When I go out for a 'fancy' meal I'll order something I wouldn't make for myself at home, but I will take bits of inspiration back to my home kitchen. A plating technique, an ingredient, or an idea.
That was the theme of a recent get-together I hosted at my place with Laura and Kaarina, in honour of the recent 2022 Toronto Michelin guide. We made reservations at Grey Gardens – a Bib Gourmand restaurant, looking for some inspiration for a meal we would prepare together at my house the next afternoon.
But cocktails first! Bar Chef was booked for a private event, so we ended up at Misty Restaurant and Bar. I ordered a Smoked Old Fashioned, a delicious concoction that came to the table covered by a wooden disc that when lifted, freed the smoke to billow from the glass. Cool effect, but it also left great aromas to nose. So great I ordered another and went to watch how it was made. A smoker was placed over the cocktail glass and wood chips went into it to be set on fire vertically with a torch; then after 5-10 seconds the fire gets covered up with the disc to capture the smoke in the glass. Drama! Using brown sugar to make the simple syrup deepened the flavours. Lesson learned: order a cocktail smoker kit to indulge myself at home.
One of the inspirations from Grey Gardens turned out to be a wonderful drink called Bitter. The next day Kaarina brought some sherry and cava so we could experiment with the cinar in my cupboard, and our re-creation came close. 1/2 oz. each of Amontillado sherry + cinar, with 2 oz. of cava, garnished with a slice of cucumber. This makes for a
very refreshing, effervescent drink with the perfume of cucumber.
Lesson learned: How to pronounce cinar - I'd been saying 'ch' and it should be more like 's.'
At Grey Gardens, cooked chanterelles topped pork with green beans and green peppercorn. There was also venison carpaccio topped with raw portobello. So our second inspiration was the ingredient - mushrooms - which, truthfully, we had already selected to feature on our lunch menu the next day.
*FoodWise Prix Fixe Menu
Aperitif: Bitter Cocktail
Crepe Vonnassienne and scallop with saffron foam paired with Chardonnay
Salad: Frisse with cooked and raw mushroom, garnished with Bleu d'Élizabeth
Dessert: Vanilla Pot de Creme
Modernist cocktail with lemon foam to finish
In fact Kaarina had already suggested the menu for our lunch: Crepe Vonnassienne. Georges Blanc, the French chef and restaurateur with three Michelin stars to his name, serves them as a stand-alone starter with caviar and also as a side with Poularde de Bresse.
In advance of the day, I'd purchased a whipping siphon, anticipating some culinary foam might be in my future. I went down quite a rabbit hole on You Tube, watching different videos and learning the siphon could also be used to pickle, infuse, and even make mashed potatoes. For our lunch I decided on some saffron foam.
As there would be egg yolks left over from the crepe, and there was a vanilla bean in my cupboard, Pot de creme featured on the dessert menu.
We shopped for the ingredients the next morning at McEwan's. Even at this luxury grocery, the cost was a fraction of the previous evening's festivities. Of course, we would not be waited on hand and foot and we would be the cooks in the kitchen.
Well, I didn't win any Michelin stars but I did learn a few things:
Like jazz or comedy improv, even when you improvise it's good to start with some kind of framework. The George Blanc recipe for
Crepe Vonnassienne was a nice blank canvas to riff. Kaarina shared the recipe and it turns out,
Lesson learned: Instagram has #MichelinGuideathome and offers homemade recipes from favourite chefs.
I have been preoccupied lately with reducing food waste. Making the best use of the ingredients at hand seems like a no-brainer. The Pot de Creme was a delicious way to end the meal and an efficient way to use up those leftover raw egg yolks. The vanilla bean had been in my pantry for quite awhile, I wasn't quite sure how to make the best use of it. After the beans were scraped out, Laura suggested we put the pod in a jar with some sugar to create a vanilla scented treat. Lesson learned: Make use of your leftovers and what's in the pantry.
With the whipping siphon, the saffron foam was a huge challenge to get looking decent. It was spraying everywhere! Thank goodness I was among friends. I ended up wanting to discharge the siphon of the
saffron foam to try
lemon foam, so emptied the contents into a mason jar... this turned out to be the perfect vehicle to spoon the foam from (discovered AFTER this photo was taken). With the lemon foam, I was using gelatine and went beyond the hour recommended in the recipe - so it ended up being solid instead of liquid, and to make a long story short, this didn't turn out as envisioned either. Timing is important. My whipping siphon adventures will continue, though, and I'm going to try a few more recipes and techniques.
Lesson learned: experiment and have fun!
Lots of fun, and as always, lessons learned.
*FoodWise is the working title of our new culinary trio.
George Blanc recipe for Crepe Vonnassienne
#MICHELINGUIDEATHOME presents homemade recipes, straight from your favorite chefs to your kitchen.
The venerable Chef @georges_blanc_officiel, of Restaurant Georges Blanc— three stars in the MICHELIN Guide France 2020 — shares his recipe for Vonnassiennes crepes: French specialty potato crepes.
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