zeitoun
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Posts posted by zeitoun
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To sort of echo what has been already stated, brunch on sundays is almost becoming a parisian institution amongst certain circles, to the point that it has even become part of the parisan lingo "aller bruncher". I remember seeing the first brunch menus appear in the early 90s in Paris. I do not know if it is as popular or even exists "en province" though.
As Ptipois pointed out, there are a number of spots in the Marais district that offer pretty good brunches, one particularly that is located not too far from "L'as du Falafel" on Rue des Rosiers. It's name escapes me though..
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I'm afraid it can. A "tartine" is a slice of bread with something on it, spreadable of not, as opposed to a "sandwich" (French meaning), with two slices or pieces of bread around a filling. Therefore a tartine is really an open sandwich (with slabs of pâté, ham, slices of cheese, or more sophisticated toppings). Even if the original meaning of the word involved some kind of spreading, this is not essential to a tartine.
I always thought a tartine was initially meant to designate a spread of butter on bread and that the term had expanded to include other "spreadable" ingredients such as nutella, jam, honey etc...(thus the word "tartiner" in french which comes to designate only the act of "spreading"???)
I guess one learns everyday,
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This is what I found on yourdictionary.com:
"tar·tine
n.
A French open-faced sandwich, especially one with a rich or fancy spread.
[French, from Old French, diminutive of tarte, tart]"
I don't mean to rewrite the history of "tartines" or be picky
but I think this definition is a bit misleading. IMHO not any ingredient on top a piece of bread makes a tartine. If that ingredient is soft enough to be "spreadable" (with a knife or spoon or whatever else) then it is a tartine. This is why, as you correctly pointed out, some open-faced poilane sandwiches you may have seen wouldn't be listed as "tartines".
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I read he was going to open one in New York.
I know he plans to open something in Paris, but in NY!??!?
Where did you read this? -
many cafes serve tartines and open-faced pain poilane sandwiches (even if they're not listed as tartines)
This is actually an important precision about "tartines", a "tartine" refers to a "spread" rather and not necessarily an open faced sandwich. "Tartiner" in french means "to spread".
Correct me if i'm wrong but if the spreading of anything "spreadable" on top of bread such as butter, jam, rillettes, tapenade etc..is not involved, then it cannot be called a "tartine".
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but you say "flagship" which would assume he had a fleet of restaurants.
A poor translation of "un de ses restaurants phare"
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I have read one or two articles suggesting that Marc Veyrat was thinking of closing one of his flagship restaurants (La Ferme de mon Pere in Megeve). Is it true? Would this mean that this season's closing in April might be the very last at his restaurant? Was there any more recent information released that would shed more light on this?
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I don't recall seeing restaurants that serve nothing but tartines on my trips to France. I was told by a woman that she had seen "lots and lots of them allover France. These cute little mom and pop restos that serve nothing but tartines." Maybe I'm not as observant as I thought, but I don't recall seeing any in Paris or Lyon and points in between. I also tend to not look out for such food, so maybe I did indeed walk past "lots and lots of them." This woman claimed that they were allover Paris as well. I asked my husband about this and he says he's never seen them either, he thought maybe it's a new fast food chain or something. Neither of us have a recollection of seeing even one.
I have lived close to 20 years in Paris and i've never even heard of it!?!??!? I might be stretching it a little too far but may be she got confused with Tartine et Chocolat? The kids clothing stores
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Zeitoun-
We can discuss all manner of "sambousek" or "Fatayer", hence the subtitle.
For the cheese ones, ideally and that's what my grandmother uses exclusively, I like to use the fresh curd cheese known as Arisha. However, you really cannot buy this here easily and you might not want to make your own. An excellent substitute is crumbly Feta cheese mixed with a little Kashkaval or Greek Kesari (sp?) cheese or any other sharp melting cheese. I thought about trying a good dry ricotta or even cottage cheese but have not gotten to it yet. I mix in some cayenne, chopped onions, pepper, salt (unless the cheese is salty) and chopped parsley into the filling as well. These like I mentioned before I prefer fried, but baked is also good.
For the Spinach ones, I like chopped spinach (duh!
), chopped walnuts or pecans, pinenuts, a good doze of pomegranate molasses, salt, and plenty of black pepper. These are usually formed into traingular shapes, which I am sure you know, and baked.What do you prefer?
Elie
edit: typo
Interesting variations you have there, i am not sure i had Arisha in sambousek or may be i did and i just didn't know it, is it standard in lebanon? I always thought it was feta mixed with something else.
When we did cheese sambousek at home, my father used to add a french touch to it by mixing feta and blue cheese (bleu d'auvergne or roquefort) together, along with onions, parsley, salt and pepper of course. There is something about blue and feta cheese that when they are mixed together blends so well, he actually did the same thing with "raq'aq'at" or "rakakat" the fried cheese stuffed fillo rolls. I personally also like to moisten my crumbled cheese with a little bit of olive oil just to make the flavors rounder before they are baked.
For spinach ones I use rough chopped spinach (not too much i like it a little stringy actually), toasted pinenuts, finely minced onion, pomagranate molasses, salt pepper and to add a little more tanginess (of course
) a light sprinkle of sumac and drops of either lemon or white wine vinegar. -
Thanks for the tutorial and pictures Elie this looks fantastic!
Although we are talking meat pies here I am curious to know which ingredients you use and how you prepare your fillings when you make sambousek bil jibn - cheese filled sambousek or fatayer bil sbenagh - spinach filled fatayer.
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Being in the kitchen period is therapeutic
But if i had to chose, some of my favorites are:
kneading dough (any dough), cutting brunoise, cutting through a whole fish especially taking fillets out of the smaller ones like sardines or red mullet, monter a sauce with butter, trimming small vegetables such as baby carrots or turnips, rutabagas etc...trimming meats...
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I haven't been to places like Daniel, Peter Luger or 11 Madison frequently enough to claim that each is overated. I have been to each at some point in the past 3-4 years (and nowhere more than twice) and was never impressed with either one of my meals. I would not say that I was unimpressed to the point point that I would never go back. I had good meals but they were never fantastic.
So far, there are two NY restaurants that really come to mind which despite all the attention and praise they have received, have been in my eyes extremely disapointing. And I have to date no desire whatsoever to try them again, even if it was for a free:
71 Clinton Fresh food (under Jason Neroni) - Everything my guests and I sampled there was close to abominable, I thought the food was absolutely pretentious and the flavors completely off. I remember having a main course of braised beef short ribs which consisted of a mush or shred (couldn't tell) of short rib meat piled up on the center of my plate, no veggies, barely any sauce, just a huge inedible mess. Service was close to incompetent.
Cafe des Artistes (under Ari Nieminen) - I can't get over the fact that people generally are in awe when they first see the dining room. I personally found it dark, gloomy, almost kitsch even? My only meal there was profoundly uninspiring and in a nutshell I was basically given diner size portions of less than mediocre quality food and ingredients. Coming from a chef who had previously worked under David Burke, I was expecting much more effort and creativity.
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Greg Short? Anyone knows what happened to Richard Reddington?????
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I am not a big fan of cupcakes to begin with, so when i started coming across so many people raving about magnolia bakery cupcakes a few years ago, i decided to give it a shot, hoping it would make a convert out of me.
Frankly, i just cannot tell the difference between those cupcakes and the ones that can be purchased packaged in my office cafeteria's vending machine. I decided to give cupcakes a pass, indefinitely.
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Not sure where you are in provence but you could maybe try contacting La Bastide de Moustiers. I've never been and don't know if they cater, just heard good things about it through a friend who lives in Marseilles.
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Just to add on to this comment, one of Peru's most popular form of cuisine is called "chifa" (origin of the word?) which is essentially a style of Peruvian-Chinese fusion food which developped in the country with the arrival of the first chinese immigrants in the late 19th to early 20th century. I have never had it myself but on a trip to Lima a couple of years ago I recall seeing "chifa" restaurants literaly everywhere. Apparently, chifa is extremely popular in Peru (probably more so along the coast) and from what I understand an intricate part of Peru's present culinary heritage.
Here is the website of one such restaurant located in Lima.
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Zeitoun - do you happen to know off hand where the Jamaican place on Livingston is? There's one that's in the back of a CD/jewelry shop which is OK, but they have shrink-wrapped coco bread. An integral part of the patty experience is the coco bread - a reason I love Christie's in Flatbush so much. (I used to buy their coco bread to eat as a snack itself, or, to use as the bun in homemade jerk hamburgers, pressed ham & cheese sandwiches, breakfast scrambled egg/chouriço/manchego sandwiches, etc.)
I'm definitely on a Jamaican kick today and would like to check this place out - otherwise, I might try out Coal Pot Cuisine on Bridge St.
I was actually out there last week, the place is called "New Fruit" and they are located on the south sidewalk between Nevins and Bond streets (closer to Nevins). They have a whole variety of patties but the beef ones are in my opinion the best ones they offer. Their coco bread is good too.
They also sell a really good sorrel/ginger juice, a bit pricey ($3 i think) but worth the money.
And on another day check out their stews, they're not bad either.
I like your sandwich ideas, i think i'll have to steal that idea and include it in my snack repertoire
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So your wife makes Lebanese? My wife makes Algerian? It's a beautiful world!
My wife loooooves middle eastern food. I'm so glad that her and I have so much in common in terms of what we like foodwise. I was brought up eating lots of mediterranean type foods and being from japan she ate lots of japanese homefood, strangely we seem to have the same palate!?!?
But back to the topic of this discussion, I normally eat my lentil soup lukewarm to hot, just my personal taste.
I'm very curious to know what are the different ways of preparing lentil soup in North Africa?
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My way of doing it is fairly standard in lebanon. The only difference is maybe the potatoes which not everyone uses.
Here it goes:
I start by cooking green lentils in a pot in light brown stock (or water if stock is not available), and add my chopped chard stems after the lentils come to a boil.
Potatoes are added maybe 1/3 into the total lentil cooking time (I play it by ear, it depends on how big my pieces are) and chard leaves about 2/3 into it.
I generally cover while I simmer the whole thing. I personally like to slightly overcook my lentils and I tend to mix the lentils frequently while it cooks to break them up a little. The potatoes will also help thicken the soup a little, and by stirring a lot I am looking for a thick consistency.
In a separate pan, heat chopped onions and garlic and chopped cilantro in a fair amount of olive oil, let cool and add lots of lemon juice to it (depends on how sour you like it, i like mine really sour) + salt/pepper. The lemon/oil mixture is combined with the cooked lentils before it is served and voila...
I generally like to add croutons to my soup and (of course what else) more freshly squeezed lemon juice if I think it is not sour enough it never is usually
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Peruvian places in NY seem to really know how to prepare their rotisserie chicken well, with a moist and tasty flesh and crispy skin.
This NYT article has created a stir in the BBQ/Roti community; seems difficult to find a recipe for 'Peruvian chicken' - one with soy sauce and bird well 'Jaccarded'...
Here's one recipe...
Any others?
Interesting, the Newyorkmetro article which featured news of Mancora's Smith St. opening 3 years ago had this to say about their chicken:
It's gotten to the point where you can't think of rotisserie chicken without acknowledging the superiority of the rapidly multiplying-and cheap- Peruvian-style roasted birds marinated in beer and rubbed with a spice mix more closely guarded than Colonel Sanders's.I emphasized beer because that is really news to me!!
For those of you who are spanish speakers, there is this really cool website on the history of Peruvian Pollo a la Brasa which also includes recipes.
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Another variety is Kala Namak (more info here) or black indian rock salt. I know one store that carries it here in NY but I haven't tried using it yet. It can be purchased either finely or roughly crushed (pebble size).
Edited to add: i personally use Morton kosher for cooking and either grey salt or fleur de sel as garnish
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In my neighborhood, Mancora is pretty good.
In my neighborhood too
(Smith st in brooklyn that is). Peruvian places in NY seem to really know how to prepare their rotisserie chicken well, with a moist and tasty flesh and crispy skin. When i don't feel like cooking, I usually order from mancora a whole chicken with rice and beans, plantain and fried yucca. All for around $15 i think. I'm not too crazy about their ceviches but they also make really good tamales.edit to correct the price!!
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The likes of Hippopotamus and Buffalo Grill have to be avoided at all costs. They're dreadful, IMO.
I wonder if anyone still eats at Buffalo Grill after the mad cow related scandal that made the news in January of 2003. Is it even still in business?
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I also get the impression that ADNY and Per Se seem to be considered neck and neck, if you will.
There is no doubt that those two restaurants are the most serious contenders. I am not too familiar with the history behind the awarding of Michelin stars but isn't it rare (or impossible) to see a restaurant receive three stars less than two years into its opening? Could this be a factor in not awarding three stars to Per Se?
Brunch in Paris
in France: Dining
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Not quite American food everywhere, some places have developed a more "frenchified" version of brunch by offering all sorts of petits pains with butter and jam, viennoiseries, charcuteries, saumon fumé, yogurt, cereals or fresh fruits. Although it remains American in concept, i would say that in some Parisian cafés or salons de thé, brunch is developing its own French identity.