Letters To Bourdain

Cote de Boeuf with sauce bearnaise, truffled pommes puree

Dear Chef Bourdain;

With the Christmas just around the corner, all the cuts and roasts that are normally hard to get are on display at the local supermarkets. For my Christmas beast feast, I settled on a crown roast of pork. No recipe for that in The Book, but I’ll make do. Anyway, a bone-in rib steak, which is what we’d call Cote de Boeuf, was easily available, so I seized the opportunity. This means making sauce bearnaise, though, which is one of the things I was both dreading and looking forward to. One of my chief motivations in this project was my utter inability to make any sauce that requires an emulsion. Sauce bearnaise is like the granddaddy of all emulsions, so it was going to be a challenge. Never the less, your assertion that this sauce senses fear was well taken, and I proceeded with the courage of my convictions.

First I paid very careful attention to my mise-en-place. The tarragon reduction was pretty easy, and the process of clarifying the butter worked exactly as I’ve heard it described, but never done before. Imagine that!

Can't fuck up the meez!

I didn’t want to be in the middle of trying to keep the sauce from breaking and scrabble for something. So I got all the ingredients together, and sort of mentally rehearsed how it would go. With that in mind, I could proceed without feeling like I had no idea what I was doing, and also without having to stop to check the recipe. Here is the result.

This video goes on too long. Also my fiancee argues with me too much. Anyway the result was a really delicious sauce, and the steak was exquisite. The sauce had a tendency to separate a bit when it was left alone, but this could be rectified with just a little stirring. And the flavor! It was so intense and smooth and tangy! It was nothing like bearnaise sauce I’ve had in the past, in a very good way. This is one of my favorite recipes I’ve done so far, and MLF says it’s her favorite, hands down.

I got a cast iron pan ripping hot. Today was the largest rainfall in Los Angeles history, so the grill was kind of out of the question. I seasoned the steak, put olive oil in the pan, and browned it on all side for about three minutes a side.

Do you want to eat this right now? I do.

I literally had to stop MLF from molesting the steak -she picked up a fork and was about to poke it. “STOP! What are you doing?” I said. “I want to poke it,” she said. To what end? This is the sort of mystery that plagues inter-gender relations throughout the ages. I convinced her not to molest the steak, and put it in a 400F oven for 12 minutes – this was a really thick steak, it needed the extra time.

Shhh! It's resting.

I let it rest. Between Assistant Chef Bourdain and a poke-mad girlfriend, I had to guard this steak pretty carefully so it could get some rest. I felt like Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, keeping watch over his campaign tent so L’Empreur could sleep in peace. When it was done, voila – amazing steak.

Of course, I did serve a shockingly expensive burgundy in cheap glasses. I did serve that steak in bleeding, fat-rippled hunks, just as you instructed.  And yet, despite my attempts to show them who’s their daddy – which your book promises I will accomplish, when I asked MLF who her daddy is, she said, “My daddy is my father.” So yeah, that just didn’t work at all.

I guess if I want to be someone’s “daddy” I’m just going to have to have kids. But they can’t have any of the wine!

Not your daddy;

Davy

Fancy French Fries

Dear Chef Bourdain;

I’ve got a lot of posts chambered, and I’m doing quite well in keeping up with the requisite pace to get the whole book done in a year. But I’m really bad at video editing, and anyway I’m doing it on an iphone, or with video taken from one, so it’s not super easy. I’m just sayin’ – I’m cooking faster than I’m writing or editing.

So I actually made the pommes frites a couple of weeks ago, the same time as my previous letter, Quasi-Steak Frites. But they warrant their own entry, given how fries are really a lot harder than you’d think. I’ts not just a case of slicing up some potatoes and throwing them in a fryer, after all. I couldn’t find “GPOD 70” Idaho potatoes, either, and everyone I asked for gave me a sort of wall-eyed goggly look, like I’d asked them if I could borrow their shoes or something. But I got potatoes that LOOK a lot like the ones in your book, so hopefully, that’s good enough.

Boss, the meez! The meez is here, Boss!

Read more…

Dear Chef Bourdain;
I was torn with making steak frites. It’s not really in your cookbook – though the Les Halles pommes frites recipe is. There are several nice steak recipes though, so I decided to compromise, and use one of them for the steak part. Basically any slab of good beef served with fries is steak frites, right?

And it really was good! I went with the faux-filet aux beurre-de-vin for the steak part. The local Costco had some really beautiful New York strips. Why do the French call that “faux filet”? What have they got against New York, chef?

I also made creme brulee at the same time, but that’s this whole big thing involving blow torches and stuff, so that gets its own post. Also video, because if you’re going to burn shit with a blow torch, you ought to record it. I think you know what I’m sayin’.

So I started with the beurre au vin. I had a bottle of Pasquale Toso that I picked because A: it was cheap and decent, and B: sounds enough like MLF’s first name that she’d be flattered. I chopped up a couple of shallots nice and fine, reminding myself that my knife skills suck (Or do they blow?) and coating my hands with eaux-de-shallot that I can still smell today. Into the pot with a cup of wine, I was making a double helping.

The wine boiled down nice and quick, so I threw it in the food processor with softened butter, parsley and salt and pepper. Then it’s just a matter of rolling it up and cooling it for later.

This looks much less appetizing than it really was. I think I, once again, used too little salt, however. I’m going to write another letter about the pommes frites, since they deserve their own mention – but the steaks were fantastic. Of course, I came into this knowing how to make a pretty mean steak. I used my own personal method since I know it works and you don’t really spell one out in the book, the tricky part of this recipe is the butter – which I now have spares of, in case, as you say, my deadbeat friends turn up demanding meat. This isn’t an unlikely scenario, either. Not quite as wonderful as back in Philly when I had to cook all the “mob meat” that I’d bought from some shady characters who had a case of meat that they secured offa the backa some truck…and then the power went out for two days, defrosting the freezer. Then the carnivores circled like unto vultures, gathered to steal my precious black market flesh. In the dark, since we had no power. It was blackoutlicious!

Anyway, for these I got the oven up to 475, super heated cast iron pans with oil until just before the oil smoked, and threw the seasoned steaks in for four minutes a side, then put the pans right in the oven. Nine minutes later, they came out nicely seared and a lovely medium-rare, with the thicker ones more rare, like you’d expect and the thinner ones more medium. This satisfied the tastes of everyone at the table. I’m pretty proud that I managed it so that they were done resting just as the last batch of fries was coming out, too.

So these were some great steaks. Definitely a “hit” in that I’d do it again, especially since I have a roll of beurre au vin in the freezer, ready to go. It’s mighty fine to be a carnivore, sometimes.

Thanks, Chef!
Davy

Dear Chef Bourdain;

If the tart alsacienne was a miss, the gratin dauphinoise was a hit, for sure. An easy recipe without a ton of ingredients and none of them hard to find – and really delicious.  The biggest strike it has going against it is trying to pronounce the name, to be honest. Do French people find it hard, too? Is it a tongue twister in any language, or is it just my Yankee barbarian accent? I was a little disappointed to find out that it’s actually named after the Dauphine region of  France, rather than a French prince who demanded potatoes or something. I made up this whole story in my head about the poor, harried chef who had to come up with fantastic potatoes or like, get the rack or something. As per the usual, the real world is considerably less interesting than the one in my head.

I made both the tart and the potatoes at the same time, as well as your chocolate hazelnut tart, and prepping for coq-au-vin and frisee aux lardon on Monday. This required a list – you recommend lots of lists in your forward and it’s good advice.  So I put all the ingredients I’d need, plus a timeline of when things had to go in and for how long so they’d finish at the right time. I also put the page numbers for the recipes I’d be using at the bottom for easy reference.  Here’s the list, next to your book, which I had to fish out of the recycling bin because I carried it with me to Costco and inadvertently left in a box that we tossed. I had a pretty nervous time trying to figure out what the heck happened to it. Basically what I’m saying, Chef, is you spent the night in a trash can, and I’m guessing it wasn’t the first time.

Never mind my awful handwriting, look at that smug bastard on the cover!

Read more…

Dear chef Bourdain;

Today I made your tart alsacienne from the “Les Halles Cookbook”. It didn’t turn out so well. This is my first “miss” so far, so I’ll chalk it up to my inexperience – after all, I don’t know what I’m doing and importantly, don’t know what a proper tart alsacienne should look or taste like. So I’m just following your instructions as carefully as I can.

I started with your “basic pie crust” – because even though it’s a tart, your recipe calls for a “pre-baked pie shell.” (Note: you don’t say what “pre-baked” means in this context. Given that you’re so careful to explain what everything else is, this was an omission. Fortunately, google is my friend.) Here’s what it looks like when the dough is put together, chilled, and then rolled out:

I pre-baked it, and that’s where things started to go wrong. I planned ahead for Monday night’s dinner and also made a tart crust for the chocolate-hazelnut tart – and while the pie crust picked up and moved over to the pie plate with relative ease, the tart crust was an unholy mess. It shattered, fragmented, smooshed, ripped, you name it. I might as well have not rolled it at all, but instead just thrown the wrapped tart crust in the tart pan and pushed it to the edges with my fingers. I did my best – then I covered both with parchment paper and weighted them down with rice. This is allegedly to keep the bottom from puffing up too much and the sides from collapsing – but since none of this is in your cookbook (coughcoughoversightcoughcough) I’m just guessing it was the right thing to do. Both of them came out looking more “puffy” than “flaky”. Oh and burny.

After that, I cooked the apples in butter and sugar on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet.

I covered these in the cream custard, and baked it for 20-ish minutes. However, the custard hadn’t set, and I had to take it across town to MLF’s brother’s 30th birthday party, so it really needn’t to not be sloshy. I left it in for another nine minutes, and it was set – solid but not burned, golden brown on top. I was pretty psyched to try it, especially since the gratin daupinois rocked my socks so much. But I couldn’t really sneak a slice without it being super obvious that I’d sampled it. So I waited.

Here is the finished tart. It was insipid and bland, though it had nice texture and looked quite nice.

But basically it sucked, Chef. It just had no flavor – the apples weren’t very sweet, and the custard was really bland. The pie crust was nothing to write home about. Now, one of the two of us is clearly not a pastry chef. Possibly both. I talked this over with MLF’s mother, who is a very accomplished chef d’maison herself – we agreed it need a little kick. Cinnamon and nutmeg may be painfully American pie spices, but there’s a reason, ya know? Alternatively, I might add some Calvados, though this would be mixing yer basic Brittany coast with yer basic Alsaice-Lorraine, and I’m not sure if that’s the sort of mongrel-ry up with which the French would put. So maybe rum? But then it wouldn’t be a tart alsacienne, would it – it would be like… a tart buccanier or something. Which, come to think of it, sounds better.

‘Cause this tart? It was nasty.

Regards,
Davy