Hot Salade Niçoise

A year or 2 ago, there was a show on PBS that I loved, Spain: On the Road Again. Celebrity chef Mario Batali, NY Times food columnist Mark Bittman, super hot actress from Barcelona Claudia Bassols, and Gwyneth Paltrow went on an epic road trip around Spain. They took in architecture in Barcelona, rugged landscapes in Asturias, Moorish history in Andalusia, and so on. And all along the way, they gorged themselves on each location's specialties, top restaurants, and the best wines.

That is what I wish I could be paid to do for the rest of my life.

Then again, maybe I wouldn't necessarily want to do it with that exact crew.

1. Mark's accent annoys the hell out of me. Yes, I was born and raised on Long Island, and I'm no stranger to NYC/LI accents. But sometimes it just feels like a cheese grater on my eardrum. "Smwall," "sauwalt," (small, salt). Gawd.

2. Mario's a bit of hefty fellow. He seems like an absolutely nice and fun guy, but I tend to walk lots of long distances when I'm abroad, and I can see him slowing me down.

Last, and certainly not least

3. Gwyneth is one of those "ethical eaters." She's not vegetarian, but she won't eat animals that walked on 4 legs. So no pork, beef, etc. So for a bunch of episodes, I couldn't help but think of how much it would suck to travel with a picky eater.

But I realized that she has a pretty good palate. And then imagine my surprise when I learned she's an active, and skilled home cook. I stumbled upon this recipe on Food + Wine Magazine's site, and I'll admit I was impressed. It's a fast and simple one-pot dish, and it's an interesting take on a classic salad. Plus it's nice and light for this oppressive summer heat.

Hot Niçoise Salad

Ingredients:

- Extra virgin olive oil

- 1/2 lb tuna steak, ~1-inch thick

- 1/2 lb haricot verts (or green beans), stem ends chopped off

- 1/2 cup Niçoise olives (or kalmata, if Niçoise are unavailable), pitted and sliced

- 10-12 filets of anchovy (packed in olive oil)

- 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved

- 2 eggs

- salt and black pepper

- salad greens of your choice (I prefer baby spring mix)

Procedure:

1. Blanch the green beans in boiling water for 4 minutes, then drain them and set them aside. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degF.

2. Rub all sides of the tuna steak with olive oil, and season it with salt and pepper.

3. Coat the insides of 2 ramekins with olive oil, then crack 1 egg into each one. Drizzle a little bit more olive oil on top.

4. In a large, heavy-bottom, oven-ready sauté pan, put in the green beans, olives, anchovies, and grape tomatoes (lightly squeezed first). Toss it all with 2 Tbsp of olive oil and spread it around the pan. Put the tuna steak in the center, and place the ramekins of egg in the pan, too.

5. Put the pan, uncovered, on the center rack of the oven, and let it roast for 10 minutes, or however long it takes to let the egg whites set and leave the yolk somewhat liquid. The tuna steak should be whitened on the outside, but still slightly pink and not fully cooked at its core.

6. Flake up the tuna steak, and toss the salad in a light vinaigrette of your choice. I make a vinaigrette from 2 Tbsp lemon juice, 2 Tbsp olive oil, and 1/2 tsp of dijon mustard. Serve on top of salad greens.

Yields 2 servings, best served still warm.

Easy Boeuf Bourguignon

Recipe Source: Everyday Food on PBS/Create

I'm lazy. I admit it. I've wanted to explore French cooking more, and I've taken a look at a bunch of classic Julia Child recipes. But all of the prep involved, the lengthy ingredient lists, and the sheer amount of butter involved were a bit of a deterrent. So when I found a stripped-down version of Boeuf Bourguignon on TV, I was eager to try it out. Besides, I've been on a braising kick since I got my enameled cast-iron dutch oven.

One of this recipe's ingredients is, plainly stated, "bacon." So I picked up the first kind that I saw at the market, thick-cut applewood-smoked. Following the recipe through, the end result was some really tender beef, but the wine/beef/herb flavors completely overwhelmed by the bacon. In other words, beef and carrots in bacon-smoke sauce, not as tasty as it sounds. But trying the recipe again with the non-smoked variety of bacon made a world of difference. You could really appreciate the wine in the sauce, get the sweetness of the carrots and pearl onions, and the bacon doesn't distract from anything else.

My initial failure with the recipe brought up an interesting philosophical question. Is there such a thing as bacon-overkill? Or is bacon capable of making a dish worse?

I mean, it's a fact that is ingrained into everyone's mind (every non-vegetarian or non-kosher/halal eater's mind, anyway), that Bacon Equals Better. To improve a salad, use bacon bits. For extra flavor in your chicken marsala, use pancetta. How can something as perfect as bacon possibly decrease enjoyment of food?

It's such a universally accepted fact that people are now buying bacon-flavored chocolate. I've actually tried it, at Whole Foods in a bacon-chocolate gelato. And it tasted like savory/sweet angels dancing upon my taste-buds. Umm... I mean it was kind of good. The lady next to me in line said "Oh, I've had bacon-chocolate before. My girlfriends and I had a bacon-chocolate tasting party last weekend." The first thing in my mind was "why the hell was I not informed of this baco-choco sub-culture?"

But I digress

Bon Dieu, c'est si bon

Chicken à la Provençal

This has to be one of my favorite dishes to make. It has a thick, hearty, tomatoey sauce; a nice acidic bite from the olives and anchovies; and the active prep time isn't very long. I've seen a few variations on this recipe, some calling for white wine vs. red wine. Personally, I like my Chicken à la Provençal to be a little heavier on the tomatoes, so I feel like red wine goes well with it.

I'd go with a Côtes-du-Rhone red, and not just because of fond memories of vast vineyards and bums peeing on restaurant doorsteps. I agree with the philosophy that traditional foods and wines from the same region always go well together. But I guess some further experimentation with the wine variety is in order.

Oh Snap [Vol 3]: Maison Bouachon

My grocery shopping this week was geared toward French meals. Salade Niçoise, Chicken à la Provençal, and Beef Burgundy. This means that I needed to buy some wine for the recipes, so I went to Specs, of course. Seriously, they have everything.

I decided on a Côtes-du-Rhône red. CdR is a region along the Rhone river in the Provence area of France, known for its rustic landscapes and slow pace of life, in total contrast from Paris. My friend Dom and I spent 3 days in Avignon back in 2008, and we absolutely loved the region, especially after we took a winery tour in the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine country. We loved it so much that, between the 2 of us, we brought back 12 or 13 bottles of wine :)

So at Specs, I was perusing the Côtes-du-Rhône shelf. I saw 1 particular bottle, and I caught myself from saying out loud "holy shit." It was from Maison Bouachon! That was the first of the 3 wineries where Dom and I were taken on our guided tour! This brought back some good memories of the trip.

The ruins of the eponymous Chateauneuf-du-Pape (new castle of the Pope)

Look at all those vines.

Mont Ventoux (of the Tour de France course) in the background.

With my rusty French, and our bilingual tour guide, Dom and I talked with the winemaker, who was a really nice guy. He wasn't snobby like the next winemaker we visited, and didn't turn his nose up at us for not identifying the aromas in the wine. He disliked people who have to come up with ridiculously flowery language for describing the wine: "an arrogant red," "notes of damp topsoil and granite," and other B.S. He taught us how to really find the aromas and told us to just describe what the wine feels like. We bought a good number of bottles from him. The next winemaker scoffed at us for not identifying notes of the local wildflower, the auberpine. We scoffed back by not buying a damn thing from him.

Crepes in Strawberry Syrup with Whipped Cream

Holy sh-t, I need to update more often. Work and miscellaneous travel has had me really busy for the past few months, and my cooking has slowed down noticeably. But things are easing up a little, thank God, and I'm starting to try some new dishes out. This one is from mid-June. My then girlfriend offered to make me dinner, as long as I made a sufficiently sweet dessert. Bear in mind a couple of things:

1. Growing up, my family didn't really do dessert very often. We'd have the occasional Haitian sweet potato pudding at a big family dinner, or store-bought desserts at parties. But the concept of "I just finished dinner on a regular weeknight. I need dessert!" is just foreign to me.

2. I don't like really sweet foods. I go as far as sweet fresh fruit, but anything with loads of refined sugar is just too much for me. The smell inside a Krispy Kreme shop makes my stomach turn. Not exaggerating.

Hence, I don't make dessert often... or ever, actually. But I have made crepes in the past, relying on fruit and fresh handmade whipped cream to provide the sweetness. To kick up the sweetness, I figured you can't get much sweeter than syrup. The end product was considered a success. Continue reading for the crepe, syrup, and whipped cream recipes.

Steak au Poivre in Mushroom & Bourbon Cream Sauce

Recipe Source: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/steak-au-poivre-recipe/index.html

Result: really damn good

I don't cook steaks too often. I guess it's because steak dinners tend to feel pretty heavy to me, and a good cut of beef can get pricey. But last week, I did some mid-week grocery shopping and saw some good NY Strip steaks at a good price. It inspired me to try out a Steak au Poivre recipe I haven't tried for a year or 2.

The last time I tried this recipe, I really didn't like the sauce. I didn't have a taste for cognac yet, and all that cream diluted the sauce so much that it was almost flavorless. This time around I substituted the cognac for Kentucky bourbon, I reduced the amount of cream, and I threw in some mushrooms and rosemary for a deeper, more earthy flavor.

One big thing to keep in mind when cooking with alcohol (whether it's wine, whisky, etc), use a bottle that you would enjoy as a normal drink. If you're making Chicken Marsala, use real Marsala wine; if you're making Boeuf Bourguignon, use real Burgundy. Don't be a cheap-ass and use supermarket cooking wine, it's loaded with salt and just tastes bad. For this recipe, I bought a small (200mL), inexpensive bottle of Bulleit Bourbon. My bourbon-snob friend and even the owners my neighborhood liquor store give Bulleit rave reviews.

The end result was seriously good. I think I'll be experimenting with beef more often. You can find the recipe after the jump. Try it out and make it your own. Experiment with the bourbon:cream ratio , maybe even try some butter instead of oil. And do leave a comment to let me know how it works out for you.

Ratatouille [Attempt #1, sorta]

Recipe Source: n/a
Recipe Result: Good flavor, nice and light, but texture was kind of compromised by going overboard with the dried herbs

I say "Attempt #1, sorta" because I've tried this a couple of times and a couple of different ways, but never really documented it. What is ratatouille, aside from a great Pixar movie? It's a traditional eggplant and squash dish of southern France, or Provence. A friend and I got to spend a couple of days in Avignon and the food there was amazing, and for a little while after that trip I tried to recreate some of those flavors on my own.

In the process, I realized Provençal cuisine really reminds me of my mom's Haitian cooking. It's country/peasant-style cooking (compared to what everyone think of with French cuisine), and it relies heavily on tomatoes, onions/shallots, garlic, and good herbs. A lot of it is relatively slow-cooked meat + veggie dishes that warm you up inside and are deeply satisfying, kind of like a good bowl of chili. One important ingredient of Provençal food is anchovies. It sounds kind of weird at first, and by themselves they just taste fishy and salty. But when sautéed in oil, it adds a really nice depth of flavor to your dish. It's kind of like how fish sauce works in Thai food.

This time, I chose not to follow a cookbook or online recipe and tried to take an intuitive approach to it. One big difference between the standard recipe and my way was that I sliced up my zucchini into really thin rounds, (half-rounds for the eggplant to match the zucchini slice sizes). Traditionally you cut everything into cubes so everything is the same size, but I just wanted the end result to look more interesting.

I mean, doesn't this look more fun to put on your fork than some lame-ass centimeter cube? Not to mention that cutting the eggplant this way made it a lot easier to salt it, in order to draw out the moisture and make it easier to sauté. Look at those slices sweating after just 20 min.


One thing I realized I neglected upon finishing was that it could have been a lot more tomato-ey. I thought a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste with the cooking liquid would be nice and subtle but sufficient. It tasted good in the end, but it didn't taste like what I remember from Avignon. I'll add in some tomato puree or whole ripe tomatoes the next time. Also, next time I'll ease up on the herbes de Provence. I ended up putting in so much that the pieces of dried rosemary were messing with the texture of the veggies.


You can find my full recipe after the jump. Try it out, and please do leave a comment to let me know how it worked out for you.