Coeur de Porc a'Larmagnac

Didn't think I'd do it, did you?

Perhaps you are aware of the various recipes in the Les Halles Cookbook. Perhaps you own it. Perhaps you thought to yourself "nahh, she'll crap out before she gets to the hardcore stuff."

Perhaps you know what this is, and are blown away by my sheer audacity.

Or perhaps you are clueless and are thinking to yourself "doth my high school French deceive me? Is she cooking a coeur of a porc for REALS?"

The answer? Yes. Pig heart with Armagnac. There are a lot of interesting recipes in the Les Halles Cookbook, including an entire section labeled "Blood and Guts," which involves the cooking of various types of offal, or organ meats. Some of these recipes I know and love, specifically boudin noir (blood sausage) with caramelized apples. Some, however, are very exotic and include kidneys, livers, and in this case, a pig heart. So follow along as I man up to the challenge of my first "Blood and Guts" recipe.

First things first: secure a heart.

Well of course the only place to go is my trusty pork vendor, Cedarbrook Farm. I e-mailed them to ask if they had a heart available, and they responded that they had not one, but TWO, count them, TWO hearts, for $3 each. Can I just say, after the $15 roasted chicken, that this is probably the best bargain in the Les Halles Cookbook so far? I mean, pastured, farm raised organic pig hearts are incredibly freaking cheap. Perhaps because no one in their right mind would willingly put one in their mouths, but THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT. So heart problem solved. I got both, as one heart serves two, and I wanted to have enough for brave Neighbor C, who volunteered to try this potentially delicious and/or nasty dish.

Next, Armagnac. Armagnac is french brandy distilled from white grapes and aged in black oak casks for a minimum of two years. I'd never drunk Armagnac before, but now seems like as good a time as any to try. We have a pretty good liquor store just outside my metro stop (doesn't have awesome things like creme de violette and orgeat syrup, but does have my favorite absinthe and a good wine selection), and they had three types of Armagnac for my choosing. The sales guy told me he'd start me out with "entry level Armagnac," which made me giggle, and of course I chose the one that had a box with a guy sporting a rocking mustache on it.

"Bristles."

That night Husband J and I cracked it open, and WOW. I'm normally not a huge brandy or cognac fan, but this Armagnac put both to shame with its smooth texture and delicious flavor, which I won't try to describe here because hello, pretentious liquor critics suck. But it's damn tasty, so if you haven't tried Armagnac, give ol' mustachio a shot, ok?

And next, chicken stock. I used up my last bit of stock in the soupe au pistou, and was looking forward to roasting another chicken and using the bones in another batch of stock. Fate, it seems, thought differently. When I took my nice organic Whole Foods chicken from the fridge and opened its packet, it smelled rank. The damn thing was rotten, and even had a week to go before its "sell by" date! Ugh. I chucked the entire thing, and ordered delivery fish curry.

Sunday morning arrived, and I rolled out of bed to pick up my hearts. The Cedarbrook Farm rep at the stand was very nice, asking me about the dish and wishing me luck. She handed me two nicely vacuum wrapped packets, beautifully labeled.


I headed down to the next meat stand, as they often sell chicken stock... but no such luck, they had none that day. Which is why, though I swore up and down I would use no shortcuts in this project, I am using... shudder... store bought chicken stock. Forgive me Tony, for I have sinned...

Anyway, no more crying over the chicken stock that was not meant to be. Time to roast some garlic.

Coeur de Porc a'lArmagnac requires the making of garlic confit from the "miscellaneous meez" section of the book. Garlic confit is essentially roasted, salted garlic, and is horrifyingly easy to make. Just chuck a bunch of unpeeled garlic cloves onto some aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, salt and add a sprig of thyme, roast at 350 for 30 minutes, and you are set. Makes your house smell awesome to boot. Husband J attacked the confit once it was made, and it was all I could do to save some for the sauce.

Before

After

I also set up to make roasted fingerling potatoes, salad, and a plum tart with the Italian plums that I found at the market. I figured just in case the heart turns out to be horrible, we'll have something to wash away the taste... and if it's sweet, so much the better.

Apparently I have embraced the "elegant spiral" after all. Go me!

I know you are all thinking "Okay ENOUGH with the bitching about the chicken, the neurotic back and forth and the freaking garlic! We want to see the money shot, bitch, where is the fucking HEART?"

Here you go:


Mmmm doesn't that look tasty? Look at all those nerves, and veins and... stuff.

While the hearts defrosted in an ice bath, I utilized some leftover back fat (haha, back fat) from the rillettes, rendered it in a sautee pan and sweated some onion and herbs until soft.


Then I trimmed the fat from the top of the hearts, and stuffed them with the onion mixture.

I am so hardcore.

Well maybe not stuffed. The recipe calls for stuffing the ventricles with the onion mixture (pleasant thought, I know), but the hearts I have obtained are split down the middle, presumably for easier cooking. That's great, but now I have not much space for stuffing. I settled on stuffing what I could, and ladling the rest over the hearts to cover. Into the oven they went for 20 minutes (double the time for one heart).


I opened the oven once to check on their progress, and the smell that wafted out was, well, good. It smelled rich and meaty and hearty. It smelled like a good boudin noir smells.

After the hearts were cooked I covered them with foil to rest while I made the sauce. This part is a little dicey, as it involves cooking down the Armagnac in a pan over a gas flame. "The Armagnac will probably flame up," says Tony, "so watch out." Oh my god. I should note here that I'd already set off the smoke alarm with my roasted potatoes (remember why you never roast potatoes any more? Because that always happens.) I had visions of flames licking the kitchen ceiling. I called Husband J into the kitchen. "I'm going to need you to stand by with the fire extinguisher," I said.

"Are you kidding?" he asked, incredulous.

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" I shot back. He trotted off to get the fire extinguisher.

My best friend.

I heated the shot of Armagnac in the pan. Here my bravery gave out, and I controlled the temperature so that it reduced but did not flame up. Then I poured in the *shudder* store bought stock, reduced some more, and then stirred in the pan drippings from the hearts. The garlic confit went in next, as well as a hefty knob of butter. I may have reached a saturated fat event horizon with this sauce.


Finally, with the sauce made, I sliced the hearts very thinly until they resembled nothing so much as a nice fillet, instead of a scarily shaped organ. At this point, I decided to be brave again, so I grabbed a slice and popped it in my mouth. Husband J watched with wide eyes. "How is it?" he asked.

I chewed. "It tastes like... roast beef!"

And it did. Exactly like roast beef. With a little bit of a chewy texture, and an undertaste that signaled the organ-ness of the meat, but otherwise you could put it on a sandwich with mayo and provolone and never tell the difference.

No really, it's roast beef. Try it.

Over the slices went the sauce, and we trucked our dishes over to Neighbor C's for a double feature of trashy reality TV: TA2 and "My Antonio". Between the three of us we cleaned up the potatoes and most of the heart, and demolished a good two thirds of the plum tart, which was the favorite of everyone involved (thanks, Oprah!). But everyone went for seconds on the heart, which made me incredibly happy. Another success.

So, would I make it again? Well, honestly, probably not. It was a good dish, but more rich than I like my food (and that's before the butter sauce), and the special ordering of the heart tends to be something I'd rather forego. But I'm glad I made it and glad I ate it, as I'm well on my way to true culinary badassery.

Lessons learned: Just because "offal" and "awful" are homonyms does not mean they should be conflated. Heart tastes good, like roast beef, but slice it thin anyway so it doesn't look like you're gnawing on a big nasty organ. Armagnac is delicious to drink and to cook with, just make sure you don't start fires. Never roast potatoes, ever. Sauce is always better with roasted garlic and butter. Sometimes even the best of plans fall through and you have to use nasty store bought stock.

Next Week: Break time. I have a packed Sunday that involves other people cooking for me, so although I might consider doing a small dish or appetizer, it's more likely I'll take a break and return on October 4 with something new and delicious. Stay tuned, please!

Salade Niçoise

Okay yup, I copped out on the whole snapper, and am doing Salade Niçoise for this week's dish. But there is a reason for this... after a hard week at work, I limp-ragged it through Friday afternoon, necessitating Nepalese takeout for dinner, then headed up to Baltimore to go to a street festival, where I ate deliciously creamy penne alla vodka and various deep fried delicacies. After that I could barely eat for most of Sunday, and decided that the best cure for this weekend of culinary excess would be a fresh, salty, acidic Salade Niçoise for dinner. And anyway, it's not really a copout. I mean, Julia did an entire show about Salad Niçoise. It also involves two basic kitchen techniques that it's always good to feature: blanching veggies and hard-boiling eggs.

Salad Niçoise always seemed like a rather appealing dish, fresh and filling at the same time, but I've actually never eaten it. The reason is that I've always seen it served in places that sell their salads in plastic clamshell packets, and the contents--limp lettuce, grey grainy tuna, over-boiled eggs with that awful green ring around the yolk--never inspired me to want to eat, let alone make, any such concoction. It seemed like the salad would be overly oily, salty and gross, and looking at the recipe in the Les Halles Cookbook did not inspire much confidence. Oh well. Today is apparently my time for Salade Niçoise, so let's get to it.

First, take about 6 ounces of haricots verts--that's green beans to you filthy Americans--and blanch them in a pot of boiling water. Tony gives a few tips on this. "Anytime you blanch a green vegetable, the more water and the more room, the better...[t]hey need plenty of room to swim around." Sounds good. Into the boiling pot they go for 6 minutes, then into an ice bath. Blanching vegetables is a great technique to use when you need greens or veggies (such as spinach, green beans, kale, etc.) that need to be cooked a little so they're not crunchy and tough, but can't be cooked too much or they turn to mush.

Plenty of room... they were perfect!

Next, the potatoes cook for 20 minutes, until they are tender and can be pierced easily with a fork.


While the potatoes cooked, I hard boiled two eggs. I'm not much of a hard boiler, really. Husband J and I both hate hard boiled eggs. I'm not a fan of rubbery white and chalky, crumbly yolk. I prefer soft boiled or poached eggs, I love dipping bread into a runny yolk, preferably mixed with a generous amount of butter and salt (I am salivating just thinking about this) and often eat soft boiled eggs for breakfast in little egg cups shaped like fish. (I know, precious, but it really is the most delicious breakfast with buttered toast.) So I had to turn to Tony's instructions: "How to Hard Boil a Freaking Egg" featured under the recipe for Oeufs Perigourdins (hard boiled eggs stuffed with yolks, ham and truffles, dipped in egg white meringue and deep fried in duck fat. Can't wait to see me try that one, can you?). Anyway, take cold water in a small pot, add the two eggs, then bring them to a boil.

Boiling eggs

Shut off the heat, clap on a lid and wait ten minutes, then put the eggs in an ice bath to cool. Then peel, halve, and check to see if they are done well.

No yucky ring = hard boiled perfection. Kind of like Raymond Chandler.

Time for the salad dressing. Rub a garlic clove on the salad bowl, then add olive oil and red wine vinegar, and whisk with the fork, which should still have the garlic clove on it (mmm, garlic).


Then I took the bibb lettuce, peppers, potatoes (quartered), tomatoes, haricots verts, nicoise olives, and cut up pieces of anchovy, and tossed them in the dressing. Over this salad went the expensive yellowfin tuna packed in oil in a jar (not a can!!) and hard boiled egg halves.

Husband J and I took this dinner up to the roof for an al fresco dinner with a baguette and some cheese as a side.


The verdict: AMAZING. Anyone like me who thinks that this would be a weird, overly salty and kind of gross combination needs to shut the eff up and make this salad right now. It was an amazing meld of flavors that went so well together, it was like the veggies were expressly grown to meld with the dressing, fish, and eggs. The salad was a perfect main dish (as I suspected) nicely filling yet fresh at the same time. Husband J even ate his hard boiled egg half, and asked for (and dished himself) another half, which is an amazing feat for me. Yup, the eggs, cooked correctly, were not chalky or rubbery at all, but tender and creamy. While neither of us would eat the egg by itself, it tasted wonderful with the veggies and dressing to go with it.

Husband J opined that the salad was even better than our beloved tomato salad, because of the complexity of the flavors and the fact that it was more "main dish" than "side dish." We have both officially changed our tune about Salade Niçoise, and I can see myself fixing this dish again in the near future.

Lessons learned: Don't discount a dish just because it doesn't look good when it's takeout... buy the expensive tuna and anchovies, and give it a try. Properly boiled eggs make all the difference. Always make your own salad dressing by stirring it with a garlic clove.

Next week: I may try the whole roasted fish basquaise, or the skate grenobloise. But I may go crazy and cook the coeur de porc a l'armagnac. Keep an eye out for a middle of the week post... there's another chicken to be roasted, and I may try one of the potato recipes to accompany it.

Soupe au Pistou and Basic Tart Dough

Last Monday after our extravagant turkey dinner in August, a day where we could hardly sit outside because it was so hot, the temperature suddenly dropped. I walked outside to go to work in a light summer dress only to find that outside, it was in the low 60s. I could not believe it... but it is a sign. Summer is almost over.

Husband J is thrilled. Fall is his favorite season, and he can't wait to break out sweaters, coats and scarves, and eat fall type foods like apples and sausage, roasted root vegetables, and rich braised meats.

I'm not so thrilled. Despite the oppressive humidity that characterizes D.C. summers, I really love the warm weather and the start of cold weather always makes me feel a little sad. It's time to have a last summer meal, veggie heavy, and full of the last of the best late summer produce. Soupe au pistou is definitely the best way to do that, as it is full of zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, and basil.

This weekend, Labor Day holiday weekend, was an odd one. I ended up heading home sick from work early on Friday, and stayed sick through Saturday, leading to a very low key video game playing day. Sunday I woke up feeling better and headed to the market for veggies. When I got to the stand that sells my favorite yogurt and butter, they had a big sign out front: "WE HAVE MASCARPONE!" so I couldn't resist getting a tub. That gave me an idea for a mascarpone fruit tart, so I grabbed a load of peaches and blackberries (I think those fruits go very well together). The soup and tart will be very delicious refreshments for tonight's activity--visiting neighbor C's apartment for a double feature of the second season of Tool Academy (Husband J terms it "TA2: The Reckoning").

First, the tart crust. I was hoping for a better result than the pie frankencrust from two weeks ago, which turned out dry and patchy, and not very photogenic. Tart crust is not made in the food processor, which is good, as I've decided I prefer making crusts with my own two hands. Tart crust is also softer, sweeter, and more delicate than pie crust.

I started out by sifting flour into a bowl, creaming butter and stirring it into the flour, then adding egg, sugar, and vanilla.

Crust ingredients in the sun.

I mixed all of these with a fork old-school style, and the crust came together easily. I took a taste of the raw dough, and it's just astoundingly delicious, like the sugar cookie dough my grandmother makes for her Christmas cookies, and which I can (and have) eat(en) by the handful (salmonella be damned). I wrapped it up and set it in the fridge to cool for an hour.

After the hour passed, it was time to roll the crust out. This crust was just beautiful... soft, rich, delicious tasting, and rolled out nicely in a circle. The only problem was, despite the generous flouring I gave my silicone mat and the rolling pin, the crust just did not want to transfer to the pan. First it stuck to the mat, forcing me to tear it up and re-roll it, then an attempt to transfer it into the tart pan caused it to tear in half. I ended up pressing the crust together in the pan again, creating a Frankentartcrust which ended up being a bit more photogenic than Frankenpiecrust, anyway.

Frankentartcrust!!!

While the crust baked in the oven, I made the custard, using the recipe called for in the Tart Alcasienne (apple tart), replacing the called for heavy cream with mascarpone. Only I screwed the filling up by adding the eggs before putting it on the stove, and realized my mistake before putting the whole mess on the stove to heat. I decided to try it, hoping the egg wouldn't curdle if I kept whisking. One sore forearm and a mess-o-curdle later, I dumped the pot and made another batch of custard, this time keeping the eggs separate until I boiled the cream. That seemed to work well. Once the custard was finished and cooling, I sliced the peaches, arranged the berries in the crust, and poured custard over the whole thing. Into the oven it went to set.

Time to make the soup! The canellini beans had soaked overnight, so they went into the pot for 10 minutes, 5 minutes less than their package said to cook them. While they cooked, I chopped the zucchini, onion, garlic, tomato and fennel. Onion and garlic sweat in the pot first, then I added the rest of the veggies to soften in the oil.

Gorgeous veggies!

Once the veg were soft, I added the chicken broth, a bouquet garni, the macaroni and the beans, and set the thing to simmer for half an hour.


Meanwhile I made the pistou (basically pesto, without the nuts). This involves mashing six cloves of garlic and a bunch of basil leaves into a paste with a mortar and pestle, then adding olive oil a bit at a time, mashing until smooth. "If you are criminally lazy," says Tony, "you can use a food processor." Okay, done!

Mmmm... criminal laziness....

A bit of Parmesan, salt and pepper, and the pistou was finished.


This is where the problems in the soup pot began. The macaroni started cooking nicely, and was soft and delicious in a few minutes. The beans, however, remained rock-hard and kind of disgusting. Full disclosure... I'm not the biggest fan of beans in general, since my early days when beans came in a can and were covered in slime, and I've never worked with dried beans in a dish before. Not a good day to try....the clock was ticking for Tool Academy to start, and the beans were just not cooking! Finally I decided enough was enough--the veggies and mac were turning to mush, and the broth was cooking out of the soup. I took the soup off the heat, stirred in the pistou, packed it into a tureen, and trucked it over to Neighbor C's for a night of tools and prosecco.

Despite the great cannelini bean disaster, the soup went over very well, with everyone having seconds and lapping up even the nasty beans (I warned everyone about the al dente nature of the beans, but it ended up being too much trouble to pick them up or eat around them). Everyone involved loved garlic, which is a good thing, since with the pistou the entire thing had eight big cloves. It really would have been great if the beans had cooked properly, but as it was, the taste was good, even if the texture was a bit off.


The tart was of course the hit of the night. In my opinion the fruit was the best, followed by the nice sugar cookie crust. The tarte alcasienne custard was a bit too eggy and rich for a summer fruit tart, but it didn't taste bad. Husband J opined that it was better than the usual too-sweet custards in fruit tarts, so all in all, it worked out.

I tried to arrange the peaches artistically, but it didn't quite work out...

It's almost time to start stewing and braising, which means I need to make some veal stock. Alas, no veal bones were to be had at the market today. It's kind of depressing that there are no real butchers to be found in DC, though I have a promise from one of the farmers market stands that I can e-mail them on Thursdays to see if I can find some bones at the next market. I'm not feeling too sanguine though, since veal is a spring thing, right? I'm running out of recipes that can be made without veal stock and demi glace, though, so if anyone knows where I can find some bones, please let me know...

ETA: Forgot my lessons and future plans! Here we go...

Lessons learned: Cannelini beans take for freakin' ever to cook and don't taste that good al dente. Everything tastes better with 8 cloves of garlic. Never put the eggs in the custard before you put it on the stove, they curdle no matter how fast you whisk. Mascarpone tart is ok, but there are better ways to showcase mascarpone flavor, next time just use cream. Tart crust is delicious but delicate to handle. Veal bones apparently do not exist in DC.

Next week: Possibly salad nicoise, or if I am feeling very ambitious, whole roasted fish basquaise which has the added bonus of leftover bones so I can make fumet (fish stock). The soupe au pistou used up the rest of my chicken stock, so we'll probably have to roast another chicken in the near future so I can have more bones. Who is up for a stock making party?

Crème Brûleé

I'm usually not one to go with the pretentious french accents on words. I mean, really, especially "crème" because it makes me think of low-rent face creams or hair dye at home kits that try to class it up by writing "crème" instead of "cream." But crème brûleé has THREE different types of accent letter (whoa!), and besides, it is classy, not low-rent-dressed-up-as-classy. So we'll use the accents today.

Crème brûleé was the first really French dessert I ever ate while in Paris. I went as a treat for my 16th birthday (I know, super privileged, right? Not so much, actually went with my Dad who was there on business and decided it would be fun to take me and Grandma along... well we all had to share a tiny room and they snored, so I ended up sleeping in the bathtub every night. But Paris!) We had our first nice dinner at the restaurant atop the Musee d'Orsay, which was amazing. I had escargots for the first time at that meal, which I piggishly refused to share (more garlic butter for me). But when dessert time came, I had my first bite of vanilla-infused custard with crunchy sugar top, and it was love at first bite. It's still my favorite dessert, and I particularly love it infused with tea flavors, like earl grey, jasmine or matcha. But vanilla is still the best.

Mom also loves crème brûleé--it is her favorite dessert too--so I knew when I saw the recipe in the Les Halles Cookbook I'd have to make it for her. The opportunity arose this weekend when she decided to host family dinner when my sister came into town from Chicago. Well, sort of decided. The conversation went a bit like this.

Mom: "Sister M has asked for her favorite dinner tonight--Thanksgiving turkey and all the sides."

Me: "There is no way I am making a fucking turkey. But I'll make dessert."

Mom: "What's for dessert?"

Me: "Crème brûleé."

Mom: "Ooooh..."

Done and done. I had egg yolks to use up and a tube of vanilla beans, so I was ready to go. I hauled these, plus my ramekins out to the suburbs to cook dessert in mom's kitchen.

Tony's crème brûleé recipe is easily the richest I have ever made. Most call for a mix of cream and milk, with four to six egg yolks. Tony wants a full QUART of heavy cream and TEN egg yolks. It took all of my eggs plus all of mom's eggs to get the right amount.

First I halved the vanilla bean, and scraped the middles into the cream with a knife, putting the shell into the cream once it was scraped clean.


Add sugar, then put the pot onto the stove to boil.


Next, whisk the remaining sugar into the egg yolks. Once the cream boiled, Husband J helped to slowly pour splashes of cream into the yolks, while I whisked to make sure they didn't curdle. We poured the mixture into ramekins, which we put into pyrex dishes half-filled with water.


They went in the oven for 50 minutes, until the tops were set, but jiggled a little.


The custards cooled while we finished our turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, steamed vegetables and cranberry sauce. As the family relaxed on the deck, I dumped a tablespoon of granulated sugar (Tony calls for brown, but Mom's brown sugar was disgustingly rock-hard, so granulated it was) on top of the custards. They went under the broiler, set on high, until the sugar liquefied, caramelized and charred a little.



I served them still warm--we couldn't wait for dessert much longer. Everyone went crazy for these crème brûleés, though by the time we got through our dinners AND dessert, we were all feeling pretty gluttonous and nauseated. (The desserts were BIG, too.) Everyone scraped their bowls pretty clean, except mom who insisted on saving half of hers (and pouring everyone's scraps into her ramekin) for lunch tomorrow. For me, the vanilla bean really made the dish. I'd never actually made a dessert with a vanilla bean before, having previously only used vanilla extract. Even with the random Indonesian beans I found at Whole Foods (which were NOT cheap by any means), the vanilla flavor was super strong yet subtle and just plain delicious. I also liked using so much sugar on the tops, as they cracked like very proper crème brûleés in a satisfying way. I like crunching the top and mixing the bits into the cream so that I get sugar top in every bite. Delicious! Grandma even said I'd beat out the crème brûleés made by Cousin A, who is a pastry chef... though I'm pretty sure she was just being nice. All in all, a big dessert success.

Oh, additionally, we brought some of the rillettes over as an appetizer, and even picky Sister A ate and enjoyed the delicious porky goodness. We have one more big tupperware of pork to go. Takers???

Lessons learned: Vanilla bean is always best. With crème brûleé, the richer the better, but I kinda want to throw up now. I'm so going to gain 30 pounds while doing this project.

Next week: Soupe au Pistou

Rillettes: Tasting Day

Today is Wednesday! The shredded porky goodness of the rillettes have been snuggling up together for three days, which means it is time to taste them.

What should be a glorious, victorious day started out with some disappointing news. Dad, alas, will not make it into the US this weekend after all, so plans for family dinner may have gone to naught. Now two of us have two whole tupperwares of shredded pork meat covered in back fat to eat. By ourselves. This had better taste pretty freaking delicious in order to be worth the twin heart attacks we will so clearly be having.

So Husband J and I sat down to our meal, which consisted of sliced baguette, rillettes, and spinach salad with cherry tomatoes. (A lot of salad.)

Now, one thing I wasn't sure about is what to do with the back fat. Tony doesn't really say what to do with the stuff when you actually get around to eating it. I ended up just peeling it off and saving it to wrap the leftovers.

As I scooped the pork into the ramekin, I started to get a bit concerned. I mean, let's face it. The stuff looks like cat food. But then all pate looks kind of like cat food, so maybe we are kind of on the right track.

The rillettes:

Yup. Cat food.

As for the taste, well, actually I surprised myself yet again. These are GOOD! Despite the cat food looks, this is actually a very nice pork pate type dish. Husband J and I thought it might taste more like pulled pork with french spices instead of barbecue sauce, but it is more of a classic pate flavor. And hey, I made (kind of) pate that tastes like (actual) pate, first time ever. Yay me!

We ended up eating the full ramekin on about half the baguette, so now I feel like I have gained about 20 pounds of pure pork fat. Even still, it was a good summer dinner, since it's served cold, and goes great with the salad.

Of course now we still have a tupperware and a half to go. This stuff is very filling. Maybe we should have family dinner after all. Anyone who wants to help us eat these, please leave comments. Because I need more comments!

Rillettes du Porc, Basic Pie Dough

Today's Les Halles adventure is a truly frenchified dish, rillettes du porc. This is the first dish I got really excited about cooking from the Les Halles Cookbook because it looks intimidating at first glance, but actually requires very little labor on the part of the cook. It's also the dish that Tony rhapsodizes about in the introduction to the cookbook as being the thing that convinced him to take the job as executive chef at Les Halles restaurant in the first place.

He tells the story in the introductory section of the cookbook, how he went to an interview with Jose de Meirelles and was unimpressed with the shabby, dirty looking restaurant, nicotine stained ceilings blazing in the noon New York sun. The interview concluded with an invitation to dinner at the restaurant. Tony decided to pass on the job, but mentioned the free dinner offer to his (first) wife Nancy. She, hungry for steak frites, insisted he keep the dinner appointment. When the two pushed their way into the now-crowded, darkened restaurant, it was clear a magical transformation had taken place. He stared, astounded at the menu at dishes he hadn't seen since his childhood summers in France, and the first dish he orders is "a crock of lovely, extravagantly fatty rillettes." By the time he finished dinner, he decided to take the job, and the rest is food-memoir-and-travel-tv history. (It's a good story, and better the way he writes it, so I encourage you all to buy the cookbook or get it from the library even if just for this three-page story.)

So what are rillettes du porc? Basically, it's boiled, shredded pork, stored under slices of fat, and molded like a pate to be served spread over slices of baguette as an appetizer. I'm making them this weekend for a family dinner next weekend in honor of dad's visit. My dad lives as an expat in a Middle Eastern country, and whenever he comes back to the US for a visit or business, the first thing he looks for is a big serving of pork. Rillettes seem like the perfect, porky gluttenous dish to serve him, particularly since Ramadan began yesterday, and he (a non-Muslim) is forced to snatch quick bites in his office while the rest of his colleagues fast. Rillettes also have to be made at least three days in advance to allow the flavors to marry, which is why I'm making them this weekend for next weekend's dinner.

On to the dish!

I knew just where I was going to get my pork for this dish--the Cedarbrook Farm stand at the farmer's market, which provides the most delicious pastured pork. I am a huge fan of their hot Italian sausage (of which they were providing free samples while we waited in the line--BONUS!) and their bacon. I was waited on by the must cherubic little boy who sweetly asked me what I would like from their truck.

"I need some serious pork from you today!" I said, to differentiate myself from the masses who were snapping up the Italian sausages after tasting the free samples (posers... I liked the sausage BEFORE it was cool). "Do you have pork belly?"

Angelic little boy conferred with his mom, who was working with the register.

"Not til September!" he reported.

What is this?? Pork belly not in season? I was not aware that there even was a season for pork belly, though I suppose it makes some sense. Well never mind, Whole Foods was bound to have something I could use. I ordered a pound of pork shoulder (though as I discovered it only comes in 3 pound packets) and a pound of back fat (hahaha, back fat back tack tack back fat back...). After obtaining some veggies, peaches, yogurt and butter from the market stands, I left Husband J with the bags while I ran to the Whole Foods to find some belly. Only when I got there, there was no pork belly to be had. I skimmed the butcher stand, remembering to check the refrigerated cuts section, but still no darn belly! Oh well, I decided, grabbing two pounds of bacon. What is bacon but pork belly that has been cured and sometimes smoked? I got the thickest, fattiest, least messed with bacon I could find, which would just have to do.

I was feeling a little despondent as I walked back to the house in the hot Sunday morning sun. But I had to remind myself that I'd done the best I could, that salted pork belly was probably not going to taste too different than non-cured belly, and that however you slice it, I was the winner in this situation, because I was the one walking home with TWO POUNDS OF BACON!!!

Only, I wasn't. I walked in the door, and found Husband J slicing up some peaches into little bowls of greek yogurt for our breakfast, and pouring coffee.

"Did you find the pork belly?" he asked.

"Nope," I said, "so I got bacon. See?"

I reached into the bag and got a handful of parsley. Bay leaf. Two slices of Norwegian Jarlsburg. Thyme. Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. But no bacon. I'd left it at the register.

Gallant Husband J grabbed the receipt and trotted back to Whole Foods to fetch the bacon while I seethed, steamed and sweated, and used up all our ice in an ice bath to defrost the pork shoulder.

Pork Shoulder defrosting in its package. I looove you Cedarbrook Farm!

When the bacon arrived, I chopped it up into sliced chunks and threw it into the big stock pot.

mmm. Bacon.

The pork shoulder had about defrosted, so I cut the three pound cut into thirds, and chopped a third into chunks. The shoulder even had a layer of skin on it, which to my credit, I was NOT grossed out by. Mostly I thought to myself, "cool, skin" because although I am not awesome enough to actually slaughter a pig and cook it for my dinner, I feel that buying pastured pork with the bones and skin and all is a good way to get to that point.

Pork shoulder chopped. At the top is the branded or stamped bits of skin. To the right of those is my Whole Foods receipt, used to claim the bacon. To the right is my 8.5 inch Wusthof chef's knife. She is my very favorite knife. I call her "Vera."

The pork went into the pot along with some fresh herbs (parsley, bay leaf, thyme) and four cups of water.


I turned the heat on to low, and we are set to cook for six hours. Now there is something kind of morally reprehensible to me about boiling bacon. Bacon, like all the most delicious foods (onion rings, paneer pakoras, beignets, calamari, mars bars) should be FRIED. And I can't help but thinking of that bit in Better Off Dead where the mom boils the bacon and it turns green and disgusting. But the French have apparently been boiling bacon for centuries, and who am I to argue with the French and Julia Child?

Next, time to make some basic pie dough from the "miscellaneous meez" (ugh, so precious) section of the cookbook, for tonight's dinner of zucchini/tomato/leek quiche. There aren't any quiche recipes in the Les Halles Cookbook, but I do make a mean quiche, and am evangelical about handmade pie crusts. Premade does NOT taste the same, or feel the same, or ANYTHING the same as a simple, easy homemade crust. I have made plenty of crusts in my time, but now is a great time to try Tony's recipe.

Today it's time to try a crust technique that I've never done--pie crust in the food processor. I've heard it's the easiest, best way to make a pie crust, but what can I say... I'm old school and tend to use a fork. I put 2 cups of sifted flour into the processor, along with sugar, salt, a stick of butter and a beaten egg (really? Never used an egg in pie crust either). Blended all of this until it was a mass of crust.


Then I added a tablespoon and a half of water. when the crust came away from the sides of the Cuisinart, it was time to roll it into a ball, cover in plastic, and refrigerate.

Pulling away from the sides of the Cuisinart.

The pork continued to simmer on the stovetop, filling the house with pork-smelling goodness. I sat down for a break to watch a DVD of The French Chef with Julia Child that I got off Netflix (to husband J's dismay--he'd wanted either The State or Mad Men, both of which were ahead of The French Chef in our queue. But both had "long waits" so The French Chef it was). Julia was cooking tripes a la mode, holding up an entire cow stomach for our viewing pleasure. Between putting together the quiche (bacon, egg, cheese, veggies sauteed in bacon fat), the pork simmering on the stove (more than half fat itself) and the tripe on the tv, I was beginning to feel a little ill.

Once properly cooled, I rolled the pie crust out on my silicone mat. To my great dismay, the crust was a little too dry, and cracked immediately. I frantically patched it together, but by the time I had it rolled out and ready to get into the pie pan, it cracked again. I had to console myself with piecing it, bit by bit, into the pie pan, and pressing it together first with fingertips, then the heel of my hand for an even surface.

FRANKENCRUST!!!

At least it was marginally in once piece at this point. I filled it with zucchini-onion mixture, then bits of bacon left over from the rillettes and cooked the way God intended (that is FRIED), then some halved cherry tomatoes from the market, and covered it with a mix of eggs, milk, cream, and cheese. Popped that into the oven for about an hour.

Some people would have arranged the tomatoes and zucchini artfully, perhaps in an elegant spiral. Those people can suck it.

By this time, Julia was showing us how to fillet whole fish, and roast and serve them by pulling their tails apart and stuffing them through their mouths, as if they were throwing up their own tails. I was feeling seriously sick at that point.

"I should have made salad," I groaned.

"Is the quiche ready?" asked Husband J.

Almost. The quiche was golden brown at the end of the hour, and out of the oven it came, ready for our dinner.


To my astonishment, frankencrust actually tasted really good. It wasn't rock hard, as I feared it would be, but buttery, light, and flaky, the way a good pie crust should be. It got a bit heavy at the edges, but that's it. I managed to get down a small piece of quiche, but that was about all the grease I could handle for one night. Husband J procured a dry riesling that was acidic enough to make me feel a little better. It was practically a salad.

After dinner, the pork was ready. I drained it in a colander, then, in batches, shredded the pork with two forks.

This really does not look appetizing.

Shredding the pork

"Feel free to shovel some still-warm pork into your face," recommends Tony when you get to this step. "You know you want to."

Well actually I was still feeling sick and did NOT want any pork. But I managed to feed some to Husband J, who gave it an enthusiastic double thumbs up.

Finally, the shredded pork gets stored in small plastic containers under a layer of back fat. It has to marry for three days, so we'll try one of the containers on Wednesday (with a SALAD) and report back on how it tastes!

Covered in back fat. Haha. "Back fat."

Lessons Learned: Pork belly has a season and it starts in September, which is not now. "Back fat" is hilarious to say. Don't leave your bacon at the Whole Foods, but if you do, it's easy to get back. Making too much bacon-centered foods in one day while watching Julia Child cook tripe will make you feel very sick, so try not to do that.

Next time: Tasting report on rillettes du porc.

(Non)Grilled Lamb (Non)Steaks and Blueberries with Lime Sugar

Today's dinner takes place on a Saturday, as some friends (K & A) from the suburbs are coming into the city to partake of our bistro bounty. This is great, though it does mean that we must do our shopping at the Whole Foods rather than the farmer's market. So husband J and I headed down in the morning to purchase some lamb steak.

Now I have nothing against Whole Foods. It is definitely expensive, but I love how you can find practically anything there, especially our favorite beer, which we drank with BLTs for lunch. One issue I have with Whole Foods is that it tempts me into buying pre-made foods when I'd really rather cook. But I countered that desire by eschewing the premade sandwiches in favor of buying some nitrite free bacon, bread and lettuce and making BLTs with the leftover tomatoes we bought for tonight's dinner.

We even found the exact cuts of lamb we needed... with some mishap. We headed to the meat counter first, and, not finding lamb leg steaks, decided on a 2 lb butterflied lamb leg which we figured we'd cut up after grilling. Of course, 15 minutes later while looking for creme fraiche we found in the packaged meat section precisely the cuts of lamb we needed. We'd already had the other packaged for us though, and the leg was local rather than from New Zealand, as the steaks were, so we decided to go with the butterflied leg anyway. We also grabbed some more local heirloom tomatoes for a tomato salad (We can't not eat tomato salad with the tomatoes being so delicious right now) and some blueberries.

Once home, I cut the excess fat and silvering from the lamb and put it in the marinade--garlic, olive oil, rosemary, thyme--and in the fridge. Technically it is supposed to marinate overnight but I figured six hours would not be so bad.


Then I started into the lime confit for the blueberries. This was extremely easy, basically peeling the zest from the lime, slicing it into thin, vertical slices, and boiling it in a mix of water and sugar until half the water has cooked off.


A few hours later, it was time to take a look at our cooking implement, the rooftop grill. Unfortunately and to our disappointment, the grill had decided that today was a good day to actually not ignite... leaving us with only one option (since we have no grill pan), to broil the leg of lamb. So we have non-grilled lamb non-steaks to look forward to... hopefully the fact that we are using Tony's marinade will make up for the unorthodox cooking methods and cuts.

So while I prepped the tomato and onion for the salad, I put the lamb in the roasting pan and under the broiler for about 10 minutes per side. I used a meat thermometer to gauge the temperature of the interior of the lamb, which almost led to disaster when I didn't realize that the cord to the thermometer was actually touching the flames emanating from our broiler unit. Whoops. After a little toxic smoke, but not too much damage, I readjusted the thermometer. The interior of the meat was still a bit cool after broiling, so I left the lamb in a 200 degree oven for about 10 more minutes until the middle of the lamb reached 60 degrees C (I couldn't figure out how to adjust the thermometer to Fahrenheit), the temperature that corresponds with "rare."

While the lamb cooked I finished the tomato salad, and made an onion sauce consisting of chopped onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Finally I finished the dessert by mixing the juice of the zested limes, a little sugar, and the blueberries. I topped the berries with a chiffonaide of mint leaves, and left them in the fridge.


Once the lamb came out of the oven and rested for 10 minutes, everything was ready, and dinner was served (too quickly to allow for pics of the finished lamb, unfortunately). The lamb with onion sauce and the salad were big hits with everyone. I sliced the leg thin, which allowed for small slices to hold generous amounts of onion sauce, and allowing all to have seconds and thirds of the meat. I felt a bit bad actually, since both the main course and salad relies heavily on onion flavor, which made for a rather acidic dinner, but everyone seemed to enjoy it anyway. The resident food critic liked the lamb quite a lot, saying "It was more familiar than some of the other things you've cooked," because it allowed for the flavor of the meat to shine through and reminded him of having lamb in Greektown near Detroit as a kid. He also liked the very prominent onion flavor to the dinner, which made me feel a bit better.

The dessert ended up being the big hit of the night--despite it being again very acidic due to the lime juice and berries. We served the soaked berries with creme fraiche, which was a perfect accompaniment. K and I ended up scooping creme fraiche into the juice left on our plates when we finished, and ate the cream soaked in the leftover berry/lime juice. All in all another successful dinner.

Lessons learned: Whole Foods has a packaged meat counter as well as a butcher deli, so look there before deciding on a different cut than the recipe calls for. Onions are great, but maybe not in every single course. Creme fraiche basically wins everything. Tomato salad is always successful when it is the time of year for delicious tomatoes. Lime zest might be awesome in a cocktail of some kind (maybe a gimlet?)

Next week: Not really sure actually. I'll be on a business trip for most of the week, so it may end up being "whatever I feel like." Dad's coming in from the middle east, though, so I may try to make rillettes for him.