Canard à l’orange
We have been very busy in the kitchen developing and testing new recipes. One of them is an old classic that we reinterpret every year : the canard à l’orange – duck with oranges. As mentioned before, the traditional recipe calls for an oven roasted duck, a sauce gastrique (caramel, vinegar, duck stock and orange juice and zest reduced) and fresh oranges. The duck is usually served in two times : the breasts with the sauce and oranges, then the legs are roasted for a longer time and served over fresh salad.
Keeping this elements in mind, we came up with this new design. First, we spread a layer of julienned fresh yellow beets – reminding of the salad – tossed in orange vinaigrette, we add cooked and cubed red beets, legs confits, sous-vide duck breast that we caramelize with honey and spices. Lastly, we add a couple of orange segments and blood orange pulp explosions.
Seduced by this combination of flavors? Here is a home recipe to prepare on a special occasion :
Canard à l’orange
Pan-seared duck breast- crispy skin, balsamic-orange gastrique, orange gelee agar agar, beets, potatoes and baby carrots.
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients:
3 duck magrets (breasts)
4 oranges
1 lemon
salt
1 cup of sugar, divided (1/3 cup for simple syrup +2/3 cup for gastrique)
1 teaspoon white pepper
2/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2/3 cups orange juice
2 cups of brown duck stock
1/8 ounce or 4g of agar agar (you need to buy it in a form of a thread)
3 medium beets
12 small or 6 medium Yukon gold potatoes
18 baby carrots
½ cup of olive oil
Ground spices (fennel seeds, cardamom, anise)
Micro-greens for garnish
- Prepare a citrus marinade by combining 2 teaspoons of orange zest, 1 teaspoon of lemon zest, salt, 2 tablespoons of honey, white pepper and spices; set aside.
- Place duck breasts on a cutting board. Score the fat side of the duck in a criss-cross pattern. Season the with salt. Warm a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat without any oil. Place the duck breasts, fat side down in the skillet to render off the fat – about 6 min. It is better to cover if you can and remove the melted fat a couple of times during this time. Turn the breast over then sear for about 30 seconds. Just before plating brush the fat side with honey and ground spices and caramelize fat side for about 2 minutes.
- For gastrique sauce, make dark -almost burnt- caramel with sugar and deglaze with balsamic vinegar. Add orange juice and duck stock. Reduce until the sauce is à la nappe (thick enough to cover the back of a spoon). Finish the sauce: salt and pepper to taste, check consistency and flavor.
- Prepare agar agar : mix 1 cup of water with the agar agar and bring to a boil.
- Create simple syrup – called Baumé 30 degrees- by cooking 1/3 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of water until clear; boil for 1 minute. Peel the oranges (keep the peels of one orange), add orange pulp (remove skin) to syrup, and cook for 3 minutes. Mix in the agar agar and pour into a square-shaped silicon mold (you can use a mold for ice-cubes). Cool at room temperature. When set, you should obtain small dice.
- Slice the orange peel into thin segments. Add segments to the gastrique sauce.
- For vegetables: tourné potatoes; steam. Reserve for garnish. Prep baby carrots batonets; steam. Reserve for garnish. Prep beets, steam, reserve for garnish.
- To plate: On a plate, spread a tablespoon of room temperature gastrique sauce, display slices of duck magret on top. Place all vegetables and orange confit cubes. Add a few micro-greens. Serve immediately.
Enjoy!
Spices
If you follow me on Twitter you probably already know which spices I am going to write about.
They are gathered from the best farms around the world and purchased at a fair price from the farmer. And, if this wasn’t enough to be fully conquered, they are brilliantly combined by the talented chef, Olivier Roellinger.
The Parisian store, that I was lucky to visit this past December, gathers numerous condiments, oils, vinegars, pure and mixed spices, cookbooks and tools. They are little jars of exceptional scents, subtleties and promises, they also reflect a lifetime of passion, travels, encounters and culinary excellence. Roellinger’s adventure as a spice maker follows a natural path for a chef who grew up and worked in the land of privateers and advanturers.
His cuisine is rooted in his native Brittany, but, since part of the world’s spice trade once passed through Brittany’s ports, he felt the need to travel extensively, often by boat, to uncover new spices and flavor combinations. His food is an interplay of familiar and exotic.
The boutiques that opened over a year ago are a tribute to the men and women who have contributed to his success. Those are the farmers, men and women who pick the spices.
For more information visit : http://www.epices-roellinger.com/
Happy New Year!
Back from France, I would like to wish you a happy, healthy, successful and delightful 2012!
Cheese and more…
Happy holidays everyone!
When it comes to cheese, I always think of authenticity, craftsmanship, deep flavors, subtlety and variety. And because the cheeses we serve at Baumé are most likely to be imported, I pay special attention to them being perfectly taken care of, perfectly stored and sold ripe.
I particularly like the selection of cheeses from craftsman Xavier David. He sells a number of French cheeses that he carefully selects from different terroirs. All of the cheeses under this brand (camemberts, goat cheeses, roqueforts, etc.) are made with raw milk – selected according to very strict criteria – before ripening to perfection at the producer’s. The production process is not only strictly monitored but also done with great respect for the environment. 
Here in the Bay Area, if you are hunting for the finest and most varied cheeses, and are curious to try the brand Xavier David, you are finally in luck. My friend Laurent Recollon, who was importing these cheeses for wholesale and restaurants, just opened a shop in Hayes Valley : “Gourmet and More”. Apart from the cheese selection, you will find breads, cold cuts, condiments, sweets, sausages, duck confit, foie gras, yogurts, and probably some of the finest macarons and marrons glacés in the Bay. And when you explore this place (141 Gough Street, SF), please don’t hesitate to leave your comments down below.
Tibetan Aid Project
For the sixth year in a raw now, I have participated in a charity event called “Taste and Tribute”. It is a culinary gala held at the Four Season’s in San Francisco, featuring more than 20 of the best chefs of the Bay Area, and contributing to the Tibetan Aid Project. This organization will use the proceeds raised to rebuilds, preserves, strengthens, and perpetuates Tibet’s cultural and spiritual heritage. Each year, it is an honor and pleasure to contribute, along with a great community of chefs, to an exceptional evening.
At this sumptuous event, besides participating in a silent auction, diners had the rare opportunity to see world-renowned chefs create exquisite four-course meals tableside. Guests were free to walk up to the chefs and ask them questions.
The inspiration behind the benefit is wonderful chef and friend Laurent Manrique. He has initiated this event in 2001, and has been coordinating it since 2001.
I invite you to visit this website and make a reservation for next year’s edition.
About Molecular Gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy”. In the past couple of decades this culinary buzzword has affected the image of high-end cuisine in a rather astonishing way. In fact, the disclaimer “I don’t do molecular gastronomy!” has been a much-intoned song for those who dread to be associated with the imaginary mad-scientist/chef in his chemistry laboratory/kitchen.
But what does “molecular gastronomy’ really mean? Is it the name of a cuisine? Is it about culinary tricks, food that foams, bubbles, fizzes? And what about the flavor of the pristine local ingredients that we work with?
That’s what I would love to start addressing on this blog.
What does molecular gastronomy mean and how does it relate to my cuisine at Baumé Restaurant?
First off, molecular gastronomy is a science, not a cooking style. It is the science that gives us, cooks, the chemical or physical explanation behind principles passed down from chef to chef, and from parents to children. Or the secret behind the way we experience aromas. And many other significant elements of the sort.
In Molecular Gastronomy, Exploring the Science of Flavor, Hervé This simply explains that ” chemistry and physics, judiciously applied, can tell us how to preserve the tenderness of meats, how to master the chemical reactions that give the crust of roasted meat its wonderful flavor, and how to avoid the failures that are commonly encountered in making various sauces…”. In other words, molecular gastronomy is the sciences that can help us, cooks, become better ones.
In this sense, yes I do use tools and techniques that allow me to bring out the best flavors and aromas in ingredients. Even more so since I strive to select the best ones available. Does that mean that we, at Baumé, ignore French traditional recipes to focus strictly on innovation? Certainly not. Along with new creations, we look at tradition as a base we build upon creatively for more flavor, a better design and more generally an enhanced dining experience. We think about taste, aromas, shape, textures, colors, senses. As such, French “cuisine moderne” learns from scientific research but exists apart.
Introducing Sous-Chef Jonathan Pace
Jonathan :”I was born and raised in Cleveland Ohio. Although my passion for fine fare started early at my grand mother’s table – her strawberry rhubarb pie or beef pot pie are some of my earliest and fondest food memories – I didn’t really start cooking until college. My interest grew so much during those years, that I decided to attend culinary school right after I graduated. I was interested in all types of cuisines but tended to gravitate towards ones using asian ingredients. I decided to work in Hawaii hoping that there, I would be exposed to various asian cuisines and would have access to some of the best and hard to obtain tropical ingredients. This first experience allowed me to grow a lot as a young cook. I even started to create new dishes. As my learning appetite wasn’t yet satisfied, I decided for my next culinary adventure to be completely different and to happen in Europe. So I moved to Copenhagen, Danemark, where I had the great opportunity to work at Noma – winner of the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2011. There I learned about high standarts and creativity around unique ingredients (the restaurant’s crew was exploring the Nordic regions discovering outstanding foods and bringing them back to Denmark for us to cook).
At Baume I am contributing to creating and executing the menu while expanding my technique and repertoire. Creating new dishes and experiencing food in new ways is what drives me every day.”
Salade d’Automne
Fallen leaves, earthy and bright colors, fruity and mellow flavors are all around this month. Those are the sources of inspiration for the color palate, the scents and textures of my new fall-inspired salad. It will take your senses on a stroll through the nostalgic and sweet feeling that this season often leaves us with. Crunchy and juicy asian pears are complemented by sweet, lightly cooked butternut squash, carrots, parsnips and purple brussels sprouts. The red shiso leaves balance the softness of the salad adding a nice minty flavor to the plate. The seasoning is an unusually soft aioli made with caramelized apple puree.
If you were to guess what the wafers are representing, I am pretty sure that you would guess right – dry leaves. Now, the noteworthy element about the wafers is the ingredient that allowed me to achieve their toasty, light chestnut flavor and and mimic the crunchiness of a dried leaf. We used acorn flour.
Acorns are mainly known as wildlife food in areas where oak trees occur. It has not been immediately appealing to cooks because it contains large amounts of tannins that are very bitter, astringent and potentially irritant in their raw form. This is why it was first added in meals during difficult times to overcome a food crisis by Native American or Korean cooks – during World War II. Today though, thanks to different steeping and soaking processes acorn flour is much more subtle and pleasing to the palate and it adds a nice nutty twist to a dish.
Tomate Farcies – stuffed tomatoes
Of all the produce that taste best in season, none are more inspiring than ripe, soft, juicy and sweet summer tomatoes. With their silky skin, meaty flesh, soft pink juice, and the generous array of colors and shapes they offer, summer tomatoes are nothing like their winter counterparts. Now is the time to take advantage of their delectability, to be creative and incorporate them in as many dishes as possible.
There is a very traditional and rustic French dish called tomates farcies (stuffed tomatoes) that inspired me a few weeks ago. In the original recipe, firm red tomatoes are cut, cored and stuffed with meat, bread crumbs, onions, garlic, aromatic herbs. My new recipe, Tomates Farcies, takes a playful and unexpected twist on the stuffing. When served, the tomato looks like it has only been boiled and peeled. Only when our guests cut it do they discover “la farce”. In French this word has two meanings- stuffing and joke- which both apply here.
As for the stuffing itself, it is a lightly salted fish mousse. Its light texture and medium firmness make each bite smooth and subtle.
