Paris 3 Stars Restaurant

This week, and the next two, I am exploring the quintessence of French cuisine: the 3 star restaurant.
First stop: Le Meurice in Paris. Yannick Alléno presides over its Napoléon the Third refurbished golden décor. The cuisine is as beautiful as the space and manages to be both truthful to the ingredients, refined and seasonal. It is both based on tradition and original, making one pause with the pleasure of recognizing the dish and appreciate the twist it was given. The langoustines and lobsters were superbly cooked. The pairing of each, langoustines with the tiniest slice of turnip, avocado oil and preserved grapefruit, lobsters with a subtle marrow and meat gravy and green asparagus, was just right. A sweetbread simply sautéed in a crust of chestnut accompanied a truffle risotto of “fragula” a cereal from Sardinia. In homage to the season, the tiniest ribs of lamb were served with crisp potatoes flavored with lemon and basil. Yannick playfully added a molecular olive to the dish. The dessert, a caramel tart with flambé bananas and passion fruit sauce on the side stuck the exact slightly bitter balance to complement the Riesling Grand cru Rangen de Thann SGN 1998.
But what is in it for the home cook besides making a reservation next time you are in Paris? Yannick was kind enough to let me publish one of his recipes. And I put it to the test of my tiny home kitchen. The first challenge was the veal stock. At the market, I found a veal shank and asked the butcher to cut it in pieces I could use for an osso bucco and to give me the tail end of it for my stock. I sautéed some onion in butter and put it, and the veal piece in my slow cooker along with a cleaned leek, a peeled and grated carrot and salt. I “forgot” it for 6 hours, strained it and refrigerated it until the next day. The stock is by then a translucent jelly with a thin layer of fat easy to remove. The morels are a seasonal mushroom found in the wild: Michael Pollan goes hunting for them in the hills of California for his fourth foraging meal in The Omnivore’s Dilemna. If not washed thoroughly, they can be gritty. As to the yellow wine, it is from the region of Jura in France with a smoky robe and a distinctive rich taste that sets it apart from other white wines.
Although the recipe is time consuming, it takes two hours not counting the veal stock preparation, the sauce is so fragrant and tasty that my guests polished it off with a piece of bread! I can also imagine using it as a swirl in a butternut squash soup.

Morels in yellow wine with a stuffed romaine leave in a brown butter sauce
Adapted from Yannick Alléno

Ingredients
1-Yellow wine sauce:
1 tablespoon butter
2 carrots (200 g) cut in slender sticks about ½ inch (1 cm) long
1 cup (200 g) Paris mushrooms cut the same way
2 cups (500 ml) yellow wine
1½ cups heavy cream

2-Stuffed romaine:
1 romaine salad washed
5 cardoon leaves
3 slices bacon cut in small pieces
1 cup (250 ml) veal stock

3-Butter:
½ cup (100 g) veal stock (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon (15 g) butter

4-Morel:
32 morel mushrooms (200 g) five times immersed in fresh water and dried
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon (10 g) minced shallots
1 carrot peeled and minced
1 celery branch peeled and minced
1 cup (250 ml) yellow wine


Material:
14-quart saucepan
1 frying pan
1 peeler
1 paring knife and board
1 strainer



1-Set the 4-quart pan on the medium range of the gas. Add the butter, the carrots and the Paris mushrooms. After a couple of minutes, add the yellow wine and cook until there is no liquid left. Add the crème and cook for another 15 minutes. Strain. Add salt and pepper to taste.
2-Wash and dry the salad in a salad spinner. Reserve 4 medium leaves and shred the remainder in slender pieces.
Peel the cardoons. Blanch them in boiling water for one minute. Cut them in small pieces. Blanch the romaine leaves in the same manner and lay on a flat surface in preparation for stuffing.
Fry the bacon, add the cardoons and the shredded romaine. When it starts coloring, add the veal stock and cook for 10 minutes. Strain the juice and place the vegetables and bacon in the center of the romaine leaves. Fold over and keep warm in the oven set at 250 F (100 C).
3-Set the frying pan on the slow range of the gas. Add the butter. When it reached a warm brown color and starts smelling like nuts cooking, add the veal stock and reduce. Reserve and keep warm in the oven.
4-Set the frying pan on the low range of the gas. Fry the minced shallots in a little butter. After two minutes add the carrots and the celery and melt slowly until the vegetables are soft, about two minutes. Add the morels. Mushroom water will come out. Let it reduce. Add the yellow wine and simmer slowly for another couple of minutes.
Dispose in each plate a quarter of the morel mixture and a stuffed leave. Pour the brown butter sauce over the stuffed leave. Lay the yellow wine sauce as an arabesque on the empty surface of the plate.
Serves 4 as an appetizer.

Veal stock (Easy, Preparation time: 5 minutes, Cooking time: 6 hours largely unattended, cheap)

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion peeled and minced
1 carrot grated and roughly sliced
1 leek green parts removed partially and washed
½ teaspoon salt
The end of a veal shank bone and all

Material:
Frying pan
Slow cooker
Strainer
Storage containers

Place the frying pan on the low settings of the gas. Melt the butter. Add the onions and cook for about 3 minutes without letting them color.
Place the cooked onions, the carrot, leek, veal shank and salt in the inset of the slow cooker. Recover with just enough water to submerge everything. Set the dial on high for 6 hours.
Strain into a container and store in the refrigerator for up to three days, or freeze for three months after having removed the top layer of fat.
About 3 cups.