Cucina Testa Rossa

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Guten Tag!  Wie gehts?  Greeting from Munich, Germany!  The land of bratwurst and sauercrout. Dinner last night was 2 lovely sausages with sweet mustard, wienerschnitzel, and fried potatoes.  Needless to say, my arteries are approaching full blockage status and I have a call in for a double dose prescription of Lipitor!  Breakfast today was, yep you guessed it, sausages, wienerschnitzel, and fried potatoes........... and lunch.........???

Happy Easter ~ Joyeuses Paques

I survived Easter dinner and it was magical. Food has a way of bringing people together unlike anything else.  What started out as 5 friends quickly became 19 adults and 4 kids, a few we'd met the day before, all from different parts of the world and different walks of life. Everyone got along famously and truly enjoyed the evening. "Convivialité" as they say here in France and to me this is truly what life is all about. 



My charming blue-eyed butcher Serge provided me with 3 beautiful gigots d'agneaux (legs of lamb) deboned and rolled with parsley garlic butter that I roasted to perfection surrounded by garlic cloves, rosemary sprigs and huge sage leaves. The kids rolled their own dough and made pizzas and were quickly coated in a layer of flour. I was too crazed to take pictures of the food but some should be emailed to me soon. Recipes are forth coming but until then, the menu will have to suffice....

Bienvenue à Paris
Joyeuses Pâques
Dimanche, 27 Avril 2005
Chez Gerkens

Canapés
Endives avec Roquefort Crême Fraîche et Framboises
Saumon Fumée sur Brioche Grillé evec Citron Crême Fraîche

Antipasti
Speck, Proscuitto, Mozzarella, Coppa, et Salami
- Moët et Chandon  Champagne

Entrées
Aubergine Farcis

Haricots-Verts avec Roquefort et Noix
- Chateau St Martin de la Garrigue Chardonnay

Plat
Gigot d’Agneau Rôti avec
Pommes de Terre Rôti
Panaché de Légumes de Printemps Vapeur
- 2001 Nuits Saint George « Les Charmottes »

Assiette des Fromages
Morbier –Jura
Chevrotin des Aravis – Haute Savoie (AOC)
Tomme de Chevre – Haute Savoie
Blue de Queyras – Alpes du Sud
Comte Été, Juillet 2003 – Jura

avec Fruits de Printemps :
Fraises, Framboises, Poires, Pommes et Kiwis
- Chateau d’Yquem Sauterne

Desserts
Macarons de Pierre Hermé
Assortiment de Petits Desserts Français
- Chateau J. de Telmont Rosé Champagne

A Very Happy Easter Indeed (Notes from Iraq)

-----Original Message-----
From: scott marconda
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 5:27 PM
To: Laura @ Cucina Testa Rossa
Subject: Re: ARE YOU HOME ?!?!?!?!??!

Laura:

I am sending this email from my HOME computer.  I am home.  How sweet it is.  About to open my third beer, so gotta run.  Have about two weeks worth of checking out to do, then it's catching up with friends such as yourself (and job hunting)....

Semper Fidelis (Notes from Iraq)

-----Original Message-----
From: scott marconda
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 12:40 PM
Subject:

Friends,

I send this email from lovely Kuwait.  For the first time in nearly seven months, I no longer find myself in Iraq.  It has been a proud and humbling experience.  I'm very proud of what my battalion accomplished in Fallujah, and humbled by what the First Marine Division accomplished as a whole - complete eradication of a major insurgent stronghold, restoration of stability and security to the greater Al Anbar province (it's the size of N.C.) and the first free national elections in over half a century.  Clearly, we are leaving things better than we found them.  It will be good to home. Happy Easter to all.  Semper Fidelis.

Varme Hilsner fra Danmark

Warmest greetings  from very cold Denmark!  Copenhagen (København), to be exact. It is most certainly not spring here as it was -2 degrees celcius this morning and random patches of snow are scattered about hidden from the sun's  rays.  I hope to sample the local fare but right now am going on 14 hours of work with a few more to go... yikes! 

At the very least, I'd like to see the Little Mermaid (la petite sirenne in French, lille havfrue in Danish) statue. You have to cross the water by jumping from stone to stone to reach her. I'll keep you posted...

Photo: Dieter Betz (www.krak.dk)

The most expensive tomatoes in the world!

These lovely little red ruby cherry tomatoes (tomate cerise) from my Place Monge market cost 9 EUROS!!!!! That's about $12 give or take a dollar....basically an arm and a leg and another arm thrown in for good measure.  Approximately 42 tomates cerises, not counting the few that I ate from the market back to my apartment, comes to about 29 cents a tomato!  Is it worth it, of course!  Once in a while anyways....when you pop one of these little jewels into your mouth and bite down, the taste explodes.  It actually tastes like...oh, I don't know...a tomato! A glorious little tomato they way God intended it, not the genetically-engineered chemically-altered mutant waxed dull lifeless tomatoes with absolutely no flavor sold in the big markets. Now what to make with them?  Tomatoes this spectacular call for a special recipe....

Maybe Marcella Hazan's Acqua Pazzo ? Hmmmm......where is that recipe? Twice a year Marcella and her husband Victor teach a 1-week class at the French Culinary Institute and I assisted them in their class about a year and a half ago.


Chef Susan Lifriere, FCI & Marcella in the                       ...and Marcella, Victor & moi at the end
FCI's Culinary Ampitheatre                                                   of a very long week and still smiling!

That's another story in itself but one of the items we made was Pesce all'Acqua Pazzo or Fish in Crazy Water, cooking sea bass in cherry tomatoes and white wine.  Chef Bruno Quercini at Pane e Vino in San Francisco makes Acqua Pazzo in his Modena-built wood burning brick oven that could move a man to tears, it is so heavenly.  It's still too early to call San Francisco so I will have to defer to the grande dame of cucina italiana. 

Ah, here we go.  I brought 4 cookbooks with me to France and hers is one of them. From Marcella Cucina, her recipe calls for snapper but I prefer a thick piece of sea bass. Also, I opt out of serving it on bread, I use about half water and half white wine and when using cherry tomatoes I don't peel them!  Finally an Italian recipe :-) This should make my grandmother happy.... Mangia bene!

Pesce all'Acqua Pazzo ~ Fish Cooked in Crazy Water

1-1/2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes
4 cups of water (or 1/2 water 1/2 white wine)
3 large garlic cloves, peeled, sliced very thin
2 tbsp very finely chopped parsley
1/8 tsp (or to taste) chopped red chili pepper (or dried chili pepper flakes)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2- to 2-pound red snapper, filleted with its skin left on
Salt & pepper
Optional: 4 slices of day-old or grilled sourdough bread

1. Peel the tomatoes raw and chop them roughly with all their juice and seeds. The yield should be about 2 cups.

2. Choose a saute pan in which the fish fillets can be subsequently fit flat without overlapping. Put in the water, garlic, chopped tomatoes, parsley, chili pepper, olive oil, and salt. Cover the pan, turn the heat to medium, for 45 minutes.

3. Uncover the pan, turn up the heat, and boil the liquid until it has been reduced to half its original volume.

4. Add the fish, skin facing up. Cook for 2 minutes, then gently turn it over, using two spatulas. Add a little more salt and cook for another 12 minutes or so.

5. Serve promptly over the optional bread slice.

*Recipe from MARCELLA CUCINA by Marcella Hazan (HarperCollinsPublishers; October '97)

Spring has arrived! Well at least in San Francisco it has...

Not since I washed upon these sandy shores of the French Riviera a few months short of a year ago have I felt such a longing to be back in my beloved City by the Bay.  Perhaps it was two friends here in Paris who just moved back to San Francisco and should be settling into their apartment in Noe Valley as we speak (so to speak, uhhhh, type, uh, never mind)?

Or maybe it was the inordinate number of people who, this past Friday at rush hour, took it upon themselves (without so much as consulting their fellow travelers) to pursue the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of human beings and various furry beasts that can be compacted into a subway car and not be permanently maimed or disfigured…or groped as the case may be? 

Could it be the fact that the thermometer on our kitchen window ledge hasn’t crept above 12ºC (a balmy 50ºF) in longer than I can remember causing our electric/gas bill this month to come in at a whopping 375 EUROS!!!!!? 

Or maybe it was reading Culinary Muse's delightful reminder that “Spring has (indeed) arrived in San Francisco!”?  Her enchanting prose and brilliant photography instantly transported me back revealing that as magnificent as Paris is, there really is no place like home...when home is glorious San Francisco.  Thank you for reminding me!  Now maybe if I click my heels 3 times…..

*disclaimer on the photo - i didn't take it. duh!  i am "borrowing" it from somewhere in cyberspace. i can't remember where otherwise i'd give the photographer credit. if you are the photographer please don't sue me. i'm just a poor broke cook, and not a very good one, trying to make it in France.

Feeling stressed...?

click here: http://members.cox.net/ladysarakat/piggy.swf,

then click on the piggy....  make sure the sound is on.

La Bataille des Bouteilles ~ Chardonnay vs Sauvignon Blanc

La Bataille des Bouteilles ~ The Battle of the Bottles
Chardonnay vs Sauvignon Blanc

The inimitable Chef Patrick Chazallet has asked that, as a follow-up to our blog appétit st. jacques et poireaux recipe, we now recommend a wine to go with our individual recipe so in homage to my old stomping grounds, I am recommending two wines from the Napa Valley.  Also, everything I know about French wines could fit in a thimble, so I’ll stick to what (little) I do know…. 

These two whites are very different but I think both would go well with this dish. Chardonnay is the standard default for coquille st jacques but after a bad Hunter S Thompson-esqe experience with a wine-in-a-box of chardonnay in college, I have been hard pressed to even be able to smell it to this day. Same goes for gin, but that’s another story…

Since washing up on these fine french shores nearly a year ago I have tried to slowly wean myself back to this upstanding grape.  I’m ok if it doesn’t have too much oaky taste to it and if it’s aged in tanks, as opposed to the oak barrels, well then bottoms up! 

On the other hand, I love sauvignon blanc with it’s crisp, light, refreshing demeanor and no bad college “Fear & Loathing...” flashbacks to cramp it’s style.  Rather than try to pick one, I took the easy way out and selected one of each.  After all, when you have 3 friends over for dinner, you drink at least 2 bottles of wine…right???

So the first wine I selected is a St. Supery 2003 Sauvignon Blanc from the Napa Valley with a very light, crispness to it, some grassy, herby scents and flavors of citrus and kiwi, grapefruit, and tangerine.  That I can do! The second is a 2002 Hess Select Chardonnay.  I selected this for a few reasons. The first is that this chardonnay has a lot of tropical favors that I thought would lend itself nicely with the mango sauce. 

Another reason is that the winery itself is spectacular—a 3-story stone winery built in the early 1900s greets you at the end of the winding driveway.  A 20 minute video at the beginning of their tour showcases the history of the Napa Valley and the history of Donald Hess and the Hess Collection winery which in itself is fascinating. 

This is followed by a walk through their 13,000 square foot museum filled with remarkable pieces of art personally selected by Mr. Hess, all with extraordinary stories behind them.  One piece I will never forget from my last visit was an old fashioned typewriter with flames (real ones) coming out of the typewriter cartridge. From what my sieve of a brain can recall, the artist is from South America and he had a relative (parent? sibling?) who was a journalist that was killed for writing for an anti-government paper…. so a lot of very interesting art with even more captivating stories. A must if you ever get out to the Napa Valley.

Cheers!  Santé!

The Hess Collection
4411 Redwood Road
Napa, CA 94558
877-707-HESS / 877-707-4377
[email protected]

St. Supéry Vineyards and Winery
8440 St. Helena Hwy.
Rutherford CA 94573
phone 1.707.963.4507 / 1.800.942.0809
[email protected]

blog-appetit ~ poireaux et st jacques

bienvenue à blog-appétit ~ ma recette avec poireaux et st jacques

Un énorme merci à Chef Patrick Chazallet et son blog-appétit, www.blog-appetit.com, de me laisser participer quand mon français soit une horreur énorme!

C'est une recette que j'ai apprise en l'école de cuisine à l'institut culinaire français mais  je l'ai changée un peu et j’ai incorporé des poireaux. Mon livre des recettes est dans une boîte à San Francisco et puisque je suis à Paris, j'ai essayé de le recréer de la mémoire quand je l’ai fait cet weekend ainsi je suis tres désolé pour les mesures moins que spécifiques.

C'est les coquilles st jacques sautées sur un lit de courgette, épinards et les poireaux avec la sauce à mangue et l’huile de cresson et les brunoises des pouvrons rouges et oranges. Il regarde beaucoup plus difficile de faire cuire que c'est lui est juste beaucoup de différents éléments qui, une fois combinés, sont tres jolie.  J’espère que vous aimez et j’espère que vous pouvez lire mon français!!! Si non, m'envoyez un email et j'ecrit en anglais :-) Pour servi 4 personnes :

-16 coquille st jacques (3½ - 4 par personne), coupe dedans à moitié en travers
-1 poivron rouge, brunoise
-1 poivron orange, brunoise
-1 poignée (cup) de feuilles de cresson
-l'huile végétale
-4 mangues
-4 cuilleres grandes de crème entière
-1 poireaux, emincée
-2 courgettes, petit julienne
-4 poignées d'épinards (épinards normaux d'utilisation, pas les feuilles de bébé ni les grandes feuilles bouclées)
-un anneau de pâtisserie de 3-4"environ x 1" ou enlèvent simplement le dessus et le bas d’un bidon de thon *bon nettoyé*

Coquilles St Jacques:
1. coupé dedans à moitié en travers, ensemble d'un plat, couverture avec le film et mis dans le réfrigérateur jusqu'à ce que prêt à faire cuire.

Les Legumes:
1. emincée la partie blanche et vert clair des poireaux. sauté jusqu'à ce que translucide mais ne le laissiez pas brun mis de côté.
2. coupez les courgettes en petites allumettes, enlevant autant du centre blanc comme possible excepté environ 1/8 inch. sauté jusqu'à ce que cuit mais ne le laissiez pas brun. mis de côté.
3. enlevez les tiges et le sauté jusqu'à ce que fané enlèvent et mettent de côté.

La Sauce Mangue:
1. Épluchez la mangue et coupez la chair de mangue du puits. coupe de mine en cubes et la chaleur très basse d'excédent de cuisinier dans une casserole de sauté ne la laissent pas brunir ou elle décolorera la sauce. Quand elle est douce et cuite, mettez les mangues dans un processeur, mélangeur, ou utilisez un mélangeur d'immersion pour mettre en purée. La contrainte par une chinoise fine-le devrait être complètement lisse sans des fibres. Ajoutez la crème entiere lentement jusqu'à ce que l'uniformité désirée soit atteinte

L’huile de Cresson:
1. Mettez 1 tasse (cup) d'huile végétale (ou d'huile d'olive très légère) dans une sauteuse. ajoutent une demi-tasse (½ cup) des feuilles de cresson. Bruiller pour un moment et immediament mettre le feu très bas pendant 15-20 minutes. Mélange et contrainte. Mettez de côté et laissez froid

Garniture des Poivrons:
1. Coupez un poivre rouge et orange en brunoises. Sauté sur la basse chaleur en huile végétale jusqu'à ce que juste cuit mais ne laissiez pas le brun de poivres. mettre de côté sur la serviette de papier pour absorber l'huile.

Pour Servir:
1. Les poireaux, la courgette, et les épinards cuits ensemble dans une casserole de sauté et réchauffent complètement.
2. Placez l'anneau au centre du plat et mettrez de légumes. emballez-le dedans de sorte qu'il garde la forme quand l'anneau est enlevé.
3. Sauté les coquilles st jacques et la mettrez dans une spirale sur les légumes.
4. Tandis que les coquilles st jacques font cuire, mettrez la sauce à mangue autour des légumes
5. Mettrez soigneusement l'huile de cresson autour de l'extérieur du dessus de la cuvette
6. Mettrez une cuillère grosse des poivrons brunoises sure les coquilles et en arrosent autour de la sauce.

Bon appétit!  Click below for the English version....