Around My French Table (39 page)
Read Around My French Table Online
Authors: Dorie Greenspan
Drop in the onion slices and simmer for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat. Allow the onions to cool to room temperature in the liquid. If you'll be using them right away, drain them; if not, put the onions and liquid in a covered jar and refrigerate until needed.
(The onions can be refrigerated for up to a week.)
TO MAKE THE CAKES:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the event 350 degrees F. Butter six 6-ounce ramekins or custard cups. Line a roasting pan with a double layer of paper towels. Have a kettle of hot water on the stove.
Put all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and whir until the mixture is smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the jar or work bowl a couple of times to ensure that everything gets mixed. Pour the custard into the cups or ramekins (they'll be about three-quarters full) and rap each one on the counter to de-bubble the mixture. Put the cups in the roasting pan and slide the pan onto the oven rack. Pour enough hot water into the roaster to come about halfway up the sides of the cups.
Bake the cakes for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the custard is set and no longer jiggly; a knife inserted in the center of the cakes should come out clean. Carefully transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and let them rest for about 10 minutes before unmolding them.
If you'd like to serve the cakes on a bed of greens, toss the greens with a little vinaigrette and arrange on six plates.
To unmold the cakes, run a blunt knife around the edges of each cup and turn the cake out onto a plate, lined with salad or not. Top the cakes with the onions or place them alongside and serve.
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
SERVING
If you're serving the cakes on a bed of greens, toss the salad with a little vinaigrette and divide it among the plates. Place a cake in the center of each plate and top with some pickled onions.
STORING
The cakes can be baked, cooled, covered tightly, and chilled overnight before serving. Dunk the cups in hot water to unmold them. Alternatively, they can be cooled, unmolded, and frozen on a baking sheet until solid, then wrapped airtight and kept frozen for up to 2 months; defrost overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
BONNE IDÉE
Chicken Liver Gâteaux with Tomato Sauce Lyonnaise.
Cook 1 chopped onion and a couple of chopped garlic cloves, split and germ removed, in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan until softened. Add a can (about 15 ounces) crushed tomatoes to the pan, along with 2 parsley sprigs, 1 thyme sprig, 1 bay leaf, and some salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer very gently for about 3 minutes. Pluck out the bay leaf and the thyme branch, if you can, then puree the sauce in a blender or food processor and adjust the seasonings. When you're ready to serve, reheat the sauce. Put a few spoonfuls of sauce in the center of each plate and top with a warm gâteau. Instead of the pickled onions, you can finish with a little bouquet of parsley leaves tossed with a drop of olive oil.
Lots of people say innards of all kinds are an acquired taste. I can think of four ways to have acquired the taste:
1)
Mom served them to you when you were young;
2)
you grew up on a farm;
3)
one of the little body parts was slipped into a dish without your knowing it and—shazam!—you loved it; or
4)
you were born with the I-love-innards gene, in which case, you're probably French and maybe even from some deep-in-the-country part of the Southwest, like the Auvergne—where a friend and I were invited to a gala dinner hosted by the city's chamber of commerce. I was the only non-Française present, and the city fathers were pleased to be able to offer me their region's best. Here is the menu we were served.
APERITIF
: Puff pastry tidbits with a kir made with chestnut liqueur (this is the land of chestnuts)
APPETIZER
: A selection of local charcuterie, including pork saucisson, blue cheese roulade, and
pâté de tête de veau
(an ingredient that's never translated from the French because most foreigners don't want to know they're eating calf's head)
FIRST COURSE
: Stuffed cabbage with morel cream sauce—the cabbage was Savoy and the stuffing was
ris de veau
(another normally untranslated ingredient because "thymus gland" sounds so ugly)
MAIN COURSE:
Aligot,
the regional specialty of mashed potatoes and cheese, and
langue de veau
(yup, calf's tongue)
CHEESE
: Cantal (a firm, rich cow's milk cheese)
DESSERT
: Frozen walnut soufflé (the Auvergne is also walnut-rich)
I looked around the table at my eleven other dinnermates eating with gusto and polishing off the last of each sauce with a little hunk of bread, and I did the same—and enjoyed every bite.
I can't think of how I acquired this taste. Maybe I was born with it. Maybe I'm French. Of course, the fact that I'm not a great scarf-knotter argues against it. Maybe the scarf gene is recessive—or shy.
T
HESE CAN BE AN ELEGANT DINNER-PARTY
starter or an hors d'oeuvre for a Champagne soirée. As basic as they are—they're just small pieces of foie gras wrapped in curly cabbage leaves and steamed—that's how chic they are: when it comes to sensuousness, there's little that can compete with warm, almost-liquid foie gras.
A shopping note: Buy a small terrine of foie gras made from whole pieces of foie gras, not a mousse or pâté made from ground or chopped foie gras.
| 12 | large cabbage leaves, preferably Savoy |
| 6 | ounces foie gras terrine (see above) |
| Extra-virgin olive oil | |
| Fleur de sel |
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Two by two, drop the cabbage leaves into the water and cook until they are pliable, a matter of minutes. When the leaves are cool enough to handle, pat them dry and cut away the tough part of the center rib.
To cut the foie gras, run a slender knife under hot water, wipe it dry, and slice the foie gras into 12 pieces. Place a piece of foie gras near the bottom of each cabbage leaf. Lift the bottom of each leaf over the foie gras, turn to cover the foie gras again, fold in the sides of the leaf, and finish the bundle by rolling the foie gras to the end of the leaf.
Place a steamer over boiling water in a large pot, and have a plate lined with a couple of layers of paper towels at hand. Just before you're ready to serve, arrange the bundles seam side down in the steamer, cover the pot, and steam for 5 minutes. Carefully transfer the bundles to the paper-towel-lined plate and pat them dry.
Divide the bundles among four plates, drizzle a very little bit of olive oil over each one, sprinkle with a few grains of fleur de sel, and serve immediately.
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
SERVING
These need nothing but some Champagne or Sauternes.
STORING
You can construct the bundles a few hours in advance and keep them covered in the refrigerator. Once the bundles are steamed, they should be served immediately, so that everyone can enjoy the lovely texture of the softened foie gras.
I
N THE EARLY
1900s, when the Lost Generation of writers and artists—legends like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and even on occasion James Joyce—wanted to see one another, catch up on news, or make news, they'd often head for the sprawling terrace of Le Dôme, which still holds down an impressively large and sunny corner on Paris's boulevard Montparnasse. Down the street from La Coupole and across from Le Sélect and La Rotonde, the cafés of Hemingway's A
Moveable Feast,
Le Dôme is still a destination for travelers from around the world. Most come for the restaurant's impeccable fish, and while that draws me as well, I go for the added pleasure of conversing with M. Jacques Drouot, the maître d' hôtel. Monsieur Jacques, as he's known, is a man of many parts: a top-notch host, he is also a deep-sea diver, an accomplished photographer, and a passionate cook. For me, the most enjoyable time to go to Le Dôme is Wednesday evening, because M. Jacques will have had Tuesday off and spent that entire day cooking, making Wednesday the ideal time to get a full report on his adventures.
Coddled eggs with foie gras is a recipe M. Jacques related to me one Wednesday evening. It's a dish that's both simple and luxurious—I think eggs by themselves are luxurious, and when paired with a tidbit of foie gras mousse or pâté (and all you need is a tidbit per egg), they border on opulent. And if you add black truffle, as M. Jacques does in the winter . . .!
I used to make this recipe in the oven, until my friend the cookbook author and teacher Patricia Wells showed me that eggs coddle perfectly in a steamer. Oven-coddling is easy; steam-coddling is even easier.
As elegant as these eggs are, they're among the simplest starters you can make for a dinner party, since you can have them ready to cook hours in advance. However, you'll want to serve them the instant you lift them out of the steamer, so have everyone at the table.
| 1 | ¼-pound slice foie gras pâté or mousse |
| 4 | absolutely fresh (preferably organic) large or extra-large eggs |
| Salt and freshly ground white pepper | |
| ¼ | cup heavy cream |
| 4 | slices black truffle, cut into slivers (optional) |
| 2 | teaspoons finely chopped fresh tarragon |
| 2 | teaspoons finely chopped fresh parsley |
Lightly butter four individual soufflé molds or ramekins (4-ounce molds look prettiest for this dish, but any mold with a capacity of between 4 and 6 ounces will work). Set up your steamer—if you don't have a steamer with a large base (a bamboo steamer set over a wok is ideal), a pasta pot with an insert will work, as will a rack set in a large skillet with a lid. Bring the water in the steamer to a simmer.
Slice the pâté or mousse into 4 pieces and cut each piece into quarters. Divide the pâté among the molds. Carefully break 1 egg into each mold (the yolks should remain unbroken), season with salt and white pepper, and spoon 1 tablespoon of the cream over each egg white—you can cover the yolks, but I think it's prettier to leave them bare (it also makes it easier to check on doneness). Scatter an equal amount of truffle strips, if you're lucky enough to have them, over each egg, then sprinkle with the tarragon and parsley.
(You can prepare the ramekins to this point, cover them, and keep them in the refrigerator for a few hours; bring them to room temperature before cooking.)
Make sure that the water in the steamer is simmering, then settle the molds into the steamer and cover the pot. Steam the eggs for about 5 minutes, or until the whites are opaque but the yolks are still runny. Remove the molds from the pan, dry the bottoms, place each mold on a plate, and serve immediately.
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
SERVING
You can serve the eggs with buttered toast—either 1-inch-wide strips or little points—but I think the eggs are perfect straight up.
STORING
Although the eggs must be served piping hot, you can prepare the molds a few hours in advance and keep them well covered in the refrigerator; bring them to room temperature before steaming.
It would be hard to underestimate the French sentiment for black truffles, specifically
Tuber melanosporum,
the gnarly fungi ferreted out from under oak trees by pigs and dogs in the South of France and bought and sold in village markets the way drugs are probably bartered elsewhere in the world.
In the truffle-blessed town of Richerenches, in Provence, the Saturday market looks more like a used-car lot than a venue where tens of thousands of dollars will trade hands in the course of a few hours. Buyers park along the sides of the street, while anyone with a truffle to sell, professional or lucky farmer, walks from car to car looking for his best deal. It's fascinating, and as quaint as it sounds, and it's also big business.
I got a hint of just how big the business is when I attended the Truffle Mass at Richerenches's Catholic Church held at the end of January. When the alms basket was passed on that Sunday, it wasn't coins that were tossed into it, but truffles, lots of them and some of them the size of my fist. After the Mass, everyone gathered outside the
hôtel de ville
(town hall), wine and canapes were passed, and the truffles were auctioned off, with the proceeds—they topped 1,000,000 euros—going to the church.
Even people who have truffles growing in their backyards understand how rare and valuable they are and put them in the same class as caviar and lobster, saving them for special occasions or using them sparingly where their powerful aroma—dark, woodsy, slightly musky, and very sexy—can be most appreciated.
If you buy a truffle (see Sources
[>]
), store it in a container of rice or a jar full of eggs until you're ready for it (it should be used in a couple of days), and you'll get a bonus: the rice or eggs will take on the flavor and aroma of truffles.
The taste and fragrance of black truffles are enhanced by warmth, but they can be destroyed by too much heat, so it's best to slice or shave the truffle into a dish just before it's finished cooking or as you're bringing it to the table. If you have only a few bits of truffles, even little shavings, you can work them into some softened butter, and you'll have a terrific topping for mashed potatoes, steak, or toast.