I'll be heading down to the farm this week for my annual trip to can tomatoes.
In the last two years, I've really upped my production — last year I canned 72 jars! Normally, I hoard my stash all winter long, but this year, I still have two dozen jars left of stewed tomatoes. I've become a bit more carefree in my use.
The other night I made a quick ketchup/BBQ sauce; and served it with Seared Foie Gras…
BBQ Foie Gras with Sweet Potato Biscuit and Grilled Onions
1 jar tomatoes 1 small onion diced pinch cinnamon pinch allspice pinch chile flakes 1/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup cider vinegar 3 fresh onions olive oil 6 – 1 oz. slices of fresh foie gras sweet potato biscuits salt and pepper to taste
1. In a small sauce pan, combine the first 7 ingredients. Simmer over medium heat for 1 hour. Puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.
2. Prepare a charcoal grill. Cut onions in half, lengthwise, through the root, so that the root can hold each half together. Toss onions with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook on the grill until roasted and tender, about 20 minutes.
3. Cut biscuits in half.
4. Heat a large skillet over a high flame. Season foie gras with salt and pepper. Press the foie into the hot skillet and let sear for 2 minutes until dark golden brown. Flip over for 10 seconds and remove from pan.
5. Place a slice of foie on the bottom half of each biscuit. Put the top on. Serve with grilled onion and pureed tomatoes.
Sweet Potato Biscuits
3/4 cup milk 1 tsp. yeast 2 cups A/P flour 2 tbs. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 5 tbs. butter 1/2 cup cooked sweet potatoes.
1. Dissolve yeast in milk and set aside.
2. Combine flour, salt, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Sift or whisk to break up any clumbs and to well combine.
3. Cut butter into chunks and then work the butter into the flour mixture until the butter is mostly combined but still chunky.
4. With a few swift strokes combine the milk and sweet potatoes into the flour mixture so it forms into a ball.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Roll out to 1 inch thick. Cut into biscuits and lay on a cookie sheet. Let rest for 30 minutes or more.
6. Preheat oven to 425.
7. Bake biscuits for 10 – 15 minutes or until golden brown on top.
Chefs have long paired pauper ingredients with luxurious ingredients to create a new level of refinement and balance. Cabbage and Truffles; Potatoes and Caviar; and Hot Dog Rolls with Lobster Salad.
For the same effect, Jean Georges Vongerichten poaches foie gras in lentils for an alluring juxtaposition of luxury, richness and texture. I happened to have more foie gras in the freezer….
(As a side note, I wanted to let you know that despite what it may seem with the regularity of foie gras posts, I do have a more balanced diet. But since they come in 1 pound lobes, I invariably have a left over chunk to indulge with at a later time).
His recipe called for poaching a full lobe in the lentils. To me this seemed overly decadent and not the best way to lure out the foie gras’ refined flavor. I prefer foie gras when it’s seared to crusty brown. But in a nod to the Jean-Georges, I melted a small piece of foie gras in the lentils to infuse some of the distinct flavor.
Lentils, red wine sauce and salmon on its own is a wonderful flavor pairing. The foie gras adds a new dimension, though this meal would be fabulous without it.
Seared Salmon with Lentils and Red Wine Reduction
1 tbs. plain oil
4 – 6 oz. salmon filets
1 cup pinot noir or other red wine
1/2 lemon juiced
1 large shallot, minced
1/4 cup chicken broth or water
butter
salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste
Lentils
1 tbs. butter
1 shallot, small dice
1/2 carrot, small dice
1/4 celery rib, small dice
1/2 leek, small dice
1 sprig thyme
1 cup French green lentils
1 oz. foie gras
2 scallion, cut into rounds
Cook the lentils: Over medium heat sweat shallots, celery, carrots and leeks in 1 tbs. of butter. Add lentils, salt and pepper and 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until lentils are tender. Add the foie gras and simmer for 5 minutes more. When lentils are cooked, stir in scallions.
Cook the salmon: Season salmon with salt and pepper. Let salmon rest, skin side down on a paper towel to make sure skin is dry.
Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add oil. Carefully, place salmon, skin side down in the skillet. Do not poke or prod, when the skin is crispy, the salmon will easily come off bottom of pan. Flip over, and continue cooking until desired doneness. Remove salmon from pan, and keep in a warm place while preparing sauce. If you are serving foie gras, you can sear it in the hot, salmon pan at this point
Make the wine sauce: Pour off excess fat from the salmon/foie pan. Return pan to heat, add shallots, and cook for 1-2 minutes or until soft. Add wine, and let it reduce to about 1/4 cup. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil and reduce by half again. Turn the heat off, and whisk in butter, 2 tbs. at a time – for a total of 1 stick of butter (or more depending on your taste). Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and a small squeeze of lemon juice.
Serve lentils with salmon, wilted spinach and seared foie gras. Drizzle sauce around the plate.
My friend Steve Dunn started a new blog, Oui, Chef about 6 months ago – about teaching his kids to cook. I have enjoyed his blog for many reasons, but I think top on my list is his photography. His photos are clean, crisp and always make the food look mouthwatering. After receiving an “Honest Scrap” award, he admitted that his plating skills are lacking, so he uses a macro setting on his camera to compensate, or hide, for his perceived deficiency.
I have the opposite problem. I’m actually pretty good at plating. I just can’t take a good photograph. The photos always look a bit out of focus – I’m sure my number one problem is lighting. Number two: I need to learn more about the settings on the camera, so I can use them to my advantage.
Case in point: This picture.
I had wanted to share with you a great technique for creating a beautiful presentation for salads.
With a vegetable peeler, shave long slices of English cucumbers. Be sure to get the entire width of the cucumber so there is peel on both sides. From a single cucumber, you should be able to get a dozen or more slices – so you have plenty to practice with enough leftover to still serve to your guests.
Line the inside of a ring mold with the cucumber. Make sure the ends overlaps by at least one inch. The cucumber has enough moisture that it will hold its shape when unmolded. With the cucumber still in the ring, fill the inside of the cucumber ring with dressed mesclun greens. Be sure to tuck any ends into the cucumber, letting only the leafy greens poke out. You can fill it pretty tight. To remove the ring, gently hold the cucumber in place and pull the ring off.
This salad was served with seared foie gras and paired with a 1986 Chateau Climens Sauternes.
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Thank you, Steve, for the Honest Scrap award. I’m honored to receive it and flattered to know that you’ve been inspired by my blog. The feeling is mutual: I think your design and photos are clean and beautiful. And I’m always interested in hearing about the stories of you and your kids in the kitchen. They are so fortunate to have you as their dad.
I, too, have been inspired by many blogs, and would like to recognize just a few here. T.W. Barritt at Culinary Types for being a wonderful story-teller. Dan at Casual Kitchen for culling out such interesting stories and resources about the way we eat. Lydia at the Perfect Pantry for being a wonderful friend and mentor. And I always learn interesting tidbits form her posts. Melissa at Alosha's Kitchen — your style of cooking is just a few degrees off what I cook for myself, and you always inspire me to try new dishes.
Scouring through my freezer unearths random bits of grand schemes and leftovers: turkey stock reduction from Thanksgiving, leg of lamb marinated-style tandoori but still raw, and a hunk of foie gras. When I realize I won’t be able to consume foodstuff before they expire, I toss them in the freezer. Perhaps, it’s not the best for way to store food, but it’s better than the alternative.
The foie gras was leftover from Foie Gras three-Ways. As hard as we tried, the six of us could not consume the full lobe (and thank goodness we didn’t). So I wrapped the leftover chunk in a paper towel and plastic wrap and tossed it in the freezer.
Fast forward nine months, and the foie gras is not improving with age. Consuming it hardly aligns with any new year’s resolution to lose weight or get fit; but it does fit with my goal of wasting less food. So I invited a few friends over for dinner.
In the vegetable drawer, another remnant of a grand scheme: celeriac that I had intended to serve with duck. Together, they made an elegant first course.
A satisfying meal produced entirely from leftovers. And if I hadn’t said anything, you may have never known.
Seared Foie Gras 4 oz. foie gras cut into 4 slices 1 tbs. chopped shallots ¼ cup port wine 1 cup turkey stock reduction 2 tbs. butter salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste
1. Season foie gras with salt and pepper. Heat a pan over high heat until it is smoking hot. (Really). Press foie gras into dry pan. Cook for 1 minute. Turn over and cook for 1 second. Remove from pan. 2. Drain pan of all fat except 1 tbs. Add shallots. Deglaze pan with port, add chicken stock. Reduce. Swirl in butter. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice. 3. Rest foie on celery root puree. Serve with fried sage and sauce.
Celery Root Puree 1 knob celery root ¼ cup cream Salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste
1. Peel celery root and cut into chunks. 2. Put celery root in a pot and cover with cold water. Add a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to a simmer and continue cooking until the celery root is tender. 3. Drain celery root, reserving about 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid. Put in a food processor, along with the cream and process until smooth. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Set aside in a warm place.
Fried Sage 1 bunch sage leaves 3 garlic cloves, sliced thin 3 tbs. plan oil Heat a large sauté pan over a high flame. Add oil. Add sage leaves. Sauté for about 1 minutes, or until the leaves begin to look spotted and translucent. Add the garlic and continue to fry until garlic begins to brown. Remove and drain on a paper towel. Season with salt and pepper.
If you ordered foie gras at Biba restaurant in the mid-1990’s, I apologize. I was just learning how to sear foie gras, and it took me a while to internalize all the nuances of the liver and the cooking pans to really perfect my technique. While I learned, I sent out a lot of portions that were flabby and pale. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the opportunity to learn at your expense, sometimes cooking as many as 20 portions a night. And the folks that have eaten my foie gras since then thank you too.
Alan Brock is one of them. He ate at Biba at least once a week. I only knew him by name: “Alan Brock’s eating at the bar….” And we’d pull out the special plates, the new ingredients we were experimenting with and cook him the best dish we could imagine at the moment.
At the end of my shift one night, the sous chef came to me with a glass of red wine. This was highly unusual since we only got shift drinks on Saturdays, and then it was only beer. The glass was from Alan Brock and he wanted to thank the cook who prepared his foie gras. Not the chef, not the sous chef, but me, the LINE COOK. YES! I did it, I did it! I finally learned to sear foie gras.
Cooking Foie Gras intimidates both professional and home cooks. They don’t teach you in cooking school, and it’s not readily available at supermarkets. When it is available for purchase, it can cost as much as $60 a pound. Most cooks don’t have the financial wherewithal to experiment with such a persnickety ingredient to learn how to cook it properly.
When I worked at Biba, the butchers would clean the foie gras for me and the other line cooks. They would gently break it open, clean out the blood veins, and piece it back together in perfect 2 ounce portions. Now when I cook foie gras at home, I don’t bother. I either by “A Grade”, which is quite clean, or I buy “B’s”. Then, I slice the liver and use a toothpick to clean out the veins.
Foie Gras shines when it’s seared to a crispy brown, salty crust. But because the liver is 90% fat, it’s imperative that it’s cooked quickly, otherwise it literally melts away and you’re left with sinewy fat. The secret is cold foie, hot pan. After I slice and season the foie gras, I put it back in the refrigerator. I heat the pan over a high flame for a few minutes. When it’s smokin’ hot, I press the foie gras into the dry pan. It immediately sizzles, rendering enough fat to release it from the pan. After 1 ½ – 2 minutes, I flip it over for 5 seconds, just to take the raw edge off the other side. I let the foie gras rest on a slice of toasted brioche. The brioche soaks up all the juices and makes a wonderful accompaniment to the dish.
I love pan sauces with foie gras, which I make while it’s resting. I drain the excess fat from the pan, to which I add minced shallots. They cook quickly from the residual heat of the pan. Then I deglaze with sherry and chicken stock. After it reduces to a thick sauce, I finish it by swirling in a pat or two of butter. Finally, I balance the sauce with a squeeze of fresh lemon and a pinch of salt and pepper.
12 duck breasts 1 tsp. Sichuan pepper 1 tbs. five spice powder salt ¼ cup sake 1 tbs. hoisin pinch of chili flakes 1 tbs. chopped shallots pinch of nutmeg 1 cup chicken broth or stock butter to taste
Score the skin side of the duck breast. Season meat with salt, pepper and five spice. Cook duck, skin side down over low heat for 10 minutes, or until the fat is rendered and the skin is crispy. Cook breast for 1 minute on flesh side for medium. Remove duck from pan and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
To the duck pan: drain off excess fat. Return pan to heat. Add the shallots and chili flakes. Cook for 2 minutes until the shallots are soft. Deglaze the pan with sake. Stir in hoisin and nutmeg. Add chicken broth, and let reduce by half. Swirl in butter to taste.
Spring Green Bao
3 cups AP flour 1 Tbs. Yeast ¼ cup sugar 1 cup hot milk 1 tbs. Soft butter ½ tsp. Baking powder
1. In a small bowl, combine milk and yeast. 2. Put all dry ingredients in mixing bowl with paddle and mix at low speed. Add the milk to make a dough. Then, add the butter. Switch to a dough hook, and knead for 5 minutes. Add the baking powder last, and be sure it all gets incorporated. 3. Place into a lightly oiled bowl and cover…letting rise for 45 minutes. 4. Punch down the dough, and divide into 12 pieces. Let rest for another 10 minutes…then roll out, put a spoonful of filling in middle, and pinch dough around it. 5. Place each bao on a small square of parchment paper, and stem for 10-15 minutes. Don’t crowd your steamer as the bao will almost triple in size while cooking.
1. Heat oil in a large skillet or wok. Add ginger and garlic. Cook for 1 minute, until soft. Add greens, and cook until wilted. Season with soy sauce. Let cool before filling.
No back-story. Last week I was in the mood for foie gras. Since I still have my restaurant connections, I was able to purchase a 1 ½ pound lobe for a reasonable price. I invited a few friends over and we had a little feast.
First Course … Foie Gras Mousse with Spring Vegetables and Truffles
Second Course … Seared Foie Gras with Grilled Eel, Sweet Soy Glaze and Green Apples
Third Course … Five Spice Duck Breast and Foie Gras with Spring Green Bao, Hoisin – Sake Sauce.
poaches foie gras in lentils for an alluring juxtaposition of luxury, richness and texture. I happened to have more foie gras in the freezer….
