SWISS_CHEF

That's the way I do it. I put the rinced and dried fries in cold oil (50/50 peanut oil and canola) and turn the heat to medium. Don't touch them for a long time then when they stop blowing a water vapor (that's the secret) then crank them up to high until brown. High water content in the potatoes makes them limp. This method works every time for me. Edit: Note I am using European potatoes. Try it with Yukon Gold in the US and let me know how it works. Second edit: I never use new oil.

We just wanted to say thanks for viewing our mini-blog and we hope you will visit the Franche-Comté some day. We are sure you will love it. Ed and Melanie

Hi Bleudauvergne, You can see a great recipe here. I would love to see pictures of your version! Enjoy!

TARTE AU FROMAGE Serves 10 as Appetizeror 6 as Main Dish. For the pastry dough: 250 g (2 cups) all purpose flour, 125 g (4 1/2 oz) butter or margarine, 1/2 glass of water, 1/2 tsp salt For the filling: 250 g (1/2 lb) comté cheese, 50 g (1/4 cup) butter, 25 cl (1 cup) milk, 10 cl (3 1/2 oz) heavy cream, 1 T flour, 3 eggs salt, pepper, nutmeg 1. Prepare the pastry, gently combine all the ingredients without over mixing, form pastry into a ball and let sit for 1.5 hours, roll it and fit pastry loosely into a greased pie mold and paint the edge of the crust with an egg yolk wash. 2. For the filling, melt the butter slowly, add the flour, then the milk and cook a few minutes, stirring constantly until thick. 3. Off the heat add the grated cheese, the heavy cream, beaten eggs salt, pepper and nutmeg and mix. Pour into the uncooked pastry shell. 4. Bake in a warm oven (400 F) for 45 minutes, until pie is firm and golden. From the thread: A visit to the wines and food of the Jura Keywords: Appetizer, Brunch, Tart, Main Dish, Cheese, French, Side, Lunch, Easy, Dinner ( RG1223 )

TARTE AU FROMAGE Serves 10 as Appetizeror 6 as Main Dish. For the pastry dough: 250 g (2 cups) all purpose flour, 125 g (4 1/2 oz) butter or margarine, 1/2 glass of water, 1/2 tsp salt For the filling: 250 g (1/2 lb) comté cheese, 50 g (1/4 cup) butter, 25 cl (1 cup) milk, 10 cl (3 1/2 oz) heavy cream, 1 T flour, 3 eggs salt, pepper, nutmeg 1. Prepare the pastry, gently combine all the ingredients without over mixing, form pastry into a ball and let sit for 1.5 hours, roll it and fit pastry loosely into a greased pie mold and paint the edge of the crust with an egg yolk wash. 2. For the filling, melt the butter slowly, add the flour, then the milk and cook a few minutes, stirring constantly until thick. 3. Off the heat add the grated cheese, the heavy cream, beaten eggs salt, pepper and nutmeg and mix. Pour into the uncooked pastry shell. 4. Bake in a warm oven (400 F) for 45 minutes, until pie is firm and golden. From the thread: A visit to the wines and food of the Jura Keywords: Appetizer, Brunch, Tart, Main Dish, Cheese, French, Side, Lunch, Easy, Dinner ( RG1223 )

The Morel of the Story. The Franche-Comté has more than it's share of fir trees which the famous morel mushroom tends to favor. Consequently the morel is a very important ingredient to the local cuisine. The fir tree is very important locally too because it is used to smoke the local meats. Cheese Please: Other than Comté there is a wide variety of cheeses to choose from in the Franche-comté, here you will find a quick run down of the local cheeses. Let's Meat in the Franche-comté: Saucisse de Morteau is a pork sausage and like the Jambon de Luxeuil it is smoked in fir wood, for at least 48 hours. Saucisse de Montbéliard is made from pork, cumin, nutmeg, garlic and white wine and smoked in fir wood. Jambon de Luxeuil. This cured ham is soaked in salt water and juniper berrries then smoked with firtree sawdust and dried. Brési is salted beef, smoked and dried for three months, it is similar Breseola. Served as appetizer or with fondues and raclettes dishes, sliced paper thin.

Next time wear knit sweaters and wash them in the bathroom sink along with your underwear and dry them on the radiators just like everyone else in Paris! Tourists!

I know it is very hard to find the Jura wines outside of the region. I suggest you try making a 'faux' Vin Jaune with a mixture of very dry sherry and a touch of dry riesling. Ok, a true Comtoise would laugh but honestly it makes a good substitute I have done it myself! Heck, it's better than nothing!

Hi Ludja, No these are not like Vin Jaune...they are fortified wines like Port. We opened three Macvins for this thread. All three were very different. Macvin is made over a very wide area and are made from Chardonnay, Savagnin and even Rosé wines fortified with Marc. This results in very different tasting wines. Each of our Macvins was very different from the other.... which was the best??? Every one of them was good. We did pick one over the rest, but it really is a matter of personal choice. The best advice I have is to go there and try some for yourself. The question is kind of like asking "who makes the best barbecue in the US"? Ed

Now, on to the main course! First the bird.. notice the length of the middle leg bone on these free range French chickens! All cut up and ready for the frying pan... Three pans going at once...stock, onions and chicken... I pan seared the chicken first in small batches then added it to the sautéd onions and then added some stock and Vin Jaune... Finally everything was combined and the morels were added. Everything was cooked over a VERY low heat for about two hours. Then I removed the chicken and reduced the stock...then at the last minute I added some heavy cream. Here s the final product... We served it with a melange of three different kinds of rice (red, white and wild) and fresh asparagus. The whole house smells fantastic at the moment! A final close up... The Chateau l'Etoile was bone dry with a touch of the characteristic maderized flavor you find in the Jura wines. We used 3/4 of the bottle of 1998 Vin Jaune in the chicken dish but managed to drink the rest. Vin Jaune is such an unusual wine, this one was as dry as the l'Etoile but heavier and more powerful by far and it also had that touch of maderization. It seems to me that these wines would both go well with a blue cheese, perhaps a Bleu de Gex or even a Morbier which are both local cheeses.

It's Sunday! The day we have all been waiting for. Today we will cook the Poularde au Vin Jaune et aux Morilles. But first the Tarte au Comté that we didn't make yesterday. First we made a pie shell: Then we filled it: almost done.. And finally the finished product.... God this was good!!! We followed this recipe to the gram but cut it by 1/3rd

After the apero we moved on to the Feuilleté Comtois au Jambon. We have never encountered this dish in our travels of the Franche-comtè so we have to follow the recipe on this one. The recipe did not say if we should use dried ham or fresh so we decided to make two versions and use both. first we wrapped the Comté cheese with the ham. Then wrap the ham and cheese in pastry and paint with egg yolk. 20 minutes in the oven and voila! Even better when you cut into them! We decided we liked the version made with the fresh ham better than the one with the dried ham. The dried ham made it too salty. With the Feuilleté Comtois au Jambon we tried two wines. The first was the Arbois Rouge 1999 from Auguste Piroi 12.5% which we found to be young and fruity but lacking power. The second wine was the Arbois Pupillin Rouge 'Cuvée Générations' 1999 from Désiré Petit 12.5% which was wonderful! Very light in color but it packed loads of flavor and had a beautiful nose. We are saving some of each to try over the next 24 hours. We were supposed to make a Tarte au Fromage but it is after six pm and we so full from the apero and the Feuilleté Comtois au Jambon we don't think we can manage another course. We will try to make it tomorrow to have as an apero for the Poularde aux Morilles. Sorry to let you down.

The Apero: Ok, all of the yard work is finished and we have moved on to more pleasant things! We decided to make a little apero after all of our hard work so here are some of the pictures: From left to right are; toast points, pate de campagne and cornichons, confiture de groseilles, saucissons with hazelnuts and pickled onions and quail's eggs on sea salt, Comté cheese and grapes and of course two of the famous Macvin wines. A closer view: What is remarkable is the difference between the color of the two Macvins, the yellowish cloudy one is a 2000 from La Maison du Vigneron in Lons-Le-Saunier and the darker one is an nonvintage from Fruitière Vinicole d'Arbois in Arbois. Both were good but we liked the Arbois better.

The Food of the Franche-Comté I would like to give you a quick run down of the most popular dishes and the easiest way to do that is for you to visit this site that gives you a nice sampling of the most famous dishes (including recipes) of the region. We will cook the Tarte au Fromage and Feuilleté Comtois au Jambon today and tomorrow our big Sunday meal will be Poularde aux Morilles The Wine of the Franche-Comté A great site for learing about the wines of the Franche-Comté is here. Today with the Tarte au Fromage and the Feuilleté Comtois au Jambon we will try an Arbois Rouge 1999 from Auguste Piroi 12.5% and an Arbois Pupillin Rouge 'Cuvée Générations' 1999 from Désiré Petit 12.5%. Tomorrow we will drink a Chateau l'Etoile 'Cuvée des Ceps d'or' 2000 13.5% and a 1998 Vin Jaune from Maison du Vigneron 14.5%. We will use some of the Vin Jaune in the making of the chicken dish. That's it for now, Melanie says I have to go do some yard work!

Thank you all for your very kind words! Actually, I have never made this chicken before...mushrooms either. I just invented it because I wanted to use the traditional ingredients of the Jura. It really is not a dish from the region....its sort of a quick 'version SWISS_CHEF' ! What will follow this weekend will be a proper 'Poularde de Bresse au Vin Jaune et aux Morilles' where I will take us step by step through the classical preparation of the dish. The dish is so important to the region that they even have a club called 'Confrérie de la poularde aux morilles et au vin jaune'! The flavor of the morels and the vin jaune are really super together. More about the wines of the region to come also. Ed

15 years ago my wife and I managed to put together a pretty good cellar of about 1500 bottles, about a third of that was first growth Bordeaux and top drawer Burgundies from the 50's, 60's and early 70's. There was never a shortage of people interested in tasting with us but almost no one brought along wines that matched ours. After a while this became a drag and we found that most of the people that covet the first growth wines are incredibly annoying. So rather than charge a fee and continue to be subjected to all of the fops we decided to sell all of our 'super' wines (we had more than we could drink anyway) and just concentrated on finding really fun and interesting wines at a great price and share them with our closer friends.....we have never looked back!

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and I am very glad to see some of you know and love the mostly undiscovered Franche-Comté! We thought we would intersperse our tour with some of our own personal cooking experiments. This is our first lunch of the tour using some of the traditional ingredients of the Franche-Comté that we bought yesterday. Fresh morels, free range chicken and Comté cheese. The lunch that Melanie and I have just finished was actually quite simple. It was breasts of free range chicken baked with jambon seché and Comté cheese....tempura morels and lentils du puy. First let's start the lentils because they take the longest: Nothing more than onions, bacon, white wine and lentils. Cook onions and bacon until they start to brown a little. Now add some wine to deglaze and reduce and add lentils and some water and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook over medium heat until the lentils ate tender which depends on the kind of lentils you use. Just keep testing them and add more water if you need to. The aroma these lentils produce is so beautiful and typically French. Now on to the chicken... Take two chicken breasts and pound then out to about a centimeter thick. Place them on a cookie sheet and cover with the ham and slices of Comté cheese. About five or six minutes before you are ready to serve, pop them in to a hot oven until they are done. The morels are dead simple. Make a mixture of seasoned cornstarch and flour and mix with enough water to make a light batter. Dip the morels in the batter then drop them into the hot fat until they are lightly browned and crunchy. Plate everything and serve with a white wine from the Jura like Vin Jaune. The nutty flavors of the morels and the cheese go perfectly with the wine. And the lentils and bacon add a delicious earthy-smokiness to the combination. Dessert was simply a cheese course: On the left is a 3 year old Comté that literally flakes apart when it is cut, on the right is a two year old Comté. The 3 year old is much more potent and concentrated than the 2 year old.

Where is the Jura and the Franche-Comté? (Pronounced Frawnsh Com-tey) Our journey will include all of the Franche-Comté region of France including the Jura. Located in the eastern part of France, bordering Alsace to the north, Burgundy to the west, Rhone Alps to the south and Switzerland to the east. It is composed of four districts: The Jura, the Doubs, the Haut-Saone and Belfort. As you will see the Franche-Comté is rich in culinary and wine making history as well as cultural tradition. A map of the Franche-Comté

Hello everyone and welcome to our mini-blog on the wines and food of the Jura and the Franche-Comté! My name is Ed and my wife Melanie and I have had a little love affair with the Franche-Comté region of France for many years now. For those of you that don't know this region of Eastern France prepare yourselves for a culinary journey into an area that is as rich in culinary history as any place in France. The food is totally unique to France and the wines even more so. This will be a journey into the very heart of French cooking and wine making. Ask any French person....they will smile and tell you how wonderful this region is. The wines are quite uncommon, they have an almost Madeira like quality. The most famous wine of the region is Vin Jaune and a quick google search will tell you more than I could ever hope to tell. So, fasten your seat belts…because today we made a trip to Belfort and Montbéliard in the Northern section of the Franche-Comté and stocked up the larder with free-range chickens, fresh morel mushrooms and a dozen bottles of the Jura's finest wines. The batteries are charged in the digital camera and we are ready to go!

Oh now I have a project! Thanks Jackal!

I have to admit, I have not made a paté in a very long time because I shop across the border in France and they always have a simple country paté for €2.50/kilo. It is delicious and everyone loves it and for that price I couldn't be bothered to make it. Besides, when I make it myself I hate to see how much fat goes into a good paté. Never be scared to buy the cheap paté from a French grocery store.

Hi JC, I have been contacted by several people asking me to send them some pans directly from Switzerland and the factory has agreed to let me do this. The prices for Nanopans are as follows for a 28 cm (11 inch) pan. $105 + postage for the 4.5 cm (1.75 inch) deep $115 + postage for 7.5 cm (3 inch) deep Smaller pans are available so let me know if you are interested. You can pay via pay pal and I will only charge actual postage no extra handling. One note: I am pushing for a lower price schedule when we bring them to the States because of the weak dollar. If the factory agrees then the pans may be slightly cheaper when they hit the States. The prices I am quoting are based on Swiss prices figured on the current exchange rate. Regards, Ed

Thanks for that Scott! Best information yet in my opinion.

Cooking on TV begins and ends with Julia! What's the matter with you people???

Hi Scott, Thanks for your additional posts. Your comments have been very helpful to this topic. I wanted to mention the medical use of Teflon/PTFE because in our discussion there has been some concern about ingesting Teflon/PTFE peelings and I see there seems to be no reason to worry about that. I would have to agree with the eGullet comments....there are other things we could heat/burn that might be considerably more dangerous to us. Some natural (like chile peppers or mustard) and some man made. We have to be rational about these things and quit assuming that everything that is man made will kill us. Teflon/PTFE has been produced for 40 years and has been used in billions of frying pans. I have yet to find even one confirmed human death (or even a permanent injury) due to Teflon/PTFE used during cooking. Hundreds of thousands of us die every year in automobiles but I wonder how many of are willing to give up driving? Regards, Ed