![](https://culinarytravelsinfrance.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/1bda5-garlic.jpg?w=75)
Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic or Poulet aux Quarante Gousses d’Ail
31 Wednesday Mar 2010
![](https://culinarytravelsinfrance.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/1bda5-garlic.jpg?w=75)
31 Wednesday Mar 2010
30 Tuesday Mar 2010
29 Monday Mar 2010
Posted Uncategorized
inLe Plat:
The wine:
Wrap up:
This is a wonderful dish and one you can’t go wrong with. I added a tossed salad with it and that was all it needed. For me, it took me back home to those wonderful dinners as a child in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Thanks Mom.
26 Friday Mar 2010
I met Rusty in front of Le Relais de l’Entrecôte, he had just arrived.
But it’s not one of those restaurants where you can spend a couple of hours discussing life and the great issues of the day. Its good food, service is efficient (I dare not say fast) and busy customers get in and out in time to make their next appointment. In that sense it has a little USA flare to it but of still very French I assure you. We attacked our dish in the company of a bottle of Château de Saurs 2000 Gaillac Rouge – yes the same as Paul Gineste de Saurs the owner who has a wonderful estate with some prized wines.
25 Thursday Mar 2010
Posted A most remarkable person, Rue du Bac
in24 Wednesday Mar 2010
Vin Rouge:
Freemark Abbey Viognier 2007
Beaujolais Villages
Châteauneuf-du-Pape Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil
Vins Rosé :
Saint Andre de Figuiere, Cotes de Provence 2008
Heitz Cellars Grignolino Rosé 2006
Vins Blanc:
Chinon blanc, Val de Loire
Riesling – Alsace (chilled please)
23 Tuesday Mar 2010
Posted Béchamel, Belgian endives, Cream Sauce
inEndives and Ham in Cream Sauce
This is yet another recipe that’s as nostalgic for me as I can think of. What I mean is that it was one of my mother’s “signature” dishes – as much as I hate using that word. These days everything is signature something or another. Oh, that’s our signature steel belted, radial double X, all terrain tires; or, that’s our signature sandwich two pieces of imported Tuscan bread and a hamburger. I think signature dishes are cheap tricks to fool the customers into paying a premium for eating their lousy food and feeling good about it because they paid more. But I digress. So what I meant by this dish being “signature” is that it made a repeat performance many times over because it was (1) delicious, (2) easy to make, (3) always well received by tout le monde a table and (4) probably pretty economical to boot. If you can imagine four children seated in Louis XVI chairs plus one infant in a high chair all a table and all watching the arrival of the dish! Endives and ham is what I like to call a versatile dish. It can be a wonderful side dish or it can stand alone as a main course with a nice tossed salad, cheese and baguette. But it all depends on your level of hunger or the small army that you may/may not be feeding.
Ingredients
8 firm, med. Belgian/French endive (figure on 3- 4 lbs)
8 thin slices baked ham
4 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour
3/4 c. milk
Juice of 1 lemon
Pinch sugar
4 oz. Gruyere cheese, grated
grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
1.Preheat the oven at 220°C.
2.Wash the endives and cut off the base. Using a small sharp knife, carve out the middle bitter cone-shaped part at the base of the endives.
3.Cook them in a steamer for about 8 minutes or in a pot of salted water for about 15 minutes. Then drain them well in a strainer, run under cold water, then pat dry. Dot with 1 tablespoon butter, sprinkle with lemon juice and season with sugar.
4.Roll each endive in slice of ham. Place all in a buttered baking dish.
5.Pour the béchamel sauce on top of the wrapped endives and sprinkle some grated cheese on top of it.
6.Bake it for about 15- 20 minutes; 5 minutes under the broiler.
Béchamel sauce
1.Melt the butter in a sauce pan at medium heat. Make sure that the butter doesn’t turn brown.
2.Add the flour into the melted butter and stir it vigorously with a whisk. Continue to stir vigorously until you obtain a mousse like mixture.
3.Stir in the warm milk a little at a time (make sure it’s well incorporated), vigorously to avoid getting lumps.
4.When about half the milk is in, switch to a balloon whisk and start adding large amounts of milk instead, but always whisking briskly. Your reward will be a smooth, glossy, creamy sauce.
5.Whisk it until it thickens, then turn the heat down to its lowest setting.
6.Season it with salt and pepper.
7.Let it simmer for about 10 minutes (whisk it from time to time) and then remove from heat.
22 Monday Mar 2010
Posted Le Relais de l'Entrecôte
inI am meeting Rusty for lunch. Actually that sounds a bit as if I dropped the dime on him and invited myself; but no actually he called me the other day just to say hello, shoot the breeze as it were, ask a few questions, soften me up. I’ve almost got his reporter routine down. Anyway he suggested we meet at Le Relais de l’Entrecôte, the one on the Rue Marbeuf he said just to make clear because the restaurant family owns two other in Paris with the same name. Now don’t start thinking this is some chain restaurant where someone is going to greet you in a cute paper hat and have smiley face – ask me about my specials-we have great frozen drinks- buttons tacked all over their suspenders. No, this is not that kind of place. I knew the area well it was just off the Avenue George V in the golden triangle area of Paris.
21 Sunday Mar 2010
Posted Uncategorized
in20 Saturday Mar 2010