France: Nice, Bordeaux and Brittany

Here are some of food photos I collected in my magical summer around Europe.

Summer is the season for strawberries and these from Carrefour as as great as any.

Tomatoes from the Troyes Market - incredibly sweet, juicy and delicate. One of the best tasting things I ever put in my mouth.

Boudin Noir also from the market. It looks quite scary but trust me it's delicious when fried crispy and accompanied with caramelized apples and mashed potatoes. Though I cannot imagine myself tucking into one that is boiled.

We missed out on trying the Soupe de Poission in Marseilles so I followed a Chowhound recommendation to Chez Acchiardo in Nice. The fish soup was awesome - murky and deep brown but bursting with the essence of the sea. Rub a raw garlic over croutons and smear on some rouille and it all comes together vecry nicely.

Nice looked like a nice city to explore if the crowds thinned out a little. I would like to return in future.

One city that I wouldn't return in Bordeaux. Yes, the Place des Quinconces was breathtakingly beautiful at sunset but rest of the city was mind-numbingly boring.

Anyhow the other highlight of Bordeaux was the famous l'Entrecôte chain. My steak, requested saignant, was done perfectly rare and very tender. The lengendary sauce was addictive and the fries hot, crispy and free-flowing. This took care of my steak-frites craving. The picture below shows half of one's steak, the other half is kept warm on a heated platter.

The final stop before returning to Paris is the picturesque coast of Brittany. We visited Saint-Malo, Mont Saint Michel and the fishing village of Cancale. We had the obligatory one dozen oysters at the market. They tasted fine but were a little flabby at this time of the year. Summer is not the time for oysters.

While not the prime time for oysters, summer is definitely the prime time for lobsters! Not wanting to risk paying high prices to dine on inferior produce, I bought the lobster from Vivers de Cancale who supplies Roellinger's les Maison de Bricourt. At any rate, these lobsters are sweet sweet sweet! It needs no sauce for the tomalley (liver) is so creamy you use it as a dip. Just reminiscing it makes me salivate!

Dusting Away the Cobwebs

Ah I’ve been too busy to work on this blog on mine. Taking 3 Physics and 1 French module was a bad idea. Especially the French! Still, it’s not completely due to tedious academic work that I’ve been neglecting my virtual presence – I’m also hammering out my vacation details this summer. Yes, I am Europe bound!

Anyway, it doesn’t mean that when my blogging stop, my cooking halts too. I always say I am a foodie first, then trailing far behind, a photographer and then a blogger. Here’s a duo of my effort in the past months. In case you are wondering why deep-fried themes seem to cluster together, it’s called oil recycling.

I made a second attempt at fish and chips with some appreciable improvements. Instead of depending on an oil thermometer, I winged the oil temperature and did not too badly. I got the blanching of the fries spot on but I think my deep frying temperature was a tad too high. Still, I suspect that it’s not completely because of the temperature that my fries turned out more brunette than blond. I think that the residual sugar in the potato is browning prematurely. Perhaps they needed a more thorough rinsing. For the fish, I used the same batter but this time I employed the Japanese tempura trick of sprinkling more batter on the fish after dropping it in the oil.


The next preparation is unabashedly lifted from the menu of the Parisian 3-star restaurant Ledoyen. I read about it on Gastroville and Food Snob and even though it’s simple prawn ball, I am strangely attracted to it. And boy, when I tried to replicate it, I found that there’s nothing simple about it at all. First, I tried substituting the pastry with shredded wanton skins. Fail. Next, I used spring roll sheets. It was passable, but only just. I finally gave in and used phyllo pastry and shredded it filament thin. Success! The filling was a whole tiger prawn as well as some minced prawns to give it shape.


Though impressive looking, I found these prawns inferior in taste and texture to smaller deep sea prawns. It is ‘garnished’ with a grilled half of another prawn. The saucing component was what perplexed me. I thought it was some sort of foam that’s not accessible to a home kitchen until I chanced across La Recette du Jour with its recipe for a Lemon and Olive Oil Mousse dessert. Obviously I couldn’t replicate exactly the recipe but only draw inspiration to come up with a savoury version of it. With all 3 elements in hand, the constellations aligned and there you have it, a 3-star dish.

Serious Beef Cheek Ragù Bolognese

"To most people outside Italy, Bolognese is lowly refectoire fare... But in Bologna, one of Italy's most prestigious cities for food, ragù bolognese is a legendary dish that is not only part, but defines the city's identity... Two legendary Bologna home chefs, sisters Margherita and Valeria Simili, have become the most respected authority on all things related to Bolognese pasta. In their book 'Sfida al Matterello', a manual in Italian to teach the principles of homemade pasta, la sfoglia bolognese, there is a whole chapter about making ragù. It is called 'His Majesty the Ragù'.” – FXcusine.com

Here’s my take on the recipe. To take a step further, I’ve read that the original Bolognese contained shredded, not minced meat so I used cubes of beef cheeks. This kicks the ass of any meat sauce pasta I have ever eaten.


(edit) Supplement photos:

Iron Chef Recipes – Cabbage, Scallops and Foie Gras Risotto

Iron Chef is the greatest culinary show ever produced. Even till this day, I can think of no cooking programme that approaches close to it the skills and techniques you can pick up by watching battles between real chefs using all the imaginable tricks up their sleeves to win. Unlike in scripted programmes where everything is nice and easy and the results are always perfect, Iron Chef is raw, every mistake and miscalculation is immediately apparent. Also to its benefit is that Iron Chef predates the age of avant garde molecular cuisine which I am apathetic towards. I first got interested in cuisine watching Iron Chef and I cannot imagine a better start. Visit ironcheffans.info to download episodes.

Here is a rough recreation of Challenger Hiromi Yamada’s dish in Battle Cabbage (217) – a Cabbage, Scallops and Foie Gras Risotto.


The risotto I made this time is one of my best so far after many experiments. Here’s what I learnt:
1. Use more onions that you think you need, they add sweetness and lightness to the risotto.
2. Cook slowly on low heat and stir gently. To diffuse the heat evenly, the pot was placed over a thick carbon steel pan. Towards the end, check the doneness frequently and remove just before al dente.
3. Don’t be shy with the seasoning. Also, for risotto I tend to use white pepper instead of black.
4. For a wetter risotto, add more stock and then thicken with cream/mascarpone cheese. I find that the rice alone has insufficient starch to make a creamy but wet (as in the liquid to rice ratio) risotto.
With these tricks, combined with the basic techniques which are left as an exercise to the reader (inside joke, by the way) to discover, you can apply it to any variation of risotto dishes.


The scallops are large frozen Hokkaido ones which can be found at the more upscale supermarkets. They were done in a ghetto sous vide (under vacuum) style. I never thought that I would have the need to sous vide anything until my repeated frustrations with controlling the doneness of scallops. The molluscs were bagged in a small ziplock and immersed in a large insulated mug of water at 56 ˚C (some people go as low as 50 ˚C ) for 30 minutes. Check out the results for yourself.

Brocollini Duo

Here's a duo of brocollini efforts. First up is a simple breakfast of lengths of brocollini and woodwillow mushrooms pan roasted with a soft boiled egg for dipping on the side.


The next day, I made a risotto with the the stem diced and mixed in the rice, the heads roasted and a few whittles of raw brocollini stem. For texture, there were parmesan chips and crisp pancetta.

Fish and Chips

If you love the feeling of sweating oil out of your pores even after 2 showers, try making Kilkenny-Battered Cod and Triple-Cooked Chips at home.

Chips are a pain to do. After reading a few sources I settled on following the most tedious, that is, Heston Blumenthal’s recipe. (You can actually see the book in the background in the picture below.) There’s not a whole lot of choice when it comes to potatoes in Singapore so I went with the trusty old Russets.

The general steps were to:
1. Peel, cut and rinse.
2. Steam until tender.
3. Dry.
4. Blanch in 130 °C oil.
5. Dry.
6. Fry in 190 °C oil.



Controlling oil temperature is still a bit of a black art for me but I think my thermometer is reading 5-10 °C too low and my fries took on too much colour in the blanching process. You can see the test fries below, they were pretty good but not exactly mind blowing. The crust was crumbly and crunchy but the interior was too dry and lacked texture of fluffy potatoes I was hoping for. Still, not too bad for a first attempt.


The cod was done in the same batter prescribed in the tempura post a few months back. By the time I done mine (the cook eats last!), the beer has sort of fizzled out but the first few servings had much puffier coating. I was quite proud of my control of the cooking time. The fish came out yielding and moist. Then again, cod is a pretty forgivable fish to cook.


Still, there’s lots of room for improvement so hang in there for Round 2...

A Modest Grill

My modest attempt at some yakitori after inspiration from Kushigin.

Chicken wings turned out to be more satay-style bbq than yakitori. No idea why.


The yaki onigiri turned out quite well - sticky but not mushy rice.


Last up was a flash-grilled prawn in miso soup.

Pizza

Not my work but my brother's recipe for the dough. Toppings are sliced cherry tomatoes, shiitake 'shrooms, Hungarian salami, buffalo mozzarella and Scarmoza.

Shanghai Hairy Crab

It’s the Shanghai Hairy Crab (大閘蟹) season! Every year my Mom’s friend will gift us a few from a reputable dealer in Shanghai. That’s imperative, for a bad example will have you wondering what’s with all the fuss about this little creature. I eat mine the patient way, getting every bit of meat out and then mix the whole glorious mess in the semi-liquid roe. The taste? Simply incredible – imagine a uni and salted egg yolk custard.

Steak Sandwich

Enfin, les petites vacances! A couple of weeks ago I had a craving for a nice juicy steak sandwich after viewing this article on Serious Eats. It's interesting, but I thought the chipotle mayo didn't add much to the steak. Instead of slicing the steak after grilling I butterflied it thinly to give it more surface to brown.

Bee Hoon stewed in 奶汤

I must admit I completely lifted this dish from Fook Weng restaurant which is helmed by Chef Kang, formerly of the Canton Wok fame. The new place serves up some sublime cuisine too, but sadly on both the occasions I went business was really slow. Their struggle was clearly reflected in how this Bee Hoon soup evolved between the both times I had it. The original version combined poached prawns and scallops with thin sliced asparagus for crunch but when I next had it, they lowered the price and substituted the scallops with an unidentifiable tasteless fish and the asparagus were replaced with broccoli stems. Still, I wish them the very best and hope to return soon.

Start out with a Nai Tang (奶汤) and add some fish racks. I won’t go into detail about the recipe but the whole idea is that under vigorous boiling, the proteins and fat from the meat incorporate into the liquid to make a whitish and slightly creamy stock. Poach the prawns and scallops and set aside. If you are using unshelled prawns then use the peelings to make a flavour boosting prawn stock. For the greens, I used Kailan bone as it was available but it’s flexible. Blanch the Bee Hoon until half cooked and then drain well. This step is important! If you don’t drain the blanching liquid will dilute your lovingly prepared soup. When ready to eat just complete the cooking of the noodles in the stock. Top with shredded and fried dried scallops and with dried flatfish flakes.

Crab Ravioli

This crab ravioli is an idea that’s been floating around in my head for awhile. While I am one who never minds getting my hands and fingers dirty tunnelling for every morsel of crab, there are times you wish somebody has done all the work first. Unfortunately, that somebody still turns out to be me which leads to this ravioli being hands down the most time consuming dish I ever attempted.


I’d never have started on this dish if I didn’t score these amazing crabs at the market. These are some of the best I’ve had in ages – the meat was dense and sweet. All too often, crabs sold nowadays have spent so much time in tanks without room to move that their meat turns watery and cottony. Anyway, steam the crab until done and then pick out the meat. Unshell the claw meat in one glorious chunk. That will be the piece de resistance in the centre of each ravioli. Bind the loose crab meat with minced prawns, scallops and mascarpone then moisten with milk. Figure one medium-large crab to make 6 large ravioli.



For the sauce, toss cherry tomatoes and garlic in salt, pepper and olive oil then roast in a low oven for 1.5 hours. Make a stock from the crab legs. Puree the tomato, garlic and stock and strain very thoroughly.


Making pasta is tricky. None of the recipes I followed were ever exactly right. I guess that our humidity causes the flour to have greater moisture content. Yet, you don’t need to be a chemist to make pasta dough. The dough communicates with you. If it’s crumbly, the dough is too dry and you need to add something wet and if it’s sticky, dust with flour to dry it up. Personally, I use the following ratio: 20g semolina flour, 80g organic unbleached flour, 1 large egg yolk, 2/3 of the large egg white, 1 tsp olive oil, a pinch of saffron steeped in a little warm water and a pinch of salt. This yields enough dough to make 6 large ravioli or 2 small portions of long pasta.


Here, I rolled out the dough with poppy seeds folded in. Cut out 8-10 cm diameter rounds, using a bowl as a guide.


Be sure to fill each ravioli generously. Somehow the stuffing shrinks while cooking.


Cook in rapidly boiling salted water for 4 minutes, drain and serve on a pool of the roasted tomato puree. It’s really nice with a few pieces of crispy chorizo.

Pork Belly Rice

Here's something I done quite long ago but never posted. It’s a sort of Chinese-Japanese fusion. The pork belly pieces marinated generously in dark soy were browned on a low fire together with garlic, ginger and galangal for a long time to develop the caramelized flavours. At this point, you can just add water and then stew for a classic down-to-earth soy-stewed meat. However, I deglazed with mirin for sweetness and then added a light dashi stock for the Japanese twist. Towards the end, sweated onions were thrown in and cooked for a few minutes. Thinly sliced negi and ginger helps counter the richness.

Kingfish Sashimi and Tempura

My dad unexpectedly brought a sashimi-grade kingfish fillet back from Sydney, giving me a chance to use my recently acquired vintage ‘Tamahagane’ Yanagi-ba (sashimi slicer). The edge didn’t disappoint though my technique leaves room for vast improvement. I didn’t have much to use in terms of garnish so I had to make do with half a lime and some needle cut cucumbers.


The rest of the fillet was done tempura style with some small prawns with the head left on, onions, shiitakes, red and yellow papers, sweet potatoes and eggplants. My batter? 2 parts all-purpose flour, 1 part Dragon Boat brand Crispy Flour and enough cold beer to get the correct consistency.