Hi all.
One of the strangest, in my opinion, recipes of Soviet cuisine is “Meat in French”. Boiled, essentially meat, combined with boiled onions and tomatoes, in addition, topped with mayonnaise that has curdled from high temperature — such a story.
Recently, the well-known Chef Vivien posted a video on his channel, where he also sincerely wonders how such a masterpiece could have appeared and offers his reading. I must say that we already somehow tried to rethink the Soviet recipe, we also fried onions, but we still put the meat in the mold raw.
The chef offers a more balanced and very tasty option, however, if you follow his advice, cooking will take an indecent amount of time (due to sun-dried tomatoes).
We are impatient guys, we want everything as simple and fast as possible — so today’s version turned out, which is a mixture of the measured and leisurely approach of a real Gascon with a tomato life hack from Ilya Lazerson)).
Before we get started, a couple of notes:
- Vivien uses pork tenderloin and it is correct. We have a ham here and it produced a lot of fat, which would not have happened if we had followed his recipe.
- According to Vivien’s grams, there is a lot of sauce and in the final picture you can see how it has spread over the mold, covering everything with a rather thick layer.
If you make individual portions using a round mold, about half of the flour, milk, butter and cheese will be enough (this is the option in the grams below).
Product set:
- Pork, 500 gr.
- Mushrooms (any), 200 gr.
- Onion, 2 pcs.
- Tomatoes, 3-4 pcs. (8-10 if cherry)
- Garlic, 1-2 cloves
- Apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp.
- Black pepper, vegetable oil, sugar, salt
For the sauce:
- Milk (cold), 250 ml
- Grated cheese, 100 gr.
- Flour, 25 gr.
- Butter, 25 gr.
- Yolk of one egg
- Nutmeg, pinch
We disassemble the mushrooms (if they are champignons, cut them into slices), cut the onion into half rings, remove the skin from the tomatoes, cut them into rings, and chop the garlic.
Melt a little butter in a saucepan, heat it up, add the onion, a pinch of salt and sugar, fry over high heat for a minute, reduce, simmer on low under the lid, stirring occasionally, while the rest of the ingredients are being prepared (about twenty minutes).
In a frying pan in a small amount of vegetable oil, fry the mushrooms with garlic for 3-4 minutes over high heat, set aside.
Pour a little oil into the pan, add apple cider vinegar, 1 tbsp. l. sugar, add the tomatoes, cook over medium heat for a couple of minutes, transfer to a bowl.
We cut the meat into steaks, beat it, salt, pepper…
… fry in a frying pan for a couple of minutes on each side.
For the sauce, melt the butter, add flour, fry until it has a “nutty” smell (2-3 minutes), pour in milk, stir thoroughly so that there are no lumps, add nutmeg, a pinch of salt, pepper, grated cheese, mix everything again, cook over low heat until the consistency is slightly thicker than mayonnaise. If it's too much, add a little milk.
Remove from heat, cool slightly, stir in egg yolk.
Place the meat in a mold or on a baking sheet, with onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes on top.
Pour in the sauce, place in the oven preheated to 220-230°C for 10 minutes, then bake for 5-7 minutes under the grill until a crust forms.
Let's serve.
Bon appetit!
