Mushroom and Ham Gougère December 10, 2008
Posted by batbear in Food.trackback
This stuff is good, and Cathy made it tonight. It’s excellent nourishment for a hungry Batbear like me on a cold night, after a long day of fighting crime. Plus, it’s cheap and will help you get through the recession without becoming a wrongdoer.
I'm Hungry!
Cathy has been making this since 1975. Back then, according to Family Circle Magazine, it cost 45 cents per serving. It’s yummy while still being relatively easy to make.
Original recipe has been altered slightly.
Mushroom and Ham Gougère
Pâte à choux (Puff Pastry)
1 cup flour
pinch of salt and pepper
1 cup water
1 stick butter
4 eggs
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheeseFilling
1/2 stick butter
1 onion chopped
1/2 pound sliced mushrooms
1-2 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup hot water
1 tomato sliced and seeded
1 cup sliced cooked ham
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheeseTo make puff pastry: Heat water and butter until it is boiling. Turn off heat and add flour, salt and pepper all at once, and stir until mixture forms a ball and all the flour is absorbed. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then add each egg one by one and mix until completely absorbed into mixture. This takes a bit of muscle but it is important for the puffing of the pastry while it bakes. Mix in the Cheddar cheese.
To make filling: Saute mushrooms and onion in butter until tender. Sprinkle with the flour, salt and pepper stir until well absorbed. Add bouillon & water and b ring to a gentle boil on low heat. Simmer for a few minutes until bubbly. Remove from heat and add ham, cilantro and tomato slices.
Butter up a 10 inch skillet or oven proof baking dish. Spoon the puff-pastry in a ring around the edges of the dish and pour the filling into the center. Sprinkle with the remaining Cheddar cheese and bake at 400 degrees F for 40-45 minutes until pastry puffs up and gets brown.
Yields 6 servings.
Tastes great with a glass or two of cheap red wine.
The result, which is tasty despite the fact that it comes from France
Comments
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Innocent Bystanders 
That sounds good. I’ll have to try that sometime. What kind of pans do you use? I think my usual sauté pan is too small to make the filling.
I am trying a new cookie recipe this weekend…will let y’all know how it turns out. Right now: hot chocolate!!
I’m totaly steeling batbear.
Looks like one of those new silicon form flex pans.
I think it’s a baking dish recipe, or a smooth cast iron oven safe skillet recipe.
Maybe a well oiled stainless, or aluminum skillet, but I think that it really doesn’t matter cuz there is so much fat in the recipe.
whoever it was that made batbear needs an online sales franchise, and a bunch of asian children to do the stiching.
I can totally hook up the asian sewing angle.
I am now curious about how much we should trust Americano.
Hey Peel. Sorry I’m taking so long to respond about the baking dish. Mine is oven-safe pottery. But you can use anything oven-safe.
Skillets are cool cause they make the dish look verwy Fwench. Wicked Pinto’s right about cast iron, and original recipe pictures dish in a skillet.
*not sure what that says about Pinto*
Just make sure the skillet handles are oven safe because the temp gets up to 400+ degrees.
I would have made this for lunch if I hadn’t picked up some Ervin’s Fried Chicken on the way home.
Maybe tomorrow.
(looks good)
It looks wonderful, and I’ll try it but without the mushrooms (they make my mouth numb). Thanks!
Maybe leeks, celery or more ham instead, what do you think?
You can never go wrong with leeks or celery
Or more ham!
Couldn’t hurt to throw some bacon in there.
Michael, you freaking GENIUS! Oh yeah!
In other news, is it wrong that I am saying to the ferrets: “Fo shizzle my fizzles”?
Just checking to see if I have gone round the bend.
Ferreto-Americans?
Mr. L traumatized Benny the other day when he told him he was adopted, so I don’t want to pile on.
–“You’re adopted”
–*Benny turns right around and runs out of the room*
Hilarious
Bacon? AWESOME.
I was actually referring to the pans used to make the pastry and filling before spooning it into the dish. I have a Pyrex dish that I think would probably work for that part – I’m just stuck on what to mix up the ingredients in. My sauté pan is probably too small for an entire onion, half a pound of mushrooms, and half a stick of butter.
Hie thee to a good kitchen supply place and get yourself outfitted in large cast iron pans. Season them in a hot oven with some nice clean pork fat, and never look back.
And never wash them with soap, either, but you knew that.
I need to get some cast iron cookware. Went to my mother’s house Tuesday night to make her some liver (she’s anemic), and using her heavy iron pan on the stove was a joy. Kicks the crap out of my good-quality nonstick pans.
I never cook liver for myself anymore because hubby won’t touch it. But I had two big slabs Tuesday night and it was delicious. I carmelized a huge pile of sweet onions with it, too. Nummers!
*not sure what that says about Pinto*
Hey! no fair!! thats also how you make those disgusting itallian omellette thingy’s.
Cathy made me cook my own egg’s (cuz I like them over easy) and that little iron skillet of hers was so well seasoned, it might as well be non stick.
“it’s not non stick, it’s old.” she said.
“It’s awesome!” I replied.
And never wash them with soap, either, but you knew that.
Truer words were never spoken.
We’ve got about 15 seasoned pots and pans (and one wok) hanging in our kitchen in our recently acquired Dallas house, most of them about 25 years old. There’s nothing that makes the Barcelona Gay Whorehouse more homey than that.
In other news, is it wrong that I am saying to the ferrets: “Fo shizzle my fizzles”?
Yeah, actually, that is very wrong. That’s worse than being a cat person.
Sorry, but someone had to tell you.
Man, I so love this new watch I got. It was freebie, a gift from my employer for my 25th service anniversary. The official specs are that it is good for +/- 15 seconds per month, but I got it on 11/22, set it, and it is still within one second of atomic clock time. Plus, it recharges itself with any available light; you never have to change the battery. Plus, it’s waterproof to over 300 meters, and you can change time zones when you travel without interrupting the time, and it will even correct for passage across the international date line so that the date is correct.
Wait, do I sound like a geek?
no Michael.
A Dork, you sound like a Dork. I’m amazed that the tachyon can put up with between the batman thing and the watches, but then again she has her christopher lowell house, so I guess I get it a little.
Pan fried liver and onion! YUM!
I have to dig in the “camping supplies” for my beautiful cast iron skillets.
But lauraw, cast iron is so HEAVY!
My parents have some of those All-Clad pots & pans, and damn, they are nice. They’re extremely heavy (when they’re filled with food, I can’t lift them [well, I can, but my wrist shakes a lot and hurts like hell afterward]) and have to be cleaned carefully (you have to use barkeeper’s friend and a soft cloth), but they spread heat evenly and quickly. So I like cooking with them, as long as someone else carries them around for me when needed. At home, I’m currently cooking with my Mimi’s old frying pan, which is lumpy and doesn’t heat even remotely evenly.
cast iron is so HEAVY!
I hear ya, Peel. My Mom’s old cast iron skillet was wonderful. the cooking surface was well-crafted and smooth on the inside so that it seasoned well. When I purchased a cast-iron skillet for myself a few years back, the cooking surface was rough and bumpy in comparison and it never seasoned up well, so I got rid of it.
A solution for the weight of the large skillets is to purchase one with two handles… one that is long like a skillet handle and also having a short c-shaped handle on the opposite side so that lifting it off the stove can be done safely with two hands.
A few years ago I purchased a 14″ Farberware non-stick on aluminum skillet that is 3″ deep, for about $30 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The handles are covered with plenty of that heat-resistant silicone so I don’t need to use pot-holders. It won’t last like the cast iron, but it sure is a useful substitute for a well-seasoned large iron skillet or wok.
the cooking surface was rough and bumpy in comparison and it never seasoned up well, so
I got rid of itnow I use it to keep Michael in line.Cathy made me cook my own egg’s (cuz I like them over easy) and that little iron skillet of hers was so well seasoned, it might as well be non stick.
Sorry about that, Pinto. During all the girl-talk in the kitchen I sensed you to be a bit of a perfectionist about your eggs. I haven’t been able to do over-easy without breaking yolks… so you were on your own.
Glad you enjoyed my little skillet. It’s seasoned & waiting for you, dear.
A friend from South Africa gave me her old small cast iron pan and it has a wooden handle and a lid. I’ve tried to find others like that, but no luck.
It seems like most of the big pans have those tiny handles which makes them unbalanced and difficult to handle.
Steve at Hogonice addressed the problem of coarse cast iron pans some time ago. Apparently the new ones are not smoothed on the inside like the oldies were. You can buy some nice old pans on ebay, or you can smooth out a new pan with a grinding wheel. I think. I could email him and ask.
Steve inspired me to cook steak in the cast iron pan and it works very well, especially since I use the lid to get the steak to medium-well without charring the outside too much.
Until last week we didn’t have a grill.
Still have never tried that, but noticed the better steak places around here obviously do it.
Laura:
That is how I do steaks. They actually are tastier than outdoors.
Michael’s dad was big on pan-frying steaks too. It’s the carbon!
We pan fry steaks too sometimes, but now in Texas with those grills out there *and knowing they don’t make as much of a mess* I’m usually grillin’ out there.
Lauraw — you are a wealth of knowledge. Good to know that it isn’t just me who is not pleased with the rough cooking surface on the newer cast iron skillets. Thanks.
That is how I do steaks. They actually are tastier than outdoors. – Eddiebear
Steaks are meant to be grilled! Not fried in a pan like some piece of bologna!
but now in Texas with those grills out there *and knowing they don’t make as much of a mess* I’m usually grillin’ out there. – Cathy
That is good to hear Cathy, otherwise I would have been forced to call the DMV and had your Texas Driver’s License revoked.
I generally am respectful of other people’s tastes and dietary habit, but the idea of pan frying a steak is as revolting as the though of Hillary Clinton laying on top of me nekid!
It’s not really ‘frying’ the way you’re thinking of it, Mr. Minority.
You use heavy cast iron skillet and get that thing glowing hot so that the steak sears and chars up a bit like it would on a grill. It doesn’t sit there weeping moisture the way a real fried steak would.
It keeps the flavor in, and, as LW said, it still sears and chars.
So “pan-frying” a steak works somewhat like deep-frying a turkey? That’s interesting.
Yeah, I like pan fried steak. Just like Mom used to make. We never had no fancy
LammsBar Bee Cue, when I was a boy.All the juice stays there and soaks into the steak and doesn’t drip into the flames.
This bears repeating:
You use heavy cast iron skillet and get that thing glowing hot so that the steak sears and chars up a bit like it would on a grill. It doesn’t sit there weeping moisture the way a real fried steak would.
When mom passed my sisters were not wise in the ways of 40 year old cured iron skillets.
I said “Oh, I’ll take those old things, no prob”.
They make a damn fine pan-seared steak too.
medium-well without charring the outside too much.
Blasphemer!!!
Don’t apologize about making me make the egg’s I like cooking, I just didn’t wanna get in the way of the girl talk.
I knew I’d get some “heat” for that!
^ Yep, Lips. Your comment just didn’t pan out.
*groan*
🙂
Just a little moreof that Lipstick, but toss in an occasional “moan” with a well timed *whimper*
Oh. My! Yum-nums!
Just tried a new brand (for me) of hummus. Sabra.
Last Summer, I was on a hummus kick. One day I brought a big tub of it to work with some good tomatoes and a nice hard whole-grain bread. So I was eating cold tomato and hummus sandwiches for a few days and they were so refreshing in hot weather.
I love chick peas so I kind of went nuts with the hummus. At one point I was spooning hummus right out of the container into my mouth. About the third or fourth big spoonful, I turned the container around and started reading the nutritional information.
One ‘serving’ of hummus is very small. I think it was two tablespoons. I don’t remember the brand I was eating, but the number of calories in two tablespoons were frickin’ insane. I had been pouring this stuff out like 1/2 cup was a serving, and thinking all the while that it was so good for me.
I too have been making this since forever.It’s one of those dishes my kids assocoate with “home” so I made it today! Added a half glass of bubbly with broth since there was some left over from our morning mimosas.I use a large pie pan and it works great ,pills over the side just enough to look peasanty.Do make this ,it’s easy.
Spills over the sides ,should say.This is the ham gougere recipe ,in case you got lost in the hummus thread..Home made croissants rising on their way into the oven.These for DD to take back to NYC with her.Yeah I know they make them there ,but these are mine and that’s what counts.C
A favorite in my family since the 70s, tastes meld in a unique and delicious way. Perhaps some poor bearded prisoner chef in the bastille escaped the guillotine by inventing this imaginative and delicious dish.
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