TasteFood

Gazpacho - une salade liquide

Oh my, it is hot. It's mid-May and we are experiencing a heat wave. How hot? Well, I have been told it will reach 100 F. (38C!) today. I am positive that right now my kitchen is pushing 125 F. Now, for those of you who do not know me, I am not a hot-weather person. My idea of a dream existence is to own a lovely stone house in the south of France and live there year-round except in the summer, when I would head north. I actually don't mind rain from time to time. It's the reverse of the natural order of things, I know, but my DNA is just not programmed to sustain the heat. I have come to expect the usual summer hot spells and prepare myself accordingly - but in May? I have been caught off-guard, and suspiciously wonder if this is how things really are in northern California in May, and nobody let on so I would willingly move here.

Consequently, I am quickly adjusting and reaching early into my summer repertoire of recipes that I use in extreme heat. These recipes involve no cooking, are fresh, light, thirst and appetite quenching. A favorite of mine is a variation of gazpacho, a puréed tomato-based soup from Spain, served cold. I call it a Liquid Salad, because, if you glance at the ingredients, that is very much what it is. My version involves no puréeing, because I love the toothsome texture of the finely diced vegetables, fresh and satisfying to the bite. Their colors mingle with their natural juices in a cool soup of tomato making this a festive and refreshing dish to present - one of the few un-wilted looking items in my kitchen at the moment.. The selection of vegetables can be varied. I stray from the conventional gazpacho and add carrot for its color and sweetness and fennel bulb for its anise flavor which lends a wonderful depth to the soup. This is a perfect liquid salad for a hot (not-yet) summer day.

Gazpacho

1 quart or 1 liter tomato juice
1 organic cucumber with skin, seeded, diced
1 large red onion, finely chopped
3 tomatoes, diced
1 carrot, peeled, finely diced
1 fennel bulb, fronds and outer pieces removed, finely diced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded, ribs removed, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Juice of one lemon and one lime
2 tablespoons olive oil
Dash of tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 handful fresh coriander (cilantro) chopped
1/2 handful Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl except coriander and parsley.
Adjust seasoning to taste. Cover and chill at least one hour before serving. (Can be made up to 6 hours in advance.)
Stir in coriander and parsley before serving.

Peas Glorious Peas

For all my pining for Europe, I must say I am thoroughly enjoying our new location in the San Francisco Bay
area. One highlight is the San Rafael Farmers Market, held every Thursday and Sunday in the shadows of the Marin Civic Center, an impressive building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I was there this past week shopping for a cooking party I hosted over the weekend and was delighted to have an excuse to buy armfuls of fresh produce and flowers showcased by local farmers and food purveyors. My favorite at this time of year are the fresh peas, sweet and crisp, which I prefer to pop straight out of their shells directly into my mouth - no need to bother with cooking. They are the best fast food. I also came upon some beautiful edible flowers, in this case, flowering kale - tasty and peppery to the bite and a beautiful spot of color to add as garnish to a dish. I share with you one of the recipes featured at the party that made good use of the sweet peas. You may notice some edible flowers as well.

Spring Pea and Pecorino Purée with Sautéed Garlic Shrimp
Serves 8 as an appetizer

2 cups shelled English peas
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese

½ teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 large garlic clove, minced
16 large shrimp, peeled, deveined
2 tablespoons dry white wine

Pecorino Romano shavings
Freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
Fresh chives

Prepare spring pea purée:
In a medium saucepan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Add 1 teaspoon salt and the peas. Reduce heat and simmer until peas are tender. Remove from heat, drain peas, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid.
Combine peas and 1/4 cup cooking liquid in food processor and purée until smooth. Add more water to desired consistency.
Season purée to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in one tablespoon olive oil and grated
cheese. Keep warm.

Prepare shrimp:
In a sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add garlic and chili flakes. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add shrimp in one layer and cook, turning once, until pink on the outside and opaque in the center, about 2 minutes per side. Add wine and cook 30 seconds to allow alcohol to evaporate. Remove from heat.

Divide warm pea purée among 8 demi-tasse cups or martini glasses. Arrange 2 shrimp over purée. Top with Pecorino shaving, freshly ground black pepper and drizzle olive oil over. Garnish with chives (and edible flowers as available!)

Strawberry Fields

It is strawberry season in our part of the world. The supermarkets and open air markets are displaying piles of luscious red strawberries, sweet and ripe, ready for eating. Before we moved here, our home was in Denmark, which would be considered (very) northern Europe. Summer is brief, and sunshine is not guaranteed. At this time, strawberries would be available, but were imported from France or Spain, as the Danish spring would still be in its earlier stages. Danish strawberry season is fleeting - primarily for the month of June - and for that one month we would gorge ourselves on strawberries. We could pick our own at the nearby organic farm, or stop at roadside rest areas where people would sell their harvests from pick-up trucks and car trunks. While driving on country backroads, at the end of long driveways we would find lone tables offering cardboard boxes of strawberries from which we could choose and then pay our money into an unmanned cash box - all transactions done on the honor system, of course.

For this one month (if we were lucky, and it wasn't a rainy season) we would stuff ourselves with strawberries. We would eat them plain, with cream, in tarts and pavlovas, in fruit soups and salads. When we gave up because we couldn't eat them as fast as they arrived, we would freeze them for later in the year, as a tease and a whisper of our summer. And finally, when we began to think that we couldn't possibly eat another strawberry, the season would be finished. Another fruit would replace it as the star of the show, strawberries would shift to the background and fade to a memory of summertime. Until the next year.

This is a dessert I've prepared for dinner parties. It is more Italian in inspiration, and always a success, especially when prepared for my Danish family and friends who were weary of their more traditional Danish recipes:

Strawberry and Mascarpone Cream Parfaits with Balsamic Syrup and Mint

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 cup chilled mascarpone cheese
2 cups whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 lbs. strawberries, hulled and halved

8 whole strawberries
Fresh mint leaves

Combine vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar and lemon juice in small saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Boil until syrup is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and cool completely. (Syrup can be made one day in advance. Cover and refrigerate.)

In a mixing bowl combine mascarpone cheese, whipping cream, 2 tablespoons sugar and vanilla. Beat until soft peaks form. Cover and refrigerate up to 4 hours.

30 minutes before serving, combine strawberries and balsamic syrup in a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon sugar. Toss gently to combine. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Divide half the strawberries among 8 glass goblets. Spoon half the cream mixture over the strawberries. Top cream mixture with remaining strawberries. Top with cream mixture. Drizzle with any remaining syrup.

Garnish with whole strawberries and mint leaves.

Before and After

When I first moved to Paris to study cooking, let's just say I was somewhat rigid in terms of feeding myself. Here I was, twenty-something, educated, professional, and, at least in my opinion, worldly. Now this is my own small story, but I will dare say that I conformed to a rather structured, and perhaps American way of viewing diet and exercise: compulsive, rigorous, disciplined, and did I mention rigid? This translated to a philosophy that excluded butter, red meat, caffeine, little alcohol and included fresh fruit, veggies, fish and so on. It also included a regimen of daily exercise, even if it meant rising at 5 a.m. to squeeze a workout into an active, fully-booked life. A day without exercise was unthinkable; deviation from my super healthy diet bordered on cataclysmic.

So wouldn't it make perfect sense that I would apply to cooking school in Paris? Not only cooking school, but the revered, classical, traditional French cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu. Goodness knows what I was thinking. Perhaps it was a subconscious acknowledgement of the starkness of my present routine and the need to just live a little; the gap of an ocean and the excuse of a new culture to step away from life as I knew it. Or perhaps it was the lack of meat protein in my diet that impacted my reasoning skills. Whatever the case, off I went to cook and eat in the land of butter, cream, pastry, runny cheese and terrines, at a school that for over 100 years held the distinguished and elite position of teaching classical French cuisine et pâtisserie.

And guess what? Nothing untoward happened. In fact, lots of delicious, sensual, pleasurable, yummy, gooey, and rich experiences befell me. The foods I wistfully admired from the sidelines of my healthy regimen back in the U.S. became the daily staples of my new Parisian life. I had an encyclopedia of cheeses at my disposal, bakeries on every street corner displayed gorgeous oven-baked breads and flaky croissants, cafés dotted every neighborhood serving comforting French bistro fare. Open air markets peppered the city, and depending on the day I could alter my route to school to pass by stands displaying a rainbow of fresh seasonal produce, glistening fresh meats and a sea of fish. Cheeses, patés, and more breads were prominently displayed along with a kaleidescope of cut flowers readily available for the finishing touch to the table.

For exercise I walked to school every day - literally across town - from the 18th to the 15th arrondissement.
I risked life and limb crossing streets and boulevards, skirting the occasional mob of striking postal workers, protesting students and subsequent swarms of police, allowing 20 minutes at the minimum to navigate across the sweeping Place de la Concorde as I would officially cross from the right to the left bank over the Seine. Each day I would change my walking route, either purposely or more often erroneously, discovering new streets, neighborhoods, shops and cafés. I had a short list of favorite cafés where I would stop for my morning tartine (avec beurre) and café au lait (avec caféine.) Outside of the school I learned which bakeries had the best sandwiches - simple, satisfying packages with thickly sliced Comté cheese or paper-thin tongues of jambon sechée, a little butter and mustard, and perhaps a cornichon for garnish on a crusty, airy baguette the length of a forearm. So satisfying and so uncomplicated. An afternoon pick-me-up between classes or along my walk home would include an espresso and perhaps a tarte au citron - a dollop of perfectly balanced sweet, tart and very lemony curd nestled in a palm-sized shell of pâte sucrée. If I could bear to make dinner after a day of cooking in class, I would improvise a light dish with some of the purchases from the market or head out to a bistro or restaurant on my un-ending list of new places to try. Simply put, my life in Paris revolved around eating, cooking, walking and eating more. I was very happy.

Lemons and Lamb

Spring has arrived in the northern hemisphere - or so the calendar says, for those who seem to be experiencing extended winter weather this season. Here is a favorite menu I like to serve for friends and family, that uses some of the wonderful fresh produce appearing in the markets and gives an excuse to dust off the barbeque from its winter sleep.

Asparagus with Lemon and Olive Oil
 
A simple and elegant way to serve either green or white asparagus.  Use a vegetable peeler to peel the tough outer skin away from the white asparagus.
 
Serves 6
 
2 lbs. asparagus spears, ends trimmed
1 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt
 
Steam asparagus or cook in a large pot of boiling salted water until crisp tender.
Drain; transfer to a large serving dish.  Cut lemon in half.  Squeeze juice from one half lemon over.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle with sea salt.
Cut remaining lemon half in slices and arrange over asparagus as garnish. 
Serve warm or at room temperature.
 

Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Rosemary and Garlic
Ask your butcher to bone and butterfly the lamb
 
Serves 6 - 8
 
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tblsp. Dijon-style mustard
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tblsp. fresh rosemary
Coarse sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
 
1 5-6 lb. (3 kg.) leg of lamb, boned and butterflied
 
Place lamb in a wide bowl or dish.  Combine olive oil, mustard and garlic in a small bowl. Pour over lamb and distribute evenly with hands. Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper. Allow to sit and marinate at room temperature for one hour.  (Can be prepared up to 24 hours in advance.  Cover and refrigerate.  Allow to come to room temperature before grilling.) 
Prepare barbeque. Grill lamb, turning, until meat thermometer inserted in thickest part of meat registers medium-rare, about 25 minutes.  Alternatively, roast in a pre-heated 425 F. oven approx. 30 minutes. Transfer meat to cutting board, tent loosely with foil and allow to rest 10 minutes.
Cut lamb in slices and garnish with fresh rosemary sprigs.
 
 
Steamed New Potatoes with Italian Parsley
Fresh, fast and deliciously simple - it doesn't get easier than this.

3 lbs. new potatoes, washed
Olive oil
Sea Salt
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, washed, dried, stems trimmed

Steam the new potatoes until tender. Transfer to a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil (or toss with butter, if you prefer.) Sprinkle with sea salt.
Toss with parsley and serve.

Lemon Cheesecake with Strawberries
An easy version of a timeless classic.  Prepare this cake one day before serving.
 
Serves 10 - 12

 
For the crust:
8 oz. graham crackers or digestive biscuits, in pieces
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
 
For the filling:
20 oz. (1 1/4 lb.) cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
8 oz. (1/2 lb.) Mascarpone cheese, room temperature
3 large eggs
1 tblsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons lemon zest
 
For the strawberries:
1 lb. strawberries, hulled, halved
3 tablespoons sugar
 
Make crust:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine graham crackers and brown sugar in bowl of food processor and finely grind.  Add butter and blend using on/off turns until crumbs are moist.  Press crumbs onto bottom and sides of a 24 cm. diameter springform pan.  Chill while preparing filling.
 
Make filling:
In a bowl of electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add Mascarpone cheese; beat until smooth.  Add eggs one at a time, beating 30 seconds after each.  Mix in lemon juice and zest.
 
Pour filling into crust.  Bake until cake is puffed at edges and center moves slightly when shaken, about one hour.  Transfer to rack and cool completely.  Cover and chill overnight.
 
Make strawberries:
In a bowl toss strawberries with sugar.  Allow to sit one hour before serving.  (Can be prepared 3 hours in advance.  Cover and refrigerate.  Serve at room temperature.)
 
To serve cake, run knife around sides of pan to loosen.  Release pan sides.  Place cake on plate and cut in slices.  Serve with strawberries.
 

Border Crossings

As mentioned, Switzerland is a landlocked country bordering a handful of countries. From Geneva, you can be in France within 10 minutes, Italy in an hour, and from Basel and Zurich you are close to Germany, Leichtenstein, Austria. To an American this is just nifty. I mean, honestly, the most common border to an American is a state border, and crossing from California to Nevada or Massachusetts to New Hampshire is not nearly as thrilling as driving across a Swiss border to another country! When you cross a Swiss frontière, suddenly you enter another culture with another language, another way of making very good espressos, another set of road signs that you don't understand. Crossing a U.S. state border, you mostly find speed traps.

The first house I lived in was in a small village between Geneva and Lausanne. In this small hamlet, there was a marie, or town hall, a boulangerie(no self-respecting village would be without one) and a douane, or border guard. We lived one mile from the French border and could easily drive to and fro between Switzerland and France to our hearts' content. On Sundays we would shop the open air market in Divonne-les-Bains, purchasing fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables, roasted chicken, artisan cheese, paté and foie gras. We would then head to the local tearoom and recharge ourselves with a luscious croissant d'amandes and cappuccino before crossing back over the border to our home in Crassier.

When I first arrived, I loved casually inserting into a conversation with friends or family back in the U.S. that I had just shopped for groceries that morning in France, or that I would dine that evening in a French countryside auberge. My friend Kingsley arrived from the U.S. to visit me, and one of our first outings was to walk to France. Now, mind you, this was not the most scenic walk to do in the area, but, by golly, what a good story to talk about after. We nonchalantly waved bon jour to the Swiss border guards as we strolled past their guardhouse and casually glanced at the decidedly empty French border guardhouse (the guards were most likely fortifying themselves over a 2 hour lunch break) and then voilà! We were officially in another country! We trudged on to our destination, a simple café in a French village where we ordered Salade aux Crottins de Chavignol, a glass of wine and the French version of very good espresso. We then walked back over the border and still are, clearly, talking about it.

Cheese Fondue

Cheese Fondue

You may wonder why on earth I would start with a cheese fondue recipe, especially since I had just arrived in Geneva after 6 months of cooking and eating my way through Paris. Well, I start with this, because this question best mirrored my own sentiment upon arriving in Switzerland and getting busy with one of my favorite extracurricular activities: Eating in restaurants.

On the heels of Parisian dining I found that Swiss dining was somewhat, well, limited. At least this is what I found in the spring of 1991. Yes, there were many fine establishments serving haute cuisine, but for those preferring less of an impact on wallet, digestion, and trouser-size, this was not an option for frequent dining. For more casual outings, the common option was the local auberges. These were cafés and inns located in every town and village; a convenient stop for those who tired of eating at home. Quickly, one discovered, however, that variety and choice were not necessarily the operative terms when the menus were devised.

Tarte Tatin

In keeping with the rustic French theme, I include my favorite Tarte Tatin recipe, which makes a perfect dessert to accompany the beef bourguignon, potato gratin and mixed green salad in my previous post. Tarte Tatin is pure heaven for lovers of caramelized fruit. It is essentially an upside down tart with the fruit on the bottom, well caramelized, and pastry on top. Named for the Tatin sisters who had a restaurant in the French village of Lamotte-Beuvron at the turn of the 20th century, it is believed to have originally been a mistake, when the pastry was omitted in error from the bottom of the tart. In a perfect example of "going with the flow" in the kitchen, the crust was added as an afterthought, and so we have the Tarte Tatin. Thank goodness for this mistake!

Tarte Tatin
Serves 10-12

Sour Cream Pastry
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut in pieces
6 tablespoons sour cream

Apple Filling
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tblsp. sugar
5 lbs. Granny Smith apples, peeled, quartered and cored
1 egg, beaten to blend, for glaze

Blend flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl of a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.
Add butter and beat at medium-low speed until butter is size of peas, about 3 minutes.
Add sour cream and beat until moist clumps form, about 1 minute. Gather dough into ball, flatten and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be made one day ahead. Keep refrigerated.) Let soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

Spread butter over bottom of large oven-proof skillet with sloping sides. Reserve 2 tablespoons of sugar. Sprinkle remaining sugar over butter. Place skillet over medium-low heat and cook until butter melts, sugar begins to dissolve and mixture starts to bubble, about 3 minutes.
Remove from heat. Arrange apples on their sides around edge of skillet, placing tightly together. Place reamining apples in a circle in center of skillet, core side facing up. Sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
Set skillet over medium-high heat. Boil until a thick amber coloured syrup forms, repositioning skillet to ensure even cooking, about 30 minutes. Remove skillet from heat.
Note: Do not allow syrup to darken on stove; it will continue to darken while baking.

Meanwhile, as apple mixture is cooking on stove, preheat oven to 425 F.
Roll out pastry on floured surface or parchment paper to a round shape to fit size of skillet. Place over apple mixture once removed from stove. Cut 4 slits in top of pastry. Press down around apples at edge of skillet; brush pastry with some of the egg glaze.

Bake tart until pastry is deep golden brown, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool one minute. Cut around edge of skillet to loosen pastry. Place large platter over skillet. Using oven mitts, hold skillet and platter together tightly together and invert tart onto platter. Cool 30 minutes.

Cut in wedges and serve with dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Notes:
Pastry dough may be frozen up to one month in freezer before rolling. Allow to defrost in refrigerator overnight.
Once tart has been inverted onto a platter, and if a more caramelized effect is desired, place the platter (ovenproof) under oven grill to allow further browning.
Apples may be substituted with another fruit such as pear or fresh apricot.
Tarte Tatin is traditionally served slightly warm or at room temperature.

Bon Appétit

For the past 18 years I have lived in 5 countries. In 1990 I moved to Paris to study cooking with the intention of lingering on after my cooking program finished and finding a job. Originally I planned to work as an interior designer. After all, that was my profession in Boston before I moved, and while I loved cooking, I approached it more as a hobby and a ticket to Europe. I figured that once I got myself to Paris, learned the ropes of La Cuisine Française, magically learned French (I studied Spanish in school), endeared myself to the all-embracing French population and became a local, well, then, I might just get a design job with Euro-Disney, which was in the process of being constructed on the outskirts of Paris. I would nimbly straddle the French-American culture, drinking café au lait and eating baguettes (I was on a tight budget, after all) while involving myself in the construction and decor of the Magic Kingdom and home of Mickey Mouse. Sounded like a plan.

As all best laid plans go, before I even boarded the jumbo to take me to Paris, I met a Dane in Boston who was in town on business from Geneva, Switzerland. What does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Well, everything. We hit it off, we liked each other. I thought he was cute, and apparently he felt the same about me. So, when I did fly over to Paris to cook, that was not the only thing that began cooking. Geneva and Paris are a 3 hour TGV train ride apart, and for the next 6 months we spent nearly every weekend together either in Paris or Geneva. So, upon my graduation from La Cuisine Base de Française in Paris, I decided that Euro-Disney would have to be built without me, packed my bags and took another TGV ride to Geneva - this time with the plan to stay.