1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (31 page)

Pommes gaufrettes alone make a satisfying snack.

Potatoes, of course, are great in the simplest of ways: boiled, baked, mashed, whipped, or crisped up as fries. But by playing on their textural adaptability and their knack for absorbing rich flavors, the French have come up with elegant refinements that raise the humble tubers to haute levels.

The success of all of the following dishes depends heavily on uniform slicing on a mandoline, as well as the selection and use of the right
kind
of potatoes. They should be on the order of our Idaho russets, and relatively old, so they are starchy and dry enough to retain their shape and not turn mushy during the cooking process. As delicious as new potatoes or golden Yukons are for other uses, they will not stand up in these preparations.

Pommes Dauphinoises
. Few potato dishes go as well with roast beef as does this gratin, in which uniformly thin slices of potatoes are layered into a wide baking dish with butter, garlic, salt, pepper, grated Gruyère cheese, a pinch of nutmeg, and milk. All is baked until the potatoes tenderize as they absorb the other ingredients, emerging from the oven with a golden-brown top glaze and a flavor so rich and buttery you’d swear they were made with heavy cream. Two equally mouthwatering variations are
pommes Savoyard
, in which beef stock replaces the milk for a leaner dish, and
pommes Jurassienne
, in which heavy sweet cream does substitute for the milk.

Pommes Anna
. A neat trick if you can carry it off, this one requires a special baking dish that is usually made of copper and is, unsurprisingly, known as a pommes Anna casserole. The preparation again begins with uniformly thin slices of potato. Layered into the 2-to 3-inch-deep round
casserole with salt and pepper, they are tucked in with almost their weight in dots of sweet butter. Another dish or lid that fits inside the casserole is added as a cover and weight, and the whole is simmered very slowly until the butter has tenderized the potatoes and a golden crust forms on the bottom and sides. The crust will be in tantalizing view when the potato “cake” is inverted onto a serving dish.

Pommes Soufflés
. If these look like swollen French fries, it’s because that’s sort of what they are. Thin, long slices of potatoes are chilled in ice water then blanched quickly in very hot, deep fat and removed as soon as they rise to the surface and begin to swell. Drained and held until just before they are to be served, the potatoes are then treated to another dip in scalding fat, which prompts them to balloon up and become very crisp. All it takes to reach perfection is a quick draining and a liberal sprinkle of good coarse sea salt. For rich, meaty flavor, use rendered suet for the frying fat; if vegetable oil is substituted for health’s sake, add a small piece of suet for flavor.

Pommes Gaufrettes
. Think waffled potato chips. With the ruffled blade of a mandoline, slices are cut and scored into a waffle grid, then deep-fried (again, ideally in rendered suet) to emerge with several levels of crackling crispness. These
pommes
are the perfect companions to grilled meats such as blood-rare steaks and seared, roseate lamb chops. Add a big clump of watercress and a glass of a bold red wine, and you have a feast.

Further information and recipes:
The Escoffier Cookbook
by Auguste Escoffier, H. L. Cracknell, and R. J. Kaufmann (2011).

When it comes to the outrageously rich French dessert known as
pots de crème au chocolat
, not much is lost in translation. The name refers to both the baked French custard and the small, lidded cups in which it’s steamed, and the dessert adds up to little pots of utterly thick, rich, creamy chocolate (and little else). Make no mistake—this is no chocolate mousse, and “airy” is not a property that applies to pots de crème. What is prized in this game is substance, which is why the acid test of a pot de crème is that a spoon dipped into its petite cup should stand upright unassisted. And yet, the dessert consists merely of cream, milk, eggs, sugar, and chocolate, which makes it a cousin to such canonical French dessert classics as crème brûlée and crème caramel. The key to its exceptional richness is the high proportion of egg yolks to whites; it is the abundance of yolks that creates its distinctively silky, smooth texture. The treat is also coddled a bit: While baking, the small pots are partially submerged in a bain-marie (water bath) and are steamed slowly at a low temperature until the just-right dense and seductive texture is achieved.

Further information and recipes:
Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts
by Maida Heatter (1995);
Bouchon
by Thomas Keller (2004);
epicurious.com
(search pots de creme).

Elegant truffle-lined bird nestled in vegetables.

Alas, poor chicken. But hooray for us. Whatever loss this tender, fat hen may have suffered, her mourning attire makes for great eating. Or rather, her state of half-mourning, in which the skin over her breast is loosened and lined with thin slices of black truffles. (The bird’s thigh and leg quarters receive no such treatment, hence the designation “half-mourning.”) After this dressing, the bird is wrapped in cheesecloth and slowly, lusciously poached in a stock fragrant with thyme, bay leaves, parsley, leeks, and root vegetables.

Truffles intact, the sliced meat is served with a silken ivory sauce based on the poaching stock, give or take a little white wine, some heavy cream, and some extra slices of truffle. Snowy steamed rice and a soft, buttery puree of green beans or new spring peas make the most felicitous garnishes. The dish may be based on the authentic, plump poularde or the elegant, younger
poulets
, but the best mourners are of the highly prized blue-footed variety known as
poulets de Bresse.

What a few truffles can do for a dish as simple as boiled chicken … As the architect Mies van der Rohe once noted, “God is in the details.” But for the less detail-oriented, there’s a variation that’s just as enticing: Line the breast meat of a poularde with truffles. Roast the whole bird. Finish the mourner with a sauce of golden pan juices and more diced truffles, and send her to the table with creamy
pommes dauphinoises
(see
listing
).

Further information and recipes:
For an involved but inspired modern rendition,
Grand Livre de Cuisine
by Alain Ducasse (2009);
foodnetwork.ca
(search poularde demi-deuil).

Tarragon accents a whole butter-roasted chicken.

Enhanced by the licoricey dragon’s herb, tarragon, and roasted or sautéed to a bewitching nut-brown in a healthy dose of butter, this chicken became a classic for the best of reasons. The dish entered the American pantheon in the early
1970s, due primarily to the praise of author and cooking school guru James Beard. It grew so popular, in fact, that it attained the cliché status that’s a hallmark of menu saturation, even making regular appearances in the White House kitchens during John F. Kennedy’s tenure. Happily,
estragon
fatigue has ebbed, and
poulet à l’estragon
remains one of the easiest, most fragrant and flavorful chicken dishes a home cook (or a professional chef, for that matter) can make, just as fitting for an elaborate dinner party as it is for a family meal. The preparation could hardly be simpler: browning chicken in a skillet of hot butter and oil before adding shallots and green onions, then lowering the heat to allow the chicken to simmer for twenty minutes; the dish is then finished over high heat with white wine and tarragon.

Other cooks, including the legendary
New York Herald Tribune
’s food reporter, Clementine Paddleford, proposed slow-roasting a whole buttered chicken stuffed with fresh tarragon and drizzled with lemon juice, regularly basting the bird with its own juices to produce that crisp, golden-brown skin. When roasting, do not miss out on the chance to brown diced potatoes in the chicken’s drippings. The bistro staple shines alongside potatoes in any form, whether they’re simply mashed with plenty of butter or steamed and sprinkled with parsley.

Where:
In Baltimore
, Petit Louis Bistro, tel 410-366-9393,
petitlouis.com
;
in Toronto
; Café Boulud Toronto, tel 416-963-6000,
cafeboulud.com/toronto
.
Further information and recipes:
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1
, by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck (1961);
The Country Cooking of France
by Anne Willan (2007);
saveur.com
(search roast chicken with tarragon sauce).

A longtime favorite in the graceful little Provence town of Vence, the charming Auberge des Seigneurs was once a famed haunt of Impressionist painters like Renoir and Modigliani. A seventeenth-century inn with a restaurant on its ground floor, it was formerly presided over by chef-owner Pierre Rodi, who did most of his cooking in a huge, brick wood-fired oven—really a fireplace—at one end of the rustic, romantically lit dining room. Fortunately, his successor continues the same practice along with the
serving of savory roast-meat specialties, none more memorable than
poulet Farnèse
, a small, plump chicken, rotisserie-turned to moist perfection over the low, white-hot fire. Scented with bay leaves and garlic, and sauced with toasted hazelnuts, butter, and a quick flambé of brandy, it is a supreme triumph. Fortunately, a close approximation can be achieved in a home oven or rotisserie. (Alas, the same cannot be said for the buttery apple tart that also emerged from Rodi’s magic fireplace.
C’est dommage
.)

Mashed or roasted potatoes do right by the chicken and its sauce, as do slim haricots verts in shallot butter, or steamed asparagus in season.

Serves 4 to 6

½ pound shelled hazelnuts (about 1⅔ cups)

2 broiler chickens (2½ to 3 pounds each)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

12 bay leaves

4 large cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed with the flat side of a chef’s knife

12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter

Chicken stock, if necessary

⅓ cup Cognac or other brandy

1.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2.
Place the hazelnuts in a single layer in a pie pan and bake them until the skins begin to flake off the nuts, about 20 minutes. Leave the oven on.

3.
Transfer the hazelnuts to a clean dish towel and fold the towel over to cover them. Vigorously rub the nuts through the towel to remove the skins. Chop the nuts moderately fine and set them aside.

4.
Sprinkle the inside of each chicken with salt and pepper. Place 4 or 5 bay leaves inside each chicken along with 2 cloves of garlic and 2 tablespoons of butter. Break the remaining bay leaves in half or quarters and slip 1 piece under the skin of each chicken breast half and thigh. Season the outside of the chickens with salt and pepper and rub them with the remaining 8 tablespoons of butter, dividing it evenly between them.

5.
Truss the chickens and place them on a rack set in a roasting pan and bake until the drumsticks can be moved easily in their sockets and the juices run clear when the thighs are pierced with a fork or skewer, about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the temperature reaches 175–180°F. Baste the chickens frequently with the pan drippings. If the pan drippings begin to turn brown and burn, add a little water or chicken stock to the pan.