Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

Ah, holidays – gotta love ‘em. Bastille Day presents an unparalleled opportunity to express my inner food geek with an all-out theme dinner. Unfortunately I was a little bit tired of my kitchen after the previous night's Cuban-ish extravaganza. Plus it was nearly 100 degrees yesterday and an afternoon of making sauces and custards and terrines didn’t sound like all that much fun. After a little consideration I decided to ditch the complicated menu I had planned in favor of something just as Gallic but really easy. The appetizer came from the deli section of the grocery. For the main course I picked something that I could stick in the oven and ignore for a while. And dessert I could put together after the sun went down and the kitchen cooled off a little. We ate outside in our little garden pavilion, with Edith Piaf, Carla Bruni, and Jacques Brel on the CD player. Here’s the menu:

Mousse de foie de carnard et gras de porc et foie de porc au pruneau et vin prune
with toasted baguette slices
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Gigot roti au gratin de monsieur Henny
Haricots verts
Green salad with vinaigrette
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Tarte Tatin with a dollop of crème fraiche

My son had been asking me for a week if we were going to have paté for Bastille Day, and the appetizer thingie on the menu is a paté made by Marcel & Henri in San Francisco that I got at Market of Choice in Ashland. The not-so-catchy name on the package pretty much says it all as far as ingredients goes (duck and pork liver, fat, prunes, plum wine.) The paté fixation in my house started when we had a French exchange student living with us a few years ago. Antoine’s parents in Brittany were worried that their poor boy might starve over here in Hamburgerland, so they sent him (and us) a series of wonderful packages full of French goodies (some of which were "confiscated" en route by postal inspectors; I hope they enjoyed their lunch). By the end of the year my teenage children had developed a rather expensive foie gras habit. Yes, I know I was just expressing disdain for factory chicken farms yesterday. No, I do not think this is the same thing at all. At any rate I have been unable to find foie gras in any local shops and I neglected to order it ahead of time from D'Artagnan, so no one needs to get too sad about goose abuse (at least for now).

I served the paté with baguette rounds which I made the mistake of putting in the toaster: a whole batch of them slid down through the grate where they will toast themselves into burnt little bits of smelly charcoal over time unless I can extract them with an ice pick. I remember doing the the same thing at Christmas. Next time I will put them on a cookie sheet and toast them in the oven.


The gigot rôti (roast leg of lamb) is from Patricia Wells’s excellent and accessible Bistro Cooking. I thought the recipe might be on the net and was surprised to find it here. I can’t tell you why Tablecloths Etc. thinks they should call it “our recipe” since it is almost word for word the one in Patricia Wells’s book (hers, however, is sans typos). I think recipes ought to be shared freely but you need to give credit, for heaven’s sakes. Anyway it’s a great recipe. The lamb cooks on a rack right on top of a casserole of potatoes, onions, and tomatoes so that the meat juices drip into the casserole – very tasty indeed. My 12 year old daughter actually put the casserole together by herself after I sliced the vegetables with the (dangerous and scary but very useful) mandoline.





For green stuff I steamed some little tiny green beans (usually available at Market of Choice; I’ve not seen them at any other store around here) and my husband Andreas picked a green salad from the garden, which he decorated with nasturtiums and pansies.

After dinner, others finished off the bottle of Côtes du Rhône while I went inside and got started making the Tarte Tatin. This is one of those great recipes to have in your repertoire because it is easy, impressive, and delicious. I’d never made one until a couple of years ago when I heard a chef explaining on the radio how to do it. I have made several now and they’ve always turned out great. Here’s a link to the NPR show – it gives complete instructions. The only part that is at all tricky is deciding when the sugar has caramelized enough. The recipe says “a deep caramel color” and when you’ve done it once, you’ll remember. Also, please do heed the advice about using an all-butter puff pastry rather than the Pepperidge Farms brand. Trader Joe’s sells an excellent frozen product; I always keep a supply in my freezer. Of course if you’re feeling ambitious you can always make your own. I did this a couple of times just for the experience, but I’m happy now to leave that to Trader Joe - especially in the heat of summer.