Vaux-le-Vicomte

In an effort to see as much as possible while the weather is still wonderful, I've been taking day-trips by train to towns just outside of Paris on the weekends.  In pretty much every case, the attraction has been a 17th century château. 

Vaux is one such place.  It was built in the mid 17th century by Nicolas Fouquet.  The gardens, for which the château is justly famous, were designed by André le Nôtre, who later also designed the gardens for Versailles.

Actually, you could say that Fouquet died for this place, since  Louis XIV had him thrown in jail on spurious charges that amounted to building too lavish a palace.

French museums love to guide visitors through a specific route, which got a little strange at Vaux as there were a number of mannequins dressed in period costume and animated by video projectors and a soundtrack for the purpose of reenacting Fouquet's arrest. Now I wish I had pictures of that to show.

The Beginning of a Year in Paris

I've been in Paris for almost two months now! And I kind of feel like I'm just now getting my bearings. I haven't been cooking all that much, for various reasons.  So in the absence of food, a tour.

I've actually really fallen in love with my little view and spend a pretty good amount of time using my desk as a window seat. 

My apartment is tiny.  15 square meters, which is about 160 square feet.  The bed is a futon that I never bother making into a couch, and the kitchen is just a mini-fridge, two burners and a couple of pans.  As one of my friends is so fond of saying, it's back to basics. 

Next time we have a picture post, I'll show you some of the gardens and châteaux I've been to.  Filled with 17th century French art!

Herb and Vinegar Potato Salad

I'm finding this post kind of hard to write because I feel like all I'm thinking about these days is my dissertation.  And I know you don't want to hear about that.  So I'll keep it simple.

I'm on the lookout lately for things to do with root vegetables that doesn't involve roasting or otherwise baking them.  Simple things that will still be satisfying and easy for one person to eat for a few days.  Ha.

Potato salad.  And not only, but a potato salad that came with glowing reviews from Shutterbean.  She did say that the Old Bay seasoning really made the recipe, but I didn't know how available that would be in Paris, and I still wanted some kind of blend.  So I decided on herbes de provence.  It's not however usually added to a dish that won't be cooked though, so I softened it in the vinegar along with the onion.  Also, as you can see, I didn't use a red onion since I had a sweet white onion that had to go.  However, I'd recommend red, so we're going with that.  Ta da!  Easy enough for a grad student.

Herb and Vinegar Potato Salad
Just slight adapted from Shutterbean

1 medium red onion, sliced thinly
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound fresh green beans, trimmed and broken into bites
4 pounds yellow potatoes
2 teaspoons herbes de provence.

Put the onion into a medium bowl and add the vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the herbes de provence.  Toss well to coat and let it sit out at room temperature for 1 hour.

Don't peel the potatoes.  Boil them in a large pot along with a a three-finger grab of salt, with the water just covering the potatoes.  Boil until almost done, about 15 minutes or more depending on the size of the potatoes.  But 15 minutes for the smallish yellow ones.  When they're still a bit firm, add the beans and boil until potatoes are easily pierced with a knife.  About 2-3 minutes more.

Drain the vegetables, but don't run under cold water.  Toss the beans directly into the reserved dressing so they can start soaking it up while they're warm.  As the potatoes cool, slip their skins off.  It shouldn't be too hard, and you don't have to get everything off.  The potato skins are good for you, after all!  Cut the potatoes into bite-sized chunks and toss with the dressing.  Add an additional 1/4-1/2 cup vinegar and another teaspoon of salt.  Serve now, eat as leftovers.  It just gets better with time.

Gorgonzola stuffed Pears

So here's my learn-French plan.  Well, I should back up.  I know some French.  I read a lot of French.  Tons, actually, for hours and hours every day.  But it's all either modern academic French, or it's 17th or 18th century French.  Neither one of them is all that useful in day-to-day life.  So part of my learn-French plan (the part that doesn't involve watching French cartoons on tv) is to start cooking in French.

French food magazines, MasterChef every Thursday with my Paris best friend and her cat Monsieur Baudelaire Checker-Paws (I'm actually not sure if the 'checker paws' part is hyphenated like a last name, left unspaced like one word or what).  Speaking of MasterChef every Thursday night, that show lasts about three hours here.  I'm not even kidding.  Every time I think they've left it at a high point for the next episode, we're always back after the short commercial break.

My friend and I have also lately been trying to make some dinner for the two of us on MasterChef night.  We're both relatively constrained by the size and stock of our kitchens.  Since she has a toaster oven, she's winning.  But these pears prove you don't need anything fancier than really great ingredients.  The recipe is from one of a series of books that seem to be pretty popular here, called Marabout Chef.  The book I have from them, "Les basiques de la cuisine française" suggests mostly pretty easy recipes, and the layout of the book reminds me of some of Donna Hay's cookbooks in that each recipe is printed on one side of the page, sometimes multiple recipes to a page, with a simple photograph on the other side.

The Marabout people want you to peel your pears before stuffing them with a mixture of Gorgonzola and crème fraîche.  But my peeler totally sucks, so I skipped it.  Not very French of me, I realize, but without peeling the recipe takes no time.  Just halve the pears, use a spoon to dig out the core, leaving a little pocket into which goes the filling.  I bout some jambon de Parme to serve with it, but we forgot it about until after the pears were gone, so that's an option not pictured above.

Poires Farcies au Gorgonzola, or Gorgonzola Stuffed Pears
Adapted from Camille le Foll's Marabout Chef Les Basiques de la Cuisine Française

4 fresh, perfectly ripe pears
75 grams Gorgonzola or really any good blue cheese you have
1 small container (about 8 ounces) crème fraîche
1 lemon, halved
Pepper to taste

Cut the pears in half and use a spoon to remove the core.  There should be a little well in the middle the pear.  Rub each half of the cut-side of the pears with half a lemon.  This prevents browning.  Set aside.

In a bowl, use a fork to mash the Gorgonzola into the crème fraîche.  It will take a couple of moments, depending on how cold your cheese is.  But it should blend just fine.  Season the mixture with pepper to taste, then fill the waiting pears with the mixture and serve, either as is or with a few slices of jambon de Parme.

Sausage and Beef Kebabs

This is it.  This is my last recipe saved up from New York.  After this, it will be all Paris apartment cooking, all the time.  That is until December when I will be too-briefly reunited with R, the dogs, and My Kitchen.  Yes.

But until then, we can always enjoy the fantasy of some completely indulgent roast meat.  I don't make meat often, you may have noticed.  So when I do, it had better be worth it.  Is all I'm saying.  This was the main attraction at a dinner party we had right before I left New York.  I don't know if it counts as a party with only four people, but that's about as much as our apartment can really handle comfortably, since both dogs count as warm bodies as well.

So really, it's an easy procedure.  You just have to remember to start marinading the meat a few hours before you're ready to really get going, and it's a relatively low-effort enterprise after that.  Especially if you take your butcher up on his offer to cube the beef fillet for you.  I mean, might as well.  I can guarantee that his knives are better than mine.  Then it's just to kabob your meat.  Only the secret to these kabobs is layers of fresh sage which you earlier marinated along with the meat, and which, layered right up against the bacon or pancetta, absorb all of the renderings.  I could eat a bowl of nothing but bacon-fried sage.  Wouldn't even need the bacon.

Sausage and Beef Kebabs
Adapted from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy

12 x 1" cubes of beef fillet
6 medium-sized Italian sausages, a mixture of spicy and sweet
5-6 thickly-sliced pancetta rounds
22 fresh sage leaves
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and passed through a press
2 fairly small lemons, one zested and juiced, the other quartered
Oil for the pan
Salt and pepper

The meat needs to be marinated for at least 1 hour and up to 3, so start by putting the beef cubes in a large, non-reactive bowl.  Cut the sausages into thirds, quarter the pancetta rounds and add both of those meats to the bowl.  Add 16 of the fresh sage leaves and save the rest aside.

On a cutting board, place your crushed garlic and the rest of the sage leaves.  Mince them together until they form a paste.  Put them in a small bowl and add the juice of one of the lemons along with the zest.  Whisk in 4 tablespoons of olive oil, then pour the marinade over the meat.  Toss the meat around a bit so everything gets covered, then cover the bowl with plastic and refrigerate for 1-3 hours.

When you're ready to roast them off, preheat your oven to its highest setting.  Grease a baking sheet and set aside.  To thread the kebabs, first use a piece of pancetta, then on top of that place one of the sage leaves that had been marinating with the meat.  Fold the sage leaf over before you put it on the skewer.  Next add a piece of sausage and finish with a piece of beef.  Continue in this order until the skewer is full.  You should get through three rounds per skewer.  And you really do want the sage right there next to the pancetta so the pancetta drippings can work their magic on the sage.  If you have enough pancetta, finish each kebab off with a slice of that on the top.

Place the kebabs in a single layer on your oiled baking sheet and place in the oven.  Immediately turn the heat down to 400F and roast for about 20 minutes.  When cooked through, remove from the oven and serve with lemon wedges to be squeezed over the top.

Corn Off the Cob Cakes

There's this phenomenon in Paris, at least in the northern part where I live, of people roasting cobs of corn on fires built into these kind of wire basket things.  The corn just roasts on a grate on the top.  I have to admit that I haven't been daring enough to stop on my way back from the library to try one, so I can't say much more than that.  But I am greeted by the smell of roasted corn every afternoon.

I don't plan on roasting my own corn anytime soon, since it can't be done in a pan on a burner, and that's about what I have.  In fact, truth be told, this recipe is entirely impossible for me to make in my Paris apartment.  For one thing, corn meal.  I haven't looked, but I don't anticipate it being in every corner bodega (since they're not even called bodegas!) like it is in New York.

Second, a blender.  Not exactly your most exotic kitchen appliance, but alas.  If you have even a moderately stocked kitchen, however, you're good to go.  Because after the blender, it becomes a bowl, a skillet and a burner kind of recipe.

These started life as Jane Brody's Corn-Off-The-Cob Cakes, a brilliant combination of cornmeal mixed with pureed fresh corn kernels. But that's kind of where she stopped.  A great method, to be sure, but if I'm going to stand over a hot pan pouring batter in over and over, it better be a complete meal.  So in went green chilies, cheddar cheese, scallions.  And to top I decided on a simple mixture of chives and Greek yogurt seasoned with a little salt and pepper.  Or you could use syrup, of course.  Syrup goes on everything.

Corn-Off-The-Cob Cakes
Inspired by Jane Brody's Good Food Gourmet

1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
2 cups low-fat milk
uncooked corn kernels from 4 large cobs of corn
3 eggs
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 heaping cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 bunch of scallions, sliced
1 4-ounce can green chilies, drained and rinsed
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a medium bowl, stir together the corn meal and milk and set aside.

Blend the corn kernals in a blender, then blend in the eggs and the melted butter.  Pour this mixture into the bowl with the corn meal mixture and stir together until combined.  Stir in the scallions, green chilies and cheddar cheese.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.  Gently mix these dry ingredients into the wet mixture until just combined.

Heat a skillet over medium heat and oil with oil, butter or cooking spray.  Use a scant 1/4 cup to pour batter into the skillet.  These cakes spread a bit, so be sure not to use much more than 1/4 cup.  Cook the cakes on both sides until done, just as you would normal pancakes.

For the Chive Cream:

Combine 1 cup Greek yogurt with a handful of snipped chives.  Season with salt and pepper and serve with the corn cakes.

Sautéed Haricots Verts

If you're still craving early fall foods like tomatoes, but if your tomato stash is looking a little less like the height of ripeness, applying heat always works wonders.  I completely agree with avoiding those horrible, watery, grocery store tomatoes, but I don't think we're quite there yet.  So even if we're on the tail end, there a things we can still do to make tomatoes worth our while.

Appropriately, this recipe started out as Richard Olney's Sautéed Haricots Verts from his canonical Simple French Food.  But changes, as they say, were made.  For one thing, among all the dozens of jars of herbs and spices I've accumulated at home in NYC, oregano never made it onto my spice shelf, for some reason.  So a mixture of basil and thyme went in for the oregano, and I changed the cooking order and method a bit.  For one thing, I don't believe in peeling and seeding tomatoes because I am lazy.  So I didn't, electing to cook them down for a bit longer than called for to allow the extra juice to reduce.

As a result, the tomatoes were added in earlier than called for, and before the beans, which just get their finish in the pan, having been previously blanched in a pot of boiling water.  To make this more of a meal, next time I'd brown some potato slices in oil and add them into the mix at the last moment, along with the beans. 

Sautéed Haricots Verts
Adapted from Richard Olney's Simple French Food

1 large sweet onion, chopped
oil for the pan
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2 pounds green beans, ends trimmed
Salt and pepper to taste
Handful of chopped parsley

Parboil the beans for about 8-10 minutes (depending on how crunchy you like them, but they should still be a bit firm), drain and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking

Heat some oil in a large sauté pan over medium-low heat and cook the onions gently until they're soft but not browned, about 15-20 minutes.  In the meantime, cook the tomatoes with the butter a pinch of salt, and the basil and thyme for about 15 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and their juices to the onions and continue cooking for another 10 minutes until the juices have partly evaporated and thickened.

Add the beans to the onions, season with salt and increase the heat to medium.  Toss regularly for about 10-5 minutes, until everything is warmed through and the juices are thick.  Adjust the seasoning with more salt and pepper if needed.  Serve with a sprinkling of the rest of the parsley over the top.

Pima-Papago Cactus and Eggs

In my last post, we started talking about Spirit of the Harvest by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs, being reissued this fall.  I have to say, it would be the perfect resource for a Thanksgiving meal, as the recipes are focused around using traditional Native American ingredients like cornmeal, pumpkins, beans, meats native to North America and flavors that are very much of the season.  It might also be a way to celebrate the first peoples populations of North America on a day which should be very much about them.

The book opens with a two-page color map of the US, the 48 contiguous states outlined in white but not labeled, in favor of focusing on the regions where Native American tribes once lived, before being relocated by colonizers.  There's also a key that shows you where various crops were grown and gathered, and where specific animals were hunted.  Next, each chapter opens with a description of a specific region: The Southeastern Coast and Woodlands, The Northeastern Coast and Woodlands, The Great Plains, The Southwest and The West.  Cox and Jacobs have divided the book in this manner because ingredients tended to be grouped by region, as did the nomadic patterns of the people.

These chapter introductions are fascinating in the attention they pay to the history of the people, and the ways in which food fits into their cultures.  As I mentioned before, each recipe is introduced by a generous head-note which describes the dish, it's cultural significance and an explanation of any less-than-common ingredients.

For this sauté of cactus and eggs from the Pima and Papago peoples, Cox and Jacobs describe how cactus is eaten in the hottest and driest regions of the Southwest.  Although this recipe calls for nopales, or the pads of the prickly pear cactus, the Pima and Papago depended on the barrel cactus for its opaque liquid, and the cholla cactus was used in healing rituals.  If you've never tried nopales before, this is your chance.  They can be found at good Latin markets, and if you're in NYC, I bought mine for a song at little market right on 102nd and Lexington.


Pima-Papago Cactus and Eggs
Excerpted (with permission) from Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; September 2011), by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs

2 to 3 5- to 7-inch fresh nopales (prickly pear cactus pads) with thorns removed or 1 7 1/4-ounce can natural cactus in salt water, drained
Salt
4 strips bacon, diced
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground New Mexican red chili or chili powder
4 to 6 eggs
Ground pepper (optional)

Rinse fresh nopales well under cold running water and examine carefully to make sure all tiny thorns have been removed.  Trim around the edges with scissors to remove the base of thorns.  Use a sharp knife or vegetable peeler to remove a thin layer of peel.  Rinse again, cut into thin strips, and simmer in lightly salted water for 5 to 6 minutes, until tender.  Rinse and drain.  If using canned nopales, rinse and drain.

Cook bacon until crisp in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Remove with a slotted spoon and reserve.

Add onion and chili to the drippings in skillet.  Sauté over medium heat until onion is translucent.  Stir in reserved cactus strips and bacon.  Sauté briefly.  Break desired number of eggs on top of cactus mixture.  Cover tightly and cook over low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until whites are set and yolks are cooked to taste.  Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, if desired.

Serves 4 to 6

Navajo Wild Sage Bread

I'll admit that when I received a review copy of Martin Jacobs and Beverly Cox's book Spirit of the Harvest, I was a little nervous.  I have exactly zero experience with Native American cooking, and I was worried the ingredients would be difficult to find and perhaps even hard to use.  But really, when you think about how much the New World has given to cooking, all of the ingredients for which we can thank the native people of North and South America, the food is actually quite accessible.  But not overly so.  Cox and Jacobs didn't leave out recipes for things like Cattail Pollen Flapjacks just because cattail pollen may not be readily available.

Instead the book, which is being reissued this fall, mixes recipes you can definitely make with ingredients you might already have on hand (such as this one), with recipes that call for things for which you might have to do a little searching (such as the next one I'm going to share), and finally with recipes that are worth preserving as intrinsic parts of cuisines which have not really received proper attention.

I hesitate to talk about this book as though it presents one monolithic cuisine, as Native Americans are not a monolith, but just as diverse as the regions from which they come.  Cox and Jacobs don't really treat it as one large cuisine, either, dividing the chapters up by region.  But many ingredients are common to the foods of many of the people.  It's akin to giving a broad overview of French food, but remembering to draw distinctions between the different regions of that country.

We'll talk more about the layout of the book, and some of its particulars in my next post.  But for our first recipe, let's start with Navajo Wild Sage Bread.  Each recipe includes a generous head-note (head-paragraph might be a better phrase) which describes the recipe, the people from which it comes and its cultural significance and history (you'll quickly see why the book was a James Beard and IACP award winner when it was first published).

Cox and Jacobs write that in addition to flavoring foods, wild sage had a place in Navajo curing ceremonies as well, where it is placed on the floor of the sudatory, or sweat-bath house, because its wonderful odor attracts good.  They write about how one Navajo woman, Helen Begay, remembered gathering the herb as a child for her mother in Lukachukai on the Navajo reservation.  Ms. Begay also remembers her mother making a fresh goat's milk cheese that she used in this bread.  I bet it would be a real treat to track some down, but in the meantime you can use cottage cheese.

One further note about the recipe.  I'm pretty sure that the authors forgot to mention a second rise that should take place before the bread is baked.  But I've included instructions for where that rise should happen and for how long in brackets in the body of the recipe. 

Navajo Wild Sage Bread
Excerpted (with permission) from Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; September 2011, by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs

1 1/4-ounce package active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons crushed dried sage
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup cottage cheese
1 tablespoon melted vegetable shortening or lard

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water and set aside.  Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.  In a large mixing bowl, beat egg and cottage cheese until smooth.  Stir in melted shortening and yeast.  Add flour mixture gradually, beating vigorously after each addition, until a stiff dough is formed.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes.  Cover dough with a cloth and let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it doubles in bulk.  During the last period of rising, preheat the oven to 375F.  Punch down dough and knead for 1 minute.

Place dough on a greased, 2-quart ovenproof bowl [and let rise one more time until doubled in size, about 1 hour] and bake for 50 minutes until it is golden brown and firm to the touch.  Turn bread out of its bowl and cool on a rack.  Serves 6 to 8.

This bread is going to Yeast Spotting over on Wild Yeast.  Check it out for some more homemade carbs!

Charlotte au Chocolate

Charlotte au Chocolate, sounds so fancy doesn't it?  And it kind of is.  If you start from the beginning, by making your own ladyfingers, it's not the simplest of recipes.  But R gave me my very own charlotte mold for Valentine's day last year (and by gave me, I mean I ordered it on Amazon and then announced that I loved his thoughtful v-day gift) and as a reward I made a chocolate charlotte.

So when we had some friends over for dinner the other week, and I asked R for his input as to dessert, he immediately asked for chocolate charlotte.  And I couldn't dissuade him, which I kind of wanted to do.  Not because this dessert isn't delicious (It is.  I thought R was going to lose it in the silent and completely non-dramatic way he tends to lose it when I suggested I make something else.), but because it is kind of a pain if you start at the beginning, which, however, is completely worth doing.  You can see my last post for a great ladyfinger recipe.

So, the charlotte. There are two main types, cooked and uncooked.  The cooked version is probably slightly older (although both originate from around the end of the 18th century), and based on an English dessert that featured stewed apples surrounded by buttered bread.  This chilled version is based on the charlotte russe, or Russian charlotte, invented by the French chef Carême at the beginning of the 19th century while he was working in England and probably inspired by their cooked version.  The charlotte russe replaces the buttered bread with spongecake or ladyfingers arranged in a charlotte mold, which is then filled with cream or mousse flavored with chocolate or coffee, for example.  They can also be filled with a fruit mousse, like strawberry or raspberry.

In this version, one adapted from Martha Stewart and decidedly of the charlotte russe variety, the ladyfingers are sprinkled with Grand Marnier in much the same say the ladyfingers of a tiramisu might be dredged in coffee and liquor.  As I wrote in my last post, the ladyfinger does, after all, originate (as the story goes) in Savoy, a land historically shared by the French and the Italians.  Which is why you can use this ladyfinger recipe, although Italian, it's perfect for this French dessert.

Charlotte au Chocolate
Adopted from Martha Stewart's Entertaining

1 batch Ladyfingers
2 tablespoons orange liqueur mixed with 2 tablespoons water

For the filling:

1/2 pound or 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup orange liqueur
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup slivered, blanched almonds, pulverized
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
1/4 cup espresso coffee
2 cups whipping cream

Start by melting the chocolate together with the espresso.  To do this, put the chocolate into either the top part of a double boiler or into a microwave-safe bowl.  Pour the espresso over the chocolate and then, if using a double boiler, set the chocolate over a bowl of lightly simmering water.  If using a microwave, place the bowl in the microwave and heat for 30 seconds.  The chocolate may not be completely melted after this amount of time, but if you just stir it a bit it will melt the rest of the way.  Return to the microwave if necessary.  Set the melted chocolate aside to cool a bit.

Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer using the paddle attachment.  The mixture will be fluffy and a pale yellow color.  Add the liqueur and the almond extract, continuing to beat until smooth.  Add the almonds and the melted chocolate then set aside to be sure it has cooled completely.

In another bowl, whip the cream until thick and almost stiff.  Fold the cream into the chocolate mixture.

To make the charlotte:

Line the bottom of a 2-quart charlotte mold with a round of parchment paper.  Fit a layer of ladyfingers into the bottom.  You make have to cut or break some of them to make them fit, and you can use the scraps to fill in any holes.  Place them round-side down so that the flat, browned side is facing up.  Sprinkle a bit of the liqueur/water mixture on this layer.

Next, arrange more ladyfingers around the sides of the mold, again with the rounded side out so that the flat, browned side is facing in.

Pour the chocolate cream mixture into the mold.  Arrange a final layer of ladyfingers over the top of the cream, only this time dip them briefly in the liqueur/water mixture before placing them on the cream.  Again, place them so that the rounded side is out and the flat, browned side is facing in.

Cover the charlotte with plastic wrap and set in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours.  To serve, place a plate on top of the mold and flip it over, sliding the mold off of the charlotte so that it rests on the plate.  Remove the round of waxed paper and it's ready to eat.