Welcome to my Culinary World Tour

Greetings, and welcome to my food blog.  The mission:  to prepare at least one dish from every country in the world and document the experience. Each month I'll pick four countries entirely at random.  It's up to me whether to create a full-scale dinner party or just a humble offering for myself and my dog Daphne to enjoy.  Either way, I'm sure it will be an adventure.

For my first effort, I've chosen to celebrate France.  Yes, I did cheat selecting this first country because it has been my culinary inspiration over the years.  For my kickoff last weekend I hosted five friends for a dinner party at my NYC apartment. 

First, the menu:  

Coq au vin bourguignon was a natural choice for an entree, the quintessential French comfort food.  I already had a great recipe from a class I'd taken years ago at the International Culinary Institute (ICE) http://www.iceculinary.com/.  The recipe was very traditional, calling for cut-up whole chicken, blanched salt pork cut into lardons, red wine, and various herbs and vegetables.  I did, however, take the liberty of swapping out the button mushrooms for creminis and the pearl onions for cippoline onions (inspiration from my two favorite Food Network stars Inna Garten and Anne Burrell). 

Mashed potatoes was an equally natural choice as an accompaniment.  I used a recipe from my Julia Child cookbook called "Puree de pommes de terre a l'ail."  The dish basically consisted of garlic simmered in butter, mixed with flour and milk, blended into potato puree along with more butter and cream, topped with fresh parsley.  

For an appetizer, I used an awesome recipe for honey-roasted onion tart from the February issue of Bon Appetite: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/02/honey_roasted_onion_tart.  This tart hails from the Alsace region of France and in addition to onions includes bacon (ummm, bacon) and fresh thyme leaves.

Salad was a tougher decision.  I've never been a huge fan of salad, probably due to too many bowls of iceberg lettuce in my childhood.  I considered doing a frisee with warm bacon vinaigrette but worried about having too much bacon.  (I know, there's no such thing as too much bacon but every meal should have balance).  I finally decided on a frisee salad with balsamic syrup and goat cheese toasts, from a recipe I found on-line: http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/21827/frisee-salad-with-goat-cheese-and-balsamic-syrup.html

Dessert was an easy selection - creme brulee, all the way.
Did I mention that the meal was fat-free?

I've never attempted a meal with so many components.  Although it went fairly smoothly there were some inevitable bumps in the road.  A word to the wise:  coq au vin is a dish with many steps and always takes twice as long to prepare as you think (rendering the fat from the lardons, browning the chicken, reducing the wine and making the sauce, sauteeing the onions and mushrooms...I'm getting tired just thinking about it). 

Also:  do not attempt to blanch the garlic cloves and peel them as Julia says in her recipe.  It's much more efficient to smash the raw cloves with your chef's knife, the peel practically snaps off.

My one moment of near panic came when I was ready to assemble the onion tarte and realized that I had forgotten to thaw the puff pastry sheet.  This was also around the same time that I realized I didn't have a rolling pin (but, as my sister helpfully pointed out, a chilled wine bottle makes a decent substitute).  I was planning to put it in the oven at the last minute but did not plan on rolling out the dough in flour coated clothes 15 minutes before my guests arrived.  Oh well - it turned out delicious anyway!


As an added benefit, part of the meal preparation involved setting things on fire.  The coq au vin recipe called for igniting brandy and pouring it while still flaming over the browned chicken pieces.  And, of course, the creme brulee gave me an excuse to try out the kitchen torch I got for Christmas.  As my friend Christi wisely suggested, I will be investing in a fire extinguisher in the very near future!


I really appreciate that my friends Christi, Ted, and Fleur as well as my big sister Laura were able to be there.  Many, many thanks to Laura for helping with the preparations. We had a fabulous time and of course many glasses of great wine. 


At the very end of the party I selected my next three countries by drawing names out of a hat.  Drum roll....Zambia (gulp), Botswana (gulp, gulp) and Eqypt.

Stay tuned for the next edition...