From the very hot Cambridge apartment in the summer curing college days, I would retreat to an even hotter D.C. to stay with my Russian uncle and my aunt. On arriving in their aircon apartment across from the Chinese embassy, my aunt would hand me a demitasse of Vichyssoise to further cool me. She had learned it at Cordon Bleu.
Nothing like that first sip said I was home.
Vichyssoise
Escoffier made this famous cold soup with chicken stock, but I prefer water since it gives lighter and fresher flavors of the two vegetables. I would rather the richness of the soup comes from the cream.
Tempting later in the year would be to use cauliflower or pears instead of the leeks.
Instead of chives you can use crumbled blue cheese or finely chopped radishes tossed in fresh lime juice and salt. Or whatever appeals.
Serves: 6
4 large Leeks, roots removed, sliced across (white and light green only)
4 tablespoons Butter
2 lbs Yukon gold potatoes, peeled, sliced
6 cups Water
1 cup Whipping cream
Salt, ground white peppercorns
2 tablespoons Finely chopped fresh chives
Wash the leeks in plenty of water, remembering to lift them out of the water into a colander and not pour them and their water into the colander or all the dirt will follow.
Put the leeks in an 8-quart heavy bottom pot with the butter and a ¼ cup of water. Cover and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the leeks start to soften.
Add the chopped potatoes, salt, and the remaining water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 30-minutes or until the potatoes are soft. Remove from the heat and let cool. If you are in a hurry to cool the mixture quickly, put it in a metal bowl inside another larger metal bowl with ice and some water in it. Be careful it does not tip and spill the leek and potato soup.
When it is just cool, puree it through a food mill, or use a food processor or immersion blender. Do not use a regular blender or the puree will be ‘gummy.’ Do not puree it to baby food consistency, but leave a hint of texture.
Chill and add the cream. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt if necessary and some freshly ground white pepper.
Remove from the refrigerator and let warm up a little bit before serving
Serve and garnish with the chopped chives.
Twice-baked Cheese Soufflés
The individual soufflés are baked once, hours or even a day before served, turned out of the ramekins into a baking dish, coated with cream sauce and cheese, and baked a second time. They will revive and rise again beautifully.
Disposable aluminum ramekins are the easiest to use.
5 tablespoons Unsalted butter
1/2 cup All-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups Whole milk, warmed
1 teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 cups Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 cup Whipping cream
1 cup Grated Gruyere cheese
5 Eggs, separated
Preheat the oven to 425°F
Butter six 8-ounce ramekins.
To make the Bechamel or White Sauce:
Melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Whisk in the milk and cook until the mixture boils and thickens. Add the salt, Parmesan, and half the Gruyere. When cool beat in the egg yolks.
Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold stiff peaks. Stir a third of the whites into the cheese mixture, then fold in the remaining two-thirds.
Fill the ramekins without spilling any over the edges so they won’t stick when rising.
Transfer to the oven and bake until risen about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let the soufflés cool and deflate.
These can be refrigerated until the next day. If so, remove from the refrigerator one hour before reheating to come to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Turn the soufflés out into an oven-proof gratin dish and pour the cream over the soufflés. Cover each with the remaining Gruyere.
Bake until the soufflés are puffed and browned, about 8 minutes. Serve immediately with whatever garnish you like - or none.
Perfect with a vegetable ragout, or a little hot buttered lobster.
Maine in Summer
One does not have to be in Maine to eat lobster, especially if you are in Cape Cod or Long Island, but wherever, it should be prepared as fresh out of the water as possible, very much alive, and enthusiastically kicking.
I was reminded of this on a post anti-Vietnam-war riot visit to Hog Island, a private one belonging to the family of the late Mrs. Eugene Meyer who owned Newsweek and The Washington Post. Her granddaughter and I were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the student uprisings. One evening after an aquavit and herring start to dinner, the windows of the apartment were blown in by an explosion, frightening the cats.
Tired of being harassed by police and bomb-wielding contemporaries, we waved goodbye to the political arena and recuperated on the island before taking up country living at a farm in Pride’s Crossing where we would be out of the city, could grow some of our own food, and be more sustainably self-sufficient.
The island bookcases were stuffed with Ewell Gibbons and Rachel Carson’s works. In my culinary notebooks after reading then and long walks on the beach I wrote:
Lunch:
Four nests of Eider ducks, each with four eggs
In one, the eggs still wet. Took two.
Found samphire, sour sorrel, and lovage wild.
As well as young dandelion.
Mussels, a bushel or so, enough for salad as well
Steamed mussels with samphire
Spinach-sorrel noodles
Asparagus vinaigrette
Niersteiner Meisterkroner 1967
Dinner:
Lobster right off the boats: lobster cream on toasts
Roast pork loin, Madeira sauce
Lovage puree
Apple sauce
Bollinger, 1961
Chateau Rauzan-Gassie, 1962
That was the night I discovered lobster right out of the water, and the magic of lovage and America’s finest animal. With or without the champagne.
Photo Sam Hanna
I made the lobster cream with the white fat that lines the shell added to my own mayonnaise. I discovered that sea sorrel was excellent with mussels, each of the tastes admiring the other. I cooked the lovage in water – a surprising sea smell even better than lobster or clams – then mixed it with a long-cooked (45 minutes) smooth Béchamel for the “cream.”
The Eider duck eggs we had the next morning poached in the left-over Madeira sauce and drank chilled Guinness stout with them.
This recipe was originally “Lobster and Arugula Salad,” with a whole lobster, the tail shell removed, laid out on a bed of roasted red and green bell peppers, tomato mayonnaise for the lobster, and nut oil and lemon dressing for the arugula scattered around the rim of the oval plate.
Now I feel like simplifying the dish. Just half a split open cooked lobster, the tail meat taken out of the shell for ease of eating, dressed lightly in herb mayonnaise, put back in the half shell, and a little salad placed on top.
More sauce on the side.
Instead of lovage, let alone finding it wild, use the tenderest of the green leaves from the top of a celery bunch as well as the yellow ones on the inside on the newest stalks.
Even though I am a great fan of Hellman’s mayonnaise, it is really too strong a flavor for the lobster, so best to make you own with French olive like Puget. And if you can find it, use Madagascar or “Penja” Cameroon black pepper for a final burst of flavor.
Lobster with Herb Mayonnaise & Watercress Salad
Serves 4
2 2-pound lobsters, cooked
1 cup Herb mayonnaise
¼ cup Fresh lemon juice
½ cup Hazelnut or walnut oil
1 cup Watercress sprigs, stemmed
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Crack the lobster claws and remove the claw meat intact. Cut the lobsters lengthwise down the center, remove the meat, and put in a bowl. Take out the liver and any coral and put in a small bowl in which you will make the dressing for the watercress.
Spoon some over each of the lobster tails and claws in turn, and coat each with the sauce. Put each whole tail back in its shell.
Mix the lemon juice with salt and pepper to taste in the bowl with the liver and coral. Whisk in the oil. Add the watercress, Quickly and gently toss the salad. Put a claw on top of the center of each tail, and then equal quantities of the salad on top of the claws.
Serve more herb mayonnaise separately.
Herb Mayonnaise
Another test of a cook, Anthony Bourdain and I agreed, is a passion for real mayonnaise.
The making of it demands the same proof of a real cook – patience, love of perfect ingredients, knowledge of when which ones should be used, and a respect for simplicity.
An old French bistro favorite, “Eggs Mayonnaise,” is one of the glories of that cooking. And a sure way to judge the quality of any restaurant. My first test is not the food, but a glance at the restaurant’s windows. Are they clean? If not, l know that nothing will be prepared with love. But if they are and I go in and test the eggs mayonnaise. If they are perfect in taste and texture, I can relax and order more food, knowing I was in good hands and spending my money is not a waste.
Whereas flavored butters lend themselves to food processors, the closer mayonnaise gets to a machine, the less good it is. Make mayonnaise in a bowl by hand and then compare it to one made in a food processor or a blender. Each mayonnaise tastes, feels, and looks different. Mayonnaise made in a mortar and pestle is the most sublime. Silkier, smoother, lighter, and more delicate-tasting, and sit easier in the stomach. A close second is hand-whisked. Third a food processor.
As for the choice of oils to use and, if only olive oil, match the power of the oil with the food it accompanies (on cooked artichokes, for example, a stronger oil like extra virgin from Spain or Italy is perfect, while on poached scallops it is not). Or mix the extra virgin oil with organic, cold-pressed canola, or with very good quality peanut or grapeseed.
3 large Egg yolks
½ teaspoons Salt
4 tablespoons Fresh lemon juice
1 to 1 ½ cups Olive oil
Makes approximately 1 ½ cups
Put the yolks, salt, and half the lemon juice in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the oil very slowly at first, increasing the flow at the end. If the mayonnaise gets too thick to beat, add droplets of water and continue adding oil. (The amount of oil will depend on the consistency of mayonnaise desired.) Whisk in the remaining lemon juice and taste for salt.
Herb Mayonnaise
Blanch 1 packed cup mixed herbs (tarragon, parsley, chervil, thyme, marjoram, and basil in equal proportions, for example), 4 spinach leaves, and 3 tablespoons watercress leaves for 30 seconds in boiling water. Drain, squeeze dry, and very finely chop or coarsely puree them.
Stir in to 2 cups mayonnaise and let sit several hours for the flavors to develop.
Russian Raspberry Gratin
This is one of those simple desserts that have far more impact than their few ingredients would seem to indicate. It is fast, easy, sinfully comforting and delicious.
1 pint Fresh raspberries
2 cups Sour cream or crème fraiche
1 cup Dark brown sugar, sieved
Serves 6
Heat the broiler.
Pick over the raspberries and remove any mildewed ones, husks, or leaves.
Place the berries in a shallow baking dish. Whisk the sour cream or crème fraiche until smooth and spread over the berries. Sprinkle with the brown sugar. Broil until the sugar begins to bubble and lightly caramelize. Be careful not to burn the sugar.
Serve immediately.
Summer Pudding
I am always surprised that this dessert never became an American mainstay, as it has in England, for it is a natural, given any occasion where you have lots of summer berries. It is very easy to prepare and since it has to be done beforehand, it’s perfect for dinner parties. Can there be anyone who doesn’t like it? Use whatever mixed berries you can find.
1 ½ cups Strawberries, hulled
1 ½ cups Raspberries
1 cup Red currants, stemmed
1 cup Blueberries, loganberries, or olallieberries
1 cup Sugar
Pinch Salt
½ cup Medium sugar syrup
2 cups Raspberry puree
10 to 15 slices Dense white bread, crust removed
2 cups Custard/crème anglaise
Serves 6 to 8
Coarsely chop the strawberries and put them and the other berries in a saucepan.
Add the sugar and salt and cook over high heat until the berries are heated and just beginning to bleed their colors, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool.
Mix the syrup and the raspberry puree.
Line a 2-quart pudding mold or other deep bowl with cheesecloth. Dip both sides of some of the bread slices in the raspberry berry puree and arrange around the sides and bottom of the mold. Soak the remaining slices in the berry puree and layer with the berries, ending with bread to completely cover the top.
Using a plate that fits just inside the top of the mold, place it on top of the pudding. Put the mold in a pan and weight the plate. Refrigerate the pudding overnight.
To serve, unmold the pudding onto a serving platter, slice, and serve with the custard.
Once again, the recipes you offer display your reverence for the ingredients. The light touch and approach actually magnify the taste sensation of each component. Pure bliss!
Enjoyed this greatly--not that I'll be making it anytime soon, but what a spectacular summer meal you've made for my mind!