|
Not Too Haute to Handle: Foie Gras at Home
Consider pushing one of life's ultimate gastronomic pleasures - opulent, luxurious foie gras - one step beyond. Beyond the restaurant straight into your kitchen. Foie gras at home? Are we talking decadent? Decidedly. By Nancy Ross Ryan |
 Photo by Laurie Proffitt |
|
Of late a stylish restaurant without foie gras on the menu is hard to find. The preparations are delicious, attractive, but elaborate. Consider, for example, one of the more straightforward: Pan-Roasted Duck and Foie Gras Salad with Fuyu Persimmons and Walnut-Sherry Vinaigrette, a speciality of Chef Traci Des Jardins at her restaurant Jardinière in San Francisco. I don't know about you, but I'm a little short on fuyu, and my pantry of oils doesn't ordinarily include the highly perishable walnut oil for the vinaigrette. And we're talking salad here, not a foie gras dish such as Kalua Pig and Foie Gras Sandwich with a Trio of Chilled Tomato Soups. First you wrap pork in ti leaves, roast it, then you make three tomato soups -- green, yellow and red; eventually you wind up with the three tomato soups poured simultaneously by two people from three separate pitchers into a Champagne flute to create a swirled parfait, and, balanced on top of the glass a Lilliputian grilled foie gras-Kalua pig-mozzarella sandwich. My significant other gets cranky when he's summoned (after waiting 6 hours for his first morsel of food) by a frenzied cook surrounded by Champagne flutes and armed with three pitchers, barking commands: "Seize your soup, and one, two, three -- pour!" Chef Alan Wong, the mastermind of this stunning masterpiece, has no problem of course, because he has a battalion of chefs at his restaurant, Alan Wong's, in Honolulu. For years I have been a lover of foie gras who has worshipped at the restaurant shrine of whatever chef would serve it up. And for years I believed that restaurants were my only avenue to this divine indulgence. And then I met Michael A. Ginor and Mitchell Davis, co-authors of Foie Gras, a Passion (John Wiley & Son, Inc., 1999), a pioneering work. I met them at -- where else? -- Charlie Trotter's in Chicago on the occasion of a multi-course foie gras luncheon of chefs' recipes taken from the book. As course after course of foie gras dazzled my palate (the only time in my life when I have eaten my fill of the foie), I complained to Michael and Mitchell that it was such a shame I couldn't have foie gras at home. "But of course you can," they chorused, and for the next 15 minutes I listened to their duet de foie gras, as impassioned a performance as ever I heard outside the opera house. "To cook foie gras is simpler than cooking an egg," said Michael, "You don't even need butter in the pan. You simply slice it, one-half to three-quarters inch thick, and saute it for 30 to 45 seconds on each side. Serve it on a salad, or with scrambled eggs, or toast. The rest -- the sauces, accompaniments -- is what makes foie gras complicated." "But there is one sin that Mitchell warns against: overcooking it. "All foie and no gras," he says. For that reason, he suggests starting with a mousse of foie gras. Mitchell favors the mousse for several reasons -- its sublime texture, delicate flavor and its economy. The recipe, from their book, calls for Grade C liver, the least expensive grade. After that lunch I decided to check out the feasibility of preparing foie gras at home with one of the world's foie gras virtuosos, Chef Jean Joho of Chicago's Everest and Brasserie Jo. Although foie gras chez vous will be sans the truffles, delicate sauces and artistic presentation of Joho's foie gras, he did agree one could cook it at home. "The number one easy way is to just saute it," he counsels. He likes his foie gras with toasted country bread,white not sourdough, finding brioche too rich. He suggests serving sauteed foie gras with a warm lentil salad dressed in a citrus vinaigrette. Or else saute some peeled and diced Granny Smith apples with a touch of sugar, deglaze the pan with a little Sauternes, then plate the apples on bottom with the foie gras on top, some country bread on the side and voila! And oh yes, season the foie gras with hand-harvested fleur de sel (sea salt) from France. Chef Paul Kahan at Blackbird restaurant, Chicago, agrees that a competent cook can saute foie gras in the home kitchen, and he suggests sauteing sliced, unpeeled Seckel pears in season as an accompaniment. Both chefs warn that foie gras is perishable and handling requires a delicate touch, and both urge purchasing only fresh, whole livers from reputable purveyors. Joho suggests that your first foie gras cooking efforts should be for yourself and a friend, then for a small group -- until you are comfortable and confident in preparation. Want to serve foie gras but find yourself short of time? He says the alternative to cooking is to find a fancy food purveyor or "wonderful delicatessen where professionals make a good foie gras terrine." You purchase it, and then you take it home. Armed with the definitive book on foie gras, a newfound -- but untested -- confidence in my ability to cook foie gras, I suggested to Joho that, after all, foie gras was the easiest luxury in the world to prepare. "Ah no," says Joho. "That's caviar. You just open a can."
First Things First Remove the foie gras from its vacuum package, rinse and pat dry with paper toweling. Whole duck foie gras has two lobes, one larger, one smaller. Whole goose foie gras has two lobes of equal size. The lobes are connected by membranes, veins and nerves. Any green discoloration between the lobes is residual bile spots which should be removed with a sharp paring knife. Bile will impart a bitter flavor to the liver. If the liver is to be left whole for roasting, poaching or steaming, simply remove any visible surface blemishes such as blood or bile spots with a sharp knife. If the liver is to be separated by lobes, it should be cleaned differently, according to how it will be cooked.
Rinse the liver and pat dry. Lay the lobes on the work surface the the rounded side facing up. Using a sharp slicing knife dipped in hot water, slice the liver on a diagonal into medallions about 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick. Avoid cutting medallions too thin, because they have a tendency to overcook and render all of their fat.
Separate the two lobes. With the larger lobe lying wrong side up on the work surface, locate the area where the connecting membranes and veins are severed. Grasp the principal connecting membrane with your right hand. Gently rug the membrane to reveal the location of the central vein of the lobe. As you pull, use your other hand to gently peel back the flesh of the liver, tracing the location of the vein. (Because of the temperature of the fat, the foie gras should have the consistency of soft clay. You should be able to clean the foie gras without having it break apart in to pieces) The central vein extends roughly two thirds down the middle of the large lobe before it forks in to two separate directions, forming an upside down Y. Continue tracing the path of the vein by gently tugging it, pushing aside the flesh to reveal the vein, and removing any evidence of coagulated blood, vein, or membrane you find. The point of a small paring knife may help lift out these imperfections. Be sure to cut away any green discoloration (evidence of bile) that will give the liver a bitter taste. Warm, moist paper towels help to clean your hands and knife while you work. Use the same procedure to remove the central vein and any nerves or membranes from the smaller lobe. You should be left with two flattened, somewhat misshapen lobes of liver that are largely intact, a few small scraps of liver and the membranes and veins. Discard the membranes and veins. Use the cleaned lobes and scraps in the recipe. |
|
www.hudsonvalleyfoiegras.com.)
Purchasing guidelines include: |
GOURMET ISSUE - May 2000