Bon Appetit!

I have finally made a dish from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. We have watched the movie several times, bought the cookbook, and read her biography. It is well past time to hit the kitchen!

We chose Roast Chicken in Port Wine, Cream, and Mushrooms, not only because it looked so good in the movie, but also because,... well, it just sounds so scrumptious! As it happens, the movie doesn't quite follow the cookbook. The recipe begins with roasting a whole chicken- they showed chicken breasts; in the movie this was the scene where Julie learns to saute mushrooms perfectly, the mushrooms in the recipe are not sauteed. I ran somewhere down the middle, using chicken breasts and sauteing a few mushrooms while following the rest exactly.

This is also the very first time that I have dealt with a flaming pan of food- something they left out of the movie entirely, but would have been awfully entertaining.

We learned that all of the many steps to making this dish could be sorted out and done in easy portions, instead of taking it all at once. Once the recipe was broken down this way, it wasn't so very difficult. We also learned that when Julia writes, "avert your face" right before, "ignite the cognac", it's a real good idea to take her seriously. Nobody is singed, but we are going to give God all of the credit for that...

Not satisfied with merely cooking the food, we did, of course, photograph the food as well. Enjoy. If you hear of a widget that will allow for a scratch and sniff feature for computers, let me know.

Quickly cook the shallots in butter- real butter.

The Port wine

Mushrooms briefly boiled in water, butter, and lemon juice, then the juice is poured off and reserved and the cream is added to the mushrooms.

Chicken breasts roasted in butter... oh, yum.

A sauce is made from the reserved mushroom juice, port wine, and
mushrooms in cream. Yes, it's actually pink.

The chicken goes into a buttered pan in preparation for cognac and the match...

Woosh!

I'm still not sure how this influenced the flavor- but it sure was cool to do!

Finished product. Poulet au Porto. Be still my heart.