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Mushroom Magic. C’est la saison des champignons! Mille-feuille croustillant aux champignons et crème de noisette

Mushroom mille-feuille with hazelnut creme

Mille-feuille croustillant aux champignons avec oignons caramélisé, chèvre et crème de noisette

This week browsing the Parisian growers market I was so excited to discover almost 10 different varieties of French mushrooms are now in season that I decided to dedicate an entire post and recipe all to the humble, versatile mushroom. My first ever sighting of the remarkable giant cèpe conjured up magical, childhood memories of fairy-tales and illustrated story books- not to mention left me wondering how and what you cook with a 2kg cèpe mushroom which is bigger than the average Parisien chiwawa!

As a sure sign that winter is approaching- the varying damp and rain cultivates very specific mushrooms in regions with specific seasons- some varieties make very brief appearances and you will only see them on sale for a week or two a year. The different varieties open up so many new possibilities for pairing flavors, textures and ingredients with a seasonal ingredient that is both a star on it’s own, and equally as brilliant as an accompaniment.

For this blog post I wanted to create a recipe with the mushroom as the star of the dish. Since the choice was so overwhelming I found it hard to follow a minimalist approach and ended up buying 3 varieties in one go (not to mention burning a neat 15 € sized hole in my wallet). Thanks to my over enthusiasm for pricey, fancy fungi, the following recipe is made with a combination of seasonal varieties but would of course be equally as good, if not better with just one variety alone, left to shine as the hero of the dish.

Before I start on the recipe, here’s some pics of the markets this weekend showing a few different varieties from the farmers markets. Some of these are certified bio/organic so the prices on display are obviously much higher.

Champignons de paris

Chanterelle mushrooms

Baby Cèpe mushrooms

Porto bello mushrooms

Pleurote (oyster) mushrooms

Mushroom-eating munchkins! Too cute to leave this one out. The potato, mushroom and gruyere fritters they were eating looked pretty good too!

Hungry yet?

Hope so! Here’s the recipe for a delicious seasonal dish with typical French flavor profile made with market fresh mushrooms and Mille-feuille (flaky layered pastry). It’s not difficult to make, but can be a bit fiddly and certainly not achieved in a hurry. Use whatever mushrooms are in season (picured example includes girolle, cèpe and chanterelles), a mild goats cheese that’s soft enough to spread on the flaky pastry, a good quality ready-to bake Pâte feuilletée and fresh thyme if possible.

Mille-feuille croustillant aux champignons avec oignons caramélisé, chèvre et crème de noisette
(Wild mushroom mille-feuille with caramelized onlion, goats cheese and roast hazelnut crème)

Ingredients (serves 2):

I sheet flaky savoury pastry (Pâte feuilletée) cut into 4 x 10×6 cm rectangles
100 ml crème fraîche épaisse or equivalent (fat content is not important)
3 tbsp fresh, diced parsely
2 tbsp fresh or dry thyme leaves
450 grams fresh seasonal mushrooms
50 grams soft mild (spreadable) goats cheese
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or organic, demi-salted butter
3 tbsp hazelnut oil
1.5 medium-large brown onions
1 tsp balsamic vinegar or red wine
1 tsp brown sugar
2 hand-fulls whole hazelnuts
White pepper
Sea salt

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees celsius. On a lightly greased tray lay out the rectangles of cut pastry and put hazelnuts in an oven-proof dish. Bake for 20 mins or until the pastry has puffed and turned golden brown, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

cepes, girolles, chanterelle

Begin preparing the caramelized onion. Dice onion finely length-ways and add into a heavy-based saucepan with olive oil, balsamic or red wine and brown sugar. Keep stirring and cooking the onions slowly on low heat until they are translucent, soft and toffee brown, whilst preparing the mushrooms.

Rinse all mushrooms well and pat dry immediately to remove excess water with a clean tea towel or kitchen paper. Slice cèpes (or similar bigger meaty varieties) length-ways and leave other smaller mushrooms whole.

Heat olive oil and 2 tbsp hazelnut oil in a frying pan and add parsely, thyme and sea salt. Add all mushrooms, starting with the bigger ones. Add white pepper and cook the mushrooms, continually stirring, until they have reduced in size and start releasing their juice. Remove from heat and slowly separate the liquid away from the mushrooms, collecting all the juice into a separate bowl.

Thyme and parsely

Cooking mushrooms

Mushroom Juice- becomes the flavoursome basis of the hazelnut creme

In a blender or coffee grinder, combine 2/3rds of the roasted hazelnuts, 100 mls creme fraiche, mushroom juice , 1.5 tbsp hazelnut oil, and 15 mls warm water. Whizz until smooth and pourable, adding sea salt to taste.

Making the roast hazelnut creme in blender

Roast hazelnut creme for serving

Prepare Pastry layers by gently separating each rectangle of cooked pastry into two layers. The base becomes the centre layer and the top is used as the first layer or top of the mille-feuille.

Return mushrooms in pan to the heat and re-cook them to heat and remove any excess moisture. Add more fresh herbs if desired.

Place pastry bases on a serving dish and gently layer the caramelized onion to the base, then sprinkle roughly chopped roast hazelnuts over the onion. The nuts are an important textural elemetn to this dish so avoid omitting them.

Mille-feuille base with caramelized onion and hazelnuts

Add a 1.5 cm high layer of mushrooms over the top.

Spread a fine layer of goats cheese over both sides of the middle pastry layer then add this to the base.

On top of the mid section add another layer of mushrooms

The base layer

Spreadable fromage de chevre

Mille-feuille before adding top layer

Finally, add one of the top layers from the baked pastry to the mille-feuille. Drizzle the hazelnut creme over the top and finish with chopped hazelnuts.

Serve immediately.

Take picures.

Enjoy every morsel and…

Tell me what you thought!

À savourer!

🙂

Tags: Cèpe, champignons, Chanterelle, chevre, creme, Food & Wine Photography, french recipe mushrooms, girolles, markets, mille-feuille, mushrooms, noisette, paris, recette, recipe, seasonal food

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Categories Paris, Seasonal food recipes

L’art du saumon par L’atelier des Chefs The art of salmon by Atelier des Chefs

8 Aug

Demonstration of salmon preparation techniques

This week I satisfyingly ticked off one line on my very long and ever-growing bucket list: “Take cooking classes at a French cooking school!”

The options for French cooking classes in France, and Paris in particular are varied and suitably pleasing- catering to all tastes, budgets and availability. From week-long stays in lush Normadie Château’s to day-classes with market field trips or compact two-hour studio-style classes, France is certainly a country which obligingly shares and flaunts the many secrets and attributes of her cuisine.

For my purposes, with a limited schedule, and of course through recommendation, I booked a two-hour afternoon class at one of the more well known French Schools- Atlelier des Chefs. With classes in all major regions across France and a huge selection of menus and techniques to choose from packed into 2.5 hours for €70, a friend I booked ourselves into the last 2 spots for a specialised class in techniques for selecting, preparing and cooking salmon demonstrated over three different dishes.

The French are huge consumers of salmon. Salmon is the No 1 most consumed fish in France generally, with France being the No 1 smoked salmon consumer in the EU, ahead of Germany. Salmon features frequently in French dishes both classic and modern and is a delicious, versatile and readily available staple. Farmed fresh salmon was used in our cooking class, since wild salmon is more difficult to source, and generally much more expensive.

Whilst on the topic, it’s worthwhile touching on a growing concern and hot topic right now making waves not only in France but globally- the sustainability and health implications of the farmed salmon industry.

Today, over 50 per cent of the world’s salmon supply is farmed salmon. There are huge ramifications of mass fish farming environmentally and to our health- with some studies reporting that farmed fish contains 8-10 x the toxicity levels of wild salmon, meaning that just one portion of this fish per month can be consumed in order to remain under healthy levels.

Aside from health considerations, the world’s oceans are really feeling the effect of increasing global demand. Farmed salmon produced just in British Columbia’s 100 plus open-net-cage salmon farms produces waste roughly the same as the raw sewage from a city of half a million people. Sadly I’m finding it harder and harder to eat these days without feeling guilty about where my food came from!

This is no small topic and really requires an article all to itself, so instead here’s some good food for thought on the topic since it’s definitely worthwhile reading up on.

Gourmet.com article on Obama’s move to open the Gulf of Mexico to unregulated, industrial-scale open-water fish farms
Download the “End of the Line” Widget to check whether the fish you are planning to buy or eat is caught or farmed in a way that is sustainable
Advice from the World Health Organisation on PCBs and dioxins in salmon
Greenpeace’s take on the debate
What the farmed fish industry says

Now, before you download that sustainable fish iphone app or book in a panicked blood test to check your mercury levels, sit back and enjoy a visual snapshot of The Atelelier chef’s experience – including the recipe for my favorite dish from the day- Green tea infusion-steamed salmon with seasonal wok vegetables (Saumon à la vapeur de thé, wok de légumes croquants)!

How to select and prepare fresh salmon

Our host chef and teacher for the class- “Matthieu” enthusiastically explained (in French) the key points to look for to ensure freshness and quality- here is my best shot at the translation:

Smell: if it smells like fish- move on! The odor indicates that the fish is old and hasn’t been kept at appropriate temperatures.

Flesh: should be in firm shape and should bounce back when pressed gently.

Skin: Should be clean and shiny- never not slimy.

Eyes: The eyes should be clear, bright and well rounded.

Colour: Apparently the best way to gauge the freshness of a whole fish is by looking inside/behind the gills. “Les ouïes” should be bright pink to deep red in colour- signifying a high level of oxygen still present and a suitable state of freshness.

Preparing Salmon:

Demonstration of deboning process with pincers

Matthieu gave a detailed demonstration of the de-boning process or removal of ‘les arêtes.’ Working down the spine from the tail end to the head, each bone must be removed one at a time using a pincer- taking care to pull gently in the same direction as the bone sits- as to ensure the flesh is not bruised in the process. There is one smaller bone at the head-end which takes some fiddling to find but should obviously not be missed.

Cutting salmon into steaks

Cutting the fillet

The tail end is typically used for raw dishes- sushi, maki, sashimi, and the meatier, thicker sections cut in 150 gram portions for cooking.

Personally, I am never quite sure if my vegetable-cutting technique is cuts it… Thankfully, preparation methods were covered thoroughly in our class with special techniques and cuts detailed for each vegetable. Some vegetables shown here were used in the Provençal vegetable ratatouille, the remainder were used for the wok veggies in the following recipe steamed salmon infused with green tea.

Our chef demonstrated 3 dishes in the class, but for this post I will just focus on the detail for the provided recipe:

Green tea infusion-steamed salmon with seasonal wok vegetables
A simple, healthy and original way to serve salmon with an asian infusion- enjoy!

Ingredients:

Serves 6

6 Salmon steaks (150 grams each)
Green tea powder: 10 grams
2 x quality earl grey tea bags or spiced tea such as cardamom or chai
Fine sea salt: 5 grams
Fleur de sel: 6 pinches
Carrots: 2 (med-large)
Green onions: 1 bunch
Red Radishes: 1 bunch
Shitake Mushrooms: approx 1 dozen
Peanut oil
Filtered water

Instructions:

Peel the carrots and onion, cut carrots in half lengthways then again in fine strips on 45 degree angles (as pictured). Finely dice onion chives. Clean and slice the radishes into 4 lengthways leaving 1cm of green shoot attached at stem. Remove stems and dice Shitake mushrooms.

Dicing courgette/zucchini for Provencal vegetables

Green onion dicing technique

Dicing fresh shitake mushrooms

Preparing red radish for wok vegetables

Dicing cucumber for tzatziki accompaniment

Dicing onions and peeling red peppers

Deomonstration of shallot dicing technique

Angle-dicing carrots for wok vegetables

Preparing tomatoes

Knife-shredded fresh mint for tzatziki accompaniment

Claire and other students, wok-frying onions

In a wok, add a drizzle of peanut oil and sweat the onions with a pinch of salt. Add the carrots with another pinch of salt and a glass of water. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the radishes and shitake mushrooms. Adjust seasoning. Add a glass of water and add teabags to wok.

Cooking wok vegetables before tea-infusion

Hamasa Shoten green tea powder

Wok vegetables with tea infusion

In the same wok, insert a wire rack and place salmon steaks seasoned with salt and green tea. Cover wok with lid cook for 8 minutes allowing steam vapour to infuse through salmon and the vegetables.

Arrange the vegetables onto plates and arrange the salmon steaks on top. Finish with a pinch of fleur de sel and serve.