Parsnips, turnips, acorn squash, red onions, and kale marinated in garlic, olive oil, balsamic and then roasted.  The kale, which I thought was an unlikely candidate for roasting, was the best part of this meal.  It was added to the 425F oven when there were 10-15 minutes left for the other vegetables.  Some of the kale got crisp, while some stayed moist and richly flavored.  It was a great, surprising, tasty contrast of texture.  That's the main not on this dish.  For future reference, I think the parsnips take the longest to roast of all of these vegetables, so I might start them earlier next time, or add some stock to help steam all of the vegetables a bit.

Here's the recipe that this was roughly based upon.

The leftover beef from making the stock on Saturday fortunately remains very flavorful and can be reheated to wonderful results.  I say "fortunately", because the stock recipe calls for six pounds of beef to be used to create two quarts of stock, and it would be a pity to have to throw all that meat away.  I made a cheater's sauce robert, a traditional French mustard sauce, with some horseradish to top this treat and even several days later now (I've really been slacking off with my posting) my mouth is watering at the thought.  I didn't go to the trouble to create a brown sauce from the stock, but just used the beef stock to make the sauce robert.  Made with brown sauce (Sauce Espagnole), the sauce may have been a bit richer, and probably wouldn't have needed the arrowroot that I added to thicken it.  But, really now, I was just trying to make a quick snack before running off to trivia night at The Old Toad, I think I can cut a couple corners!  <Escoffier rolls in his grave>

Anyway, you can easily find the recipe for sauce robert at a million websites, just add a teaspoon or so of horseradish to really make it great with leftover beef.  I sliced and heated the beef up in a skillet with some fresh herbs and a bit of beef stock, then topped it with some swiss cheese and the sauce.  Voila!

As I mentioned on an earlier post, Saturday I was busy making stock, some of which was to be used in making French Onion Soup.  Myself and two co-workers had agreed to bring in French onion soup made using three very different soup bases and have a taste test.  We tried not to embellish the recipes too much since what we were really interested in was the outcome of the different bases.  But they did differ slightly on things such as the type of onion(s) used, whether wine was added, etc...  One of the keys to good french onion soup, caramelizing the onions by cooking for 35-40 minutes was basically followed by everyone.  We didn't do the taste tests with any of the traditional croutons and cheese, as they would greatly detract from being able to taste the soup's subtleties.  The bases were as follows:

1. Soup based on a classical French consommé.  - Methods outlined in the CIA produced, The Professional Chef, were used.  The process includes such fun things as veal bones, white stock, and a "raft" of congealed meat and impurities floating on the stock.  I believe total time was about 36 hours!
2. Soup based on "The Best Recipe" (Cook's Illustrated) techniques.  - This involves using a lot of beef, but much less time than the classical.  The total time from start to finish is about 5 hours and you end up with a lot of nice braised sandwich beef. (This is the one I made)
3. Soup based on "Campbell's Consommé" - Total time needed is about 40 minutes.  Cheap!

Several people were kind enough to assist us on our tasting endeavor.  Unfortunately, there was no clear consensus on a winner.  Each soup was picked by at least someone as the best.  The flavor of the consommé based soup really stood apart from the others.  It was somewhat sweet, mild, complex, flavorful, and had detectable subtle herbs.  It was the most unique.  The other two were much more boldly flavored, and more darkly colored.  I think the flavor that people imagine when they picture good French onion soup is close to these.  A small dish of either was quite good, the Campbell's based soup was highly flavorful, but most agreed that it was a bit too salty to be thoroughly enjoyed as a big bowl.  The "Best Recipe" version did, as they claim, have the rich taste of beef very prevalently offered.  I can personally attest to the fact that a full bowl can be enjoyed without being overwhelmed with salt.

When the taste testing was finished, one final permutation was tried.  All three soups were poured into one pot and combined.  We have our winner.  The result was actually superb.  So go on out, set aside about four days, a whole side of beef, a bunch of stockpots, and a case of Campbell's Consommé and make yourself a dynamite French Onion Soup.

A good portion of yesterday afternoon was spent making Chicken and Beef stock.  It was my first try making these stocks using the rather unconventional methods outlined in The Best Recipe.  I won't write out the whole processes here.  But both methods involve sweating the meat for a period of time before adding the water to extract a lot of flavor.  Both involve only onion as aromatic vegetables.  Both involve much less time than traditional recipes.  And the beef stock involves a lot of beef.  I used the chicken stock for the pictured Thai soup to quite a deal of success.  The beef stock will be used in a French Onion Soup cookoff to occur tomorrow.

I've been on a real cookbook buying spree lately.  Earlier this week, I purchased David Thompson's Thai Food, which I've seen a lot of food press about lately.  It's quite an impressive and extensive work, including a huge section on Thai history before getting to the recipes.  I can't wait to try some of the more exotic dishes and ingredients, although I'm going to really have to work up my mettle before I try the "Curried Fish Innards".

This soup introduced me to three ingredients that I'd never used before, requiring a trip to Lee's Oriental Foods (900 Jefferson Rd # 1-1, Rochester, NY 14623.  272-7010).  I guess one improvement that would have been welcome in David Thompson's book would be to add photos to the great glossary.  I arrived at Lee's in search of Galangal, Tamarind, and Palm Sugar having no idea what any of them looked like.  Fortunately the very helpful and friendly staff ensured this was not a problem.  Galangal looks like ginger, except black and red instead of tan colored.  Tamarind, as they carried it, is sold in a packaged moist dark brown brick. (the tamarind actually isn't necessary for this recipe, but is used in a lot of the recipes in the book)   Palm Sugar was sold in a package of light brown disks, it looks and tastes similar to maple sugar candy.  Here's Thompson's recipe:

Hot and Sour Soup of Shredded Chicken and Lemongrass

4 cups of chicken stock
pinch of salt
pinch of palm sugar
2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed
3 red shallots, peeled
2 kaffir lime leaves, torn
200g skineless chicken breast or thigh fillets
3 tablespoons lime juice
3 tablespoons fish sauce
4 bird's eye chillies, bruised
3 tablespoons finedly sliced lemongrass
2 tablespoons finely sliced red shallot
5 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded
1 tablespoon coriander leaves

This soup was awesome.  As I said earlier, I can't wait to explore more of this authentic Thai food.