Barefoot in Paris (Hardcover)

Chapter One

to start

Raspberry Royale

Kir

Cassis à l'Eau

Cheese Straws

Blini with Smoked Salmon

Cheese Puffs

Rosemary Cashews

Radishes with Butter and Salt

Potato Chips

Raspberry Royale

makes 4 to 6 drinks

Kir royale is Champagne with a splash of crème de cassis. I decided to try it with raspberry liqueur and it was even more delicious. When you go to the liquor store, look for the red raspberry liqueur rather than the clear eau-de-vie, which has a totally different flavor.

6 teaspoons raspberry liqueur

1/2 pint fresh raspberries

1 bottle of good Champagne, chilled

Pour 1 teaspoon of raspberry liqueur into each champagne glass and add 2 or 3 raspberries. When guests arrive, pop the cork and fill each glass with Champagne. Serve immediately.

Kir

makes 4 to 6 drinks

A kir is an apértif of white wine with a splash of crè

Chapter One

to start

Raspberry Royale

Kir

Cassis à l'Eau

Cheese Straws

Blini with Smoked Salmon

Cheese Puffs

Rosemary Cashews

Radishes with Butter and Salt

Potato Chips

Raspberry Royale

makes 4 to 6 drinks

Kir royale is Champagne with a splash of crème de cassis. I decided to try it with raspberry liqueur and it was even more delicious. When you go to the liquor store, look for the red raspberry liqueur rather than the clear eau-de-vie, which has a totally different flavor.

6 teaspoons raspberry liqueur

1/2 pint fresh raspberries

1 bottle of good Champagne, chilled

Pour 1 teaspoon of raspberry liqueur into each champagne glass and add 2 or 3 raspberries. When guests arrive, pop the cork and fill each glass with Champagne. Serve immediately.

Kir

makes 4 to 6 drinks

A kir is an apértif of white wine with a splash of crème de cassis. The cassis adds a hint of fruit and a lovely tinge of pink but it's not too sweet. I prefer to make them with a crisp, fruity wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc from California or Sancerre fromFrance, but whatever you have on hand is fine.

6 teaspoons crème de cassis liqueur

1 bottle white wine, chilled

Pour 1 to 2 teaspoons of crème de cassis into each wine glass and then fill the glass with wine. Serve chilled.

Cassis à l'Eau

makes 1 drink

The French serve cassis mixed with water for a low-alcohol twist on a kir. It's very refreshing on a hot summer day.

6 tablespoons crème de cassis liqueur

3/4 cup water

Fill a tumbler with ice. Pour in the cassis and water and stir.

Cheese Straws

makes 22 to 24 straws

In Paris, I was lucky to be invited to dinner at the house once lived in by Louis Vuitton, which is now an amazing museum filled with his old suitcases dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. With cocktails, the hosts served only freshly baked cheese straws piled high, Lincoln Log-style, on a square platter. They're meant to stimulate your appetite for dinner, not to ruin it. With frozen puff pastry from the grocery store, these cheese straws are really easy to make.

2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pastry (such as Pepperidge Farm), defrosted overnight in the refrigerator

1 extra-large egg

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup finely grated Gruyère cheese

1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out each sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured board until it's 10312 inches. Beat the egg with 1 tablespoon of water and brush the surface of the pastry. Sprinkle each sheet evenly with 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, 1/2 cup of the Gruyère, 1/2 teaspoon of the thyme, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and some pepper. With the rolling pin, lightly press the flavorings into the puff pastry. Cut each sheet crosswise with a floured knife or pizza wheel into 11 or 12 strips. Twist each strip and lay on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned and puffed. Turn each straw and bake for another 2 minutes. Don't overbake or the cheese will burn. Cool and serve at room temperature.

You want to work quickly because the puff pastry needs to stay cold until it 's baked.

Cheese Puffs

GOUGÈRES

makes about 40 puffs

Pate à choux dough seems complicated the first time you make it, but it really takes only a little bit of technique and you can use it for so many other things, such as cream puffs, profiteroles (page 219), and éclairs. Many restaurants in Paris bring you a little plate of hot gougères while you 're waiting for dinner; I love to serve them with cocktails. You can make them in advance, freeze them, and then just heat and serve.

1 cup milk

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Pinch of nutmeg

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 extra-large eggs

1/2 cup grated Gruyère cheese, plus extra for sprinkling

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water, for egg wash

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a saucepan, heat the milk, butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg over medium heat, until scalded. Add the flour all at once and beat it vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes together. Cook, stirring constantly, over low heat for 2 minutes. The flour will begin to coat the bottom of the pan. Dump the hot mixture into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Immediately add the eggs, Gruyère, and Parmesan and pulse until the eggs are incorporated and the dough is smooth and thick.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a large plain round tip. Pipe in mounds 1 1/4 inches wide and 3/4 inch high onto the baking sheets. With a wet finger, lightly press down the swirl at the top of each puff. (You can also use two spoons to scoop out the mixture and shape the puffs with damp fingers.) Brush the top of each puff lightly with egg wash and sprinkle with a pinch of Gruyère. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown outside but still soft inside.

To scald milk, heat it to just below the boiling point.

Blini with Smoked Salmon

makes 18 to 20 pancakes

I wrote this recipe for an article on entertaining in Martha Stewart Living magazine. Blini are little buckwheat pancakes that you can top with smoked salmon, caviar, and/or a dollop of crème fraîche. I make the batter early, but since they're best served warm, I prefer to cook them after guests arrive. Everyone's invited into the kitchen for drinks, and while I cook the blini, one of the guests assembles the toppings and

serves them.

1/3 cup buckwheat flour

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

1 extra-large egg

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, clarified (see Note)

1/2 pound smoked salmon, thinly sliced

1/4 cup crème fraîche or sour cream

Fresh dill, for garnish

Combine the two flours, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and 1 tablespoon of the clarified butter, then whisk into the flour mixture. Heat 1 tablespoon of the clarified butter in a medium sauté pan and drop the batter into the hot skillet, 1 tablespoon at a time. Cook over medium-low heat until bubbles form on the top side of the blini, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook for 1 more minute, or until brown. Repeat with the remaining batter. (I clean the hot pan with a dry paper towel between batches.) Set aside.

To serve, top the blini with a piece of smoked salmon. Add a dollop of crème fraîche and a sprig of dill.

To clarify the butter, melt it in a saucepan over low heat. Remove the white foam that comes to the surface, then allow the butter to sit at room temperature until the milk solids sink to the bottom. Pour off the golden liquid and discard the white sediment.

To make ahead, reheat the blini in a 300-degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes before assembling.

Rosemary Cashews

serves 8

Here is another savory cocktail nibble that would satisfy a French host's needs. These cashews were inspired by the bar nuts served at Union Square Cafe in New York City, which is one of my favorite restaurants in the world. The cashews are best served warm but you can prepare the rosemary mixture in advance.

1 pound roasted unsalted cashews

2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary leaves

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Spread the cashews out on a sheet pan. Toast in the oven until warm, about 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the rosemary, cayenne, sugar, salt, and butter. Thoroughly toss the warm cashews with the spiced butter and serve warm.

About French Wine

It's really hard to know about wine. Every time I pick up a book determined to learn something about the subject, I get mired in the details of grapes and tannin and vintages, when all I really want to know is, "What would be good to serve with this rack of lamb?" When we first moved to New York City in 1978, my husband took me to Lutèce, the best French restaurant in the city, for my birthday. I was handed a wine list with pages and pages of options and had not the slightest idea of how to choose. When I finally ordered one of the three bottles that was under a hundred dollars, I had to admit to Jeffrey that I wasn't even sure if it was a red or a white wine!

Recently, I decided to ask an expert to help me sort out at least the basics of French wines. This overview is definitely not for an expert (if you know a lot about wine, don't e-mail me!). It's for someone like me who wants to walk into a wine store and ask for something to drink with dinner without feeling like a total idiot. So, here goes.

Unlike American wines, which are classified by the predominant grape used, such as Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, French wines are classified by the region in which they're grown, such as Champagne, Bordeaux, or Burgundy. Of course, what a wine tastes like has an enormous amount to do with the type of grape, the quality of the soil, the weather, and the winemaking process.

I have two broad guidelines for thinking about choosing a wine. First, I think about the wine the way I think about a sauce: I want something that will complement the dish rather than compete with it. I wouldn't put a strong, spicy green peppercorn sauce on a delicate fillet of sole any more than I'd serve it with a big, spicy red wine. Here is where a crisp, fruity white wine such as Sancerre from the Loire would be delicious. The second guideline I use is the French saying "What grows together, goes together." So, when I'm making an earthy Provençal dish such as pissaladière (an onion pizza with olives and anchovies), I might choose a rustic Provençal red wine, such as Bandol, to go with it. There are many French wine regions, but here is an overview of the five that are best known.

Everyone's favorite region is Champagne, whose sparkling wines are named for the châteaux that produce them. We know so many of those elegant names: Veuve Clicquot, Moët et Chandon, Dom Pérignon. As with other wines, whether you end up with a white or red wine relies not on the color of grape but rather on whether the skins are used in the production. Therefore, Champagne can come from a white Chardonnay grape or a red Pinot Noir grape and you still end up with a white sparkling wine. Rosé Champagne is generally made by adding a bit of still red wine before adding the bubbles. Champagne goes with almost anything, from appetizers to dinner to cheese and on through dessert. The Champagne classification brut literally means "dry," and it refers to the sweetness of the wine. The better Champagnes are almost all brut, but the more expensive the Champagne, the more complex the flavor. A very special Champagne such as Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame may be brut but it's also full of flavor, and, when I pour some for a celebration, I feel that life doesn't get any better than this.

Bordeaux is the next best-known winemaking area and its wines are classified by subregion, such as Pomerol and Saint-Emilion. As with Champagnes, though, they are more likely to be named after the château where they're produced, such as Château Margaux and Château Mouton-Rothschild, than for the region. Bordeaux are full-bodied. The red wines, predominantly fromCabernet and Merlot grapes, have a rich red color, and the flavor is usually characterized by spicy fruit tones such as black currant, plum, spice, and cassis. When they're young, they can be astringent, but as they age, they develop round, complex, fruity flavors. The foods associated with the region ("what grows together, goes together")-lamb and duck-are particularly good with Bordeaux wines.

Burgundy wines are produced by lots of small estates that combine their grapes to make one wine, and they're often named for the local region, such as Beaune, Pommard, and Chablis, rather than for a single château. Some bottles are labeled with the name of the region and the name of the importer, such as Louis Jadot and Louis Latour. Red Burgundies, made from the Pinot Noir grape, tend to be lighter in color than Bordeaux but that certainly doesn't mean they have less flavor. These wines are generally characterized by fragrant red fruit tones such as raspberry, blackberry, cherry, and currant and sometimes also woodsy mushroom flavors. The red wines of Burgundy are delicious with their local beef and rabbit. White Burgundies are made from Chardonnay grapes, but they range from light and dry, such as a Macon, to really big and full of flavor-with tones of honey and nuts-such as Meursault and Chassagne-Montrachet. These white wines are delicious with chicken and seafood, which are popular in Burgundy.

Loire Valley white wines are made predominantly from the Sauvignon Blanc grapes and can range from a Pouilly-Fumé, which is oaky and dry, to a Sancerre, a light, crisp, dry white that goes very well with the pork and goat cheese that are found in the region.

Finally, Rhône wines come from an area in the south that is sunny and hot, and the wines reflect the region. Both the red and white wines are full and robust and often not very expensive, such as Gigondas. One of my favorite wines, white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, comes from this region. It's full of buttery flavor without the acidity that's sometimes associated with a young white wine.

But at the end of the day, the only thing that counts is what you like. The old rules of white wine with fish and chicken and red wine with meat have been discarded in favor of drinking anything that tastes good to you. It's always smart to find a good retailer and build a relationship with him or her. Ask for recommendations to go with the particular dish you'll be serving; it's their job to know which wines complement different foods.

For me, the best way to learn about wine is to buy several different wines in one category, such as Burgundy, and serve them all together at a party. Everyone has fun tasting the wines, bottles are passed back and forth, we laugh about the descriptions everyone comes up with, and maybe, if we're lucky, we might even learn something. How bad can that be?

You can also brush the pastry with pesto, tapenade, or sun-dried tomato paste instead of sprinkling with the cheeses.

To freeze, bake the puffs, allow them to cool, and freeze in a sealed plastic bag.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten Photographs by Quentin Bacon Excerpted by permission.
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