my inspirations

Mother’s Day, 2011

May 5th, 2011

Mother’s Day, 2011

classic tomato sauce and a very personal
recipe from a chef to her daughters:
living women eat pasta, crêpes, and bread

The inspiration for this week’s “simple pleasure” is Mother’s Day and my own two daughters. The recipe is not a brunch recipe but a “mother” sauce: classic tomato sauce. Tomato sauce is one of the five foundational sauces in French cuisine from which several “daughter” or “small” sauces are created. It is the perfect companion for pasta, bread, meat, calamari, vegetables (i.e., eggplant, mushrooms and squash), and even eggs. The sauce is simple to make any time of year.  It is one of my daughters’ favorite sauces and, in general, a crowd pleaser. The recipe is in a companion post for your printing convenience. The inspiration for the post is explained below.

Je vous souhaite un bon appétit and a very Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers.

LM Read the rest of this entry »

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what to do with all of those Easter eggs: asparagus à la flamande

April 28th, 2011

what to do with all of those Easter eggs:
asparagus à la flamande
(à ma façon)

Spring brings an abundance of delicious asparagus (white, green and purple) and Easter leaves us with an abundance of hard-boiled eggs.  This dish is a way to use both.  You can serve it as a sidedish or add a pan-seared salmon filet and make it a meal.  Either way it is delicious and that is the reason asparagus à la flamande is this week’s simple pleasure. Read the rest of this entry »

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Easter dinner is served: roasted rack of Spring lamb, carrot velouté, and potato gratin dauphinoise.

April 21st, 2011

Easter dinner is served.  What will you do with all of your extra time?

Without fail, before every holiday I am asked: “Can I make something special that will not keep me in the kitchen for hours?” My answer is always the same: “Of course you can.”  Creating a delicious, seasonal Easter meal is no exception.

First on the menu is roasted rack of Spring lamb with a pistachio-herb panko crust. It sounds fancy, but I assure you it is quite simple.  Season the lamb the day before with salt and pepper and place it in the refrigerator overnight.  On Easter day, let the meat come to room temperature, sear it, top it with the crust mixture, and roast it.  It takes about 30 minutes total active time. The lamb recipe is below.

To go with the lamb, we are serving a light and creamy carrot velouté but without the “velouté” (velouté is a leading sauce made with a white or blonde roux and stock).  In lieu of the classic velouté (and without animal stock and heavy cream), this recipe uses fresh oranges, Spring onions, and carrots with a hint of cumin (which goes well with the pistachio crust on the lamb).  To make it Easter-festive, we are making quenelles from goat cheese (quenelles look like “Easter eggs”). Place one quenelle of goat cheese in each soup cup.  When the hot soup is ladled into the cup, the cheese begins to melt.  The soup can be made the day before and reheated and assembled on Easter (just adjust the seasoning and the consistency). The quenelles can be shaped in advance as well and placed in the refrigerator overnight.

Third, with our lamb and carrot soup we are serving a colorful fingerling potato gratin dauphinoise with sunchokes and artichokes. Sunchokes (also known as Jerusalem artichokes or topinambours) are tubers from sunflowers.  Sunchokes will only be around for a few more weeks then they are gone until next Winter. They are slightly crunchy and can be eaten raw.  They add a great texture to the creamy potatoes and artichokes. The potatoes I like to use are colorful fingerling potatoes: including French Fingerlings with pink skin, Red Thumb potatoes with the red skins and rose flesh, and Rose Finn fingerlings which have beige skins with pink accents and creamy beige flesh.  However, you can use any potatoes you have (including Peruvian with their wonderful purple hues).  The key to making a good dauphinoise is that the potatoes are all evenly sliced.  After you wash the potatoes, leave the skins on (to take advantage of the vitamins found under the potato skin and the colorful exterior). The dish  can be prepared the day before and baked on Easter day.  It tastes best warm but not piping hot (you want to give the cheese and cream a chance to solidify a little to adhere to the potatoes).  I recommend putting it in the oven about 1 hour before you plan to serve it. The soup and gratin recipes are in separate entries to make it easier for you to print and take with you to the market.

Lastly, make a simple green salad to round out your meal (there are some green salad recipes on this site). This delicious meal is easier than finding those Easter eggs (which always seem to turn up throughout the year)!  I hope you enjoy it and you will let me know what you did with all of your “extra” time.

Je vous souhaite un bon appétit et de Joyeuses Pâques (a Happy Easter) !

LM

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oeufs en chocolat

April 15th, 2011

oeufs en chocolat, Pâques, and petit déjeuner chez Patrick Roger

(chocolate eggs, Easter, and breakfast at Patrick Roger’s)

Audrey Hepburn made Tiffany & Co. known as a breakfast spot.  It was not because the jewelry store serves breakfast but because in the 1961 movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hepburn’s whimsical character ate her breakfast in front of the store famous for its diamonds as well as its blue bags.  New York may have Tiffany’s but Paris has Patrick Roger.

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croque-monsieur: a movable feast

April 3rd, 2011

croque-monsieur: a movable feast

Ernest Hemingway said that “[i]f you are lucky to have lived in Paris … then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.” He was right. Even if you are not as fortunate as Mr. Hemingway to live in Paris, Paris does not have to be far from you. This week for me was no exception and it inspired this week’s simple pleasure and movable feast: a croque-monsieur.

It is Spring Break for many students, including my children, so I packed up the children, our seventeen year-old Yorkie, my chef’s knife and immersion blender and put them all in a Recreational Vehicle (“RV”) headed for one of the seven wonders of the world: the Grand Canyon.  For those of you who know me, please contain your laughter at the thought of me driving and cooking in an RV.  I am pleased to say that we did so without incident and had a wonderful time.  In truth, however, I did not have to drive 1,200 miles to please the children because they were perfectly content with the accommodations: sleeping in hidden bed they had to climb into (outfit with a privacy curtain) and traveling with a kitchen loaded with their favorite foods.

The beauty and grandeur of the Grand Canyon is beyond compare.  One day after our excursions, we hungrily returned to our movable, temporary home where I made croque-monsieur. As I watched my children gobble down their sandwiches, I could not help but think of Paris, the first time they enjoyed these sandwiches in Paris, the first time I did, and all the times in my life I have a croque-monsieur.  I stopped counting around 30.

The croque-monsieur is as synonymous with Paris as the Eiffel Tower, crêpes, croissants, and baguettes. First served in a Parisian café in 1910, the croque-monsieur continues to be served in cafés, brasseries, and snack bars. Every tourist has tried one at least once. The classic croque-monsieur calls for the use of pain de mie, ham, and Gruyère. If you top it with a fried or poached egg (giving the sandwich a hat they say) then you have created a croque- madame. It is generally served open-faced.

The attached recipe is the one that I have used for events and the one I made in our RV. It can be a main course or cut-up into bite-size squares (garnished with a French-flagged toothpick if you want) and served as canapés. Typically, I make this as an open-faced sandwich (which also cuts down on the fat content and calories), but the two slices make it easier to eat as a finger food (for children or as a canapé).

A croque-monsieur is simple to make, but I have had my share of terrible ones.  Here are a few production notes so your croque-monsieur does not end up in the  “terrible” category.

First, I use a combination of Comté and Gruyère cheese, it cuts the higher fat content of Gruyère and gives the sandwich a little tang.  Both are good melters. Second, although you will be tempted to use fancier breads, the sandwich is best on a pullman or pain de mie, a sandwich bread with a thin crust and nice crumb.  However, use a quality bread (not that airy, sugary sandwich bread with no substance that will stay fresh for a month sitting on a warm kitchen counter).  Also, do not use a baguette or sourdough, the result will be chewy because the crumb is usually too dense and/or the sour flavor will detract from the sandwich.  I leave the crust my croque-monsieur because the extra crunch goes nicely with the creamy fillings and crisp salad.

Third, while some versions only butter the bread, in my opinion, béchamel is best because buttering the bread can make the sandwich too greasy.  I use béchamel as a dressing.  Béchamel is a roux-based sauce with infused milk and  is one of the foundational sauces of French cooking (use this as your opportunity to learn how to make this simple, and versatile sauce).  I do not add the cheese to the béchamel because it allows you to control the amount of cheese (as well as sauce) you want on your sandwich.  Moreover, when béchamel is used as a conduit for the cheese rather than a dressing you end up with a gooey, soggy mess because people are trying to get more cheesy goodness over their ham (and technically speaking adding cheese to the béchamel turns it into a Mornay sauce, a daughter sauce, and is no longer considered a béchamel anyway). Béchamel can be made ahead of time, stored in the refrigerator to be warmed before use and used for a croque-monsieur or other things.

I always top my croque-monsieur with a lightly dressed green salad. In French cafés it is always served with a side green salad and often enjoyed with a glass of light wine such as a rosé, sauvignon blanc or a pinot noir.  This simple and delicious sandwich is one movable feast that can be enjoyed anywhere, even in an RV parked at the South Rim of an American symbol. It is guaranteed to make many “happy campers.” à table!

Je vous souhaite un bon appétit !

LM


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Hello Normandy: marmite à ma façon

April 2nd, 2011

Hello Normandy:  marmite à ma façon 

One of my favorite Norman dishes to make, and one I teach in my Normandy class, is Marmite Dieppoise or simply “marmite.”  Marmite is a seafood casserole which to me represents some of Normandy’s best culinary treasures: white fish, shrimp, mussels, apples, apple cider, cream, butter, and mushrooms. It is a perfect dish any time of the year and can be served family style or more elegantly. My marmite is a modified version that you can make at home (and I use far less cream than most recipes).   

For those of you who believe you cannot cook fish, this is a very forgiving recipe because the fish is poached and therefore kept moist.  This recipe is also very versatile. I like clams, shrimp, and mussels in mine, but you can choose the seafood (and the type of fish) to your liking.  However, do not use salmon, swordfish, halibut, or tuna because the texture is either too dense or too oily for this cream-style sauce. Lastly, I omit the mushrooms in the spring and summer seasons, but leave them in when the weather is cold.  In summer, I also garnish the marmite with fresh coriander to brighten it a little.

Je vous souhaite un bon appétit !

LM

 

 marmite à ma façon 

stats: serves 6

what you need:

16 ounces of 3 types white fish fillets
(i.e., Sole, Turbot, Cod (Cabillaud), Plaice (Carrelet), Hake (Colin), Brill (Barbue)),
trimmed, skins removed
kosher salt (as needed)
freshly ground pepper (as needed)
unsalted butter (as needed)
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and sliced (about 1- 1 1/2 cups yield)
2 cups fish stock 
1 cup apple cider

seafood and aromatics

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 leek (white portions only), sliced 
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
½ cup reduced cuisson 
½ cup white wine
½ pound clams
½ pound mussels
12  shrimp, cleaned and deveined (preferably La Hague)
¾ cup heavy cream (or 20 cl Elle & Vire Crème entiere de Normandie)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
kosher salt (as needed)
fresh coriander (optional)
fresh minced Italian parsley (optional)

how to:

  • Season Fish. Season both sides of fish fillets with salt and pepper.  Set aside.
  • Clean Seafood.  Remove heads, legs, and shells from shrimp, leaving tails on. De-vein and rinse well. Rinse clams and mussels with cold water (do not soak).  Remove beard from mussels and use back of a spoon or knife to clean the shells.  Set aside (but do not clean clams and mussels more than one hour before cooking).
  • Shallow Poach Fish – STOVETOP.  Butter an oven-proof sauté pan.  Place apple slices on top of the butter (as a bed for the fish). Place fillets on top of apples.  Add stock and cider (fish should not be submerged).  Bring to a simmer on the stove top.  
  • Shallow Poach Fish- OVEN. Once you have reached a simmer, remove the pan from the stove top and cover with a buttered cartouche.  Place pan in an oven preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celcius). Fish is done when it is is just beginning to flake (about 5-7 minutes). 
  • Keep Fish And Apples Warm. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fish and place it on a plate.  Cover fish with aluminum foil to keep it warm.  Use the slotted spoon to remove apples and reserve in a separate bowl. Cover the apples with foil. 
  • Reduce Cuisson.  Strain the cuisson (liquid in which you poached the fish) and put into a clean sauce pan. Reduce cuisson to ½ cup. Set aside.
  • Sauté Aromatics. Place a large sauté pan over high heat. Add butter. Once butter is melted, add garlic. When garlic is fragrant, add shallots, leeks, mushrooms, and fennel. Cook until slices are tender. Add cooked apples.
  • Add Liquid. Add white wine and cuisson.  
  • Steam Seafood And Remove.  Add shrimp to pan. Add mussels and clams.  Cover for about 3 minutes.  Remove shrimp and shellfish once the shells have opened (do not over-cook). Cover with foil to keep warm.
  • Reduce Cooking Liquid.  Reduce the cooking liquid (the white wine/cuisson mixture) by half.  
  • Temper In Cream.  Whisk about one cup of the cooking liquid into the cream to bring the cream up the temperature.  Add all of the (now warm) cream to the remaining liquid.  Reduce liquid to à la nappe stage (when it coats the back of a spoon).
  • Add Butter.  Remove liquid from heat and swirl in cold butter.   Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  • Add Fish and Seafood. Return fish and seafood into the liquid and gently toss to coat.  
  • Garnish. Garnish with parsley (and fresh coriander).  
  • Serve. Serve warm with crispy lean bread.
 
 
 
 
 
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Bugnes Lyonnaise

March 8th, 2011

Bugnes Lyonnaise

Bugnes Lyonnaise (like all beignets) are synonymous with the festivities during Mardi Gras, the period before Ash Wednesday which begins the forty-day Lenten period of abstinence for Catholics.  Beignets are fried pastry dough topped with icing sugar and eaten warm.  To Americans beignets are simply doughnuts but in France beignets can be sweet or savory.

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pea pusher no more: spring peas à la française

February 24th, 2011

pea pusher no more:
spring peas à la française

The phrase “pea pusher” describes someone who pushes their food around on their plate rather than eating it.  If you are a parent chances are that you know someone who has “pushed peas” on their plate creating a road (or a series of roadways) to create the illusion that the peas or other green food product has been eaten. This week’s simple pleasure, peas braised with soft butter head lettuce and pearl onions, will cease the veggie construction and turn your pea pusher into an eater of peas.

Petit pois à la française (peas cooked in the French style) is a classic french side dish.   It is a reliable standby for adults and children. Simple to prepare the dish can be enjoyed throughout the year but it is particularly tasty in the Spring when peas are their sweetest.

When buying fresh peas, buy them in the shell and use them within a couple of days.  Peas loose their sweetness and freshness rapidly. You can also use frozen peas because  they are typically frozen immediately after harvest when they are naturally sweet (however make sure that sugar is not listed as an ingredient). Do use canned peas because they have a “canned taste.”  You can try to minimize this taste by blanching, draining, and then sautéing the peas to eliminate the excess moisture.  However, if you have the choice, it is easier to go the fresh or frozen route.

Use butter head lettuce for this recipe.  Do not use mesclun or mâche because they are too delicate; large romaine and iceberg are too watery.  Similarly, do not use any greens that are bitter (i.e., arugula).  If you do not have  pearl onions, you can use small cipollini onions or slice larger sweet onions (i.e., Maui or Vidalia).  Do not use red onions or yellow onions because they are too harsh.

I cut back on the butter and sugar that is traditionally used. A nominal amount of sugar remains to allow the braising liquid to thicken (you do not need the sugar as a sweetener if your peas are young). If you do not want to add the sugar, you can use a beurre manié (cold butter with flour mixed in it and added at the end) but you will be left with the flour taste in your peas. To me, the sugar is preferable.

Lastly, do not overcook the peas and lettuce or they will turn an unattractive brownish grey. They should braise no longer than 20 minutes. The condensation which gathers on the lid and drips down combined with the general moist heat in the pan will cook the lettuce even though the peas and lettuce are largely above the water line. Do not stir the peas too much or too forcefully while cooking or you will have an unattractive pea mash.

These peas are an excellent companion to poultry, pork, meats or fish. They are particularly good with lamb. However, whether enjoyed alone or as a side, they will be eaten.

Je vous souhaite un bon appétit !

LM

dinner music
(to the tune of the chorus in Train’s song “Soul Sister”)

“hey pea pusher
aren’t those veggies veggies
on your plate you know…your tummy grows
the way you eat so fast right now

hey pea pusher
you don’t wanna miss
a single pea … it’s there …
[indicating] your right

hey… hey… hey ...”

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power down power food: kale and quinoa tabbouleh

February 18th, 2011

power down power food:
kale and quinoa tabbouleh

You cannot separate what you do as a profession from who you are as a person.  I am a chef, a mother of two, and I run fifty miles a week.   I am not only passionate about cooking but food in general.  I believe that healthy food habits have healing, preventative, and restorative power.  Unhealthy food habits deteriorate our bodies and starve our minds.

When I am training for a marathon I try to make what I eat count a little more: more protein, leafy greens, and healthy carbs, and less foie gras and Valentine chocolate.  As a mother I am always looking for inventive ways to incorporate protein and greens into my childrens’ diet.  Two things in my “more” category are quinoa and kale; however, I have found that people often do not know what to do with either one when it comes to cooking.  It does not help that kale is usually stuffed on the bottom shelf in the produce aisle (hidden by other greens) and uncooked quinoa looks like bird seed.  To give you a little inspiration of how to use these two ingredients, this week’s simple pleasure is the combination of the two in a simple and delicious salad: kale and red quinoa tabbouleh.

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stomach en route to heart

February 10th, 2011

stomach en route to heart:

winter tomato soup au gratin,
spicy espresso tournedos on creamy almond and leek risotto hearts,
and fresh tarragon green salad

If it is true that the way to a person’s heart is through his or her stomach, then Saint Valentine’s Day is a foodie’s dream for both the food preparer and the diner. Accordingly, this week’s simple pleasure is devoted to some Valentine’s treats: a winter tomato soup with a gratinée heart-shaped crouton, chili-espresso tournedos on heart-shaped beds of creamy leek and almond risotto, and a fresh tarragon green salad. If this sounds complicated, I can assure you that it is not. Below are some production and ingredient notes. The recipes are in separate entries so they can easily be printed.

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