Paris - Restaurant Jean: Still a Favorite

Last week, J and I returned to one of our favorite Paris restaurants, Jean, with our friend R, who was visiting from New York. We had a really brilliant meal, well-conceived and nearly perfectly executed, definitely worthy of the restaurant's Michelin star.

We all had the four-course meal, a terrific buy at 85 euros for a meal of this quality.

R and I stuck with the menu as written, while J substituted asparagus for eggs and lamb for beef.

The first course was soft-boiled eggs with peas, morels, parsley purée, veal jus and an[cancoillotte] emulsion of cancoillotte, a runny cheese from Comté. It was sublime, with the tastes and textures of the components coming together in a smooth and complex mixture. J substituted green asparagus from the Luberon, steamed and then sauteed with crispy shrimp, shrimp-stuffed dumplings and "saveurs asiatiques," another great success.

Oeuf mollet, petits pois, fèves, morilles, purée de persil, jus de veau, émulsion cancoillotte

Asperges vertes du Luberon, gambas rouges croquantes, gyozas farcis de gambas aux saveurs asiatiques

Next was an Italian influenced presentation of red mullet stuffed with oil-cured black olives and arroche rouge (an herb we don't have), tiny potatoes sauteed in butter, a peppered artichoke "surprise," with an arugula pesto and grated grana padano.

Rouget barbet, farci olives noires confites et arroche rouge, pommes de terre poêlées au beurre, artichaut poivrade "surprise", pesto de roquette et grana padano

The meat course consisted of perfectly medium-rare (by French standards) slices of wagyu beef crusted with Espelette pepper, [tortello de paleron] of braised beef, turnips lacquered with orange and honey, fried pimentos and beef jus. J suffered along with baby lamb in three styles (chop, confit and leg), with a "taboulé" of vegetables and ratatouille jus.

Boeuf wagyu paleron à griller, en croûte de piment d'Espelette, tortello de paleron de boeuf braisé, navet laqué orange et miel, pimientos del Padron frits, jus de boeuf

Dessert was a spectacular array of chocolate creams and mousses, with a sugar cover and dots of fruit sauces. A beautiful dish, but another example of perfectly merged tastes and textures.

Chocolate mousses and cream with sugar cover and fruit sauces

I have recommended this place to a number of friends, and none have come away disappointed.

Jean, 8, rue St-Lazare, 75009 Paris.

Bobby Jay

Paris -- Cooking Lesson: Bistronomie Chic

Despite the pretentious name, I signed up for this course at the Atelier des Chefs in Paris. And what a nice course it was!

On the menu:

An incredibly simple Tarte Tatin aux tomates cerises et rouget au basilic (upside down caramelized cherry tomato tart with red mullet and basil sauce). While this is theoretically an appetizer, it would make a nice main course.

Cherry tomato Tartes Tatin just out of the oven

Cherry tomato Tarte Tatin with red mullet filets and basil sauce

Tournedos de volaille, beurre noisette au fenouil, pommes Anna traditionnelle (rolled chicken breasts with brown butter sauce and shaved fennel with Pommes Anna). Unfortunately the chicken breast, despite a cooking method guaranteed to keep them moist (i.e. browned briefly then baked at 160 for an hour), was dry. The Pommes Anna were great; with all that butter how could they not be?

Chicken breast "tournedos," Pommes Anna, brown butter sauce, shaved fennel

Sablé breton spéculoos, chantilly vanille et framboises (homemade speculoos cookie with raspberry whipped cream and fresh raspberries). A home run! Simple if you have a siphon, not so hard if you don't.

Speculoos cookie, raspberry whipped cream and fresh raspberries

All eminently repeatable recipes and a quite delicious morning.

Bobby Jay

Paris -- Clafoutis Revisited

Apricot-sour cherry clafoutis

It's June and I am in Paris, which means one must eat clafoutis aux cerises, or cherry custard, made by pouring custard over whole cherries (with or without pits, but more on that later) and baking until set and with a lovely color. Every restaurant serves a version, but I have rarely found one that was not a bit heavy.

In 2013, I made Joel Robuchon's version, from Patricia Wells' Simply French, which make the clafoutis into a tart sprinkled with ground up baked pieces of the tart dough. (See my post of June 8, 2013.)

Last year, I made Dorie Greenspan's version, from her wonderful Baking Chez Moi (see my post of June 6, 2014). It was the classic, only I used sour cherries instead of sweet ones and removed the pits despite the traditional view that leaving them adds taste to the dessert. It was fine, but reinforced my view that the classic clafoutis is not the greatest thing ever.

I was invited to friends' for dinner last night and volunteered to make dessert. Thinking I would make an apricot tart, I bought a kilo of ripe apricots at the Sunday market near the Bastille. Then I found some sour cherries and had to buy them, too. As a result, I changed gears and tried to come up with a dessert that would combine the two. And it is June. So I decided to do an apricot-sour cherry clafoutis. Upon rereading Dorie's recipe, I came across her variation (bonne idée), which involves putting a lighter, flourless cherry custard into a sweet pastry shell. I pitted the cherries, cut the apricots into eights to approximate the sized of the cherries, and proceeded to follow the recipe (except that I used Clotilde Dusoulier's simple recipe for the tart dough).

It came out perfectly, as you can see below.

Clafoutis step 1: Clotilde's pâte sablée, prebaked

Clafoutis step 2: add pitted sour cherries and apricot pieces

Clafoutis step 3: add custard and bake

Clafoutis step 4: the finished product (well, almost, see above for the final)

It also tasted great. What's more, my host E was in ecstasy, commenting that he generally hates clafoutis because of the sacré (damn) pits in the cherries. I explained that, as a lawyer, I feared getting sued by someone breaking a tooth on a pit, and therefore have always removed them. While this was only half facetious, the result was good and E kept raving about the dessert.

And another successful recipe from Dorie's Around My French Table.

Bobby Jay