From The French Laundry Cookbook
What. A. Pain.
The recipe looks decptively simple. Making the mousse was a breeze. The results tasted great. Forming the parmesan into little cups to hold the mousse was a nightmare. Three tries later I ended up with something vaguely resembling Mr. Keller's creation (you can find the recipe at the link). All I can say is, plan to spend some time getting the crisps figured out.
Aw, I hope you had made much more successfully, Ann. Yeah, those cups sound like a pain, and I was just reading the recipe! Would not even attempt it as it's one of those things that don't really depend on your skill, it's just a really frustrating material to deal with. Maybe for parties you could just serve them on rounds, forget the cup shape :)
Posted by: Manggy | January 07, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Aw, I'm sorry to hear it Ann. It's so disappointing when things don't turn out as planned. At least they were edible. The real worst is when they're difficult to make and impossible to eat!
Posted by: Susan from Food Blogga | January 07, 2008 at 02:47 PM
It looks pretty good to me. Do you read French Laundry at Home? I remember Carol writing about making this and the problems she had shaping them. The whole egg carton thing didn't work for her either. (http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/2007/01/parmagiano-reggiano-crisps-with-goat.html)
But you know, just reading that recipe makes me hungry. They sound like they're worth perfecting.
Posted by: Julie | January 07, 2008 at 03:43 PM
They look great though and I'm sure the effort was appreciated!
Posted by: brilynn | January 07, 2008 at 05:24 PM
So how many total cups did you actually make? The sacrifices you make for a blog post--ha!
Posted by: JEP | January 07, 2008 at 07:49 PM
They look wonderful. :-)
Posted by: Jeena | January 07, 2008 at 07:51 PM
These tasted wonderful. The parmesan crisps were delicious, savoury little morsels. I didn't care how difficult they were to shape. But then I didn't have to!
Posted by: Jack | January 07, 2008 at 09:20 PM
I do these for dinner parties canapes sometimes. They need to be shaped really fast after they come out from the oven otherwise forget it. You have about a 30-seconds window. Also did you use freshly grated cheese for the crisps? The natural oil in freshly grated cheese helps the flexibility.
Posted by: Zenchef | January 07, 2008 at 11:00 PM
I love that the recipe says they are easy but they were a pain. Sounds like something that would happen to me. They look nice, though.
Posted by: Tracy | January 08, 2008 at 12:09 AM
Eerie. I was on the French Laundry website for no apparent reason yesterday (except being bored at work perhaps) and I came across this SAME recipe! Nuts! They look great, but I had a feeling those parmesan crisps were bound to be fragile/difficult. I love the idea of piping goat cheese for an hors d'oeuvre though!
Posted by: sugarlaws | January 08, 2008 at 11:19 AM
I've repeatedly struggled with something similar (albeit probably somewhat less fragile) when making tuille (http://heightseats.blogspot.com/2007/11/bens-sunday-night-recipes.html). Like the parmesan, you're shaping a hot protein in a very short window. My suggestion would be to invert the egg carton (even though the cups will be larger) and then press the parmesan onto the cones with your hands covered in paper towels right when they get out of the oven. And I'm guessing, like the tuille, that they can be reheated to make them soft again if the first try doesn't work. I'll try this out the next time I have some goat cheese on hand.
Posted by: Ben M. | January 08, 2008 at 04:26 PM
My thought is similar to Ben's above -- because the egg cartons might not be clean enough -- use an upside-down mini-muffin pan and shape the crisps over the cups. I used this using full-sized muffin cups for chocolate chip cookie bowls and it works wonderfully. This recipe looks awesome!
Posted by: Marla | January 08, 2008 at 07:04 PM
Manggy, I thought about the idea of rounds... but they are so thin that they'd be impossible to pick up. The cup-shape is definitely necessary. I think I cracked the mystery with that last batch, though. It's all in the temperature and time in the oven...
Susan, oh it was worth it in the end. And the family loved 'em. My kids looked at me like I'd become a superstar or something. :-)
Julie, thanks for the pointer-- I dropped by and left Carol a comment! Glad to know I'm not alone!
brilynn, thanks!
JEP, well, let's see. On the first try I made no cups. Just fragments. On the second try I used a mini muffin tin and lined the cups with cheese and ended up with 16 shallow cups. These were served as a starter to the family. On the third try, with just a little mousse left, I managed five of the ones in the photo. But I think I could reproduce them again now. So that's something.
Jeena, thanks for stopping by and thanks for the compliment!
Zenchef, is there any other kind of parmesan? :-) I got it figured out eventually... but as I said, it was painful. I have no idea how you manage to turn out enough to serve at a cocktail party without losing your mind.
Tracey, "deceptively simple-looking" is what the recipe should have said!
sugarlaws, you can do it!
Ben, I actually got the hang of it in the end. And you're right, they can be reheated... but only if they were not in the oven too long in the first place. Once they reach a certain state of brown-ness it's all over.
Marla, I went the muffin tin route and the cups ended up being too flat and too wide for a single bite appetizer. And they just don't look as nice, by far-- which is why I didn't photograph them and waited until I got them right.
Posted by: Ann | January 09, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Look for a parmesan that's not too dry.
Save old wine corks.
Stand them on a cookie sheet.
Keep them warm.
When the crisps aren't quite crisp, remove them and shape them over the corks.
You can return them to the oven to soften them up when they get difficult to shape.
Asiago cheese works too.
Posted by: AnAnonymusParty | March 27, 2008 at 11:20 PM