Recipes | Page 2 of 8 | The Rambling Epicure

A French Cook in Venice: Fegato alla Veneziana

Published by Jonell Galloway + Sunday, March 6, 2016 Permalink 1

fegato alla veneziana, venetian calf's liver and onions, What to Eat in Venice, Venetian cooking

Franco-Venetian Cuisine

What to Eat in Venice: Fegato alla Veneziana, or Venetian-style Calf’s Liver with Caramelized Onions

Many say this is the ultimate Venetian specialty, but considering that Venetians eat mainly fish, one could easily argue that point. A good fegato can be the highlight of a day or weekend, however.

Everyone loves caramelized onions, but some people dislike even the idea of eating liver. Calf’s liver is finer than beef or chicken, and when it’s topped with sweet onions, it is indeed a highly refined dish.

You’ll see the influence of my background in French cuisine; I went a bit heavy on the white wine when deglazing the pan, but it renders a succulent sauce.

One of the crucial elements to the success of this dish is that the liver be of exceptional quality and thinly sliced. Thick slabs simply don’t work and take away from the refined aspect of this dish.

Another secret is to slow cook the onions and to just seize the liver, no more. If you cook it more and on slow heat, it will become leathery.

Recipe

Ingredients

400 g onions
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
400 g calf’s liver cut in extra-thin slices
1-2 cups white wine
Salt and pepper to taste
Italian parsley, chopped
Skillet large enough to spread liver in a single layer
White polenta

Venetian Hours: Looking for a Nonna

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, March 3, 2016 Permalink 0

Nonna Violante in Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy, cooking school, making passatelli pasta, Hotel Eliseo, #lovingromagna

Venetian Hours: Lost in Italy and Looking for a Nonna

by Jonell Galloway

If you live in Italy, you have to have a nonna. Having just lost my “adopted” Italian grandmother, Nonna Margherita, in Switzerland, the time was right, and it happened in the most unlikely place: Bellaria-Igea, a seaside town in Romagna, known as the Italian region of land-and-sea because of its plentiful bounty of both fish and meat. As a result, the cuisine is varied and copious, playing on unending themes of the two. The hillsides beyond the shores are verdant and rolling, producing excellent wine, meat and cheese, while traditionally, the inhabitants by the seaside are fishermen.

Fishing net of a batana fishing boat in Adriatic Sea, Igea-Bellaria Marina, Nonna Violante, #lovingromagna

Originally, Bellaria-Igea was a village of solely fishermen and their families. Their wives supplemented the family income by renting out rooms in their seaside cottages. While the men were fishing, the wives tended to the guests by cooking, cleaning and generally making them feel at home. Over the years, they added extra rooms and their homes became locande, or “inns,” and eventually pensioni, or “small hotels,” and this became a seaside resort. This is the story of the family of my new nonna, Nonna Violante.

Biscuit Therapy and Modern Salt

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, January 2, 2016 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

In Loss There is Nourishment: A Southern Biscuit Story

One has to be able to work the dough intimately; it is like making love and following every move of your lover. Timing is of the utmost importance. The symphony of movements is different with every batch, and one has to be in step with every beat. A bit more flour, a bit more lard, just enough air pockets, stop, stop. It’s about perfect harmony, ending on a perfect note, at the perfect moment; it’s fast-moving and playful like a scherzo, and, like a live piano concert, once you’ve hit a wrong note, there’s no going back.

Every Southerner has a biscuit story. Biscuits are what bind us and make us Southern, whether they are slathered with sticky blackstrap molasses or sausage gravy. When we say we miss the South, we are missing a wooden swing on a front porch, beads of sweat running down our foreheads, and a welcome breeze bringing a waft of biscuits cooking; we are missing the sound of the oven door opening and of hearing the biscuits coming hot out of our mothers’ ovens, calling us to supper, calling us home.

This is the introduction to my first article for the British publication Modern Salt, published by Penny Averill.

Click here to read the rest: Biscuit Therapy.

New Year’s Eve Dinner in France

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, December 26, 2015 Permalink 0

New Year’s Eve Dinner n France: Le Réveillon de St-Sylvestre

by Jonell Galloway

The New Year’s Eve celebration, referred to as Saint Sylvestre in France, is of pagan origin. The celebration existed long before St. Sylvester himself and long before there was even a pope. Ancient beliefs and celebrations, both religious and pagan, are mixed with those of winter solstice.

In Ancient Rome, the New Year was celebrated after Saturnalia, which was around December 25th, and was a time for “feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees.” People exchanged coins and medallions in celebration of the New Year. This tradition has slipped into oblivion, although adults sometimes still give children coins on this day, but other parts of Saturnalia continue today.

Saturnalia, an ancient Roman feast, St. Sylvester's, New Year's Eve

Up until the time of Julius Caesar, this end-of-year celebration didn’t have to fall on a fixed date; it was simply about ten days after Saturnalia. It was Caesar who set the date of December 31, and later, in France, Charles IX set the first day of the year as January 1.

St. Sylvester was Pope from 314 to 335, at the time the Church was emerging from the catacombs. Although Emperor Constantine controlled most of what went on in the Empire, Sylvester persuaded him to convert to Christianity and close the pagan temples. The great basilicas were also built under his influence.

What to Eat in France: Turkey Stuffed with Chestnuts

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, December 18, 2015 Permalink 0

**What to Eat in France: Dinde Farcie aux Marrons, Turkey Stuffed with Chestnuts**

by Jonell Galloway

Etre le dindon de la farce. / To fall victim to dupery.

Une dinde. / A stupid, pretentious woman.

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, perhaps France’s best-known gastronomic writer, said that the turkey was certainly one of the most beautiful gifts the New World had given to the Old. “…the fattest, and if not the most delicate, at least, the tastiest of all domesticated birds.” It’s not often that the New World gets such compliments from discerning French epicures.

Turkeys were originally called poules d’Inde, “Indian hens,” in France, because they were thought to have come from India, which they later learned was Mexico. The French were not the only ones to get the name wrong. In Hebrew a turkey is a tarnagol hodu, meaning literally “Indian chicken;” in Russian indiuk, Polish indyk and Yiddish indik.

There is some controversy over who brought turkeys to Europe. Columbus probably brought brought them back in the early sixteenth century, since records show that King Ferdinand had ordered that every ship to bring back ten turkeys before the Spanish explorer Cortés set out in 1519. In any case, by 1548, they were the rage in France. In 1549, Catherine de Medicis served 70 “Indian hens” and 7 “Indian roosters” at a banquet held in honor of the Bishop of Paris.

French aristocrats were accustomed to eating all sorts of feathered creatures, including chewy storks, herons, peacocks, swans, cranes and cormorants, so it wasn’t surprising that they fell in love with the less-chewy turkeys, and that in 1570, Charles IX and Elizabeth of Austria thought turkey noble enough to serve at their wedding feast.

By the seventeenth century, the French were raising turkeys as if they were their own and most cookbooks included turkey recipes. French chefs weren’t lacking in ideas: they made stews and ragouts; they larded, roasted and glazed it; they stuffed it and made it into soups and pâtés.

Marie-Antonin Carême preferred the wings, which he deboned, then stuffed with chicken and truffles. Alexander Dumas, in his Dictionary of Cuisine, included 27 recipes. Turkeys were well established in the Hexagon.

Christmas dinners usually meant lots of mouths to feed, so turkey, being the largest of the winged creatures available, eventually became the dish of choice for Christmas feasts. By the nineteenth century, it became customary to stuff the Christmas turkey with chestnuts, and the tradition continues today.

The French and What They Eat: Frites

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, December 9, 2015 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

The French and What They Eat: The History of Frites, what we call French Fries or Chips

Avoir la frite. / To have the French fry, meaning “to be fit.”

The French swear they invented frites, what we call French fries. The Belgians also claim to have invented them. One thing we do know is that French fries, or “chips,” as the British call them, came on the scene relatively late in the context of food history, since potatoes were incorporated into the French diet well after the discovery of the New World. It was in the late eighteenth century that Parmentier made them popular; before that, they had been the food of the poor who couldn’t afford bread and had often been used as animal feed.

But before there were French fries, there were fried potatoes, sliced, then fried in butter or lard, or sometimes breaded and fried like fritters. There is mention of this method in the eighteenth century, and recipes started appearing in French cookbooks in the nineteenth century. Already in 1807, the famous gastronomic writer Grimod de La Reynière, advised eating steak with potatoes fried in fresh butter. The following year, Stendhal wrote in his journal: “At quarter past four, I ate grilled mutton with fried potatoes and salad.”

It was only in 1838 that a Belgian by the name of Monsieur Fritz discovered the secret to making frites or French fries as we know them today. He had learned the technique in a rotisserie in the Rue Montmartre in Paris. His secret was to cut the potatoes into sticks instead of slices. This method soon took over in France and abroad.

Early Recipes for Frites and French fries

Make a batter using potato flour and two eggs beaten with water. Add a spoon of oil, a spoon of eau de vie, salt and pepper. Beat well until there are no more lumps. Peel raw potatoes. Slice. Soak in the batter. Fry until they form a nice color.–Madame Mérigot, La Cuisinière républicaine / The Republican Cook, 1794

Peel raw potatoes. Slice them. Flour them and throw them into extraordinarily hot deep fat. When they are fried, sprinkle salt on them.–A.T. Raimbault, Le Parfait Cuisinier / The Perfect Cook, 1811.

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Jonell Galloway grew up on Wendell Berry and food straight from a backyard Kentucky garden. She is a freelance writer. She attended Le Cordon Bleu and La Varenne cooking schools in Paris and the Académie du Vin, worked for the GaultMillau restaurant guide and CityGuides in France and Paris and for Gannett Company in the U.S., and collaborated on Le tour du monde en 80 pains / Around the World with 80 Breads with Jean-Philippe de Tonnac in France; André Raboud, Sculptures 2002-2009 in Switzerland; Ma Cuisine Méditerranéenne with Christophe Certain in France, At the Table: Food and Family around the World with Ken Albala, and a biography of French chef Pierre Gagnaire. She ran a cooking school in France, and owned a farm-to-table restaurant, The Three Sisters’ Café, with her two sisters in the U.S. She organizes the Taste Unlocked bespoke food and wine tasting awareness workshops with James Flewellen, is an active member of Slow Food, and runs the food writing website The Rambling Epicure. Her work has been published in numerous international publications and she has been interviewed on international public radio in France, Switzerland, and the U.S. She writes for the British publicationsÂ In Search of Taste and Modern Salt, and is now working on two books, The French and What They Eat and What to Eat in Venice.

What to Eat in France: Crêpes Vonnassiennes

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, November 18, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Crêpes Vonnassiennes, Vonnas-style Potato Pancakes

by Jonell Galloway

Vonnas in the east of France is the home of the legendary Michelin-star chef Georges Blanc. He is best known for his Bresse chicken with cream and mushrooms. Traditionally, this chicken is eaten with potato pancakes. This recipe is inspired by Blanc’s mother, La Mère Blanc, who ran his restaurant before him. He learned to cook at her apron strings.

Vonnas is in the Rhône-Alpes region of France, known for poulet de Bresse chickens and poultry, frogs, Reblochon and Beaufort cheese, as well as gratin dauphinois, made with raw potatoes, thick cream and garlic, and pork products, plentiful in the bouchons, small restaurants found in Lyon.

What’s the Difference in Haute Cuisine and French Cuisine?

Published by Jonell Galloway + Sunday, November 15, 2015 Permalink 0

There are many kinds of French cuisine. It is not limited to the haute cuisine accessible only to the rich.

by Jonell Galloway

What many of us think of as “French cuisine” is actually haute cuisine, the cuisine that evolved from the aristocratic cuisine of the royalty. This cuisine was centered mainly in Paris and Versailles. Regional cuisine as we know it today did not even exist at the time, since regions didn’t exist until after the Revolution. Until the Revolution, there were provinces and feudal “kingdoms,” abolished afterward. Cuisine bourgeoise, the cooking of the upper middle classes and later middle classes, developed after the Revolution, and gradually filtered down to the broader population.

Regions didn’t formally exist by name until 1890, so there was little meaning attached to the word “region”. One cooked and ate what was available, what one grew and raised and that varied widely. Even the gruel was made with different grains in different regions. Regions only formed an identity after this. Knowledge of regional cuisines increased as travel became easier and accessible to all, especially after the generalization of cars.

French cuisine has always consisted of two tiers: haute cuisine and regional cuisine. Elements of haute cuisine — the cuisine that we inherited from the courts and later the affluent bourgeoisie, the cuisine that elevated sauce-making to an art form — have over the centuries infiltrated the cuisine of the regions, and regional cuisine is the lifeline and wherein lies the future.

What to Eat in France: Poulet de Bresse

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, November 14, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Poulet de Bresse, or Chicken from Bresse with Cream and Mushrooms

by Jonell Galloway

J’ai la chair de poule. / I have goose bumps.

Quand les poules auront des dents. / Literally, “when chickens have teeth,” meaning that will never happen.

Bresse chicken or poulet de Bresse has had an A.O.C. since 1957, which defines the way in which they are raised as well as the geographic zone in which they can be raised.

It is a French breed known as Bresse-Gauloise. The feathers are generally white, and they have a red, crenelated comb. They have blue feet and a white beard. About a million chickens are sent to market every year.

Poulet de Bresse and other poultry from Bresse — including guinea fowl, capon, hen and even turkey — is raised under strictly defined conditions, but it is not organic. They are free range and have a grass-based diet, but also eat worms and mollusks. Final fattening is with cereals and milk products in wooden cages. Bresse poultry cannot be slaughtered under 5 months of age if they are to bear the A.O.C.

What to Eat in France: Boeuf Bourguignon

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, November 14, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Boeuf Bourguignon, or Burgundy-style beef stew in red wine, inspired by French chef Bernard Loiseau

by Jonell Galloway

Boeuf à la bourguignonne, also referred to as beef or boeuf bourguignon, is a French classic from the Burgundy wine region of France. It is made with red Burgundy wine, and simmered for hours. It makes up part of what the French refer to as “plats cuisinés“, or slow-cooked dishes.

This recipe is quite easy to make, and should serve about 8 people. Plan to make it well in advance, since it is best when it is left to marinate for 24 hours and cook slowly several hours on the day of serving. It is the perfect dish for dinner parties or potlucks, and is one of the best leftovers around.