The Best Butter

Is there really a best butter? Experts in France (and who would know better?) seem to agree that it's Beurre Bordier, made by Jean-Yves Bordier in Brittany -- not Normandy (sacré bleu!) -- although the milk he uses comes from cows located in both provinces.

I tried the two pictured here, le beurre doux and le beurre au sel fumé. And yes, it is the best butter. I don't think it's cultured, which would be rare for high-quality French butter, because the sweet butter does not have the characteristic sour tang; it's like the best non-cultured butter imaginable. And the smoked salt butter was little short of divine, on toast and in tiny slices placed in the middle of a split radish.

According to Bordier's web site, the special complex buttery notes are a result of 15-25 minutes of kneading (malaxage) in a teak vessel and the artisanal barattage process, which I don't understand at all. The final bars are shaped by hand using wooden spatulas on wooden tables, by workers who must have "great dexterity and clock-like consistency." Charming if nothing else.

Apart from baking, I don't actually use much butter, but I am tempted to sample every variety of Bordier's, and there are quite a few. Here's the current list from their website:

Les classiques

• Le beurre doux
• Le beurre demi-sel
• Le beurre salé

Les spécialités

• Le beurre au sel fumé
• Le beurre aux algues
• Le beurre au Yuzu
• Le beurre au Piment d’Espelette

Beurre Bordier is now available in Paris in selected cheese and other gourmet stores. I got mine at Lafayette Gourmet.

Bobby Jay

Passover 2014

I have been hosting the family's Seder for a few years now, so to some extent the guests are stuck with what I make. Last year, I announced that the 2014 Seder would be sephardic, incorporating foods from at least five Mediterranean countries. (There are many to choose from: Persia, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Italy, Turkey, France, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Libya, Israel (and though not Mediterranean, India). One of the main reasons for this is my love for rice and lentils, which are prohibited during Passover by Ashkenazi tradition but permitted by Sephardic tradition: a flexibility I plan to exploit to the fullest. The family seemed enthusiastic about the experiment.

Maybe I'll make this crusty Persian rice, one of the world's great dishes

So for ten months I have been thinking about this project, and have begun to try recipes. My sources for recipes and inspiration are many:

• Claudia Roden's amazingly readable, comprehensive and scholarly The Book of Jewish Food - this is one of the best cookbooks of all time - and The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
• Jennifer Abadi's A Fistful of Lentils, which is focused on Syrian Jewish food, and her terrific blog toogoodtopassover.com
• Poopa Dweck's Aromas of Aleppo
• Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America and My Search for Jewish Cooking in France
• Yotam Ottolenghi's Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, Plenty and Jerusalem
• Louise Shafia's The New Persian Kitchen 
• Nur Ilkin and Sheila Kaufman's The Turkish Cookbook
• Ôscan Ozan's Sultan's Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook
• Paula Wolfert's The Food of Morocco
• Mourad Lahlou's New Moroccan

To study Sephardic/Middle Eastern food is to go on a cultural journey as much as a gastronomic one. I have learned much about the migration of Jews to and from Spain, as well as the varied histories of the Jews in the other countries mentioned above. All interesting and many surprises.

The downside to all this, even if I cook a great Sephardic meal, is that we will not get to enjoy some old favorites, notably my sister-in-law's spectacular matzoh ball soup (great soup and balls) nor my mother's very American style but delicious haroset.

I will report back as the planning and meal unfold.

Bobby Jay

Pourquoi Tarte Tatin?

I love making Tarte Tatin, not because it is the best-tasting dessert or even the best-tasting apple dessert, but because it is a challenging thing to do. Every time, you must consider a number of questions before embarking: which recipe, what type of apples (how firm are they at a given time of year), should the apples be sliced in quarters, eighths or halves, make the caramel first and add apples or put the apples on the sugar and butter and cook them all together, what pastry to use (puff pastry, pâte brisée), and finally, what pan to use (non-stick, copper, cast iron).

After that, you execute, and every time it is different. But no matter the method, there is always the moment of truth when you must turn the tart upside down over a plate and hope that it slides, perfectly intact, onto the plate with no sticky bits left in the pan. I panic about this less than I used to because I have a lot of experience repairing the ones that did not come away perfectly.

That brings me to today and the choices I made.

• Winesap apples, which are ugly but pretty tart and usually (but not today) rock hard; only available at farmers' markets
• Small cast iron pan
• Dufour frozen puff pastry
• Recipe from the legendary Jamin restaurant in Paris (via Patricia Wells' The Paris Cookbook), which uses halved apples and cooks them atop the sugar and butter for an hour before going to the oven

The choice of the Jamin recipe with halved apples was bold (but, inspired by the Olympics, I decided to go for it). I get a good result about 50% of the time when I use this method, because one half of each piece can turn into apple sauce if you don't pay a lot of attention and get lucky. So the moment of truth was unusually tense.

But it turned out I nailed it! Beautiful color, apples totally intact, no sticking.

Tarte tatin based on recipe by Benoît Guichard, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, from Jamin

Sorry to bore you with all this technical stuff, but the joy of Tarte Tatin is in the details.

Bobby Jay

Lavender Orange Macarons

I believe the macaron is the ultimate expression of French pastry, which is saying a lot. Indeed, it's among my top five favorite things to eat. (Don't ask about the other four; they change from time to time and in any event are food for another post.)

Having learned to make them at Atelier des Chefs in Paris about ten years ago, I make macarons at least a couple of times a year. They are technically challenging, requiring numerous delicate processes and steps, and I have to admit that every time they come out well, I am thrilled beyond words for what in the end is a minor achievement (compared to say, solving global warming or peace in the Middle East). But there it is, there's something addictive about both making and eating these wondrous cookies.

Here is a plate of few my favorites, Lavender Orange Macarons with Orange Buttercream, from a recipe by the brilliant Aran Goyoaga and my tried and true Atelier method. They are currently sitting in the fridge for 24 hours getting ready for distribution and consumption tomorrow.

Lavender Orange Macarons with Orange Buttercream

I can hardly wait to try them - nineteen hours to go.

Bobby Jay

Navettes d'Anise

Navettes d'anise

A friend recently gave me a lovely book, Cuisine Niçoise, by Hillary Davis, which contains recipes from -- you guessed it -- Nice, including her favorite cookies, navettes d'anise. I resolved to make a batch.

There was no photo of these boat-shaped cookies in the book, so I searched the internet and found plenty of photos and many recipes, with surprising variety. While the ones in Cuisine Niçoise use anise seeds, anise extract and vanilla extract, many call for orange flower or rose water, either alone or in combination with anise. In any event, I followed the recipe in the book and came up with very crispy, strongly anise-flavored biscuits that are good by themselves but even better when dipped in red wine (or vin santo, I imagine).

Bobby Jay

Homemade Chocolates

When the weather gets bad, some people make cookies, some make brownies, I make chocolate.

Using a pound and a half of Barry 72% Cacao Venezuela that I bought in France, I made an assortment today, including mendiants each covered with a slice of candied ginger, a half hazelnut and a half or whole pistachio nut, depending on size. I was hoping to make them as beautiful as the ones from La Petite Rose, our favorite Paris chocolatier (they use Valhrona). Here you can see that I did not quite succeed -- theirs is the beautiful one with candied orange peel at center left -- but mine are not bad for an amateur.

Mendiants. The perfect one from La Petite Rose is at left center.

The other items were hearts filled with little griottes (Morello cherries) that I got from a jar of preserves from the La Chambre aux Confitures, fluted flat-topped cones filled with toasted hazelnuts, and little disks and leaves of pure chocolate.

Assorted homemade chocolates

Inside of a griotte-filled heart

I tempered the chocolate using Sherry Yard's microwave method, gradually melting the chocolate in short bursts at 50% power until I reached 115 degrees, then adding unmelted chocolate, waiting until the chocolate cooled to 85 degrees and reheating to 90 degrees. For the last step I used my sous vide cooker so I could hold the chocolate at the right temperature until I was ready to use it. As you can see, this method produced shiny chocolate that (you'll have to take my word for it) snaps when bitten.

It is fun and surprisingly easy to do this, and the results are impressive.

Bobby Jay

Looks Matter

Last night I made chicken tagine with two kinds of lemon, an oft-used recipe from my friend Elizabeth Bard. I like to precede this Tunisian stew with a simple salad from the same region: some combination of oranges, radishes, spinach, olives and sheep cheese, with a nut oil and lemon vinaigrette. Although the ingredients are appealing, this doesn't sound like an exciting first course, but with a little care, it can become an appetizing opener.

Here's how I assembled the salad.

Radish, orange, olive and spinach salad, with grated Romano cheese and lemon and argan oil dressing

 A couple of minutes of effort can make a big difference.

Bobby Jay

Happy New Year from Paris!

I am lucky to spend year-ends in Paris, and one of my favorite things to do is to window shop or, as the French say more colorfully, faire du lèche-vitrines, literally to go lick the windows). Especially for edible (or drinkable) items.

Here are some of the nicer ones I found since my last post.

For a stroll . . .

Passage de la Madeleine

for  something to drink . . .

Aux Vergers de la Madeleine

or for something to eat.

Dalloyau, my old favorite

Pierre Hermé

Lenôtre

Arnaud Delmontel

Lenôtre

Or you can just come to our place, for some of my annual homemade foie gras.

Foie gras chez nous

In any event, Happy New Year from Paris, and good eating in 2014!

Bobby Jay

Paris - New French Olive Oil Specialist - Première Pression Provence

New olive oil at Première Pression Provence

Walking around my excellent nearby market street, the Rue de Lévis, I came upon Première Pression Provence, a specialist in olive oils produced by small producers in Provence. This store has been there for a couple of years, but the unprepossessing windows had never enticed me to enter. That was a mistake.

Upon entering, I was greeted by shelves full of different oils, which can be (and were) sampled. I tried an amazing black olive oil, which, the proprietor explained, is very difficult to make and is made only by a few growers in Crete and Provence. I bought a can and can hardly wait to try it when I get home. Indeed, I bought a packet of three different oils, which were great at sampling, and the one pictured above,  which was the first to arrive of the 2013 pressings.

This one is for Paris, and I have already begun to use it, first for salad dressing and this morning on ricotta with salt and pepper, one of my go-to breakfasts. Spectacular!

As I told the proprietor, I am hooked on Italian (especially Sicilian) olive oil, but that may be because small-producer French oils rarely reach the US. This experience has led me to reexamine my exclusive us of Italian oil; I will definitely be adding French oil to the mix. 

Première Pression Provence 37 Rue de Lévis 75007 (Métro Villiers).

Bobby Jay

Paris - Old Favorite: Jean

The other night, J and I went to our favorite Paris restaurant, Jean, located at 8 rue St-Lazare, in the 9th arrondissement (Métro Notre Dame de Lorette). I have already written about this restaurant several times (see posts of December 28, 2010, December 24, 2011 and March 12, 2012), and had not intended to do so again, but our meal was so excellent that I can't help myself.

We took the four-course 75-euro menu, and this time also added the complementary wine service for 25 euros.

After some excellent amuse-bouches, the meal started with a foie gras that was poached, then grilled under a salamander and served with a bouillon of root vegetables that is perfumed with undetectable amounts of mint and chocolate: superb.

Foie gras in bouillon at Jean

The appetizer was followed by a crispy sea bass served atop vegetables with a light chicken broth. (Sounds like too many broths? It's not.)

Sea bass atop vegetable and chicken broth at Jean

For the meat course, suckling pork chops, with truffle sauce, served with an arrangement of interesting and beautifully prepared vegetables: mushrooms, squash (that's not an egg yolk), a chestnut and a couple of items I can no longer identify. Tender and perfectly balanced.

Suckling pork chops at Jean

Finally, dessert, a "moelleux" of chocolate served with an excellent lime sorbet and almond milk "spaghetti." This was only okay. The chocolate cake was not a "moelleux," which should be molten, and the "spaghetti," made with agar-agar, was an unsuccessful and gratuitous venture into molecular cuisine. We found out from out server that the pastry chef was a new member of the team, which explained the significant decline in this area since our last visit.

"Moelleux" au chocolat at Jean

The wine service was not a throwaway. We had a very nice Chassagne Montrachet, a good Medoc from a vineyard related to Haut-Brion and a Corsican Muscat (which pleased me but not J). A great deal at 25 euros per person, equivalent to sharing a 50-euro bottle of wine but much better quality than you would get for that price and infinitely more interesting.

Overall, the dinner was excellent, the rapport qualité-prix fantastic as always and the ambiance relaxed but charming. A very good time was had by us.

Bobby Jay

Paris 2013 - Holidays = Luxury Foods

The weather being clear and relatively mild, I took my dog Sylvie for a walk to the Madeleine, one of the centers of luxury French gastronomy. While I felt this was not the best year for Christmas displays, there were some interesting things in the windows.

Fauchon always has nice windows, and this year took the prize (notice the rare, gorgeous sky reflected in the window - it almost looks like it's done on purpose but the fact is I couldn't avoid it).

Hédiard makes the best pâtes de fruit and here is a nice arrangement.

Maison de la Truffe's window had some naked white truffles (a bargain this year at only $3107 per pound) as well as masses of foie gras incorporating their signature black truffles.

Caviar Kaspia featured an arrangement of, guess what?

Speaking of caviar, Prunier's display highlighted their caviar macarons, which I am now kicking myself for not trying (okay, I was a little put off by the $11 price tag for a single one, but still . . .)

 For chocolates, Patrick Roger featured Christmas tree sculptures . . .

. . . while Marquise de Sévigné took a more elegant, conservative approach.

Mariage Frères, the great tea purveyor, featured a seasonal "Christmas Pudding" blend

but also a tribute to Martin Luther King - "Thé I Have a Dream," in a rainbow-colored package.

Of course, the celebration also includes oysters, game, foie gras, vacherin de Mont d'Or and all manner of wonderful products of the land and sea from around the world. But that's another post.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Cooking Lesson in Classic French Pastries

I took a cooking lesson at the Atelier des Chefs (Péclet branch in the 15th) on classics of French pastry. We made financiers with lemon and lemon zest, mango tartes tatins and, the pièce de résistance, a Gâteau Opéra.

The Opéra was created in 1955 by Dalloyau, one of the leading pâtisseries in Paris (and the world) since 1682. It has been a hit ever since and now all the good pâtisseries have their own versions. So I thought it would be fun to see how they are made, and indeed it was. And so very simple: all you need is a really well-equipped kitchen (with a stand mixer, a myriad of bowls and whisks, silicone baking sheet and square cake "ring"), time, patience and five techniques. Then just make biscuit joconde, ganache, sirop café, crème au beurre café and chocolate glaçage, assemble when everything is at just the right temperature, et voilà!

Pretty nice, n'est-ce pas?

Or, you can go to Dalloyau and buy a perfect one.

A really enjoyable class, but as for the famous Gâteau Opéra, my advice is: do not try this at home.

Bobby Jay

Haute Cuisine -- Excellent New Food Movie

I just watched Haute Cuisine, an excellent French food movie that is based on the story of Danièle Mazet-Delpeuche, who spend two years as François Mitterand's private chef at the Élysée Palace while he was President of France. (The French title is better: Les Saveurs du Palais, which includes a double-entendre, since palais means both palace and palate.)

An established chef from Périgord, Hortense Laborie is engaged to prepare for Mitterand the cuisine de grand-mère, literally. He wants dishes that recall the ones his own grandmother made, in his words "the best of France," and Hortense obliges with magnificent traditional creations. She is fought at every turn by the all-male 24-chef brigade that prepares the official food of the Palace, a somewhat over the top bunch of macho fools, and later by Mitterand's doctors and some petty accountants who call into question her produce orders.

Highlights of the film, for me, were the many spectacular food and cooking scenes and also some beautiful quotes from Edouard Nignon's Éloge de la Cuisine Française (In Praise of French Food), which according the film was Mitterand's favorite cookbook (apparently he loved reading them as a child).

From the start of Nignon's recipe for Caneton de Rouen Surprise: "Du pays de Pierre Corneille . . ." ("From the land of Pierre Corneille . . .").

And Nignon's recipe for saddle of veal: “Order from the land of lush pastures, from Normandy, where the highest quality cows and calves are rampant, a saddle of young veal, whose flesh must be as white as the finest poultry. Gird it, wrap it around four times with string. Cook in blond butter in a shallow braising dish until golden.”

As Mitterand notes, they just don't write like that anymore.

Hortense (Danièle) is brilliantly played by Catherine Frot. The aging Mitterand is played by Jean d'Ormesson, the brilliant author and member of the Académie Française who is making his film debut at age 92. He is charming but not especially convincing; still, it's a bit of a thrill to see him.

Foodies will love this film.

Bobby Jay

Ten for Dinner

It is often said that the secret to good cooking is mise en place, the French phrase that signifies having everything prepared - measured, washed, chopped, grated, sliced, minced, etc. and placed in appropriate vessels in waiting for use. This is true.

But what about the secret to cooking for a large group (for me, anything more than five)? For me, this is all about making and continually updating a very detailed schedule.

Last night, we had ten for dinner, and I made four appetizers and a four-course meal including sides, altogether twelve or thirteen separate items including the bread, which I baked. Obviously, this required planning and time: spreading the work out over five days made it possible, and having my trusty schedule helped with the final execution. The guests seemed happy and so was I.

Apple tart with bourbon caaramel sauce on bottom and top

Of course, it helps a lot to have a beautiful table and flowers, and J did her normal great job.

Table with heirloom presentation plates from J's late Aunt Sophie

Also, it helps to have help for the actual meal, so you can spend time with your guests. We had a bar tender/general helper whom we have hired before, and that made a huge difference. Not only did he help in serving, but by 11:30 the kitchen was clean and everything we had used was set out waiting to be stored: what a relief!

Finally, there is no substitute for great guests, which we had. Each invitee had substantive interaction with every other, just what you hope for in a gathering of this size.

Still reading? Here's the menu for the evening and the detailed schedule that I used.
 

Dinner 12.6.13

Toasts with smoked ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes

Toasts with tapenade

Gougères

Bar nuts Union Square Café

Caramelized fennel soup

Slow cooked loin of pork with port cherry sauce

French beans and snow peas with hazelnut and orange

Squished Yukon gold potatoes

Artisan greens salad with shredded Trappist cheese

Caramel covered apple tart with ginger ice cream

Ordre du Jour

√	Days before	Make ginger ice cream
√		Make and freeze gougeres
√		Make tapenade and ricotta spread
√	Day before	Make soup
√		Make bread dough
√		Make tart dough and line pan
√		Salt and sugar rub pork roast; place in fridge in large ziploc
√	8:30-10:45	Complete and bake bread
√ √ √ √	11:00-1:00	Pre cook tart shell Slice and microwave apples Make caramel, coat bottom of tart Assemble and bake tart
√	4:25	Small oven to 250
√	4:30	Season pork with pepper, tie together with bones and put into 250 oven
√	By 6:00	Make French beans
√		Make sauce
√		Prepare bar nuts
√		Make salad dressing
√		Get ice
√	6:45	Big oven to 425
√		Toast bread
√	7:00	Guests arrive
√		Serve cocktails
√		Assemble and serve toasts
√		Heat and serve gougeres
√	7:05	Boil potatoes
√	7:30	Potatoes out of water
√	7:35	Potatoes squished and put into oven
√		Heat soup
√	8:00	Soup served
√	8:15-8:18	Pork under broiler
√	8:20	Pork, sides and sauce served
√	9:00	Assemble and serve salad
√	9:30	Caramel onto tart, then serve tart with ice cream
√	Thereafter	Serve coffee and tea and after dinner drinks

Bobby Jay