Chartreuse of Quail

So, who here is sick and tired of me whussing out on this project with soup? Yeah, me too. So I decided that this weekend, I would need to step up my game and make something truly fancy. I was musing over this one morning, thinking of what I could make while flipping through the book, and then turned to the page for Chartreuse of Quail. This multi-step dish involves a truly stunning layered presentation, and specialty ingredients. It would be perfect... if I could pull it off.

First thing is to get the specialty ingredients. Chartreuse of Quail calls for... quail, duh, but also foie gras. These are both pretty hard to find under normal circumstances, even in a big city with a Whole Foods every couple of miles. Foie gras in particular is pretty hard to come by locally, considering Whole Foods has stopped selling lobster for humanitarian reasons. However, there is always the magic of MAIL ORDER MEATS! Yep, there are companies that will overnight foie gras, or whatever interesting and exotic cut of meat you'd care to order. I went with D'Artagnan, which is a venerable company, and much discussed in food blogging circles. D'Artangan sells four-packs of whole quail, and 5-ounce packs of foie gras for what I consider a very reasonable price. I ordered the packs to be delivered overnight for a Friday morning delivery, the day when Husband J takes advantage of his government-mandated flex time. He me the Fed-Ex guy at the door, and our ingredients were safe in the fridge.



Okay, hurdle one accomplished. Next, time to debone the quail. Chartreuse of quail calls for the breasts of the quail to be separated from the rest of the body, and the legs reserved as a garnish for the dish. This is fine when you have a chicken, but with a quail, it's easy to cut straight through the fragile bones and leave sharp points that could cut an unwary eater. I used a paring knife to cut down the sides of each quail's spine, and separated the bones from the rest of the carcass as follows:



Tiny quail bodies.



Cutting the breasts away...

This left me with eight breast slices, and eight legs. I seasoned the breasts with salt and pepper and sauteed them, skin side down, for five minutes.



Then I took the breasts, which were only partially cooked, and set them aside.



I also sauteed the quail legs for use as a garnish.



Next, it was time to prepare the cabbage. I peeled big leaves off of a head of cabbage, and boiled them for five minutes in salted water. I set the leaves aside.



And then I made stuffing by sauteeing some chopped bacon with carrot and onion until the vegetables were browned.



To this mix, I added shredded cabbage and sauteed it all until it was soft, shiny and wilted--about half an hour.

Finally, I made a rich buttery sauce. I deglazed the quail pan with some port wine.



I set that aside, and roasted the quail carcasses with some butter, carrot and onion in a big pan.



Once the veggies and carcasses were roasted, I deglazed the pan with more port.



Then I transferred all of it to a saucepan. I added some herbs and pepper, and some chicken stock, and simmered the lot until it was reduced by half.



I strained the liquid out into another saucepan, and boiled the sauce for 15 minutes.
Finally, I whisked a good sized knob of butter into the pot for a rich sauce.



Ok, all of the elements of the dish have been made. Now for the hard part... molding the chartreuses. Yes, you heard me right... this dish involves molding all of the ingredients into a layered terrine.

First, I buttered some ramekins, and laid a cabbage leaf into each one, letting the sides of the leaf flop over the sides. Next, I scooped some bacon-cabbage stuffing into each mold.



Then, I layered some foie gras, and two quail breasts over the stuffing.



More stuffing went on top of the breasts, then folded the cabbage leaf over the stuffing. Finally, I topped each mold with a round of bread that had been brushed with melted butter.



I chucked the carefully constructed molds into the oven to bake for about a half an hour. Then, with trepidation, I put on my oven mitt and upturned the first mold onto a plate, and...



OMG IT SO WORKED!!!

Wanna see that again from the side? Oh yes you do.



Awwwww yeah.


When we cut the molds open, a delicious mix of quail meat, foie gras, bacon and veggies greeted us.

According to Husband J, this was one of the best things I'd ever cooked, and that it rivals his prior favorite, the Coquilles St. Jaques. I think the coquilles were better, myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious quail molds. They were tasty. They were impressive. And best of all, these were super EASY to do. Sure, it took a bit of effort and expense to get the ingredients, and time to assemble the things, but overall, there was not much difficulty in putting these together. And they make such a spectacular product. I'd say that this dish wins the prize for "the dish you want to make to impress someone into thinking you are more talented than you actually are. And by the way, DELICIOUS."

Lessons Learned: Just because the dish looks crazy fancy doesn't mean it's difficult to make. Mail order meats are a viable and not too expensive source of specialty ingredients. Foie gras is crazy delicious.

Next Week: Veau Viennoise

Tomato and Fennel Soup

Phew. Another hard work week gone by (by the time this posts, a couple of weeks), filled with labor, late nights, and eating at the same restaurant every day of the week with co-workers... the glory of business travel. Funny how those things work. At the start of the week I was thrilled for oxtails and scallops with wine-butter sauce, but by the end of the week I was practically crying for salads and lightly cooked veggies, with maybe a ravioli or two. And because the weekly schedule was work, dinner, work, get to hotel at ass-o-clock AM, try to sleep and fail because of strange hotel room, up, work... by the time I wrapped my lips around a glass of wine, I was about ready to compose florid verse in praises of the grape. Yeah, that atmosphere did not conduct itself to a desire to cook once I dragged myself home. I made a halfhearted attempt at celery remoulade, but was thwarted by the lack of celeriac (I swear I saw it at the market last week... or was it two weeks ago? Guess that will have to wait for autumn, now). I collapsed in exhaustion, and woke up wanting something simple, nutritious, and above all, EASY. So I chose this tomato and fennel soup.

Now, don't get me wrong kids, it is still May, and there aren't any worthwhile tomatoes out yet. But here's the awesome thing, tomato and fennel soup from the Les Halles Cookbook uses tomatoes in a CAN! I used to be mighty skeptical about any food that comes in a can, because in my experience canning tends to turn veggies into a slimy, preserved mess. Just think of all that canned spinach and canned beet you were subjected to as a child! Fresh roasted beet is like an orgasm compared to canned beet, amirite? But recently I have come to love canned tomatoes. This is partly because of a determination to never, ever buy out-of-season fresh tomatoes that I made a few years ago, but mostly because they are just really good for making soups and sauces. They retain their flavor nicely, and the slimy texture disappears once they are cooked down, pureed, or otherwise assembled.

Also, in non-conformance with the rest of my project, I ended up making this soup on a weeknight. Yes, you heard me. It is that easy.

First, I cored two fennel bulbs by cutting them into quarters and removing the core. I sliced them on my mandoline until I had a stack of slices.


A lovely fennel root.

Next, I chopped an onion and a potato.



The potato, onion, and chopped fennel.

I heated some olive oil in my big pot, then added the veggies and cooked them for about ten minutes.



Next, the tomatoes went into the pot to cook.



Finally I added 6 cups of chicken stock and cooked the whole mess for an hour.



Once the soup was cooked, I blended it all with a hand blender, and added salt and pepper.



To serve, I added salt and pepper, and squirted some balsalmic glaze that I had left over from a French Laundry Cookbookexperiment in a Jackson-Pollocky design I served the soup alongside some grilled cheese.





The color is kind of odd, isn't it? Instead of the murky, red color of canned tomato soup, this is more of a milky orange. But let me tell you, this soup is incredibly delicious. It's creamy with no dairy (yay, potato), and thick to stand up to dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into the bowl. The balsamic glaze is no mean feat either!

Lessons Learned: Making tomato soup from scratch is easy, delicious and satisfying. And it can be done on a weeknight!

Next Week: Something fancy: Chartreuse of Quail.

Steak au Poivre and Asparagus & No Haricots Verts Salad

Like I wrote in my Easter post, I just went through a pretty long stretch of not having time to cook much, or write, which meant a kind of involuntary hiatus from the Les Halles Cookbook project. This is not too happy, as I have really enjoyed making these dishes, and I still have a ways to go, considering I'm not exactly holding myself to a rigorous schedule. So, last week I declared a hiatus to my hiatus, and pretty much spent the weekend cooking various things, including this steak au poivre.

After proposing a Les Halles dinner to Husband J, I asked him if there was anything he particularly wanted, and he requested steak. Since the red wine butter steak requires a grill or grill pan (though I may just make it on my cast iron skillet anyway so as not to purchase cluttery pans), I decided on steak au poivre, one of my favorite types of steak. This sounded like it needed a fresh spring salad, so I decided on the asparagus and haricots verts salad, since I figured it was high time to find those particular veggies fresh at the market. However, I must have been too late or too early, because there was not a haricot vert to be had, alas. I decided to make the salad anyway, with fresh spring greens instead of haricots verts.

With steak au poivre, the most important thing is, of course, cracked peppercorns. I measured out 2 ounces of peppercorns on my handy scale:



Now to crack them. Which was a problem, because suddenly I realized that outside of a grinder, I had no idea how to crack peppercorns. The magic that is google told me that one thing to do is put the peppercorns into a zip-loc and crack them with a rolling pin. Husband J offered me a hammer, which I snobbishly declined, wielding my rolling pin. But there was another problem, I didn't have a ziplock. I had the bright idea of wrapping the peppercorns in some saran-wrap. Once wrapped, I gave them a good whack with my rolling pin. And... the saran-wrap promptly split, spilling many of the corns onto my kitchen floor. Great. After sweeping the floor, I tried again with more loosely wrapped peppers. This did not lead to floor spillage, but didn't do much in the pepper cracking department. For a little while I found success cracking one peppercorn at a time, but as you can see above, that process would probably take me into the next decade. In the end, I swallowed my pride and took Husband J's hammer, which worked much better, particularly considering the peppercorns were denting the edge of the wooden rolling pin a little.



Cracked peppercorns and the implements of their destruction.

With the peppercorns cracked, I started on the asparagus. The asparagus needs to get blanched for the salad, so I started up a big pot of salted water. Once the water boiled, the asparagus went in for about 5 minutes, and then into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Easy!



Asparagus in its ice water bath.

By the way, notice how the asparagus in this photo is neatly wrapped and not all over the place like, say, all my bouquet garnis ever? Well after almost a year of searching, I have finally found kitchen twine. Hooray!

After measuring out the mise for the steak sauce, I took the steak out of the fridge and cut it into four portions.



Next, I brushed the steaks with olive oil, and dredged them in the cracked peppercorns. They went into a pan of olive oil and butter to saute.



After getting browned on both sides, the steaks go into the oven for a few minutes, during which time I made the steak sauce. I stirred cognac into the oil/butter mix in the pan, and then reduced the liquid by half. Next I stirred some veal stock and demi-glace into the pan, and then reduced it some more. Finally, I whisked half a stick of butter into the pan to make a thick, creamy, cognac-y sauce laced with extra peppercorns.



To make the salad vinaigrette, I stirred some olive oil and lemon juice together, and then seasoned it with salt and white pepper--again, super easy. Finally, I tossed the asparagus, greens, and orange slices with the vinaigrette.

And the final product:



This was amazing. The steak was very delicious and tender, and the peppercorns added the perfect bite. The cognac sauce was absolutely brilliant and saturated fatty, and we ended up tearing bits of baguette, soaking them in the sauce, and eating them. The salad was also wonderful, and Husband J was boggled that it was only lemon juice and olive oil with a little seasoning. Of course, it helped that the veggies were perfectly fresh and in season, so thanks farmers at the market.

Husband J said that this dish was definitely one of the top ones that I've made, which made me very happy. It's nice to have something go perfectly, after the too-big-lamb debacle, and undercooked-pork horror.

Lessons Learned: Crack the peppercorns with a hammer--don't ruin your rolling pin. Fresh spring veggies taste amazing with just a little seasoning.

Next week: Thinking of something with veal...

Rôti de Porc au Lait and Parsnip Puree

Phew, I don't know about you all, but it is really hot this evening, and has been all day. Not much to do but hang around the apartment drinking water and laying under the ceiling fan, or if you are me, cooking with full burners and the oven on. Yep, I'm crazy. But I figure it will take a couple of very delicious dinners to convince Husband J to start fanning me with palm fronds and spritzing me with Evian all day.

Few weeks back I made a dish much more suited to the cooler weather--rôti de porc au lait (pork roasted in milk) with parsnip puree. If you'll all turn your hymnals to page 173, you'll see a very mouthwatering picture of a golden pork roast being basted in creamy milk. The reality of this dish is not exactly how that picture makes it look, but it is tasty.

First things first, obtaining a pork loin roast. Obviously the only place I can ever go for pork is my trusty vendor, Cedarbrook Farm. At their stall I learned the difference between a European pork loin roast (bone in, skin on) and an American pork loin roast (skinless, boneless, but with a very nice layer of fat lining one side). Since the recipe calls for boneless, I went with the American roast. I carted this home, and put it in the fridge, and then into the sink in an ice bath, to thaw.

To cook the roast, first brown it on all sides in a large pot.



Pork bubbling away in a mix of olive oil and butter.

While searing the pork, I chopped up the veggies used to create the milk sauce: carrot, leek, onion and garlic.



Mise en place for the veggies. The upper right bowl contains garlic confit, which I threw into the parsnip puree on a whim.

After the roast had been seared, I set it aside, and added the chopped veggies to the pot to caramelize over high heat.



Next, I added flour and the milk, and a bouquet garni.



This whole mess gets brought to a boil, then the pork is added, and the pot turned down to a simmer. Then the lid goes on the pot to cook for 1 hour.



So far, so good. While the pork cooked, I made the parsnip puree. This is insultingly easy--just chop the parsnips, boil until soft, strain, and pulse in a food processor while adding some salt, white pepper, and a full stick of butter. (Yesss.) I also added some garlic confit, as I said earlier, for a little kick.

After the hour, I removed the pork from the pot, and set it aside to rest. I decided to skip straining the sauce, and instead pureed the entire mess, veg and all, with my stick blender, until it formed a creamy orange sauce.

Then I cut into the pork, and was met with this:



Oh good lord... the pork didn't cook more than half an inch into the roast! At this point our dinner guest had already arrived, and I started panicking. I shoved the entire thing into the oven for a half an hour, and was met with still rawish pork coming out of the oven. In a despair spurred by not desiring to make people sick and get sued, I decided to cut the pork up and saute the slices until they were done. This seemed to work, so I slathered the sauce onto the meat and served.



Not the prettiest shot of dinner ever, but hey, nobody died.

The pork was very succulent, the sauce was delish, but the real star of the dinner was the butter--I mean parsnip--puree. I haven't eaten many parsnips in my time but this has made me a convert, as they are sweet, creamy and delicious.

I was a little sad that the sauce was not the white, creamy, milky sauce featured in the photograph, but other bloggers who have made the dish before me have also come out with a rather chunky orange sauce instead, so I figure I must be doing that bit right.

It took me a while to think of why the pork just did not cook at all according to the recipe, but I think it's because the massive chunk of meat just didn't defrost properly in the time I gave it. Next time I guess it's straight into the ice bath as soon as it's brought home, rather than into the fridge first.

Lessons learned: Do a better job at defrosting. Parsnips are freaking fantastic, especially with a stick of butter mixed in them.

Next week: Steak au Poivre.

Easter Dinner

Blech. Yeah I know ages since I posted anything. Long story short, work is kicking my ass and both the cooking and posting have slowed to a crawl these days. I'm looking to pick up a bit more again in about a month so please stay patient!

You guys, I am such a bonehead! In the whirl of getting ready to head to the suburbs to Mom's to cook easter dinner, I remembered my dutch oven... I remembered my scalloped tart pan... I remembered my ovenproof gratin dish... and forgot my CAMERA. Can you believe it? Of course I couldn't just not cook easter dinner due to lack of camera, but I feel pretty terrible about leaving you guys with no pix.

Anyway, the plan for dinner was gigot a la sept heurs, that is, seven-hour leg of lamb. I love lamb for easter, and never got it as a kid, because my mom always hated lamb. (Anyone sensing a pattern here of me making up for things I wanted as a kid but never got? Oh my life was soooo hard...) Usually we get a ham, but since we had a non-pork-eater joining us for dinner, mom agreed to let me cook the lamb... and the whole rest of the dinner, too. This was my first holiday meal flying solo, you guys! After much deliberation on the appropriate sides and dessert, I decided on the following:

1. Gigot a la sept heurs, from the Les Halles Cookbook
2. Gratin Dauphinois, from the Les Halles Cookbook (I know this is a repeat but the fam didn't want mashed, and I couldn't help but think how wonderful this dish would be with leg of lamb as I wiped the puddles of drool off my cookbook)
3. Nantes carrot stew, from Ad Hoc at Home
4. Asparagus coins, from Ad Hoc at Home
5. The most extraordinary lemon tart, from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours

Pretty ambitious, wouldn't you say? Well, let's see how it goes...

Prep for the meal got started the week before (I know, I know, I'm crazy) when I started with the lemon cream for the tart. The lemon cream (based on a Pierre Herme, recipe, by the way) is different from the usual lemon cream used in tarts, and different from the lemon tart I made a few weeks back, in that the butter is added in a blender after the rest of the cream is put together. This keeps the butter from melting into a curd-like structure, but emulsifies the butter to make a very fluffy, light cream. I've had trouble emulsifying before (see my aoli fail) but this lemon cream came together perfectly. I'm definitely going to try another aoli or mayonnaise endeavor using my hot new blender, instead of my old-ass food processor, to see if it will work better. The lemon cream recipe is around the internet, but I do recommend getting the Dorie Greenspan book, as it has a lot of great recipes and is a wonderful baking resource.

With the lemon cream freezing away nicely, I undertook two parts of the asparagus recipe from Ad Hoc at Home: chive oil and parsley water. The cookbook explains that asparagus flavor generally leaches out into the water in which the asparagus is cooked, so for the Ad Hoc recipe, it is cooked with parsley water to retain its flavor, and to add the herbal parsley flavor as well. I won't go into too much detail on these (more detail to be had when I make basil oil or parsley oil from the Les Halles Cookbook in the not-too-distant fugure), but suffice to say they were super easy and took next to no time at all.

On Saturday, after a fun morning negotiating a DC metro system that was OVERRUN with tourists going to the cherry blossoms, I chucked my cooking supplies (sans camera) into a suitcase and headed to the suburbs for Easter with my mother, grandmother, and sister.

I woke up at the crack of dawn on Easter Sunday morning to get the lamb in the oven. Mom had gotten a lovely big leg of lamb from the local Whole Foods, and I set to work trimming it of fat and silverskin before putting it into the dutch oven. Only when I attempted to do so... of course... my dutch oven was too small to fit a full lamb leg with its bone in. I knew it would be, of course, but I only had the one dutch oven, with no time to buy a new one, so what's a girl to do? After some hilarious, and aborted attempts to trim the bone with a handsaw, I ended up seaming the leg, carving off the meat, and stuffing the meat into the dutch oven with some herbs, white wine, and a ton of garlic shoved into the lamb folds. With that in the dutch oven, and the lid on, I mixed some flour and water together to form a seal where the oven lid meets the pot. This mucking around with floury goop got some arch comments from my mother and grandmother, but I soldiered on, and shoved the entire mess (perched on a baking sheet) into a 300 degree oven.

Following this, I made Dorie Greenspan's sweet tart crust, a process not unlike the tart crust I made for a plum tart earlier in this project. The main difference is that it was meant to be pressed into the tart pan, rather than rolled out, so in a way it was an intentional Frankencrust. This went into a freezer for the rest of the day until it was ready to be baked.

That was all of the big prep to be done for the day, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon relaxing with my family, eating copious amounts of licorice, and making pysanky (Easter eggs dyed and then painted with wax, then dyed again for colorful pictures).

When it was almost time for dinner, I first made the potatoes gratin (featured from my holiday recap post), and then made carrot stew. I sauteed the carrots in a knob of butter until they began to release their juices, then added some sweet white wine (in place of sherry), and then some carrot juice, curry powder and coriander. After a few minutes, I removed the carrots, and cooked the liquid down to a glaze, which became intensely sweet and fragrant. This got the nice addition of a knob of butter whisked in, and then I put the carrots back into the pan over low heat to keep warm.

Next, I made the asparagus coins by slicing asparagus into thin rounds, and sauteing it in the chive oil. When the coins were barely cooked, I added the parsley water and simmered the mess until the coins were done.

By this time, it was time to take the lamb out of the oven, which I did with a little trepidation. The entire house was by this time smelling of delicious, savory lamb, garlic and herbs, and everyone who came in the house commented on the wonderful aromas. I had Husband J haul the dutch oven on its baking sheet out of the oven--the amount of meat plus the heavy enamel-iron pot made for an incredibly weighty. Then, I tried peeling the now browned flour and water slurry off of the dutch oven... but it was stuck on tight. Husband J to the rescue again, he grabbed mom's heaviest kitchen implements and used them as a hammer and chisel to chip the mix off. This was pretty arduous, but eventually it all came off, and we lifted the lid. The meat had broken down and looked like tender bits of brisket, and we spooned it out of the pot and onto a serving platter.

All in all, dinner was a huge hit. The meat could have been a bit more tender--I think it was a little overdone, since we had to cut the bone out, but it was very tasty with all that garlic and herb flavor. We included some organic mint jelly at my grandmother's insistence, and it tasted wonderful with the lamb. Of the sides, the potatoes gratin was the biggest hit (obviously, I mean who doesn't love potatoes gratin?), but the carrot stew and asparagus coins were devoured just as quickly.

The lemon tart was... well, all right. After baking the crust I cooled it, then spread it with the thawed lemon cream. It tasted nice, though the cream melted on the still warm crust and glorped all over the place. Add to this that over dessert, my sister insisted that we watch her new favorite movie The Cove, so by the time I had finished, all I could think about was dolphin massacres, and that doesn't go so well with lemon tart. Next time at least I'd put the tart into the fridge to solidify the cream, and definitely wouldn't watch animal slaughter movies while eating it.

But, aside from that dessert debacle, the meal went wonderfully, and received great acclaim from the family, so I was happy about that! My first holiday meal, a success.

Lessons learned: Don't forget your freaking camera. Get a bigger dutch oven to cook big old legs of lamb. Don't watch dolphin slaughters with your dessert.

Next Week: Roti de Porc au Lait

Daube Provençale

It's getting on spring and the weather is just teetering on nice, which for me is very exciting. I love springtime and summer, though in terms of food, those seasons tend to get me eating less than in winter. I think this is a pretty universal condition, craving less, fresher food in the summer and more warm and fatty food in the winter.

This is a little bit of an issue with the Cooking Les Halles project, since so much of it is "wintery" food: braises, stews, fatty cuts of meat, and all that. So, during the first weekend of March, which was (though I didn't know it then) one of the last cold weekends of the season, I decided to make the ultimate winter food: a big old lamb stew, or daube provençale.

Daube provençale takes a bone-in cut from a lamb's neck. I was worried about being able to find such a cut around, but as luck would have it the local Whole Foods does indeed carry locally raised, bone-in lamb neck cuts in 1.5 lb packages. I have to say, with all the crap that Whole Foods gets, it is a great place to find what you need, when you need it. Anyway, I picked up the neck and a few needed veggies, and headed home to stew.



Cuts of lamb neck

First, I browned the lamb in a dutch oven, using a mix of olive oil and butter.



After the lamb was browned, I set it aside and replaced it with half a pound of bacon.



It is pretty weird to be sauteing bacon in oil and butter... doesn't it have enough grease?

Once the bacon got crispy, I poured most of the liquid bacon grease, oil and butter mix into a bowl to discard later (never pour bacon grease down the drain!) and sauteed an onion, some celery and two chopped garlic cloves in the remaining fat. Once caramelized, I added some tomato paste, a little flour and some wine to scrape up the fond. This got taken to a boil, and reduced by half. Next, I added a cup of my reserved veal stock ('memba that?) and some demi to the pot. Finally, the rest of the ingredients--lamb, carrot, bouquet garni, some orange zest, and the bacon--went into the pot.



I simmered the stew for 90 minutes while I peeled potatoes. The recipe says that you should peel and "turn" the potatoes, which means cutting them into small football shapes. Or, just cube them. Uh, yeah, football shapes? I cubed them. After the 90 minutes, and plopped the potatoes into the pot to stew for 15 minutes. Then I served the stew in big old bowls.



This was nothing mind blowing, but it was a very tasty winter stew, with great hearty potato and meat flavors. It was especially satisfying to gnaw the lamb meat off of the neck bones, and poke out the tiny bit of softened marrow that was in there. It was a great way to say good bye to winter, and I'm looking forward to making more dishes in the spring.

Lessons Learned: Not too many, though this did reinforce the fact that meat on the bone is best for wintery stews. Tony calls those who prefer boneless "poor deluded bastards," and I'm inclined to agree.

Next Week: It's Easter! And I have cooking duty for Easter dinner. Wait and see what I have in store... main dish by Tony Bourdain, sides by Thomas Keller, and dessert by Dorie Greenspan. Let's hope it's as delicious as I think it's going to be.

Moules à la Portugaise

Yup, I've been slacking off again, I know. Work is busy, I've been feeling run down, blah blah. This hasn't stopped me from cooking, but I have been slacking in the posting department, considering that whenever I've been in front of a computer, I've been doing work instead of writing about food. Anyway, I'm playing catch-up and will post about the dish I made last week... next week. But first, let's talk about moules à la Portugaise.

Now, there are a lot of DC Metro area food blogs that boast about the excellent fresh ingredients that can be found in this fair city. This is great, for some, but not so much for me. Why is that? Simple--I don't own a car. So the good ethnic shops in particular (and any non-metro accessible shops generally) are out of reach without some serious advanced planning.

This weekend we decided to do some of said advanced planning in order to make some purchases that needed to be transported by car. Husband J arranged to rent a zipcar for the morning, and asked me whether I'd like to visit BlackSalt, a fish market and restaurant in the Palisades (near Georgetown, another desolate and metro-less region, in my opinion). BlackSalt is known as THE place to get good, fresh seafood in the District, so of course I jumped at the chance to actually visit. In preparation, I decided to give them a call to see if they had any of the seafood I needed for some of my Les Halles Cookbook recipes. But when I called, asking what they might have in stock over the next couple of days, I got a terse "call tomorrow; I buy my fish daily" from the head fishmonger, in a tone that told me this conversation was OVER.

Uh RUDE MUCH? No asking what I had in mind, or discussion of what might be available at this time generally? So much for asking whether pike or monkfish might be available (or if they have a season at all). I was a bit miffed, but those of you who know me know that I'm not quick to write off stores or people after one bad experience, everyone has off days. So I decided to go the next day to see what was available and get a feel for the place.

So, like I said, BlackSalt is a restaurant and fish market. The two shops are not separated, but combined, with the market in the front of the shop, and tables ranging from the front to the back, which looks like a more traditional restaurant. We went early on Saturday morning, so the restaurant was empty, but there were already a lot of customers looking over the fish counter. The counter held a lot of beautiful, gleaming seafood, including cuts, heads, whole fish, and other tasty creatures. Unfortunately, no monkfish tails, pike, crawfish, or any of the other fish called for in my recipes. I was considering whether to go for some tender-looking monkfish cheeks when I spotted some Prince Edward Island mussels for $3.99 a pound. Another mussel dish would be perfect for the warm, rainy weather, so I decided to go for those. I bought three pounds, and a small jar of salmon roe as a treat.

On the way back, I asked Husband J which mussel dish he would like among the four left in the book, and he decided on moules à la Portugaise, which features DELICIOUS CHORIZO in the sauce. I told him that his duty, then, would be to find some chorizo. He accomplished this easily by checking out a new charcouterie market that recently opened in our neighborhood, and happens to stock house-made chorizo. Brilliant! The chorizo he found was dry, but still the red, fresh chorizo that Tony prefers in his recipe, rather than the drier, white-mold covered dark chorizo favored by more traditional Portuguese cooks. I'd like to try the darker chorizo, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at local house-made chorizo, for sure.



Red, greasy and delicious.

Though the recipe calls for 6 lbs of mussels, and I bought 3 lbs (to feed 2 instead of 4), I decided to make the full recipe for the sauce, since that is after all the most delicious part.

First, I heated some olive oil in a large pot, and sauteed half an onion, six cloves of garlic, and two ounces of the chorizo. (The recipe calls for 1 oz, but I decided to double it, since Husband J bought an 8 oz link. That's a lot of leftover chorizo, and I am looking forward to some chorizo scrambled eggs in my immediate future.)



While those were cooking, I scrubbed and inspected the mussels, one at a time. Unlike the Whole Foods mussels, most of the BlackSalt mussels were tightly closed, or closed when I tapped the shell, signifying that they were alive. I tossed less than 1/5 of the mussels, making these a much better value.

Once the chorizo released its red, spicy scented grease, I added some white wine, salt, and pepper. Then I dumped in the mussels to steam under lid until they opened up.



A quick, blurry photo of mussels starting to steam.

After the mussels opened, I threw in a handful of chopped parsley and cilantro, shook the whole pot, and served it up with slices of french bread (again house-made from the charcuterie shop).



Well, one thing is for sure, I will never buy mussels from Whole Foods again. These mussels put the old ones to shame. These were very tender and meaty with a great subtle seafood flavor. The sauce was brilliant, filled with chorizo grease, and was very delicious when mopped up with the bread. Of course the slices of chorizo were probably the best part.

All in all, this was a great and easy meal for a rainy weekend afternoon.

Lessons Learned: Most importantly, that a good cook needs to know how to find great ingredients, whether it's from a shop that's usually out of reach or a new neighborhood joint with some delicious surprises. But next time I'll probably be more aggressive about finding out whether the fish I need is in the shop before going to the trouble of renting a car and traveling out to the shops.

Next Week: I'll write about the lamb stew I made last week.