Paris - Back to Quatrehomme for Cheese

I arrived in Paris yesterday, and went to my favorite open air market - Avenue du Président Wilson - this morning. Despite the many temptations, I resisted the urge to buy cheese (well, except an Italian peppered pecorino and some mini-scamorzas) because I planned to go to Marie Quatrehomme's fabulous cheese shop on Rue de Sèvre in the afternoon. How I love this shop, which I have written up before!



Since I am alone, I only bought four cheeses (and probably won't finish any of them), but they still make an impressive haul: a coeur, a slice of mont d'or suisse, a slice of fourme d'ambert and a langres.

Langres, coeur, fourme d'ambert, vacherin from Quatrehomme

Heaven.

Bobby Jay

Ostrich -- A Great Beef Substitute

J can't digest beef, although she can eat lamb, pork and even veal. Over the years I have tried to find substitutes but the closest I have come was duck breast, which has a steak-y quality and is otherwise a pretty versatile, readily available meat.

Several years ago, J went to the Golden Door spa, where she had an ostrich burger, which she said was almost indistinguishable from a lean beef burger. I did some research and it turns out that ostrich, despite its rich, meaty flavor and color, is very low in fat and cholesterol, close to white meat chicken.

I followed up by getting some ostrich steaks and ground ostrich through internet sources, and we enjoyed it. In the last couple of years, Roaming Acres Farm has been selling ostrich at various open-air markets in New York City, so it is no struggle to find it.

Ostrich steak au poivre

The trick to cooking ostrich is to keep it rare. If you go to medium rare, it gets tough and tastes like well-done beef, pretty terrible. I have recently discovered the perfect way to assure that the ostrich is cooked to, but not beyond, the perfect temperature: the sous vide machine. I cook vacuum packed ostrich steaks in the sous vide bath at 127° fahrenheit for about four hours, then cool it in an ice bath and let it rest in the refrigerator. When you want to finish it, place it in a smoking hot skillet or under a hot broiler for one minute per side; it will char on the outside without exceeding 127°.

Last night I make ostrich steak au poivre, using a recipe for steak from Emeril Lagasse, of all people. Fa - bu - lous!

Thumbs up for ostrich and also for sous vide cooking.

Bobby Jay

Clotilde's Flourless Orange Ginger Cake

I recently was asked to bring dessert for a party of 20, but warned that one of the guests has celiac disease and as a result is absolutely gluten-intolerant.

The obvious (probably too obvious, these days) answer was flourless chocolate cake. However, while looking through my very extensive recipe file for the perfect example, I came upon a recipe for a flourless orange ginger cake (gateau à l'orange et au gingembre) from Clotilde Dussoulier's wonderful blog, Chocolate and Zucchini. I made two, and they were a huge hit: moist and flavorful, with more than a hint of bitterness from the orange peel (you boil oranges for two hours, then puree them to form the foundation of the cake). I have made it again more recently to equal raves: everyone who tries this cake wants the recipe. So here's the link to it.

Clotilde's Flourless Orange Ginger Cake

Bobby Jay

Ottolenghi Roast Chicken with Sumac, Za'atar and Lemon

I have previously written about the great cookbook, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, in several posts. It is exciting and interesting and worth reading for it's wonderful recipes but also just for inspiration. Last night we had guests and I made one of my favorite dishes from the book, Roast Chicken with Sumac, Za'atar and Lemon, a dish that's easy to prepare but with an exotic Middle Eastern spice profile that sets it apart: typical of Ottolenghi's recipes.

Ottolenghi's Roast Chicken with Sumac, Za'atar and Lemon

I own Ottolenghi's other cookbooks, Plenty (vegetarian) and Jerusalem, but haven't really gone through them because there's so much left to try in the first one. However, last night's dinner has inspired me to read the newer books and get to the next Ottolenghi level.

Bobby Jay

Tarte Tatin

There is nothing like a classic tarte tatin (upside-down apple tart), and today I set out to make a classic one, following the recipe of the Confrérie des Lichonneux de Tarte Tatin, the official society of tarte tatin lovers.

This recipe calls for buttering the pan with a huge amount of butter, covering with sugar and then arranging quartered apples on top and cooking over a hot burner until the sugar caramelizes and turns a dark brown. Well, I burned the sugar and after a lot of cursing decided to try again by making a caramel in a new pan and using the already very cooked apples, finally adding a pâte brisée crust (the official recipe calls for puff pastry but I prefer ordinary tart dough) and baking for 30 minutes.

The result was the best tarte tatin I've ever made, dark and crusty with rich caramel. Lesson learned.

 
Bobby Jay

Homemade Chocolates and Sous Vide Cooker - A Perfect Match

My friend Paul came over for one of our periodic chocolate-making afternoons yesterday. As usual, we tried a number of different chocolates: Valhrona Manjari 64%, Callebaut Bittersweet (unspecified percentage cacao) and Callebaut Milk Chocolate (also unspecified) and made a bunch of different shapes, including mendiants as well as six or seven molded shapes.

Assorted homemade chocolates

The challenging part of chocolate-making is tempering the chocolate, to get a snappy, shiny result. This involves slowly melting the chocolate, cooling it to 84°F (81°F for milk chocolate), then bringing it to 90°F (86°F for milk chocolate) and holding it pending use. With a good thermometer, it's not hard to hit the right marks, but it is exceedingly hard to keep the tempered chocolate at 90°F. This matters a lot, because if the temperature drops, it is hard to work with the chocolate.

The solution: use of a sous vide bath heated to 90°F. My friend Piglet and I just got a Sous-Vide Supreme, which is nothing more than a precise thermostatically controlled hot bath, but we have not yet learned to use it. However, I thought, why not put the 84°F chocolate into Ziploc bags and pop them into the sous vide until they reach 90°F? We could then hold the chocolate virtually indefinitely until we were ready to use it, cutting a small hold in the corner of the Ziploc and using it as a piping bag to form the chocolates. (I searched two sous vide cookbooks and the Internet for insights on this idea, but found none.) This method worked perfectly and avoided the need to carefully bring the chocolate up to temperature and then rush to use it before it cooled. (We had to do the milk chocolate without benefit of the sous vide technique because the 90°F temperature was too high.)

A note on chocolate. The easier dark chocolate to use was the Valhrona Manjari, which also has wonderful compexity and spiciness.  The Callebaut Bittersweet has a rich super-chocolaty taste that we really love but is tricky to use; we believe it has a cacao content in excess of 70%, which would suggest using slightly higher temperatures than for the Manjari. Next time we are planning to use Callebaut and Barry Venezuela 72%, which I bought in Paris, and go with a low temperature of 86°F and a holding temperature of 93°F.

Bobby Jay

Lamb Burgers

Since J cannot eat beef, but still likes burgers (as do I), I am always looking for burgers made with other meats: lamb, veal, turkey and ostrich. Over the years I have tried many lamb burger recipes and have developed my own, which I think is worth sharing. These are perfect for bowl games (we had them last night while watching the Rose Bowl) and for the pro football post-season.

Bobby Jay’s Lamb Burgers 

Ingredients 

• 1 lb ground lamb (preferably ground at home)
• 2 small shallots
• 1 big clove garlic
• 2 Tbs chopped parsley
• 2 Tbs grated mozzarella
• 2 Tbs crumbled feta cheese
• bread crumbs made from 2 slices Veri-Thin (1 slice normal) bread
• 1 really good tomato • red onion slices
• 2 pickled jalapenos, coarsely chopped (optional)
• salt and pepper
• 1 ciabatta loaf or hamburger rolls
• lettuce leaves or other greens  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Finely chop shallots and garlic. Saute in a little olive oil until soft.

3. Mix lamb with shallots and garlic, parsley and bread crumbs. Form patties. Fold cheeses into middle and surround with meat.

4. Heat canola oil in cast iron (or other heavy bottomed) skillet. Season meat with salt and pepper and sear in pan for about 3-4 minutes. Turn meat and put skillet in oven until done to taste. Another 3-5 minutes for medium-rare.

5. In the meantime, heat slices of ciabatta or rolls. Best is on a grill pan until browned, but a toaster would be OK, as would be the oven where the meat is cooking.

6. Put a burger on top of ciabatta slice, top (or bottom) with tomato slices, onion slices and, if using, jalapenos. Either add lettuce leaves or accompany with lightly dressed greens.

Bobby Jay

Paris - New Preserves Store

Last week J and I happened upon a new place in the Marais called La Chambre aux Confitures, which sells preserves, conserves, chutneys and jellies made by Lise Bienaimé, whose great-grandfather made and sold preserves in Paris many years ago. We sampled a large number of her preserves, and they are interestingly composed and with a softer texture than is common for preserves: utterly delightful.

We ended up buying the "Cuvee de Noël," apricot jam flavored with pain d'épices spices, and Cerise Griotte, a loose morello cherry preserve, both excellent examples of Mme Bienaimé's special touch.

Brochure and preserves from La Chambre aux Confitures

The shop we went to was at 60, rue Vielle du Temple, in the 3rd; there is another at 9, rue des Martyrs in the 9th.

Their products are perfect gift items as well as treats for yourself.

Bobby Jay

My Best Dishes of 2012

Gourmet's year-end edition (it has been resuscitated as an on-line only shadow of its former self) contains responses by 53 staff members and consultants to the question: What was the best thing you ate in 2012? The responses were interesting, running the gamut from Frank Pepe's pizza to Fondue au Vieux Comté from Auberge La Petite Echelle in Rochejean, France.

I am often asked questions like that, and frankly can't remember all the restaurant meals I have eaten, even the great ones. But I do keep records of what I cook, and can list the most successful dishes I made in 2012. People also often ask what kind of food I like to cook (and eat), and I think the list demonstrates that I have pretty eclectic cooking tastes. Of course, I enjoy many other cuisines, particularly Asian, but rarely make them myself, and they are never among my greatest successes. The list also understates how often I cook Italian dishes (very).

In any event, here's the list of my best dishes of 2012:

• Bobby Jay's corn soup, a recipe I developed myself: summer corn is my favorite food
• Heirloom tomato salad with torn mozzarella and basil, from a recipe by Jamie Oliver: summer heirloom tomatoes are my second favorite
• Salvatore ricotta, a wonderful creamy ricotta made in Brooklyn, from Eataly, with fleur de sel, coarsley ground pepper and Sicilian olive oil on homemade toast: not really cooked, just a wonderful bite from impeccable ingredients
• Chicken and andouille Jambalaya, from a recipe by Ethan Stiffel
• Caribbean roast and smoked pork chops, based on a recipe by barbeque genius Big Bob Gibson
• Slowly oil poached garlic shrimp, tapas style, based on a recipe from Tyler Florence
• Seared veal breast stuffed with garlic, mustard and spinach, from a recipe by Gordon Hamersley
• Matcha macarons with white chocolate ganache, commissioned by my wife for her Japanese art gallery, for which I combined about 5 different recipes over several tries: Japanese/French fusion in a single bite
• Mustard crusted tenderloin of pork with apple mostarda, from a recipe by Michael Chiarello
• Golden melon gazpacho, based on a recipe from the wonderful spa Rancho Puerta: healthy but spicy and satisfying
• Creme caramel, from a recipe from The French Slow Cooker: a perfect application for the slow cooker, wonderfully smooth and silky
• Cherries in almond syrup with toasted almonds over homemade Greek style yogurt, from a recipe in Bon Appétit: another celebration of summer's bounty
• Winter fruit compote with kumquats, prunes, figs and cognac, from a recipe by Laura Calder: amazingly easy but satisfyingly redolent of winter flavors

I never know where my mood (or reading or TV watching) will take me, so I am sure next year's list will be very different.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Happy New Year 2013!

Maybe I'm getting jaded, but it seems to me that this year's year-end windows at the great food stores are less exciting than usual. Still . . .

Cadeau Ô Merveille at Dalloyau

Bûches de Noël at Dalloyau

Caviar at Kaspia

Chocolates at Jadis et Gourmande

Bûche de Noël at unknown bakery

Some pretty appealing presentations for the holidays.

Bobby Jay

Christmas Dinner in Paris

I usually make a special dinner for friends on Christmas dinner in Paris. This year we were only three, so I decided to make it relatively simple but elegant, starting with foie gras that I had made earlier (with Chinese 5-spice powder and white port), moving to poule au pot (see preceding post for the story of this course), then a perfectly aged vacherin du Haut-Doubs (Mont d'Or), and relying on our guest for dessert, a delightful orange tart.

Poule au pot with accompaniments

Vacherin du Haut-Doubs (Mont d'Or)

Yoshimi's orange tart

You can only do this dinner in France, where it's easy to find great raw duck liver for foie gras (while expensive, it costs only half the price that it does in New York) and the truly spectacular vacherin. It's hard to believe anything can taste that good, with pungent, woody notes and a creamy unctuous texture that requires that you eat it with a spoon.

How lucky to be able to be in Paris at this time of year!

Bobby Jay

Search for a Great Poule au Pot

My wife J and I love poule au pot (chicken in the pot), especially in winter, and recently I have been seeking out a good and simple recipe for a French, as opposed to Jewish, version.

First I tried a slow-cooker version, served with a garlic aioli. The method was pretty good, but the vegetable profile was boring: it needed parsnips or fennel to perk up the muddy onion-turnip-leek-carrot melange. The aioli helped a lot.

With that experience fresh in mind, I received the January-February 2013 issue of Cook's Illustrated, and found a recipe for "French Style Chicken with Stuffing," essentially poule au pot with sausage stuffing. Their insights: use chicken quarters rather than a whole chicken, and stack them in a prescribed way that speeds up cooking and permits the breast and dark meat to be done (but not overdone) at the same time, and brown the chicken first to create a fond that will enhance the flavor of the broth. Thus, vegetables and potatoes are placed in the bottom of the pot, with broth to almost cover, followed by the leg quarter and the stuffing (sausage, bread and herbs processed and made into rolls in parchment) and, finally, the breasts.

Poule au Pot made from Cook's Illustrated recipe

The method worked and we had a good, but not great, result. My fault, I think: I started with a whole chicken and used the wings, back and neck to make a rich unsalted stock without vegetables or aromatics. This resulted in a broth that was rich but missing the complexity that I was hoping for. If I use this method again, I will make a more complex stock and add something to impart umami flavor, probably tomato paste.

Finally, it dawned on me that I should seek the wisdom of my idol, Jacques Pépin, who has been making poule au pot for more than 60 years.  Indeed, I found a recipe in his Essential Pépin, and this proved to be what I was looking for: great broth, interesting vegetables and flavorful chicken. Jacques gently boils the chicken, then removes the flesh and boils the chicken bones some more, and finally adds the vegetables only for the last 20 minutes, resulting in a supercharged rich broth.  The final dish is served with passed fleur de sel, toasted baquette slices with comté or similar cheese, cornichons (gherkins) and hot mustard. (Those knowledgeable in French food will recognize this as a pot au feu made with chicken instead of beef.) I made it in Paris, where excellent chicken and vegetables abound, and J and our guest loved it, as did I. Here are pictures with all the accoutrements.

Jacques Pépin's Poule au Pot

I have not written off the slow cooker and Cook's versions, but it's hard to see how I can beat the Pépin version of this French classic.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Le Bouchon et l'Assiette - Still Excellent

My wife J and I returned to le Bouchon et l'Assiette last night, after a year's absence. Apart from the fact that the price of the 3-course menu has increased from 33 to 39 euros, this little gem of a restaurant remains worth the effort it takes to get to, which is not insubstantial.

The young chef, who hails from the Southwest but has worked for some of the best chefs in Paris (among which, the Bristol's Eric Frechon), simply has an impeccable palate. All the imaginative dishes that we sampled were perfectly seasoned with unusual flavors. I started with lentil soup, light and a bit creamy, smoky and bursting with flavor, with toasted pine nuts and lardons of smoked dusk breast adding crunch and texture. Easily the best lentil soup I have ever had. Next was a quasi de veau (the top of the leg) with an interesting melange of diced crosnes and avocado on the side. J started with a plate of unctuous Iberico ham and continued with amazingly succulent suprêmes de pintade (breast of guinea hen).

Quasi de veau at le Bouchon et l'Assiette

We shared a good, but unexciting, chocolate gateau Basque for dessert; I felt that the chocolate overwhelmed the almond flavor that characterizes this type of cake. An inexpensive Pernand-Vergelesses was a perfect accompaniment to our meal.

You really should try this place.

Le Bouchon et l'Assiette, 121 rue Cardinet, 75017 Paris, Métro Malesherbes or Villiers.

A postscript: we returned to this restaurant with friends on December 26 and, among other things, had a wonderful Fontainebleau (fromage frais, whipped cream and sugar mixed and then pressed like ricotta) with pistachio nuts and caramel sauce.

Bobby Jay

Wrapping a Turkey in Caul Fat

At the urging of my friend John, I wrapped this year's turkey in caul fat (crépine in French), which Harold McGee defines as "a thin membrane of connective tissue with a lacework of small fat deposits embedded in it." Used in France primarily to wrap sausages and terrines, caul fat covers the intestinal organs in a pig or sheep (the one used in cooking is almost always pork). I have used crépine - most recently to cover a classic terrine de campagne - at cooking lessons in France.

Despite its unprepossessing provenance and appearance (like a stretchy hair-net from the fities), caul fat provides a continuous baste for the turkey. By the time the bird is fully cooked, the caul fat has mostly dissolved; any flaky remnants (see picture below) are easily brushed away.

Turkey wrapped in caul fat

Turkey roasted with caul fat wrapping

The main drawback is that caul fat is hard to find. The fine butcher shop Citarella could not get it for me but my friend Piglet got some for me at the quirky but excellent, all-organic new butcher, Harlem Shambles, at Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 116th Street. If you can find it, caul fat is worth the trouble. I can't prove that it made the turkey taste better, but I did have fun using this ancient artisanal product.

Bobby Jay

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

I just watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a documentary about Jiro, an 85-year old sushi chef who runs what is supposed to be the best sushi restaurant in Tokyo, Sukiyabashi Jiro. The ten-seat restaurant, on a basement floor in Ginza, has received three stars from Michelin. Jiro's is not a place to go for drinks, appetizers and a few pieces of sushi. There are no appetizers, just a 20-piece set menu that starts at 30,000 yen (about $375) per person. Not to worry, though: it's impossible to get a reservation.

The movie is delightful, with great images of sushi and every stage of sushi making, from the shopping at the Tsukiji fish market, to the preparation of perfect rice, to the cutting (and sometimes cooking) of the fish and assembly of the finished bite. The subtext of the movie is how passionate Jiro is about his work, and just how hard it is to be a great sushi chef. Early in the movie, Jiro sums it all up, with appropriate Japanese modesty and understatement:

Once you decide on your occupation, you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's the secret of success and is the key to being regarded honorably.

Only in Japan.

Bobby Jay

Momofuku and Daniel Join in Hurricane Relief Benefit

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which left downtown Manhattan without power and wreaked major havoc on the entire area, the team at David Chang's Momofuku and Daniel Boulud decided to help in the way they know best: by preparing a spectacular meal, charging a lot for it and donating the proceeds to the Rec Cross's relief effort.

J and I went, and had a great time while providing much-needed funds to the relief effort. Here is the menu, including the wines expertly paired with each dish.

Menu for Momofuku/Daniel Benefit

I have had only limited experience with the Momofuku empire (an excellent lunch at Momofuku Milk Bar), much more with Daniel's. As expected, the food that was provided by the Momofuku team was extremely imaginative, that provided by Daniel a bit more classic but perfectly prepared. A highlight of creativity was the foie gras - lychee, pine nut, pictured below.

Foie gras with lychees and pine nuts

Where's the foie gras? You're looking at it, flakes of frozen foie gras that melt in your mouth, covering fresh lychees and pine nuts. In all honesty, my favorite dishes were more straightforward: the duck with wild rice, apple and brussels sprouts, prepared by the Daniel team, and the veal sweetbreads with yuzu kosho, labne and Asian pear.

The meal was not the only great aspect of the evening. The 42 diners were arrayed along a single enormous table, and judging by the 10 or so people we were able to interact with, it was a lovely group of accomplished and articulate but unpretentious food lovers. There was a great chemistry in the room, and a good (and useful) time was had by all. Thanks to David Chang and Daniel Boulud!

Bobby Jay

Maui - Hali'imaile General Store

Who would have thought it? Just off the main road to the volcano, on a street overlooking pineapple fields and the ocean, is a truly excellent fusion restaurant: Hali'imaile General Store.

Hali'imaile General Store

An informal place in a house built in the 1920s as the general store serving a pineapple plantation, this restaurant has been winning awards since it opened 25 years ago.

At the suggestion of the concierge at our hotel, we started with the Sashimi Napoleon, constructed of smoked salmon, ahi tartare and ahi sashimi, separated by fried wontons as the pastry element, accompanied by a wonderful wasabi vinaigrette.

Sashimi Napoleon at Hali'imaile General Store

J followed up with the red veal burger, a perfectly cooked burger with a delicate layer of brie, caramelized onions, local tomatoes and greens and a delightful avocado aioli, accompanied with well-seasoned fries. I had a Cubawaiian sandwich, the restaurant's innovative take on a classic, made with roasted local pork, Black Forest ham, Swiss cheese, pickled pineapple and an excellent wasabi barbecue aioli, also accompanied with their excellent fries. The innovations made sense and both sandwiches were real winners.

Fusion food is the hallmark of Hawaiian food these days. It can be clichéd, but when devised and executed with care and subtlety, it can be quite wonderful, as it was at Hali'imaile General Store.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Jadis et Gourmande's Autumn Chocolates

Today is my last day in Paris, so I went on my final food-gift shopping spree. Although I resisted the urge to buy their chocolates, I still loved the autumn windows at Jadis et Gourmande (see my post of June 28, 2012 for more on this chocolatier).

Chocolates at Jadis et Gourmande

Bobby Jay

Paris - Still a Melting Pot

I went to the Marché Barbès today for a different take on Paris markets. Located in the 18th arrondissement on the boulevard de la Chapelle, under the elevated Métro tracks, extending from the Barbès Rochechouart station halfway to the Porte de la Chapelle station, this is a market for real people. It is incredibly crowded with shoppers, at least on Saturday morning. The produce here is good, although more comes from Spain than in more upscale markets, and incredibly cheap. Like two giant lettuces for one euro, peaches for a kilo per pound, etc.

Most of the vendors are North African, as are many of the customers, but shoppers come from all over town. In addition to the produce, there are clothes, hardware and other goods on the outer perimeter of the market area. The market has a bit of the atmosphere of the souk in Marrakesh, although it is a good bit less exotic. Indeed, a guide book said I would find lamb heads roasting on spits, but unfortunately I didn't see any. However, I did see copious and appetizing displays of mint, coriander and parsley, which are the herbs most used in North African food (think mint tea).

Mint, parsley and cilantro for 0,30 euros a bunch

After a pretty quick walk-through - I am leaving Paris tomorrow so really wasn't there to buy - I continued down the boulevard de la Chapelle for about five minutes, arriving at Paris' Little India, where Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan food stores and restaurants abound. It's not Queens, but it's also not far from the heart of Paris.

Butcher and restaurants in Paris' Little India

Bobby Jay

Update on My Search for the Best Chocolate Macaron in Paris

In July, I wrote about my hunt for the best chocolate macaron in Paris. Based on my own taste test, I agreed with the test conducted by le Figaro's "Figarosope," which concluded that the one at Jean-Paul Hévin was the best.  
However, I was unable to sample Pierre Hermé's version when I wrote that, and today I completed that part of my research.  Conclusion: Hévin's status confirmed. The Hermé macaron was perfectly constructed but lacked the rich chocolate flavor of the Hévin.

Macarons from Pierre Hermé

While I was there, I naturally got a few others flavors, and I have to say that the month's special, called "Les Jardins," which is flavored with orange blossom, rose and ginger, is one of the best things I have ever eaten. That was thirty minutes ago, and the delicate melange of scents is still in my head. 

Macaron "Les Jardins" from Pierre Hermé

So for chocolate go to Jean-Paul Hévin, for amazing creativity try Pierre Hermé. Bobby Jay