For Beet's Sake

Did you know that beet juice was considered in Roman times to be an aphrodisiac?

My mother’s generation tasted fresh garden beets and had fond memories of them, thus during my childhood, she readily bought the canned product, which vaguely resembled a shadow of the real thing. She and my father were able, though some suspension of disbelief, to conjure up memories, replacing a good percentage of their gustatory experience with nostalgia. They somehow liked them.

Skip to the next generation, to their children sitting at the same table, who never had the good fortune of tasting a fresh beet from the garden. That was me. My experience was isolated to the slightly tinny, artificial looking formless sludgy purple glop of mushy ick that tasted something akin to dirt. What is the meaning of this mess? The fluid leaks into other foods on the same plate, staining them. The root itself disintegrates into a mealy and vaguely unpleasant texture on the tongue that is accompanied by a release of an acid, metallic tasting brine to the sensitive taste receptors in my jaw. They caused slight waves of nausea and general belly upset when the unpleasant experience of raking one's teeth through them them was avoided by swallowing them in large pieces. From then on, a genuine hatred for even the idea of beets can logically cultivate in a person’s mind. I didn't touch them again for decades.

What happens to children who subsequently never taste beets in any form because their parents were turned off by canned beets? They are transported to another time by the taste of FRESH BEETS. Hey Mikey, THEY LIKE THEM! I urge you to test this on your own children. I have conducted this experiment on my niece and nephew, and my theory proved correct.

Herein is the lowdown on what the French are doing with fresh beets in restaurants these days. You may notice never before imagined uses of the fresh beet. Do you think it is a coincidence that they use the juice in so many preparations? Think of this as a recipe for stirring up some ideas about what to do with the fresh beets you find at the farmer's market.

shredded balsamic seasoned skate with tomatoes and beet seasoned pesto.
brown sugar roasted apricots with beet sorbet.
grilled Atlantic sea bass with pan simmered garden vegetables and slow roasted tomatoes in a beetroot reduction.
beet jus bathed rouget in Tatin.
pan seared slices of foie gras with pain d’épice and beet accompanied by an acidulated ginger chutney.
foie gras again with beet and apple chutney.
beet ravioli with their caramel.
oven crisped crab with beets and asparagus.
wild boar medallions with beet jus and pepper seasoned cream sauce.
raspberry and beet root parfait.
large langoustine brochettes wrapped in middle-eastern angelhair pastry (kadaïf), served with a beet risotto.
surprising desserts, including variations on the beet theme.
duck foie gras with apples and beetroot vinaigrette.
squab with beets and jus from the root.
marbled rabbit terrine with beet purée.
borsch featuring tiny diced beets.
salmon tartare with beet vinaigrette.
soy and ginger marinated beef tenderloin with red beets and mandarin orange sauce.
locally gathered scallops, green asparagus and beet juice served with mixed aromatic herb salad.
cold zucchini soup with local Gaperon cheese topped with a goat cheese and a beet quenelle.
veal scallop with chicory cream sauce and pan tossed beets.
John Dory with beet greens in a pepper mille-feuille.
venison medallion with red beet sauce, pan tossed langoustines with slow cooked beets.
spring rolls with beet jelly.
pressed foie gras terrine with beet chutney.
pan seared scallops with endive hearts and beet soup.
lobster with beet sauce, mixed berries, and vanilla seasoned sweet potato mousseline.
the beet ravioli in a rhubarb and dried fruit and nut chutney with acidulated potato Mikado.
warm oysters in an champagne and beet juice reduction.
trout brandade napped with a beet coulis.
rabbit terrine with a vinaigrette seasoned beet and parsley duo.
grilled cod fillet served with oven baked potatoes and beets.
frog leg tartare with beets.
beet syrup over shaved ice.
green asparagus cake with a beet and fig sauce.
salmon tartare with vegetables in a beet vinaigrette.
monkfish and vegetable mille-feuille with beet caramel and a carrot reduction.
fresh foie gras with chervil root accompanied by a scoop of beetroot sorbet.
veal sweetbreads with a beet coulis.
simply boiled and sliced beets served with steamed carrots, dusted with fleur du sel and fresh ground pepper, and sprinkled with extra virgin olive oil (chez Lucy).

There is a secret passion for beets smouldering deep in the kitchens of France. Do no pass over the fresh beets again this year, my friend. Give them a try. Cast away the chains of the canned beet generation and discover a love you have never known before!

Fleurs de Courgette Farcies

The recipe I hallucinated having seen in either this month's Regal or Saveur for the stuffed zuchinni flowers was no where to be found. Perhaps it was the SAUPE we ate that caused me to imagine having seen it! Maybe it was in that issue of Femme Actuelle that was circulating among our beach bags. The reason why I liked the recipe was that the stuffing included meat and it looked like an interesting thing to try. After searching for the recipe and not finding it, I thought of my old recipe, the one dating from the first year I discovered the beautiful flowers one August morning a few years ago at my then market on the Rhone quai, over near the University. It is a delicious vegetarian dish that I've already done many times, so it will be better to share with you, since it is an old standard in my kitchen notebook.

Some people fry stuffed zuchinni flowers, but I really was not impressed the effect or the feel of the finished product the one time I tried an Italian recipe that called for that technique. That excursion also covered the entire kitchen in a fine greazy mist that took a long time to erradicate as well - so I won't be frying them.


This recipe involves serving the stuffed fleur de courgette on a bed of tangy savory confit of onions and pepper. The original dish, which I once saw on a French cooking show (I used to watch it daily with dictionary in hand in an effort to improve my listening comprehension in French) called for a few more steps and which eventually made a sauce finished with peppers and heavy cream. I eventually eliminated the cream because I have a fundamental aversion to cream and pepper mixtures in sauces, to me cream cheats pepper and dulls it. When I see a red pepper coulis, for example, one that tops a spicy grilled red snapper fillet, and I see anyone muddy the clear and delicate flavor of red bell pepper with heavy cream without thinking to what that does to the flavor, I say: Hello? Did you taste this without the cream before you made that decision?

Here's the old tried and true recipe. I would like to point out that this recipe is flexible. The point is to stuff the flower with yummy combinations of delicate and delicious things which will be heightened by the acidic flavors below in the confit of peppers and onions, but it is under no circumstances an exact science. I will give you the precise recipe of what I prepared today but please don't feel bound by it.

Fleurs de Courgette Farcies
Serves 2 as a main dish and 4 as an entree or light lunch dish.

Ingredients:
What you see here is everything that went into the recipe, except salt and pepper.

1 small goat cheese
8 fleurs de courgettes
a little squash (you can use a zuchinni, a summer squash, etc.)
1 red bell pepper
1/2 an eggplant
12 marinated black olives
1/4 cup tomato puree
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 shallot
1T. each of minced basil, sage, and chervil
a few chives
5T. fruity olive oil
salt and pepper

Notes on the ingredients:The best goat cheese for this recipe should be a mild fresh cheese. I normally choose a young Picodon because it holds up to dicing and melts nicely into the stuffing when baked. It should be about 2 ounces or 60 grams in size. As we all know, nothing beats local goat cheese and I know from experience that in many parts of the world there are many great domestic and local goat cheeses out there that are excellent in quality. Use what is available to you, and don't feel like you have to make a trip to a specialty cheese shop for this recipe. My friends in America can also try the great American bleus, or even, if your area produces an acceptable cheddar, some of that.
Zuchinni flowers open in the morning, and close at night. They do this many times on the plant. The female flowers are recognised by what gardeners call the inferior ovary hanging from the plant, or a little courgette hanging from the base of the blossom. The male flowers don't feature the courgette hanging off. The petals of this flower take on a slightly sticky surface when they are trying to close. The consistency of the petal is stretchy and flexible like saran wrap. This helps you to really stuff the flower without breaking it. You should never wash the petals under running water, but you can wipe them and the little courgette very gently with a damp cloth to remove any visible dust. When you buy them, choose clean ones. If your flowers wilt, or close, don't worry, you can carefully pull them open when it is time to stuff them. They will stuff just fine.
You are going to finish your slow cooked pepper, tomato and onion with marinated olives. These should be the kind that have the pits in them. Choose soft ones, and that have lots of subtle olive flavor and don't taste vinegary. If you are not sure about your olives or have no access to olives except olives in a can, omit them from the recipe. They won't add anything to the flavor or texture if the quality is not good.
The herbs you use are going to depend on what you have available. Today I used a little bit of sage, basil, chervil and chives. If you are in a place where you just can't get fresh aromatics at all, I recommend that you use a teaspoon of dried oregano and a teaspoon of dried sage. Remember that dried herbs are much more concentrated than their fresh counterparts. A few leaves of minced arugula are good to add for the texture of the stuffing if you use the dried herbs.

1) Start the Tomato, Onion and Peppers: Dice 1 onion and 1/2 pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a saucepan and add the onion, pepper, and tomato puree to the pan. Saute them briefly over for 2 minutes without letting them brown. Tightly cover the saucepan the and reduce the heat. Let these soften and cook at a low temperature, and add a few spoons of water from time to time to keep them moist while you continue.

2) Make your flower stuffing:
Chop the remaining onion, shallot, garlic, remaining pepper, eggplant, and summer squash. Heat up the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan, and add them all at once. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and toss and stir them over high heat for 2 minutes, until the eggplant begins to soften around the edges. Remove from heat and set aside. Dice the cheese and mince the herbs, and gently fold them into the warm vegetable saute. Rectify the seasoning (add salt and pepper) while the mixture is warm.

3) Stuff the Flowers: Heat the oven to 400 degrees F or 200 C.
The first thing you want to do is to open the blossom and pinch out the pistil, the thing that has the pollen. It snaps off easily and cleanly. Discard the pistil, delicately seperate the petals, and spoon in enough stuffing into the well of the flower to fill it to where the petals seperate.Fold the petals over the stuffing one after the other, stretching them slightly. Note that when you remove the pistil, the petals will begin to get secrete the sticky substance they do when they close, so you should remove the pistils one by one as you stuff each flower. Place them one by one as you stuff them into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake the stuffed flowers for 25 minutes, checking them at 20 minutes to be sure they don't overcook. If they are overcooked, the fruit will fall from the blossom, so be careful. The zuchinni should be soft enough to easily slip a knife into the squash fruit, but not mushy. When you put them in the oven, remove the saucepan containing the onions, pepper and tomato mixture from the heat and reserve.

4) When the flowers have 5 minutes left to cook, return the pepper and onions to the heat. Pit your olives and roughly chop them. Incorporate the chopped olives into the onion pepper and tomato, and let simmer until the zuchinni flowers are ready.

5) Presentation: Spoon a mound of the pepper, tomato, onions, and olives onto the plate. Nestle two or three stuffed flowers onto the bed, and serve hot.

How Loic came to make the Vacherin.

We were passing through Montelimar. The highway sign that usually has a picture of a knife and fork, and a phone and a gas tank to remind us what amenities the station exit has to offer, also had a square with the word NOUGAT. Well, we all know that Montelimar is a big nougat town. And if you've ever had the real nougat from this town, it is something that you come to think about later, sometimes years later. It's one of those things that grows in your mind. The nougat from a few years ago that had reached a certain proportion in my mind and the sight of that highway sign crossed astrological paths in space and time and I had a vision. I told Loic that I had decided what I wanted for my birthday cake. I wanted something with nougat. And meringue. He smiled and said that this year he was going to be preparing me my birthday cake from scratch. The following two days became somewhat of a trial for him. How about a trip to the beach, Lolo? "I have to make the meringue" he replied. He still wouldn't tell me what he was making. I finally convinced him that I would water the garden while he put the meringue together and we set the oven on a timer. Little by little his idea became a reality while I stepped in and assisted here and there, learning details along the way about what could possibly be his suprise dessert. It was delicious, it technically contained no nougat but was absolutely exactly what I envisioned. Thank you, Loic. You know me so well.

More about the Ice Cream Treat

That is, what I did with the Apricots the other day. Clutched with the idea of this notorious classic French ice cream dessert, I enthusiastically mentioned to everyone I knew my plan to make a Bombe Marquise. Everyone, including Isabelle, gave me a blank stare in return and the conversation didn't go very far.

At first I thought maybe they thought it was impolite to tell them about the luscious treat I was going to prepare and not invite them to come share it. The only real response I got came from Sebastien's Catalane aunt who flashed a brilliant smile and said that when she was my age she also embarked on ambitious cooking projects. This puzzled me because it's really not that ambitious, sorbet, and putting it into a mould is a cute way, and a very classic French way to serve it at the table for guests, right?

I posed the question to Loïc, who is my punching bag for all questions cultural, while we were in the car. Why the flat reception? Quietly as he drove on the way back from our evening out, he said it carefully and with the tact expected from him: "Lucy, what is a Bombe Marquise? I don't think they knew what you were talking about." Ah. The white lines blurring towards us like darts on the road, I reflected back to the evening.

Swatting at bees and sipping wine in the heady evening twighlight, there I was repeating it as if perhaps I hadn't pronounced it correctly. "Bombe. Bombe. You know what that is? With sorbet?" Blank stares. At least I didn't get the classic furrowed brow and squint. Oh well. There in the car I realized that I had once again stepped over that little line, that line marking the end of common knowledge and had entered that lovely solitary little world of culinary esoterica without even trying. I less than gracefully stumble across that line rather often, sigh. It was time for a hearty laugh.



More and more, as I am able to fully engage in fruitful conversations about food from which I glean lots of precious and desirable knowledge, I have to watch what how far I take the conversation. There is a line between a food enthusiast, of which there are many in France, and in many places one would not expect, and a card carrying certified food freak.

I suppose being a food freak is acceptable in general. But not at meet and greet buffet receptions overlooking the river valley, receptions involving relatives that we don't know very well. Not only was I the token American, but I was also the token food freak. It is easy to develop a strange reputation if I'm not careful.



At one time, I thought I was saved, born again, able at long last to talk about food to everyone, because everywhere I went, everyone, from all walks of life, were ready and open to an enthusiastic discussion of food. My hairdresser, raised in the depths of the Limousin, ready to argue for 45 minutes about 9 different species of cherries and their uses, the ladies I used to ride the bus with, my colleagues, even the garbage man and bus driver were ready at the drop of a hat to discuss the weather for meringue, Corsican smoked meats, what kind of potato to use for a tartiflette, whether to add crème fraîche to a pâte brisé, merits of aged vinegars, etc. Then I go and gush like an idiot about a Bombe Marquise at a family buffet and everyone wonders what planet I came from.



The Bombe is actually more of a European thing than purely French, since the whole concept of ice cream is said to have come from Italy, having been readily adopted by the English and the French at roughly the same time, and flourishing through Victorian times and into the 20th century with these cute fruit shaped ice cream treats as the social foil at garden parties and the likes. But even when served in England, the Bombe was always referred to as a French delicacy.

For this particular recipe, the Apricot sorbet has a bit more body than the Chablis sorbet, which follows in line with the whole concept of the Bombe. The logic is that the shell of the bombe is there to give some structure and support to a more delicate inside.

The name comes from the shapes of the moulds, which were very common in the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century kitchens of homes that had the luxury of ice houses. The moulds were made of copper mostly, and sometimes had the most delightful shapes and patterns. At first, before they started getting decorative, the mould was the container the ice cream was made in. They poured the custard and turned it in the salted ice, kept it cold, and turned it out of the mould when it was ready for service. This quickly evolved with the times to more and more complex moulds and layers, varied layers for the inside part, including frozen fruit purees, whipped flavored creams, custards, etc., and moulds made especially for making evenly distributed pretty layers, containing a more stiff outer support and a delicate inside. It is often noted that the purpose of having two layers is also to give some variation to the textures and flavors.

When the weather is terribly hot like it has been all week here, this really is a pretty good way to cool down. My guests were delighted in any case.

Summer Cold Dishes - Poulpe à la Grecque

Boy is it hot outside! We have guests coming and I am fixing some Poulpe à la Grecque. It is great as a cold salad topping or to serve as an elegant appetizer.

Octopus is very cheap from the fishmonger, it's pretty tough in texture in comparison to calamari, which is easily twice the price from my fishmonger. I love to prepare it though, and you don't need too much effort to make it come out tender and delicious. My fishmonger advises that I freeze the fresh octopus I buy from him, to make it more tender. He says that they used to beat it on the docks in Marseille but they don't do that anymore, and freezing it does the same thing.

I took the three small octopuses I had frozen out and let them thaw in the fridge overnight. Last night, when I got home from work and had other things going, I prepared this dish, which is inspired by a french recipe for octopus "a la grecque", although I don't use the same spices nor do I think it is like they serve it in Greece! I washed them well under cold running water, and was ready to start.

300 - 400 g. octopus
1 lemon
1 t. sea salt
2 T. olive oil
one onion
2 cloves
2 t. sichuan peppercorns
2 t. coriander seeds
1/2 cup dry rose (or white) wine
1 lime
salt and pepper to taste

(Note above the ingredients are exactly as I prepared the dish this time, and I think I'm going to continue to prepare it this way, but that doesn't mean that you have to. Feel free to experiement and substitute, I do!)
Peel the skin off the octopus, and empty out the center cavities, and sharp ribs on the inner walls of the pouch.
Cut them into pieces and let them soak for 30 minutes in cold water.

After they've soaked, boil them for 5 minutes in salted water with the juice of one lemon added.


While that's going, prepare your bouquet ball. The original recipe from Chef Jacques Le Divellic, calls for 2 T. coriander seeds. But I felt that the strong flavor of all that coriander overpowered the delicate flavors and it lost important nuance. I've been experimenting, and have wanted for some time to try sichuan pepper corns. So this time, I put 2 cloves, 2 t. sechuan pepper corns, and 2t. coriander seeds in the ball.

Sweat one finely minced onion. When the octopus has boiled for 5 minutes, scoop it out of the water and add to the onion, and let that sautee for a couple of minutes.

Add the ball to the sauteeing octopus and onions, the juice of one lime, and add about 1/2 cup dry rose wine, I've used a cote du provence.

Add another cup of water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover and let simmer for one hour. At the end of an hour, take it off the heat, and let it cool to room temperature. Transfer to a container with the bouquet ball and refrigerate overnight.

Voila, a cool, tender, delicious mouth watering treat waiting for us when we came home from a long hot tiring day. Note on the flavors infused by the mix: The long infused sichuan peppercorns give a distinct floral taste to the dish, a nice suprise. The flavor of the cloves were not perceptible. The peppercorns and the coriander seeds balanced well, and I felt the overall flavor was more balanced and subtle (and more fresh and floral) than with only coriander seeds. The perfect thing to accompany this is a crystal glass of ice cold lillet blanc.

Another idea is to get two or three pots going and have different spice mixes in each pot, like one pot with black peppercorns, one with sechuan, and one with coriander, or mustard. Mix them together just before serving, and then each bite would be a suprise of a different taste...

Bon appetit!