Vercors-style chestnut velouté: perfect for this chilly weather

Emmanuel de Careil wears a coat of many colors. He writes books about everything from psychology to history, and is also a foodie who has collected stacks of good recipes over the years. He just published this very wintry recipe, inspired by the great French chef Guy Savoy, and I thought it the perfect time of the year to make it.

Just for information, Vercors is a wild region in southeast France, which includes the Drôme with its low mountainous terrain, known for its chestnuts.

This is my take on the recipe.

Recipe for chestnut velouté, based on Guy Savoy’s recipe

This recipe should feed about four people.

Ingredients for soup

300 grams of chestnuts (cooked at home, frozen, vacuum-packed or tinned)
40 grams of butter
10 centiliters of Chartreuse, an herbal-flavored liqueur found in France
1 bouquet garni
1.5 liters of chicken broth
50 centiliters of liquid cream
2 fresh chestnuts, shelled
2 pinches of cardamom
Salt and pepper to taste

Garniture

Preparation

Finely dice garniture ingredients.

Cut the 300 grams of cooked chestnuts into thin slices.

Melt half of the butter (20 grams) in a saucepan. Sauté the garniture in it. Add sliced chestnuts and sauté for a few more minutes.

Deglaze with the 10 centiliters of Chartreuse (or other similar liqueur), then flambé it.

Add 1.5 liters of seasoned chicken broth and the bouquet garni. Salt and pepper to taste.

Simmer over low heat for one and one half hours.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

In a frying pan, cut the two fresh chestnuts into extra-fine “shavings”, like one does with Parmesan cheese. Heat the remaining 20 grams of butter until it starts to foam. Add chestnut shavings. Sauté until the shavings are crispy but not too dark in color. Set aside.

Whip the 30 centiliters of whipping cream. Add cardamon. Set aside.

This can all be made ahead of time, and be ready for serving immediately after the apéritif.

To serve

Put a large dollop of the cardamom cream, about the size of a dumpling, into each serving bowl, along with a few chestnut chips.

Pour hot chestnut soup over it and serve.

What a delight in the cold of winter! And what a delicious smell it leaves in the house, like the smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

My husband Peter is a wonder when it comes to finding luxury bargains as he hops around the globe.

This weekend, London was our destination, and there’s no better place to spend Halloween. The recession is still going strong in Britain, so it is also a good time to take advantage of the multitude of deals to be had.

Hotel

Photo courtesy of MyHotel.

We usually prefer classic English-style hotels, because the English really do know how to let you feel part of what is the best in the British lifestyle, but this time, Peter selected a boutique hotel, MyHotel Bloomsbury on Bayley Street just off Bedford Square.

MyHotel is entirely Feng Shui, minimalist and has a wonderful fitness center. The rooms are quiet and impeccably clean, the staff is pleasant and efficient and they speak very good English (which one cannot count on in London), it does indeed have a good feel about it, and the location is remarkably central.

Unfortunately, the hotel is the victim of British regulations regarding fire doors, so despite all the effort they had made to make it Feng Shui and calming, the fire doors ruined it all. Even the bathroom door slammed loudly. The clientele was extremely civilized, despite the fact that it was Halloween weekend, and the management was so conscious of maintaining the calm atmosphere, that they closed the bar on Halloween night.

Restaurants

In the UK, Top Table is an excellent site for booking fine restaurants at a nice price. With the credit crunch still alive and kicking, there is an abundance of choices, many offering forty and fifty percent off menu prices. Please note that the discounts do not usually apply to wine, supplements and service charge, and are sometimes limited to a limited number of people, but it can still significantly reduce the price of a meal.

Dining room of The Landau, photo courtesy of Top Table.

We regularly get Top Table offers at the L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in West Street in Soho. This weekend we went with Ana and Nicholas, two of our three children, who fall strictly into the bouche fine category, and lots of appropriate terms such as “yum,” “divine” and “I want to eat this every day in heaven” were to be heard, especially since the children ate Robuchon’s mashed potatoes for the first time.

Top Table is also offering other top restaurant deals at the moment, such as Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester on Park Lane, offering either 20% off the total bill or 3-course lunch for 2 people with 2 glasses of wine for £45.

One of my all-time favorite restaurants in London, The Landau in The Langham Hotel in Portland Place, is offering dinner for two, with 3 courses and a glass of Champagne for £37.50, or lunch for two, with 3 courses and a glass of wine £32. Tell the charming Italian maître d’hôtel Franco that the Galloway-White’s from Geneva sent you!

We always like to eat at at least one Indian restaurant when we go to London. Top Table was offering 40% off at the Hason Raja in Southampton Row in Bloomsbury. They specialize in Bengali dishes, but add the classic Indian and Pakistani restaurant dishes like chicken tikka, rogan josh, etc. to their Bengali menu. The manager and maitre d’hôtel had an imperious manner and was unfriendly, and the menu offered some original dishes you don’t find elsewhere, such as lamb with grenada fruit seeds. One of my main criterion in judging an Indian restaurant is the quality of the dal, and the dal was just all right and served coldish.

Leonor, our eldest, joined us for Saturday night’s meal at Patterson’s in Mill Street between Oxford Circus and New Bond Street; it was a pure delight. Scottish chef Raymond Patterson offers an exquisite balance between classic French cuisine, adding Scottish ingredients, thus giving an original, modern English style of cuisine. I loved every bite and will definitely put it on my list of favorites in London.

Despite the small dining room and superb quality, they too are offering Top Table deals, with a choice of 50% off the total food bill, a private dining room with complimentary champagne and canapé reception, or 40% off the total food bill. We managed to eat a wonderful meal in a wonderful setting, with a tab of around £120 for our family of five. (By the way, the portions are huge.)

The only meal we didn’t book on Top Table was our dim sum brunch at The Golden Dragon in Gerrard Street in Chinatown, which gets a rating of 22 in Zagat. They have some of the most delicious dim sums I have ever eaten in the Western hemisphere, and you must book ahead of time if you don’t want to wait in line for hours. Prices are right.

On Halloween, all of London becomes one big party

Photo courtesy of Coed Magazine.

Take note for next Halloween: London is so lively on Halloween night, and people dress in the most eccentric costumes possible. The streets are alive and buzzing, and some hotels offer Halloween weekend packages. Many clubs give a Halloween bash, and there are daytime activities for children in some theatres and other venues around town. No one does it better, I think.

Stephanie Jaworski is a master baker.

Her recipes are designed for use in North America, so the measurements may have to be adapted to your taste and the raw ingredients to what is available in the Lake Geneva region. For one thing, North Americans tend to put more sugar in their recipes. My rule of thumb is to cut the amount of sugar in half, but I have every kind of tooth but a sweet one, so three-quarters the amount would probably work for those who do.

I’m dying to try her pumpkin cheesecake recipe, but the graham crackers would have to be substituted by some other sort of whole-grain, slightly sweet biscuit or cookie. I think spelt and sesame Wasa or whole-wheat Krisprolls mixed with a spoon of brown sugar/cassonade could also give somewhat the same texture.

Cookbooks: Mathilde’s Cuisine

Photo courtesy of Mathilde's Cuisine blog.

Mathilde Delville’s food blog is great for foodies like myself who have lived in a French-speaking country long enough to not know whether we’re more French, Swiss or Anglo. She rambles about all sorts of food-related topics, in both French and English.

I particularly like her post about cookbooks.

Gourmet recipes you can do at home: Citron et Vanille

Silvia is of Italian origin, grew up in Nancy, France, and has lived in the US for thirteen years now. She is a personal chef, and adds contemporary, gourmet recipes to her site almost daily.

Photo courtesy of Citron et Vanille.

She has the right origins (Italian and French) to know about good food and she is living in San Francisco, certainly one of the food capitals of the US, thanks to all the high-quality ingredients available year round.

Fusion, sugar-free and low-carb recipes: Café Nilson

Photo courtesy of Café Nilson.

The Virtual Chef, whose real name we don’t know, runs an on-line “café” consisting of recipes that people donate, to which she adds her own highly creative recipes. She leans toward light, healthy fusion cuisine, and offers two interesting categories we don’t often see: sugar-free and low-carb.

We still have strawberries in the Lake Geneva region, and they are extra-sweet right now, so I am strongly tempted by her Sugar-free Strawberry Soufflé recipe.

Each canton offers an uncanny variety of activities for adults and children alike. From tasting workshops and cooking classes, to biodynamic growing techniques and wine making and tasting and even markets: there is truly something for everyone. Just click on the link above to see what is going on in your canton or area.

Every year, the main activities are focused on a “star” town or city. This year it is Delémont in canton Valais, where for CHF 50, 13 gastronomic restaurants will be offering a 4-course meal accompanied by the 4 Etoile d’Or wines that win the organization Les Vins du Valais‘s wine competition, which is headed this year by Marie-Thérèse Chappaz, Switzerland’s star female wine maker, whose vineyards are located in Fully in canton Valais.

Les Vins du Valais also offers special taste initiation events for young people between the ages of 16 and 25, allowing them to taste the award-winning wines and start training their tastebuds. Tasting events have also been organized in schools (ask at your child’s school for more detailed information; informational brochures are available for teachers on the sites listed above, under “Ecoles“).

The annual Swiss tasting week promotes local and Swiss products of all types: sausages, wine, herbs, fruit, vegetables, cheese, etc.

Marie-Thérèse Chappaz in her vineyard in Fully in canton Valais.

Erratum:

Every year, Association pour la Promotion du Goût, the Swiss association for promoting taste, chooses a Ville du Goût, or city of taste. This year it is indeed Delémont, as stated in our Swiss tasting week: La Semaine du Goût post of 19 September 2009, but Delémont is located in canton Jura, instead of in canton Valais. More about the gastronomic events in Delémont can be found on their website.

This includes tasting classes for children the week of 21 to 25 September. Please consult the site for more information.

The class starts at 14 H (2 p.m.) and lasts until 17 H (5 p.m.).

Students will prepare a 3-course gourmet meal, learning both traditional and modern cooking methods.

You can sign up in their offices, by phone or on the Internet.

NOTE: Lausanne is offering classes in Italian and Spanish, but is considering classes in English if they have enough requests. So if you are interested, give them a call and express your interest.

Ecole-Club Migros:
Genève-centre (downtown), Rue du Prince 5, 1204 Geneva, tel. 022 319 61 61, offices open 8:30 H to 20:30 H Monday through Thursday, 8:30 to 17 H on Fridays, and from 9:00 H to 12:30 on Saturday.

Website: www.ecole-club.ch

Both the “Gourmet cooking” and “Swiss gourmet” classes consist of three 2-hour periods. The Swiss cooking class covers traditional dishes from all regions of Switzerland.