Paris

Food Recommendations

I will ignore some of the Greatest Hits like Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée, Salade Niçoise, Boeuf Bourguignon, Coq au Vin, Croque Monsieur/Madame, Mousse au Chocolat, Baba au Rhum, Crêpes Suzette, all of which are wonderful delightful and perfect and yes you should eat them but you already know these so I will try to focus on ones you might not know so well. I use this word a lot, “Mirepoix” it's a french term for onions, carrots and celery and sometimes bayleaf.

GOUGÈRE

Little round puffs of pâte à choux dough either hollow or with a cube of Emmentaler or Gruyere cheese inside, or a sliver of truffle. A great hors d'oeuvre before the meal or a snack at a cafe. Incidentally if you take this same dough and press it into coarse sugar then bake it sugar side up (no cheese) it’s called a Chouquet.

CRUDITÉS

I have very fond, perhaps misplaced, memories of a tavern on Ile Saint Louis that was a little over 200 years old when I went but looked much much older, very dimly lit and rowdy, white plaster walls studded with thick wooden beams. Dusty and dirty and old. It was called La Taverne du Sergeant Recruteur, and in the summer of 1999 that was exactly what I was in the mood for. When you sat down a waiter would plonk down a basket of crudite: yellowy Belgian endive, fennel, trimmed radishes, moments later he would come back with a wooden slab of saucisson and mustards with a dagger sticking pointy side straight into the wood. This was before you even had a chance to look at the menu. Anyway, as I started to write this I looked up the restaurant on 41 Rue Saint-Louis and am very sad to see it’s now a swank brightly lit high end eatery! I personally think we lost something. Anyway, let’s skip ahead to the next thing.  

Pissaladière

This flatbread hails from Côte d'Azur, it’s somewhere between a tart and a flatbread. Dough is rolled out rather thin then slathered with caramelized onions cooked so long they are almost a paste, then anchovy filets are arranged on top as well as small black olives. A good one should be crisp on the bottom but moist on top, which is hard to achieve but worth aiming for.   

Bisque de Homard

Lobster Bisque or Bisque de Crevettes (shrimp or crayfish) is a silky creamy very elegant soup usually garnished with a small amount of shellfish meat, perhaps a claw of poached lobster or the tail of a small prawn, flavored with sherry and thickened with cream. When made right, one spoonful and your life is changed forever, no turning back.   

BŒUFF TARTARE Taillé au Couteau

Steak Tartare or Boeuf Tartare, they are both the same but look for “Taillé au Couteau” which means “Cut by hand” or knife-cut, busier, less caring places will use a meat grinder which is not as good texture-wise, and also not a guarantee how prime and pristine the meat itself is, whereas in order to do knife cut the cook has to painstakingly scrupulously trim the meat of any fat, tendons, etc. so that you have really great meat to then eat raw with no distractions. To me the best steak tartare is one that is presented with the knife-cut steak in the center with a small depression in the middle to nestle the egg yolk then all the condiments alongside so that you can mix them into the patty to your tastes. Alternately you can ask for TARTARE de BOEUF POÊLÉ which is all mixed up into a patty then flashed in a smoking hot pan on both sides for just seconds so that you get a nicely browned tartare that is still raw in the center. Incidentally I asked my coworker from Paris what she misses most about home and she said TARTARE de BOEUF POÊLÉ  

FOIE GRAS POÊLÉ  

In my opinion fresh foie gras is the way to go, what I mean is a fresh lobe seared to order in a hot pan and served with some kind of garnish, usually fruit. My favorite way is seared in butter with lots of fresh tarragon then mounted onto a crouton with very finely diced ripe strawberries. However you might not be so lucky. I would trust any chef willing to sear a foie gras for you, whatever garnish he or she thinks best fits the season and the style of the place, sometimes figs in the summer, sometimes prunes, peaches, mango…. whatever the idea is, anytime you see seared foie gras just order it, it doesn’t matter how much it costs it’s worth it. 

Terrine de Foie Gras

Strangely, the more difficult to make preparation is actually the less appreciated. However don’t turn your nose up to a nicely prepared terrine. It will often be soaked first in Sauternes or Muscat Blanc baked in an oven so low you can reach your hand in to touch it and won’t get burned. I would say leap however high you need to for a seared foie gras but for a terrine of foie gras sit with dignity and say “OUI!”   

Dodine de Canard

A whole duck, bones removed, filled with pistachios, cooked, cooled and pressed and preserved in its own jelly, that is to say, its own gelatinous broth which when chilled is like jelly. It is served sliced thin as an appetizer with cornichon. 

Salade Lyonnaise avec Confit de Canard

Salade Lyonnaise by itself is one of the best Brasserie salads to find in Paris, wilted and fatigued frisee dressed warm with a vinaigrette made of rendered bacon lardons, shallots and dijon mustard, topped with a poached egg. Perfect as is. However sometimes you can find a slow cooked very crispy skin duck leg in place of the egg and that’s even better.  

QUENELLE de BROCHET SAUCE NANTUA 

Pike season will be at its peak when you are in Paris. It’s one of those classic French dishes that has slid into the mainstream and sadly into industrial cooking, so many French people our age have unromantic memories of it from their school cafeteria, however a properly made one is sublime! The pike filets are poached then pounded into a paste with bread and cream and eggs and then formed into “Quenelles” which are like spoon sized egg shapes, then poached again, then… the best part, Sauce Nantua which is made from crayfish shells cooked with mirepoix and flambeed with brandy, pounded and pureed and then sieved at least twice thru a very fine mesh strainer and then reduced with heavy cream. It’s delicious! 

MOULES FRITES

One of my memories of Paris is a bank of restaurants all along Gare du Nord train station each one of them specializing in Moules Frites, of course the classic Moules Marinière is unbeatable with the mussels sauteed in shallots (sometimes garlic, so be careful) and white wine and a big handful of chopped parsley and finished with butter, But the variations at these places are endless: Moules Natures with celery and leeks; Moules Normandes with cream and bacon; Moules à la Bière with dark Belgian beer and tomatoes; Moules au Saffran with saffron and mirepoix; Moules à l'Espagnole with paprika; Moules au Merguez with Algerian sausage and harissa, etc. 

POULET de BRESSE

If I were lucky enough to go to France I would try to seek out a Poulet de Bresse, I’ve never had one but it is meant to be the finest chicken in the world. And it’s a pretty big deal, when you see them in a butcher shop they will have all kinds of tags on them showing their provenance, they must have their feet still attached, the feet are brilliant blue in color and impossible to fake, they have an appellation d'origine contrôlée status that is recognized throughout all of the EU. “The queen of poultry, the poultry of kings". If I ever encounter one simply roasted whole that is what I would order. 

BOUILLABAISSE

The most glorious of all fish stews, you will be far from Marseilles where Bouillabaisse is like a religion but hopefully a restaurateur in Paris will take it seriously enough to treat it with the proper devotion. It was supposedly invented by Venus to put her husband Vulcan to sleep while she had her rendezvous with Mars. It is worth considering what my favorite food writer, Waverely Root, had to say about Bouillabaisse in 1956: 

“The subject of bouillabaisse is a complicated one. It is also one of those about which tempers rise easily. Everyone has his own idea of what constitutes the real bouillabaisse (all others are imitations), and if a contrary opinion is suggested, he acts as if his honor had been impugned. The easiest, and least subtle, way to provoke a discussion guaranteed to end a lifelong friendship forever is to bring up the issue of lobster. There are two chief schools of thought about this. One is that a man who would put lobster in bouillabaisse would poison wells. The other is that a man who would leave it out would starve his children. I have had excellent bouillabaisse with lobster and excellent bouillabaisse without lobster. Of course only one of them is the real Bouillabaisse. Unfortunately, I do not know which.” 

Some of the fish are left in manageable pieces others are pureed and strained into the broth, saffron is present but shouldn’t be too obvious, even less so the skin of an orange, and scant tomato, the color should be a rusty yellow leaning to a hint of red. What’s more the finished soup is ladeled into a bowl and garnished with a crouton slathered with rouille (which is an aioli with pureed roasted red peppers, the color of rust, in fact that name rouille means rust, and you should avoid the rouille and the crouton because they contain garlic but perhaps you can offer them to one of your guests). And just for your information there is a famous restaurant in Marseilles that is part of a nudist beach famous for their naked patrons and perhaps less so for their Bouillabaisse.  

BOUCHÉES à la REINE

Queens Mouthfuls. One of the greatest chefs who ever lived was Marie-Antoine Carême (1784-1833 you’ll find him in Montmartre cemetery) and one of the masterpieces he left us with was Vol-au-Vent (literally “Windblown”) which are little parcels of puff pastry which used to take great skill to make but nowadays you can buy sheets of them in the freezer section. But Bouchées à la Reine made for the wife of Louis XV is still a marvel. The puff pastry shell is filled with cubes of chicken and mushrooms cooked in white wine and bechamel sauce.    

BLANQUETTE de VEAU

You can make a Blanquette of anything, Lamb, Beef, Chicken, but the most sought out is one made with Veal. I have an old French cookbook from 1927, "La Bonne Cuisine" with dense lettering, small print and no pictures and the recipe provided for Blanquette de Veau is 4 pages long! In short, its slow braised boneless veal, usually neck meat, cooked to the point of just almost falling apart in mirepoix, cognac, and cream.    

FRICASSÉE de POULET au MAROILLES

Sometimes under a different name, BLANC de VOLAILLE au MAROILLES. A supreme dish of a whole chicken cut into eight pieces then cooked very slowly in cream sauce with morel mushrooms. 

DAUBE d'AGNEAU PROVENÇALE

Another slow cooked masterpiece, you might be getting tired of all my suggestions being slow cooked but my rule of thumb when eating out is to gravitate to those things that take five hours to cook instead of a la minute style quick sautes because they are more difficult to do and therefore less likely to have at home. A lamb Daube (sometimes done with beef) is one of these stews, cooked in red wine with fennel, orange peel, mirepoix and tomato. 

A FEW CHEESES I LIKE 

Sainte-Maure de Touraine

Unpasteurized cheese made from full fat goat's milk rolled into a cylinder with a straw running through the center, then rolled in wood ash 

Crottin de Chavignol

Another goat’s milk cheese, shaped into a small disc, the best way to have it is warmed up in a hot oven for a few minutes then served atop a simple salad of butter lettuces dressed with a light vinaigrette with shallots and herbs. 

Cabécou 

Soft ripened goat’s milk cheese sometimes wrapped in grape leaves, It is one of Aquitaine's most famous foods.

Roquefort

Of course. This unbeatable bleu made from sheep’s milk and aged in caves is a must. 

BLEU d'AUVERGNE

Another bleu but this one made from cow’s milk. 

Raclette du Valais

Alpine cows milk cheese comes in a hard wheel but is best served from a raclette burner or a hot iron blade that scrapes the cheese in such a way that it melts into a puddle onto a warm plate alongside small boiled potatoes and cornichons and pickled pearl onions. 

FLEUR VERT

A soft and fluffy goat’s milk cheese covered in tarragon and pink peppercorns

Fromager d’Affinois

This soft double cream cow’s milk cheese is similar but better than brie, whereas brie has some mushroomy characteristics. This one is all about the sweet creaminess. It's super runny. Be like John Cleese, say “I don't care how fucking runny it is. Hand it over with all speed!”

SWEET STUFF

Paris-Brest

Named after the bicycle race from Paris to Brest this is a ring of pâte à choux dough covered in sliced almonds sandwiching a perfect hazelnut and mocha buttercream. I always assumed the ring form of the pastry is to symbolize a bicycle tire. I don’t get to see these often but whenever I do I stuff them into my face. 

MONT-BLANC aux MARRONS

Chestnut puree, lightly sweetened then squiggled out like vermicelli forming a mound with whipped cream atop like a snow capped mountain. 

Gâteau St-Honoré

If you remember Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel the signature cake in that film called a Mendel Cake which is kind of fictitious but it was inspired by the real Gâteau St-Honoré created in 1847 at the Chiboust bakery on Rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st Arrondissement. Little balls of pâte à choux dough baked into hollow puffs then filled with Crème Chiboust which is complicated all by itself, then each puff ball is dipped in caramel glaze then arranged on a plate and dotted with whipped cream. 

Clafoutis

Pitted black cherries in a thick flan-like batter flavored with either bitter almonds or almond extract, baked and served at room temperature with whipped cream. 

KOUIGN-AMANN

Imagine a multi-layer, muffin-shaped, caramelized croissant, sometimes in the middle you will find either a chunk of chocolate, or lemon curd or – my favorite –- coffee custard. Perfect for your breakfast-time heart attack. Classicists insist the ratio be 40 percent dough, 30 percent butter, and 30 percent sugar. Dubbed the "the fattiest pastry in all of Europe" by the New York Times. Call your doctor. 

Coussin de Lyon

These are little marzipan candies, colored deep blue by Orange Curaçao liqueur, with a slathering of chocolate ganache inside. If you find them, bring back a box for your friends back home and if you do that then tell your friends to send the box to me. A Coussin is a cushion, in 1643 the plague epidemic swept through Lyon and as a plea to be spared they carried a giant effigy of the Virgin Mary on a silk cushion around town to ward off the sickness. Later, to commemorate the success of this witchcraft, these little candies were created.