This Month's Flavor: France

When someone poses the question ‘What is your favorite cuisine?’ I immediately launch into an inner struggle, ever vacillating between two possible responses.  I am the central divide on a tug-of-war rope.  On one side is the Italian team, offering up such indulgences as lasagna, cannolis, cheese and wine.  On the other side is an equally strong competitor, team Francais, offering comforting stews, luscious cream pastries and, well, cheese and wine.  Hmm, a very perplexing choice indeed.

Perhaps being half French yields the slight advantage of giving just the bit of edge to pull my response in favor of my heritage; the varied cuisines of France may win out by a fractional margin.

To be appreciated in French fare are the various influences, to which we may thank the surrounding nations that hug France’s borders.  Most people think of French cooking as the sophisticated haute cuisine found in the capital city’s upscale Paris restaurants, and on one level there’s nothing wrong with that.  I mean, what’s not to love about rich creamy sauces and decadent desserts?  Geographically however, France has embraced the benefit of taking the influencing flavors from its neighbors, incorporating these prime ingredients that each region has to offer, and offering a country of culinary styles that are varied enough to please any palate.

From the eastern Alsace region which borders Germany, we can enjoy such tasty eats as quiche, a savory single-crust tart with a cheese custard-like filling studded with bacon, ham or shellfish and often vegetables as well.  Choucroute also hails from this region, a platter of cabbage cooked in wine along with several different sausages and/or cuts of pork, potatoes and carrots, seasoned with juniper berries and herbs.  Some wonderful beers are crafted in this region as well; and speaking of beverages, nestled right in between Paris and the Alsace region of France is the origin of bubbling happiness from the Champagne region.

Traveling a bit further south along the eastern border, such delicacies from Switzerland grace the French table, including fondue, the perfect pairing of melted cheeses and crusty baguette.

To the south, France shares some of its border with Italy, and both nations engage in Mediterranean cookery that includes key ingredients such as olives, tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, herbs, seafood and what many of us would call summer vegetables, such as zucchini, peppers and eggplant.  Provence is the crowning mecca of this region, giving rise to ratatouille, a vegetable stew, as well as a seafood stew called bouillabaisse, aioli which is a garlicky mayonnaise best enjoyed as a dip for vegetables, and pistou which is actually the French form of pesto.  Soupe au pistou is basically a soup of summer vegetables that is served with a topping of pistou.

Spain borders the southwest corner of France.  From here we enjoy spicy sausages, tomatoes and peppers. One well-known comforting dish of this area is the cassoulet, featuring sausages and white beans.

The Burgundy region offers many of the dishes that our minds evoke when we think of French cooking, such as boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin and chicken Dijon, all of which are entrees cooked with wine, the stellar ingredient that is vastly produced in this area.

With the Atlantic Ocean washing over the western shores, oysters are an abundant indulgence in France.  The west coast is also teeming with mushrooms and truffles.  The western region of Normandy produces apples for cider and for Calvados, as well as Camembert cheese. 

Finally as we move inward we traverse through Auvergne, home of some renowned cheeses including Bleu d’Auvergne; and the Brittany region where crepes are prepared in many a kitchen.

To summarize, each region of France has something special to showcase, a starring ingredient that is utilized in the kitchen to full advantage.  Foods are chosen and prepared according to what the local market has to offer in its particular climate.

I now pass along to you a recipe for ratatouille.  While many of us cannot take in the suggestion of this dish without visions of a certain cute animated rodent sharing the nomenclature dancing in our heads, this is one of the simplest French dishes to prepare.  It is versatile, in that it can be served in a number of presentations, and it can be very flexible in its ingredients.  Don't have a zucchini on hand, but have a couple of yellow squash in your fridge?  No problem.  Got a red bell pepper instead of a green one?  Use that.  As long as you have the requisite squash-eggplant-tomato-onion-bell pepper combination, it will be comforting and delicious.  It is also very rustic in its preparation; vegetables can simply be coarsely chopped into chunks rather than taking the time to finely and uniformly cut the ingredients.  The following is a slight variation on my mother's basic recipe for ratatouille.  Some other variations and serving suggestions will follow, but always start with this base recipe.

Ratatouille

Ingredients:

1 coarsely chopped onion

4 chopped cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 eggplant, unpeeled, cut into large cubes

2-3 tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 zucchini, sliced crosswise

1 large green bell pepper, coarsely chopped

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons fresh oregano, chopped

2 teaspoons fresh basil, chopped

First, sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil in a Dutch oven.  Then add the eggplant cubes and sauté.  Once the eggplant begins to brown, add all remaining ingredients.  Simmer for about one hour, uncovered, stirring occasionally.  For a soupier texture, cover the pot while simmering.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Serves 3-4.

The ratatouille can be served as is, alongside a main dish.  Another option is to serve it over pasta. 

Ratatouille can also be served as a main vegetarian dish in the following presentation:

Make the ratatouille.  Saute four bags of fresh spinach until cooked. Arrange the spinach on three plates.   Meanwhile, broil three portabello mushroom caps until they start to brown.  Place one mushroom cap in the center of each plate, right on top of the bed of spinach.  Ladle the ratatouille over the mushroom cap and spinach.

Here is another interesting twist:

Make the ratatouille.  During the last 20 minutes of simmering, add one can of chick peas, drained and rinsed, and also half of a cup of kalamata olives.  When ready to serve, ladle the ratatouille over couscous.

Lastly, if you have a husband like mine who simply must have his meat, here is a main dish compromise that will satisfy the meat lover in your life: 

Before sautéing the onions and garlic, first brown six chicken drumsticks in the olive oil until browned on all sides.  Remove.  Saute the onions and garlic, then the eggplant.  When adding all of the remaining ingredients, add the drumsticks as well, cover the pot and simmer until the juices from the chicken run clear when poked with a fork.  

For a change, you could substitute six Italian sausages for the chicken drumsticks, following the same order of cooking as in the chicken recipe above.  This would pair well served over pasta.

Cooking up a pot of ratatouille is an opportune way in which to use up the influx of harvested summer vegetables that begin taking over your counter at the end of the season.

While the cooking of France is diversified and delicious, if I had to be completely honest, I think that this virtual tug of war will be tied to the bitter end, as I will always equally embrace the tasty ingredients, enticing aromas, culinary cultures and oh so heavenly dishes that both the French and Italian tables alike have to offer.

The Harvest Moon: Ingredients for Quick Winter Eats

As the harvest moon brings cooling winds and falling leaves, you might be surveying the garden plots abundant with vegetables. It will soon be time to gather them all and whisk them indoors to safety from that first frost. Once you hear that foreboding prediction from your local meteorologist, you suddenly find your kitchen counter concealed by a blanket of freshly harvested tomatoes, squashes, basil, peppers and perhaps even fruits and pumpkins. This is a golden opportunity to stock up your freezer and your pantry. By cooking up batches of culinary delights from your garden ingredients, you will have the makings of some quick weekday meals to enjoy during the winter months.

When a frost is imminent, gather all of the tomatoes from the garden, even the green ones. Tomatoes will ripen indoors, simply place the green specimens into paper bags and place the bag into a cupboard or closet for several days, checking on them periodically. Once ripened, the best use for an overabundance of tomatoes is to make a marinara pasta sauce. Anyone with an Italian grandmother has a family recipe. If you are not blessed with such a relation in your family tree, there are so many recipes out there for the basic Italian red "gravy". The ingredient list usually includes, but is not restricted to, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, parsley and a splash of red wine. Cook a couple of large stockpots of the sauce; then ladle into quart-sized plastic food storage containers and freeze. When you anticipate a hectic day ahead, take a container out to thaw in the refrigerator during the day. When you come home on one of those cold, dark winter evenings, all you'll have to do is boil some spaghetti, heat the sauce and you have an instant simple pasta meal. All you'll need with it is a salad, some wine, and dessert. The sauce can also be used for other dishes, such as eggplant or chicken parmesan. While you are playing in the kitchen, you can also make up a couple of trays of lasagna using some of the sauce. Have one tray that evening for dinner and freeze the other tray for a future meal, lasagna is a very freezer-friendly entree.

Pesto sauce is also ideal for making ahead and freezing for a rainy - or, in this case, snowy - day. Pesto is simply basil leaves, parsley, garlic, olive oil, grated parmesan cheese and pignoli nuts whirred together in a food processor. Once again, make several batches of this, spoon it into plastic food containers, top with a film of olive oil before covering, and freeze. Once thawed, boil some fusili pasta and toss the cooked pasta with the pesto sauce, another quick pasta dinner that will make your Italian family sing for their supper. Pesto is also excellent spread on the inside of bread for a pannini, on top of fish before roasting, and stirred into soups.

Many soups also freeze well. One favorite is to make a soup with some cut up vegetables, freeze; then when you're ready to enjoy it, add a little pasta or some tortellini when reheating, serve with a spoonful of the pesto sauce on top. I would recommend adding any pastas to your soups only at the time of reheating, otherwise the pasta tends to absorb all of the liquid of the soup. You can also use some vegetables to boil into some water with salt, pepper and seasonings of your choosing, strain, and the result will be a base vegetable stock which you can freeze for future use when making soups. Adding chicken during the boiling process will provide you with chicken broth. There are recipes for every kind of stock you will ever need to start a soup with when that warming comfort food craving strikes.

Other things you can prepare for storage in your pantry will require the purchase of some canning jars. Bell peppers can be easily turned into roasted pepper salad. Roast the peppers, let them cool, remove the peel and the seeds and tear into strips. Toss them into a homemade olive oil-balsamic vinaigrette and divide into the jars. Close the sealing lids, and you'll have roasted peppers all winter for use as a small side-dish salad, tossed into larger salads or pastas, as a filler for sandwiches or a topping for pizzas.

If you have harvested berries from your garden, make some homemade jam. There isn't much to making jam, and it can simmer in a large pot while you take care of other household tasks (like laundry or catching up on your e-mails). Once the jam is done, allow to cool to room temperature, ladle into canning jars and seal. You'll have the best and most natural topping for english muffins or scones for Sunday breakfast with your family, only a pantry door away. Another nice use would be stirred into plain yogurt, or warmed to drizzling consistency and spooned over ice cream.

Turn zucchini and pumpkins into tasty sweet breads. I have a recipe for my grandmother's pumpkin-nut bread which yields two loaves. We eat one fresh and warm the day it comes out of the oven, the other loaf I freeze for when we want an afternoon treat one winter's afternoon in front of a DVD. Zucchini bread and pumpkin bread both freeze well. Of course remember to save a few pumpkins for fall decoration and jack-o-lantern carving, a festive seasonal sentry for your front door.

If you have achieved an enthusiastic green thumb, one aspect of kitchen gardening can be enjoyed all year from your kitchen window. Herbs are very simple to grow, and add a fresher, superior flavor to dishes than their store-bought dried counterparts. If you have a sunny window sill in your kitchen, plant four to six herbs which you use most often. You can satiate your gardening needs all winter long, and benefit from that fresh herb taste in your cooking.

Finally, you may as well cook up a batch of harvest for your dinner tonight. A ratatouille is essentially a French vegetable stew, the basic ingredients being eggplant, zucchini, onion, garlic, tomato and bell pepper, plus some herbs. It makes an excellent side dish accompaniment to any meat. It is also good as a main dish when browned chicken pieces then simmer in the stew with the vegetables. Serve ratatouille over a couple of grilled portobello mushrooms, or over pasta or couscous and you have an excellent vegetarian dish. You can also add any other ingredients to the basic recipe that your creative genius comes up with: chick peas, olives, Italian sausages, saffron, whatever you find in your pantry. It's a very flexible dish, and it's a colorful way to serve up some of those harvested late summer veggies.

By devoting an autumn day to harvesting and cooking, you can be rewarded into the winter months with some nutritious and flavorful treats, courtesy of your last summer's garden. You will know exactly what ingredients went into your pasta sauce or pumpkin dessert bread. Knowing this fact and knowing that you grew the vegetables and fruits yourself make all of the above ideas comfort foods in themselves that will warm your soul as the flavors transport you back to sunny days spent toiling in your garden. By the time you eat your way through that stash of harvest goodies, it will be time to begin reflecting and planning next summer's garden!