Cooking the Books #3: The French Chef Cookbook

Cooking the Books will be an ongoing series about books found in our kitchen.

On the occasional Saturday morning my father would go all out for breakfast. Pancakes, eggs your way, bacon, sausage and pork roll. Just a pile of toast. One man diner. He bought an electric flat top griddle he was so into it. Very exciting stuff for a kid. I absolutely inherited some primal need to project cook from him. However, he almost exclusively spoke as Julia Child when cooking. He would narrate the entire cooking process in a mock Julia Child voice. Just completely over the top like Julia Child was performing an opera about an omelet. I grew up thinking this was totally normal silly dad stuff. I asked him what this woman’s name was thinking this was some type of Ms. Doubtfire persona my dad made up, “Julia, Kevin. Julia Child. The French Chef. She’s on TV.” I wasn’t watching enough PBS.  

My dad’s awful impression of Julia Child was what lead me to watch The French Chef. It was my first introduction to food media and now I’m a total sucker for the stuff. The Food Network exploded around this same time for me. To this day I’m a bottomless consumption gutter for a person cooking and talking to a camera. 

The French Chef Cookbook is a companion book to the PBS show. The book feels so odd with the recipes being arranged by the episode and not grouped in category. Episode 100; Reine De Saba, a chocolate, rum and almond cake followed by episode 101: To Poach Sole Fillets, Sole in White Wine. It functions well enough as an easy book to use with incredibly fun classic recipes. I picked up this well used copy with an inscription and dog ears. 

My first go at this recipe I took the title far too literally. The Ninety-seventh Show: Your Own French Onion Soup. My own French onion soup went completely off the rails. I was using all odd bits and ends for croutons and blow torching Cooper Sharp. Shit show. 

This time around I’m following the recipe more closely with the exception of trying to make it vegetarian. It is my own soup after all. I also added one large shallot as well as four large cloves of garlic while sweating the onions. To make this recipe vegetarian I subbed the beef broth with a dressed up vegetable broth.

Vegetarian Broth

2 tablespoons Better Than Bouillon Roasted Vegetable paste

1 teaspoon vegan worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 quarts water

Bring all ingredients to a boil then simmer for twenty minutes

Here is the actual episode if you want to give it a go. It’s a simple soup to make that comes together quickly. I am a champion for making your own soups and watching movies with you life.