eG Foodblog: Boris_A - A life in a week, a week in a life

[bleudauvergne]

As a consumer, I'm fascinated by the search for superiour or simply different produces within the same species. I feel challenged by the task of compairing such produces. I feel overwhelmed by the depth of the variants, the different techniques, the different terroirs, the subtle change within the range of the same producer over time. And how sometimes the character of a person can be detected in a seemingly same produce. Or to use a metapher: it's more like watching the work of calligraphs than that of painters. In the end, small, hard to notice differences are overweighing the obvious similarities.

Boris - what a great observation, and so exquisitely expressed. Thank you.

[Boris_A]

Hello Boris. What is your favourite dish to cook? The most joy?

Making a selection about the most preferred dish (or food) is a torment for me.

And after 5 minute of thinking about a plausible answer, I will refrain from making a single choice and I'm offering three instead:

- "Poulette de Bresse sautée à l'ail" (it's still ok for me if the chicken is not from the Bresse, but occasionally ...it has to be. )

- Whole beef shank, slowly braised for 9 hours

- Roasted baby goat

All these dishes are most simple, yet all of them can be found (or have been once) on the menu lists of three star luxury restaurants. I've never eaten one of them in such an etablissement, though.

They are an incarnation of my cooking philosophy.

[helenjp]

Thanks for the utilitarian wine-glass picture. It's a lovely picture of a meal that is totally impossible where I live -- the basic, everyday western "cultured" foods don't suit the average Japanese palate.

Your wine/cheese/preserved meats reminds me of her comments - she says that elderly people seem to revert to those European basics, shopping entirely at the delicatessen, and living on bread with cheese or some kind of preserved meat. Sounds good to me!

Old people's basics here in Japan...maybe miso soup and rice?! I guess those fermented, cultured foods are an unforgettable taste in every culture.

As for the restaurant...one day, one day...

[Boris_A]

those fermented, cultured foods are an unforgettable taste in every culture.

Now you said it: "Fermented"

This is a key word in matters of delicious flavours. Fermentation is something like controlled rot. Our readiness to accept such "prima vista" stinky, rotten stuff as delicacies must have to do with very old parts of our limbic system, I guess. But I've never heard of such theories.

I know that the Asian taste for fermented food is completely different from the European one, which in contrast has a more to do with the fermentation of animalic aminoacids (cheese, meat).

Beatrix lived in China from 1980-1985 and has many private and business contacts until today. So we know that cheese and similar, fermented animalic produces are completely unacceptable for Asian palates.

As for the restaurant...one day, one day...

This family is running that lovely basic restaurant for some 100 years. ...no hurry, no hurry .... Thank you for remembering my suggestion for the first Swiss-Japanese eGullet get-together.

And this is our schedule this evening.

Meeting some 20 friends I know since schooldays, playing a Mini-Golf game (winning is a shame!), then sitting in the restaurant garden there and eating grilled sausages and lots of "Rösti". And cool beer. Until late, late night.

Life is sad, but tonight we are going to be happy.

Edited June 26, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[Behemoth]

And this is our schedule this evening.

Meeting some 20 friends I know since schooldays, playing a Mini-Golf game (winning is a shame!), then sitting in the restaurant garden there and eating grilled sausages and lots of "Rösti". And cool beer. Until late, late night.

Boris, this blog has been the nicest way for me to start looking forward to my upcoming trip in July, visiting family in Northern Germany. I have never been able to pinpoint what exactly makes European get-togethers so special -- something about just being willing to sit someplace, unhurried, all evening with a bunch of friends and a few beers or bottles of wine or whatever...not needing to go somewhere, not needing to do anything in particular, not feeling like I need to "have an experience" or rush through dinner so the restaurant can accomodate another set of guests, or so your hosts can go to bed because they need to be up early the next day. I try to stay away from cultural generalizations but there is something more balanced about the pace of life over there. That is probably the single thing I miss most, living here in the U.S. (apart from the sausages, I mean )

[Boris_A]

rush through dinner so the restaurant can accomodate another set of guests

Some years ago, we travelled in the Piedmont with friends from Washington state.

The journey happened to overlap with my anniversary, and we went ot for a typical Piedmontese multi-course dinner (in Cossano Belbo, for those who care to know). They were a bit nervous about their two kids of age 3 and 5 and thought a dinner longer than 1-2 hours would be impossible.

We entered the restaurant at 8. They couldn't believe it when we left at 12:30.

They had so much fun watching their kids running around, playing with other kids, walking outside on the balcony where caring of the kids was shared with other parents and eventually visiting the kitchen just to provoke smiling faces there.

[Boris_A]

We quitted later than late yesterday and had more than a few bottles. I hope you understand that I can't gear up to verbous mode.

Here's my main course of yesterday evening. Steak and Rösti.

I asked my friends about their habits with cooking Rösti. They asked "Cooking Rösti? But that's something you eat in a restaurant." What we did.

[Boris_A]

Ok, this was a bad day. A hangover and even swimming in the lake didn't help.

We cancelled the "Coniglio in umido" (braised rabbit) and went for pasta ("Papardelle al pomodoro") instead:

Sometimes, I love the tomato sauce very "short" (little cooking time, about 10 minutes. But the finely chopped onions shoud be still sufficiently done.)

Canned tomato sugo is an absolutely essential thing to have in your food stock, yet quality can difer horribly. For us, it's another trivial product well worth the search for better stuff. We once bought samples of many different brands and made all of them simoultanously and exactly the same way, just to compare all of them. Such an effort pays immensly.

I cook the pasta just a bit under the al dente doneness, so I can mix them with the sauce, wait another two minutes over light fire and they suck a bit of the sauce. Add Parmigiano or Sbrinz.

The rabbit is for tomorrow then. The first evening in three weeks wihtout a soccer game, BTW. We all need it.

Edited June 27, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[Smithy]

Boris, this has been a wonderful blog. I've been too busy at work to have any time to read "fun" stuff all week. Now I've had your entire blog to read at once, and your wonderful cookstove and kitchen to drool over, and your hangovers to laugh at. (Mine was yesterday.) I'm looking forward to trying to make banitsa. I've a package of phyllo dough, waiting for an excuse to use it. Now all I need is time...

Thank you for a terrific blog, and insight to life in your corner of the world!

[ludja]

I think the rosti and steak photo belongs in the egullet hall of fame---it looks very inviting. Knowing that it accompanied a leisurely evening spent drinking wine with friends makes it even more wonderful.

(maybe you can still sneak in a comment on your rabbit dinner if you make it tomorrow---I've only had one ill-advised meal of rabbit and would like to feel warmer towards the possibility of ordering it again. I say ill-advised because the combination sounded a bit odd to me but I ordered it anyway and it was not in a French restaurant--rabbit with mustard and cranberries. It may have been tainted by a slight squeamishness on my part in eating it for the first time, or perhaps simply due to the cooks skill or lack of it, but it was pretty horrendous--texture and flavors).

In any case, thanks again for a wonderful blog!

[bleudauvergne]

Steak and Rösti.

That looks pretty good. The beer too.

[Bux]

I might do the Alain Chapel book of which i have a copy -- it would be slightly dodgy from a copyright point of view though -- too much to be fair use.

Great!

Wrt. to fair use, let's just extract one or two small portions. The "Cuisine is much more than recipes" motto is so wonderfully expressed in that preface.

If it's to appear on eGullet.com, we're talking of very small portions totaling about 100 words unless you secure the written permission of the copyright holder. I had assumed all of you have read The eGullet.com Copyright & Fair Use Policy. We've worked very hard on our policies and believe they are greatly responsible for our success and for bringing us the respect of our peers in print journalism and publishing.

[Pan]

Boris, what are the ingredients of Rösti?

[Boris_A]

Boris, what are the ingredients of Rösti?

Fiist of all, potatoes

There are two camps of Röst lovers: the larger (classic) one likes the potatoes pree-boiled, preferably the day before, the small one prefers raw potatoes. The ideal potato type are "semi-firmly boiled" (itleral translation) for the first variant, and rather "firmly-boiled" for the raw varaiant.

(There's a traditional basic dinner called "Gwschwellti", which is essentialy composed by a an assortment of cheese and boiled potatoes. One uses to prepare a lot of boiled potatoes to be on the safe side with quantity. Rösti on the next used to be almost mandatory)

You grate your potatoes with a coarse grater. Salt is mandatory now, but you can add a finely chopped, slightly roasted onion or some roasted bacon cubes. Mix all. Form kind of a pie.

For frying, you can use a lot of butter, clairfiied butter, lard or a mix of it.

The use of a non-stick fry pan is strongly advised here, but connoisseurs prefer a iron cast pan with all the hassles of sticking.

Now you fry your pie for 20-30 minutes on rather mild heat, just to get them golden and brown and with some crisp areas. If you prepare the variant with the raw potatoes as ingredient, then when frying the first side, cover with a lid to assure it's really done.

Edited June 28, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[Pan]

Thanks, Boris.

Now, how do you pronounce Gwschwellti?

[Boris_A]

If it's to appear on eGullet.com, we're talking of very small portions totaling about 100 words unless you secure the written permission of the copyright holder.

I hope that the "fair-use "portion might impress an English publisher in food area. Or that the French publishing house "Robert Laffond" might see a translation of the comlete preface (as a .pdf document maybe) as a pusher for the book.

As for Karl-Heinz Goetze: Les Chefs, this would require a full blown licence edition, of course.

Edited June 28, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[Boris_A]

how do you pronounce Gwschwellti? 

Try something like "Que-shwe-lty", rather quickly spoken.

But please, be careful when trying abroad. I have a friend from abroad who once ordered a "Wähe" (Swiss fruit pie) and got "Wädli" (nuckle of pork) instead with his cup of coffee.

Whit the globalization of e Gullet, we are going to need a SoundByteGullet aside of ImageGullet to upload some .wav's.

I find "Gschwellti" interesting, because it shows there are traditional dishes, where the left-over recipe is already built in, somehow.

[Boris_A]

An address to everyday cooks as dilettantic and limited like me.

Let me say a word here about my view on ingredients and the search for them. I'v just marinated the rabbit with some garlick and rosemary. Rosemary seems to be a simple thing, but it's not. There are differences. Some are very perfumed and can be too itense for certain dishes. Other are more on the herbacious side and are more elegant.

If one like to cook technically simple things, than apart from cooking time you need to play on these parameters to achieve better results.

Sometimes, suppliers do a disservice here. My haircutter, an old Italian born in San Remo on the Ligurian cost of Italy, told me once about his difficulties with pesto sauce, a signature dish from his region . Why?

Because the basilic he could buy here in Sitzerland (a herb which was rather rare here some decades ago) was simply ... too aromatic. It was just too strong, too dominating. I'm sure this was a result by breeding and cultivation. For sure well intended, but more of the same doesnt' need to be a better thing. He said the basilic of his youth was more elegant, more "vegetable". He couldn't use the quantities of his traditional recipe. He compensated with adding spinach to get the colour and taste of his "real" pesto, because a pesto dish needs a certain amount of sauce to look good. The "dilution" helped to preserve taste and appearance of the original dish.

(Wine lovers know about the dilemma of elegance vs. concentration)

It's all a matter of taste, and I'd never claim there's a right way to make, for instance, pesto. But even if we talk about an unspecific ingredient like basilic, there are nuances and differences. The simpler a dish, the more imortant to play with such minor differences to achieve a result which expresses you own taste and your own way of cooking.

For people with severly limited technical capabilties like me, it can be very rewarding to play on such nuances. Sometimes, you can surprise people with an absolutely simple, well known dish, composed by maybe 5 different ingredients and no technical level at all. Just by very carefully choosing and composing "trivial" ingredients like pepper, salt, garlick, cook wine and a herb like rosemary or basilic and so on. Suddenly, the sum can be quite more than the addition of the parts.

[bleudauvergne]

Sometimes, you can surprise people with an absolutely simple, well known dish, composed by maybe 5 different ingredients and no technical level at all. ... Suddenly, the sum can be quite more than the addition of the parts.

I have always been most impressed when people prepare simple meals and do it well, Boris. I agree with you 100%.

[Rebel Rose]

Boris, that was a wonderful summary to a beautiful blog. The pictures are lovely and appetizing, and your notes on the elegance of simple ingredients are so true!

Thank you so much.

[Boris_A]

It's not over yet!

Tonight, the blog is more a private version of "Dinner, what did we cook?"

This is could be the main course of a weekend dinner. For reasons I explained here, we shifted it:

It's the "Coniglio in Umido" (rabbit stew) with some "Carots kind of Vichy", some string beans (there was a phone call in the completely wrong moment, so they're overdone) and some oven baked mini potatoes. White risotto (just wonderful with some deglazed rabbit "juice") would have been the the better choice, but we've been too lazy.

The coniglio (pronounced "coneelyo") is a classic since my youth. It's a northern Italy/south of Switzerland dish. On sunday, when I was a boy, we used to visit my uncle for sunday lunch. He almost exclusively made that rabbit. My father owned several fashion shops and was an employer, my uncle worked as plasterer and was a communist ( a real one) . At the end of the meal, they used to start with a discussion about politics. Conflict and insultations were unavoidable (no eGullet-moderators around by then). We left always with the promise to return never again. After some weeks, they arranged a new lunch with both families. It was a ritual.

Edited June 28, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[Boris_A]

maybe you can still sneak in a comment on your rabbit dinner if you make it tomorrow---

I think "umido" is related to humidity.

I make a marinade with some EVOO, smashed or pressed garlick and rosemary and let the rabbit pieces soak for some hours.

I clean it (to avoid burnt garlick) and sear it (only hazelnut in colour) in home-clarified butter. Take it out, replace all fat with fresh butter. Usually I make a brunoise of very little celery, carrot and onion. I add a squashed garlick clove and some rosemary. Optionally, add some cloves en chemise ("in their skirt"), just to suck them after cooking. Others like to add a peeled/de-seeded tomato.

I place the rabbit back, add some salt, wine and water (depends on the acid content of the wine). Now stew it covered for some 45 minutes with turning from time to time and add water if needed. After that, take the lid away and reduce slwoly. Try to get a nice, light brown colour. The balsamic- like juice can be heaven with pasta or white risotto.

[Boris_A]

“It only reinforces my opinion that anyone who is not a professional writer (or english professor) would be a fool not to be completely intimidated by the prospect of blogging on egullet.”

Thank you for visiting my blog, for your encouragement, for your participation and for your patience to decypher my posts. I hope this blog was sometimes entertaining, sometimes infomative, sometimes inspiring and sometimes fun.

The next blogger is tagged and waiting.

Good night, co-bloggers and lurkers. Take care.

The last one turns out the light.

[Pan]

Thanks for sharing some of your life and village with us, Boris!

[sashimi]

Phenomenal, Boris. Thank you.