Louisa Chu

A few words of warning: don't eat in France. Here, we think it's a blessing, a god damn gift, if someone throws a bit of bacon into a turkey sandwich. Caul fat? Bring it on. Potatoes? Goose fat baby. No wonder French chefs hate Americans.

Egads! I can guarantee you that it was not caul but in fact caul fat. Caul fat is in fact a lacy, webby membrane that lines the abdominal cavity, around the stomach. Usually from pigs, sheep and sometimes cows. It is not the intestines. And it is certainly not the same as caul - which is the membrane around a fetus. For more discussion on those kind of recipes, check out the post partum thread. But caul fat is great. It virtually melts completely away during cooking and imparts a slight, rich flavour. And yes, I think that if you have certain objections to certain foods you should ask first. If you've eaten a hot dog, you've eaten worse than caul fat. Now caul, that's a whole other ball game.

Somewhere else - chez moi. I just made this dish last week. Here's the recipe. It's written in my shorthand so if you need any clarification please feel free to ask. Why the interest in Chasellas grapes? Not that common here in France. And not quite grape season at the moment. CAILLES RÔTIES AUX RAISINS, PAILLASSON DE LÉGUMES ROASTED QUAIL WITH GRAPES, SHREDDED VEGETABLE PANCAKES Serves 4 Principal ingredients 4 good-sized quails, plucked & cleaned keeping the neck and wings separately Forcemeat (stuffing) Quail livers 30 g fattened goose foie gras, diced ½ onion grapes (fresh grapes in season or golden raisins/sultanas) fresh breadcrumbs 1 tsp Port wine 1 tsp armagnac 1 sprig thyme butter salt, pepper Jus Poultry wings or poultry carcasses Chicken stock Salt, freshly ground white pepper Grapes or golden raisins (sultanas) Vegetable pancakes 1 kg potatoes 150 g carrots 110 g turnips oil or clarified butter Jus. Chop wings, heat pan/oil hot, brown very well. French quail legs, wings. Loosen skin from neck over breast, remove wishbone, expose shoulders, loosen breast meat from carcass, scissor out carcass, gut/reserve livers. Add all bones to jus pan. Stuffing. Heat pan/oil/butter hot, fine chop onion, sweat. Small dice foie gras, add. Add quail livers, thyme leaves and mash. Add port and armagnace to deglaze then peeled grapes then breadcrumbs to texture. Taste/season, set aside to cool. Chinois bones to defat pan as needed. Reheat pan hot, mash grapes in to deglaze pan some, then bones back and water just to cover/deglaze well, reduce low. Stuff quail, truss. Heat pan/oil/butter hot, colour side, turn to other side, then bake about 5 minutes, then turn to back, bake about 10 minutes to clear thigh juice then rack/foil/rest. Chinois jus well, reduce as needed, skim, taste/season - add peeled grapes just before service. Trim/peel carrots, turnips, shred, blanche, refresh, drain well. Peel/shred potatoes – do not rinse – add carrots/turnips, season well, toss, set aside. Heat iron pan/oil/butter very hot, add squeezed dry mix, colour golden, turn, colour. Plate. Pancake, quail over, juice/grapes around.

Well that'll teach you.

La Provence or French Country Cafe both in Beverly Hills. Clementine in Century City. Urth in West Hollywood.

It's the "Double E" - the main one is in fact in Park City but there's a small one in the SLC airport too. And please. Greasy breakfasts? If only. It's for the time-share, red sweater crowd.

Oh Lesley. I have no fear of nougatine. I was ready to pounce that thing but just could not tame it. Just do not have the feel for it yet. And wine + nougatine would have surely killed me. I do not have your professional touch for hot sugar - nor tolerance for alcohol apparently. I finished the croquembouche today. And yes, be afraid, be very afraid. We had to share one pot of caramel between 2 students and 3 of my caramel-mate's fingers were covered in huge blisters from the nougatine work on Monday. Not good. I nearly slapped the girl - literally - because she was dipping in and out without looking. I'm sorry but an idiot - burned herself even again today. Otherwise an interesting experience and one I'd like to try again but with a dramatically different recipe and decoration. Ours was a classically French - of course - and we dipped the choux balls in caramel both to deco the face and again to stick - too much, too sweet - especially since the balls were a good, small size - too much caramel to the ratio of choux. And I was curtly informed that the sugar thread deco is quite out of fashion in France - that said while the chef piled on garish pulled sugar roses, leaves and ribbons. But 2 interesting bits of information extracted from my chef: he had no idea how it was served - I informed the class courtesy of Steve! Shocking as this chef was most recently the pastry chef at La Tour d'Argent. And once as a pastry chef in the French army he made several croquembouches in the shapes of helicopters. Only the French army.

I have a chef - at school - who was the chef de cuisine at Le Dome - in Paris, at their peak - as well as at the major hotels down in Nice and Monaco - who just made mussels for us the other day - La Mouclade - who says at home he prefers to make them by heating a pot very hot, adding his impeccably fresh and perfectly cleaned mussels - and nothing else - covering, steaming just until they open, turning them out onto a warm platter - carefully pouring out all the juice over.

hedgehog, what I meant was what's your obsession with them? I'm quite fond of them as well. Gerard Mulot! Another place where the service drives me insane - thanks for the tip.

Are you watching me! And do I detect a certain amount of evil glee? Saw them demo'ed for the first time today. My chef suggested starting with just leaves first and then lilies before progessing to roses - saying they're his favourite but the hardest to do as everyone knows what a rose looks like. Hmmm...perhaps I'll start with some rare Australian Outback desert blossoms... Back to the caramel. When you say grind it, do you mean robocoupe it? If that's the case it's not going to be possible for me to do that at school as we don't always have access to the machines. A great solution though when I do. We don't even always get to use the silpats! We had to work our nougatine right on the marble - having warmed it a bit first with the hot nougatine via the baking sheet it was on. Our chefs today - including a 23 year old guest chef from the Crillon - said that yes, the nougatine's professionally worked on silpat but that it was important for us the learn la methode ancienne which must have been a pre-Napoleonic form of torture. The nougatine recipe: Nougatine 750 g sugar 300 g glucose 375 g sliced almonds 275 g water Boil water, sugar then add glucose, cook to 170. Then add almonds, stir slow/well, then turn to greased baking sheet. Grease marble then warm then work nougatine until it holds to roll. The boy chef did also say he likes to lightly toast his almonds for colour and flavour. But no torches or metal rolling pins for us today. They break out the good stuff in Superior though. Oh and no fear whatsoever about shuttling it in and out of the oven - for hours! And can you believe that we have no library? I've been asking/demanding this very thing just recently. Will ask the chefs though. Thanks so much again for all your help.

nightscotsman I'm so relieved that the problem seems to be solved. There's nothing more vexing than this kind of thing. And your cannele travails now have me on that inevitable path back to Poujauran - ooh I just hate them. And hedgehog may I ask about your intensive familiarity with the canneles? They're an old-fashioned little cake not found much even in Paris. Thanks.

Reviving an old thread as I started a croquembouche today - the nougatine base that is. Sorry Steve but I vehemently beg to differ - tempering chocolate is a cakewalk compared to working with nougatine. Pate a choux, creme patissiere, caramel, no problem - but the nougatine just killed me today. A decription of our nougatine base: nougatine rolled to 3mm - molded in a tourte/cake mold, with a crown of "wolf's teeth"/small triangles around the top and bottom edges, glued with caramel, with 4 royal icing threads/ribbons suspended/draping between each triangle. A few questions please. I have inelegant caramel glue - gradations in colour. Steve, when you say make a large batch and then turn it out to cool, what does that mean? Turn it out onto an greased baking sheet? And then reheat each new batch in a clean pot each time? Merci beaucoup.

Thanks Steve. And I have the same questions as Michael. And as for my chef, he's in the homestretch. The competition's 2 weeks away and he's locked away in the private pastry chefs' kitchen almost exclusively now. He emerges occasionally to oversee the Superior Patisserie students. I will talk to him more after. And thank you for first informing me as to what an MOF is - that seems a lifetime ago. It led me to research the title and has allowed me to somewhat intelligently discuss it with my chef - and granted me a bit more of his confidence. He was surprised that I even knew what it was. Again thanks to you.

nightscotsman I haven't forgotten about your question. In fact it's haunting me! I have not had a chance to ask the other pastry chefs at school yet but will try again next week. The one whom I think would know is prepping for the MOF competition in 2 weeks and I have not been able to catch a free minute with him yet. I'm going to try to go over to Poujauran next week and ask. They don't make them in my local patisserie. And then there's Dorie Tuesday. There's got to be an answer!

Marc! I will not be able to attend either! School schedule change. I can change the reservation if you like. Will definitely see you all at the next gathering.

I stayed at nairns a few years ago but did not eat at the restaurant. I think there are only 4 or maybe just a couple more rooms in the townhouse above. Enormous, stylish rooms, each design unique. An electric kettle, good tea, turbino sugar, real cream, oat cakes, china, silver in each room. Fresh, generous breakfast in bed upon request. The rooms are not mentioned on their site so I can only hope they're still available. nairns restaurant Also stayed in a little inn just outside Fort William. Rooms were grim but the restaurant packed and happy. First haggis, fresh and hot. Sat by the window and saw what I thought was a raging river until the owner explained that it was the sea which rushes in and out.

Yes, just go and taste. Have your friend try the Beverly Hills Cheese Store. Generous and patient with samples. May also want to search/post on California board. As for Paris. I made bread today - for the first time - baguette, pain de mie, rye flour. Stopped at Marie Anne Cantin for cheese to celebrate. A 24 month aged Comte, a relatively fresh Rocamadour and a very ripe and creamy Epoisse. Bread, wine, cheese for dinner. The French trilogy.

About the fire, you're confusing the story, no Michelin stars were lost, that had nothing to do with it. On 27 December 1995, a fire broke out at the Restaurant Schillinger - Michelin two star, Colmar - killing Chef Jean Schillinger, 61, by smoke inhalation. Investigators determined it was arson but the crime went unsolved for almost three years. Rumors flew. Finally three young men were arrested. They did not know the chef was in the restaurant - they explained they just wanted to attack a symbol of the bourgeoisie. And yes, Chef Jean-Yves Schillinger is the son of the late Jean Schillinger. As for Vatel - fiction.

Green onions and cilantro, vegetables, yes, I'll grant you. But the way I like my broccoli, I don't think their molecular makeup qualifies them any longer as vegetables!

Hey, watchchit, Lou.! This almost sounds nutr itionally sound. Really?! That would be so cool! I could almost just live on white rice alone - and condiments of course. Carbs! Carbs! Carbs!

Hot sauce. And soy sauce. Favourite PMS meals. Big bowls of good white rice - basmati, calrose, short grain, doesn't matter, as long as it's good - smothered in senior citizen soft roasted broccoli, a fistful of green onions, a fistful of cilantro, soy sauce, hot sauce, lemon juice. Spicy, salty, sour carbs.

Asked one of the pastry chefs - Chef Pascal. He's only made them once so he warns that he's not an expert with this one - though I assure you he is with just about everything else. Described your problem - "C'est bizarre, non?!" - and thinks that you may want to cook your batter first a bit like a pate a choux. When he's seen them made the batter's been quite thick. I will ask some of the other chefs too. Pastry again tomorrow. Also, can you check out Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets? I think she has the Poujauran recipe in there. I'll be seeing her next week - gallery talk and book signing at La Hune - and will try to ask her then. More later this week. And kit your bees sound so cool!

Steve, thanks so much. Very interesting about mixing the white and the dark rather than using the milk. Is this common practice? Or just something you developed? Is there much of a taste/texture difference? When do you use milk chocolate then? And Michael I have not used any PCB products yet. Neither in school or out. Though we may in school next session in superior when concentration is more on fine chocolate work, sugar, presentation, etc. We were not even allowed to use vanilla beans in basic - for which I really don't blame them. I will ask one of my chefs whose currently prepping for the MOF patissier competition - as opposed to chocolate - next month. Thanks again for expanding my world.

If I can just add a chocolate novice's perspective. The reason why you may have had thin spots in your white chocolate is that now that you've worked with dark or milk chocolate you may anticipate that setting time whereas white chocolate sets more slowly. I think a solution would simply to be to let it set a bit longer than you've become used to. And pros, please help me out here because I've forgetten and my notes are at school, when you do marbling I think it's dark/milk then white? So you get a cleaner look and not a muddy looking marble. I have not done marbling yet which is why I don't remember - no physical memory yet - but did see the two demo'ed and there was a significant difference. Thanks. Er, I mean chefs, could you please help. Sorry. Thanks.