A FIVE-COURSE FRENCH MEAL WITH FRIENDS



We have friends over regularly for meals that we cook.  Some are very casual and usually center around one main dish with an appetizer and dessert.  But those that are typically the most enjoyable to us are the five-course French dinners.  The feeling that comes from seeing the days of preparation culminate in a group of adults quietly slouching in their chairs emitting quiet groans is hard to describe.

Here is our menu for this January evening.  We produce menus for these meals in order to keep track of what we have served specific guests (so as not to repeat a dish unless requested).  In addition, some of our guests seem to like to take the menus home.

DINNER AT RU AND LOU’S

SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2011

Tuna Tartar

Chilean Sea Bass en Papillote

with Beurre Blanc

Blueberry Sorbet

Blanquette de Veau à L’Ancienne

Salad with Three Cheeses

Morbier (cow’s milk)

Bucheron (goat’s milk)

P’Tit Basque (sheep’s milk)

Warm Valrhona Chocolate Cake

with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

A five-course French meal typically starts with an appetizer or soup, a fish course, sorbet, a meat course, a salad/cheese course, and dessert.

The Appetizer – Tuna Tartar

For this dish, sashimi grade tuna is sprinkled with a mixture of sugar and salt and cured overnight on racks in the refrigerator.  The tuna is then diced and mixed with green onion, capers, pickled ginger, mayonnaise, sesame oil, and Asian hot sauce.  

When plated, the tartar is topped with seaweed salad and served.

The Fish Course – Fish en Papillote with Beurre Blanc

Fish cooked in paper is very traditional and there are many forms of this dish.  For this dish one must do a lot of preparation prior to assembly.  First is the making of “snail butter.”  No, this is not butter made from the milking of snails.  Rather it is a compound butter made with parsley, shallots and garlic, and traditionally used to make escargot.

Next comes the julienne of peppers, carrot, leek, and celery, which are sautéed until soft.

Prominent in this picture is a mandoline.  This kitchen implement is basically a large razor blade used to cut items thinly and uniformly.  The one shown is a not very expensive one from Japan, but I also own an all stainless steal mandoline from France.  A word of caution here, if you do not pay very close attention when using a mandoline you will quickly find that it is one of the most dangerous kitchen tools in your cooking arsenal.

Everything is gathered for the construction of this dish.

Parchment paper forms are made, the fish and vegetable are placed inside along with some snail butter, and the package is folded and sealed.  

Once baked, they are cut open at the table and some beurre blanc is added. 

Beurre blanc is a French butter sauce made by the reduction of white wine and vinegar with the addition of shallots and bay leaf.  Once reduced, one-half pound of butter is slowly whisked in forming a thick emulsion.  When poured over the baked fish (remember, you can’t have too much butter), the combination is wonderful.

Sorbet –

Many people think of sorbet as a dessert.  In this application it is a pallet cleanser.  Here, a small portion of blueberry sorbet is served with Stoli Blueberi Vodka from Russia. 

Now a word about the making of the sorbet.  I am fortunate to own a Pacojet.  This is a device made in Switzerland that takes frozen products and turns them into the creamiest and smoothest sorbets and ice creams.  Prior to dinner, blueberries from the summer that were flash frozen are placed in a Pacojet container, simple syrup is added and the mixture is frozen. 

When “Pacotized” the result truly tastes like fresh blueberries.

The Meat Course – Blanquette de Veau à L’Ancienne

To me, this veal stew in a white sauce typifies everything that makes French cooking wonderful.  What seems to be a simple dish to the diner, the chef knows has taken some time for everything to come together perfectly.  In this dish, cubes of veal are slowly cooked until very tender.  Added are garnishes of sautéed mushrooms, pearl onions, and carrots.  The dish is served over rice and covered with a creamy ethereal sauce. 

This sauce is technically a velouté.  People are typically more familiar with a béchemel sauce, which is created by adding milk to a roux.  Béchemel is the basis of many creamy dishes ranging from mac and cheese to soufflés.  When a reduced and flavorful stock, such as chicken, beef, or in this case veal is added to the roux you have a velouté.  For this dish, the veal velouté is enriched with the addition of cream and egg yolks, and brightened with some freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Like so many wonderful French dishes this one fulfills the Murphy’s Law that states “That which takes the longest to prepare, takes the shortest to eat.”

The Salad and Cheese Course

For this dish an array of organic greens are dressed with a vinaigrette made with shallots, French mustard, vinegar, and oil.  The salad also has a julienne of red pepper, thinly sliced radishes that are also julienned, and little tomatoes that are halved.

We like to expose some of our guests to foods that they may not have had before.  Here we selected three French cheeses: Morbier, a cow’s milk cheese, Bucheron a goat cheese, and P’Tit Basque a cheese made of sheep’s milk.

Dessert -Warm Valrhona Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

There are many recipes for “molten chocolate cake.”  However, for me they break into two distinct categories, real and not so real.  The “real deal” is a cake that is baked to the point of the outside solidifying just enough to hold together when plated, yet when pierced the uncooked batter flows out.  The not so real cake is what most people experience in most restaurants throughout the United States.  This form of the desert is made by freezing and inserting a ball of ganache into the middle of the batter and baking it.  When cut, the melted ganache flows out onto the plate.  The reason that the real cake is hard to come by is two-fold.  First, the timing must be precise within seconds, a few too many and you have a solid cake, a few too little and you have a pool of chocolate soup.  Secondly, the real cake flows with undercooked batter, thus potentially undercooked eggs.  I always like to live a little dangerously when I cook for friends.

This dessert is served with a French custard vanilla ice cream that is made with Tahitian vanilla beans.  Once again the Pacojet is called into service to take the frozen custard, sans ice cream maker, and produce an incredibly smooth vanilla ice cream.

This dinner, like many that we do, typically leaves our guests either totally quiet or emitting soft pleasant groans of satisfaction.  However, this meal attained the highest possible compliment, Paul sobbing at the table.