French

Here is another of our kitchen staples, which tastes like an extraction of the essence of onion soup. Awesome on liver, veal, beef, or even schnitzel, it’s the taste of winter in Paris.

On the first year of the garden, we planted six tomato plants, one smallish row of lettuce that bolted overnight, and, just for fun, a dozen wormwood plants (Artemisia absithium). Of course, by then the absinthe craze had faded and the silver-slotted spoons were long gone. It didn’t take much for us to soak way too much of those plants (in our houses, of course) in a jug of alcool (grain alcohol), then correct the awful taste of wormwood with a full bottle of pastis. Man, it was strong, and it worked, too. A few years ago, we gave Martin Picard at Au Pied de Cochon a pickle jar full of absinthe; when we later visited the restaurant, about a thousand dollars in cash was sitting in the liquid and people were drinking it right out of the jar. Disgusting. Picard would add more booze when the level dropped. So you have this huge jar of plants and money just sitting there with the top on. Every season we try to concoct a better mix—at home, of course. You’ll need a gram scale for this recipe.

We remember falling in love with a photograph of petits farcis in an old issue of Cuisine et Vins de France. We’re sure that most chefs our age who had dreamed of cooking professionally since childhood feel the same when they open a vintage copy of Cuisine et Vins de France, or of Georges Blanc’s De la Vigne à l’Assiette. There is no greater food era than when Michel Guérard, Bernard Loiseau, Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Georges Blanc, and Roger Vergé were at the top. Petits farcis are vegetables stuffed with sausage mix, then baked and eaten lukewarm. We make them in the summer when the growers show up with pattypan squashes. What else are you supposed to do with those little squashes other than admire them? The stuffed vegetables are awesome with a mâche salad and partner perfectly with a nice rosé or pastis. Get the smallest vegetables you can find, about the size of a golf ball.

Back in the day, when there was Sally Wong, when there was yellow pepper, and when there was tuna, David was doing endive salad and roast chicken. Although nonrevolutionary, this salad is always delicious. It’s on the menu often, especially in the winter when the garden is under a snowbank and the Parc Vinet Salad (opposite page) is a distant memory. Use Stilton in this salad; it works much better than other blues.

David has an Irish friend called Jerry O’Regan who always triple checks whether or not his main course is served with mashed potatoes. In fact, Jerry doesn’t understand why all food isn’t served with potatoes. Sometimes we send him a side of lentils instead of potatoes and he looks at it as if it were alien food. We don’t want to make an “Irish guy potato” stereotype here, but after cooking for Jerry for ten years, we get it. At the end of the meal, Jerry doesn’t say thank you, he says “Feels good to have some potatoes, hey Davey?”.

It’s true, at least for Fred, that an egg cooked in meat is the best. So much so that when we make braciole, he’s known to dig like a gopher to reach the eggs inside, leaving a hollow meat box to crumble on itself. The following is a short recipe where the egg gets that viande taste that Fred loves.

Whelks are giant marine snails. In towns along the Saint Lawrence (like Kamouraska), you can find them in gallon jars, marinated in brine or white vinegar. At Joe Beef, we buy whelks fresh from La Mer, Montreal’s big seafood broker, and serve them with escargot butter. In Burgundy, chefs are judged by their snail butter. Literally. You can work under three different Michelin-starred chefs and they’ll all tell you that there is only one way to make escargot butter—and each way will be completely different. This classic recipe is the escargot butter that drowned Montreal after Expo 67 (see page 52). If you’re not a whelk fan, you can enjoy the butter slipped under the skin of a chicken before it is roasted, on a steak, over mashed potatoes, or just spread on toast.

This dish is not surprising in taste (it’s duck, sausage, and potato—what can go wrong?), nor very feminine (in other words, it’s not pretty). We like the look a lot, because the fingerlings, duck pieces, and links are all the same size and shape. This is the best way to enjoy duck in the middle of the winter.

If Parmesan is the king of cheese, Époisses is the cultural attaché. It’s smelly in a way that makes you proud to like it. It’s also red-wine compatible and awesome on a piece of steak. A washed-rind cheese, Époisses is made from milk from Burgundian cows and washed with the local marc de Bourgogne. It is crucial that you buy a good Époisses, and, in fact, only one or two brands make it to the United States and Canada. Sniffit before buying, and avoid one with a horse urine–window cleaner smell. Remember, too, warming up the cheese only amplifies the aroma. Sometimes Gilles Jourdenais at Fromagerie Atwater gets in tiny individual Époisses, which we try to use whenever possible. This dish, which combines the cheese with shallots, used to be the classic Joe Beef drunk staff meal at 4 A.M. Eat it with toasted bread, a few rosettes of mâche, or on top of steak.

Nicolas Jongleux is a Montreal legend. Born and raised in Marsannay, in Burgundy, he grew up working in some of France’s most influential kitchens, including, at age twenty-six, under Alain Chapel at the Michelin-three-star La Mère Charles in Mionnay. He came to Montreal under the guise of partnering in Le Cintra, where he worked for three years. From there he ran the seminal Les Caprices de Nicolas. David says: “He had more talent than anyone I’ve ever seen. I once watched him make sixty identical croissants by hand, no recipe, no scale, and he hadn’t made croissants for more than five years. When he finished, there was not a drop of extra pastry, and each pastry was perfect.” He was also the kind of person who had such discipline all of his life, that he when he left France, he lived the experiences most of us had in our teens, in his thirties. He opened his last restaurant, Café Jongleux, in 1999, and committed suicide in the restaurant later that year. This recipe was a Nicolas classic.

We came up with this alternative to braised rabbit as a way to eat rabbit in the summer. If possible, ask the butcher to bone a rabbit for you. Be sure to distinguish between the legs and the loins (or saddle). In Canada, asking for the kidneys is no problem. In the United States, it is hit or miss. Sometimes we like to serve the skewers with Gentleman Steak Sauce (page 251) for dipping, but they are good on their own, too. Another nice option is an easy pan jus, made by deglazing the pan with a shot of sherry, then adding 1/2 cup (125 ml) chicken stock and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter.

If you’re French or a Francophile, you know what these are supposed to be: sheep tripe and pig’s trotters cooked together. We didn’t know that, but we knew the name. We just made what we thought it ought to be and it turned out well, if completely unlike the original (we think). This is braised lamb and pig’s trotter with greens and herbs, wrapped in caul fat. The sauce—a French classic with gherkins, mustard, and shallots—is also perfect with chops and liver.

Here in Canada, horse is the great divide between Anglophone and Francophone—more than politics, more than Celine Dion. Horse equals Napoleon versus Nelson, or Wolfe versus Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. The French do two things that Anglophones find disgusting: eat frogs and eat horse. To Anglophones, horses are royalty. And it’s understandable, as they’re truly majestic. They’re also really tasty. We don’t know anyone who raises horses for meat, yet the meat exists. So, if you don’t want to eat horse that has been on growth hormones and clenbuterol, buy it from a trusted butcher. It has a high iron content and makes a delicious tenderloin or tartare.

This is the one stew you can get away with in the summer, yet crave in the winter. Veal chunks from the hind shank is the best meat for this; cheeks or shoulder is another option. All but the rear leg muscle will work. Of course, mashed potatoes or a marrow pilaf (rice baked with bone marrow instead of butter) is the perfect buddy. As a finishing touch, we like to pimp our blanquette de veau with truffles, cock’s combs, foie gras, or small slices of lobster. It lends regality to an otherwise hearty and simple stew.

This is yet another recipe that evokes that nostalgic, “Why don’t people make this anymore?” feeling, like a beautiful picture from the old Larousse, a civil-war reenactment, or sleeping on a train. There is only one good reason to make this dish: because you can! Thankfully, people like Frank, Marco, and Emma (our kitchen mainstays and true Joe Beefers) see the value in making historically relevant dishes like this, and it stays with them forever and can live on. The most difficult part of this recipe is measuring the dough to cover the pâté. Although some pâtés are served hot, the salt content in this one means it only tastes good cold. We serve it with some mustard and a glass of Morgon.

This is the kind of dish that used to be prepared tableside in Montreal chophouses. A few restaurants still do tableside crêpes Suzette, steak tartare, and specialty coffees. We get excited like kids on Halloween when we see that cart rolling toward us. It’s tough to do ourselves because of the size of Joe Beef, but we hope it comes back in a big way (and not in the “lavender and tomato essential oils being pumped over my table from a Provençal print balloon as we eat lamb and the waiter tickles our nose and ears with said lamb’s tail” way).

This is one of our favorite dishes from the old classic French repertoire, essentially a big moist meatball served on a bone. According to legend, Pojarsky (or Pojarski), a favored innkeeper of Czar Nicholas, was made famous by his killer meatballs re-formed on a veal chop bone. Serve with a frond of blanched fennel.

The great thing about this recipe is that even if you mess it up (which is tough to do), you still have a delicious mushroom and bacon cream that you can pour on toast and call it a day. This is a classic coddled egg but with much more garnish.

This take on coq au vin has it all: tender, moist chicken, flavorful root veggies, and an incredibly rich sauce; to top it off, it’s a one-pot meal. Serve with a simple garlicky green salad and lots of steamed white rice to soak up all the chicken broth goodness. Duck legs are a great substitute for the chicken legs, too. You’ll get the best results if you salt the legs the day before you cook, but it’s not essential. If you are short on time, skip the salting and jump right in—just season the legs well with salt and pepper before you brown them.

These pots de crème are ridiculously easy and ridiculously good. Don’t despair if you don’t have eight 4-ounce ramekins; you can use a variety of teacups, prep bowls, or even canning jars of any size. You can also make these a few days ahead of time if you like. Just be sure to wrap them tightly in plastic and remove any particularly stinky items from the refrigerator (chocolate is prone to absorbing neighboring odors).