As you will have noticed, we try to do the decent on national/culinary holidays of note. July is a bit of a challenge, as Independence Day calls for a big ole party, and Bastille Day calls for some serious French cooking. Both take a fair effort, in somewhat different ways, and sometimes one has to go (not least at the moment when construction work in our lane makes inhabiting the apartment pretty impossible on a Saturday). So no 4th of July celebration this year, but let's get our French on!
'Cos you can't get much more French than Mr. Cow perched on a glass of Bordeaux
We cranked up the accordion music on the old sound system and met our guests (Moulard & Manto, SMT & Nic, Anthony & Dennis) with wall to wall meat.
Part of minimising work during the day to avoid construction noise included doing things ahead of time. I've already told the story of making the salmon. We sliced it thin and served it with some lovely capers preserved in salt and some sour cream, and there was lots of bread on the table to have with it. I'm sorry to say I've never had salted capers before, only brined. If you haven't had them, they are firmer and have a more defined capery flavour than the brined ones. I do not plan to go back to brined.
Another part of minimising your work is to get someone else to do it for you. Doing entire terrines is not hugely time consuming but if you only want a slice or two for your dinner party, that time is more than you want to spend (plus the fact that you are left with 11/12ths of a terrine to do something with). So it was down to the French deli at the Vic Market for (clockwise from left) some pork rillette, duck liver and mushroom pate, and pork, pistachio & date terrine. All yummy, all rich and all bad for you. Add some cornichons, some good strong Dijon mustard and away you go.
Absolutely the best way to minimise your work, even better than paying the nice people at the deli to give things to you, is for one of your friends to give of their time and effort to create something special. Moulard, who has posted before on this blog and we hope will again, whipped up a couple of hot smoked duck breasts. They were brined for I think 24 hours in a mildly spiced and salted solution (Moulard, if you want to give us some more detail that would be swell), cooked in a hot smoker and rushed to us still hot in the middle and dripping with love. Or maybe that was rendered duck fat. Is there a difference? There was a strong (but not coarse) smoky odour, the meat was lusciously moist and mildly spiced. It was just as if you were eating an extremely good fresh ham that tasted of duck. Thank you, Moulard.
It all went in the most noble of causes .. or was that courses?
Well, the first course was very meaty indeed being about five different bits of charcuterie. Time to get some virtuous healthy veg into us (sounds of choked laughter from the Perigueuxse). Well, maybe not too virtuous, but definitely veg. The second course was a puff pastry tart with green apples, walnuts and Roquefort.
- Shallow 10cm tart tins were lined with good butter puff (after a minor stress episode finding that rolled pastry takes an hour to defrost instead of about 5 minutes for sheet) and blind baked.
- We put in a some crumbled Roquefort and chopped walnuts on the base, then a few slices of green apple (peeled, cored, sliced and stored in acidulated water), and a little more cheese and walnuts on top.
- Back into the oven for about 7 or 8 minutes until the cheese is starting to brown, and then served with a fairly acid mustard vinaigrette on the plate and a few more walnuts (these toasted to make them crisp).
You don't often serve a sauce with a savoury tart, but I felt this was such a rich one that the apples needed a little extra acid to help them balance out the cheese (Roquefort is very, very rich and strong), nuts and pastry. I was happy with the dish; it had strong flavours from the cheese and walnuts, crunchy pastry, crispy apple and runny cheese, and a good balance of acid vs. richness.
In a blinding flash of inspiration I did exactly the same main course as last year, twice cooked pork belly in a fennel jus served on puy lentils and vegetables. I experimented with other potential dishes, but ultimately I decided this dish was a good balance of technique, Frenchness, and good return on investment for the amount of time that went into it. Plus of course it's delicious and it always makes me happy to cook it. If you want the cooking details, you can get them here. I cooked it without referring to last year's notes at all, but I find I have done it mostly identically, except this year I didn't reduce the braising liquid down to a glaze and I cut the pork belly into slightly larger pieces, so it was a bit more of a rustic presentation.
Salad was a fairly rustic affair too, a huge mound of frisee with finely minced shallots, toasted pistachios and a mild vinaigrette. I'm sure I've said before that I'm a purist about green salads, and here we wanted something plain, simple and quite aggressively green to help to balance out all the richness I had committed on my poor guests in the previous dishes.
Speaking of richness : dessert was a shortcrust tart (made with cream in the pastry), blind baked, filled with sweet apples (peeled, cored and finely sliced) and a rich egg custard and then baked until set (about 45 minutes). We let this cool then put some icing sugar in top and bruleed it. I think the least rich thing in the dish was the cream on top. But the pastry was firm yet yielding, the apple and custard flavours and textures were both clear in the middle and the brulee added an unexpected intensity.
So that's one more Bastille Day down. I'm not sure when our next cultural feast will be; German Unification Day in October doesn't seem to offer much in the way of jollity. I've done the Russian October Revolution before, which led me to a rather lovely Armenian sour cherry cake recipe, but I just don't feel very revolutionary this year. Maybe the feast of San Genarro will be the way to go; grilled Italian pork and fennel sausages, maybe a timpano, who knows.
Take care and Happy National Holidays!
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