Happy New Year from Paris -- 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

As always, we are spending the end of the year in Paris. Here are some nice, mostly food-oriented, images from Paris in late December.

Réligieuse at Dalloyau

Snowman at Dalloyau

Dalloyau

Baby bûches de Noël on Île Saint-Louis

Merveilleuses de Fred

Chocolats Marquise de Sévigné

Macarons at Ladurée

Chocolats Michel Cluizel

Au Petit Versailles, a gorgeous boulangerie patisserie

Display at Edwart, a new and quite wonderful chocolatier

Shoe train in Printemps window

Bobby Jay

Paris - Christmas Dinner 2014

As has become our tradition, we had Christmas dinner chez nous with good friends from the Japanese ceramic world: a renowned Japanese potter from Kyoto and her friend, an excellent Japanese potter who has been living and working in Paris for decades and the director of one of Paris' Asian art museums. J, of course, the great dealer in contemporary Japanese ceramics, and me, the sole male and the chef.

As always, J set a magnificent table. With flowers a bit lame in the market on Christmas day, she improvised with fruit and vegetables to great effect.

Table set for Christmas dinner

For hors d'oeuvres, I prepared some curried roasted cashews and smoked paprika-spiced almonds, and tapenade and mustard palmiers. And, of course, the foie gras that I described in my previous post (sorry for the repeat picture).

Foie gras Bobby Jay

Dinner consisted of a mushroom soup from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, served over chopped mushrooms, scallions and chives, with, of course, a dollop of crème fraîche.

Mushroom soup with obligatory dollop of crème fraîche

For the main course, roast leg of lamb with anchovies, rosemary and garlic (and lots of butter and white wine) from Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories. See my previous post for a picture of the leg slathered in anchovy butter before roasting. As is customary in France, green beans with rosemary on the side.

Roast leg of lamb before carving (which didn't make it look any better)

Then the thing that, in my opinion, blows away whatever I cook: a perfect vacherin de Mont d'Or, eaten with a spoon, a Christmas tradition in France and my favorite cheese in the world. I prettied it up with slices of pear and walnuts, but the cheese is the thing here.

Vacherin de Mont d'Or with sliced pears and walnuts

Finally, Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake, also from Around My French Table, a great make-ahead dessert that keeps for days on the counter, served with yet another dollop of crème fraîche.

Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake

Really finally, assorted chocolates from La Mère de Famille, thoughtfully provided by one of the guests.

Chocolates from La Mère de Famille

A good way to pass the night with friends.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Gardil: A Great Butcher

Near our new apartment is one of Paris' best butchers, Jean-Paul Gardil et Fils, in the middle of the magnificent Île Saint-Louis. Although Gardil is wildly expensive, I decided to give it a few tries, and had not only great products but nice experiences.

Gardil's window display of great poultry

I visited Gardil on Friday, December 19 to order provisions for dinners on December 23, a Tuesday, and Christmas day, a Thursday. And I needed duck foie gras to prepare on Saturday, December 20. First, the foie gras. It was not de-nerved, and taking out the nerves is a job I do not want to do ever again, having made a disgusting mess of it when I tried. No problem, said the butcher (I had Gardil fils), he would do it the next morning (it needs to be out of the fridge for two hours before de-nerving) and I could pick it up at 10 on Saturday.

Foe gras resting under a layer of duck fat

My best foie gras ever

Then, chicken for Tuesday. I ordered it for Saturday, but the butcher thought that would leave the chicken in my fridge for too long. I said I was marinating it Monday night, but he was insistent. Luckily, the shop, normally closed on Mondays, was open exceptionally for the holiday season, so we made a date for Monday.

As for the lamb, since I was serving it Thursday, the earliest he would let me have it was Tuesday, otherwise it would be too long in my fridge. I'm sure he would have preferred Wednesday, but I didn't want to face the Christmas eve crush.

The point of the story is that Gardil takes enormous pride in its products and wants its customers to serve it while still at maximum freshness, a level of attention I have never seen before. I went to pick up the foie gras on Saturday, and the butcher said it was ready and could hardly wait to show me how beautifully he had done the job. And he had. The foie gras was the best I ever made, and there was not a nerve to be seen, no matter how tiny.

Monday I picked up the chicken, which was prepared before me at considerable length. This is how it's done in Paris: head and feet cut off, joints stretched, giblets removed (and saved), when the chicken is sold, and not before. Slow but, again, freshness is all. I asked him to cut the chicken into eight pieces, which he did with great precision and speed, keeping some bones and the neck separate for me, which I used to make stock for Christmas dinner. (Unfortunately I forgot to ask for the feet, which add a lot of depth to stock due to the collagen within.) As with the foie gras, the chicken was simply the best I have ever made. A poulet fermier, it was rich in flavor but not tough as they sometimes are in the US.

Chicken from Gardil

Tuesday I returned for the leg of lamb. By now we were old friends, and I got an especially nice greeting. It had already been prepared and was ready to go. The butcher gave me instructions, which I did not follow because I was using a recipe that I had tried before with success. The lamb was excellent, but unlike the foie gras and chicken, was not the best I have ever made.

Lamb from Gardil, slathered with anchovy butter

The fun part of this trip was the dialogue between the butcher and a woman who had purchased a magnificent and wildly expensive (probably more than $200) capon for the next night. The butcher explained exactly how to cook it - two and a quarter hours, turning it at specific times, adding wine at specific times, etc. The customer took notes and then asked if she could make it in advance. The butcher visibly winced, but after gathering his composure, told her how best to do it: do NOT put it in the fridge and then reheat very gently at 210-225 degrees Farenheit (my conversions) for about 40 minutes. He did not ask her what is the point of cooking a roast a couple of hours in advance and reheating it, which showed great sensitivity.

Along the way, I bought some ham made from Noir de Bigorre pork from the Pyrenees, a duck sausage and two pâtes. The pâtes were not extraordinary but the ham and sausage definitely were. In sum, I learned a lot, ate well and had a terrific time (actually four times) at Gardil. And people ask what I do in Paris!

Bobby Jay

Paris -- Holiday Food

December in Paris is all about food. I've been here nearly a week and have done less walking than usual due to bad weather, but I'm starting to get around and check out what's new.

On the Île Saint-Louis, the famed butcher Gardil has a window full of gorgeous, well-dressed and expensive (64 euros per kilo -- $35 per pound -- for Bresse capon) birds. This is where I plan to provision myself for our annual Christmas dinner with our Japanese friends in Paris. Jews and Buddhists celebrating Christmas: why not?

Poultry at Boucherie Gardil

And there's a bakery on Rue Saint-Antoine that sells a big variety of what the French call "cakes," generally not overly sweet cakes made in loaf pans. I have to try one soon.

Cakes at bakery on rue Saint-Antoine

I did get to the Madeleine. As usual, Hediard had nice windows,

Hediard's Christmas window

And the Maison de la Truffe had about a million dollars' worth of black truffles in its display.

Giant truffles at Maison de la Truffe -- a study in noir et blanc

 Caviar Kaspia had a cute display, with fake Russian dolls,

Caviar Kaspia window

And Fauchon had a beautiful new cake this year. (They always beautiful products even though Fauchon is no longer the best that Paris has to offer.)

Gorgeous cake at Fauchon

More to come in future posts.

Bobby Jay

Paris -- Le Banh Mi Chez Moi

You'd think that with the large number of Vietnamese people living in Paris, the city would abound with great banh mi sandwiches. Wrong. I tried what was supposed to be one of the best and it was quite mediocre. So I solved the problem the way I did in New York, by making my own, following the wisdom in The Banh Mi Handbook: Recipes for Crazy-Delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches, by Andrea Nguyen.

After all, you can get great pork, great liver pate and great ham in Paris, and a much better baguette than you can find in New York. I used made the full combo, using the aforementioned ingredients, plus mayo, sriracha, Maggi sauce, homemade carrot and daikon pickles, cucumber, hot peppers and cilantro. The only tricky ingredient was the peppers, because jalapenos are not available in Paris. The closest thing, Moroccan peppers, are often not hot enough but the ones I found in the market were just fine.

I used crispy roasted pork belly,

 put the whole thing together on a great French baguette,

and made myself very happy.

Bobby Jay

Thanksgiving 2014

This year we had a bigger Thanksgiving, 14 adults, one two-year-old and a three-month-old, and that turns out to be a lot more than the 10 adults we had last year. With careful planning, and knocking off three dishes a day, I was able to get a huge amount done in advance and was looking forward to a restful Thanksgiving day.

Until the turkey! I made it the same way as I did last year - deconstructed, then breast cooked upside down in a saute pan, and finally all cooked over the stuffing. But this year I dry-brined the turkey (salt plus baking powder) for two days, instead of wet-brining the breast overnight. And this year's turkey weighed in at 18 pounds instead of 14. For whatever reason, the breast just wouldn't get done and it was so fat that it had dried out on the outside by the time it had cooked through on the inside. In addition, it took 45 extra minutes, thereby throwing off the entire schedule. Finally it got done, and looked pretty good,

Turkey breast ready to be carved

but I ended up with the Thanksgiving nemesis - dried white meat - and a disorganized meal.

That being said, everyone had fun and enjoyed the meal, which did have some real highlights.

Here's what I cooked:

Thanksgiving Dinner
 November 27, 2014

Salmon rillettes (from a class at Atelier des Chefs in Paris)

Slow poached garlic shrimp (from Tyler Florence's Ultimate TV show)

Mustard and tapenade palmiers
(from Dorie Greenspan, Around My French Table)

Feta with sumac, black sesame seeds and olive oil (from Bon Appétit)

Bar nuts (from The Union Square Cookbook)

Turkey with cornbread and turkey sausage and dried apricot stuffing

(from Cook's Illustrated for Turkey, Food and Wine and myself for stuffing)

Cranberry mostarda (from Food and Wine)

Sweet potato gratin with sage (from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook)

Brussels sprouts (from Food and Wine)

Bourbon caramel pumpkin tart (from Fine Cooking)

Chocolate hazelnut torte (from Gourmet)

Marie-Hélène’s apple tart
(from Dorie Greenspan, Around My French Table)

And here's what some of it looked like:

Hors d'oeuvres were served in the living room, around our old art deco table.

Slow poached garlic shrimp

Feta cheese with sumac and black sesame seeds

Then to the dining room, spectacularly arranged as always by J,

for a buffet dinner:

The turkey, deconstructed and carved

Sweet potato gratin

Roasted Brussels sprouts with caramelized onions

Thanksgiving plate, fully loaded

Finally, three desserts that I whipped up earlier in the week:

Chocolate hazelnut torte

Pumpkin tart with bourbon caramel and toasted candied pumpkin seeds

Marie-Hélène's apple cake

A good time was had by all, I think, except for myself during the turkey breast crisis.

Bobby Jay

Baking

Well, the cold weather's here and it's time to get back to baking. In truth, I bake in most months, but desserts in summer are most often fruit with ice cream (especially homemade lemon verbena or ginger) or yogurt (homemade and flavored with shredded coconut or cardamom, vanilla and sugar) or luxurious crème fraîche.

Over the years I have made hundreds of apple tarts and am always working on ways to improve them. I recently invented the killer apple tart: apples over ginger caramel and minced candied ginger with ginger caramel sauce.

Apple tart with ginger caramel and candied ginger

For the crust, I use Clotilde Dusoulier's pâte sablée (short pastry), which, being a hand-shaped crust, solves the problem of dealing with brittle rolled sweet dough, as well as the need for pie weights when blind baking. Then I made a ginger caramel from a recipe that I found in Maximum Flavor, by Aki Kamozawa and Alexander Talbot, who run the amazing Ideas in Food blog. I slice the apples thin and heat them for 2-3 minutes in the microwave in 1/2 apple clumps of slices, to get rid of the excess liquid that can kill a crust.

I blind-baked the crust, then when cooled painted it with a thin coat of caramel. On this I placed a layer of minced candied ginger, the dry, spicy kind, and then the apples. Baked at 400 until ready, about 35 minutes, and voilà, a wonderful tart ready for eating, dressed with more ginger caramel or not.

What makes this tart special is the ginger, with an assist from the ginger caramel. I love ginger in all its forms and it really worked here. My only residual question is whether to add some ginger powder to the crust, for an apple ginger three-ways tart.

While on the subject of baking, I recently got Dorie Greenspan's brand new book, Baking Chez Moi, hoping that it would be as good as her Around My French Table. Too soon to tell, but first signs are good: the same excellent organization (including metric measurement!), logical recipes and lush photos. Most important, the recipes are extremely inviting and not intimidating. I made the very first one in the book: "Brown-Butter-and-Vanilla-Bean Weekend Cake": a simple cake that's a perfect vehicle for ice cream, fruit or compote, among other things.

Brown-Butter-and-Vanilla-Bean Weekend Cake

Happy Baking!

Bobby Jay

SOS Chefs - Amazing Spices and Other Food Products for Professionals

We had a catered party a couple of weeks ago and the chef was a Tunisian named Sami. We talked a lot about food, and about great products and where to find them. He told me to go to SOS Chefs, in the East Village, and tell the lady that Sami the Tunisian chef sent me. 

So I finally made the journey to Avenue B between 6th and 7th Streets today, and it is quite a place! As Sami said, the range and quality of the spices is amazing, but please note that they charge for it. I was helped by a lovely young woman who kept bringing me spices to try, and of course I ended up buying a number of them. When I introduced myself to the owner, who it turns out is also Tunisian, I was treated to a tour of the mushroom room in the back, where a huge variety of mushrooms are stored pending orders by New York's chefs. Also nuts and other perishable items: I drooled over the Sicilian pistachios, but was able to resist them due to the $100 per pound price tag.

Timut Peppercorns

Sicilian Pistachios

Spices and Black Garlic from SOS Chefs

I did indulge in some Nepalese Timut pepper, of which I tasted a single grain and enjoyed a tingling tongue for 20 minutes, rather like a cross between Szechuan and black pepper. I'm really looking forward to using it, and it is already loaded into a grinder. The other spice I bought were ones that I needed or bought in order to upgrade my existing pantry, like incredibly fragrant Aleppo pepper that blows the stuff I had away. And I was talked into a head of pungent black garlic, which I must figure out how to use.

SOS Chefs also has a great selection of grains, oils, pastas, beans and other items that I am forgetting. A long way to go from the Upper West Side, but a fun visit.

Bobby Jay

Great Pork Doth Not a Great Banh Mi Make

I was in the neighborhood so I went to Porchetta, maker of stupendous porchetta (roasted pork loin wrapped in pork belly), for a sandwich. I planned to get their wonderful porchetta sandwich, but, seeing a sign for banh mi, decided to go for it as part of my quest for a great banh mi.

Porchetta Banh Mi

While the porchetta was divine -- moist pulled pork of two kinds with little crackling rewards -- the banh mi was not successful. First, the pork is seasoned with Italianish spices. Second, there were no other meats, like pâté and ham. Third, they added thinly slice red onions, which seemed only to reinforce the Westernness of the thing.  Fourth, they added too much mayonnaise, although it was the real Kewpie that is used widely in the Far East. Fifth, the hot sauce was normal hot sauce, not sriratcha. And finally, there were no jalapeños or cucumbers. Also, the sandwich is a bit sloppy, as can be seen above, although this is less apparent when it is closed and ready to be eaten and ultimately a minor quibble.

The bottom line: an excellent pork sandwich but missing the wonderful melange of Vietnamese tastes that is the essence of an authentic banh mi.

The quest continues.

Bobby Jay

She Wolf Miche: Spectacular Bread

On my weekly pilgrimage to the Upper West Side greenmarket behind the Museum of Natural History, I noticed a new stand: She Wolf Bakery. They had a case full of miches, a brown sourdough (levain) bread similar to the famous Pain Poilâne made in Paris and marketed throughout the world. I bought a quarter loaf and couldn't wait to try it at home (the piece below is substantially carved down from the quarter miche). It is intensely sour but gives full reign to the flavors of the white, whole wheat and rye flours of which it is made. In short, a revelation, better in my opinion than the renowned Parisian loaf. The crust is crispy and the crumb delightfully moist, a triumph of the baker's art, as you can see below.

Based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, She Wolf makes other breads, but I didn't see any of them today. The bakery has a stand at the Union Square Market on Mondays, so I will have to check it out. They are also at the Greenpoint market for those who live in or near that neighborhood.

Miche from She Wolf Bakery

She Wolf Bakery's stand at Upper West Side greenmarket

(Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, I am reading Michael Pollan's new book: Cooking: A Natural History of Transformation, nearly a quarter of which is devoted to bread, more specifically a natural levain bread from Chad Robertson that is the subject of his brilliant Tartine Bread. I plan to write more about Pollan's book in an upcoming post.)

Get this bread if you can!

Bobby Jay