the à la carte archives

For me, the current excitement in my cooking is coming from exploring various new culinary doodads that I can create to start and finish a meal. As a way to present these dishes to the readers of à la carte, I’ve decided to start a blog that each week will feature a new dish from this phase in my life. There’ll also be a short essay to accompany the dish. All the dishes will fall into the category of amuse-bouches, intermèdes et mignardises. Please give the blog a visit, and if you think you may fine it interesting in the future, subscribe to it via RSS by clicking the icon at the top of the page. Because the blog will have a new entry every Monday, I will not be announcing it with this newsletter.

After years of good intentions, it’s finally happened: the à la carte recipe index has been completely redone. Not the index itself, but the recipes. Each recipe now displays in a common format with both metric and English measurements included in most recipes. And besides including every recipe posted as part of an article since 1999, every other French recipe that I had in my “trunk” is now also included, bringing the current total to 913 recipes.

Circumstances have caused me to add two new tools to those already in the à la carte tool shed. The first is a nitrite calculator for use when making sausages and pâtés. The second provides a means of estimating the starting temperature of water for doing passive low-temperature cooking, what some are calling “beer-cooler cooking.” It performs the thermodynamic equilibrium calculation for you.

There’s a new tool in the à la carte tool shed. It’s a nutrition calculator designed to calculate the nutrients of an entire recipe. Other free calculators available on the web only list nutrients for a single ingredient at a time. This new calculator allows you to sum the nutrients of all the ingredients in a recipe and then produce a PDF version of the results. Additionally, if you want to include an ingredient that is not part of the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference—no problem—you can add nutrients for any ingredient you have data for.

I have a great collection of gadgets in my kitchen. My newest “gadget,” an iPod Touch, is my current favorite. I didn’t buy it to use in the kitchen, but because I am often working in there, it’s there with me.

When you go to the market to buy some vegetables, do you ever think about what vegetables were like in days gone by? I know that the quality and variety has changed a lot since I was a kid. But what about a longer period than a half century, say 200 years? When I translate and update recipes from long ago, I continually wonder how the vegetables I have available for my use have changed since the recipe was written.

Possibly, the most common ingredient in French cooking is the onion. There’s more to onions than tears. Do you know what a storage onion is, and that it may have more sugar than a “sweet” onion? Do you know why an onion can make you cry? Read on for all sorts of information you never knew you needed to know.

Émietté d’esquinade à l’huile de curry is a fancy dish created by the great Louis Outhier. But the fact that you probably cannot buy esquinade at your local store, should not deter you from making this crab dish.

“Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 percent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 percent.” (IHT, 31 March 2008) How do we turn today’s ever more expensive meals into cheap eats? There may be a few actions you can take to reduce your food costs.

Think quickly — how often do you eat a dry meal — one with no sauces? That’s how I introduced an article about sauces on this site in January, 2002. In this new article, I’ve tested another 17 sauce recipes to add to this site’s ever growing list. The difference with this group of recipes is that many are from sources that are over two hundred years old.

Poached chicken may sound like a boring dish, but the process of poaching produces a marvelously tender and moist bird. And when done with care, it is impossible to overcook a chicken with this method.

Does being in your kitchen cause you to shake in your boots? Although not that severe, most of us do have one or two fears in the kitchen. Maybe it’s the fear of cutting ourselves or the fear of contamination or one of the many other common kitchen fears.

When this website—à la carte—started, all the recipes online were also in my personal library. As time went on there were recipes online that were not in my library and vice versa. Now there’s over 140 recipes in my library that are not online. In an effort to correct this, here’s 24 of those recipes.

Cassoulet has a long oral history, but a short written one. Yet there are as many recipes for cassoulet as there are people who prepare it. Come along and explore the history of cassoulet and try a version from a contest conducted in the late 1920s.

It doesn’t make sense to have your knives sharpened if you don’t make an effort to keep them sharp. Protecting those sharp edges is an essential kitchen skill. Of course, if you’ve done everything to keep your edges sharp but they still have become dull, what should you do then?

The French term abats sounds much better than the term offal to the ear of an English speaker. But is offal really that awful? I think not. There are all different types of offal and some of them are pretty tasty.

Boiled beef never sounded like a very appetizing dish to me. So when I started to prepare bœuf à la mode I tried to remember that the French have been preparing a variation of this dish for over 600 years. Besides, the French name is translated by some as “stylish beef,” and it is more simmered than boiled.

When raw, garlic exhibits a strong fragrance and sharp taste, but when it is cooked, garlic becomes mellow and sweet. It is valued by some people for its potential medicinal benefits and vilified by others for its effect on breath and body odor. And it has been a part of French cooking for a long, long time.

Take lots of shredded cabbage, add a little salt, and expose the mixture to some bacteria. The result is choucroute, or sauerkraut in English and German. Although ready-to-eat choucroute is readily available in most grocery stores, the homemade variety is far superior.

The word in French may mean “sour wine”, but don’t think of vinegar as wine that has gone bad. Good vinegar is a work of art and a pleasure to behold.

Basic white sauces may be thought of as boring, but their compound derivatives bring a modicum of excitement to these sometimes bland accompaniments to fish, eggs, and white meats. In other words, the white sauce cover-up is exposed!

I cannot remember when I first became aware of fromage de tête. It wasn’t that long ago, but it wasn’t recent either. It somehow entered my consciousness and just bounced around for a while. In the meantime, I cooked other dishes where I learned the techniques I would eventually need to prepare this one.

How many times have you seen a recipe instruct you to “season with salt and pepper”? This is incorrect! You season with salt, but you flavor with pepper. Yes, pepper is a flavoring, not a seasoning. And it’s only one of the flavorings used in French cooking.

My local pear season seems to come and go before I know it. This year I was prepared. The season started and I was ready to go with my French pear recipes in hand. So now there’re sixteen new pear recipes for you to try.

Alain Ducasse is larger than life, and so are many of his recipes. This example can be prepared in about 8 hours. Because it contains no truffles or caviar, it is only slightly outrageously expensive.

It’s magic—or at least some people must think it is. Place a pot of water on the stove, turn the burner on, and eventually the water boils. But do you ever think about how the heat transfers from the stove to the water? If you give some thought to the process, it may help you not only boil water, but do some serious cooking.

The eggplant, or aubergine, may be such a dark purple that it appears almost black, or it may be as white as an egg. It may be almost violet or even green. Some eggplant are even a varigated blend of many colors. Whatever color your eggplant is, it still makes for a good meal.

Here’s a dessert that is both sweet and savory. For me, this mille-feuille has been many years in the making. It’s been almost nine years since I first tasted mille-feuille de pain d’épices et glace vanille, and it has taken me that long to figure out how to successfully make it.

Contrary to Miss Jane Murdstone and her claim for common sense, or similar claims from a multitude of other Dickens’ characters, the senses that we use the most in the kitchen come from our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and fingers. (See David Copperfield, chap. 8.)

It doesn’t sound French, but we can have a whole discussion of French steaks and only use the word steak. So is steak French? Yes, but it’s also English.

Although often used as a symbol of French cuisine by the English-speaking world, coq au vin is not a very old dish. There’s still time to plan if you want to prepare a centennial celebration of the first time coq au vin was mentioned in print.

Six months ago, an article called Le Plan de repas was posted on this site. Questions related to that article have inspired an addendum to it—Le Plan de repas, bis.

Zucchini, or as the French and English call them, courgettes, have been gracing our tables only since about 1920. Do you think it’s because they usually are soggy and overcooked?

Have you been to a soirée fondue recently? I’ve heard that fondue is becoming popular again. Let’s explore the history of fondue and contemplate some of the variations of this dish designed for group engorgement.

It’s been said that truth is stranger than fiction but in the case of Émile Zola’s Le Ventre de Paris, it’s from fiction that we can learn much about Les Halles, the great central marketplace of mid-19th century France.

Apples must not be too popular with French young people because as they become older adults, they consume more apples than when they were young. And when they cook apples, they do so in many different ways.

If a ham in French is called a jambon, is a jambonneau simply a small ham? And is a jambonnette an even smaller one? Well, not precisely...

Guests often accuse me of having worked too hard to prepare their meal. Although they may want to think it, I really didn’t stress over their meal. I learned many years ago how to plan a meal from start to finish and then stick to the plan.

Omelettes have been part of French cooking for at least 350 years. (Before that they were known by a different name.) And it’s amazing how much today’s omelettes are very similar to those from the old days.

“Boiled beef and vegetables” doesn’t sound too appetizing, but when prepared in the French manner and called pot-au-feu, it sounds and tastes great. It’s too bad that even the French are preparing this dish less frequently.

I like cookbooks full of French recipes. I like them better when they’re published in France. I like them even better with they’re written in French. And whenever I’m in Paris, I stop by Librairie Gourmande—France’s only bookstore that exclusively sells cookbooks.

As exciting as a diverse selection of cheeses may be in a French restaurant, sometimes eating the cheese course can be a bore. As an alternative, here is a selection of other cheese-based preparations.

Terrine is one of those words that can have two meanings. A terrine can be a particular food preparation, or it can be the physical dish in which it is prepared. Does this sound a bit confusing?

Are you a member of the club? Do you know the secret handshake or at least some of cooking’s secret “handshakes?” Here’re a few that may be new to you.

In French, the sound that a lamb makes is bêêê. But I don’t care about how it sounds as much as how it tastes, and I like the taste of lamb. Here are some samples.

Cooked chicken served cold with a sauce that has jelled into a solid mass. Sound appetizing? Well, chaud-froid dishes are actually quite tasty. They used to be very popular, but today they barely exist.

Good knife skills are a combination of knowledge and practice—the knowledge of which knives to use for which tasks, the knowledge of how to hold and move a knife, the knowledge of how various foods are structurally composed, and many other little bits of knowledge. This knowledge is only part of the equation. Many hours of practice make up the other part.

I’m blessed with a plethora of French fish recipes. Almost every French cookbook I have contains many. My problem is that I can’t buy the same fish that the recipes call for where I live, far from France. What to do?

While writing articles for this web site over the last five or so years I’ve collected a number of good recipes that don’t really fit into an article for one reason or another. Whether thought of as odds and ends, leftovers, or misfits, I thought it was time that they had an article of their own.

What tools fill your kitchen drawers? How many do you use? How many just gather dust? Here’s a selection of tools used for preparing French food (and my opinions as to their value).

Puréed food was popular in earlier times because many people lacked a mouthful of usable teeth by the time they reached adulthood. Today the French eat purées for their intense flavor. Unfortunately, because of their time-consuming preparation, purées are also getting harder to find.

Some recipes are modern. Some recipes are considered classical or traditional. Some are just called old. Sauce Robert is ancient. But it’s also both traditional and classic, and sometimes even modern!

In less than 225 years, tomatoes have gone from ornamental plant to being the most consumed vegetable in France. And the problem With tomato recipes may be that there are just too many. Choices can be difficult!

After reading hundreds of sauce recipes I’ve found that many are just variations on a theme — change one ingredient and “Sauce A” becomes “Sauce B.” By applying a bit of imagination, it is possible to see the recipes as elements of a matrix rather than individual prescriptions.

Some dishes are just simply elegant. For example, it’s hard to make a galantine that’s not elegant. All it takes is a bit of time (and a little creativity).

When I first heard the term service à la française, I thought that it referred to the type of service used in France today. It turns out that service à la française hasn’t been popular for over a century.

Although packaged by nature in their shells, escargots (snails) are usually purchased precooked in cans. In one sense, steel has replaced calcium carbonate as the escargot’s housing.

In former times, the production of jambons (hams) was done by families for their own use. Today, most jambons are produced by professional charcuteries or mass production factories. It’s time to start once again producing jambons at home.

How many times have you read a recipe instruction that says: “Season to taste,” and wondered what exactly that means? There’s probably not an exact answer, but I’ll try...

As a child, I hated cauliflower. Maybe you did, too? The French have been enjoying cauliflower for about 400 years, but maybe that’s only the adults?

Chef Frédéric Médigue’s goutte de foie gras de canard — drop of duck foie gras — is arguably the most unique method of foie gras preparation ever developed! See for yourself...

There’s one abiding principle of the modern, French, restaurant kitchen. It is la marche en avant — moving in one direction. “Move” to the article to see what it means.

In Lyon, there are a few restaurants that serve traditional 19th-century worker’s cuisine. These bouchons are unique to Lyon and their food is quite wonderful.

Long before dessert, as we know it, was part of a formal meal, blanc-manger was a common dish. Learn how this 700-year old dish, originally for invalids, became a common dessert in the 21st century.

For most of us, thoughts of uncooked fish dishes bring to mind images of Japanese food, but modern French cooking is also resplendent with uncooked fish dishes — principally prepared with salmon.

From whom do the French learn how to cook? Probably from a variety of individuals and sources. Three of those individuals, cooking teachers in France, agreed to be interviewed for this web site.

In France, it’s called lard. In English-speaking countries it’s called bacon. Either way, it’s just one of the many things produced from pork belly, one of the most flavorful pieces of the pig.

The process of getting food on the table involves a number of distinct steps. Cooks often prefer one aspect of the process over another. Mise en place is my favorite.

Butter consumption is down in France, as it is in the rest of the world. That’s too bad. Butter in the form of beurre composés makes a great alternative to traditional sauces.

Curious, if you run choux pastry through an automatic translator, the result will be “cabbages pastry!” Why would the dough used for éclairs be made with cabbage? There is a logical answer...

There’s a simple way that you can improve your French cooking abilities — translate recipes from French to English. Sound like a fool’s errand? Read more...

With all the new cookbooks being published each year, why would anybody review a cookbook first published in 1907? Because it’s a great book that’s overlooked nowadays.

Although most charcuteries in France sell boudin noir, these sausages are less common on restaurant menus. Here’s a chance to learn how to make your own.

Cookbooks, newspapers, and other common sources of cookery information tell how hot to cook meat to make it safe. But they often provide incorrect or misleading information. How hot is the right temperature?

Whether called a crème, velouté, or potage; whether listed on menu as a consommé, gratinée, tourain, marmite, bisque or garbure; or even just referred to as a soupe, all of these dishes tend to just be called “soups” in English.

There are many, many steps involved in preparing L’Amondanais, but with a little planning, this award-winning dessert can be completed in about two-and-a-half hours from commonly available ingredients.

What reminds one more of French food than the word pâté? Of course there’s more to French charcuterie than pâtés. And obtaining authentic French charcuterie outside of France can be problematic. One California company is attempting to fill the void.

Superfluous, unnecessary, excessive, unneeded — all words used to describe decorations on a plate of food. But words such as fun, entertaining, delightful, and fanciful can also be used. They may not be necessary, but I like doing them anyway.

What’s in a name? If the dessert you just ordered is called a mille-feuille, you may expect a thousand leaves on your plate. But that may not necessarily be what’s served.

Part of the excitement for the visitor to France is the country’s delightful markets. There’s open-air public markets, street markets, markets for the gourmet, and many others, but where do the citizens of France really shop?

It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, if you’re hungry, head to a brasserie — the French type of eating establishment open from morning until late. Whether for just a snack or a full meal, brasseries are the place to go.

As an alternative to traditional cheese courses as found in French restaurants, try this special terrine from Chef Patrick Jeffroy in Brittany.

Dear diary, today we prepared a banquet for 50 people. Check out my “diary” entry and see the steps required in bringing a big dinner together in a Michelin-starred restaurant in the French countryside.

Think quickly — how often do you eat a dry meal — one with no sauces? I’d bet the answer is “not too often.” Some sauces are integral to the dish, others are made separately. The French have both types.

With all the great French cheese available, one usually doesn’t think about fromage blanc — plus it’s hard to obtain outside of France. It’s time to make your own so it can be enjoyed whenever you wish.

In France, knives are pretty much the same as those throughout the rest of the western world. Like the rest of the world, these knives come without a manual — there’s no instructions for use. So I’ve decided to provide one!

In France, like other countries, chicken is available in many different forms — some even recognizable as chicken! In a throwback to our grandparents’ days, check out some whole chickens cooked in a pot.

Pigeonneau is French for a young pigeon, a squab in English. Formerly a common menu item, today it has become rare. Add this succulent bird to your personal repertoire. It’s not a foul thing to do.

Each restaurant is made of two distinct worlds: the dining room and the kitchen. Everyone is familar with many, many dining rooms, but what is the kitchen really like? Join me as I spend two weeks in a kitchen in the Alsacian town of Riquewihr.

Summer is strawberry season, except now strawberries are available all year long. With the increased availability, it’s now time to explore some of the myriad ways that the French prepare these red jewels.

Glaces (ice cream) have been a common item on French menus for over two hundred years. Today, along with sorbets, glaces still can be found, but in an ever increasing variety of flavors.

For food enthusists, looking into the windows of Paris’ charcuteries is a favorite pastime. One of the attractions of these shops is the large variety of sausages. Outside of France, the only way to have some of these sausages is to make your own.

If you eat ten meals from a two-star restaurant in one week, does the week become a twenty-star week? Join me as I head to Grasse in Southern France to answer this question.

What’s a versatile French form of food packaging? I’d propose crêpes. Whether eaten by themselves or used to fold around other foods, these handy pancakes are appropriate for both savory and sweet applications.

What symbolizes French food to Americans more than onion soup? But American tourists may be in for a surprise if they order onion soup in France.

The most common complaint I get from people about copper pots is that they are too expensive. Poppycock! Read on to see why copper is not only better, but less expensive than the current “in” pots.

I first tasted foie gras de canard on January 26th, 1997. It was love at first bite! Although foie gras has been around for thousands of years, many people know little about this offal delicacy.

Eggs are ubiquitous in French cooking. There is an ongoing use of traditional egg cookery in France today combined with many modern derivations. Plus, the range of egg recipes covers the entire meal from start to finish.

Out of frustration, it is time to deal with a weighty subject — measuring. But before you try to avoid the rules, check out this heavy subject. I didn’t write volumes!

I like sausage. I really like sausage — all types, all shapes, all flavors — but this seafood sausage was a real awakening for me. Try it. I bet it’s not like any you’ve had before!

Ever wonder what the difference is between a bistro and a brasserie? Or what’s the difference between a busser and a comis de salle? These and other puzzles are explored in an interview with Alain Delangle of San Francisco’s Le Charm French Bistro.

During the summer in France, depending on where you are, the weather can be hot and humid. There’s no better time to partake in meals centered around salads, especially if you’re lucky enough to dine alfresco.

For 30 days this spring I lived and worked at the Château d’Amondans in France. Take a peek into my journal and read about my experiences. Note: the file is big so it may take time to load fully.

The ultimate lunch for me is a bowl of mussels. These little black mollusks are one of my favorite foods and eating a bowl of mussels is one of my favorite pastimes.

To say I like asparagus is an understatement. The peak of the asparagus season in Northern California is right about now this year. Not to let it go unnoticed…

For Americans who are enamored with rating systems, the Michelin system is a mystery. For my take on how the Michelin system works…

For years I’ve been making a cake prepared only from chestnuts, sugar, and eggs. When I was in France in October I ran across a recipe for a cake made only from walnuts, sugar, and eggs.

Some of my friends know that before I published my “trip reports” on the web, I did so in hard copy. Two of these have now been transcribed to the web.

Some meals stay with you because they are so bad. Some you’ll remember forever because they are so good. October 2nd, 1999, will be one of those meals remembered for its greatness.

What is the ultimate French food experience? Shopping in a Paris open-air market? Spending the afternoon in a sidewalk café on a spring day? Savoring every moment of a dégustation at a three-star restaurant? Nope! The ultimate French food experience lasts an entire week.

Sometimes cake recipes don’t work the first time you try. Sometimes they don’t work the second time… or the third… or the fourth… or the…

I’m fortunate enough that I can travel to Paris once or twice a year to catch up with my shopping. Not for the latest fashions, but for cooking ingredients that either I can’t find in the United States or that are not available in the form or quality that the French expect in their food. Recently, I’ve started shopping for another important ingredient that is hard to find in the U.S. — good French cookbooks.

When à la carte first started, the site consisted mostly of menus with the recipes needed for creating the them. The emphasis of the site has changed, but you can still read the menus and recipes.