Tag: Escoffier

Sauce Provençale

15 December 2021

Based on one of the leading (mother) sauces this is a quick, tasty and uplifting sauce with olives, capers and Herbes de Provence. The success of this sauce depends on the use of the intense, flavorful classic tomato sauce. Sauce Provençal has a good structure and comes with a variety of flavors, making it very much an accompaniment for grilled chicken or fish. If you use modern tomato sauce, then the result will be nice, but not as spectacular.

Herbes de Provence is a mixture of dried herbs such as oregano, thyme, rosemary, savory and perhaps sage and lavender. Feel free to create your own mixture. If you buy a ready-made mixture, make sure it has character, aromas and structure.

What You Need

  • Classic Tomato Sauce
  • One shallot
  • Two Tomatoes
  • One Glove of Garlic
  • Teaspoon of Herbes de Provence
  • Capers
  • Black Olives
  • Olive Oil
  • Black Pepper

What You Do

Peel the tomatoes, remove the seeds and cut in small cubes. Finely chop the shallot. Wash and drain the capers. Crush the garlic and slice the olives in two. Heat a heavy iron skillet and gently glaze the shallot. Add tomatoes, garlic and herbes de Provence. Leave on low heat for 5 minutes. Now add the classic tomato sauce, the capers and the olives. Leave for 5-10 minutes. Stir the mixture gently. You want to keep the structure of the tomatoes. Taste and perhaps add some black pepper.

Sauce Provençal with Grilled Chicken ©cadwu
Sauce Provençal with Grilled Chicken ©cadwu

The Art of Sauces: Classic Tomato Sauce

1 December 2021

This recipe goes back to the days of Antonina Latini who published a recipe for a tomato sauce in his Lo Scalco alla Moderna (The Modern Steward, or The Art of Preparing Banquets Well) in 1692. Marie-Antoine Carême wrote about Latini’s recipes and Auguste Escoffier positioned the sauce as a leading (mother) sauce.

The sauce is different from a modern, vegetarian tomato sauce, for instance because one of the ingredients is salted pork, which obviously brings saltiness and depth to the sauce, in a very natural way. 
The sweetness of the tomato is supported by carrots, onions and various herbs, making it a much more complex sauce. The flavours and aromas of the tomatoes benefit from the rich and tasteful context. This also supports the concept of a leading sauce: you can use it as a starting point for other sauces.
The texture of the sauce (it’s not smooth) in combination with the fat creates a very pleasant mouthfeel.

Sauce Tomate has many derivatives, such as Sauce Portuguese, Sauce Marinara and even Ketchup. In one of our next posts we will describe how to make Sauce Provençal and Oeuf à la Provençal (eggs poached in tomato sauce).

What You Need

  • 200 grams of Salted Organic Pork (not smoked)
  • ½ Leek
  • 1 Carrot
  • 1 Celery Stalk
  • 1 Shallot
  • 2 gloves of Garlic
  • 4 – 6 Excellent Ripe Tomatoes
  • White Stock (Veal preferably)
  • Bouquet Garni (Parsley, Thyme, Bay Leaf, Rosemary)

What You Do

Start by cleaning and chopping the vegetables. Wash, dry and dice the salted pork. Render the pork meat on medium heat in a Dutch oven. Once lightly coloured add the leek, carrot, celery and shallot. Allow to cook for 5 to 10 minutes. You’re looking for a bit of colour, but not too much. Now add the tomatoes and the garlic. Once warm, wait for a few minutes before adding some white stock. This is a tricky part: if you add too much stock your sauce will be thin. Therefore some recipes suggest adding flour. We decided against it because we want a natural consistency. Now it’s a matter of simmering, either in the oven or on low heat. Allow to simmer for 90 minutes.
Remove the pork meat from the sauce. Pass the sauce through a sieve, making sure you capture all those lovely juices. It’s hard work, but the remainder in your sieve should be as dry as possible.

Classic Sauce Tomate ©cadwu
Classic Tomato Sauce ready to simmer ©cadwu
Ingredients Classic Tomato Sauce ©cadwu

The Art of Sauces: Modern Tomato Sauce

17 November 2021

We love a good sauce: it supports the flavours, it adds complexity to the dish and it brings components together. Orange sauce with duck, Béarnaise with beef, Sauce Mornay on a Croque Monsieur: the sauce is the key to the dish.

Marie-Antoine Carême (1784 – 1833) was the first chef to analyse sauces and create a classification. He identified four leading (mother) sauces and described how other sauces could be derived from these four. His four leading sauces are Espagnole (made with brown roux, roasted bones and brown stock), Velouté (white roux and light (veal) stock), Béchamel and Allemande (light roux with veal stock and thickened with egg yolks and cream). If for instance you want to make a Pepper Sauce, then you start by making a Sauce Espagnole.

Auguste Escoffier (1846 – 1935) refined the classification and replaced Sauce Allemande with Sauce Tomate as leading sauce. Later Hollandaise and Mayonnaise were added to the list of main sauces.

Sauce Tomate as prepared by Carême and Escoffier is very different from the sauce we use on pizza’s and pasta’s. It’s made with salted pork, veal stock, bones, various aromatic vegetables and of course tomatoes. Among the derived sauces are Sauce Portuguese and Sauce Provençal.
Next week we will share the Classic way of cooking Sauce Tomate in detail; today we share our modern (vegetarian) recipe.
The sauce freezes very well, so ideal to make a nice quantity.

What You Need

  • 4 – 6 Excellent Ripe Tomatoes (depending on the size)
  • 1 Red Bell Pepper (preferably grilled and peeled)
  • ½ Chilli
  • 1 Onion
  • 1 Garlic Clove
  • Olive oil
  • 1 Glass of Red Wine
  • Bouquet Garni (Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary, Bay Leaf)

What You Do

Wash the tomatoes and slice in chunks. Peel the onion and chop. Add olive oil to the pan and glaze the onion for 10 minutes or so. Stir and add the sliced bell pepper and the sliced and seeded chilli. Let cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or so. Reduce heat. Add the chopped garlic clove. After 5 minutes or so add the sliced tomatoes, the red wine and the bouquet garni. Leave for 2 hours minimum to simmer. Remove the bouquet garni and blender the mixture. Pass through a sieve and leave to simmer for another 2 hours. Cool and transfer to the refrigerator or freezer.

PS Grilling a bell pepper: slice the pepper in large slices. Set your oven to grill, put a sheet of aluminium foil on the baking tray, put the slices on the foil, skin up and transfer to the oven, as close to the grill as possible. Wait for 10 minutes or until the skin is seriously burned. Transfer the slices to a plastic container and close the lid. Wait for an hour. Using your fingers and perhaps a knife, peel of the skin. Store the bell pepper and the juices in the refrigerator. The taste is deeper and sweeter compared to raw bell pepper.

  • Fresh Tomatoes ©cadwu
    Fresh Tomatoes ©cadwu
  • Beginning of Tomato Sauce ©cadwu
    Beginning of Tomato Sauce ©cadwu
  • Tomato Sauce ready to be frozen ©cadwu
    Tomato Sauce ready to be frozen ©cadwu

The Art of Cooking

12 February 2020

Culinary Art

For most of us cooking is something we do on a more or less daily basis. We cook rice, fry meat, prepare a salad and when we want to make something special, for instance Tournedos Rossini or Pêche Melba, we follow a recipe.
For a few people cooking is about combining flavours, colours, textures and temperatures. Cooking is all about creativity; cooking has become an Art. Chefs invent dishes and utensils, they set the standard for regional cuisines and they guide us. Their artefacts are dishes and recipes; their art is Culinary Art.

The Escoffier Museum

Unfortunately there are not many musea dedicated to the Culinary Arts: in Napa, California (the The Culinary Institute of America), in Marrakesh (Museum of Moroccan Culinary Art) and in the beautiful French village of Villeneuve-Loubet: the Escoffier Museum of Culinary Arts. It is housed in an authentic Provençal style home from the 18th century: the birthplace of famous chef Auguste Escoffier.

The Escoffier Museum was founded in 1966 and is home to an intriguing collection, ranging from a Provençal kitchen (with a grill in front of an open fire), a predecessor of the mandoline (invented by Escoffier), a room with the most amazing sculptures made from sugar and chocolate, a room with Escoffier’s desk and a library with over 3000 books, a video room, a room with over 300 menus and a room dedicated to other great chefs.

Three Great Chefs

The museum owns a very nice portrait of Antonin Carême and a picture of Eugénie Brazier (1895 – 1977), also known as Mère Brazier. She was one of the ‘mothers’ in Lyon and she brought local cooking to the level of Gastronomy. She founded her first restaurant Mère Brazier in 1921 at the age of 26. She was the first to be awarded 6 Michelin stars for two restaurants. She truly is the founder of the regional Cuisine Lyonnaise. Indeed, the cuisine made famous by Paul Bocuse.
Antonin Carême (1784 – 1833) was very likely the first modern chef, an influential author and inspiration to chefs. He introduced the toque, he was a dear friend of Gioachino Rossini and very likely the creator of the tournedos Rossini. He started his career as patissier and became chef to Napoleon, the later George IV and Tsar Alexander I.
And of course Auguste Escoffier (1846 – 1935), chef in Paris, Monte Carlo and London. Together with César Ritz he created the luxury hospitality trade. He introduced behavioural and organisational standards in the kitchen. He stressed the importance of personal hygiene of kitchen staff and encouraged the further education of his employees. He developed the brigade system with party leaders and designed kitchen utensils. He introduced fixed price menus and developed Bouillon Kub with Julius Maggi. But above all he created many beautiful dishes and was chef to the rich, the famous and to royalty. And he was an author, of course, most notable of the Guide Culinaire (1903).
In 1910 (when working in London) he published about a project to extinct pauperism in the UK. Two years later he organised the first fundraising dinners to support charitable causes. His social interests went far beyond the rich and the famous.

Eugénie Brazier at Musée Escoffier de l’Art Culinaire © cadwu
Antonin Carême at Musée Escoffier de l’Art Culinaire © cadwu
Auguste Escoffier at Musée Escoffier de l’Art Culinaire © cadwu

Pêche Melba

The menus make you think about all these no doubt wonderful dishes, about the richness of the dinners and lunches, the extravagance of the food and wine served. Wouldn’t it be interesting to taste some of it? A slice of Filet de Boeuf a la Chartreuse? A piece of the Gateau Soufflot? The real artefacts of Culinary Art can be found in restaurants. Which creates an interesting dilemma. Pêche Melba was created by Auguste Escoffier for the famous opera singer Nellie Melba in 1893. The final recipe is a combination of peaches, vanilla ice cream and raspberries. Where can we taste Pêche Melba as if made by the great chef himself? Many restaurants offer Pêche Melba with additions such as whipped cream, mint, dried almonds or replacements such as strawberries and canned peaches. Very much not what Escoffier intended. So we can read the original recipe as written by Escoffier (on display and sale in the museum) but where to taste the real Pêche Melba?

Fortunately the museum offers a free tasting of Pêche Melba to all visitors between June and September. Indeed, depending on the availability of fresh, ripe, juicy peaches.

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Tournedos Rossini

15 January 2020

The First King of Chefs

Gioachino Rossini (1792 – 1868) was a gifted, talented and great composer. Not only did he compose some 40 operas, many songs and the beautiful Petite Messe Solennelle, he was also an expert with regard to food. Perhaps expert is not the right word: he was a gourmand, an excessive eater and drinker plus a culinary inspiration. Chefs would name dishes after him, such as Filets de Sole Rossini (poached Dover sole wrapped around goose liver and truffle served with a white wine sauce), Cocktail Rossini (strawberries and prosecco), Macaroni Soup alla Rossini (a soup with partridge quenelles and Parmesan cheese) and many others.

The soup was created by Marie-Antoine Carême, a very dear and close friend of Rossini. He was Roi des Cuisiniers et Cuisinier des Rois having been chef to Napoleon, the Prince of Wales (the later King George IV), Tsar Alexander 1st and Baron de Rothschild. He created the concept of the four mother sauces (Allemande, Béchamel, Espagnole, Velouté) and was an essential inspiration for Auguste Escoffier. Marie-Antoine Carême is one of the most influential chefs ever, a brilliant  patissier and author of several books on cookery, including L’Art de la Cuisine Française.

Very likely it was Escoffier who came up with the word tournedos, but the combination of bread, meat, goose liver, truffle and Madeira was a creation by Marie-Antoine Carême, inspired by and prepared for his friend Gioachino Rossini.

Tournedos Rossini is a culinary pleasure. It’s elegant, full of flavours and exquisite. It’s simply gorgeous.

Wine Pairing

A classic red Bordeaux will be a perfect match. Dry, full-bodied and fruity. We enjoyed a glass of Château Gaillard Saint-Émilion Grand Cru 2015. This is a dry, cherry-red coloured wine. It features medium woody, fruity and vegetal scents and offers a broad texture as well as medium tannins.

What You Need

  • 2 Tournedos (Fillet Steaks)
  • Butter
  • Madeira
  • Fresh Goose Liver
  • Winter truffle
  • Stock (Chicken or Veal)
  • 2 Slices of Old Bread

What You Do

Originally you would need demi-glace sauce, but we take a short cut. Make sure you have everything ready. The oven should be at 70° Celsius (160° Fahrenheit), one heavy iron pan and one non-sticky pan both warm, nearly hot, through and through. Make sure the meat is at room temperature. We prefer a small steak (75 gram). Start by frying the two slices of bread in butter until golden. Transfer the bread to the oven. Clean the pan with kitchen paper and add butter. Quickly fry the meat, it must be saignant (no options here). Wrap in foil and set aside. Reduce heat. Add stock to the pan and deglaze. Add Madeira. Thinly slice the fresh winter truffle (no options here). Add the smaller slices and crumbles to the sauce. Put the beef on top of the bread. Keep warm. Fry the goose liver for just a few seconds in the hot non sticky pan until golden/brown. Now plate up: the bread with the beef and the goose liver on top. Pour over the sauce, add the bigger slices of truffle and serve immediately.

Tournedos Rossini © cadwu
Tournedos Rossini © cadwu