Coulommiers

We’ve been eating mostly English cheeses recently, as the range and quality at our standard weekend shopping destinations (Borough and Maltby Street) are just fantastic. But a different itinerary yesterday brought me to La Fromagerie, probably the capital’s best source for perfectly-aged French cheeses. Somehow I managed to bring home only two: a small slab of St Nectaire that was escaping its rind but balanced mellow sweetness with a certain dirtiness, and a half of Coulommiers.

Even in Paris I didn’t often see Coulommiers, despite it being made in a town only 40 miles or so to the east. Here in London, I’ve found it only in a few high-end cheese shops. It may be that production is relatively small, or that it tends to get overlooked in favour of the not wholly dissimilar and far better known Brie and Camembert.

Depending on the version of the story, Coulommiers is either the progenitor of Brie or its descendant. Indeed Brie de Melun, the less popular of the two main Brie varieties, is produced just down the road in the town of the same name. Like Brie, Coulommiers is semi-soft, with a butter-coloured interior capable of becoming almost liquid when very ripe, and a bloomy white rind. It has the earthy, mushroomy tang of a good Brie, but alongside that there’s also a gentle nuttiness. Some find it a bit creamier and richer on the palate. It’s smaller than Brie too, with a whole cheese averaging just 500 grams.

Oddly, although it’s long-established and rooted in a particular town, Coulommiers hasn’t received AOC status. While this means that variation on the recipe is technically allowable, the only distinction seems to be between semi-industrial production, which uses pasteurised milk and ages for about a month, and artisal production, where the milk is raw and the maturation time doubled.

A final reason to seek it out? Even at the fancy-pants place where I bought it, a 250 gram piece was only £5. Given the prices of proper cheese (English or French), finding a tasty (relative) bargain is always a boon.

For Coulommiers in London, try La Fromagerie, Paxton & Whitfield or the financial district outpost of Parisian cheesemonger, Androuet.

Le “Best of”

It has been, by any estimation, a difficult year. Thankfully, though, there have still been opportunities to take pleasure from shopping for, preparing and eating good food. A few of my favourites...

Pastry Assessing on a number of criteria, Le Figaro rated the tarte au citron at Jacques Genin’s Marais shop to be the second-best in Paris. Having not visited any of the close competitors, I can’t make an authoritative judgment. But I was delighted by the elegant, minimalist shop, the intense care shown in selection and packaging and the stripling of lime zest. Genin’s unctuous chocolate ganache tarte was its technical equal.

Restaurant I’d like to think I pipped the critics in discovering Cafe dei Cioppi, an improbably fantastic Italian kitchen-with-chairs serving simple, ingredient-driven dishes like burrata and grilled-vegetable salad, saffron risotto and pumpkin and sausage lasagne. The wines by the glass are unusual, the crowd stylish but not overbearingly trendy and the location, barely more than 100 metres from my front door, unbeatable.

Fruit and veg It will be more than six months before they’re again available at the market, but I’m already anticipating more experimentation with one of my favourite recent discoveries, courgette flowers.

Ingredients A small sachet of juniper berries has been enlivening homemade gravadlax, braised red cabbage and meaty ragus, while bouquets of chervil, pretty enough to put in a vase, have lifted countless everyday dishes like omelettes or leek and potato soup. Fresh Fallot mustard, aromatic and not too hot, has been a relevation, worthy of eating straight from the spoon.

Day out The best burgundies are well outside my budget, but 18 euros paid for a day’s bicycle rental and a map of the Route des Grands Crus. Heading south from Dijon, I passed through the villages and vineyards of Chambolle-Musigny, Vosne-Romanee and Gevrey-Chambertin before lunch, managing three courses and two glasses before a flat, 20 kilometer glide back into town.

Recipe I’m still not sure exactly what elevated my first-ever boeuf bourguignon from satisfying to sublime, but I’m happy to give full credit to the folks at (sadly departed) Gourmet for showing me the way.

Book How did MFK Fisher manage to write about food—and life—in such a spare yet evocative way? My anthology of her writings hasn’t been absent from the bedside table since I bought it last winter.

Wine Drinking Meursault, a fantastic white burgundy, is always a special treat. Having a particularly good glass of it sent over by a fellow patron in a Dijon wine bar was an occasion that I hope to remember for a long time.

Beajoulais, still (relatively) Nouveau

The French take their fun very seriously, particularly during the orchestrated bacchanal of Beaujolais Nouveau. At midnight on the third Thursday of November, bottles of new-vintage Gamay are opened in the wine-producing villages of France’s central Beajoulais region. By the next evening, the wine has arrived in locations as diffuse as Paris, Tokyo and New York, and a global (and highly-profitable) harvest party can begin.

Beajoulais Nouveau celebrations date back more than a century, when vignerons in the southernmost region of Burgundy saw an opportunity to sell off middling wine early in the season and at a good profit. Utilising carbonic maceration—in which wine is produced by allowing barrel fermentation of uncrushed grapes—allowed them to significantly shorten the time lag between harvest and release of the new vintage. Initially, it was mostly consumed by residents of the nearby city of Lyon, who had long regarded Beajoulais’ fruity, low-tannin wines as the ideal accompaniment to their rich, rustic cuisine. But beginning in the 1960s, a combination of improved transport and savvy marketing helped to generate an international market for Beajoulais Nouveau. The real brilliance was to heighten demand and excitement by fixing the date for release; the current date was chosen in 1985.

Wine shops, bars and cafés worldwide still have out signs and banners proclaiming “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!” (The Beajoulais Nouveau has arrived!) By now, though, more than half of the Nouveau supply is gone, having been consumed in the 48 hours following release. But it’s still worth trying to buy a few bottles of what is reputed to be a landmark year. Garish labels, usually a sign of indifferent wine, are the norm with Nouveau, and very few of the bottles will be labeled with a village of origin. (It may be possible to find Beajoulais Nouveau Villages, where the wine will have come from the 12 top-ranked appellations in the region.) But any risk involved is mitigated by the wine’s gentle pricing.

Lacking tannins, Beajoulais Nouveau should be drunk within a few months of bottling. The timing is ideal, though, as its fresh fruitiness is an easy match for the hodgepodge of flavours at holiday parties and dinners. Chill the wine lightly and serve it with anything from an appetizer spread to a formal meal of a roast bird and side dishes to a platter of assorted cheeses. A traditional accompaniment would be gougeres, Burgundy’s answer to the ubiquitous cheese biscuit.

Dijon et Poireaux Vinaigrette

“We lived for almost three years in Dijon, which the Burgundians called without any quibble and only half-hearted contradictions ‘the gastronomic capital of the world.’ We were lucky to… be within ourselves eager, interested, and above all husky-gutted. Most of our orgies were voluntary, but even so I doubt if more jaded livers than ours could have stood the thousand bilious blows we dealt them.” MFK Fisher, The Gastronomical Me

In the world’s northernmost fine wine region, Burgundy’s vineyard owners play an annual game of chance with the weather, hoping that limited sun and heat will produce wines which are delicate, rarified and aromatic, rather than thin and mean. As if to compensate for this, the food is rich and abundant, reliant on butter, meat and wine-enriched sauces. The eponymous boeuf bourguignon is only the most famous of a local repertory which includes coq au vin (with chicken usually taking the place of the traditional rooster), ouefs en meurette (eggs poached in a sauce of butter, red wine, mushrooms and bacon), jambon persillade (a gelee-topped coarse pork paté) and snails with garlic butter (escargot).

Ignoring the atypically hot August weather, I managed a fair sampling of typical Burgundian dishes during a recent visit to Dijon and its environs. At a stylish bistro just across from the Eiffel-design central market, where the waitress sported henna tattoos and Gaultier leggings and the patrons were well-fed and equally well-coiffed, I began with a slice of the local paté. It was true to what I’ve seen at charcuteries across Paris, the only concession to fashion being a green, mousse-like top layer of parsley, instead of finely-chopped leaves throughout. Bouef bourgignon provided a satisfying first impression of the dish, the rich, glossy gravy soaking perfectly into the pommes purees. To finish, a sharp, boozy sorbet made with cassis (blackcurrants) and the local liqueur, crème de cassis.

There was a repeat of the bouef bourgignon the next day, the 12 hours of cooking rendering the beef so soft as to require only a spoon. I was delighted by the presentation in an individual Staub casserole, though mashed potatoes were sorely missed. Here the highlights were a poached egg in a cream of summer truffles, the cheese plate, featuring Epoisses from a producer only 10 minutes up the road and the bucolic setting in the centre of the blink-and-you-miss-it wine town of Gevrey-Chambertin. Eating such a meal—complete with matching glasses of wine at each course—was perhaps ill-advised on a day when I still had some 20 kilometres to cycle in hot sun. But both the scenery and the menu were too good to justify compromise.

Once cold temperatures and company coincide, I hope to pull out my own Staub and attempt Julia Child’s iconic recipe. For now, though, I’m concentrating my efforts on slightly lighter fare.

Poireaux vinaigrette is another Burgundian classic, combining leeks (usually poached or boiled) with a dressing made from local Dijon mustard. Tangy and full-flavoured, it would provide an excellent lead-in to a rich, winey stew. Less traditional, but also less stultifying, would be to make a few more leeks, buy a baguette and follow with some good cheese. Let your liver guide you.


Poireaux Vinaigrette

It’s rare that I gravitate towards more complicated versions of simple recipes. But here the extra steps yield real improvements: tying the leeks with a twist of their greens keeps them intact through two stages of cooking. Likewise, replacing boiling with sautéing and braising dramatically deepens flavor and eliminates any potential stringiness. The sauce’s acidity makes this a poor match for more serious wine; pair with a simple, not-too-austere Chardonnay (like a Macon-Villages)

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma French
Serves 2*
Total time: 35 minutes: Active time: 20 minutes

4 slender leeks
Olive oil
3/4 cups chicken stock
1 scant tablespoon grain or Dijon mustard**
Lemon juice or wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
Special equipment: large frying pan; tongs

Trim leeks, retaining the green ends, and split along length. (If they are too long to fit across the base of your largest frying pan, split once across width.) Rinse each under the tap, lifting the layers to remove dirt, but being careful to keep intact. Using a thin length peeled from the trimmings, tie each leek around its middle.

On a medium-high flame, heat just enough oil to film pan. When hot add as many leeks as will fit in one layer. Season with salt and pepper. Turn occasionally until both sides are golden and have spots of deeper caramelisation, about 8-10 minutes. If required, remove to plate and repeat with remaining leeks.

Return all leeks to the pan. Add chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook until the leeks are very tender and most of the liquid has evaporated, 10-15 minutes. While they cook, make the dressing, mixing the mustard with just enough olive oil and lemon juice to make a sharp, very thick sauce.

Pour over leeks and check seasoning. Serve immediately or at room temperature.

* While the recipe can easily be doubled, it becomes time-consuming without access to several large frying pans.

** I particularly like this one. The only brand still made with locally-grown seeds, it has an elegant, sprightly flavor. Whatever you use, make sure your mustard is fresh.

Birthday in a Tin

This year my favourite birthday present cost 12 euros and weighed 800 grams, about half of which was duck fat. Strictly speaking, my confit de canard wasn't even a gift, as I bought it myself and imported it to London as the main course for my just-off-the Eurostar birthday dinner. Within 20 minutes of my arrival, I was pouring tablespoons of fat into a heavy-bottomed frying pan, to which we added thick slices of red-skinned potatoes. We underestimated both the number of pans that would be required for the job--the potatoes need to be more or less in a single layer--and the time and attention it would take for them to acquire a mahogany-brown crust. In the meantime, however, Camparis were quaffed, bags unpacked--revealing a reliably fabulous bottle of Corbieres and some (as it turned out not so fabulous) cheese--and the meat was placed in the oven to warm and crisp.

The duck, succulent and rich, if not as lacquer-skinned as we’d hoped, was both celebratory and comforting, the perfect way to end a tumultuous year and to usher in a new one. The potatoes were simply too good to analyse, the accompanying glasses of wine as dense and spicy as the meal demanded. After all of this, salad was superfluous, though I was not fool enough to miss breaking the red wax seal on another import from France's southwest: a bottle of superbly nuanced VO Armagnac, the story of which bears telling here at a later date.

I’m not sure I have a recipe to give here (though these will give you more specific instructions), only a exhortation to banish your fear of solid fat for at least one night.

Here's to the French paradox and an easier year to come.