Blog – Page 53 – Nicole Peyrafitte

Quick Rognons d’Agneau à la Moutarde

Before I take off to Nesenkeag’s Annual Farm Day for a long week end, voilà a quick & easy recipe that I am very fond of: Mustard Sauce Lamb Kidneys .
The most important is to make sure you purchase very fresh kidneys. I buy them from the Aunt Halime’s Halal Meat on 3rd Avenue and Ovinton in Bay Ridge. To insure freshness kidneys have to be firm, with a rich and even color and no strong odor. It is recommended to use them the day of purchase. Lamb kidneys are single-lobed while veal kidneys are multi-lobed.

Recipe:
2 to 3 kidneys per person.
– 1 cup of diced shallots or of sweet onions.
– Melt 2 Tbsp of butter in a skillet and sauté the shallots or onions until translucent.
– While the shallots cook remove the fat around the kidneys. Cut them in the middle, remove the white tougher part in the middle, and cut into four pieces.

rognons

-Add the kidneys to the pan and sauté on high heat for 3-4 minutes. Overcooked kidneys will get tough, they should be a little pink in the middle.

-Reserve kidneys in a covered shallow dish so they can stay warm and juices can be collected.

-Flambé the pan with an Armagnac/Cognac type brandy, that will loosen up the caramelized bottom.
-Add 3 heap soup spoons of Dijon Mustard into the pan, stir well.
-Pour 1/2 pint of heavy cream into the pan and bring it to boil. When cream starts thickening add the kidneys and the rendered juices.
-Add fresh ground pepper.
Attention : before adding any salt taste your sauce. Some mustards are already salty enough, others are not, you will have to make a decision about adding salt or not.
-Bring it back to a boil, then lower the flame and watch the consistency. The sauce needs to thickens until it coats the back of a wooden spoon evenly & smoothly.
-I served it with boiled new potatoes cut in half around the rognons. it can also be served with rice of fresh tagliatelles.
-On the picture you will notice that I have added some parsley and few pink peppercorn for garnish. This step is not indispensable.

Bon appetit et bon week-end!

Nesenkeag’s Annual Farm Day

An important message from Eero Ruuttila:
Nesenkeag’s Annual Farm Day
Saturday, October 18th 11- 5:30 pm
Poetry reading
& grand raffle drawing

An all day even (check out the schedule) and at 3:30PM:
The 8th Annual Nesenkeag Poetry Reading, featuring Nancy Henry (Westbrook, Maine) and Joseph Torra (Somerville, Mass) and will be followed by live music featuring Vicente Lebron & Friends, with Russ Gershon.

Nesenkeag Farm is located on the eastern bank of the Merrimack River, in southern New Hampshire (Litchfield). Henry David Thoreau once camped at the farm next to the mouth of Nesenkeag Brook and wrote about his Litchfield passage in his One Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit farm, Nesenkeag’s recent funding support includes grants from Share Our Strength and NH Catholic Charities, and our own spring Plant-A-Meal Fundraiser. Nonprofit income supports production of organic vegetables for the NH Food bank, whose distribution network includes soup kitchens and food pantries throughout New Hampshire. For 23 years, Nesenkeag has provided specialty produce to some of the finest restaurants in Boston and Southern NH. Its skilled Cambodian farm workers commute daily from Lowell.

Nesenkeag is well known for its innovative organic production & marketing strategies, developed during the past two decades by farm director & field manager, Eero Ruuttila. This past winter Eero completed his 5-year tenure as a “Farmer-Educator” for the USDA’s SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) program. This position supported numerous summer field tours and winter conference lectures.

Pierre Joris, Simon Pettet and myself will be there, will you?

ps: for more info check out my March 24th blog

My Petit Déjeuner (mon breakfast)

petit dej

I have to share my enthusiasm for my breakfast. I even think about what I am going to eat for breakfast before falling asleep! And I got an acute case of breakfast obsession since my good friend Chef Pierre Landet gave me a jar of his homemade divine plum jam. Pierre is executive chef at the NYC Tribeca restaurant Cercle Rouge. He made the jam with his mother’s recipe for a very special occasion that we will discuss another time. But let me tell you about my breakfast routine, indeed a routine because the format is always the same, only the fruit and the topping of the bread vary.
I wake up early, make myself a cup of tea and get into my daily yoga practice. These days I am brewing a “Russian Caravan” tea from the Park Slope Food Coop. This pleasantly dry & flowery blended Chinese tea gets my taste buds off to a right start. When I am done with tea and practice, I make coffee; always organic and always light roast (also called American roast). I usually get whatever is on sale in that category at Porto Rico Importing Co. I like that company, their quality is consistent and their prices fair. Do not ever offer me French Roast coffee, I will turn it down, I dislike it with a passion, i consider it an aggression to my taste buds!

Nicole’s Tartine à la Confiture de Prune de Pierre Landet
(recette Madame Landet mère!)

Anyhow, while coffee is percolating I toast my thick slices of rye bread and I eat a seasonal piece of fruit. I either get the Pain de Seigle from Balthazar or Amy’s Organic Miche at the Park Slope Food Coop. They both are a combination of wheat and rye organic flours, I find the Balthazar crustier and more complex, the taste stays in your mouth long after you have eaten the piece. Then, before the toast is cold but not while it is too hot, I apply a thin coat of either pasture butter, or Ben’s cream cheese or fresh goat cheese followed by the careful and even spreading of the sweet toping.
Pierre’s jam arrived at a really good time; I had just finished my special jar of raw honey made by my friend & Bourg d’Oueil mentor Joseph Garcès. So Pierre’s luscious plum jam provided not only the gusto satisfaction but also the emotional ingredient missed from Joseph’s honey. Voilà ze story:

Pierre Landet is from the Toulouse region, but his brother Benoit & wife Laurence own the Hotel-Restaurant Le Faisan Doré in my hometown of Luchon (you know the center of the Pyrenées and possibly the center of the world!). It is my brother Jean-Louis’ favorite hang out and mine too when I am in town.

Pierre is a great chef, he cooks genuine Southwestern French country food. His homemade patés and terrines are outstanding, especially his Terrine de Foie Gras which is out of this world. I also have a soft spot for his funny chicken wings, the REAL French fries and I have to mention the stuffed suckling pig; that is a fire work of flavors and texture.

But let’s return to my tartine (though it is a French specialty to talk about a past or future meal while eating); the very slightly caramelized plum jam, flavored with vanilla and brandy, became a marriage in heaven when it encountered the crunchy, but still moist bread. I usually have 2 slices but sometimes I need 3 to complete the ritual properly!

Alright, merci to Pierre Landet pour la confiture and merci to his maman! It is quite late I must go to bed, tomorrow is the 2nd Bay Ridge Farmer’s market and I have to go early, last week it was all sold out by 11am! I have to make sure I can have breakfast without rushing! I forgot to mention that I really don’t like having breakfast out, nothing beats my petit-déjeuner bi-continental!

Ah! and in case you wonder:
YES, I dunk my tartine into my coffee!

Llanera @ Bay Ridge 3rd Ave. Festival

Bay Ridge is the most Southwestern neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The area got its moment of fame in the late 1970’s with the movie Saturday Night Fever. The tip of our neighborhood displays the commending Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I moved there a year ago and truly enjoys the area despite the long commute to Manhattan.

Two Sundays ago was the yearly 3rd Avenue Festival that stretches from 68th street to about 94th. From 10-6pm local bands, choirs, food and the usual all kinds of vendors, take over the avenue. It is fun and crowded. What made my day was a Llanera barbecue next to my house. I had never seen any and I got really curious.

As you can see the banner reads (under the name of the restaurant, that is in Paterson, N.J.): ” Carne a la llanera , sabor y tradicion a su alcance”; which I would translate by ” Meat flat plain style. Taste & tradition at your reach”. The lady chef was Columbian from Los Llanos meaning the flat plains situated at the east Andes in Northwestern Colombia & Venezuela. The name Llanos applies to both sides of the border. Since colonial time this region is famous for herding millions of heads of cattle. Their cowboys are called los llaneros. The specificity of the region is also a folkloric music: el Canto LLanero (see the youtube video below).

I believe the technique used above is made up to suit the vendor’s needs for street cooking situation. In rural settings it looks like a fire is made on the ground. Then large pieces -the picture shows 1/4 side of beef- skewered to a large stick that gets planted in the ground. I am assuming that the stick is planted deep enough so it can be turned to allow meat to cook all sides.

photo linked from: www.llanera.com

We bought 3 servings and fed 8 people! The order included roasted potatoes, plantains & a spicy salsa/coleslaw type raw condiment. We got a few side orders of cheese filled arepas –fried corn pancakes– and a few grilled ears of corn. The meat was maybe a tiny bit over cooked for me, but it was really tender and flavorful. From what I could observed from the meat hanging on the sides, it didn’t look like the meat had been marinated, but it could have been brushed with some marinade for the last cooking step, when the slab is taken out from cooking hanging on the sides and placed flat on the grill. It was delicious! We wash it down with a few bottles of Tempranillo, and what a feast we had. Save the date for next year for the 3rd Ave. Festival, it is usually the last week end in September! See you then if not before. Also keep an eye for this vendor, I heard that they participate to many street fairs in the city.

たらこスパゲティー Tarako Spaghettis

photo by Chiaki Matsumoto

Though Tarako spaghettis are part of Yoshoku food (Western influenced Japanese cuisine) it is interesting to note that this dish also has Korean influence.
Tarako is salted Alaskan Pollock roe, most of the time referred to as cod roe. Pollock and cod are member of the Gadidae family, but different genus & specie. The confusion comes probably from the fact that in Japanese, tara (鱈) means cod. Tarako spaghettis is often made with Mentaiko, the spicy marinated roe, and that is were the Korean influence comes into play. Mentaiko originated from myeongran jeot (명란젓) and was most likely introduced to Japan after World War II. Jeotgal or Jeot (명란젓) is used as a condiment in pickling Kimchi and has it’s origin in Chinese cooking. Tarako spaghettis is a transcontinental dish, just the way I like them.

Plain Tarako pix source from Wikipedia

The recipe is pretty standard and simple, depending where you live the most challenging might be to find the Tarako. Korean and Japanese market carry it, just make sure to avoid the ones with MSG and coloring.

This is the recipe I chose from: http://www.recipezaar.com/135630

Ingredients

2 fish roe, see note 1 (must be Japanese salted cod roe called tarako or karashi mentaiko)
6 ounces spaghettini noodles (or finer)
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup heavy cream (or less)
1/4 sheet nori, cut into tiny tiny strips

Note 1: a) Tarako comes in sausage-looking pieces
b)you can choose either the spicy kind (karashi mentaiko) or just plain tarako
c)you can find tarako at the Japanese grocery store, often it is in the freezer.

Directions

Cut open the casing on each piece of tarako and gently scrape or squeeze out the roe.
Discard the casings.
Start your water to boil for the spaghetti.
Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and add roe, stirring until the color of the roe changes to a pale orange.
Stir in about half the heavy cream until well blended and heated through. As necessary, you can add the rest of the heavy cream.
Turn off the heat and keep the sauce just warm.
Don’t ask me why, but a friend stirs in a spoonful of Kewpie Mayonnaise before tossing this dish together (I love Kewpie mayo, but I haven’t tried this addition).
Cook the pasta to al dente.
Drain pasta and toss with sauce (sprinkle on the nori over the top just before taking the plates to the table) to serve.

Thank you Chiaki and Kenji to introduce me to Yoshoku cuisine!

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