We wanted to have a French-themed dinner party, and it just happened to be the weekend after Bastille Day. Any excuse to have people over, speak in strange tongues, and drink le vin!
First Course - Salad Lyonnaise
Poached egg, bacon, shallot, mixed greens, and Dijon vinaigrette
We first had this salad at Chez Nous in Austin and were intrigued by the idea of putting a poached egg on a salad. Poaching eggs turns out to be really easy, so it was a cinch to be French.
Why wouldn't you want to add an egg on top of your salad?!
The real inspiration for the entire meal was an urge to make French onion soup. We used a recipe from AmericasTestKitchen.com
First step is chopping all of those onions.
6 onions barely fit in this 7qt. pot!
The onions cook down for several hours until they become brown and delicious. We didn't take pictures of all the many steps...sorry. Both of our Le Creuset dutch ovens got a workout on this meal.
Slice up some crusty bread, top with Gruyere cheese, and then pop them under the broiler. The perfect excuse to buy some broiler-safe ramekins from Sur La Table! Cheaper and more practical than buying the special French Onion soup bowls.
Voila! French Onion Soup. It had a surprisingly sweet flavor from the onions.
Third Course - Dijon Chicken
We didn't take many pictures of this course, which we adapted from a recipe we found on this blog. We broke a chicken into 10 pieces, browned it, wilted down some shallot and garlic, braised the whole thing in white wine and chicken stock, and then stirred in some cream and Dijon mustard.
Fourth Course - Chocolate Pot a Creme with a hint of orange.
Also adapted from an AmericasTestKitchen.com recipe. Thick and chocolatey, almost like fudge in a cup!
Voila, mes amis!
Oui oui!
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