Pate en Croute is nothing more than a pate baked in a crust, but it looks fabulous! The first trick is to find a mold - after that, the rest is easy.
All you do is line the mold with pastry and then bake the pate. The melted fat stays inside, topped up with aspic. You can make this with the Pate de Campagne but I think the pastry treatment deserves a finer pate like the one below.
This is a coarse pate, hearty picnic fare, best served in slabs with crusty bread, cornichons, and coarse mustard, and washed down with young, rustic wine. It is typically made with a mixture of pork and veal or with a mix of lean and fatty cuts of pork such as loin and shoulder. This one has long strips of ham steak laid lengthwise through it so when you slice it you get those flavorful little nuggets.
This decadent brother of the delicious Sauce Madere is best reserved for special occasions and the finest cuts of beef. Please see the Notes before attempting this expensive dish.
Sauce Madere is a spectacular savory sauce to accompany your finest beef. This recipe is kin to and the base for the even more decadent black truffle infused Sauce Perigueux.
The recipe comes from the incredible Escoffier Cookbook, but the recipe there is very confusing. This is because M. Escoffier works backwards from the finished sauce to the base ingredients (make the Sauce Madere from veal stock and half-glaze; make the half glaze from Brown Stock and Sauce Espagnole; make the Sauce Espagnole from Brown Roux, Brown Stock, and Mirepoix...) All of those recipes are written for different volumes of resulting sauce, so there's quite a lot of math involved.
Fortunately for those of us in the Plymouth area, Erik Piantedosi at Piantedosi Butcher Shop in North Plymouth saves us most of the hard work by selling the demi-glace in frozen 14-oz containers! That excellent product brings this delicious sauce into reach for regular cooking.
This is a specialty of Burgundy. It has a light, sparkling flavor that dances in your mouth as the jelly melts, full of wonderful flavors!
I read about the Jambon Persille in Jane Grigson's Charcuterie long ago, and I wanted to try it ever since. Then last year while touring Burgundy on our big vacation, I got the opportunity to have it for lunch in Dijon!
Once I knew how it was supposed to be, I could make it with confidence. Here's my recipe.
This classic chilled summer soup is simple to make and full of delicate summer flavors. The recipe is simple, but it allows for infinite artistic expression.
This is one of those recipes that can be made vegetarian or not (you can use chicken stock or vegetable stock), but the vegetarian version is in no way inferior.
This beautiful, light sponge cake works well in a fancy mold, and it accompanies berries, preserves, or chocolate sauce wonderfully. Unlike the similar Genoise Butter Cake, this one uses no butter.
This hearty, rich, piquant, and utterly fabulous beef stew adds a splash of brilliant Provencal sunshine to a winter dinner. It never fails to please. I make this at least twice every winter.
The ingredients that give it the special Provencal zest are herbes de Provence accompanied by orange zest, capers, and anchovies instead of salt. It simmers for a few hours in a mix of red wine and balsamic vinegar.
This is an easy and tasty dish to accompany all sorts of winter recipes, especially heavy roasted meats, pies, and stews.
It can cook away on the back burner while your attention is occupied by more demanding projects, and the carrots do not suffer from a little overcooking because the flavor is concentrated in the diminishing stock and the glaze and seasoning emphasize the flavor.
