Cucina Testa Rossa: A Valentine Luncheon to Make Hearts Swoon

Monday is Valentine’s Day or “just another manic Monday” as the Bangles would say…

Heidi of 101 Cookbooks suggested I post this menu with the upcoming Hallmark-concoted holiday so near at hand. I prepared this luncheon last year for my friend Alexis’ (first annual) Valentine’s Day luncheon for 25. Her most recent email exclaims: “EVERYONE is asking if I have picked a date for my valentine's luncheon this year...seems you have created a tradition which will be impossible to duplicate or follow…”. I told her all she had to do was fly me home! :-)

Champagne and Pomegranate Sparkler
Savory Salmon Pâte à Choux

Parsnip Soup with Beet Brunoise
drizzled with Rosemary Oil

Organic Mâche and Mixed Greens Salad
Blood Orange and Citrus Vinaigrette
Roasted Red, Golden and Striped Beets

Apple-Walnut-Raisin Cake
Rum Caramel Sauce with Raisins
Crème Chantilly

Chocolate Truffles

My notes on this meal are of course buried in a box in storage in San Francisco and since I am (not buried) in Paris much of this is from memory so mentally add “I think” at the end of every sentence as you’re reading. Bear with me here...

The luncheon took place in Alexis’ beautiful home in a tony little valley in the San Francisco Bay Area and the weather was about as glorioius a spring day as you can get in February, not the usual glacial days of winter, so we started with Champagne and a splash of pomegranate juice for a refreshing starter, and Pellegrino water for those with carpool duties shortly thereafter. If I had carpool duty I’d be drinking straight from the champagne bottle but that’s another story...

For the salmon pâte à choux, I made the choux with a little cayenne to give it a kick and piped out quarter-sized in circumference balls of dough. I used my pastry bag but you can use a large zip lock bag and cut off a corner to create a pastry bag in a pinch. Once baked, I let them cool and sliced off the top ¼ and piped in a mixture of sliced smoked salmon, juice from ½ lemon, and whipped cream cheese from Philadelphia, salt & pepper of course. Make sure it says “whipped” cream cheese as the regular is too hard and the low fat/fat free is god-awful. I topped them with a sprinkling of chopped chives and a sparse dusting of paprika.

Here is the recipe for pâte à choux from my cooking school, but the ones found on the internet are basically identical. This is also the basis for lovely cheesy gougères as well as sweet profiteroles. I have a great recipe from Pierre for gougères that which I will post later.

Savory Salmon Pâte à Choux

250 ml (9 oz) water
110 g (4 oz) butter, cut into small pieces
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
140 g (5 oz) flour
4-5 eggs
1 egg + 1 tbsp milk (or water) for egg wash
cayenne (optional)
paprika (optional)

1 pkg smoked salmon (chop finely)
1 pkg whipped Philadelphia cream cheese
juice from ½ lemon
chives
salt & pepper

1. put the water, butter, salt & sugar into a pot and bring to a boil. (this is where I added a few shakes of cayenne)

2. when the mixture reaches a boil and the butter has melted, take off the heat and add the flour all at once and stir to incorporate with a wooden spoon. *it is important that you don’t let the water boil too long as this recipe is all about the liquid to dry proportions.

3. put the pot back on to medium heat and stir vigorously for 30 seconds to a minute or until the mixture thickens and forms a ball that pulls away from the pan. continue stirring for another 1-2 minutes.

4. take pot off heat and move mixture to a clean bowl.

5. add the eggs one at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon, fully incorporating it before the next egg is added. you can also use a mixer with a paddle (we couldn’t in cooking school so we all had very tired arms). the mixture should be firm but smooth and it’s done when you can run your finger through the batter and it leaves a channel that fills in slowly.

6. Pipe or spoon, depending on the size and shape you want, onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. I usually use a spoon for gougères and make them more rustic looking rather than perfect little round pate a choux for hors d’oeuvres.

7. brush the choux gently with egg wash (optional)

8. bake at 400ºF/ 200ºC/#6 until done… until golden brown.

9. turn down oven to 300ºF/ 150ºC/#4 for another 5-10 minutes to dry out. remove from the oven when they feel dry, light and hollow. let cool.

10. cut of the top of the pâte à choux.

11. combine salmon, cream cheese, lemon juice, salt & pepper and pipe into pâte à choux.

12. Garish with chopped chives and a dusting of paprika.

The parsnip soup is a bit harder. Well maybe not. Pâte à choux can be very temperamental, as evidenced by my and Emma’s gougère hockey pucks, but that’s another story….

Parsnip Soup with Beet Brunoise drizzled with Rosemary Oil

One thing I LOVE to serve is parsnip soup or puree or even roasted parsnips because people are expecting something else. They either think mashed potatoes or cauliflower soup or vichysoisse then they get this incredible carroty flavor and it's a wonderful surprise because they have to stop and taste and taste again.

I don’t have the recipe so I am going to have to narrate this one so stay with me here. To get that wonderful deep mellow parsnip flavor, I first roasted parsnips at a very low temperature and made sure they didn’t brown as it would discolor the soup. if some of it browns just cut those parts out.

While the parsnips were roasting I sautéed leeks, onions, and a little celery (no carrots, no color! and enough carrot-y flavor from the parsnips) in a soup pot. I then filled the pot up about ¾ of the way with ½ Swansons chicken broth (low fat low sodium) & ½ water. It is much too rich and chicken-y of you use all chicken broth. I brought it to a boil, then turned down the heat to simmer and cooked. When the parsnips were done, I added those to the pot and cooked for a bit then puréed with an immersion blender.

For the garnish I used beet brunoise, heart shaped croutons and a drizzle of rosemary oil.

Brunoise is the name of the size and shape of the cut (in this case 1-2mm dice). I took a roasted red beet from the salad and cut it into tiny dice and laid them on top of the croutons and scattered a few directly on the soup. I love the contrast of the white soup with the deep red-purple of the beets.

The croutons I made with Wonder Bread (say it isn’t so!) and a heart shaped cookie cutter. I brushed them with melted butter and cooked them in the oven until golden brown.

For the rosemary oil I simply brought about a cup of light flavored (not light fat!) olive oil to a simmer, added a few fresh sprigs of rosemary, and took it off the heat to let steep….just like tea. Drizzle a teaspoon on top of the soup. Easy peasy, as that darling Jaime Oliver would say.

Organic Mâche and Mixed Greens Salad with Blood Orange and Citrus Vinaigrette and Roasted Red, Golden and Striped Beets

This salad combines 2 of my favorite things: roasted beets and blood oranges. 101 Cookbooks Heidi featured a salad with beets, blood oranges and arugula that would work great here as well.

The second course was a salad of mâche and mixed greens tossed in a blood orange citrus vinaigrette. I made the vinaigrette with the juice of 2-3 blood oranges and 1 lemon (please don’t use the juice from those nasty little plastic lemons with the green stem/screw top!), canola oil (didn't want the olive flavor, too heavy for this salad), 1 shallot finely chopped, salt & pepper.

Let the juice, shallot, salt & pepper sit for 30 minutes for the flavors to marry before adding the oil, which stops the marrying process. the ratio of orange juice to lemon juice will vary depending on the size and ripeness of the fruit. the average ratio for acid to oil is 1:4 but you’ll have to judge for yourself the flavor you want. Remember if you are using mâche and mixed greens that have little flavor, you’ll want a tangy dressing to offset. slowly drizzle in a light flavored vegetable oil and whisk until combined. You want the orange citrus flavor to come through and not be overpowered by a heavy olive oil. dunk a piece of mâche into the dressing and taste. Add salt & pepper as needed.

I topped the salad with a shaving of pecorino and around the salad I put red, golden and striped roasted beets that I roasted, peeled (one messy job!) and quartered. The contrast of the deep red, golden and pink and white striped beets was beautiful and since we eat with our eyes first, it was a visual feast! If you have a blood orange or two left over, you can put a segment (without skin) on top of the cheese.

To roast the beets, line roasting pan with copious amounts of foil as roasted beet is not fun to clean! trim greens and tails off beets and wash. pat dry with paper towels. rub with olive oil and roast at 400ºF/ 200ºC/#6 until there is no resistance when inserting a knife (maybe an hour?). Let cool and when they are not too hot to handle, start peeling. Use plastic gloves if possible or for the next week your hands will look like you killed someone. Cut into quarters, toss in good extra virgin olive oil (flavored with lemon if you can find it), salt & pepper.

Apple-Walnut-Raisin Cake on a bed of Rum Caramel Sauce with Raisins and Crème Chantilly

This incredible dessert is courtesy of Emily Luchetti the executive pastry chef at Farallon in San Francisco. This is actually her 50 (or 100, can’t remember) Year Old Apple Walnut Cake recipe topped with crème chantilly on a bed of rum caramel and raisins. This recipe is in her cookbook, A Passion for Desserts, so you'll have to buy the book… and I can’t remember how to make it other than it had walnuts, raisins and apples and the usual sugar, flour, etc... in it.

For dessert I plated the walnut apple cake on top of a ladle of rum caramel sauce (that had a LOT of rum in it!) and about a dozen or so raisins, and topped the cake with chantilly cream (which is a fancy French work for heavy cream whipped with powered sugar).

The rum caramel Alexis made herself and hasn’t shared the recipe but you can just buy some caramel, heat it up and add a little rum. Uh….YUM! I soaked multi-colored raisins in the rum and a little water overnight to give it a little extra kick. carpool, kids?

Chocolate Truffles

If you want to MAKE your own truffles, more power to you, but with so many fabulous chocolatiers these days such as Joseph Schmidt in San Francisco or Pierre Herme and Patrick Roger in Paris (6th) why waste your time, unless of course you WANT to! Or you can buy regular ones and dress them up.

We bought plain chocolate truffles, dipped them in chocolate sauce and rolled them in chopped pecans, coconut, chopped hazelnuts, powered sugar and chopped cherries so the tray was very colorful. They are fun to make as a project with friends and present great take-away gifts wrapped in pink tinted mylar or clear bags. You can also find cute little Chinese food take out carton shaped boxes made specifically for gifts.

Whew! So there you have it… a lovely Valentine’s Day luncheon, or any day spring luncheon really. Things you can make the day before: soup (refrigerate and warm slowly 1-2 hours before serving), croutons, pate a choux, & walnut cake (make sure they are sealed in air tight containers), beets definitely and bring to room temperature that morning. A very yummy day! And I ate beets for a week afterwards :-)

Happy Valentine’s Day! Bon Valentin! Bisous de Paris!