A Moveable Feast

Carpaccio de Saint-Jacques

One of the great advantages of my new workplace is, that during weekdays we offer a lunch menu that changes daily, the "plat du jour", so besides the items on the standard menu I have the potential to learn 12 new dishes every week (I don't work Fridays), or 564 dishes if I stay one year (deducting 5 weeks restaurant closure), one starter, one fish main course, one meat main course every weekday. The exciting observations for me besides the recipes are the customer responses to certain dishes and the organization, to make sure we can get them out in quantities during "rush hour" without any delay.

One of the l'entrées du jour (starter of the day) that is very popular, is a carpaccio de Saint Jacques (Scallops), and we offer it now almost every week. During the mise en place time in the morning we usually prepare 20 plates arranging the scallops cut in thin slices, store the plates in the fridge and at the moment of the customer order, we finish the plate by drizzling truffle oil, olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, fleur de sel, some parmesan and either a little salad or a heap of green herbs in the center. So it usually takes less than a minute to send the plate out once the order reaches the kitchen us.

I wanted to try something similar today at home, using a new kitchen toy I offered myself last weekend. A siphon compressor in order to start playing around with the currently so popular espumas and chantillys (foams and whipped creams), that are used in professional kitchens far beyond creating just plain whipped cream.

And I found a nice recipe in the book "espumas & chantilly" (editions marabout). One year ago I would not have dared to buy scallops with the shell, but now I open hundreds of them every Sunday in the bistrot, so you could say I know the technique and I am getting fast at it. So of course I am buying them now with the shell.

For the cream mix that goes into the siphon, mix :

- liquid cream
- soja sauce
- olive oil
- 5 epices (spice mix)
- lime juice

Then arrange thin slices of raw scallops on a round plate, ideally not white, to create a better color contrast. Drizzle with a mix of lime zest, olive oil and soja sauce. With the siphon add the cream mix in the center of the plate.

Decorate with afalfa sprouts, spring onions and lime zests. You do not need salt, as the soja sauce in the whipped cream and the vinaigrette contain enough salt. That's all ! And there you have a light, beautiful, not so ordinary starter ! Bon appétit !

La vie en rose

To see la vie en rose is much better than going on with a Paris Blues...

I can do that again since a couple of weeks. Against everybody's well meant advice I quit the 2 star restaurant 4 weeks ago. Too many negative things had accumulated, that resulted in total demotivation. The most difficult was that they were expecting too much from me, that I could just not deliver in the given time, so others had to always help me and bad comments and remarks didn't stop. While I did learn a lot in the short time I spent there I was not happy at all, and increasingly unpleasant personal comments from the second made my decision easy. I am now really done with the stars. I am glad I made the experience but this world is not for me. I quit on Tuesday Januar 22nd. On the 23rd I was invited to a job interview by a chef who was attracted by my CV that I had distributed on a specific internet site two days before. My search ad was titled "looking for job in bistro with small team and friendly atmosphere". Eventually everything had become clear to me. I do not want to spend many years as an employee in any kitchen. I needed to find a place that is close to what I want to run soon, while still having a life on the side, learning a lot and having some fun too.

On the 24th I started a 4 day test cooking period in the bistrot, and after 2 days the chef-owner offered me a contract as a commis. He said he was interested in my case because if I go through all that at my age, there must be some passion behind... There are two owners of this bistrot, one is the chef who hired me, but fincancially speaking, le "patron" is the guy who founded yahoo Europe. He left yahoo in 1999 with some stock options and to move into capital investment. One of the businesses he invested in, because he obviously loves French food, and the history of this traditional bistrot, is the place I am now working at since one month. From time to time he stops by, says hello to everybody in the kitchen and of course eats at the bistrot. I just love the idea of cooking in a bistrot and being paid by the yahoo Europe founder. It's a nice story.

The dining room of my new bistrot. I love the decoration and the atmosphere. So typical old Parisien. But not only me. We are booked completely most of the time (45 covers). Business lunches and in the evening mostly .... American tourists !!! 

There is much less pressure, although it varies depending on the weekday, better working hours, small team of 5 people in the kitchen, I touch everything, patisserie, cold starters, cooking fish, vegetables, meat, plating. Everything. I learn so many things that will help me for my project, in a much different way than at the 2-star restaurant. Some days are like going back to culinary school. After one month I still like going there, and I plan to stay there about a year. Of course not every day is perfect and there are from time to time bad days as well, but I think that this as good as it can get for me as an employee with my level.

I wanted to wait a bit before writing here about this change. I had moments when I thought; it must be me. Second failure in a row. I am not made to be a professional cook, I cannot be happy in any kitchen, what if it happens again, what if I have chosen the wrong path, what if I am not able to find a place to work ? My life had become very unstable, something which I just don't like. And I just didn't want to write for the third time in a row "I love it here", just to find out that 4 weeks later I hate it. Now it seems some stability is back, I have taken new motivation to go on with my plan, and I will now continue writing about the pleasures and pain of learning to be a cook again. 

Je vois la vie en rose.... And a big Merci to Marion Cotillard, for bringing some positive headlines to France !

Just because it's Valentine's day...

To whom it may concern.....

No foie gras without....

...the right wine !

Philippe was so right in his comment to my last post, how can I dare to talk about foie gras without mentioning the wine to go with it. Shame on me. If you eat foie gras, and don't suppport it by a glass of matching wine, you spoil the whole experience. As essential as good bread and fleur de sel to make the experience perfect.

The classic match is a sweet white Bordeaux wine, Sauternes. There are other possibilities though, as Sauternes might be too sweet for some, and the big challenge is also with which wine do you continue your meal if you start with Sauternes ?

Other good matches :

- Gewurztraminer ("vendanges tardives")
- Coteaux de Layon  (less sweet)
- Muscat (de Rivesaltes, for examples)
- similar to Sauternes but less expensive : Loupiac, Sainte-Croiz du Mont
- Jurancon
- or as a dry white wine alternative a Chardonnay, like for example a Meursault

So I hope I made up for this "minor" mistake in my last post. I confirm again, it is really essential to be able to enjoy the foie gras tast to the fullest !

Coming up soon on this channel : how the founder of Yahoo Europe became my new boss this week...

Foie Gras for my Bistrot

Whenever I get to taste a good foie gras in a French restaurant I will say "this is one of the reasons I cannot leave this country". And it is not a joke. So obviously it has to be one of the items on my future bistrot's menu. This week I realized that despite having six (!) books about foie gras, a couple of months experience in two 2-Michelin stars restaurants who are specialized on foie gras in all its variations, I have never prepared one myself. And I can't really count the one that I did at Ferrandi in 2006 (too much help from chef Sebastien...).

This week was a good opportunity to change that. I wanted to use my days off now to cook again more at home, focussed on my future own business, which means trying for the same product different recipes and finetune to "perfection". I had invited myself this week for dinner to my Grenoble-friends Allison and Paul who live now just outside of Paris, and obviously I offered to prepare the dinner, clearly indicating that they would be my guinea-pigs ("any time, Ulla, any time !"). I really miss cooking for friends at home and having dinner parties, as my small "lounge" isn't laid out for inviting more than one person for a cup of tea. But the kitchen is big enough and well equipped to cook and then "transfer" the food...

I decided that as a starter I would do a "duo de foie gras" for them. Two ways of foie gras.

Like this I could start to try what type of foie gras recipe I would use in the future, based on the complexity of the recipe and of course the reaction of my "guinea-pigs". And there was a very clear winner. In fact one of the foie gras was so good, that I would say it is the best foie gras I have ever eaten in my life. Better than in any restaurant. Allison and Paul loved it, and I also gave a sample to Katia, who has a lot of foie gras experience, and also for her it was the best foie gras she has ever eaten, to quote her "people will travel thousands of miles to eat that foie gras in your bistrot, .... and now give me the recipe !".

Here are the two ways I tried : foie gras mi-cuit au gros sel & foie gras en terrine

For both recipes you need to take out the veins of the liver first. This has to be done very carefully, without destroying the structure of the liver. Remove the liver 30 minutes before from the fridge, otherwise it will break. When it has room temperature unfold it and use the back of a spoon very delicately to first track down the vein structure and then also to remove the veins. It is a bit messy so for hygiene reasons it is also best to wear kitchen gloves.

   

Now the following procedure will be different, depending on the recipe.  First, for "Ulla's-Bistrot-Foie Gras"

Foie gras mi-cuit au gros sel

Smoothen the surface of the foie gras, and bring back the two halfs together. Then roll them in thin bandage-tissue (the recipe said "gaze au rouleau" which I got in the pharmacy, which is a good story for itself : just try walking into a pharmacy and ask for "the biggest bandage they have", and then "no emergency, it is just for foie gras cooking". Funny reactions guaranteed !) into a cylinder shape. I also put the bandage in cognac before to add a little aroma...

Fill a bowl or cake mold with "gros sel" (coarse salt ?), place the foie gras on it, continue to cover everthing with gros sel until the foie gras is completely hidden by the salt, cover with film, and keep 24 hours in the fridge. Then take off the bandage and keep up to one week in the fridge (I doubt it will last that long though).

And that's it basically. So simple. The foie gras will be cooked by the salt. In fact it will be mi-cuit (half-cooked), with a perfect champagne-pink color and a texture like butter and the fullest authentic foie gras taste. Difficult to describe, but I do take orders as of now, so you can check yourself ;). Best with toasted dark rustic bread like for example Poilane, fleur de sel and a fruit&nut chutney.

Foie gras en terrine

This is the more typical method of cooking foie gras. For me the result was just o.k., nothing extraordinary compared to the one cooked by the salt.

After having taken the veins off, season the opened foie gras with salt, a little bit of sugar and spices that you like. I used "5 epices Chinois" which is a prepared powder mix of  "anis etoile, cannelle, clou de girofle, fenouil and poivre de szechuan" (star anis, cinnamon, clove, fennel, Szechuan pepper). Bring back the two halfs into their original shape and season also from outside. Put the big half with the skin side down in a terrine, then add the smaller half on top, skin side up. Add some alcohol like Armagnac, Cognac, white port or white sweet bordeaux wine. Put the lid, film, and keep in the fridge over night. The spices and the wines will have time to pass their flavours on to the foie gras.

Cook the terrine at 120 degrees C for 50 minutes in a bain-marie. Core temperature should be 48 degrees when done. Take off the liquid grease, then place a carton and a weight on the terrine and store again 24 hours in the fridge, before unmolding.

Needs also to be served on warm toasted bread and with fleur de sel. Bon appetit.