If you’re serving coq au vin for dinner on St. Julia’s Day, then it follows that you should serve chocolate mousse for dessert. The recipe in Mastering is the second chocolate mousse recipe I learned; the first was taught to me by a college friend. It involved a bag of toll house morsels, whipping cream, sugar, and egg whites, and resulted in a final dish I’m told is not unlike what is served at all-you-can-eat buffets.
Julia’s recipe doesn’t add that many more ingredients: four eggs separated into yolks and whites, sugar, “semi-sweet baking chocolate,” 1 1/2 sticks of butter, strong coffee, and orange liqueur.
I began by chopping the chocolate (Valrhona 62% bittersweet) and adding it, along with four tablespoons of the coffee (made from Folger’s instant – Chez Belm is a tea-drinkin’ joint), to a bowl set over a pot of barely simmering water.
While the chocolate melted, I buzzed 3/4 cup of sugar in a food processor for a few seconds to create superfine sugar (Why pay extra for something you can make on demand?). I added the sugar to the egg yolks and beat until the mixture was “thick, pale yellow, and [fell] back upon itself forming a slowly dissolving ribbon.”
I added 1/4 cup of the orange liqueur (I was out of Grand Marnier, so I used the triple sec reserved for margarita fixin’s) and continued to beat the eggs over a second pot of simmering water until the sugar was dissolved.
Once the yolks were too hot to touch, I placed the bowl in an ice water bath and continued to beat until the yolks had cooled and the ribbon formed again.
If the eggs look familiar, it’s because the technique is similar to that used to make a zabaglione, as I have attempted twice before.
By this time the chocolate had melted. I removed the bowl from the heat and added the butter bit by bit, stirring until the mixture was smooth.
I beat the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks and sugar.
The egg whites had been sitting during the rest of the prep, which brought them up to room temperature – always beat egg whited when they’re warm. I added the whites and a pinch of salt to my stand mixer and started beating.
When the whites formed soft peaks, I added a tablespoon of sugar, and continued beating until I had stiff peaks.
I stirred 1/4 of the whites into the chocolate/yolk mixture to thin it out, then carefully folded in the remaining egg whites, trying not to deflate the mixture as I folded.
The finished mousse went into the fridge to set. About six hours later, it was time to serve with some raspberries and homemade whipped cream:
I still remember the shock of tasting this the first time after a year or two of eating the chips-and-cream version. It had much more depth, contributed by the coffee and liqueur, and more richness from the butter and yolks. The taste was still as I remembered it, but now I feel the coffee somewhat overpowers the other flavors. Back in 1961, the coffee was a necessary addition, given the quality (or lack thereof) of “baking chocolate.” The current availability of high-quality single-source bittersweet chocolate adds all the depth the mousse requires.
I probably won’t make this recipe again for quite a while. Julia improved upon it in Julia Child and More Company, where she doubles the amount of chocolate and adds it to a crème anglaise which is supplemented by a small amount of gelatin. And you can never go wrong with more chocolate.
It’s hot, too hot to cook let alone think about what to cook for the upcoming week. But I forced myself to think ahead and plan my market visit for some of the meals I’ll make in the cooler days ahead.
Now that he rains have let up for a while, more produce is arriving at the size and quantity I expected weeks ago. This week’s haul is lamb riblets (which will be marinated and grilled), lamb shank steak, banana walnut bread, cucumbers, scallions, yellow peaches, apples, corn, fresh mozzarella, black cherry tomatoes, and red zebra tomatoes. I’m planning lots of salads on the menu next week.
I used to refer to Julia Child as Saint Julia. She was revered by millions, was responsible for the miraculous daily transsubstantiation of base ingredients into delicious meals, and was certainly prayed to in an effort to avert uncountable kitchen disasters. If that doesn’t qualify one for sainthood these days, I don’t know what does.
Last Saturday, August 15th, was Julia’s birthday, and I had decided to cook a meal from one of her cookbooks on that date from now on. Of course, I picked the hottest weekend of the summer to initiate this soon-to-be tradition, so I needed a recipe that wouldn’t require firing up the oven. I had done that once before (see the second paragraph of this post), and it wasn’t pleasant.
Coq au Vin met all of my requirements: simple, tasty, not too labor intensive, and able to be prepared on the stovetop. I gathered my ingredients: one chicken, a bottle of Côtes du Rhône, tomato paste, cognac, a quart of homemade chicken stock, crimini mushrooms, fresh thyme, bay leaves, dry-rubbed bacon, garlic, and cippollini onions:
I cut 4 ounces of the bacon into 1/4 inch wide lardons, simmered them in water for 10 minutes to remove some of the saltiness, rinsed them in cold water and dried them.
Since I chose to use fresh onions instead of my usual frozen pearl onions, the next step was peeling and trimming the onions. I added them to a pan with 1 1/2 tablespoons each of butter and oil over medium heat.
I tossed them for 10 minutes until they browned, then added a 1/2 cup of stock, some parsley, thyme, and half a bay leaf, and simmered the onions over low heat for 50 minutes.
While the onions cooked, I washed and quartered the mushrooms.
I browned the bacon in 2 tablespoons of butter in a dutch oven over medium heat. I couldn’t believe it either, who browns bacon in butter? But Julia commands, so what choice did I have?
While the bacon cooked, I cut the chicken into pieces, saving the backbone and wings for the stockpot.
I removed and drained the bacon, then browned the chicken in the bacon fat. After 10 minutes I returned the bacon to the pot, covered it, and cooked the chicken over medium heat for 10 minutes.
Next came the fun part: I uncovered the pot, poured in a quarter cup of cognac, and set it on fire. Fire!
After the flames subsided and I checked my eyebrows for singeing, I added 3 cups of the wine, 1/2 tablespoon of tomato paste, the garlic, thyme, and a bay leaf to the pot, then added enough chicken stock to cover the chicken. I covered the pot again, and simmered everything for 30 minutes.
The onions were finally ready:
I removed them to a separate bowl and added the remaining cooking liquid to the simmering chicken. Then I sauteed the mushrooms until lightly browned.
I added some of the sauce to the paste to thin it out, then whicked the mixture back into the pot, simmering to thicken.
I returned the chicken, mushrooms, onions, and the last quarter cup of wine to the pot and simmered to reheat.
I served the coq au vin over the traditional buttered noodles.
The dish tasted just the way I remembered, with a different contribution from the onions. They were barely holding together after their braise, so they melted into the sauce. Even He Who Will Not Be Ignored was impressed, giving the meal a rare double thumbs-up.
I was impressed that a recipe that’s almost 50 years old has withstood the test of time so well, requiring no updating at all to take into account changes in the quality of the ingredients. It just proves it’s hard to go wrong with chicken, mushrooms, onions, wine, and , or course, bacon.
I made dessert as well, but that’s for the next post.
Lots of musicians pay with 8-bit music composition programs, reworking pop favorites to sound like they were generated by old video game systems. But few have tried their hand at chiptune jazz, a deficiency that Andy Baio of Waxy.org sought to address with Kind of Bloop, released today:
… an 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, one of my favorite albums of all-time. I’ve always wondered what chiptune jazz covers would sound like. What would the jazz masters sound like on a Nintendo Entertainment System? Coltrane on a C-64? Mingus on Amiga?
I’ve researched the topic quite a bit, and was only able to find four jazz covers ever released — ast0r’s version of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” and Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation,” Sergeeo’s own “Giant Steps” cover, and Bun’s version of Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.”
Visit the web site and check out the samples of each reworked classic. I dropped the five bucks for the complete release. It will never replace the original, but Bloop‘s contributors do an excellent job of maintaining the spirit of the half-century-old original.
The best meal I ate in Montreal was planned months in advance, inspired (predictably, if you’re a regular reader) by the Quebec episode of No Reservations, first aired in April of 2006:
Yes, I remembered this restaurant for three years, and jumped at the chance to attend the World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal just so I’d have a chance to eat there. Two Sundays ago we brought two friends along to enjoy the dinner with us and to have more dishes to sample.
As you can see from the video, Au Pied de Cochon looks like a neighborhood bar that also serves food. The place is loud and packed full of people, there’s French rock blasting from the sound system, and everyone is smiling. It didn’t take us long to figure out why, once we’d seen the menu and placed our orders. Here’s what we ate, in menu order, with low-light iPhone photos because I forgot to pack the real camera.
Appetizers:
Beet and Goat Cheese Salad
This slice of what could also be described as a beet and goat cheese napoleon was served chilled. The beets had been lightly pickled, which allowed their taste to come through against the tangy cheese.
Blue Cheese, Apple, and Endive Salad
This salad was all about contrasts. Bitter endive played against sweet apples and salty cheese, while crunchy apples and endive played against soft, crumbly cheese – multitasking ingredients tied together with a light creamy dressing.
Crispy PDC Salad
This salad was the winner. Fresh, lightly dressed greens with sliced tomatoes, walnuts, and bacon lardons. The square thing on top? It was a slab of pig’s head cheese, breaded and deep fried, garnished with fleur de sel and mustard. Each bite of this little treasure yielded gelatinous goodness mixed with little pork scraps from the braised head. Because when there’s already bacon in your salad, more pork and gelatin makes it better.
Foie Gras:
Cured Foie Gras Tart
We had to order something with foie gras, and this was it. This deceptively simple looking dish was actually quite complex, both in construction and taste. The disk of pie dough was topped with bechamel, mustard, and Gruyere, then baked. Then a spoonful of mashed potatoes was added, then some meat demiglace, and only then was it finished with slices of salt-cured foie gras and some greens. Every bite of this little tart overwhelmed with its depth and multitude of flavors, including the subtle smokiness it acquired from the wood-fired oven it was cooked in.
Poultry:
Duck in a Can
Really. Duck in a Can. Here’s someone elase’s video of how the dish is served:
The plate onto which the can is inverted has a slab of toasted bread covered with celery root puree. Our can had a new label; here’s the front:
And here’s the back:
The ingredient list translates as half a duck breast (a magret is the breast of a duck that has been fed to produce foie gras), foie gras, balsamic meat glaze, butter-braised cabbage, half a roasted garlic head, and two thyme sprigs.
The can is cooked in boiling water, effectively creating a sous vide that produces a perfectly cooked, meltingly tender duck with a thick layer of fatty skin. The sauce that came out of that can is the best duck accompaniment I have ever tasted: dark, rich, and infused with the juices from the meat. The layer of toast at the bottom provided the necessary crunchy contrast to the softness of the rest of the components. And did I mention how good the foie gras tasted in that sauce?
Cochon:
House-Made Boudin
She Who Must Be Obeyed succumbed to her attorney bloodlust and ordered the boudin, or blood sausage. It was a simple mixture of bread, onions, pork fat, cream, spices, and of course, pig’s blood, stuffed into sausage casings and simmered. These sausages were perfect, maintaining a soft, spongy texture that crumbled apart with gentle pressure. The spice balance cut through the metallic taste you can get from cooked offal, while still highlighting the main ingredient. The purple cabbage garnish was almost a crispy sauerkraut, with just the right amount of acidity to balance the richness of the boudin. We all fought over the last bits of this dish.
PDC’s Melting Pot
The melting pot was a straightforward braise of pork belly, pork loin, and smoked sausage with some root vegetables. Dishes like this are deceptively simple, but difficult to get just right, but this version was spot-on: each meat was cooked to its perfect texture.
Stuffed Pied de Cochon with Foie Gras
I ordered the dish the restaurant is named after. The video below shows it being cooked. I apologize for the jarring presence of Rachael Ray, but she had the good sense to eat at the same restaurant during her Montreal vacation.
This dish was huge, served on a platter twice the size of the other dishes. The breaded and oven-crisped pig’s foot and shank is sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes, and covered with a thick sauce of mushrooms, onions, and broad beans.
What’s that dark brown disk on top? A slab of foie gras that was seared on both sides to caramelize the outside. Crispy, sweet, concentrated essence of foie surrounding a tender interior – the best foie gras preparation I have ever tasted.
And the pig’s foot? Cutting through the crispy skin at the larger end revealed the shank meat, some of the most intensely-flavored meat on the pig, which had been chopped and mixed into a stuffing. The bottom half was mostly bones, but interspersed throughout were pockets of unctuous gelatin produced as the cartilage rendered during the long, slow cooking time.
The sauce and mashed potatoes were rich and hearty as well, but there was no way I could finish them, or at least finish them and still have room for dessert.
I may revise my death row meal to include this dish as the main course, as long as I could still have the bone marrow from St. John as an appetizer.
Sides:
Poutine
Having already sampled the baseline poutine at a hot dog stand, we decided a side of high-end poutine was in order. We chose the regular version instead of the one with foie gras, out of fear that our hearts might explode. What we got were perfect hand-cut fries cooked in duck fat, fresh cheese curds, and a hearty dollop of real demiglace-based meat gravy. This is what poutine should always taste like.
Desserts:
Maple Syrup Pie for Two
We were all set to pass on desserts until someone (who shall remain nameless) saw those three words – maple, syrup, and pie – together. This mercifully small pie, which we divided into quarters, had a filling similar to what binds pecans together in a pecan pie. It was not overpoweringly sweet, but had a great depth of maple flavor, and again some smoke from the oven.
Raspberry Rhubarb Pudding
This pudding was a special not on the regular menu. It was a refreshing combination of tart summer fruit topped with a light crust and ice cream. It may not have been intentional, but it ended the meal on a light, palate-cleansing note.
Final Impressions:
Anthony Bourdain has said it all better than I ever could in his introduction to Au Pied de Cochon – The Album, the restaurant’s cookbook (which, of course, I bought on the way out):
Martin Picard has not forgotten. His restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal is a celebration, an ode to all things porky, ducky, fatty, and wonderful. A return to the hearth where we all learned to cook – a place where, through the careful application of heat, wonderful things happen. In an open kitchen, behind a long, customer-friendly counter, he has created one of the Western world’s few “Bullshit Free Zones”, a place where it’s all about – and only about – what’s delicious, pleasurable, and true – and where too much of a good thing is never enough.
I’ve already decided that I have to return for another meal. It’s only a five-hour drive each way, and I can do it in one day as long as I have a designated driver to take over when I collapse into a happy, pork- and foie-fueled torpor.
Until then, I can look at my other souvenir:
That’s number 7442. If you were sharp-eyed, you noticed that the tag shown during Rachael’s segment was number 4586, which means more than 2800 pieds de cochon have been consumed in the ensuing three years, or about three every night the restaurant is open. That also translates to many happy customers and quite a few one-legged pigs.
Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of what is widely considered the greatest jazz album ever recorded: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.
Although the record didn’t spring Athena-like out of Miles’ head, there was precious little warning that preceded it. In 1953, composer/arranger George Russell (who passed away just a few weeks ago) published the first treatise on jazz music theory, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. “The Concept” proposed a new theory of jazz harmony that allowed performers to rely less on chord structure and more on scales or modes. Miles latched onto Russell’s idea (“The motherfucker who taught me how to write” – Miles) just as he was growing dissatisfied with the state of be-bop and post-bop music:
The music has gotten thick, guys give me tunes and they’re full of chords. I can’t play them … I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.
Miles tested modal improvising in 1958, first with his solo in the Gil Evans arrangement of “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess, then with “Milestones” from the record of the same name. With those two warmups under his belt, he assembled one of the finest ensembles in his long history of fine ensembles and recorded all of Kind of Blue in two sessions on the spring of 1959.
But enough history, watch and listen instead. This video is a promo for the 50th anniversary reissue from Legacy Editions, but the sentiments are no less heartfelt:
Here’s the complete performance of “So What” excerpted on the promo video. The pianist was Wynton Kelly, who had replaced Bill Evans after the studio sessions. Listen and be amazed by the searing tenor solo from the almighty John Coltrane:
You have Kind of Blue in your collection. If you still have vinyl or CDs, it’s on the shelf next to Sketches of Spain, Brubeck’s Time Out, or Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Find your copy and give it a listen. Not as dinner music, but music that requires your complete attention. Rediscover what makes it a masterpiece.
We returned from Montreal to an empty pantry and fridge; nothing yesterday’s trip to the market couldn’t fix. More new vegetables and fruits are arriving as the season progresses, so it was time to sample some new offerings.
Above we have tomatoes (plain ol’ red variety), cantaloupe, green beans, mixed fingerling potatoes, purple carrots, cipollini onions, snap peas, peaches, and the ever-present raspberries.
Some meat and baked goods as well: smoked pork chops for grillin’, a ham steak (part of this morning’s nutritious breakfast), lemon poppy seed cake (ditto), and a sourdough country loaf.
There will be an Asian stir-fry on this week’s menu in addition to the grilled chops. Maybe a potato salad, maybe a frittata – who knows? Heat and laziness will dictate this week’s choices.
We joined a rapidly growing line of people waiting to be seated inside.
While we waited I tried to figure out just what “smoked meat” was supposed to be. The sign’s description, “charcuterie hebraique,” wasn’t much help, but they had thoughtfully piled a heap of the stuff in the front window:
It looked like pastrami to me: whole slabs of brisket covered in black peppercorns. Once we were seated, we checked out the very brief menu before ordering our sandwiches (He Who Must Not Be Ignored, true to form, ordered a hot dog). The only other choices were how fatty we wanted the meat – we all requested “medium” – and whether or not we wanted mustard. We also ordered dill and half-sour pickles, which our waiter kept misidentifying (Tip: If it still looks like a green cucumber, it’s a dill pickle. If it has a translucent appearance, it’s a half-sour.)
Within ten minutes we had our sandwiches:
And yes, “smoked meat” is pastrami, but not as heavily brined before smoking, It had that lovely pink color, but tasted less pickled and more smoky. The huge pile of thinly-sliced goodness was served on plain rye bread.
Was it good? You be the judge:
When the plates first hit the table, everyone said “I’ll be taking some home.” Nobody did – there was nothing left but a few crumbs.
A few days later I ordered smoked meat at a different establishment. It was good, but not Schwartz’s good. I’m glad we tried the best first.
The Shaw clan spent six days in Montreal, where we attended the 67th World Science Fiction Convention. In keeping with He Who Will Not Be Ignored’s ongoing project to eat a hot dog in every new city he visits, we chose to end our walk through the old city with a lunch at McGill Hot Dog. Since food vendor carts are prohibited, storefronts like McGill have cropped up to satisfy the locals’ need for cheap fast food.
Sitting a ta table seemed to defeat the purpose of eating a local dog, but it gave me a chance to scope out the menu, watch some food being ordered, and decode some of the local jargon. Hot dogs are cooked either vapeur (steamed) or rôti (grilled), and the choice of garnishes is “all-dressed” (mustard, chopped onions, and cabbage slaw) or “Michigan” (topped with meaty tomato sauce). Then there’s the choice of frites (fries) or poutine (fries and cheese curds covered with gravy).
Armed with this quickly-acquired knowledge, I dove in and ordered one vapeur all-dressed avec poutine:
The hot dog was on the small side and didn’t have much spice or snap, and the slaw was very light on the dressing. The ideal poutine would have been crispy fries, melted cheese, and tasty gravy, but that was not to be. I got soggy fries, melted cheese, and canned gravy.
I got exactly what I paid for: a cheap fast meal that also provided me with a baseline experience that I would seek to improve during the the remainder of my stay. And mais oui, did I improve on that lunch.
The first is “Farmers Can Feed the World,” a Wall Street Journal editorial by Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution. He makes a strong case for using every technological means available to keep the world fed:
Given the right tools, farmers have shown an uncanny ability to feed themselves and others, and to ignite the economic engine that will reverse the cycle of chronic poverty. And the escape from poverty offers a chance for greater political stability in their countries as well.
But just as the ground shifted beneath the Italian community of L’Aquila, so too has the political landscape heaved in other parts of the world, casting unfounded doubts on agricultural tools for farmers made through modern science, such as biotech corn in parts of Europe. Even here at home, some elements of popular culture romanticize older, inefficient production methods and shun fertilizers and pesticides, arguing that the U.S. should revert to producing only local organic food. People should be able to purchase organic food if they have the will and financial means to do so, but not at the expense of the world’s hungry—25,000 of whom die each day from malnutrition.
He’s right, of course. Organic food is a luxury when people go hungry, just as bottled water is a luxury when people are still dying of cholera and dysentery.
The second is “The Meat of the Problem,” an opinion piece by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post. He drops this bomb:
Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere. The response was quick and vicious. “How convenient for him,” was the inexplicable reply from a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. “He’s a vegetarian.”
The visceral reaction against anyone questioning our God-given right to bathe in bacon has been enough to scare many in the environmental movement away from this issue. The National Resources Defense Council has a long page of suggestions for how you, too, can “fight global warming.” As you’d expect, “Drive Less” is in bold letters. There’s also an endorsement for “high-mileage cars such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids.” They advise that you weatherize your home, upgrade to more efficient appliances and even buy carbon offsets. The word “meat” is nowhere to be found.
I had already made a shift in my dinner menu planning to incorporate one meatless meal a week, and I’ve been slowly shifting away from beef for a while. I was doing it primarily for variety and health reasons, but I’m happy to be inadvertently contributing to greenhouse gas reduction.
I’ll never allow politics to interfere with my enjoyment of food – there’s a whole lot of foie gras on the menu at this coming Sunday’s dinner – but I will consider some of the longer-term implications of my food choices. After all, what’s one less burger or sandwich a week?
