A Thanksgiving Visit To The Grocery Store

[Ironclad Alibi]

I had my own Thanksgiving culinary nightmare yesterday. I make cheese puffs, a cheese biscuit, for T-Day dinner. I bought everything last week for the recipe. When I got everything out yesterday morning, the flour spilled out the bottom of the bag. Mice had been nibbling on it in two places. Arrrgh! So I had to rush over to the grocery store and get a new bag of flour. And it was only 99 cents.

The cheese puffs were wonderful and well received.

Now I get to fix a special treat for those mice.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I forgot to mention my experience at the grocery store.

When I was checking out with the new bag of flour, I mentioned to the clerk that I had to be there because mice had eaten a hole in the bag I had bought last week. She said I should have brought it back. My response was that it wasn't their mice. She laughed.

[LillFilly]

I don't suppose I could have that cheese puff recipe, could I? Are they like a biscuit or more like a gullet?

Tip: Mice like peanut butter; I think it's the protein.

[wolfie]

Just curious, but will the treat be warfarin-flavoured?

A bit off-topic, but in a number of cases, "stereotype foods" are wrong. For example, it's not healthy for mice to eat cheese - even when it's not attached to the trigger of a trap.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I don't suppose I could have that cheese puff recipe, could I? Are they like a biscuit or more like a gullet?

Since I don't know what a gullet is, I will say it like a biscuit.

Here is the recipe:

GOUGÈRE BOURGUIGNONNE

Pâté à chou, a simple paste of water, butter, flour, and eggs is perhaps the most versatile of all French doughs and is certainly the easiest to make. Used as it is in America almost exclusively as a cream-puff base, we know too little about the culinary miracles the French accomplish with it. And the Burgundian gougère is one of them. The basic pàté à chou is combined with cheese and seasonings, piped into a ring, sprinkled with more cheese, and baked until it puffs quite incredibly into an impressive hollow crown. Served hot, warm, or cold, the gougère makes a delectable hors d'oeuvre; but it also does well at lunch, with a salad, or eaten at any time of the day, as the Burgundians eat it, accompanied by a glass of red wine.

} To serve eight or ten {

Pâté à chou:

1/4 pound butter, cut in small pieces
1 cup water
1 cup unsifted flour
4 large eggs

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 cups coarsely grated imported Swiss cheese

1 tablespoon soft butter
1/4 cup flour

1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon heavy cream

The classic pâté à chou is always made the same way, no matter to what use it is finally put. Cut the butter into small pieces and add it to the cup of water in a 2-quart saucepan. Bring the water to a rolling boil, and when the butter is completely melted, remove the pan from the heat and dump in the cup of flour. With a large wooden spoon, quickly mix the flour and water together to the consistency of mashed potatoes, then return the pan to the stove. Over moderate heat, beat and mix the paste vigorously for a minute or two until it becomes a smooth, doughy mass that moves all together with the spoon. Now remove the pan again from the heat.

With the back of the spoon, make a small indentation in the center of the paste before it begins to cool; break an egg into it and quickly begin to beat. After the first few strokes, the paste will separate into moist doughy strands. Continue to beat vigorously until the strands come together again and form a solid mass. At that point, make another indentation in the paste and add another egg. Beat together as before, and proceed in the same fashion to add the third and fourth eggs.

After the last egg is beaten in, the paste should be smooth and shiny and should fall lazily off the lifted spoon back into the pan. If the paste is too firm and resistant, break another egg into a dish, stir it lightly with a fork, then beat from a quarter to a half of it into the paste to give it the proper consistency.

This procedure of adding the eggs requires somewhat less energy if you own an electric mixer equipped with a pastry-arm attachment: Transfer the hot dough to the mixing bowl and, with the mixer set at medium speed, beat in the eggs one at a time. But don't attempt this with an ordinary beater attachment; the paste is much too dense.

For gougères, beat the seasonings into the pâté à chou, the salt and the Dijon and dry mustards and follow with 1-1/4 cups of the grated cheese, reserving the remaining 1/4 cup until later. Taste the chou paste and adjust the seasonings any way you like.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Meanwhile, prepare a large cookie sheet or jelly-roll pan: First grease it evenly with a tablespoon of soft butter; then carelessly scatter 1/4 cup of flour over this, tilt the pan so the flour spreads over the whole buttered surface, then shake off the excess flour by holding the pan upright on its side and rapping it sharply on the table. This operation will be considerably less messy if you do it over a long strip of waxed paper which can then be rolled up and thrown away.

Using a 7-inch cake pan or flan ring, press the outlines of two circles on the floured surface of the pan or cookie sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. If there isn't room, make smaller circles or use a second pan. Scoop up the pâté à chou a tablespoon at a time and place the spoonfuls one next to the other in a ring just inside the outline of each circle. Then, with a spatula, join and shape the dough into smooth, 2-inch-thick rings about an inch high.

A more professional way to do this is with a pastry bag fitted with a number 6 or 8 plain tip. Fill the bag no more than two thirds full of paste at a time. Fold the top opening firmly over itself so that no paste can escape, and press out an even 2-inch-thick ring inside each circle as above.

You may also form the pâté à chou as biscuits rather than rings. Bake the same as the rings. This makes delightful cheese puffs.

However you make the rings, paint them lightly with a pastry brush dipped into the egg yolk and cream mixture; make sure the egg doesn't drip down the sides of the gougères and stick to the pan, this could make them rise unevenly. Sprinkle the reserved 1/4 cup of cheese over the surface of the rings, and slide the cookie sheet onto the center shelf of the preheated oven. In about 10 minutes the gougères will have begun to expand; turn the heat down to 350 degrees F. Bake them at this temperature for 10 more minutes, then reduce the heat further, to 325 degrees F., at which temperature the gougères will bake another 20 minutes, and which makes about 40 minutes baking time in all

The finished gougères should be well puffed, attractively brown, and crisp and dry on the outsides. If you don't intend to serve them at once, and prefer them warm, let them rest in the turned-off oven with the door slightly ajar. They can stay this way a good half hour before they begin to cool. It's a good idea, if you do this, also to pierce the sides of the gougères with the point of a sharp knife in three or four places to let out the steam; otherwise the insides will get soggy and the gougères may collapse as they wait. At the last minute, cut into generous pieces and serve immediately.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:
* You may use more cheese than is specified if you like, but the gougères will be heavier in texture and less spectacularly puffed.
* For many tastes a gougère is at its best served hot, although, surprisingly, the Burgundians themselves prefer it cold.
* Although it is hardly traditional, there is no reason why you can't substitute freshly grated Parmesan cheese for half the Swiss cheese.

From Michael Field's Cooking School cook book.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Just curious, but will the treat be warfarin-flavoured?

No, peanut butter flavored. Although one time I had all the peanut butter removed from the trap without triggering it. The next attempt was successful.

[Food Lady]

I love how the french approach food. I've made gougeres, and wish I had pierced them.

[Barracuda]

I make a special treat for Thanksgiving as well. My bacon stuffed mushrooms. :-)

[LesserSouthernFroglet]

I keep my flour in the freezer. It's a habit I picked up when I lived in a semi-tropical environment. It stops any weevils etc from growing in the flour, and I'm sure it'd protect it from the meeces as well.

I haven't made choux pastry for years, then it was custard puffs and chocolate eclairs. Hmmm... cooking this weekend?