Taste With The Eyes: Tartiflette

12.26.2008

Tartiflette

A wonderful wintery dish!

A tartiflette is made with Reblochon cheese, potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic and cream. A favorite in ski areas and winter wonderlands everywhere for it is a hearty, warm and rich dish. We served it as a side dish in this holiday menu:

Champagne Reception

Veuve Clicquot Rosé

Shrimp Cocktail

Gouréres au Cumin

First Course

Nigl Grüner Veltliner 2007

Moules å la Mariniére

French Baguette

Salad Course

Chèvre Chaud, Green Salad, Dijon Vinaigrette

Main Course

Domaine Henri Jouan Chambolle Musigny 2005

Filet Mignon Chausseur

Tarragon Horseradish Crème

Side Dishes

Tartiflette

Carottes de Bébé avec du Miel

Dessert

Vol-au-Vent with Winter Fruits and Vanilla Yogurt

Coffee & Tea

Chocolate Candies

And while we were in the kitchen prepping our holiday meal, look who came to visit Susan's back yard. Those are ornamental deer under the arch, and their live counterparts came by to check them out! See the three deer in the right of the photo? Magical!

Reblochon is a raw cow's milk cheese from the Alps region of Savoie. It is creamy, nutty, with full-flavor (somewhat stinky). In the middle-ages, farmers there were required to pay rent to the landowners in the form of milk and cheese based on production. The crafty farmers would hold back some of the milk until after the tax collector had left, then go back to finish milking the cows. This second-milking produced a richer milk, and was used to make their special Reblochon cheese. Cheese made from unpasteurized milk aged less than 60 days is not legally imported into the US, so we used a substitute cheese, Fromage de Savoie, made in the same manner but with pasteurized milk.

We had a fabulous time visiting Susan in New Jersey. We woke up early, had our coffee and began cooking. Everyone had an assignment which was loads of fun (and I sure appreciated the help)! Here my brother and sister-in-law are working on their projects. Don is making dessert; cooking quince, pears and oranges in a sugar and cinnamon syrup. Kristy is cooking the bacon for the tartiflette, and in the foreground, I am working on leeks and celery for the mussels.

Meanwhile Susan is prepping the goat cheese medallions with egg wash and panko breadcrumbs. It will be refrigerated and ready to fry in peanut oil later on. And a big thanks to Esther (in the back) who is helping everyone keep a clean workspace.

Kristy's tartiflette turned out great: Sliced waxy potatoes are boiled in water until al dente. A sprig of fresh rosemary adds a nice essence. Sliced onions are sautéed in some of the bacon fat until golden brown, minced garlic is added at the end and cooked for a few more minutes.

Layer potatoes in baking dish, then onions with garlic, then bacon. Season with a little salt and fresh ground pepper.

Repeat. Then about a half cup of cream is poured over the top.

Top with sliced Reblochon/Fromage de Savoie. We recommend leaving the rind on.

The tartiflette was baked at 400°F early in the day. Later we would put it back in the oven to heat right before dinner. I first saw this dish on Fiona Beckett's blog and knew immediately it would be a big hit around here. For a more detailed recipe and if you are a cheese aficionado, do check our her blog and her excellent book, Cheese: From Fondue to Cheesecake which has inspiring recipes and beautiful photographs.

I was wondering why I hadn't had this delicious tartiflette before, as I lived and skied in Aspen for 4 years after college. It is supposed to be a favorite of skiers after all? Fiona answers that question for me in her book, apparently tartiflette was invented by the local cheese commission in order to sell more Reblochon cheese, in the 1980's! Well, that explains it.

Please come back soon to read more about the special dinner later that evening at Susan's...

Happy Holidays to All!

Julia Child Quotes - TOUJOURS BON APPETIT!

“You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.'"

"In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport."

"It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters." Paul Child on speaking French

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. "

"Life itself is the proper binge."

"It was a Morsel of Perfection."

"I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu."

Julia Child sees herself on TV, July 1962, she saw room for improvement, and still she can say it was fun : "There I was, in black and white, a large woman sloshing eggs too quickly here, too slowly there, gasping, looking at the wrong camera while talking too loudly and so on...But it had been fun."

She has her own opinions on kitchen equipment: "Clairborne sniffed at our use of a garlic press, 'a gadget considered in some circles to be only one cut above garlic salt or garlic powder.' I happened to like garlic presses..."

Understanding Julia's captivation by French food: "This is the kind of food that I have fallen in love with: not trendy souped-up fantasies, just something very good to eat. It was classic French cooking, where the ingredients have been carefully selected and beautifully and knowingly prepared. Or, in the words of the famous gastronome Curnonsky, 'Food that tastes of what it is.' "

"You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made. Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always." Julia's instructor, Chef Bugnard at Le Cordon Bleu

"Oh, 'crise de foie,' that French sole was so delicious!"

Julia's passion comes through loud and clear as she describes a fish dish: "La Truite's true glory was the Sole a la Normande, a poem of poached and flavored sole fillets surrounded by oysters, and mussels, and napped with a wonder-sauce of wine, cream, and butter, and topped with fluted mushrooms. 'Voluptuous' was the word. I had never imagined that fish could be taken so seriously, or taste so heavenly."

Julia's unique way with words, on Crepes Suzette: "The creature named Suzette may or may not have been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, but whoever she was, she long ago inspired a magnificent dessert that is still one of our favorites."

"I am probably one of the few people around who saw the real Caesar Cardini making his salad. I was about 9 when my parents took me to his restaurant in Tijuana. They were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to the table to make the salad. And it was dramatic: I remember most clearly the eggs going in, and how he tossed the leaves so it looked like a wave turning over."

"With a handsome package such as Jacques's, you can neatly cut the top open at the table with a pair of scissors..." Julia on Salmon en Papillote

"There's no reason to be intimidated by the idea of making pâté. You can just think of it as meat loaf."

From Julia's dear friend Jacques Pepin, "You are what you cook."

"Understanding egg yolks will make you a master of hollandaise sauce."

Julia encouraging us not to be intimidated: "When you know how to saute your meat so it browns rather than steams, you're cooking. What's difficult about that? You heat the pan, you dry the meat, you don't crowd it into the pan, and you're browning it. Is that difficult?"

Food Quotes

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit."
Charlie Trotter

"Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. "
Thomas Keller

"I love to make people happy."
Wolfgang Puck

"Fish sauce is to Vietnamese cooking as olive oil is to Italian."

The Little Saigon Cookbook by Ann Le

"I wish, I wish lunch could last forever...waiter, bring us one more bottle of wine..."

Jimmy Buffett

"My philosophy from day one is that I can sleep better at night if I can improve an individual's knowledge about food and wine, and do it on a daily basis."
Emeril Lagasse

"Gordon Ramsay makes me laugh because he knows that I'm not a chef."
Nigella Lawson

"You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else."
Mario Batali

"I always knew the importance of it, since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food."
Robert Mondavi

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at his/her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers."
Laurie Colwin

"Food is a central part of our lives. It provides the body with fuel and raw materials for maintenance, growth, and repair. It draws together family and friends, anchors celebrations and rites of passage, and sometimes soothes the soul."
Ethan Becker