Jazz Age Gourmet
Salade Lyonnaise (pictured above)
Serves 48 slices bacon
4 slices day-old French bread
1½ tbsp butter, melted
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard sauce (see below)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 eggs u 1 tsp vinegar (optional)
1 head of frisée lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces
1 shallot, chopped
Dijon mustard sauce
225g mayonnaise
1 tbsp Dijon mustard, or more to taste
For the sauce, whisk together the mayonnaise and mustard in a small bowl. Taste, and add additional mustard if desired.
Cook the bacon in a frying pan over a medium heat until crisp – about 10 mins. Remove from the heat and drain the pan of excess fat. Once the bacon is cool, chop into 1cm pieces. Set aside.
Cut the French bread into cubes. Melt the butter in the same frying pan, then add the bread and toast over a medium heat. Do not stir the bread unless to turn to a different side once one side is browned. Set aside.
In a medium-large jar, mix the olive oil, vinegar, mustard sauce, and some salt and black pepper by giving it a good shake.
To poach the eggs, fill a saucepan about two-thirds full with water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and let the water return to a high simmer – you should see bubbles coming to the surface, but it won’t be rolling. Crack an egg into a small measuring cup, preferably one with a long handle as this will help you ease the egg into the water. If you wish, add a teaspoon of vinegar to the water, to help the egg keep its shape. Ease the egg into the water, using the measuring cup to tip it out once it is in the water. Cook for about 4 mins. Remove the egg from the water with a slotted spoon and place on a plate. Pat dry very delicately with paper towel. (I poach these one at a time because they are very delicate.)
Layer the frisée, chopped bacon, shallot and croutons on four salad plates. Pour the dressing over and toss lightly. Top each with a poached egg.
Smoked Salmon Mousse
Serves 4
120g smoked salmon
2 tbsp double cream
225g cream cheese, softened
Freshly squeezed juice of ½ lemon
1 tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped, plus a few sprigs for decoration
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large cucumber, thickly sliced
25g salmon roe
Place the smoked salmon in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Mix in the double cream, cream cheese, lemon juice, finely chopped dill, salt and black pepper. Blend to the desired consistency.
Pipe the salmon mousse onto thick slices of cucumber and garnish with the salmon roe and remaining sprigs of dill.
French Ice Cream
Makes 950ml
Vanilla base
475ml whole milk
590ml double cream
2 vanilla beans, halved lengthwise
8 large egg yolks
150g sugar
Pinch of salt
3 tbsp Kirsch liqueur (optional)
Lemon flavour
235ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
Strawberry flavour
140-280g strawberries, chopped
2 tbsp sugar
Over a medium-high heat, mix the milk, cream and vanilla beans in a pan. Let the mixture become hot, but do not let it simmer or scald. Remove from the heat, cover with a lid and let stand for 25 mins. After it has steeped, remove vanilla beans.
Put the egg yolks, sugar and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer. Using a whisk attachment, beat on high speed for 3-4 mins until the yolk mixture has tripled in consistency, is a pale yellow, and the whisk leaves a ‘ribbon’ trail when lifted out.
With the mixer on medium speed, slowly pour 235ml of the milk mixture into the yolk mixture. Beat to combine. Repeat until all the milk mixture is incorporated.
Transfer the mixture to a saucepan. Cook over a mediumhigh heat, stirring constantly, until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon and an instant-read thermometer registers 180C/350F – about 5-7 mins. You don’t want the heat to be so hot that it cooks the eggs at the bottom of the pan, so make sure you are stirring consistently.
Pour the custard through a medium-mesh sieve into a bowl set in an ice-water bath. Let cool completely, stirring often. When cool, add the Kirsch (although German, it’s used in various ice creams in France). Transfer to an ice-cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions.
For lemon ice cream: add the lemon juice to the custard base after it cools. For the strawberry ice cream: before making the custard base, combine the strawberries with the sugar. Macerate together and set aside for at least 1 hour. After the ice-cream base has cooled, stir in the strawberries and freeze the ice cream.
F Scott Fitzgerald’s Taste Of France, by Carol Hilker (CICO Books, £16.99).