Early vegetables: peas

Like the King Sun, I am partial to peas. I like to eat them raw while removing their pods, I like their texture in soups and I love the way they soak in the sauces in which they are served. Whereas I have resorted to the frozen section of my supermarket to enjoy them in the middle of winter, Louis the XIV had a vegetable garden built for his eating and esthetic enjoyment in Versailles. And what a garden! At the tune of several hundred millions of our dollars (over a million French seventeenth century pounds) a swamp had to give way to a manicured sunken garden with a large basin in the middle bordered by terraces which separated it from other closed walls garden. To satisfy the gourmet king, hills gave their soil to be carried several miles away. This adventurous design was the brainchild of a former lawyer turned horticulturist. La Quintinie was as observant of the desires of his master, as he was of the rays of the real sun. Exposition and protection from the winds were keys to the production of apples and pears year-round, hence the walls and sunken garden. By the careful use of cow and horse manure, cold frame and hotbeds he maximized solar heating and obtained fruit and vegetables six weeks before their normal due date. Among the successes admired and emulated by other European courts, asparagus and lettuce appeared in December, strawberries came at the end of March, peas and cucumber in April, cherries in May and figs were on the royal table starting mid June. Le Potager du Roi has kept its original plan, even if new world cultures have been added since and the sunken fig garden given way to greenhouses. Students of the National Superior School of Landscape care for it and give tours to the visitors.
In honor of the pea who according to children’s tale helped identify princesses, here are a cold sweet soup, a cold terrine and the original vegetable jardinière recipe. Each feeds four people. To obtain the best result, it is essential to remove the pod less than 12 hours after picking and eat the peas soon after, barely cooked in boiling water.

Sweet mint pea soup
(Easy, Preparation time: 20 minutes, Cheap)

Ingredients:
2 cups (500 g) peas without the pod
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cream
For the emulsion:
7 sprigs of mint
½ cup (100ml) water
2 tablespoons (30g) sugar
½ teaspoon pepper

Material:
Saucepan
Strainer
Blender

Bring water in a saucepan to a boil. Add a teaspoon of salt and the peas. Wait until the boil resumes and strain the peas. Cool them under cold running water to stop the cooking process. Blend with a little of the cooking water and the cream.
Keep only the mint leaves. Bring the water and sugar to a boil. Add ½ of the mint and remove from the stove. Leave to infuse for 15 minutes. Strain the liquid into a blender. Add the reserved fresh mint leaves and pepper and blend.
Separate the soup into 4 soup bowls. Pour the mint emulsion on top and reserve in the refrigerator to serve cold.

Pea, fava bean and avocado terrine on a bed of mixed greens in a shallot vinaigrette
(Easy, Preparation time: 45 minutes, cheap)

Ingredients:
2 cups (500g) peas without the pods
½ cup (100g) fava bean without the pods
½ avocado
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons (28ml) olive oil
A few drops of Tabasco
Mixed salad greens

For the salad dressing:
1 shallot
4 sprigs of basil
3 tablespoons olive oil
1½ tablespoons (20ml) Xeres Vinegar
Salt and pepper

Material:
Saucepan
Strainer
Blender
Salad bowl
Silicone spoon
Muffin silicone molds*.

Put first the fava bean in lightly salted boiling water. When the boil resumes, strain and refresh under running cold water. Remove the skin of the fava beans and reserve.
Put the peas in boiling water. When the boil resumes, strain and refresh under running cold water.
Blend half the peas, half of the avocado, the lemon juice, olive oil and Tabasco in a blender. Pour into the salad bowl. Taste and add generously salt and pepper.
Add carefully the whole peas and fava beans to the purée. Fill the molds to the brim and refrigerate until ready to serve. Revert the mold on to a plate and garnish with mixed greens.
Place the peeled shallot and washed and dried basil leaves in a blender. Add the oil and vinegar and blend until well mixed. Drizzle generously over the terrine and salad leaves.
*The molds come in sets of 6. Separate them with a pair of scissors to obtain individual molds, which are more convenient to use when reverting on to a single plate.

Spring vegetable jardinière
(Easy, Preparation time: 30 minutes, cheap)

Ingredients:
1 cup (250g) new carrots
1 cup (250g) new turnips
½ cup (125g) new onions
1 cup (250g) peas without pods
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons (30g) French or English butter
Salt and pepper
Basil leaves washed, dried and cut finely in ribbon

Material:
1 4-quart saucepan
1 strainer
1 serving plate
Discard the tops of the carrots and of the turnips. Cut off the bottom of the turnip and wash them. Grate the carrots. Cut any vegetable bigger than an inch in one- inch cubes. Remove the tops of the onion and keep in the refrigerator or freeze to season a salad.
Bring water and salt to a boil in the saucepan. Add the carrots, turnips and onions. When the boil resumes, cook for 17 minutes. Add the peas to the boiling water and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
Strain. Put vegetables back into the saucepan. Add the butter, salt and pepper, the tablespoon of sugar the cut ribbons of basil and toss well. When the butter has melted, pour into the serving plate and serve immediately.
Traditionally it is the perfect companion food to a veal or pork chop. If you want a vegetarian version couscous or brown rice is a good choice.

A change of diet

As a slightly chubby teenager with weight-conscious parents, I was brought on a diet of red meat and salad. The selling argument was that models ate that way and nobody had heard yet of the now sacred five servings of vegetable and fruit a day as opposed to the three servings of meat a week. As barbecue time fast approaches, here are some meatless meal suggestions. The key is to add taste, whether it be a sweet and salt approach in the tomato pie, an herb mixture in the salad vinaigrette or a Tabasco kick in the gazpacho.
Salad is still a great and easy way to eat vegetables. Just wash and slice as thinly as possible a few raw seasonal vegetables. Add a little sauce and you have a healthy meal on the table. Another effortless meal consists in blending vegetables and fruit which contain water, such as tomato, cucumber, zucchini beet, watermelon, pear and add either tomato juice or soy milk to obtain a cold soup. The flavor of this week is gazpacho. I realize I am getting slightly ahead of myself on the seasonal front: tomato plants are just about to be earthed and the tomatoes in the supermarkets are still of the greenhouse variety. But esthetics is primordial in our eating pleasure. As tulips raise their heads, tomatoes look a fashionable fit and I find irresistible the notion of eating a pie that is good for you. A quiche is just another way to eat your vegetables. As new ones sprout and mature, I will explore other methods to transform them into a complete meal.

Tomato and goat cheese pie (Easy, Preparation time: 1 hour, Cheap)
Serves 4 for lunch

Ingredients:
1 salty piecrust recipe (recipe follows)
6 tomatoes on the stem
2 4 oz (113g) small fresh goat cheese packages
Pepper to taste
1 tablespoon sugar
1tablespoon butter
Dusting of flour

Material:
One 11-inch (25 cm) pie mold with a removable bottom
Rolling pin (or clean bottle of wine)
Parchment paper
Rice as recyclable pie weights
Saucepan
1 spoon (normal or grapefruit)
1 fork

Set the oven temperature at 360F (180C).
Butter and flour the mold. Layout the refrigerated piecrust with a rolling pin on a piece of parchment paper and garnish the mold by reverting the paper, piecrust under, onto the mold. Remove the paper and roll the pin on top of the mold to remove the extra piecrust. Patch up any missing area. Prick the piecrust with a fork. Cover the piecrust with parchment paper, fill with rice to the rim to prevent the crust from lifting as it bakes and cook for 10 minutes on a baking sheet. Remove from the oven but leave the heat on. Carefully discard the parchment paper and place the rice back in a box, keeping it for other pies.
Set water in the saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the tomatoes and wait for the water to boil again. Drain immediately in a strainer. When they are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off. Cut them in half and spoon out the seeds and water. Lay a piece of paper towel and place the tomatoes cut half first, on the towel to remove all the moisture.
Layer the goat cheese on top of the cooled piecrust, crumbling it in an even layer with the back of a fork. Garnish with the tomatoes cut-half up. Sprinkle the inside of each tomato with sugar. Bake in the oven for an additional 20 minutes.
Serve warm with a large green salad (recipe follows).

Salty piecrust
(Easy, Preparation time: 5 minutes plus 30 minutes in the fridge, Cheap)

Ingredients:
1 cup (226g) all-purpose flour
1tablespoon salt
1 stick of butter (113 g) diced cold butter
½ cup ice-cold water

Material:
Mixer

Pour all the ingredients except for the iced water into the mixer, pie blade in. Blend, adding water through the top cover, until a ball of dough forms.
Scrape up the ball and place in the fridge for 30 minutes up to two days, or freeze for up to three months.

Salad and pesto vinaigrette (Easy, Preparation time: 30 minutes, Cheap)

Serves 4 with extra pesto vinaigrette

Ingredients:
4 handfuls of mixed greens
2 carrots
Bunch of asparagus
Bunch of radishes
2 zucchini
Edible flowers (viola, calendula, nasturtiums)

Material:
1 peeler
1 salad spinner
1 salad bowl

Wash and spin the greens and the flowers.
Peel the carrots. Wash the asparagus, radishes and zucchini. With the peeler, slice long strips of asparagus, radishes and zucchini. Cut in small pieces the part you cannot peel.
Place the salad, vegetables and flowers in the salad bowl.
Add enough pesto vinaigrette to lightly coat the content of the bowl.

Pesto vinaigrette
Ingredients:
4 cups basil leaves or parsley or mint or dill or a mix of herbs washed and dried
½ cup pine nuts
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
1cup olive oil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 garlic cloves peeled
Salt and pepper to taste

Material:
Food processor or blender

Set the chosen herb or herbs, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and garlic cloves in the food processor. Pour the olive oil in a stream while pulsing until you obtain a smooth paste.
Keep the rest refrigerated for up to a week.

Summer Gazpacho (Easy, Preparation time: 10 minutes, Cheap)
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 large ripe tomatoes peeled and quartered
1 cucumber peeled and cut in pieces
1 thin slice of watermelon peeled and cut in pieces
1 small new onion quartered
1 sweet green bell pepper seeded
3 cups tomato juice canned
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
Dash Tabasco sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Material:
Pairing knife and cutting board
Blending

Place the ingredients in the order listed in the blender. Run for 1 minute. Serve in a bowl or a soup plate.
You can also use this same gazpacho recipe to create a taboulé, the Moroccan cold couscous salad. Just add the gazpacho to two cups of couscous. Let the grain swell for an hour. Add a few leaves of mint and slices of tomatoes and cucumber.

Nature and Cuisine

Laguiole is famous worldwide for its cutlery. It is a small stone village in a valley of the Massif Central; a region time has shaped into a succession of green Roman shields. On these round mounts troops of beefs go to pasture in fields delimited by lines of trees. Water is never far and rushes to meet the bottom. It is this landscape that Michel Bras and his family, all natives from Aubrac have appropriated with the help of architect Eric Raffy from their contemporary Relais & Châteaux. The building leans on the hill and projects its reception and bar over the village. Its four plateaus, the restaurant and kitchen on top and three others for the bedrooms, are like giant stairs carved into granite. Each picture window opens up on nature and is an invitation to explore the region inside and out.
The cuisine of Michel and Sébastien Bras, father and son is equally respectful of its environment. Michel Bras’ most famous recipe is a salad, the gargouillou, where seasonal vegetables in different stage of doneness, from raw to crisp to blanched are barely accented with perfumed oil, a mushroom sauce and a ham and vegetable stock. That’s where our enchantment started. Each subsequent vegetable we were then presented with, managed to be both true to its taste and exalted. A subtle mixture of curry, coriander, garlic and yoghurt awakened the green asparagus. Turnips married morels and peas in a highly successful ménage à trois. Sautéed cabbage of a kind accompanied another raw crunchy sort in egg vinaigrette. The endive lost its bitterness to a creamy concoction of truffle juice. One of the desserts used potato chips and a saffron potato cream and managed to be ethereal.
Sébastien confided me the recipe I asked for. It features basic ingredients: potato and anchovies and looks deceivably simple to make. However it takes some practice to lay flat a potato. With a mixed salad, it is a lovely meal.

Baked potato with anchovies Adapted from Michel and Sébastien Bras (Somewhat challenging, preparation and cooking time: 40 minutes, cheap)

Ingredients:
1 large Idaho potato per person
1 garlic clove peeled
1 can of anchovies in olive oil
Clarified butter (recipe follows)

Material:
1 peeler
1 board
1 paring knife
1 brush
Kitchen string
1 individual cocotte or silver foil

Preheat the oven at 360F (180C)
Peel and rinse the potato. Using the paring knife, form a continuous band with the flesh of the potato.
Place the potato ribbon on the board. Lightly rub the garlic clove along. Brush with oil.
Take the anchovies out of the can and purée them with the back of a fork. Lay the anchovies paste on the potato ribbon. No need to add salt, as the anchovies are already salty. Add some pepper to taste. Roll the ribbon on itself and wrap with a piece of kitchen string to maintain its shape.
Put the clarified butter in a pan over medium heat and sauté the potato until it colors slightly.
Either wrap it in silver foil, or put it an ovenproof cocotte and bake for 20 minutes. Serve immediately with a salad and lots of herbs.

Clarified Butter
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 10 minutes, cheap)

Ingredients:
1 stick (1 cup) butter (or any other quantity needed)

Material:
1 pan
1 strainer
Paper towel
Salad bowl or any other recipient

Melt the butter in the pan over low to medium gas. Put the paper towel over the strainer and the strainer over the salad bowl.
Pour the melted butter in the strainer. The strained butter is clarified butter, butter without any residual cream, which allows it to cook at higher temperatures.
It keeps longer in the fridge than regular butter.

Deluxe Cuisine

In Puymirol, a charming fortified village on top of a hill close to Agen Michel Trama with the help of his friend, famed decorator Jacques Garcia has restored an ensemble of medieval houses and cloister, which once belonged to the Counts of Toulouse. The baroque décor complements the style of the chef. Rich curtains cover the walls and sconces in the shape of arms echo the oversized clawed feet of the tables. The cuisine has the same opulence. Duck liver comes in several guises, cold as a lollypop for an appetizer, or hot as the heart of a mushroom hamburger for an entrée. Vegetables and fruit are also given the full treatment. Cauliflower becomes creamy and rich as a risotto. And Tarte Tatin, the French upside down apple pie takes on a totally new turn as a miniature tree. Tiny compote apples of different colors dangle from the branches, while leaves made of pastry alternate with real one. The epitome of transmutation is Trama’s signature dish; a potato robed in Swiss chard leaves and soaked in a truffle sauce.
Luxury has a price and the massive adjunction of truffle makes the dish very expensive. It is however pure bliss for truffle amateurs and builds on the classic combination of the two tubers in a purée.

Steamed potato with truffle in a truffle sauce
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time:1 hour, Expensive)

Ingredients:
4 medium Idaho potatoes
½ cup (120 ml) truffle juice
1/3 cup (80 g) black Périgord truffle
1cup (250 ml) chicken or vegetable stock
1 stick (130 g) butter
8 Swiss chard leaves

Material:
1 4-quart saucepan
1 colander
Set of tongues
Paper towel
Peeler
Film wrap
Whip or egg beater
Steamer

Put the potatoes in the 4-quart saucepan. Cover with water and add 1 teaspoon of salt per liter of water. Turn the gas on medium, bring to a boil and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender but firm. Strain and refresh in cold water. Bring to room temperature and peel. Reserve.
Wash the Swiss chard. Discard the stalks or keep them for a gratin. Plunge the leaves in boiling salted water for one minute. Refresh in cold water to stop the cooking process and dry between two pieces of paper towel. Reserve.
Peel 32 slices of truffle. Cut every potato in 8 slices. Season each slice with salt and pepper and reconstitute the potato, alternating 8 potato and 7 truffle slices. Repeat the operation with the remaining three potatoes.
Place a piece of film big enough to wrap around the potato on the counter. Layer over it 2 Swiss chard leaves. Center the potato in the middle and wrap the film tightly around the leaves containing the potato. Repeat with the other 3 potatoes.
Place the pan over the low setting of the gas. Pour the chicken stock and truffle juice in the pan and reduce for twenty minutes until you have about ½ cup (150 ml) left. Reserve in a container.
Steam the potatoes in their film in a steamer for 12 minutes.
In the meantime prepare the sauce. Set the pan over the low setting of the gas, melt 2 tablespoons butter and add the remainder of the truffle cut in pieces. Cook for 5 minutes. Remove from the gas. Add the reserved truffle and stock. Add the rest of the butter at room temperature while whipping constantly with the eggbeater. Season to taste.
To assemble the dish, place each potato in a warm soup plate. Lightly cut the potato longitudinally and pour the truffle sauce. Add one slice of truffle on top.

The future of Cuisine

On the “route des Châteaux” in Pauillac are some of the most famous Bordeaux: Pichon-Lalande, Lynch-Moussas, Haut-Bages Libéral, Latour. To a connoisseur it reads like a library of favorite authors.
There is also a 2 Star restaurant, which, according to all who visited it deserves his third one, Château Cordeillan-Bages. In a vast minimal dining room overlooking vines, Thierry Marx, a bon vivant Bruce Willis, serves a thoroughly festive contemporary cuisine. Trained first as a baker he uses his martial arts expertise to direct his team. They perform enthusiastically a magical show. Presto, a translucent and smoking package appears to the table to reveal a beef filet on a bed of burning vine twigs. A clay envelope broken in front of your eyes unveils a fish flavored with chocolate. And beware of the sausage: its casing is a red pepper, the inside a mousse made of calamari. Here, molecular cuisine is put to the service of a great artist whose painting is not only three-dimensional, but also manages to tease the taste buds.
Thierry teaches on Friday morning in the Château to any one willing to learn. Reserve early, there is a one-year waiting list.
He adapted to my conventional kitchen the following recipe, which serves 4. It is quintessential Marx in that the regular parts of a risotto, rice, white wine, and saffron have been changed to germinated soy, soymilk, and mushroom essence. Crunch is retained, but is provided by a vegetable rather than a grain.
Every ingredient is found in your local supermarket, except for the oysters. Pick the meatiest one and ask your fishmonger to open them for you and save the water while doing so. As you can only purchase them by the half dozen, do not hesitate to use more for the recipe than the mere two prescribed.
For the mushroom stock, buy 3 oz (100g) dry black porcini mushrooms. Place them in a bowl and cover them with boiling water. After ½ an hour you will have reconstituted mushrooms you can save for another usage and the mushroom stock you need for this one. You may also purchase 3 oz (100 g) fresh porcini mushrooms, add 4 oz (125 ml) of water and cook them covered in a pan at the lowest gas temperature for 10 minutes until the mushroom is soft and its perfume transfers to the water. Wash, dry discard the germ and mince the germinated soy in advance, as it is the most fastidious part of the recipe, and may easily take an hour.


Soy and Oyster Risotto (Easy, Cooking time: 10 minutes, Cheap)

Ingredients:
2 cups (500 g) germinated soy, germ removed, cut in small pieces with a knife
1 teaspoon (5 g) mascarpone
1 teaspoon (5 g) Parmesan
2 oysters shucked and cut in small pieces, juice reserved
2 tablespoons (28 ml) mushroom stock
2 tablespoons (28 ml) natural soymilk

Material:
1 4-quart saucepan
1 knife
1 strainer
1 salad bowl
1 eggbeater manual or electric


In a saucepan over the medium setting of the gas, melt the mascarpone and Parmesan cheeses; add the oyster juice, the oyster pieces, the mushroom stock, the soymilk and the soy pieces.

Before the liquid boils, strain the solids and divide them in 4 plates. Whip the juice until it bubbles up and pour it delicately over the solids.

Do not add salt and pepper. The seasoning is just right.