Small cabbage stuffed with lobster
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Quails à la dauphinoise
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Saint-Jean Salad
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Cheeses
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Ginette strawberries
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Small Cabbage Stuffed with Lobster
As a professional chef with years of experience in French haute cuisine, here's my refined recipe for 8 servings.
For the choux pastry: 150 g flour, 80 g butter, 5 eggs, 3 dl water, salt.
For the stuffing: 1 kg lobster, 30 g butter, 30 g flour, 0.3 l milk, 1 egg yolk, 1 dl fresh cream, salt, pepper.
Boil 3 liters of salted water in a large saucepan. Add the unshelled lobster and cook for 25 minutes over low heat. Remove the lobster, split the shell along the belly, extract the flesh in one piece, cut into small pieces, and keep warm.
For the choux pastry: In a medium saucepan, combine cold water, salt, and butter cut into small pieces. Bring to medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once butter melts, remove from heat, add sifted flour all at once, and stir vigorously. Return to low heat to dry the dough until it forms a ball and pulls away from the pan.
Off heat, beat in eggs one by one until the dough is smooth, creamy, and shiny.
Pipe 16 small mounds (8-10 mm) onto a lightly buttered baking sheet, spaced apart. Bake 25-30 minutes at 200°C (thermostat 6).
Prepare béchamel with butter, flour, and milk. Off heat, stir in egg yolk mixed with cream, then add lobster. Season.
Slice puffs horizontally one-third from the top, fill with hot stuffing, arrange on a platter, and serve immediately. Substitute crab if desired.
Quails à la Dauphinoise
For 8 servings: 8 plump quails, 8 vine leaves, 8 bacon strips, 1 large lettuce heart, 1.5 l shelled peas, 8 thin white ham slices, 150 g butter, salt, pepper, pinch of sugar.
Shred lettuce heart, melt with 25 g butter over low heat. Add peas, cook 25 minutes, purée. Season with salt, pepper, sugar; reduce over high heat, finish with 50 g butter. Keep warm.
Season and truss quails. Wrap each in vine leaf then bacon. Skewer. Place on broiler rack, brush with 50 g melted butter, broil 8 minutes at 240°C (thermostat 8). Reduce to 200°C (thermostat 6).
Line buttered baking dish with ham slices. Spread with hot pea purée. Remove bacon and leaves from quails, nestle into purée. Bake 10 minutes at 200°C.
Serve from the dish.
Saint-Jean Salad
For 8: 150 g green beans, 150 g asparagus tips, 1 cucumber, 2 artichoke hearts, 1 lemon, 2 gherkins, 2 hard-boiled eggs, tarragon.
Mayonnaise: 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp mustard, 2.5 dl oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper.
Boil beans (diamond-cut) and asparagus (hazelnut-sized) separately in salted water. Peel and ring-slice cucumber; salt and drain 30 minutes.
Make mustard mayonnaise. Hard-boil, peel, and slice eggs. Arrange ingredients in piles on a platter, coat with mayonnaise, garnish with gherkins, eggs, and tarragon. Chill before serving.
Ginette Strawberries
For 8: Lemon ice cream - 250 g sugar, 0.5 l water, 4 lemons, 1 orange, 2.5 dl cream.
Filling: 750 g small strawberries, 75 g powdered sugar, 2.5 cl curaçao, 1 dl champagne, 60 g crystallized violets, 1 candied orange peel, 5 dl whipping cream, 1 sachet vanilla sugar.
Ice cream: Dissolve sugar in water, boil briefly. Add finely grated zest of 1 lemon. Cool covered 1 hour. Juice lemons and orange, strain into syrup, chill 30 minutes. Fold in whipped cream. Freeze 2-3 hours.
Hull, wash, dry strawberries. Macerate with 50 g sugar, curaçao, champagne 30 minutes.
Crush violets, dice orange peel. Whip cream with remaining sugar and vanilla.
Unmold ice cream into dish. Top with strawberries and syrup, whipped cream, violets, and orange peel. Serve immediately.
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