Dinner Tonight: The Gourmet Dorm Makes Beurre Blanc

Hello from beautiful Long Island! I'm back at school again, and my roommates and I have found a way to comfortably solve the jigsaw puzzle that is a triple. It's actually quite spacious, and the room has two key perks: a long-shot view of Manhattan, and a very short trip up the stairs to the kitchen. Normally, I know, dorm kitchens inspire fear in even the hardiest of hearts, but our lovely learning institution made some improvements and so far everything has stayed clean enough that I can tolerate cooking there.

Yesterday one of my roommates encountered two young men

trying, with no success, to cook some haddock that one of them caught in Vermont on Saturday. After destroying one small fillet, they left her with four large ones. So today after classes we went to the grocery store for supplies and in our tiny dorm we and our friends made a feast.

Tonight's menu:

Pan-searedhaddock fillet with

sauteed mushrooms in beurre blanc

Garlic mashed potatoes

Fresh green beans

I have been slowly working my way through Julia Child's My Life in France and when Jane said haddock, I knew I had to try a beurre blanc. It is practically a character in her memoir. She describes in tantalizing detail the tangy, buttery, distinctive taste of the rich French sauce - literally "white butter" - so tantalizing, in fact, that I found myself salivating as I read. And you know what? It deserves its reputation.

Beurre blanc is time-consuming but not overly complicated. It is simply minced shallots in the acid(s) of your choice (battery acid strongly discouraged) reduced over low heat, into which one whisks cold butter. It sets off the taste and texture of mild fish beautifully.

My beurre blanc was more of a beurre marron, because rather than

buying white wine vinegar, we stole almost a cup of balsamic vinegar from the dining hall. (Stole is a bit harsh. The ladies at the checkout don't know what to do when you walk past holding cups of salad dressing, so they just don't bother to ask.) This went in a little pot with three finely minced shallots and about 3/4 to 1 cup of lemon juice. I brought it to a boil, and then turned the heat to low while the sauce reduced by roughly half, stirring occasionally.

In a large pan, a friend sauteed 8 oz of sliced button mushrooms until brown and tender, and reserved them in a bowl while Jane started the haddock. She understands fish much better than I do - my impulse to check and fiddle and meddle does not do with the patient nature of fish. She lightly coated the pan with olive oil, and added the haddock skin-side down over medium-high heat. And then she waited. Unless you are adding enough oil to fry, fish sticks to the pan until it is done and ready to release, and if you poke it around any sooner - like I tend to do - you will break it up and ruin it. We watched the tinges of pink in the fish flesh slowly disappear as it cooked, the edges turning white first. When the skin side was good and done, Jane flipped it and did the other side. Simple, but you have. to. take. your. time.

Meanwhile I was back at the other range, cutting butter into

manageable chunks and whisking it into the balsamic-lemon-shallot reduction, which I had turned down to below a simmer. I added - I kid you not - a full three sticks of butter to the beurre blanc. Once the butter was fully incorporated I took it off the heat and added the mushrooms. We added the sauce to the fish on the plate and I got one of my favorite cook compliments ever - five minutes of relative silence punctuated by "mmm, yummy" noises.

Good food, good friends - good times.

Yeah, one of their improvements was to give the kitchen a mural of - what, the Riviera? We're not really sure. But it does add to the ambiance.

Top right: up close and personal with the haddock fillets. We were quite impressed, as the young man who caught the haddock cleaned and filleted it himself.

Middle left: Chopping shallots

Bottom right: A friend helping me to whiskwhiskwhisk the butter into the beurre blanc.