One recent lazy day , ready to roll up my sleeves for an afternoon of heavy cooking, I pored over our books in search of an ambitious recipe. Of course I pulled out our copy of Alain Ducasse’s Grand Livre de Cuisine. It’s a 1000-page plus book meant for professional chefs with a brigade of cooks. I’m usually up for a challenge, however the sheer labor involved is a bit off-putting. The following is my (severely) abridged version:
Pea Soup (Ducasse, Grand Livre de Cuisine)
Serves 4
Shelled peas
Pea pods
Chicken stock
Cream
Butter
Olive oil
Salt
Parmesan
Fairy ring mushrooms (?-my question mark, not his)
Ricotta
Flour
Eggs
Country bread
Veal juice
Garlic
Ham fat
- Boil the stock with the pods. Strain, add the peas, puree, add butter and so on.
- Blend the gnocchi ingredients, chill, make quenelles, poach, set aside.
- Braise the Fairy Ring Mushrooms (again?), add the gnocchi and parm.
- Cook the garlic in ham fat, add the bread, caramelize in veal juice.
- Put the gnocchi, peas, and Fairy Ring Mushrooms (?again) in a bowl, boil soup, add cream, serve in a terrine with bread sticks.
That’s it. By my calculation, to make this pea soup, the following is required:
Bowl 1: pea pods.
Bowl 2: peas
Measuring cups: soup
Pot 1: infused stock, peas and soup
Blender: puree soup
Strainer and bowl 3: strain the soup
Food processor: gnocchi
Measuring cups: gnocchi
Grater: parm for the gnocchi
Pot 2: poach gnocchi
Tray: chill the gnocchi
Pan 1: cook gnocchi
Pan 2: cook Fairy Ring Mushrooms (again?)
Pan 3: cook the bread
Spoons, spatulas, ladles
Prerequisites:
– Trip to butcher for veal bones.
- Pots, trays, spoons, and ladles for veal stock
- Trip to special market for fresh unshelled peas
- Trip to special market for Fairy Ring Mushrooms (again?)
- Trip to butcher for ham fat
And I don’t even like gnocchi, or rather, I don’t like that phony Parisian gnocchi. Most of the other recipes are only a bit more tedious. Most of the chicken dishes, for instance, begin as such: “remove the bladder and trim the nails…”
Unexcited at the prospect of our 3-year-old slipping on chicken entrails, I switched gears and found a satisfyingly intensive, yet manageable dish: the Asian Bouillabaisse from Morimoto. Bouillabaisse is delicious, and this seemed a nice twist. Usually it’s pretty simple-a potful of seafood in a rich, tomatoey, oceanic broth.
Happily, there were two labor intensive components, enough to keep me busy: fish stock and lobster stock. Though we do make and freeze fish stock, we were fresh out, and even the best premade is a crummy substitute, usually containing salt and spices and lacking the gelatinous quality that comes from simply simmering fresh whitefish bones. I pre-ordered the fish bones and made a nice stock.
As for the lobster stock, that’s a strictly restaurant item which I’d also have to make. I shocked the lobsters, cleaned out the meat and used the shells to make a nice stock. From there on it’s smooth sailing: create the broth using both stocks, infuse with the miso and Korean chile paste, poach the fish in the broth, and serve. It’s a (slightly messy) one-man job.
The Ducasse recipes are also one-man jobs, if that man has six arms and five pot washers. Should you choose to tackle them I’d suggest breaking down into multi-day segments: day one, butcher the lamb; day two, buy all the weird stuff; day three, make the stocks; day four, assemble part of the dish (terrine or whatever); day five, unite the links and make the damn thing.
Day 6: Dump 90% of it in the trash because you’re so grossed out and order a pizza. That said, this is a delicious bouillabaisse.
Japanese Bouillabaisse (Adapted from Morimoto via chef Jamison Blankenship Starchefs.com)
4 servings
16 Manila clams
16 mussels
8 large shrimp
meat from 2 lobsters, tails halved
4 diver scallops
1 cup sake
2 cups red miso broth (recipe below)
1 tablespoon butter
zest 1 yuzu or lemon
Add sake to a large pot and bring to a boil. Add clams and mussels, cover and cook 3 minutes. Uncover, add remaining shellfish and 2 cups Miso Broth. Cover again until clams open and fish is cooked through. Stir in butter and zest. Serve.
Red Miso Shellfish Broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 leek
2 medium carrots, peeled, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
½ cup tomato paste
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 ½ cups white wine
1 ½ quarts fish fumet (recipe below)
1 ½ quarts lobster broth(recipe below)
½ cup red miso
½ cup Korean chili paste
Heat the oil in a large pot, add leek, carrot,shallot, fennel and cook till soft over medium heat. Add tomato paste, stir in, cook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and wine, boil and reduce by half. Add broth and fumet. Boil then reduce to a simmer and reduce by 1/3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the miso and chili paste with 1 cup hot broth. Whisk back into the pot of broth.
Fish Fumet (adapted from Le Bernardin cookbook)
(yield about 3 quarts)
8 pounds head, bones from white fish such as halibut
1 onion, peeled, sliced
½ fennel bulb thinly sliced
1 leek, thinly sliced
15 peppercorns
2 cups white wine
10 cups water
- Immerse bones in large pan or bowl of cold water to remove blood for one hour. Change water twice.
- In a large pot over medium heat add onion, fennel, leek, peppercorns. Cook until softened, not brown.
- Add fish bones, stirring until the flesh is white, 12-15 minutes.
- Add wine and water, bring to a boil and boil 15 minutes, skimming off scum as it rises to the top. Remove from the heat, let rest 10 minutes.
- Strain fumet through a fine mesh sieve, pressing on solids to extract as much flavor as possible.
- Freeze for 2 months or use, covered, up to 3 days in the refrigerator.
Lobster Stock (adapted from Le Bernardin cookbook)
(yield about 2 ½ quarts)
3 tablespoons corn oil
1 pound cleaned, uncooked lobster shells, from about 3 1 ¾ pound lobsters, chopped
¼ cup brandy
2 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped
3 shallots, peeled, sliced thinly
¼ fennel bulb, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups water
- Heat oil in a large wide pot over high heat until nearly smoking. Add shells, don’t stir for 1 minute then sear for about 5 minutes until browned but not burned
- Add brandy and vegetables, scrape any bits off bottom with a wooden spoon. Stir in tomato paste, reduce heat to medium, cook till vegetables are soft, about 3 minutes.
- Add water, bring to boil, boil 15 minutes, remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. Strain through a fine mesh strainer, pressing on solids. Store, covered, in refrigerator up to 3 days or freeze up to 2 months.
