Sunday's Roast

Because I’m working under a deadline, Loïc has been cooking this week. He has been doing the shopping, and sinking large sums of euros into spectacularly expensive things like whole royal sea breams to eat on a weeknight.

Thursday's dinner

He doesn't want me to know what he's cooking until it is served, he is very secretive, and won't let me in the kitchen. I smell something good or maybe something burning and go to see what it is and he comes running at me like a junkyard dog and stops me from entering. In many ways it has been simply a joy to just have to fluff my hair and sit down at the table and be served. So this is what life is like on the other side.

Loïc comes to the table with a nice roast beef for Sunday dinner and I start fiddling. 'Oh la la,' he moans, 'the food is going to get cold!' I struggle with the tripod, and tell him that the beef has to rest before carving anyway. The sun is coming out from behind a cloud and going back behind again, I push back the curtain with the broomstick, and he begins to fume with anger. I am trying to keep a level head, zoning him out. Now how did I have that f-stop set? Do I think bracketing today might be a good idea? The little voices are all chirping around me and flying about like tinkerbell faeries, and I almost forget Loic is there.

"How DARE you ruin my meal! It is going to be a failure because it is cold!" You have got to imagine Loïc saying this with his very sexy French accent, and even sexier when he’s angry. I stop, put the camera back by the fireplace, and pull up a chair to the table. There now. Let's have a nice Sunday dinner. He slices the meat.

I enjoy the beef’s rare, pure delicate expensive essence, heightened by fleur de sel while at the same time wondering if he's going to be upset because I brought the salt to the table. He hasn't salted his at all. He says, "It's missing something. What is it missing?" My mind starts to hum with the various things I might have done with this hunk of beautiful beef. I respond to him honestly. "This is the best roast beef I've had in ages, Lo. It is excellent. You really could not have done it any better." An embarrassed and beautiful smile crosses his face and he serves me some absolutely divine butter glazed carrots with parsley. Mmmm. Sunday roast.

Sunday's Caille Laqué au Beurre Blanc de Noir, Wild Chickory & Radis Noir Slaw

When the moment came to take out the quails to stuff them, I changed my mind. Stuffing a quail is kind of like playing with your food. Why stuff a little itty bitty bird like this? At most I would get two tablespoons of stuffing into them, and what good would that serve? Better spit roasted and served on a bed of oyster, grey chanterelle, celery root and eggplant dressing, wouldn't you agree?

I decided to use a recipe from my kitchen notebook that I have done on many occasions with excellent results, my spit roasted

Caille Laqué au Beurre Blanc de Noir



Beurre blanc is a sauce made with shallots, butter, and vinegar. When I lived in China, I discovered the magic of a certain fermented black vinegar, called Chinkiang Vinegar, which has a distinctive flavor that when used judiciously, can have a delicious succulent effect in many dishes, and as I have discovered, not just Chinese food. It is a vinegar that is so special and unique that you really have to be careful when you're using it to make sure that it does not assert itself too much.

When roasting delicately flavored birds such as quail, a little goes a long way. The vinegar is made from fermented rice and yeast, and the ingredients on your bottle should reflect nothing else. The fermentation process in this vinegar is what makes it have its special flavor and no amount of sweeteners or salt can recreate it. There are a lot of fakes out there, read your ingredient labels. If you have a choice between one that has salt added and one that doesn't, choose the one without salt.

The goal is to enhance the flavor of the birds and bring out the flavor of the meat with a tangy foil of flavor at the skin, tempered and calmed and lifted by the butter in this classic sauce with a twist. When carefully and repeatedly basted, this sauce can produce a beautiful mysteriously tangy seasoned browned skin that heightens the flavor of the meat. A succesful execution of this recipe means that when you eat this quail, you say: Mmm quail.



For a couple of quails (multiply as necessary), you need:

2 T. Chinkiang Vinegar
6 T. good quality butter
1/2 a shallot
salt and pepper

Puree the shallot and the vinegar and cook it down to about half. Off heat, whisk in the butter in little bits, to create an emulsion. Prepare your quail to roast on the spit, making sure you don't bump them up too close to each other, so that your sauce and the heat can have a chance to reach every part of the bird. Paint the birds with the beurre blanc de noir emulsion, season them with salt and pepper, and set them to roast. Baste them every 3 minutes, 8 times.

What I do is set the timer and execute other tasks in the kitchen in the time between basting. Every time the timer beeps, I quickly drop what I'm doing and give the birds a quick and thorough baste. Careful opening that oven!

I washed, dried, and chopped the wild chickory, minced the onions and apples, sliced the radis noir, and made a salty shallot vinaigrette for the slaw.



I opened the oysters, diced them and added them to yesterday's precooked eggplant, grey chanterelle, champignon de Paris and celery root, and set that in the oven to brown on top while the quails roasted.



When the birds were done, I put them on a warmed serving plate with the dressing all around. I'd say all of the meal from start to finish was on the table within a half an hour (barring the dressing, which was prepared yesterday except for the oysters, which I added at the last minute).





The wild chickory slaw with radis noir was balanced with apple and onion and a salty vinaigrette

I would have been happier with a Condrieu to go with this dish, or even one of the more assertive white Burgundies we see around a lot these days, but we had this leftover Reisling, and it was alright with the quail.


Note: Loic went gaga over the slaw. It's a keeper. I suppose I should think of a better name for it. He was also delighted with the whole idea of oysters in the side to the quail. I think I'll add nuts to the slaw and serve it again soon, perhaps with something like a bacon roasted monk fish.

Sunday's Velouté Fumé d'Automne

This morning the shades were closed and I was dreaming strange dreams. After some tossing and turning, I got out of bed with a start. I thought it was Monday. I had agreed to meet a friend, and we hadn't exchanged rendez-vous details, so I started looking for her phone number. Loic had the coffee going, and he asked me if I knew what time it was, because today the clocks got turned back.

I stood there squinting in the uncommonly bright salon, ready for breakfast. Since it was actually an hour earlier than I thought it was, I wondered if it was too early to call my friend. It's amazing how much the light differs from one hour in the morning to the next. At the breakfast table, Loic seemed to be taking his time and yawned in a relaxed kind of way, uncommon for a Monday morning. He told me we were getting low on fruit: "Do you want to go to the market this morning?" It suddenly dawned on me that I had just gained an hour and a day. What a great way to begin a Sunday.

We indeed went for a bike ride and talked to the neighbors on the way back in. It looks as if the pretty little ladies' place where I used to have a cup of tea and a boiled egg from the bowl on the bar from time to time has been sold and the new owners have painted the entire place matte black. Oh well.

At the market we got salad greens, a wedge of pumpkin, pears and apples, olives, and fennel seeds. We completely replenished the cheese plate with Brie, Reblochon, Comte, a sechon from a local farmer, and Rocamador, which I plan to cook with. We purchased Diots de Savoie from two different vendors to compare them, sheep merguez, and thick slice of lightly smoked pork poitrine from my friend who grows the black free range pigs in the Bugey.

Today's soup was a recipe I have had in my kitchen notebook for the past couple of years. About 4 years ago, Hélène Darroze prepared a soup on Joel Robuchon's cooking show in which she simmered pureed chunks of smoked bacon along with beans to a smooth velouté. She did not mention where the recipe came from, but a couple of years after that I saw a collection of Fernand Point's cooking notes. One of the 9 soups in the collection is an excrutiatingly simple 35 word recipe for a velouté of smoked bacon and feves. It gives the soup a light smoky taste which is just the thing on autumn days. My soup evolved as I experimented with various pureed soups, a kind of soup I love to serve when the weather begins to cool down.

Velouté Fumé d'Automne

1T. butter
1 shallot
1 onion
2-3 potatoes
500g. or about a pound of pumpkin or autumn squash
1 carrot
2 leaves of dried sage
2 French bay leaves
3 sprigs of parsley
250 grams or 1/2 pound lightly smoked pork poitrine (bacon)
3 cups mixed poultry stock
salt and pepper
leftoever duck neck, sliced thin
seasonings: juniper berries, spice mix maison, szchwan pepper corns, etc.
salt and pepper
optional butter, creme fraiche, creme liquide, and or egg yolks.
lemon juice for brightening

Note on the seasonings: Since this veloute can take on many personalities depending on what meats and leftovers you have on hand for the garnish, keep an open mind about the seasonings. Today I ended up not using the leek or the garlic. I had initially considered them, but changed my mind. I was wavering between two ways to garnish it and decided to use the secret stash of duck necks, so I left the heavy seasonings out. I did decide to dust the soup with two juniper berries and szechuan peppercorns, which I do not regret at all.

Mince the shallots and onions, and cut the pumpkin, carrot, and potatoes into a pieces that will cook through quickly, thin slices, rough julienne, big matchsticks. Cut the bacon into small pieces. Melt the butter and saute the onions and shallots for a couple of minutes, and add the potates, carrot, pumkin, and bacon, and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the whole herb leaves and pour in enough mixed poultry stock to cover, bring to a boil, and lower the heat to medium low. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the bay leaves, leaving the sage and parsley in the soup. Puree the soup in a blender or with a mixer until it is smooth. At this point, if you are serving guests, you might consider sending it through the chinois, to strain out any fibers and make it velvety smooth. Once you've done this, you can also enrich the veloute with butter or cream, egg yolks, or any combination therein, off heat to take it just exactly to where you want it to be in terms of smoothness and richness. I did not enrich the soup today for dietary reasons, although when guests come I do think the enrichment adds enough oomph to really be worth it. Season the soup carefully with salt and pepper, and add lemon juice to brighten the flavor.


There are several ways to serve this soup. One way is to saute bacon chunks or sausage and place them in the bottom of the a flat bowl before ladling the soup over the meat. The other is to use leftover meats, mushrooms, etc. as a garnish to the soup. Throughout the week, I always reserve small bits and pieces of the dishes I prepare during the week to use in Sunday's soup. Today I pulled the secret stash of stuffed duck neck and browned and crispened some thin slices in a hot pan to garnish the soup. Oh la la.

Leftover stuffed duck necks are sliced thin and crispened in a hot pan before the soup is served.

Crush the szechuan peppercorns and the juniper berries (Note: sublime with the crispy browned duck gratons) with a mortar and pestle and sprinkle over the top of the soup. Serve into hot bowls and enjoy with a local red wine.





The star of the plate today for me was the locally produced sechon.

Sunday's Soupe Auvergnate

This morning, Loïc and I took a Sunday stroll through the neighborhood and had a cup of coffee at an outdoor café on the riverside near the booksellers. It looked like it might rain, and as we finished our coffee, he asked me if I needed anything from the market. I didn’t think so, I’d already planned to prepare a nice soup using some of the things I already had in the larder. We stopped by the bakery, and once we were home, as the raindrops began to fall, I put together a soup that we often see on the country tables in the Auvergne. I had the pleasure of discovering the cuisine of the region last year as part of my culinary research.

In principal, this type of soup begins with cabbage. Along with whatever meats you have available, you make a stuffing with a panade of garlic, demi-glace, and day-old bread, add scraps like sautéed vegetables, eggs, plenty of herbs and enriching spices: a loaf of Sunday goodness representing the labors of the week wrapped in cabbage and poached au torchon in mixed poultry stock.

Just before serving this soup in the minutes while it poached today, I set the table and cleaned the kitchen. I was taking the kitchen waste-basket down, and ran into Monsieur Maugère coming up from the cave. He had a bottle of wine in his hand and greeted me with a cheery bon appetit. He proceeded up the elevator while I walked up the stairs. I suspect that there were several families enjoying Sunday dinner in our neighborhood today at the same time, a meal that in France typically takes place at noon time. Through the back window that opens to the courtyard, echoes of kitchen and cooking sounds filled the air.

Please don't feel bound by the kinds of meats or vegetables I used today. The spirit of this dish lies in knowing how to save bits and pieces throughout the week and to assemble them together with the key components of this kind of soup when you have the fixings.


Soupe Auvergnate
serves 4 as an entrée, 2 as a meal.

Ingredients (all pictured above):
4 large leaves of fresh green leaf cabbage, the kind with the veins
1 cup mixed cooked poultry wing meat from stock (duck, guinea hen, and chicken today)
1 cup vegetable saute from a previous meal - (celery root, zucchini, white button mushroom and pepper today)
2 slices of leftover pain de noix or thick country bread
1/3 cup demi-glace
1/2 a bunch of chives
4 sprigs of flat leafed parsley
4 sprigs of thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon brined green peppercorns
1 rounded teaspoon duck fat
1 onion
2 pink shallots
2 cloves of garlic
3/4 cup cubed pumkin type squash
2 eggs
1.5 liters of unsalted poultry stock
2 French bay leaves

Equipment: large stewing pot for parboiling the cabbage leaves, a large breakfast bowl that holds approximately 2 1/2 cups, a clean linen poaching cloth which has been thoroughly rinsed of all traces of perfumes and detergent, small sauté pan, a small heavy cast iron casserole type soup pot with a heavy lid, wire mesh strainer, soup terrine type bowl and ladle.

- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and immerse four large cabbage leaves in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove from the water, and set the water aside for possible future use. When the leaves are cool enough to handle, cut out the heavy stem, using a paring knife.


- Ensure that your linen poaching cloth is absolutely clean. Lay it over a breakfast bowl that holds about 2 1/2 cups, and press two or three of the cabbage leaves into the bowl over the linen, with the edges overlapping.


- Grind your day old bread in a food processor and transfer to a deep bowl where you will mix your stuffing. Cut the mixed poultry meats into a dice and add them to the stuffing bowl. Add any leftover sauteed vegetbles from the week (this week it was celery root, zuchinni, button mushrooms, and spicy peppers). Wash the herbs, remove the leaves from the thyme stems, and mince the parsley leaves and chives. Add to the stuffing bowl. Add the seasonings: salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the bowl. Mix thoroughly.
- Heat the teaspoon of duck fat in a small saute pan and add the minced garlic, onion, shallots, and pumpkin type squash. Lower the heat to medium and saute the vegetables, pushing them around in the pan, for 5 minutes or until they are soft but not brown over medium low heat.


- Add the sauteed onion / squash mix to the stuffing bowl. Mix thoroughly, allowing the onions to cool slightly in the mix, then add the brined green peppercorns, poultry demi-glace and the 2 eggs, and mix the stuffing thoroughly.


- Press the stuffing into bowl which has been lined with the poaching linen and the cabbage leaves. Fold the leaves over the stuffing, and fit the last cabbage leaf over the folded leaves.


- Lift 2 edges of the linen and tie them once over, as tight as you can pull it. Lift the moulded ball out of the bowl and twist or tie it closed. I usually just twist it but you may also get a good effect if you tie it tightly around the neck with string.
- Heat 1.5 liters of mixed poultry stock with the two bay leaves to a boil, and reduce the heat to medium. Place the linen ball into the hot soup, holding the edges out of the soup. Place the cover on the soup pot, holding the poaching ball in place. Smooth the edge of the poaching linen up on top of the lid of the soup pot to keep it out of the heat of the fire.
- If your cooking pot is too wide around to allow for the stuffed cabbage to adequately submerged in 1.5 quarts or liters of stock, do two things: 1) add as much as 2 cups of the cabbage parboiling liquid to raise the liquid level somewhat, and 2) if the liquid still does not submerge the stuffed cabbage, turn it over once during cooking at the 10 minute mark, and add 5 minutes to your cooking time.
- Poach the stuffed cabbage in the soup for 20-25 minutes, disturbing it as little as possible. The steam inside the covered casserole will also cook the cabbage, so don't lift the lid unless you need to.
- Remove the poached stuffed cabbage to a cutting board, and carefully unwrap it. Slice it into 4 pieces with a sharp knife and place the pieces carefully into a warmed serving bowl. Carefully strain the poaching liquid though a mesh strainer into the serving bowl around the stuffed cabbage.


Serve hot with fresh bread and a sturdy white table wine, followed by the cheese plate.


Enjoy your Sunday dinner!
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