Veal Chops with Creamed Leeks

Valentine's Day

We wanted something special for "Bishop Valentine, whose day it is," so we shelled out for the veal rack at Eckerlin. $14.99/lb. Yikes! We're genuinely frugal, by temperament, but also as a matter of aesthetics. Any idiot can stuff a chicken with fois gras and proclaim it haute cuisine. What takes art is to turn the bottom of the vedge bin into something tasty (hence the grocery sack test at the good CIA). Nonetheless, sometimes we just got to have an indulgence. We figure that its amortizes out over time, so that (in the spirit of self-congratulations--and who better?) we eat not only nicer but also cheaper than Fast Food Nation. Which is nice if you're cheap.
So the veal, which gave Barbara the chance to say to Holt, "Nice rack," which he fondly believed to be a compliment. Holt cut it up at home and got five lovely chops, and one smaller but thicker one, perfect for boning out to make medallions. We chose the two best chops, about 1 1/2" thick, and froze the others.
The best ingredients sometimes call for the simplest preparation. So, congregation, follow along in your copies of Julia Child's The Way to Cook:
Sear the chops in a little butter and a film of plain oil for about 2 minutes on each side. Once seared, season with kosher salt and parve pepper, cook for another 2 minutes each side. Season now with tarragon, and cook for 1 minute each side. Now finish it off in the oven. About 5-7 minutes more in a 350º oven. Neither Julia nor Joy give a temperature for veal, but we set the automatic timer to 125º and plunged the sensor in the middle of the meatiest part. Worked a treat: tender, moist, still slightly pink. The chops rested on the heated plates, while we made the sauce. Again, simply deglaze with a tiny bit of good white wine and a couple of veal stock cubes.
Served this with creamy, dreamy leeks: browned just bit in butter, then cooked Barbara's way, covered at very low heat in just the water left from washing them. Added the cream while making the sauce and reduced it all.

We broke out a half bottle of the 1989 Château Beaucastel. I had read a review of it in the Wine Expectorator (okay, Spectator) in 1990, and thought it sounded just the thing, bit more expensive than we usually go, but we love Chateauneuf du Pape. We got a bottle at Cork and Bottle and it was superb. We were planning to indulge in another, when the WS anointed it "Wine of the Year." I acted fast, called Cork and Bottle the afternoon my copy arrived, and they scrounged up a full case, 6 bottles, 12 half bottles, and kindly charged only $35 a bottle, though the price had already sky-rocketed. One of the best buys we ever made. I'm going to brag here, cuz it's currently going for $195 a bottle, making it slightly terrifying to think of the price per gulp. The wine is still lovely, though it throws sediment like a raisin pie and has to be carefully decanted. What it's lost in tannic power over the years, it's made up for in a subtle softness. See the reviews from all the Cork Dorks and the Perrin Family homepage.

I thought we had a bottle of the DeLoach OFS Chardonnay still left. This is still our benchmark for chardonnays: lots of butter, moving on to butterscotch. Turns out we drank it all! And the DeLoach I had seen in the wine cellar (we've got a cellar, we put wine in it. OK?) was a Cab. Sauv. But we hit a winner with Hess Collection '03. Nice malolactic and pineapply flavors. Not a bad drop, as they say in Australia.

Speaking of which, we had friands for dessert, a lovely little cake we've never seen outside Oz, and a great way to use up left-over egg whites (which we freeze as they accumulate). The name is odd, because a French friand is a sort of puff-pastry enclosed meat pie, and the Oz friand is a French financier.
Here's pretty much the standard recipe for friands, translated from the 'Strain, and with many thanks to Elizabeth Minchin, who sent us the recipes:

1 ½ cups (200g) powered sugar
1 cup (120g) almond meal
(grinded up almonds)
½ cup (60g) flour

5 egg whites, lightly beaten

1 ½ cups (180g.) unsalted butter, melted, and cooled.

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400º F (200º C.) Lightly grease 8 friand moulds. If friand moulds are not available, muffin tins can be used.
2. Place dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add egg whites and butter and stir again until the mixture is smooth. Spoon evenly into friand moulds and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the tops have started to crack and the edges are golden brown.
3. Remove from oven and allow to rest in moulds for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire cake rack to cool completely. Dust friands with icing sugar before serving.
Variations: Before baking, friands can be stuffed with raspberries, rhubarb [yeech!] or blueberries. 2 tablespoons poppy seeds and the grated rind of 2 lemons, oranges or mandarins can be added to the dry ingredients. If using citrus in the mixture, a glaze of melted marmalade can be brushed on the cooked friands whilst they are cooling. Friands are best eaten on the day they are made.
[I left the " whilst" in to prove how authentic it is]

I was planning to enclose a couple of frozen raspberries in each friand, but forgot completely. Still mighty good with Graeter's ice cream and a lovely desert wine, a sauternes, Château Gravas (which rapidly became Château Grab Ass, as the wine level lowered. Still, St. Valentine wouldn't mind).