Cordon Bleu e Purée in un ristorante 2 stelle Michelin francese con Giuliano Sperandio

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Taillevent. Today we will talk about two very simple recipes simple that are part of our childhood memory but at the same time are two classic recipes from the French cuisine repertoire: the cordon bleu and potato puree.

Let's start with the cordon bleu. There are two ways to make it: one is with veal and the second is with chicken. In this case we will use a veal rump to give a wink to our Milanese cutlet.

Clearly using a veal rump the first thing to do is remove the bones and clean it. You will see that it is very simple: you just have to follow the bone and then the latter basically falls off by itself. Clearly we'll keep aside all of the scraps and use them to make a veal sauce for the cordon bleu or another veal preparation.

We have to remove the extra fat without forgetting the outside part, the rind, this part here, we should clean it at the same time. If you notice, there is a film and it can be removed in a very simple way without making any effort. Another interesting thing is this nerve here.

It must be removed completely because when cooked with heat it retracts and therefore the rack, instead of being nice and flat, would bulge. So let's remove this part here, only leaving the part we need. Once we boned and cleaned it, we're cutting it into homogenous slices.

Let's try to keep it at a 0. 5 maximum thickness. Once all the slices are ready, we're beating them between two sheets of transparent film, or baking paper and in this case of biodegradable plastic.

Something important to do to prevent the meat from sticking to the sheet is to wet lightly with a little water. Let's place the slice, some water. I'm turning it around so that the wet part is on the inside and then I am beating gently.

You always have to be careful not to beat centrally but you have to try and beat outwardly, inwardly, left and right to stretch and widen the slice. As for the thickness, we can always keep it around 0. 2 0.

4 cm. At wish, given the fine cut of the meat, I could also close it simply like this and stuff it, however, it would remain a little too small and my idea is that the meat is simply a wrapper to then place the baked ham and cheese inside. Once prepared and placed the slices aside, let's start with a second ingredient, very important for the cordon bleu: baked ham.

In this case we're using a baked ham, a Jambon Blanc de Paris because it is made in Paris, precisely in the 11th arrondissement, and this is one of last producers of baked ham in Paris. before using the slicer, clearly, I'm removing the rind. I always prefer to remove the rind with a serrated knife because I can enter it in a much more fluid way and we are sure that it will not slide.

Clearly we will use the rind together with the veal scraps in this case and we are adding them in end, almost as an infusion, to give our veal fond some more aroma. We're slicing our ham with a slicer, not too thin because we want to maintain a consistency in the mouth. What is typical about this product is exactly to have a good bite.

Once our ham is sliced, let's move on to the third fundamental ingredient for the recipe, the cheese. In this case we're using a Comte, aged 16 months, because it has a taste that is slightly more lactic and more delicate. We make it with some emmenthal, Gruyere or with a cheese that obviously in Italy could be Asiago, meaning a cheese that can be easily melted with heat.

We're cutting our cheese into slices that are not too thick and specifically we will also keep the rind because that is is where all of the aromatic palette of the cheese develops. The cheese, as it cooks, will clearly melt, the crust instead will become just a little softer and the idea is identical in Italy with minestrone when you add the crusts as you cook it. At the end of cooking the crusts will not be melted, they will only be softer and they will have added a lot of flavor to our minestrone.

All of our elements to make a cordon bleu are ready: the slices of veal, the baked ham and the Comte. Now we can assemble our cordon bleu. Let's take our veal slices and cover them with baked ham, being careful to leave half a centimeter free between the edges to be able to then seal tightly.

Let's add the cheese and close it like a wallet. Once stuffed like a wallet, we're placing it on a tray and proceeding with the other slices. Last stage before cooking is the breading, a classic English breading, meaning flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, which in this case is some panko, Japanese breadcrumbs that is slightly thicker.

Salt it, salt generously. The important thing is that it becomes liquid so that the yolk incorporates well with the white and breaks. So, let's sprinkle the flour everywhere.

Eggs and breadcrumbs. In this case we will make a simple English breading, not double, so the passage in the breadcrumbs and in the egg is one only. The idea is to make a single breading to be able to taste and appreciate more directly our veal and our stuffing.

After the decorative cut, we're placing them in the fridge to rest for about an hour. This stage is very important to allow our breading to adhere perfectly to our cordon bleu. We told about the cordon bleu, now only the potato puree is missing.

Usually a potato puree is made with potatoes cooked in water, peeled and if necessary, dry the potatoes slightly in the oven. In this case, potatoes will be cooked in salt at 160 to 180°C for about an hour. Once they are cooked, you will see that the skin is completely dry, but also that a little potato crust formed.

As a result we will not peel them simply, but we will make an incision in the center, we will open them in half like a book and then with a spoon we will take the pulp out. The idea of ​​cooking the potato in salt is to use the moisture and the vegetation water of our potatoes and concentrate their taste. The choice of potato, thanks to this cooking is not so important because even if we were to have a potato that is a little more watery, due to cooking with salt the result will still be excellent.

And now let's pass it through a sieve. This is the most tiring job that maybe could make a lot of people turn up their noses. Why passing it through a sieve and not using a simple vegetable mill?

Just look at the mesh of a sieve and you'll find the answer yourself: by using the sieve you'll obtain a much smoother puree. Since we're not satisfied, we're now collecting the pulp that we have already passed once and we'll give it one more go. We're doing this simply to obtain a smoother puree without it being floury, without it having lumps.

We're collecting the pulp and placing it in a saucepan. The pulp is ready, now we need to move on to the most important phase: the whipping. Two options: butter only, Robuchon-style, the king of potato puree.

I prefer to make it with a hint of milk and lots of butter. Let's slightly dilute our pulp with a little hot milk. I'm adding very little.

The idea is only to facilitate the amalgamation of the butter. We can already see that it is much smoother. Let's incorporate the raw butter, the same that we used for the béchamel and we're adding a little at a time.

Let's start whipping. Temperature is very important. Let's avoid boiling our butter because by boiling we run the risk of making our puree sour.

Let's move on and off the flame to avoid hitting a temperature that is too high. The important thing is, you have to fix it and fine tune it during the realization to see if we need to add to it butter or milk to get to the ideal consistency. The proportion is two-thirds of the weight of the potatoes in milk and butter.

The consistency is right, now let's salt. So, a pinch of salt and I would say it's done. if we don't use immediately, we're adding some more tufts of butter here and there and we're covering it with a disc of baking paper to prevent it from drying out and creating crusts.

Don't forget that If you place your puree in the fridge, the butter will solidify and once you take it out of the fridge, don't make the mistake of adding milk because once the butter heats up, it will become liquid again and you'll have a watery puree. Our puree is ready, keep it heated. Let's cook our cordon bleu.

We will cook our cordon bleu in a pan with oil and butter, a third of butter and two thirds of oil. The oil must not cover the slice, so it must be approximately two-thirds of the thickness of the slice. We heated up the olive oil and now we're adding the butter.

We can't think of frying at 180°C because if we had to fry at 160-180°C with butter, the butter would be burnt. Once our butter start bubbling, let's add our cordon bleu. Here, as well, we're playing with the flame, raising and lowering.

The important thing is that our butter and our oil always bubble but at the same time cover our cordon bleu. This is for me the heart of French cuisine, butter that whips and cooks but doesn't burn. Now halfway through cooking we're turning them.

Here we are, almost. They're starting to be well browned. Once cooked, we're placing them on a tray with absorbent paper.

The interesting thing about a cordon bleu is that they are also not perfect they are not machine made and here already some cheese is starting to come out. Now let's move on to the plating. Let's take a nice generous spoonful of potato puree, placing it in the center of our serving plate and arranging our cordon bleu around it.

Let's take a spoon, dip it in cold water and we're making a crater in our potato puree. And we'll finish it with a spoonful of veal sauce. When cut, it stays juicy, soft and stringy.

We have seen together this great classic of the French cuisine repertoire, but also of our childhood. Enjoy making it at home with your family members it's simple but it's so tasty that everyone will be pleased. In the cover story, number 45 of Italia Squisita there is the story of Taillevent and of the whole Brigade, please don't miss it!

Greetings to all friends of ItaliaSquisita! See you next time!