1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (23 page)

Vanilla-scented crème caramel and Spanish flan, with their bittersweet burnt sugar sauce and their uniformly voluptuous texture, are entitled to their popularity, but the same ingredients reach their true apotheosis in this ultimate French variation.

The easy part is preparing the sauce that will become custard—a cooked, frothy blend of eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla, or pungent orange rind. The hard part begins with caramelizing the sugar, watching like a hawk so that it doesn’t in one blinding instant go from pale gold to burnt black. When it turns just the right bronzy golden brown, it must be poured into a chilled mold (a porcelain soufflé dish or, preferably, the fez-shaped metal mold called a charlotte). Very quickly, that mold must be tipped (
renversé
) and rotated so the caramel evenly coats its bottom and sides.

The custard is then poured in and the mold is set in the oven. Cooled and unmolded, the silken custard will be encrusted with a shiny sugar glaze that provides a crackling contrast in texture and flavor. A few strawberries or raspberries and a knob of whipped cream make for worthy, if unnecessary, garnishes.

The popular crème brûlée is a variation that combines the same rich custard and burnt sugar glaze. The well-chilled custard, set in wide, flat dishes, is topped with brown sugar and glazed under the broiler, the salamander or, in many restaurants, with a white-hot blowtorch, a trick best skipped in homes lacking an experienced welder.

Further information and recipes:
Roast Chicken and Other Stories
by Simon Hopkinson (2007);
The New Making of a Cook
by Madeleine Kamman (1997);
recipekey.com
(search creme renversee).

These flaky golden pastry crescents are among the most iconic foods of France, found on standard
petit dejeuner
trays in even the dreariest of hotels and cafés—which means they are not always perfect.

To achieve that vaunted state, the croissants must be made with pure butter—never mind those adulterers who claim margarine produces a more reliable effect. The slightly sweet yeast dough must be turned in the manner of puff pastry in order to be what is technically known as yeast puff pastry—the same dough that distinguishes Danish and Viennese pastries at their best. Properly done, the results will be quintessentially buttery and messily flaky, with a yellow-white interior that is just the least bit elastic as it is pulled from the center to be spread with dabs of butter and perhaps some fresh fruit jam.

Those who like their croissants served warm are entitled to their choice, but heating results in a much softer crust and an interior that can be greasy. Customers with a sweet tooth will be well acquainted with the pain au chocolat based on the same yeast puff pastry, wrapped around a rod or two of bittersweet chocolate for an extra morning lift.

There was a time when all croissants in France were made in one reliable, authentic way. But these days, even some authentic patisseries will have two batches, one marked butter, the other margarine—so pay attention as you choose. In America, most croissants have become much too huge, on the theory that the customer will pay a higher price for a larger crescent, thereby covering the high cost of hand labor. Yet small croissants are preferable, yielding the right proportion of outer crisp crust and crunchy horn tips to a softer interior.

Although now universally synonymous with the home country of the baguette (see
listing
), the croissant is another of the gastronomic treasures western Europe supposedly won following the seventeenth-century siege of Vienna. To celebrate the defeat of the Turks by the Polish King John Sobieski, the story goes, the Viennese bakers formed this roll in the shape of the crescent on the Turkish flag. According to legend, coffee was introduced to Vienna at the same time, as the Viennese went into the deserted battlefields and scooped up the beans they had noticed the Turks brewing. The bagel, too, is considered by some to be a product of the same battle. What would breakfast be like if the Turks had won?

Where:
In Paris
, Pâtisserie Jean Millet, tel 33/1-45-51-49-80,
patisserie-jean-millet.com
;
in New York
, Bakehouse, tel 646-559-9871,
bakehousenyc.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Art of French Pastry
by Jacquy Pfeiffer and Martha Rose Shulman (2013);
cookstr.com
(search croissants).

An egg atop a croque madame.

Though pizza may be a favorite worldwide snack—hot and bubbling on short notice—
croques monsieur
and
madame
are its worthy rivals. The grilled ham and cheese sandwiches par excellence are as likely to be served at chic cafés, bistros, and tearooms as in the anonymous
tabacs
that line the sidewalks of Paris. They are simple, yet subject to interpretation: sometimes broiled, sometimes grilled, other times fried; sometimes graced by a cheese-flavored béchamel sauce on top. In their worst incarnation, they are preformed, heated in the microwave, and based on cheeses far more mundane than the authentic Gruyère.

There are differences, of course, between
monsieur and madame. Both begin, one hopes, with good-quality, finely knit white sandwich bread—ideally, the French
pain de mie
—liberally buttered. The male of the species boasts a layer of ham between its slices. Broiled or pan-grilled until golden, the sandwich is topped with a generous sprinkling of grated Gruyère and slid under the broiler until the cheese melts to an unctuous bronze ooze. Madame, as one might expect, lays an egg—a bit of sandwich personification that is one part French wit, one part culinary sexism. That egg is either fried and placed atop the finished sandwich or slipped into a round well cut into the top slice, sprinkled with cheese, and cooked under the broiler. To many minds, the male is preferred, the soft egg yolk presenting a lush but awkward distraction.

Pan-grilled or broiled, with cheese on top or in the middle, or even French-toasted—the entire sandwich dipped into an egg-milk batter and pan-fried—the result is a seething mass of pleasure. Firm, smoky ham and hot buttery bread, piquant overtones of melting cheese, and perhaps the lavish accent of béchamel sauce …

Less interesting, if a bit lower in cholesterol, is a third version of this sandwich, the interloper known as croque mademoiselle, with bland white turkey meat standing in for the ham. Whichever you end up trying, know that the sandwich goes equally well with a cold light beer, a chilled white wine, or a very good cup of coffee.

Where:
In Paris
, Angelina, tel 33/1-42-60-82-00,
angelina-paris.fr
; Café Marly, tel 33/1-49-26-06-60,
beaumarly.com
;
in New York
, Maison Kayser at three locations,
maisonkayserusa.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Bouchon
by Thomas Keller (2004);
cookstr.com
(search croque monsieur silverton);
epicurious.com
(search croque monsieur).

There are as many different styles of mustard to choose from as there are songbirds, but none has quite the status of Dijon. One of nature’s happy accidents, the sharp, brassy spread came into being when a gaggle of grapevines and yellow-specked mustard plants tangled up together in the hills of Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, in the Côte d’Or region. There, in the Middle Ages, local brown and black mustard seeds were crushed and mixed with wine, thereby inspiring the condiment’s name, from the Latin
must
, meaning the remnants of pressed wine.

Mustard actually dates back at least as far as the Roman Empire, but it wasn’t until Dijon’s product introduced its characteristic and appealing tartness that mustard manufacturing really took off. By the fourteenth century, laws regulating Dijon’s production were put into effect in France, and by the seventeenth, an alliance to oversee the role of the individual mustard creator, or
moutardier
, was officially created.

Today, in keeping with many of France’s most special and classic wines and cheeses, the mustard holds a protective Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée status that mandates a set of
requirements necessary for a condiment to officially rank as Dijon. But the law, written in 1937, was relatively loose, failing to specify a site for its production or the sourcing of its mustard seeds. The result is that most modern Dijon is still made in its namesake city, but from seeds imported primarily from Canada.

Were it not for the work of Maurice Grey, one of the most well-known Dijon-based mustard men, folks outside of Europe might never have become acquainted with the spread. A nineteenth-century character who invented a steam-powered device that efficiently ground mustard seeds into powder, he launched the Grey Poupon mustard label with fellow
moutardier
Auguste Poupon. It wasn’t until the 1980s, though, that Djion mustard became truly popular in the United States. Those Grey Poupon commercials might have had something to do with it.

Where:
In Dijon
, La Boutique Maille, tel 33/1-80-30-41-02,
maille.com
.
Tip:
In addition to Grey Poupon, look for Maille or Amora brands from Dijon.

Whatever else may prompt controversy in the French kitchen, most French cooks would agree that the only way to treat a delicately flavored Dover sole is in the classic preparation,
à la meunière
—in the style of the miller’s wife. What the good woman brings to her
poisson
is a fine dusting of flour that protects the fish, which gilds in an oval meunière pan large enough to hold the entire sole. Leaving skin and bones intact ensures that no juices are lost and uncompromised texture and flavor remain.

The result is a firm, pearly fish as enticing as a fresh sea breeze, enhanced only by hot, nut-brown butter, a dash of lemon juice, and a sprinkling of bright green parsley. Ideally, the fish should be opened at the table, the fillets deftly lifted off the bone with surgical skill by trained restaurant captains, who seem to belong to an endangered species.

So simple a preparation requires the utmost attention to detail on the part of the chef. In addition to the fresh, authentic Dover sole caught in the North Sea waters around the British Isles (see
listing
), a proper result demands that the copper sauté pan be lined with tin, which imparts just the right golden-brown finish; the only alternative is stainless steel—a bit trickier to handle, as it can develop hot spots that scorch the fish. The butter must be unsalted, and clarified prior to cooking to remove the milk solids—basically sugars—that might blacken under the high heat required for quick sautéing. All of which might explain why this specialty, not to be mistaken for the layman’s filet of sole meunière, fetches between $50 and $75 a portion in New York City restaurants.

Steamed white rice or dry, floury boiled new potatoes are about the only acceptable sides, although a little creamed spinach might not go amiss, nor would a glass or two of a dry white or light French red wine. This meal is a rite of passage for anyone with pretentions of gastronomic connoisseurship.

Where:
In Paris
, Le Divellec, tel 33/1-45-51-91-96,
le-divellec.com
.
Further information and recipes:
epicurious.com
(search sole meuniere);
bonappetit.com
(search classic sole meuniere).