Encornets de pesto - Baby Squid with pesto

If you like Mediterranean food, including baby squid, you just might like this.  It's really delicious if you can find fresh ingredients, which is what I did here, thanks to a visit to Marché Raspail in the 6th district of Paris.  This becomes a great 1st course for summer - served at room temperature.

Ingredients for 4 servings
600g whole baby squid, cleaned up & cut into small rounds
1 lemon to garnish the plate

Pesto:
2 bunches of fresh basil
1 clove of garlic (2, if you love garlic)
80g (approximately) parmesan, high quality
80g (approximately), toasted pine nuts
splash of lemon
~100 ml of high quality olive oil

• In your food processor, add garlic until pulverized.  Add basil & mix.  Add parmesan & pine nuts.  Add olive oil.  Season.  Add lemon juice.  Adjust seasoning & ingredients as necessary.
• In a frying pan, heat a splash of olive oil.  Add the calamari rings, season & cook until tender (some water will be released).  Don't overcook or they become rubbery.  Remove from pan.
• Coat the calamari with some pesto.  Stir.  Add more pesto as required & season to taste.

Be sure to serve with a fresh baguette & a nice Sancerre.

Enjoy!

/dma

Salicorne (Pousse-Pierre)

I've got salicorne on my mind.  We recently had dinner with friends from Colombia, who were passing through Paris - so I went to the market on Sunday morning to see what I could find for dinner that night.  At the fish shop sat a pile of fresh salicorne.  Cool!  I don't see that often, and so I eagerly asked the fish guy to give me a few handfuls.

So, what is salicorne exactly?  I tasted it for the first time in the marshlands of Brittany many years ago while visiting a fleur de sel "farm", just off the Atlantic coast.  It's a green plant, a sea vegetable, that grows wildly along the salt marshes.  We picked some that day & ate it on the spot, guided by an expert from the region.  It was salty, immensely crunchy & very moist!  An explosion of sea in your mouth, without it tasting too salty, oddly enough.  I immediately liked it. 

Salicorne goes by many names...I don't think I've seen anything called so many different things!  My favorite is sea asparagus because, well, they kind of look like mini asparagus (to me) & they  taste like the sea!  Other names include slender glasswort, sea beans, sea pickle, and samphire.  Isn't Google great...It also clarified for me that it originates off the coasts of Europe but can also be cultivated and found in other parts of the world, including the coasts of North America, South Africa and South Asia.  Many high end restaurants use it on their plates because it is surprisingly good & beautiful.

It can be eaten raw, pickled, and sautéed....

I served it raw on Sunday night as part of the entrée froid (cold 1st course):  Ceviche de bar, mariniére de coquillages aux aromates et salicorne (Sea bass ceviche, shellfish & aromatic vegetable salad with sea asparagus).

Here's how I prepared it:

I gave it a brief soak in fresh water and then painstakingly cut off the ends of each mini stalk, where it had browned ever so slightly & I didn't think that would look so appetizing on the plate (see middle photo above - cutting the ends off so meticulously is probably not necessary unless, of course, they've started to go bad...it's just my preference to eat them looking pristine, so that's why I did it that way...)  Then I tossed them with a vinaigrette, added some freshly ground pepper, and DID NOT salt them!  They're plenty salty as it is, which by the way, you might want to leave them to soak in water a bit more than I did to desalinate them more...  Anyway, next I simply added the seasoned salicorne to the plate, as a decorative garnish.  That's all.  Not everyone will like the texture or taste, but it's certainly a discovery & well worth trying.  It's at the tail end of the season, so if you come across it, don't be afraid to give it a try!

Hope you enjoy it!
/dma

ps.  It was great to see you again, Patricia & Philippe!

Arlette's Tabouli

I'm calling this Arlette's tabouli in honor of Arlette.  Arlette is the Lebanese mammy who has lived in Paris the past 20 years and who had been taking my Monday night cooking lessons at the Centre Vercingétorix all year long.  Classes are now over, following the schedule of the vacances scholaire (school vacation).

One of our last lessons was called simply Mezze.  I brought my three recipes that night:  tabouli, cucumber-yogurt-mint salad, and hummus.  The week before everyone had enthusiastically agreed to the idea of doing these Mediterranean inspired salads, or Mezze ( it is for eastern Mediterranean foods what Tapas is to the Spanish....small appetizer dishes that can be served with a drink as a starter to a meal, or with enough, they can become the meal itself).

I really needn't have brought recipes because shortly after we got started, it became apparent that Arlette was going to lead this class!  Not out of some arrogant desire to take control or show the others what she could do....no, not at all.  That is the complete opposite of this woman, who is naturally quiet, patient, and respectful.  In fact, I was happy to see this more assertive Arlette who had seemed all year long willing to do the last tasks no one else volunteered for (peeling onions, cleaning lettuce, chopping garlic, etc).  Rather, her quiet leadership gradually and naturally happened - from someone who has made these dishes all her life, a million times or more, methodically and confidently, with no recipe at all in mind!

So, I share this Mezze in honor of Arlette.  It represents to me the thousands of other recipes that are borne out of tradition, passed down from generation to generation.  In actuality, my recipe & hers are not much different except Arlette doesn't boil the water to soften the bulghur.  (And now I don't either!)  I've included quantities from my own recipe as a basic guideline.  Use it & adjust to your own taste preferences.

Ingredients - 6 servings

200g bulgur, fine
water to cover the bulgur by 2-3 inches (5-8 cm)
250g tomatoes, diced
55g spring onion
75 - 100g lemon juice
75 - 100g olive oil
1/2 bouquet of fresh mint
1 - 1.5 bouquets of fresh, flat-leaf parsley
salt, pepper

1. Rinse bulgur well with water.  Place in a large bowl & cover with tap water.  Let sit for about 20 - 30 minutes or until bulgur is softened.
2. Peel, seed & dice the tomato (or simply dice without peeling & seeding, if you prefer).
3. Finely chop the spring onion.
4. Clean & dry the herbs & then finely chop.
5. After bulgur is ready, drain any excess water.  Add the tomatoes, onions, lemon juice, olive oil mint, parsley, salt & pepper.  Mix together well.  Adjust seasoning as desired (add more lemon juice & olive oil if too dry;  make sure it's salted & peppered enough).

p.s. An authentic libanese tabouli does not have cucumber, chick peas or anything else added.  Feel free, if you like!  I don't mind.  But Arlette might!  ;)

 An idea of what else you can do with Tabouli:  

1st course:  Tian de tabouli, orange, guacamole & crab

Enjoy!
/dma

Heirloom Tomato Salad - 1st course de luxe

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes....it's finally the season to enjoy une tomate vrai (a REAL tomato). I love tomatoes. You love tomatoes. We all love tomatoes, don't we? Well, most people do anyway - I'm highly suspicious of people who say they don't like tomatoes, generally speaking...I mean, what's not to love? I think that the real problem with people who don't "like" tomatoes is that they've never really tasted a home-grown fresh-from-the-garden, drip-all-over-your-mouth-when-you-bite-into- it, kind of tomato!

So, tonight when I was preparing dinner, it was a great pleasure to honor our table with les tomates d'éte (the summer tomatoes). Real tomatoes. You know they are real when you can easily peel the skin off with a knife. And that's the preferred way to eat them, according to my dad. I quite agree.

Heirloom varieties I found in Paris: Ananas (yellow) , Noire de Crimée (dark), Sicilienne (red)

This salad is as simple as it gets. Find a great tomato from your local farmer's market, garden, or neighbor. Make sure it's not been refrigerated since that'll ruin a tomato (my opinion). Peel. Then, slice. In any sense you like (horizontal, vertical, in quarters....). Drizzle a high quality, fresh olive oil on top. Sprinkle with fleur de sel & piment d'espelette (or smoked papkrika). Add some basil, and buffalo mozzarella cheese if you want to die & go straight to heaven.


The rest is all in the tasting. Enjoy the explosion of taste in your mouth. (This is what summer tastes like!) I suggest that you have a good loaf of bread next to you...so that you can mop up all of the tomato juices that will end up on your plate! But if not, I think it's quite OK to drink the juice....it's certainly OK by me.

It comes around only once a year....summer that is, along with all of its fresh tomatos. Enjoy it while you can! Every day, if possible.




/dma

Tomato, Orange, Avocado & Burrata Millefeuille

Here's a quick, delicious first course - perfect for this time of the year, BUT ONLY if you can find perfectly ripe tomatoes, oranges and avocados!



The other essential ingredient to the success of this dish is an italian cheese called Burrata. Burrata is a cow-milk based cheese similar to buffalo mozzarella cheese, but with a softer texture and taste. It's in season at the moment, according to my local fromager (cheese monger). Burrata cheese is amazingly delicate and mouth-watering good. I highly recommend you try it, if you are lucky enough to have access to this wonderful cheese.

As it goes, this idea came to mind because of my continued fixation on citrus & avocado pairing. It's loosely based on the Cocktail d'agrumes et Crevettes recipe previously posted (only no shrimp here, and instead, a nice ripe tomato that tastes like ripe tomatoes should). Yum!


Ingredients - 8 people

2 ripe avocados
4 vine-ripe tomatoes
2-3 succulent oranges
2 balls of Burratta cheese (approximately 300 g)
fresh basil
salt & pepper
lemon juice
vinaigrette

Steps:

1. Pit the avocado and slice thinly in the horizontal sense. Cover with lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
2. Peel and slice horizontally the tomatoes.
3. Peel and slice horizontally the orange.
4. Remove Burratta from its wrapping and place in a flat container (since once you pierce into it, it will leak all over! Trust me, you're going to want to capture all that rich flavor...by the spoonful!).
5. Make a simple vinaigrette (optional). I didn't use a vinagrette here, and it was absolutely delicious, but I offer that as an idea. You can spoon the vinagrette over the avocado, tomatoes and oranges before assembly.
6. Assemble so that the millefeuille takes the shape of a tomatoe stack. Season each layer before adding the next.
7. Top with a spoonful of Burrata cheese & a slivers of chopped basil. Season with pepper.
8. Add an infused oil such as basil oil or chive oil to the base of the millefeuille. Serve with a baguette.
   

Enjoy!


:/ dma

Cocktail d'agrumes, crevettes, et avocat

This can be roughly translated as "Shrimp & Citrus Cocktail with Avocado". It's something that Chef Laurent Chareau presented at the Deauville Omnivore Food Festival last month (see photo at bottom of post). As he was preparing it, my mouth was salivating....honestly, it was uncontrollable. I mean, these are the tastes & flavors that I absolutely adore! I couldn't wait to try this one at home. He didn't present a specific recipe as much as simply throwing together the dish. The concept is very simple, as you'll see. Here's my interpretation:

Shrimp & Citrus Salad with Purée of Avocado
(inspired by Chef Chareau; interpreted by me)
4 servings

Salade Part
2 grapefruit
1 navel orange
1 blood orange
1 lemon
16 decent sized shrimp
1/4 small red onion, diced finely
fresh herbs (flat parsley, cilantro or mint) - chopped

Section the citrus so you have no skin or pith. (Resist the urge at this point to eat all of your hard work....the oranges & grapefruit sections will look and smell sooo good.) Leave the orange & grapefruit sections whole, but dice the lemon. Peel & de-vein the shrimp. Cook the shrimp if raw (BBQ anyone?). We are BBQ-deprived here, so we buy them already cooked at the local outdoor market. They are super fresh & very good. Put the citrus sections & shrimp in a bowl. Reserve the extra juice, or just drink it while nobody's looking! Add the red onion & fresh herb. (I'm especially partial to the mint....) Add vinaigrette just before serving - enough to generously coat all the fruit & shrimp.

Vinaigrette:
olive oil
vinegar (balsamic) or lime juice
ginger, lemongrass, garlic clove (optional)
salt
soy sauce (optional)

Put your preferred acidic liquid in bowl (vinegar or lime/lemon juice/citrus juice). Add salt. Add chunk of peeled ginger, lemongrass & garlic clove to infuse. Wisk in olive oil (use 3-4 times more olive oil to the quantity of vinegar you have.) Filter solids before using. Make sure it's got a good acidic tone. Throw in some soy sauce if you like. (I did.) Vinaigrette should be a somewhat thick consistency.

Avocado Purée part
3 medium avocados
lemon juice
cumin, tabasco sauce, salt & pepper (piment d'espelette preferably) - to taste

Remove pits & pulp from avocados. Squeeze lemon juice over the avocado to help prevent it from darkening in color. Use a hand blender & mix until the consistency is smooth. Season as you like with tabasco sauce, cumin & salt/pepper. (Careful with the cumin....not too much otherwise it can overpower all the other flavors, in my opinion). Resist the urge to eat spoonfuls of the guacamole....it's so tempting, but you're almost there. Only the assembly left!

Assembly:

1. In a martini glass or other glass - put layer of shrimp/citrus salad on the bottom. Season. Add layer of avocado purée. Sprinkle with piment d'esplette or spicy/smoked paprika.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Decorate the avocado purée with anything crispy. I used fried carrots in the "martini glass" and then I tried roasted hazelnuts. Chef Chareau used rice crispies fried in saffron butter and he also used roughly chopped roasted cashews (two different dishes). I would love to try the rice crispies...doesn't that sound kind of funny?
   
   
   
3. Instead of a martini glass, you can use a regular plate (shown here with hazelnut topping):

Conclusion:

This is every bit as good as it sounded. In fact, Eric & I each had one as an entrée (first course) last night, and then proceeded to immediately assemble a 2nd one instead of refrigerating the left-overs! One was plenty-enough.....we just couldn't help ourselves. This is a wonderfully, light-tasting first course. The acidity from the citrus mixed with the sweetness of the shrimp mixed with the richness of the ever-so-slightly seasoned avocado....is a great blending of flavors. I will make this again and again....with pleasure. Thanks Chef for sharing this great idea with us.

OFF4 - 2009 Chef Chareau Demo

Chef Chareau's Cocktail d'agrumes, crevettes & Avocat

:/dma

Terrine de Foie Gras Mi-Cuit

It's been said that making a good terrine de foie gras mi-cuit is actually very simple. You only need to control two things:

1. The quality of the foie gras (livers)
   
2. The cooking of it (temperature & time).

That simple, eh? Almost. It's the control of the cooking temperature & time where I ran into a few surprises. Once you understand those variables, however, it actually can be simple to do at home. What's more, it doesn't have to be scary anymore. For anyone making a terrine of foie gras, it's a small investment. To fill a terrine the size of mine, I need to buy two 2 foies gras, each weighing about 600g, and that puts me out around 50 euros, or $75. It's pretty nerve-wrecking to think of the possibility of not doing it right when so much money is at stake. So this post is for anyone who is already familiar with terrine de foie gras, has already worked with it before and might be interested to see another experience. No step-by-step recipe this time! (but let me know if there's any interest in that).

There are several different techniques for cooking a terrine of foie gras (sous-vide, poaching, oven, and en croute de sel or in salt) and each has its own little quirks, or I should say, "ways of doing it". At Ecole Ferrandi we learned how to cook terrines using the sous-vide method (under vacuum pak), and it didn't even have to be in a terrine per se. It could be wrapped in plastic wrap like a sausage & put in a sous-vide sac & then cooked to 66°C in a bain marie. At a two-Michelin star restaurant where I worked last year, the foie gras lobes were poached in goose fat to a temperature of 40°C and then stored for a long time before serving. See how variable it can be?

So what about cooking a terrine of foie gras at home? Seeing as we don't have a sous-vide machine....how do I best cook a terrine in my regular, old oven?

Let me share with you my recent experience. First the easy part: I prepared my foies de canard (duck livers) by de-nerving them & marinating them overnight in white port wine, cognac & some "foie gras spices" (typically lots of salt, pepper, some sugar, and 4-spices). Then I put it in the terrine. Now comes the tricky part: actually cooking it! A very reliable reference book of mine said to preheat the oven to 150°C & to cook the terrine in a bain marie for 20 minutes. It sounds so easy, doesn't it?! Well, it's not as straight forward as that. I came across the following variables which I believe impacted my actual cooking time.

• Oven temperature. Differences in temp do exist and size matters! A reading of 150°C was actually 165°C inside the oven. This is easily corrected, but something to be aware of and to check. As for size, when I open the door of my small oven, the temperature drop is much more significant than when I open the door of a large commercial oven. So, when I'm messing around with my terrine & bain marie here at home, I've got to be quick! This is probably only something to consider if you keep opening & closing the oven, like I did, when my terrine wouldn't finish cooking!
  
• Bain marie. Make sure your water is hot before you put your terrine in the bain marie! Using water from the tap without heating it will extend the cooking time considerably. My reference book doesn't say anything about this, but from experience I knew the water needed to be hot. Even then, I don't think it was hot enough. Next time I'll make sure it is ~ 70°C.
• Type of terrine you're using. Ceramic, cast iron, or glass - the type of material used will impact how long you cook your terrine. A cast iron terrine will take longer to come up to temperature in the bain marie than say glass or ceramic ones. Mine is cast iron. And I had stored it in the fridge before cooking it. Imagine what it did to the water temperature of the bain marie, and therefore the cooking time. Trust me, it lengthens it!
  

OK, with all of these factors noted, what happened? Well, my timer went off after 20 minutes & theoretically, my terrine should have been done, like my book said. Luckily, I have a very reliable food thermometer & I measured the temperature at the center of the terrine. It read 13°C!! That means it was cold on the inside (13°C = 55°F)! I promptly put it back in the oven and re-checked the temperature every 10 minutes. Each time, I opened & closed the oven & messed around with my water bath & terrine which are not really sized to fit together perfectly! Imagine water sloshing around a bit...and a slight awkwardness with handling...(we have very small ovens here and my roasting pan just barely fits)...so the bottom line is that some oven temperature variation was inevitable...!

In the end it took me a total of 45 minutes. I removed the terrine from the oven when the temperature at center measured 30°C. At this point, my terrine looked like the one pictured in my reference book (ie, a good layer of melted yellow duck fat on top of the terrine), and as the book said, it may look undercooked, but that's the way it's supposed to be. I only wish I had a picture of it at that point. Too bad!

I removed the terrine from the bain marie, and let it sit on the counter top where it did continue to cook a bit. So, that reminds me that there's actually one last factor: the rate at which you cool down your terrine. At school, we cooked it until the center temperature was 66°C, but we immediately stopped the cooking by cold shocking it into an ice bath. Here at home, I let it sit on the counter a few hours.

I put weights on top to compress it. After a while, I removed them, wrapped the terrine in plastic and then let it rest in the fridge 3 days. (Letting it rest 3 days is critical.) Only then would I know how well it was cooked , or not. And, I'm relieved to say that it turned out delicious! Honestly, I wasn't sure if 30°C would actually be a good end temperature or not. It's just that my terrine looked like the picture of the terrine in my book. Unfortunately, my book doesn't define a target end temperature. I later read a few other blogs and found one that says to remove it at 38°C... so I leave it up to you to decide when you want to pull yours out of the oven!

My conclusions: (1) You're bound to run into variables that will affect the cooking process of a terrine of foie gras in the oven, and its successfulness. But, that shouldn't throw you off, if you're aware of the variables, and if you're able to adjust yourself to them. Blindly following a recipe without taking into account variables can lead to disaster no matter what you're preparing. And when you're cooking something costing a small fortune, it's even more important to pay attention to what you're doing. An overcooked terrine is simply a waste of money. I've done that before. Let me just say that it makes me not nice to be around for a few hours! You end up with a lot of rendered duck fat since most of the foie is melted away. What's left is a minuscule terrine. Still edible, but minuscule. An undercooked terrine is equally bad - it will look unappetizing (too pink/red) & that's enough to make it a turn-off. Plus, it is probably not the safest, bacterially-speaking. (2) Make sure you have a good food thermometer so that you can measure the temperature at the heart of the terrine. For me this is key to making a good terrine of foie gras, especially for beginners. Because this way, no matter what variable is thrown your way, you'll have a way to reassure yourself that it's going to be OK. (3) Finally, think about how these variables can occur, and try to mitigate them in the first place....then you'll really be on the road to cooking like a pro! Because after all, these are the same principles used in a professional kitchen for cooking n'importe quoi (no matter what)!

So voilà! I share the lessons I learned recently about making a terrine of foie gras at home. Long-winded, but hopefully, helpful. This one's for you Robbin! And please let me know what you've experienced in doing this yourself.