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Friday, March 5th, 2010

French in a Flash: Niçoise Chickpea Chips

RECIPE: Niçoise Chickpea Chips

Niçoise Chickpea Chips

I wrote in this week’s column that to me, Nice is France’s Venice, and if you’ve been to either, you’ll be able to imagine the food position of the other. A lonely traveler, upon entering either city, you immediately notice difference. In Venice, it’s the canals, and the arched-cat-back bridges. In Nice, it’s the feel of walking off the beach and into a fortress, with medievally serpentine streets and the feeling of grey stone against the blue, blue sky. And then there’s the food. In Venice, it’s a handful of things you rarely see again miles from the canals: cuttlefish, squid ink, chilies, saffron. And in Nice, the heart of the Riviera, in that city fortress is a bastion of dishes you won’t find outside the castle walls: socca, chickpea flour pancakes, zucchini flower beignets, pissaladière, legumes farcies. My time in Nice was one of the fullest times of my life, because I stopped nearly everywhere for something I absolutely HAD to try.

Chickpea Chip Ingredients

For the Oscars on Sunday, I am making these Niçoise Chickpea Chips (see my column French in a Flash at Serious Eats for the full recipe and article, as always). They are easier to make than homemade potato chips, but more unique. Think of them as haute couture snacks on your red carpet table. Except, all that is involved is gently crisping canned chickpeas in hot olive oil, and then tossing them with lemon zest and fleur de sel. To me, though they are certainly not traditionally Niçoise, they evoke all the flavors of the city: the chickpeas, the salty sea air, the deep fry that seems to come on everything, the lemon husks left over from drizzling beignets. Nice memories of Nice. Bon app!

Niçoise Street Food

Zucchini Flower Beignets

Socca

Pissaladière

Niçoise Chickpea Chips

Ingredients

Olive oil for frying
1 clove garlic
1 15.5-ounce can chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and very well dried
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
Zest 1/2 lemon

Procedure

Fill a small saucepot half full with olive oil, and heat over medium heat until it reaches 350°F. Drop the garlic clove into the oil when it is cold, and remove it as it comes to temperature—just to infuse the flavor into the oil.
Fry the chickpeas in batches for about 5 minutes, carefully, as they may splatter. They will go from looking like cooked chickpeas to toasted hazelnuts—smaller, and golden, and crunchy. Drain on a paper towel, and toss with the fleur de sel and lemon zest.

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Categories: 15 Minutes, Appetizers & Hors D’Oeuvres, Eat, For a Crowd, French in a Flash, Recipes, Series, Vegetarian

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

The Secret Ingredient (Pastis) Part III: Pastis and Mint Granita

RECIPE: Pastis and Mint Granita

Pastis and Mint Granita

Get the whole story at Serious Eats.

I make granitas constantly. For one, you don’t need an ice cream maker, which I still don’t have. And two, the snowflake texture and melt-in-your-mouth sweet crystals are like a grown-up snow cone and slushy, all combined in one elegant champagne saucer.

This Pastis and Mint Granita is intensely fresh, full of anise and fresh green spearmint—a strong departure from the sweet lemon and strawberry varieties that are more popular. This granita tastes more like fennel than fruit. But food legend in my family has always held that anise, though often sipped as an aperitif, is really a digestive aid—like the little fennel-seed cookies whose crumbs I always leave scattered on the paper-covered tables of generous Italian restaurants.

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Categories: Recipes, Series, The Secret Ingredient

Friday, February 26th, 2010

French in a Flash: Marseilles-Style Spicy Clams and Mussels

RECIPE: Marseilles-Style Spicy Clams and Mussels

Spicy Marseilles Clams and Mussels

Get the whole story at Serious Eats.

I love this seafood stew for being both simple and complicated at once. Few of us can achieve that dichotomy without substantial artifice, but this dish stumbles into it without effort. As my Marseilles cousin said to me when I described the recipe, “These are not the mussels of Marseilles.” Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but I’ve taken the essences of Marseilles that inspire me—the seafood, the pastis, the saffron, the garlic—and bubbled them into a light, spicy dish that is both warming and weightless.

The dish takes, from beginning to end, perhaps twenty minutes. The subterranean perfume of anise wafts up from the subtle, but present, pastis and fennel. The floral saffron and hot chilies add further depth of flavor to what is otherwise a simple pot of seafood. The clams leach their signature briny liquor, and add a sweet emphasis and contrast of texture to the quotidian mussels. It’s a pot of mussels taken to new Provençal heights. And if you want to make this moules frites, I suggest you try it with sweet potato fries and some good crusty bread. Use the shells to spoon the hot broth into your mouth like a suppertime elixir—it’s bright, fresh, and life-giving.

Marseilles-Style Spicy Clams and Mussels

Ingredients

2 tablespoon olive oil
3 shallots, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1/4 fennel, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup Pastis
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 teaspoon saffron
1 pound mussels
1 pound little neck clams
1 tablespoon butter, very cold
2 tablespoon fennel fronds, chopped
1 tablespoon chervil, chopped

Procedure

In a wide risotto pan, heat the olive oil over medium to medium-low heat and add the shallots, garlic, fennel, and chili flakes. Sauté until translucent, fragrant, and tender—about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, and sauté another 3 minutes.  Add the pastis, and reduce.  Add the wine, and reduce.
Add the saffron, the mussels, and the clams, and raise the heat to high. Cover, and steam the seafood until it opens—about 5 minutes. Shake in the cold butter to make the sauce creamy.  Toss in the fennel fronds and chervil and serve immediately.

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Categories: 30 Minutes, Appetizers & Hors D’Oeuvres, Eat, Fish, For a Crowd, French in a Flash, Main Courses, Recipes, Series

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

The Secret Ingredient (Pastis) Part I: Pastis and Persillade-Stuffed Mussels

RECIPE: Pastis and Persillade-Stuffed Mussels

Pastis and Persillade Stuffed Mussels

Get the whole story at Serious Eats.

Traditional moules-frites are so popular that we often forget their equally delicious cousins: moules-farcies, or stuffed mussels, broiled in the oven and served something like clams casino.

Persillade is a traditional mix of parsley and often garlic, and it is the way I have most frequently encountered stuffed mussels. Sometimes they come with a broiled crust of Parmesan latticed over the top, but in this rendition, I lighten up the flavors with a splash of anise-d Pastis. The butter and the Pastis, under the hot sun of the broiler, collapse down into the half-shell mussels, as the garlic softens and sweetens and the crumbs crust into molehills of flavor.

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Categories: Recipes, Series, The Secret Ingredient

Friday, February 19th, 2010

French in a Flash: Roquefort Roasted Broccoli

RECIPE: Roquefort-Roasted Broccoli

Roquefort Roasted Broccoli

Get the whole story at Serious Eats.

I have always felt that vegetables are the neglected children of dinnertime. Underloved, underattended, and, unlike children, underwhelming—in most cases.

Having grown up as a vegetarian for twelve years, I learned to appreciate the gilded vegetable. At a restaurant in Monaco, I still remember the ratatouille that was cut up into perfect travel-sized dice, each cooked separately and appropriately, and amalgamated into Provençal perfection. And “isn’t it romantic” when the pariah steals the show—like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, or My Fair Lady, or Funny Face, or any movie she ever made? Vegetables may appear scrawny and from the wrong side of the supermarket aisle, but with a bit of finesse, they become the belle of the ball.

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Categories: Easy, Eat, French in a Flash, Recipes, Series, Sides, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Friday, February 12th, 2010

French in a Flash: Watermelon Salad with Fromage de Chèvre Brulé

RECIPE: Watermelon Salad with Fromage de Chèvre Brulé

Watermelon and Toasted Goat Cheese Salad

Get the whole story at Serious Eats.

I am not at all opposed to themed food. Last year’s Valentine’s column was a traditional Coeur à la Crème, a heart of sweet cream surrounded in a sweet strawberry sauce. This year, my Cupid’s arrow is watermelon salad with baby arugula, honey-balsamic syrup, and torched goat cheese—something pink, which may lead down the road to something blue if you play this Sunday night right.

The key to romance is to share a meal, but to not eat anything too filling—or too smelly (hence a salad, with no onions, no garlic). This salad is composed of planks of sweet pink watermelon, with baby arugula tucked gently in between the Napoleon layers, drizzled with a balsamic reduction sweetened with honey, and then topped with olive oil, fleur de sel, black pepper, and goat cheese, which you then set aflame with a kitchen torch until it boils and bubbles and turns soft and charred. It’s magnificent—plus I just used the words “pink,” “baby,” “honey,” and “aflame” all in one sentence to describe it. How much more romantic can you get?

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Categories: 15 Minutes, Eat, French in a Flash, Recipes, Salad, Series, Soup & Salad, Vegetarian

Friday, February 12th, 2010

The Secret Ingredient (Pastis) Part II: Pastis-Glazed Fish with Fennel Slaw

RECIPE: Pastis-Glazed Fish with Fennel Slaw

Pastis-Glazed Fish with Fennel Slaw

Get the whole story at Serious Eats.

Pastis, an anise-flavored liqueur, is two-faced. It smells positively noxious out of the bottle, and yet tastes so absolutely subtle in cooking that if it were a person, it would have a split personality. Who knew that anything so bold out of a bottle could by so shy in a pan?

I first discovered Pastis on the jovial breath of my adoring grandmother, Mémé, and have been trying to force myself to like it ever since. To no avail. But it has absolutely always been around in my house, my mother having been born in Marseilles, in the heart of Pastis-drinking country. Thus, when I was at her house for the holidays, and our family descended upon us from France once again bearing bottles of duty-free Pastis, I had no choice but to give it a shot.