Dining at Delmonico’s

What do Lobster a la Newburg, Eggs Benedict, Manhattan Clam Chowder, and Baked Alaska have in common?  Along with the Delmonico Steak they were created at Delmonico's restaurant.  Charles Ranhofer, who many credit as being New York’s first star chef, created many of these dishes.  They remain on the menu, and menus around the country to this very day. 

The Del Monico brothers were the American success story.  They started in the food industry by importing barrels of wine and rebottling it and selling it at a large profit.  They moved on to a bakery, then a café in 1830.  While today’s chefs are busy patting themselves on the back for buying local, sustainable food and knowing their farmers, or farming themselves, Delmonico had its own farm in the 1830’s when it bought a 220- acre farm in Williamsburg.  So not only was it farm-to-table but it was also in Brooklyn! 

After a few years, a fire devastated the financial district, but Delmonico’s café survived. The brothers decided to establish a larger restaurant to fulfill their dining ambitions. In 1837, the modern Delmonico’s restaurant opened and history followed. 

Delmonico’s was the first dining establishment in America to be called by its French name, restaurant.  It was the first restaurant:

to offer a separate wine list

to have printed menus

to have tablecloths

where guests sat at their own table

that allowed women to congregate as a group

to have a female cashier

to accommodate a ball outside a private residence

Needless to say, the tradition of exquisite food served in a luxurious setting continues to flourish today. Dining at Delmonico’s is part history, part cookbook.  Prolific food writer, Judith Choate and chef James Canora offers up many old and new recipes. The book is filled with archival information and stunning photographs of the food by photographer Steve Pool. 

Delmonico Steak

This is, to us at Delmonico’s, the one and only Delmonico Steak. We use a boneless, 20-ounce, prime rib eye steak that has been aged for at least six weeks. Extremely tender yet unbelievably flavorful, this steak is cut from the center of the rib section. To finish it, we top the sizzling steak with a bit of what we call “Meat Butter,” a herbaceous compound butter mix that is easy to make and simple to keep on hand. Because fires vary in degree of heat, it is difficult to estimate the length of time it will take a steak to cook. Since restaurant stoves are so much hotter than those in most homes, we have given instructions for grilling on a gas grill heated to medium-hot. At home you can grill a steak on the stovetop using a heavy-duty grill pan. It makes a mess of the stovetop because the grease splatters, but it cooks a pretty good steak.  An instant read thermometer is used to tell doneness.   Rare steak will have an internal temperature of 120° to 125°F (48° to 52°C); medium-rare to medium should read 130° to 150°F (54° to 65°C). This should take somewhere near 20 minutes, depending upon the thickness of the meat and the precise heat. Above 150°F (65°C), a steak is considered well-done, which is not a desirable temperature for a really good steak. A steak should sit for 5 minutes or so before cutting, so remember that the meat will continue to rise a little in temperature as it rests.

Six 20-ounce prime rib-eye steaks, at room temperature

Sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper, to taste

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Meat Butter

Clean, oil, and reheat the grill.

Wipe excess moisture from the exterior of the steaks with a paper towel. Season the one side with salt and pepper.

Place the steaks on the hot grill, seasoned side down. Grill for 3 minutes. Season the top side and, using tongs, turn the steaks and grill for 3 minutes to just sear the exterior.

Remove the steaks from the grill and, using a pastry brush, lightly coat both sides of each steak with olive oil.

Return the steaks to the grill and cook, turning occasionally, until the exterior is nicely charred and the interior has reached the desired degree of doneness on an instant-read thermometer.

Remove the steaks from the grill and let rest for 5 minutes before serving with a generous pat of Meat Butter.

Meat Butter

3 fresh bay leaves

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

2 tablespoons sea salt

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

Combine the bay leaves, thyme, and salt in a spice grinder and process until powdery.

Place the butter in a mixing bowl. Add the powdered mixture and, using a hand­held electric mixer, blend well.

Scrape the butter mixture onto the center of a sheet of plastic film. Pull the film up and over the soft butter and, using your hands, form the butter into a roll about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for up to 1 week or wrap in freezer wrap, label, date, and freeze for up to 3 months.

When ready to serve, unwrap the flavored butter and, using a sharp knife, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices, allowing one slice per steak.

Classic recipes and a slice of New York history make Dining at Delmonico’s a real joy.

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HOME MADE PEPPERONI

A blogging friend, over at Hey, What's For Dinner Mom? posted a recipe for home made pepperoni. It started me thinking and, after searching the Internet, I found at least  a dozen more recipes that convinced me I needed to give this a try; I'm so glad I did.

Have you ever read the ingredient list on a package of commercial pepperoni or looked closely at a slice of it and wondered what all those "bits" were? Exactly!! Pretty gross thought wasn't it?? Well, now I have pepperoni and I know EXACTLY what is in it.

The recipe I decided to try is very simple because it does not involve sausage casings or a smoke house or any weird preservatives. It's just meat and spices baked in the oven at a super low temperature for 8 hours ............ and it was really good (even picky-picky husband love it!!)

 

 

First of all, when it's all cooked, it's NOT going to be bright red/orange like commercial pepperoni, and it's not going to be shaped perfectly round, but that certainly didn't bother us. At least I know exactly what is in my sausage!!

1 pound of ground pork (see note below)
1 pound of ground beef (very lean, I used 96%)
2 teaspoons liquid smoke
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons mustard seed
2 teaspoons fennel seed
1 teaspoon paprika
1 to 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes (see notes)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 slightly heaping teaspoons salt (see notes)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup water

Grind the dry spices together (I used my mortar and pestle) until they are roughly ground (it doesn't have to be super fine).

Mix the two ground meats together (I used my stand mixer). Then mix in the spices, the liquid smoke and 1/4 cup water. After it's well mixed. Cover it well, and chill it for 48 hours.

After 48 hours, mix again and roll the mixture into 2 logs and place them on a foil lined baking sheet (make sure the baking sheet has a lip).

Bake in a pre-heated 200° oven for 8 hours. Most of the recipes tell you to keep turning the "logs" every two hours, as they bake, but I didn't turn them at all, and they were fine. Your house is going to smell wonderful!! 

After 8 hours, they will look like this:

The "pepperoni" logs will be quite firm to the touch when they come out of the oven. Since I used very lean mean, I didn't have much grease in the bottom of my pan, but, if you use a fattier grade of meat, you might have to wipe off any obvious grease on the outside of the baked sausages before you chill them.

CHILL  BEFORE  YOU   SLICE !!

Let the baked logs cool a little, then wrap them in plastic wrap and chill them until they are very cold before you slice them.  Use a sharp knife and slice the sausages very thin.

We were very pleasantly surprised how easy this was to make and what a nice flavor it had. We will definitely be making this recipe again!!

NOTES:  For the ground pork, a small pork butt roast works great because it has the right amount of fat, but you can also just buy a pound of ground pork (UNseasoned....not sausage).

UPDATE: Since posting this recipe, I've tried the same spice mixture with ALL ground pork and I think we like the texture even better. If you use ALL pork, just reduce the cooking time to 6 hours.

NOTES: I used 1 1/4 teaspoons of crushed red pepper flakes and it was just the right amount of heat for us, but then we are pretty timid when it comes to food heat tolerance. If you like spicy pepperoni, just add more flakes.

NOTES: Several of the recipe I found online called for Morton's Tender Quick which has salt, sodium nitrate, sodium nitrite and propylene glycol in it.  The only advantage to using that product (that I can see) is to give your sausage that bright pink color.  Since that is not important to me (and I tend to keep my pepperoni in the freezer)I just used plain old table salt and it worked fine.

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Ginger Pig Meat AND Farmhouse

Today is a Ginger Pig twofer. 

Once upon a time, Tim Wilson, antiques dealer and house refurbisher found a lovely little farm.  There were ducks in the pond, chickens under foot, cows in the pasture and though the farm needed much work, Tim was smitten.  Once he owned the farm he returned to find no duck, just and ugly mud hole and a hovel of a house.  In that moment, he realized that what made the farm special was the livestock living there.

He went to work on the house and added ducks and pigs and chickens.  Then more pigs and cattle and soon he was breeding animals, and soon he outgrew the little farm, so he got more land.  Instead of antiques he was now selling meat at the farmers market and before long, he had a beautiful butcher shop called the ginger pig.

Many restaurants started telling their customer that their meat was from the Ginger Pig.Often, the butcher was more famous than the chef.  Who knew better how to cook this famous meat than Tim Wilson.  His first book, Ginger Pig Meat Book, was filled with meats including pork, lamb, beef, and venison. There is poultry of all kinds from partridge to chicken to duck to guinea fowl.  There is even pie, but it's not apple.

The Ginger Pig beef bourguignon pie

For the filling:
1.3kg (3lb) chuck steak, cut into 2cm (3/4 in) dice
350g (12oz) cooked dry-cured bacon, diced
200g (7oz) button mushrooms, chopped
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, crushed then peeled
1 tbsp soy sauce, preferably Kikkoman
350ml (12fl oz) red wine
2 tbsp cornflour
leaves of 4 sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

For the suet pastry:
700g (1lb 9oz) plain flour
350g (12oz) suet
½ tsp salt

For assembly:
25g (10oz) lard, melted
1 tbsp plain flour
1 egg, beaten

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350F/gas mark 4. Place the beef and bacon in a roasting tin and brown in the oven for 15 minutes, then stir and cook for 15 minutes more. Add the mushrooms, onion, garlic, soy sauce and wine. Cover with baking parchment, pushing it down to touch the ingredients, seal with foil, and cook for 1½ hours.

2. Drain off all the liquid into a saucepan. Blend the cornflour with a little water and mix into the cooking juices, then place on the heat and stir until boiling and thickened. Return the liquid to the meat, add the parsley, mix, and leave to cool completely.

3. Place the flour, salt and suet in a food processor and blitz. Transfer to a mixing bowl, add 300 milliliters (1/2 pint) water and mix until smooth. If making individual pies, divide the dough into eight balls, four weighing 185 (6 1/2oz) grams and four weighing 115 grams (4oz). If making one large pie, divide it into two balls, one 740 (1lb 10oz) grams and the other 460 (1lb) grams.

4.  Preheat the oven to 190°C/350F/gas mark 5. Brush the inside of the tin or tins thoroughly with lard, then dust lightly with flour. Roll out the larger pastry balls and use to line the tin or tins. Divide the filling between them. Brush the pastry edges generously with egg, roll out the smaller pastry balls and place on top, pushing the edges together. Trim off the excess with a knife and crimp around the edge. Brush with egg, and decorate with pastry trimmings, if you like. Cook for 50 minutes. Leave to cool for five minutes, then turn out of the tins and enjoy hot or cold.

For his next book, Wilson decided to broaden his horizons and published Ginger Pig Farmhouse Cook Book.   This time the pie is gooseberry.  There are jams and marmalades, some veggies and bread, but once again, Wilson sticks to what he knows -- meat.

  Pulled Spicy Pork

2kgs (4lb 8oz) boned shoulder of pork (roughly half a whole shoulder)

For the spicy rub

2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp onion granules or flakes

2 tsp garlic salt

1-2 tsp chilli flakes

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp English mustard powder

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

4 tbsp red wine vinegar

4 tbsp brown sugar

1. Place all the rub ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Add the pork, rub the spicy mixture all over it, then cover and marinate in the fridge for 24 hours, turning and basting occasionally.

2.  Preheat the oven to 170 C/320F /gas mark 3. Place the marinated pork in a small roasting tin, spoon over some of the marinade and cover with foil. Place in the oven for two hours. Reduce the heat to 150 C /300F/ gas mark 2, turn and baste the pork, cover with the foil again and cook for a further 2 hours.

3. Remove the foil and drain the cooking juices into a sauce pan. Increase the heat to 170 C/325F /gas mark 3, return the meet to the oven, uncovered, and brown for 20 minutes. When cooked, cover with foil and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, skim off and discard the excess fat from the cooking juices, then place the pan over low heat to warm them through.

5. Once the pork is rested, peel off the skin and tear the meat into shreds using two forks. It should be so well cooked that falls apart easily. Pour the warm juices over the meet and serve and in ciabatta rolls or on top of a crunchy salad consisting of bean sprouts, iceberg lettuce, chopped carrots, cucumber and red peppers all tossed in lime juice.

We have been eating a lot of gluten lately, so we ventured out to add more protein.  Seriously you have to love a guy who cooks pulled pork for nearly 3 hours and suggests you serve it in a salad.  That is definitely our  kind of salad. We can't think of a better place to look for tempting meat-centric cooking ideas than in the duo from Ginger Pig.

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Egg

Michael Ruhlman can wax poetic and philosophical about most anything in the food world. So one can simply imagine our joy when we found he was working on a book about our favorite food -- the egg.  We do love our egg cookbooks and this one, appropriately titled: Egg, is no different. 

Now we know what you are going to say,  duh, everything has eggs in it so what's the big deal. True, eggs are eggs. We know that better than most, as we have an entire shelf of egg cookbooks.  Ruhlman, however, brings his excessive/compulsive geek-y-ness to the subject of eggs.  In the introduction, he describes a conversation with Alton Brown.  Brown says "...the egg is the Rosetta Stone of the kitchen."  Ruhlman is like the Food Language of Rosetta Stone software, follow along and soon, you too, will be fluent in no time.

First we get a look at all the ways one can cook the egg. Boiled, poached and fried lead us to gently fried, aggressively fried and deep fried.  Shirred and coddled make their way into the mix. Speaking of mix, we get eggs in cake mix and yolks in pasta as well as meringues and mayonnaise. There is even a drink or two, like this one.

Nineteenth-Century Ale and Rum Flip

3 ounces/85 milliliters spices Christmas or pumpkin ale
2 ounces/55 milliliters dark rum
1 egg
Pinch of ground coriander (or whole coriander seeds shaved on a Microplane) or ground ginger (optional)
Grated orange zest (original)

Combine the ale, rum, and egg in a large mug.  Whisk or blend with a hand mixer.  Or toss the drink back and forth between two large mugs, as Jerry Thomas might have done.  Heat it for 40 to 50 seconds n the microwave (or use a red hot poker). If desired, top with a pinch of coriander or ginger and some grated orange zest.

Did we mention omelets and custard? Sous vide? Pancakes or potato pancakes?  How about cookies?  We are more than happy to add Egg to our egg shelf.

Now get the kitchen and get cracking.  (Give us that one. We never used the word "eggcellent.")

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The Cook is in the Parlor

A nifty little number from 1947, The Cook is in the Parlor was written to make entertaining fun and allow the cook...well, allow the cook to socialize in the parlor. Even in the 1940's no one wanted to spend their time in the kitchen while the party is in the parlor.  As Marguerite Gilbert McCarthy says:

I wanted to write a cook book that will make cooking seem so easy and entertaining such fun that everyone who reads my book will want to dash to the telephone and invite all her friends in for a party.

Mrs. McCarthy wanted her book to appeal to both the bride and novice cook and the more seasoned cook.  As with a book of this age, there is not a lot of instruction for the reader.  This book also takes full advantage of the wide variety of tinned foods that were coming into vogue.  There are a lot of lovely little sandwich ideas, including 23 different forms for the versatile hamburger.  Salads lean toward canned fruit and vegetables are doused in sauce. This is one of those cookbooks that features a high kitch value on the surface, but delves into the way we once cooked and entertained.  It is definitely not the way we cook today.  It is very interesting to look at the recipes for vegetables, for example, and think how one might serve them without the sauce.

We love a cooked beet.  Check out this recipe.

Creamed Sweet and Sour Beets

Drain 1 can of tiny beets and save the juice.  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add 2 tablespoons of sugar, mixed with 1 1/2 tablespoons of flour.  Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and gradually add 1/2 cup of the beet juice.  Let cook until thickened. (Prepare in the morning and reheat.)

Heat beets in double boiler and pour into a glass casserole.  Add 1 cup of hot cream  to the beet juice mixture and pour over the beets.  Cover thickly with ground nut meats.  Brown lightly under the broiler.

Creamed beets are not high on our list of yummy veggies.  Simple roasted beets are high on the list.  So if you roast the beets, add a touch of lemon juice and topped with crushed nuts, this would be a fine option.  But if you really want some creamed beets, this one's for you.

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BIG MAC SECRET SAUCE

Every once in a while, rather than going to McDonalds and buying a "maybe hot...maybe not"  Big Mac (with only 3 ounces of beef) , we make a full size version at home. Here's another idea: Ever thought of Big Mac sliders for a kids party?  

This recipe tastes EXACTLY LIKE the secret sauce on the Big Mac, trust me, it really does.  It's quick to put together and lasts in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks.  Surprise your family with home made Big Mac's for dinner.

BIG MAC SECRET SAUCE

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 heaping tablespoons French dressing  (salad dressing)
1/2 tablespoon sweet pickle relish
2 heaping tablespoons dill pickle relish
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon dry onion flakes
1 teaspoon ketchup
1/8 teaspoon salt

Mix everything and chill for several hours or overnight.  Makes 1 cup.

 

 

ENJOY !!

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The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook

Most people who live outside of Mississippi's the Water Valley first heard of Alexe Van Beuren in this New York Times article about four women who moved to a little town in Mississippi and revived downtown.  The biggest change in downtown came from Van Beuren's B.T.C. grocery.  B.T.C. comes from a Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  Rumor has it the towns folks thought it stood for Beans, Tomatoes, and Corn.

Now we all know gals who fix up dusty old building and say, "Let's start a galley!" Or theater, music venue, boutique, card shop, even bookstore!  But who opens a grocery store in the middle of nowhere?  Well, Alexe Van Beuren did.  The good news is, she had actually shopped in a grocery store.  But other than shopping in one, she knew very little, if anything about running a grocery.

It became clear that what B.T.C needed was a lunch crowd. The town needed a place for soup and sandwiches.  B.T.C. went through five cooks in six months and then, Dixie Grimes walked in, literally walked in off the street one morning. Here is her job interview:

Dixie: "Heard you were looking for a cook."
Alexe: "Know how to slice?"
Dixie: "Yes, ma'am."
Alexe: "Can you start right now?"

Dixie walked to the lunch counter, and the rest, as they say, is history.  This is the kind of story one sees on the Hallmark channel.  The kind of story that makes you think it IS a story and not real life.  But there you have it.  Well, now here you have it as Alexe and Dixie wrote a cookbook.  The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook.

The book is true to its name, it is an old-fashioned grocery store cookbook.  There is pimiento cheese, tomato soup, meatloaf, catfish, fried pies, and lane cake. There are several recipes for squash casserole.  We just took the last bag of last summer's squash out of the freezer to make squash casserole. Here is B.T.C.'s recipe.

Southern Yellow Squash Casserole

2 pound(s) yellow squash, chopped

1 medium yellow onions, finely chopped (1 1/2 cups)

2 tablespoons chopped green bell pepper

1/4 pound Cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)

1/4 pound pepper jack cheese, shredded (1 cup)

1 (4 ounces) jar diced pimientos, drained

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise

1 tablespoon dry vermouth

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Dash of Tabasco sauce

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 teaspoon granulated onion

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

1/8 teaspoon sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray a 9- by 13-inch casserole dishes with non-stick cooking.

In an 8-quart stockpot set over medium heat, combine the squash, onion, and bell pepper. Cover with water, bring to a boil, and cook until squash is just soft, 10 minutes. Drain the mixture, discarding the liquid, and return to the pot. Add the cheeses, pimentos, eggs, mayonnaise, vermouth, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, basil, granulated onion, granulated garlic, and sugar. Season with salt and pepper.  Mix well, scoop into prepared casserole dish, and sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the top.

Bake until golden brown, 30 to 45 minutes.

 While you might think there are no groundbreaking recipes in this cookbook,  you will find one groundbreaking (or shall we say, universal) concept -- people want to eat good food.  Not hot dogs and chips, not nachos with liquid cheese, not ding dongs, not 7-11.  

There are millions of people, many elderly that live in food deserts.   Food deserts exist in metropolitan areas and rural areas.  A rural food desert is a county where residents must drive more than 10 miles to the nearest supermarket chain.  (For example, we drive 15 miles to the nearest small grocery and 34 miles to the nearest Kroger. We are ambulatory and have a car.)  So the next time you are looking for a small business to start, skip the gallery and go with the grocery.  Buy the The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook and you will have a fine blueprint, not to mention a fine squash casserole recipe!

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Sweet & Vicious

As you know from this blog, we love confiture, eggs, and French cuisine.  If you write a book about French eggs and jam, we are so there.  Baking, not so much.  Basically we are the one-trick-pony's of baking. For layer cake we like Red Velvet and Chocolate.  We like chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies.  And chocolate chunk cookies, and peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies, and peanut butter blossoms...you follow us.  So baking, we are a bit less enthusiastic.

It is true that we follow Salted and Styled, Libbie Summers' blog, but we were still not convinced we wanted a baking book by her, even though she was a Southerner. Then one day we saw this youtube video of Summers demonstrating 20 pie crimping techniques in 120 seconds.  




We figured bake/smake we would buy any cookbook she wanted to write.  

AN ASIDE: Baking has always kinda been a girl thing.  But when guys start getting involved they tended to take things too seriously.  Now that "food" is such a big, macho guy thing, and chefs are traveling the world to kill live chickens, and get written up in TIME Magazine, cookbooks are becoming painfully serious and often as technical as nuclear launch codes and about that interesting. Just saying...

First, Sweet & Vicious has lovely pink edged paper.  Again, any cookbook with pink paper edges would be on our "must get" list.  Most importantly, if you never cook a single thing from the book you will have a blast just reading it and looking at the pictures, by Salted and Styled accomplice, Chia Chong.  (There is a Red Velvet Cake recipe, so we are in luck.)  

We have a baking drawer where we store the chocolate in various stages of chip and chunk for our peanut butter cookies.  We also keep all those little mini candy bars that are prevalent during Halloween and Easter.  We keep them there and use them as decoration and add-ins to recipes, just in case we run out of chips and chunks.  Well, Summers just loves to add candy bars and other sweet treats to her recipes.  Did we mention she is a Southerner?

She even has a section for dog treats.  There is even a Red Velvet doggie snack. (Alas, there are never cat treats and that is just not right.) So who wouldn't love this book.  Here is a nifty tart recipe for the tart in you.

 Stoned Tart

(rum, stone fruits, + pistachio cream)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal

1/4  cup plus 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

4 tablespoons cold butter, cubed

2 to 4 tablespoons ice water

3/4 cup shelled pistachios

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon S & V House Blend Almond Extract

5 stone fruits (any mixture of apricots, peaches, nectarines or plums) pitted and sliced, skins on

2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon Gosling’s Black Seal rum

1/2 teaspoon S & V House Blend Citrus Extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Ice cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional)

1) In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, and 1/4 cup vanilla sugar.  Cut in the butter using your fingers or two knives.  Add 2 tablespoons ice water to the dough and stir to combine.  Continue to add ice water by the tablespoon until the dough comes together (this should take no more than 4 tablespoons).  Turn the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap, wrap well, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2) In a food processor with the blade attachment, pulse the pistachios until roughly chopped.  Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar, heavy cream, and almond extract.  Pulse until a thick paste forms.  Set aside.

3) In a large mixing bowl, stir the fruit slices together with the brown sugar, lemon juice, rum, citrus extract, cinnamon, and salt.

4) Spray 9 1/2 -inch round, 9-inch square, or 13 3/4-inch rectangular tart pan with removable bottom wit nonstick baking spray.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and unwrap it.  On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to 1/4-inch thick.  Drape and press the dough into the prepared pan, covering the bottom and sides, with some overhang.

5) Roll a rolling pin over the edges of the tart pan to clearly cut off the excess dough.  Spread the pistachio mixture over the bottom of the dough and arrange the fruit slices on top.  Refrigerate to firm up the dough while the oven is preheating.

6) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with foil.

7) Transfer the tart from the refrigerator to the baking sheet and bake in the lower third of the oven for 40 to 50 minutes, until the fruit begins to bubble.  Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.  Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

 We are so glad that we branched out for some sweet and vicious baking.  You should do the same.  Now get into that kitchen and trow some frosting.

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Frenchie

Greg Marchand earned the nickname "Frenchie" from Jamie Olivier.  Marchand was the only Frenchman in the kitchen at Oliver's restaurant, Fifteen.  Then he took off for New York.  Then his wife got pregnant and they made the mature decision to leave New York and go to Paris with no job and a dream.

He found a little spot on a back alley, no bank would lend him a dime, his friends thought he was crazy to pick this little out of the way place, and there was a baby!  But Marchand persevered and it didn't take long for the most jaded of Parisian eaters to find Frenchie. 
A few years later he took over another spot on the street and added a wine bar.  Then he expanded the wine bar.  Then he talked some of his favorite purveyors to move onto the street.  Then he got asked to write a cookbook.  As goes the old movie adage goes, "If you build it, they will come." 

Frenchie is the epitome of the food that made France famous.  It is simply done, beautifully executed, and good to eat.  This simple, easy to put together salad is a fine example of the food at Frenchie.  Marchand says he would eat this every day.  We would, too.

Roasted Carrot, Orange, and Avocado Salad

For The Roasted Carrots

2 bunches (about 1 pound) baby carrots

1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 thyme sprig

1 garlic clove, crushed

Olive oil

Salt

For the Salad

2 -3 navel oranges

2 avocados

3 cilantro sprigs

Juice of 1 lime, or to taste

Olive oil

Fleur de sel

Piment d'Espelette

The roasted carrots:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. 

Trim the carrots and put them in a bowl. 

Toast the coriander and fennel seeds in a small dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 3 minutes; take care not to burn them. Let cool, then coarsely crush the seeds with a mortar and pestle or under a heavy skillet. 

Add the toasted spices to the carrots, along with the thyme, garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and a pinch of salt, and toss well with your hands. Transfer the carrots to a baking dish and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, until tender and lightly browned. Set aside.

The salad:

With a sharp knife, peel the oranges down to the flesh, removing all the bitter white pith, then slice into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. You need 16 slices.Cut the avocados in half, remove the pits, peel, and cut lengthwise into thick slices. Remove the cilantro leaves from the stems.

To serve:

Combine the carrots, oranges, and avocados in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with the cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, fleur de sel, and a pinch of piment d’Espelette and toss gently. Arrange on salad plates and serve.

 Nothing would make us happier than to live around the corner from Frenchie.  Since we don't, this lovely cookbook will have to do.

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