Southern France

We had many nice meals when we were staying with friends outside Uzès, including friends of theirs who kindly included us in dinner parties. But the highlight of the week was a lunch at one of their neighbors. It was a repast that shows how deep the culture of food goes with the French and how intertwined it is with social interaction.

We started with champagne -- what else? -- and munchies consisting of olives, saucisses and a saucisson roquefort. We sat at a table in the courtyard under a big tree that created lots of shade. The hosts had decked out three outdoor tables for a dozen guests, tablecloths of Provencal colors, and several glasses at each place.

The first course was the classic melon and prosciutto, though the melon was from the market and perfectly ripe, so unusually flavorful. (The host had been a farmer and grown melons himself, so he knew how to find just the right ones.) The ham was local jambon de pays.

What followed was an assiette de crudités that raised this humble dish to a new level -- cucumbers, tomatoes and wonderful beets with vinaigrette, all fresh from his own garden. In the meantime, our cook lit some dried oak branches and let them burn down to charcoal so he could grill lamb chops from the local market. These he served with individual vegetable (courgettes) casseroles. No salad course but some beautiful cheeses that we lingered over with much more wine. And then large portions of a creamy, smooth flan, more champagne, music, coffee, more wine. We started at noon and left at 4:45.


The other culinary highlight was our meal at L'Olivier in nearby Serviers. It was a small simple restaurant with a fresh and innovative cuisine. We ate in the courtyard. Because it is limited to five tables some of the dishes were no longer available. Andrea got the daily special of foie gras de canard in roasted fresh figs for a starter -- a very nice combination -- and then got the scallops as a main course. I took the sauteed crayfish tails with chervil and ginger for a starter and filet of sandre, a freshwater fish similar to perch, for the main course. We had a white Cote de Rhone with it. Dessert was an assortment of chocolate dishes, with the standout being a kind of pudding that was like the molten part of a molten chocolate cake.

On our last day, I fixed a meal for our hosts that I had often fixed in France, a grilled chicken with lemon from Roger Verge's Cuisine du Soleil cookbook, paired with his tomato salad and grilled eggplant. We got two poulets fermiers at the market, along with the tomatoes and eggplant. You butterfly the chickens, flatten them as best as possible, then marinate four hours in salt, pepper, olive oil and oregano on a bed of sliced onion with lemon slices covering them. You remove the lemon slices, grill the chickens on both sides, then return them to the roasting pan with the onion, put the lemon slices back on top and pop them in a very hot oven. The tomato salad is very simple -- you put a couple of tablespoons of salt on the tomatoes, immerse them in red wine vinegar, drain after half an hour or so then dress with olive oil.

Easter dinner

Very simple, very nice. My brother was visiting and he likes to celebrate Easter (so do I, really). I got a butterflied leg of lamb from Whole Foods (actually two, since they seemed to be half legs) and used the "Basque" marinade from the Jamisons' Big Book of Outdoor Cooking. This was just 1/2 c. olive oil, 1/4 c. sherry vinegar, 1/4 c. minced fresh tarragon, 6 cloves garlic minced, 1 Tbl coarse salt. Mix and pour in Ziploc bag with 4-1/2 to 5 lbs lamb, pounded to uniform thickness, 1-1/2 to 2 in. for overnight marinade.

Pull out and drain the lamb an hour before grilling. Jamison talks about 2-heat grilling but I just fired up the Big Green Egg for direct heat and grilled for about 20 min. turning 3 or 4 times, and let it rest 10 min before slicing. Really good -- A. even said it might be the best lamb I've done.

We accompanied with a Fingerling potato salad that we had tasted the previous weekend at La Cuisine in Alexandria during a tasting of French olive oils. This one demonstrated the virtues of Picholine oil. It has 1-1/2 lbs potatoes, boiled till tender, 4 hardboiled eggs, mustard, garlic, 1/4 c. white wine vinegar, 1/2 c. Picholine oil (so fruity and peppery), blanched green beans, salt and pepper. You add a little water to the vinaigrette (and we left out the 2 anchovy fillets). This is a real keeper, and I think the oil does make a big difference.

Cote du Rhone was the wine, brown sugar shortcakes with a strawberry-rhubarb compote and whipped cream the dessert. Happy Easter indeed.

Deutz champagne

Addie Bassin's had a champagne and truffle tasting Saturday in honor of you know what, and we ended up with a bottle of Deutz Brut Classic, non-vintage, for our non-celebration of you know what. It is a marvelous champagne, with velvety small bubbles, crisp and dry, but not sour, with a distinctive pinot noir taste. It went well with Cowgirl Creamery's Buckaroo cheese and an Appalachian tomme, both from Whole Foods, and then with our main course.

We splurged on a Sunday night with veal chops, uncovering the Weber and breaking out the charcoal for the occasion. Morton's could not have done better with these tender chops, nearly a pound (bone-in) each, with a salty crust and juicy inside. They were accompanied with baked sweet potato and broccoli florets sauteed in olive oil and spring garlic, making for a colorful plate and a superb meal. No dessert or truffles. After all, we weren't really celebrating any over-hyped special day...

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!

Big Green Egg

So I've inaugurated my Big Green Egg! We had the Caveman Chops from the Jamison cookbook -- super-thick bone-in pork loin chops with a smoked salt and pepper rub, mopped with Worcestershire sauce -- on Sunday and last night had an exquisite grilled halibut on chile and coriander slaw that I found serendipitously on MyRecipes, courtesy of Sunset magazine.

I've had my eye on the BGE for some time, and received one as a kind and generous gift for my birthday. The immediate occasion for getting one now was when a friend served us filet mignons grilled on a BGE that were super-moist and tender. (Let me hasten to add, per new FTC suggestions, I have received no consideration from the makers of BGE for anything I say about them.)

The biggest difference to the Weber is the absolute temperature control via the upper and lower vents and the closed ceramic oven structure. I grilled the chops at close to 500 degrees for nearly half an hour, though the internal temperature of 150 degrees recommended by Jamison resulted in chops that were a little dry to our taste. We accompanied with mashed sweet potatoes that included sauteed chopped onion with thyme.

The halibut recipe featured a dressing/marinade of 2/3 c. cider vinegar, 1/3 c. EVOO, 1/3 c. chopped cilantro, 1 clove garlic pressed, 1 tsp. cumin seed, 3/4 tsp. salt, and 5 to 6 tsp. minced fresh jalapeno chiles. You use 1/3 c. of the mix to marinade the 6-8 oz. filet pieces for 15 min. and 1/2 c. as dressing for the slaw -- 1 lb. of red cabbage cored and thinly sliced and 1/2 c. thinly slivered red onion. I grilled the fish at about 350 degrees for a little more than 10 minutes. They were done through and still very moist, with pretty grill marks. You place the fish on a mound of the slaw and drizzle some of the remaining dressing over it, and serve with corn tortillas. Delicious, with the cumin setting off the cilantro-chile combination.

Now both of these dishes would be fine on the Weber and what I really want the BGE for is slow roasting and smoking. We'll get there.

Burger heaven

Adam Rubinson and I exchanged messages recently about the best burger places in DC. His favorite at the moment is Central, and I recommended Palena.

But home sweet home can also be a great place for burgers. The June issue of Food and Wine had some grilling tips and last night we finally got around to trying a burger recipe with a couple of interesting twists.

Laurent Tourondel, chef at BLT Burger in Las Vegas, suggested immersing the patties in a bowl of ice water for 30 seconds just before slapping them on the grill. He also recommends basting them with butter while they cook.

Apparently the ice water dip helps the keep the meat moist and the butter caramelizes to add flavor to the crust. In any case, the burgers were outstanding.

He calls for a mix of ground sirloin and ground chuck to make 4-inch patties about 1-1/4 inches thick (about 8 oz.). You mix the meat with salt and pepper, form the patties and, just before grilling, plunge them in the ice water. He calls for a hot fire (I use the hardwood charcoal from Wholefoods -- not briquets -- that burns very hot and fast) and cooking about 9 minutes for medium rare, turning a couple of times, basting with butter, and putting on a slice of cheddar cheese during the last minute on the grill.

To complete his BLT burger, you fry up a couple of slices of bacon for each burger (I used the loose bacon from the butcher counter at Broad Branch Market -- delicious) until crispy and break them into pieces. On each bun, you put some homemade Thousand Island dressing (recipe below), lettuce, a slice of tomato, a slice of red onion, the burger with cheese, then the bacon bits, and then the top of the bun.

I toasted the buns on the grill -- tricky, but very tasty. For the dressing, just whisk together 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/3 cup ketchup, 1 Tbl red wine vinegar, 1 Tbl grated onion, 1 Tbl chopped parsley, 1 Tbl chopped tarragon, and 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce, and refrigerate a while before using. The tarragon lends a really nice flavor to the burger. The BLT burger is a keeper, I think.

La vie en rose

We had the great good fortune earlier this month to spend a few days visiting some American friends at their fabulous house in southern France, near Uzes, a market town in Languedoc.

We timed our arrival for a Friday so that we could go to the Uzes market on Saturday, and it was worth the effort. Uzes is a well-preserved medieval city and the market fills the winding streets of the historic center.

I lived in France for 11 years and always loved the markets. I lived near Nation in Paris and generally went to the Saturday morning market in the Cours de Vincennes or the quirkier Marche d'Aligre (which was written up in the recent Gourmet issue on Paris as part of their discovery of the eastern part of the city).

Probably the most spectacular market I visited was the one in Perigeux, in the heart of truffle and foie gras country.

The Uzes market was also terrific, though. There were at least a dozen cheese vendors and we bought several nice goat cheeses. We guessed wrong on a baker who sold us some croissants that were not great. The most exotic stands were those with huge porcelain bowls of olives and tapenade and spices.

My goal at the market was to get a real gigot d'agneau to fix for our hosts. We found a butcher stand where he cut the gigot from the back half of a lamb, trimmed and wrapped it up for us.

I also wanted to find cocos blancs, which I had read about in a cookbook. These are fresh white beans in season in early summer, so they were available in great abundance. So we had our meal with the roast gigot -- you only have to insert slivers of garlic into it and pop it in the oven -- and the beans, which I shelled and cooked only about 10 minutes. We dressed them with oil and gremolata and served them at room temperature with the medium-rare lamb. Delicious.

We continued to live off the fat of the land, so to speak. On Monday, we found a store open to buy echine de porc, the chops cut from the loin rather than the rib, which have much more marbling and are great for grilling. A neighbor in the little village brought by some eggplant and squash from the community garden, so we grilled everything for dinner, getting a nice char on the vegetables and drizzling with balsamic vinegar.

It was part of a wonderful time that started with a welcome dinner from our hosts of grilled salmon paired with a fragrant ratatouille that was great the first night and even better when we had it again with the lamb. We consumed gallons of rose wine from the local vineyard, an organic producer who sold wine in bottles and in boxes. So we had a great time.