Alain Passard, an Amazing Perfectionist

Recently Nadège, the most loyal follower of my blog, recommended that I watch some short cooking videos by Alain Passard. They are terrific, and more on them later.

Passard is the chef of the famed Arpège, in Paris, where the spectacular and spectacularly expensive food is mostly, but not exclusively, vegetarian. A number of years ago, J and I went to Arpège with our good friends H and O and had a wonderful meal, but . . . we really felt ripped off paying nearly 300 euros per person (it's more now, of course) for the meal and we also felt that the restaurant's staff made the experience about them, not us. Yet I have to admit that I can still remember the taste of his most famous creation, a dessert consisting of a tomato that is confited for the better part of a day.

I thought nothing more of this until I happened upon a bande dessiné (graphic, comic-like book), En Cuisine avec Alain Passard, written by a journalist who got to spend a lot of time with him.

Reading this book gave me a new respect for Chef Passard. He sources nearly all the vegetables he uses at one of two organic farms that he owns. One is more or less conventional, the other uses horse-drawn plows and ancient planting and harvesting techniques. He tries growing the produce at each farm and then chooses the one that give the best result for future production. And he is a workaholic, spending virtually all of his time at the restaurant, creating, sampling, creating, etc. He has decided not to expand like other chefs because he cannot imagine producing the level of cuisine that he produces at Arpège without personally supervising every step. The level of Chef Passard's attention to detail is pretty amazing.

Now I get it.

As to the videos, there are a large number accessible by searching "alain passard youtube"; the dozen or so that I have viewed so far (and I plan to see them all) are remarkable. The food is amazingly creative and beautiful. And the lessons are so well expressed that they seem doable by a mere mortal who knows how to cook. But the best part is the enthusiasm displayed by Chef Passard. The man is clearly excited by what he does, a point made clear in En Cusine, but in the videos the passion is infectious; I want to cook each thing that he illustrates, right then! Here's an example, in which Chef Passard shows how to make a roulade of autumn vegetables: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufQdIWM7PxM#t=15

There is one problem, which you may have suspected: the lessons are in French. The language used is not difficult, and the videos are so well illustrated that they are easily followed, but the fact remains that they are in French. Still, I encourage you to give them a try if you have even a little French and love to cook (or eat). Just looking at what he produces will be an inspiration.

Will I go back to Arpège knowing what I do now? I'm seriously thinking about it.

Bobby Jay

Alain Passard's Amazing (and Simple) Vinaigrette Aigre-Doux

A few months ago, I wrote about the legendary chef, Alain Passard, whose three star Arpège is almost entirely vegetable focused. I have been viewing the videos referred to in my post of January 1, 2015, and one really got my attention: on vinaigrette aigre-doux, which means sweet and sour vinaigrette.

I usually avoid sweet vinaigrettes, as well as honey mustards: for me the honey overpowers the salty and acid aspects of the experience. BUT. This is ALAIN PASSARD, who is so excited over this dressing that I had to give it a try. It helps that it takes about four minutes to assemble and contains just three ingredients: lime juice, honey and olive oil.

Here's the recipe (which I halved with perfect success):

• Mix 70 grams of lime juice with 140 grams of honey (I used chesnut)
• Slowly add 200 grams of olive oil with an immersion blender until you have a nice emulsion

That's it.

Here's how to use it, under a salad of cut up beets and turnips, covered with a sprinkling of mesclun and herbs.

Turnips and beets with mesclun over Alain Passard's vinaigrette aigre-doux

A slightly different version, substituting lemon juice for lime, is perfect over triangles of pineapple (topped with paper thin apple slices and lime zest). It was also perfect over blackberries, but less good on watermelon triangles. The lesson is that it is a better counterpoint for salty or sour than for sweet.

Impress your friends (and yourself) with no effort!

Bobby Jay

The Week of Cooking Dangerously -- Part 1 -- Office Party

After a year-end burst of blogging, I have been too lazy to post for the first couple of weeks of the year. But I have just completed a week of furious cooking, with some  highs and lows worth discussing.

Apple Tart Mémé

Last Sunday night I prepared dinner for the wonderful team at Joan's gallery, an annual event. The centerpiece was to be slow-cooked lamb shoulder over pommes boulangères. For some reason, everything went wrong, starting with the fact that the lamb shoulder I had ordered turned out to be a different cut altogether. I called Citarella to do an exchange, but the correct meat arrived too late for true falling-off-the-bone texture that this the essence of the recipe. It tasted okay but after 5 1/2 hours had not reached the desired stage and had to be served.

I then put way too little flour in the dough for my apple tart, but managed to salvage it by careful surgery once it was in the tart shell.

Hors d'oeuvres consisted of smoked sturgeon and smoked ricotta sprinkled with dill over German style super-multi-grain bread that I bought from She-Wolf Bakery. Even on a bad day, I couldn't screw this up.

Smoked sturgeon and smoked ricotta crostini

I did, however, screw up the shrimp that I steamed in Old Bay Seasoning and served with sriratcha mayonnaise: overcooked! And I also managed to drop a beautiful Baccarat flute filled with champagne soon after the guests arrived.

The appetizer was my beet and turnip salad with Alain Passard's unbelievably complex and delicious honey lime vinaigrette aigre-doux. The beets took twice as long as expected, did not peel easily and generally were a nightmare, but the final result was fine.

Beet and turnip salad with mesclun and vinaigrette aigre-doux

The aforesaid lamb was not bad but I was so mad at it that I didn't make a photo.

There followed a cheese course consisting of spectacularly pungent vieux cantal from 2012 that I brought back from France on New Year's Day, served with walnuts and Spanish fig cake to cut the divine rotten taste and aroma of the cheese.

Super old Cantal with walnuts and fig cake

Finally, Jacques Pépin's Apple Tart Mémé, pictured above, was fine even if the crust was really really thin.

Most important, the company was great and the event a success despite my messes.

So I managed to overcome my demons for the most part, but not as well as Shoki, the Japanese mythological demon-queller, would have done). A challenging day that ended well.

Bobby Jay