Au Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs – A restaurant in Blois

When driving up from the middle of France back to Paris, we stopped for the night in the cute city of Blois. Blois is on the side of the Loire river and it has a well renovated castle in its center. After visiting the castle we had dinner at the "Rendez-vous des Pêcheurs" (the meeting place of the fishermen) a restaurant we found through the Guide Michelin. For those of you who did not know, the guide Michelin was made by the Michelin tire company to encourage driving in French families.

Well, the Rendez-vous Pêcheurs certainly deserves its ranking of "a very good table." The meal started out with a pre-appetizer of carrot mousse over mushroom flan. It was served hot in a little white coffee cup and it was delicious. Maybe I will try to re-create it one day.

For my appetizer, I ordered the Lobster broth. It was flavorful, but not too strong, and it came with large chunks of tasty lobster in it. It also had pieces of chicken in it, which I found to be a bit out of place. But overall it was quite good.

My parents both had the special appetizer: zucchini flowers stuffed with crayfish. This dish was very flavorful and delicious.

For my main entrée, I had the pigeonneau. Yes, yes, I know, the restaurant is named after fishermen, but pigeonneau is too good to pass up. The pigeonneau was cooked at 55 degrees celsius for 2 hours in a vaccum, and it came with a pice of seared foie gras and a little molded mound of soft browned cabbage. The fowl was perfectly cooked, brown on the outside but pink on the inside, and the foie gras was of course delicious.

My mother got the bass with sweetbreads and my father got the St. Pierre (a type of fish) with parsley sauce. 

Then came the pre-dessert: passion fruit purée with meringue. It was bit too sour for my tastes.

And then dessert! My brother and I both got the raspberry millefeuille (millefeuille means "a thousand leaves" in french because of the many layers). It was good but very sweet.

My mother got Fraise melba (strawberries with vanilla ice cream and sorbet with slivered almonds,

My father got a strange dessert based on potatoes. The bottom layer is an olive cake, and the top layer is a potato cake that had a texture similar to cheesecake. On the side are sweet fried potato slices and blackberry sorbet. It was strange but strangely good.

The Thanksgiving Chronicles: Part 1 Turkey Tail stock and Pumpkin pie filling

It's Thanksgiving (tomorrow)! The wonderful American celebration of eating one's weight in food!
Anyways, in my family, the cooking started today to maximize stove-top space efficiency.

Turkey Stock:
This is my first time making stock! Hopefully it will turn out well.
Originally, we were going to use turkey necks, but the store only had tails. Raw turkey tails look quite unappetizing, but flavor is flavor. I put the tails on a baking sheet with 4 peeled carrots, 3 not-peeled onions, and 3 stalks of celery.

I roasted all of it for 45 minutes at 450F.

And then flipped over the tails and vegetables to roast them 20 more minutes.

I put everything in a large stockpot half filled with water, making sure to scrape as much flavor as possible off of the baking sheet. I added another celery branch for my mom (she loves celery) as well as some fresh thyme and parsley and about a tablespoon of ground pepper. I only added a little salt because a lot water will evaporate, and so it is safer to add salt once the desired concentration of flavor is achieved.

At 6pm, the stock has been simmering for 5.5 hours. As I am at high altitude, the stock should cook longer because water boils at a lower temperature.


I also made the pumpkin pie filling and crust. The filling is according to Cook's Illustrated recipe, and the crust is my usual pâte brisée.

Pumpkin pie filling:
Cream, milk, eggs, and vanilla

Interestingly, this recipe uses a combination of canned pumpkin and canned "yams" (see my post on sweet potatoes vs. yams). It also cooks both vegetables on the stove with sugar and maple syrup to remove water and caramelize the naturally and unnaturally present sugars.

Then the pumpkin and cream mixtures are combined to form a delicious custard.

I will cook the pie crust tomorrow to save the bottom from sogginess.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve to all of you!

Soupe de Légumes au Pistou (Vegetable and Pesto Soup)

Hi ya'll!

I know it is a bit strange to be making soup just as the sun is finally deciding to go into summer mode (kind of), but this is actually a very spring-y soup (not in the rebounding sense.) The ingredient list seems long and random, but, believe it or not, it is actually from a real, published recipe. Yes, bok choy and arugula in a Provence-style soup may sound strange, but it is delicious.

This recipe uses a bouquet garni, which is a bundle of herds tied together. The point of tying them together is to make it easy to remove the herbs before serving, but it fell apart in my pot from the stirring.
So, I think you should decide for yourself whether you want to tie up the herbs or not. One solution would be to wrap the thyme branches and bay leaf in some cheese cloth (because they are unpleasant to eat) and just leave the parsley in the soup.

a bouquet garni

Soupe de Légumes au Pistou (from Envie de... Cuisine Végétarienne)

Ingredients (serves 3-4 as a main course)
Soup:

• 1 Litre water
  
• bouquet garni: fresh parsley, thyme, and 1 bay leaf
  
• 3 carrots, chopped
  
• 3 leeks, chopped
• 2-3 branches of celery, chopped
• a small handful of baby potatoes, halved
  
• 1/2 can of large white beans
• 1/2 cup of peas or lima beans
  
• 3 heads of bok choy, rib separated from leaves
  
• 150g arugula (1 box) <- this seems like a lot, but it actually shrinks dramatically when cooked
• 2 tsp coarse salt
• pepper

Pesto:

• 2 large handfuls of basil
• 1 jalapeño pepper (no ribs or seeds), chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 tbsp of olive oil
• 3-4 tbsp of freshly grated parmesan (I strongly recommend you buy a hunck of parmeggiano and grate it yourself, then you can use the parmesan rind to flavor the broth)

Method of Preparation:

1. Make the pesto: Blend the first 4 ingredients together, stir in the parmesan.
   
2. For the soup: In a large pot, combine the water, herbs, carrots, leeks, celeri, potatoes, and the white part of the bok choy. (And a parmesan rind, if you want to)
3. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and let simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Add the beans, peas, and let simmer another 10 minutes.
5. Add the bok choy leaves and the arugula, as well as the salt and pepper.
6. Let simmer another 3-5 minutes
7. Add 3/4 of the pesto to the soup and mix it in.
8. Serve with a spoonful of pesto in each bowl.

You can easily make garlic croutons by toasting some bread and rubbing garlic onto it.