By Malorie Sellers on August 15, 2012 in
Today is Julia Child's 100th birthday, so we're using a few of her favorite kitchen appliances for a day of festive meals in her honor.
When she first started out, Child had to do everything by hand. She quickly became an ardent proponent of timesaving tools like the blender, food processor and mixer to produce classic results. With our recommended products, you too can work your way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Let's start the day off with the breakfast favorite, Eggs Benedict. Of course we'll complete the dish with Child's recipe for an "extremely easy and almost foolproof" blender hollandaise.
For lunch, we'll kick it up a notch with a quick Quenelles de Poisson (basically a fish mousse). We can sense your hesitation, but Child dutifully noted, "with the food processor... Quenelles and mousses take literally minutes and have stepped out of the never-never land of ultra fancy food into the everyday life of the average cook." So why not give it a whirl?
A day in the kitchen wouldn't be complete without putting our knife skills to the test and Child's Boeuf Bourguignon is the perfect recipe to do so. You'll cut bacon, cube beef, slice carrots and onions, as well as quarter mushrooms. All that work will be worth it with your first bite of the beef stew (or when you audition for Top Chef).
Obviously you can't have a birthday celebration without a cake! According to Child, "a heavy-duty electric mixer makes light work of beating egg whites beautifully and effortlessly." We agree completely and pulled ours out to do just that for the Reine de Saba, or as Child called it, an "extremely good chocolate cake".
We can't think of a more perfect way to end a day of remembering one of our favorite chefs with celebratory meals. Happy Birthday and Bon appétit, Julia!
