Re-creation

You can never really duplicate a meal you eat in a restaurant and that was not our goal when we nonetheless set out this weekend to approximate a couple of the meals we had in France.

If the market had had girolles or any suitable mushroom, we would have tried the tagliatelle with girolles, but it didn't so we went to Plan B, which was to have the salmon rillettes on toasted baguette for a first course and a version of Christophe's pork and polenta for a main course.

The salmon recipe came from Susan Loomis's Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin. It had a great flavor though it did not come out as fluffy and light as the one at Bastide de l'Odeon. Andrea thought it needed more olive oil in proportion to the butter. Other ingredients were steamed fresh salmon, smoked salmon, shallots and chives.

We obviously were not going to get Basque country heritage pork and I'm not sure you can even get an "echine" cut here (which, according to Julia Child, is the shoulder or blade end of the loin). So we opted for pork tenderloin and used piment d'Espelette to acknowledge the Basque country. I got the tenderloins out of the fridge an hour ahead of time, salted (with our coarse salt from the Camargue) and peppered and pimented them. To cook, I seared them in a combination of lard and peanut oil then put them on a sheet pan in a 350-degree oven. I wanted to pull them out at 140 degrees, but by the time I realized the one instant-read thermometer wasn't functioning correctly, they had reached 160. So no pink, but still very moist and not overdone. I had deglazed the skillet and reduced that in a saucepan, enriching with butter (and a little jam since it was a bit bitter) to drizzle over the carved tenderloin.

The polenta I baked at 350 in my cazuela for an hour and a half, stirring after an hour and checking seasoning. I turned it out onto the pizza paddle and let it cool, cut it into small rectangles, then sauteed the rectangles in olive oil and let them crisp up in that same oven. It actually made for a very nice meal.

We had a white Cote du Rhone with hors d'oeuvres (cheese and crackers) and the salmon, and a slightly chilled Fleurie with the pork. Andrea had her first go at re-creating Ladurrees macarones, but may have made a mistake putting them in the fridge after they cooled because they came out a little tough.

Batali grills

Pork tenderloin is one of my favorite meats to grill and this easy recipe from Mario Batali's Italian Grill appealed to me because he serves it with vegetables tossed in a Negroni vinaigrette.

If Batali knew his cocktail history better he would have called it an Americano vinaigrette, because he uses only the vermouth and campari (along with orange juice and red wine vinegar) and leaves out the gin. Also, the recipe calls for Jerusalem artichokes, which are only available in the winter, hardly the prime time for grilling. Rather than taking a chance on substitutes (jicama roots did not seem very promising), I just tossed the other vegetable in the recipe, haricots beans, in the vinaigrette.

What stole the show, though, was the rub for the tenderloin. The secret ingredient was "porcini powder," which you can make by grinding dried porcini in a spice grinder. This is combined with brown sugar, crushed red pepper flakes and ground fennel seed in a dry rub that you put on the pork 12 to 24 hours before grilling. The rub chars quickly and gives the meat a nice crust and a wonderful flavor. Batali never salts or peppers the meat, but I found it needed both when served.

The Negroni vinaigrette was great on the beans -- helped no doubt by the addition of sautéed pancetta in the final phase. In lieu of the missing Jerusalem artichokes, we served separately prepared green lentils, cooked classically with a mirepoix and more pancetta. For hors d'oeuvres we had melon wrapped in prosciutto -- a cliché, but an acceptable one at the peak of melon season -- and for dessert the wonderful cornmeal pound cake along with strawberries macerated in that ripe peach balsamic vinegar and a sabayon made with Grand Marnier instead of Marsala.

The main course was paired with the very nice Philippe Cambie La Deveze Cotes du Rhone 2007 that I got from Wine Til Sold Out and all in all it was a delightful meal. I bought the book earlier in the summer after the son of a friend asked me if I knew a grill cookbook he could give my friend for father's day that also discussed wine pairings. My googling came up with the Batali book and it looked so interesting I got a copy for myself. Will use it again!