch sweets.

No, there is no Internet site.  Isabelle does not accept that a wonderful dining experience rests on the click of a mouse.  Call her.  Listen to her voice.  Let her listen to yours.  Start with the human contact that will lead you back to La Bonne Auberge again and fill your dreams in between.

‪15 Rue Nationale, 57350 Stiring-Wendel, France

‪+33 3 87 87 52 78

Even the color and design of the small rugs capture your attention.

An Inn you will never forget!