Category: French

Terrine with olives, pine nuts and prosciutto

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: Plenty as a starter

My father’s birthday was last weekend and right on cue, my mother served an amazing French lunch to celebrate. Tapenade to begin, a wonder goats cheese souffle, a four-hour lamb with pan-fried potatoes and mushrooms, beans tossed with caramelised onion and crepes suzette.

Wowser.

And all we brought was Champagne!

But it was this terrine that I thought won the show.

Sure, the lamb was amazing… indeed, it all was smashing.

But for effort and presentation, sophistication and wow… this terrine was just awesome.

Today, we spent the day packing boxes ready for our big house move in a week and I found our bread tin in the corner of one kitchen cupboard where it has been since who knows when.

But as soon as we’re in to the new place, no kidding, first Saturday afternoon, I’m doing this again.

House move complete, some toasts, some music, sun in the courtyard and a bottle of Champagne, this will be bloody heaven.

Ingredients

500g lean pork (mince)
125g veal (mince)
125g pork fat
⅓ cup pine nuts
¼ cup soft white breadcrumbs
2 tbsp dry vermouth
90g prosciutto, cut in one slice
1 clove garlic
1 tsp salt
⅓ cup black olives
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
½ tsp dried thyme
Freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
6 slices, fatty bacon, rinds removed

Method

  1. If not minced, cut the pork, veal and pork fat into small pieces and then mince together in a food processor.
  2. Lightly toast the pine nuts. Soak the breadcrumbs in the vermouth. Cut the prosciutto into small dice. Crush the clove of garlic with the salt.
  3. Combine all the prepared ingredients with a large bowl with the olives, basil, thyme, a grinding of black pepper and the egg; mix well.
  4. Preheat the oven to 180c.
  5. Line a 5 – 6 cup loaf pan with 3 slices of the bacon. Turn the meat mixture into the pan and push down firmly. Cover with the remaining bacon.Bake the terrine for 1¼ hours. Pour off any excess fat or juices. Put a plate on top and weigh it down: you want it to be as tight and compact as possible.
  6. Cool and then chill for 12 hours.
  7. To serve, unmould onto a platter allow to come to room temperature.
  8. Toast some thin breads, open some good french, send the kids to their room, enjoy.

Banc’s Fillet of Beef Rossini

.Reading time 8 minutes.

 

IMG_7531.JPG
See it and weep.

Serves: 4

I cooked this dish some years back and it is truly outrageous.

It is from that iconic Sydney restaurant of the 90s, Banc; an exquisite restaurant, a bastion to the Packers, their bankers and advisers. It was Rodney Adler’s restaurant which should provide some idea of the whole establishment.

From time-to-time you need to do a blowout dish. A dish that is so far from the ordinary of weekday cooking.

You do it for the fun of preparing it, you do it because we all need a dollop of foie gras and truffle in our lives from time to time and you do it because it is a gift to anyone lucky enough to join you for the meal.

And lucky they are. The beef and foie gras is like butter. The potato galette is the last word on potatoes. And served with the creamed spinach, the truffle and that ‘OMG’ sauce… OMG.

The photo above is from the Banc cookbook. I include it to give you some idea of not only how you might plate this, but of just how special it is.

Ingredients

Beef

4 x 180gm fillets of beef (eye fillet)
4 thin slices of prosciutto, large enough to wrap around the beef fillet
4 x 15gm slices of foie gras (ask your partner to buy this and hide in shame around the corner)
20gm foie gras trimming (basically, more foie gras)
½ tsp chopped truffle
25ml (5 tsp) vegetable oil
4 slices of truffle
Salt and freshly ground pepper

4 x Potato Galette

3 large potatoes, cut into cylinders
120gm clarified butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper

160gm Creamed Spinach

1 ½ kg fresh spinach
1 diced shallot
1 clove garlic
½ cup cream
20gm butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper

100ml (7 tbsp) Périgueux Sauce

20ml (4 tsp) truffle juice
20ml (4 tsp) port
20ml (4 tsp) madeira
400ml beef base (essentially, a good beef stock based on a good veal stock)
25gm chopped truffles
20gm chilled, diced butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Begin by preparing the Périgueux sauce:

  1. In a small saucepan, reduce the truffle juice, port and madeira to a syrup over a medium heat.
  2. Add the beef base and bring to the boil and reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Add the chopped truffle. Whisk in the butter piece by piece until it is fully incorporated. Remove from the heat and season.

Continue with the beef:

  1. Using a sharp knife, make an incision in the centre of each piece of meat to form a pocket.
  2. Mix the foie gras trimmings and chopped truffle together and divide between 4 pockets. Wrap each piece of beef in a slice of prosciutto to the hold the foie gras and truffle in place during cooking and tie with a piece of butcher’s twine.
  3. Preheat the oven to 200c.

Prepare the potato, where I have reproduced their notes as below:

“To make potato galettes, take large potatoes and slice the top and bottom ends off so that they stand upright on a chopping board. Take a 5cm diameter steel tube which has a sharp end on it and press through each potato to create a perfect cylinder. If you don’t have the correct implement for stamping the potatoes out, use a sharp knife to peel the potato and form it into a neat shape without washing too much flesh.”

  1. Using the method above to make cylinders of potato, using a mandolin or sharp knife, cut the prepared potatoes into 3mm slices. You will need 18 thin slices for each of the galettes.
  2. Place the potato slices onto a tea towel and pat try. Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Each galette is prepared separately. For each one, heat 30gm of clarified butter in a blini pan. (Essentially, a small fry-pan about the size of a compact disc). Arrange one portion of potato slices in a circle, allowing the slices to overlap each other. (Essentially, you’re making a compact disc of potato with a hole in the middle).
  4. Cook the potatoes over a gentle heat for 5 – 6 minutes until slices are crisp and golden brown, Carefully flip the potato over and cook for a further 5 – 6 minutes until crisp and golden brown.
  5. Lift the galette out of the pan and drain on paper towel. Lightly season and repeat for the other galettes.
  6. These can be reheated in the oven closer to serving.

Creamed spinach:

  1. Pick the spinach, discarding all the stalks, then wash the spinach under cold water to remove any grit or sand.
  2. Blanch the spinach, cooking for 1 minute in boiling salted water, then plunge into iced water to refresh, Remove from iced water and squeeze dry. Chop spinach very finely.
  3. Place the cream in a saucepan with the glove of garlic, reduce by two-thirds and remove the garlic.
  4. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the shallots and sweat until softened. Do not allow the shallots to brown. Remove the shallots from the saucepan.
  5. To serve, heat the cream in a saucepan, add the chopped spinach and shallot and warm through. Season to taste.

Continue with the dish:

  1. In a heavy-based saucepan (which can go in the oven), heat the vegetable oil. Season the beef all over with salt and pepper and seal all over in the pan until evenly browned. Transfer to the oven and cook to your taste, though no more than medium-rare to medium or the foie gras will render down and leak out. Remove and set aside to rest in a warm place.
  2. Warm the potato galettes on the oven. Reheat the creamed spinach and check the seasoning. Gently warm the sauce over a low heat.
  3. Heat a non-stick pan on the stove. Season the foie gras slices lightly with salt and pepper and quickly sear the foie gras for 45 seconds on both sides.
  4. When both sides are golden, carefully remove from the pan.
  5. Place a slice of foie gras on top of each piece of beef and a slice of truffle on the foie gras.
  6. To serve, spoon creamed spinach in the centre of each plate. Place a potato galette on top of the spinach and place the beef onto the potato galette. Spoon the Périgueux sauce over and around the beef.

Patricia Wells’ Fresh Roasted Salmon with Olive Oil (Escalope de Saumon Frais Roti a l’Huile d’Olive)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

What a simple, fabulous French dish. And so old school as well!

It is from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells, a book I am dying to cook more and more from.

Just read the ingredients, put a bottle of French white on ice and slice the bread. This is a late Sunday lunch and snooze wrapped up.

Ingredients

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 shallots, finely minced
4 medium tomatoes (peeled, cored, seeded and chopped)
½ c crème fraiche
4 salmon fillets, with skin attached
Salt
1 large bunch of fresh basil, minced

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 165c.
  2. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a skillet or solid saucepan. When the oil is hot, though not smoking, add the eschallots and sauté until soft, but not browned; around 2 – 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and continue cooking until much of the liquid has cooked away; about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add the crème fraiche. Cook just long enough to heat the cream, and set aside.
  3. Brush the salmon and skin with the remaining oil. Heat an oven-proof pan over a medium-high heat. (The best way to achieve a crispy skin is to use a copper or metal bottomed pan, ensuring the fish is sufficiently oiled, and pressing the skin into the heat for 20 seconds.)
  4. Adding no oil, cook the salmon, skin down for 2 minutes. Season with salt. Turn the salmon over and cook for 2 more minutes, seasoning with salt again.
  5. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 5 minutes or until opaque.
  6. To serve, stir the basil into the sauce. Spoon several tablespoons of sauce in the middle of the plate and place the salmon on top of the sauce. A crack of pepper and serve with crusty bread.

Basic Hollandaise Sauce

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4 – 6

I believe that Hollandaise Sauce is one of those staples that Gordon Ramsay demands you cook for him in Kitchen Nightmares (which of course you can’t) before he rubbishes your grubby restaurant and then rebuilds it by simplifying your menu, throwing out all your furniture and putting a sign out front.

So best you know this simple and classic version then, kindly supplied (though not cooked) by my father.

My mother bemoans that she fast-tracks this sauce by using a food processor though I don’t know what she is talking about. I doubt Gordon would either and not before he threw a chair at you.

Get the water-bath going and do it right.

(And have an ice-cube ready if the sauce splits; just whisk it in a voila!)

Ingredients

4 large egg yolks
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp Dijon mustard
170gm (12 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
Pinch of cayenne
Sea salt

Method

  1. Position a large heatproof bowl over a pot of barely simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water.
  2. In the bowl, whisk the yolks, lemon juice, and mustard until well combined.
  3. Gradually whisk in the butter in a thin stream and keep whisking until the sauce is thick enough for the whisk to leave tracks that hold for a couple of seconds, 1 to 2 minutes.
  4. Whisk in the cayenne and season to taste with salt.
  5. Keep the sauce warm in its bowl set over the simmering water, whisking occasionally, until ready to use.

Rick Stein’s Escalopes of Salmon with a Champagne and Chive sauce

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

Got you at Champagne right?

Classic Rick Stein at his best, Nat and I served this at a lunch with our parents and it was a homerun; ditto the meeting of parents.

Apart from the delicacy and taste of this recipe, best is that you can make most of the sauce in advance, giving plenty of opportunity to fend off the continual barrage of humiliating stories being gleefully shot across your bows by parents:

“I remember when Robert wrote off a car…”

“Ha, that’s nothing, I remember when Natalie wrote of a yacht…”

“Tiny compared to when Robert…”

Die.

750gm salmon fillet
2 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt

Champagne and chive sauce

30g unsalted butter
1 French shallot, finely chopped
100ml champagne + 1tbsp
600ml fish stock
½ tsp caster sugar
50ml double cream
2 tsp chopped chives

Method

  1. Cut the salmon fillet into 12 escalopes; slices length ways, around half a centimeter thick. Brush each one with oil, season with a little salt and lay on a slightly oiled tray.
  2. Melt 10gm of the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Add 1 finely chopped shallot and cook gently without colouring, until soft. Add 100ml of champagne and boil for 2 minutes. Add the fish stock and the sugar and boil rapidly until reduced by three-quarters. Add the double cream, bring back to the boil and then simmer until it has reached a good sauce consistency.
  3. Keep warm (whilst defending your reputation).
  4. Whisk together another 50ml double cream with 1 tbsp champagne and the chives until it forms soft peaks.
  5. When you are ready to serve, pre-heat the grill to high and bring the sauce back to the boil, whisk in 20gm butter, then the whipped cream mixture.
  6. Grill (or pan fry) the salmon for 30 seconds per side until just firm.
  7. Overlap the escalopes in a center of each warmed plate and pour the sauce around. Sprinkle with a few chopped chives and serve immediately while the sauce is still foaming.

Maurice Brun’s Tapenade

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 8 snacking adults

I found this recipe in Patricia Well’s wonderful ‘Bistro Cooking’; French recipes from small family restaurants across France.

I am going to work my way through some of the fabulous sounding seafood recipes in the next few weeks: ‘L’Ami Louis’s scallops with Garlic, Tomatoes, Basil and Thyme’, ‘Chez Geraud’s Giant Shrimp Grilled with Brittany Sea Salt’, ‘Mussels with Tomatoes, Garlic, Olive Oil and Wine’, ‘Roasted Salmon with Olive Oil’ and ‘Arrantzaleak’s Grilled Tuna with Garlic and Sauce Piperade’, a sauce pf tomatoes, onions and chilis. 

My heart is at 130BPM just think about it!

Anyway, this is a fabulous tapenade I made as part of a bigger plate of dips, spreads and breads.

The rum (versus the traditional cognac) adds a faint, sweet flavour and on some oiled and toasted Turkish bread?

There’s your boy.

Ingredients

2 tbsp drained capers
4 anchovy fillets
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp rum
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 c (250gm) black olives, pitted

Method

  1. Combine the capers, anchovies, thyme, rum and oil in a food processor and process until just blended. Add the olives and pulse on/off about 10 times until the mixture is fairl coarse though well combined.
  2. Transfer to a bowl and serve.

Café de Paris Butter

.Reading time 5 minutes.

OK, I am going to tread very carefully here and after my brief intro, I am going to revert to a piece I found online many years ago by Franz Scheurer on the topic of Café de Paris Butter.

The reason for treading carefully is threefold:

  1. The original recipe was (and is) a secret and cooked only in one French restaurant in Geneva.
  2. It was so good that apparently the Germans during WWII booked the restaurant out night after night.
  3. There are many interpretations though they are just that; nobody really knows and suggesting that this take on Café de Paris Butter is correct would be dangerous.

Though I think, from what I have read, that this particular recipe is close if not it!

And lordy, of all the butters I have made, it is freaking good.

Don’t be inundated by the extent of the ingredients. Roll up your sleeves and do the hard yards. It freezes and you’ll have the best steaks in town for weeks and weeks.

The excerpt I found by Franz Scheurer:

Created by Freddy Dumont in 1941, specifically to go with sirloin steak, and served in the Restaurant Café de Paris in Geneva, this herb/spice butter was an instant success. So much so that it was almost impossible to get into the restaurant for years. The exact recipe is probably still secret today, and only a few restaurants world-wide are reputed to serve the original recipe, amongst them the Parisian ‘Le Relais de l’Entrecôte’ and the ‘L’Entrecôte de Paris’ and the ‘Café de Paris’ in San Francisco. The original Restaurant Café de Paris in Geneva still exists (albeit under new management) and still has the butter on the menu.

You won’t find a recipe for Café de Paris in Escoffier, Larousse or the Sauce Bible. Nor is it listed in the Oxford Companion to Food, Food Essentials A-Z or in the Cook’s Encyclopaedia. I did eventually find it in the German edition of ‘Der Grosse Pellaprat’, printed in Switzerland in 1966. Interestingly, it closely matches the recipe I have from my father, from his time as a chef at the Savoy in London in 1943.

Surfing the internet it becomes obvious that there are a lot of ‘chef’s versions’ out there, some quite close to what you would expect and some really way-out, like a German hotel chef’s version mounting a herb butter based on thyme, tarragon and parsley with sweetened condensed milk!

In Sydney Café de Paris butter is on the menu at quite a few restaurants and one, Bistro Moncur, is certainly very well known for this dish and their version is superb. 

Below my father’s recipe from 1943:

Beurre Café de Paris

Ingredients

1 kg butter
60g tomato ketchup
25g Dijon mustard
25g capers (in brine)
125g brown eschalots
50g fresh curly parsley
50g fresh chives
5g dried marjoram
5g dried dill
5g fresh thyme, leaves only
10 leaves fresh French tarragon
Pinch ground rosemary
1 garlic clove, squashed then chopped very finely
8 anchovy fillets (rinsed)
1 tbs good brandy
1 tbs Madeira
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp curry powder (Keens)
Pinch cayenne
8 white peppercorns
juice 1 lemon
zest of ½ lemon
zest ¼ orange
12gm salt

Method

  1. Mix all ingredients with the exception of butter in a glass bowl and leave to marinate for 24 hours in a warm part of the kitchen (a slight
    fermentation occurs).
  2. Purée the mixture in a blender and push through a chinois (a sieve to save you looking it up!).
  3. Foam the butter and mix with the purée. Cover and store in the fridge.
  4. It is customary to form the butter into a log, freeze it and cut off slices as you need them.

Keeps for several weeks.

Upon service a round of frozen butter is placed on the cooked sirloin and put under a VERY hot salamander for just long enough to begin to brown the top of the butter (while the butter underneath stays cold).

Ummmm

Cook your steak, let it sit, slice some of the butter on top and put it under the grill until it starts to melt.

Serve with thinly sliced and baked potatoes and an avocado and watercress salad and Vive la Revolution!

Bearnaise Sauce

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 8

There are a million Bearnaise Sauce recipes online and so here is the one millionth and first; oh, and it is Neil Perry’s.

Of course, the heart of Bearnaise Sauce is consistent across all its recipes so don’t get too excited. This Bearnaise will taste as good as any other classically cooked Bearnaise.

This said, I have had better, though I think that has been more about technique than anything. There used to be a restaurant in Crows Nest called La Grillade that my father took us to when we were kids and just how they got their Bearnaise to be so fluffy, I can only imagine.

But I’m not La Grillade and I don’t make Bearnaise for a living so this is Neil Perry’s version and I commend it to you.

Last time I served this was with a 240-day aged Angus fillet, potato gratin and beans with burnt butter and toasted almonds. You can imagine the effect.

Enjoy.

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, cut into cubes – bring to room temperature
2 eschalots, sliced
2 tarragon sprigs, 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon leaves
5 whole peppercorns
1/2 cup (125ml) white wine
1/2 cup tarragon vinegar (I substitute white wine vinegar)
3 egg yolks

Method

  1. Heat a saucepan over medium-high heat, add eschalots, tarragon sprigs, peppercorns, white wine and tarragon vinegar and reduce until 1/3 cup (80ml) remains.
  2. Put three egg yolks in a bowl that will sit comfortably over a saucepan. Strain the tarragon reduction and pour over the egg yolks, whisking to incorporate.
  3. Put the bowl over the saucepan of barely simmering water and start whisking.
  4. As it approaches the point at which it is fully cooked, the mixture will thicken by doubling or tripling in size.
  5. Once the sauce is thick, start adding three to four cubes of butter at a time, whisking to incorporate.
  6. When all the butter is incorporated, remove the bowl from the heat, add 2 tablespoons freshly chopped tarragon and check the seasoning.

Roast Fillet of Veal in Parmesean Crust

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Serves 4

This is a really special dish.

I found it in Delicious magazine; the recipe is by Orlando Murrin, a British cook and food writer who spent years in south-west France running a guest house and cooking.

I served the veal with Pommes Dauphinoise, and it was the wicked combination of the veal itself, the veal stock and wild mushrooms and the amazing baked potatoes that pushed the meal into the memory category. I just love veal, and the crust kept it moist and beautifully tender right through to serving.

At the time of cooking this, I had only very rarely cooked with veal stock and hours before starting, I ran into a culinary wall – I certainly hadn’t made my own veal stock, I couldn’t find any at the butchers I visited and all I had was Veal Glaze, a serious reduction of veal stock, with nothing of the consistency of the stock I needed.

My good friend and chef Benjamin came through and I provide the following advice, if only because the web is surprisingly murky on the ropic of veal glaze, and in fact several people said it was not possible to reverse the glaze into stock!

On the basis I needed 425ml stock, I made a cup (250ml) of half beef, half chicken stock and the rest, glaze; around half stock, half glaze. Ben was completely right; the glaze doesn’t overpower despite what you might think, and really just softens the beef stock.

I’ll probably make veal stock next time; everyone online raves about it, and apparently Thomas Keller (of The French Laundry restaurant fame) does an extraordinary interpretation worth every hour it takes.

Ingredients

For the veal

750g fillet of veal
1 egg, beaten
2 anchovy fillets, mashed
1 garlic clove, crushes
1 2/3 cups (120g) fine fresh breadcrumbs
1/3 cup (25g) grated parmesean

Wild Mushroom Sauce

175g mixed mushrooms (such as Swiss brown, chestnut and field) – I roughly chopped them
175g chilled, unsalted butter, chopped plus 20g to cook mushrooms
1 eschalot, finely chopped
100ml white wine
425ml veal stock

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 200c.
  2. The veal should be a tubular shape, and if necessary, pin flaps and so forth with skewers. Season well.
  3. Mix egg, anchovy and garlic and brush all over the veal.
  4. Mix crumbs and cheese and press over the veal to completely cover.
  5. Put on a rack in a roasting pan and allow to come to room temperature.
  6. Roast veal for 25 – 30 minutes, turning once until the meat is medium rare and the temperature taken in the thickest part is 52c.
  7. Rest for 10 – 15 minutes, loosely tented with foil; this will prevent the crumbs from softening.
  8. For the sauce, fry the mushrooms in a knob of butter over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until brown.
  9. Add eschalot and lightly brown for 1-2 minutes, then stir in the wine and stock. Bring to the boil then strain into a clean saucepan, reserving the mushrooms.
  10. Boil the stock for 18 – 20 minutes over medium-high heat to reduce to 150ml.
  11. When ready to serve, keep the sauce at a low simmer and gradually beat in the butter until thick and glossy. Add the mushrooms and heat through.
  12. Carve the veal into thin slices, then serve with the sauce.

Tartiflette (French Cheese and Potato Bake)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4 – 8 as a side

There is a time and a place for dishes like this.

Not every night and perhaps not even every Saturday, but if you are going to cook something as utterly incredible as Orlando Murrin’s Roast Fillet of Veal in Parmesean Crust, well there sir, you have the time and place for a dish like this.

I mean, you can always go for a 15km walk in the morning right?

(If you don’t have pancetta, keep looking. You can substitute but seriously…)

Ingredients

1kg potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
50g unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp chopped thyme
200g Speck or Pancetta
1/2 cup white wine
200ml thickened cream
250g raclette or reblochon cheese grated (substitute, gruyere)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 190c.
  2. Boil the potatoes for 3 or so minutes; they should be started to soften though not fully softened.
  3. Melt the butter over a medium-low heat in a large frying pan. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes or until soft, stirring occasionally.
  4. Add the garlic, thyme and Speck (or pancetta) and cook, stirring for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the white wine, cream, most of the cheese and the potato and stir to combine. Season.
  6. Transfer the mixture to a large baking dish and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
  7. Cover with a sheet of baking paper (to prevent sticking) and then foil.
  8. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the baking paper/foil and continue cooking for another 20 minutes or until bubbling and golden.