Meade's Menu

BOULEVARD OF CULINARY DREAMS
When a culinary culture is as steeped as in France that when visiting there, one does not have to try very hard to experience this gastronomic heritage on any plate of food. When the food you are eating is also being sold on a market stall literally a few feet from where you are eating it and when those market traders are selling products that have all come from the area in and around the same region then you know you are on safe gourmet ground.
I thought I had seen big markets but the one in Boulevard de la Croix-Rousse in Lyon stretching forever with over a hundred stalls on a daily basis bar Monday is outstanding and a testimony to the fresh food market economy as it should be. That it still survives in the supermarket age is a joy to behold. The only nod to modernism was that one seller was actually taking no cash but card payments only.
Right on the edge of the market with stalls backing up to the tables on the footpath is the most modest of traditional eateries or bouchons called Chez Antoine. For less than sixty Euros you can savour perfect classics like a delicious steak tartare and a blanquette of veal, a couple of tasty homemade desserts, a carafe of superb local w**e and coffee while listening to the hustling and bustling soundtrack of the market.
The world’s most foodie city has a galaxy of Michelin starred places full of tourists enjoying the same cuisine albeit at a much higher level in plush surroundings for ten times the price but give me this simple and humble offering with only working class locals sitting down around you and to be greeted to the warmest of welcomes from a charming host simply delighted to have us stop by as her guests.

NO CODDING AROUND
Deep fried cod in dripping with chips and mushy peas is a British staple especially popular since the 19th century in London and the north of England. Cod was plentiful then, spuds too and the commonly used dried marrowfat peas were boiled and mashed up to complete the holy trinity.
It’s so revered it was exempted from world war two rationing. The whole combo has a Jewish origin however with some French influence but today it is truly an anglicised dish.
It eventually made the transition into modern restaurant and gastro pub menus with it getting spruced up to look a bit fancier on a plate. The chips are often morphed into a mash, the fresh cod is just seared in a pan and the pea is a smooth puree and a few other bits are added to enhance the dish.
I actually like the chip shop version, though here in Ireland the peas are not always served. It certainly is a filling feed and it is combination that has stood the test of time no matter which way you eat it.

EAT TO THE BEET
I only ever remember beetroot coming in a jar so**ed in vinegar and then being shown later in chef training how to prepare it fresh and still the best way is by just wrapping in foil and baking like a potato. These days there are a myriad of shapes, colours and flavours some of which can be eaten raw shredded. We once had a thriving beet industry in Ireland for producing sugar but it has long since disappeared with it being too expensive to process here.
It’s as old as the hills in origin, often used as animal fodder and was once thought medicinal which is not surprising it’s so nutritious. The juice was even once used for darkening w**e and latterly laboratory meat. This time of year tends to be peak season bringing their rich, earthy taste to the table. They work in starters like salads and soups and as a good garnish for meat or fish never mind a superb plant based option for the non meat eaters.
Mixing a few varieties in the same recipe can really bring out a combination of both visual colours and flavours to a dish. I like to par cook them a bit and finish them off in a tart with some onions and herbs to enhance the final taste. If you do not fancy the trickier upside down version then just layering them up fully cooked in a prebaked pastry base will be just as attractive and appreciated. It is best to heat it up a bit too and served with a nicely dressed salad it is a proper autumn starter or snack.

RAISING A CLASSIC
One of the standard chef training desserts of yesteryear is a classic cold lemon soufflé or soufflé Milanese that I only ever once saw on an eighties London hotel menu. It came about as a foolproof 19th century attempt to mimic the hot soufflé version without all the risks, though it is tricky in itself to get just right. It is a perfect cooling dessert served straight out of the fridge. It is basically a carefully cooked lemon zest and juice flavoured egg yolk and sugar mix whisked together in a bowl like a sabayon until light and creamy.
Then with whipped cream and whisked egg whites folded into it after it being slightly set with gelatine when cooled just enough. When fully chilled it is meant to be as light and fluffy with the equally intense taste of the hot soufflé. The presentation is key in that it is made to look like a hot soufflé too with high edges. It is not dissimilar to a mousse or baverois recipe however. I like to add lime to it as well and an orange version I once made is just as nice.
These days desserts like this are mass produced in food factories. They are sold frozen for a couple of euro each and ready to serve after an hour of defrosting. The cost of having a pastry chef making desserts in a modern kitchen is just not financially feasible anymore so the art is diminishing as each year goes by. I rarely see a good home made dessert now unless at the high end of eating out where thankfully the culinary art and craft is still alive and cooking.

SOMETHING NOT FISHY PLEASE
The best way for restaurants to use up fish that has not been sold while it’s fresh is to think of other clever ways to cook it so that customers may be tempted to buy it on a special instead. The problem is that kitchens leave it too late to cook off the aging seafood to use it up and then the resulting fish cake, stir fry, curry, pasta or rice dish that it has been reused in has that scent of borderline stale fish that cannot be disguised by any spices or sauces.
In a mixed seafood dish, only one piece of fish needs to be gone past its freshness to give the whole plate a whiff of staleness. The other issue is the amount of fish offered in these types of dishes, sometimes you have to go fishing for the fish in a stew or soup like chowder. I prefer for the chosen fish to go straight into these types of dishes from fully fresh, be a generous portion and I am then prepared to pay the premium price instead of a discounted dubious concoction.
I do like a well made fish pie with good chunks of fresh seafood in a thick and tasty sauce and covered with some proper mash potato or pastry. Fish is not cheap but I do not want a runny sauce with lots of veggies and a few bit of seafood floating about. You only need about three good and fresh contrasting fish, no bones or skin, a nice rich and gloopy sauce to just about hold it together and a proper topping to cap it off. Now that would be a very rare catch of the day eating out at the moment.

BREADLINE BEAUTY
In the olden days bread did not last very long when it had no preservatives to keep it fresh for days on end. The result was households having to concoct ways of using up the stale loaves. The continentals reheated chunky bits for tasty salads, another was bread and butter pudding but my favourite was a dessert called a charlotte made mostly with apples and sometimes pears.
I like to use sliced up rhubarb where the fruit is packed into a mould lined with the old slices of crustless bread simply dipped in some melted butter and carefully overlapped to form an outside protective layer. The raw fruit is then packed in with some sugar and spices, a topping of the bread is placed on top and the moulds then get baked until nice and browned on the outside.
The fruit will be soft on the inside with the excess juice soaked up by the bread. It then has to be left cool for a few hours and it is actually better for it to be chilled fully and it will keep well for a few days too before reheating. Then a runny custard on the side and you will have a very nice economic dessert especially if the fruit is your own and the bread was going to be thrown out.

BAGS OF FLAVOUR
Back in the seventies the French were realising that vacuum packing raw food and cooking it in the bag under water was having a dramatically positive impact on uniform heat distribution, natural flavour and size retention by having no means of moisture or minerals escaping as with food in other traditional cooking methods.
The high end restaurants knew this was an exciting new departure and in the eighties it became common practice which I was lucky to experience during this cooking sous vide style revolution while working in France then. It became global and part of subsequent culinary progression like molecular gastronomy in the nineties.
The idea that a piece of meat, fish or vegetable with a few seasonings added or a marinade can cook away slowly in a water bath at a low temperature while in a plastic bag may seem somewhat long winding. The results speak for themselves however with better control, concentrated flavour and the optimum desired texture achieved.
So these days it is still used by a lot of modern chefs to achieve as close to cooking perfection as possible for certain recipes. The kits are much more affordable these days too, so much so that many foodies will have a sous vide machine, water bath and vacuum packer at home being used on a regular basis for the ultimate outcomes.

VEGGIE-MIGHT
In the early days of veggie diets one of the first conversions to the cause was a lasagne and the early manifestations of it left a lot to be desired. It was not until I saw one in a 1990s Melbourne restaurant I worked in that I tasted a veggie lasagne that hit the mark. It was a cleverly deconstructed version with the al dente pasta and various vegetables cooked separately and properly.
Then it was assembled and heated up to order with each ingredient having been par cooked and seasoned separately while still retaining its colour, flavour and texture unlike most of the inferior cooked in the oven concoctions that seem to be just thrown together as an afterthought.
Recently I had one by accident after ordering the meaty version but the mushy disaster of a dish served to me would have sent most vegetarians running for the door. I only kept it to eat in order to see how bad it really was and I had flashbacks to the beauty of an Aussie one I had thirty four years ago.
I have amended it somehow but the veggies still need to be carefully selected and cooked just right, the layering up has to be measured correctly and finally the reheating and presentation has to be spot on and what you then get is a pleasure to behold even for an ardent meat eater to enjoy. Vegetarian cookery has come a long way since the bad old days.

POWER OF THE PIE TART
When I was growing up an apple pie was all I knew and if a fruit pie had no pastry on top it was a flan where everything had been layered into a precooked base which was often made of sponge and a thick pastry cream set underneath whichever fruit was being used. To discover that there was a hybrid was a revelation in the open top French tart where the raw pastry base has all the ingredients inside.
It gets its long cooking so that it all comes out looking just lovely especially when it has had its final glazing. There is an option to precook some of the apple mix underneath the decorative apple topping which I prefer to do as then you can actually taste the finished mix for sweetness before it gets its raw apple topping. It shortens the cooking time too with the interior already cooked.
Then it’s let cool down a bit and brushing it with some melted apricot jam that will give the glazed apples a nice shine and extra sweetness even if using eating apples. Cooking apples will not work in these recipes as they will just disintegrate into a mush and are better for apple pies where the apple will not be seen until cut open. Rhubarb and pears will work well too in this style of open baked fruit tarts.

SALAD DAZE ARE HERE AGAIN
Sometimes the most delicious dishes take the quickest time to make once you have a few good ingredients at hand and have a fair idea of what you want to achieve. It’s even better if there is no cooking involved and all you have to do is a small amount of cutting and assembling of the various elements so that flavours will work and the finished plate will look very appetizing for a tasty lunch or dinner starter.
On a warm summer day with a chance to eat outside enjoying something cold and refreshing like a salad can be just the recipe. Salad is something that has always had a poor reputation for the Irish due to our climate and limited choice of ingredients in the past but these days most menus have a litany of them as both cold and warm and starter and main course choices.
With a just a few slices of something like a cold meat or smoked salmon, an apple, some beetroot and a blob of mayo or soured cream along some fresh herbs from the garden you will be surprised what can be concocted with a bit of creativity and attention to detail when there are various bits to be used up. Good bread on the side gives some more substance to a light meal and you will not feel so full afterwards.