Read Around My French Table Online
Authors: Dorie Greenspan
Viande des Grisons is air-dried beef that comes from Grisons, in Switzerland. It's like Italian bresaola, and it's a popular component of winter meals and snacks in the French Alps, where it's often served with melted cheese and potatoes or on its own with drinks. At the Chai de l'Abbaye, it finds its way into salads that include hunks of Gruyère and walnuts as well as into my tartine. If you can't find air-dried beef, try making this tartine with prosciutto or another thinly sliced dry ham.
| 1 | very large slice country bread, about ⅓ inch thick, or 2 smaller slices heavy tight-grained bread (rye works) |
| Butter | |
| Enough slices of viande des Grisons or bresaola or other air-dried beef to completely cover the bread | |
| Walnut oil or olive oil | |
| Walnut halves (about 10) |
Lightly grill one side of the bread or toast it on one side in a toaster oven. As soon as it's toasted, slather that side with butter. Cover the bread with the beef—the pieces should overlap only slightly—and, using a long heavy knife, cut the bread crosswise into strips about 1 inch wide. Drizzle with a tiny bit of oil and strew with nuts.
MAKES 1 SERVING
SERVING
At the Chai de l'Abbaye, the tartine is served just as is, although you can order the snack portion, which is a half slice of bread and a small handful of green salad. Whichever you decide on, a glass of red wine is a good idea.
STORING
This is a make-and-munch treat.
Although the word sounds as if it should describe teensy tarts, what
tartines
really signals is a huge range of open-faced sandwiches, the French equivalent of Italian bruschettà. The verb
tartiner
means to spread, and a tartine is a slice of bread spread (although in many cases it's more rightly topped) with something or several somethings.
Tartines can be light or substantial, simple or elaborate; they can even be sweet (see
[>]
). Tartines are concept more than recipe, a kind of crafts project that encourages you to use your imagination—and your leftovers. Because, unlike American sandwiches (open-faced or closed), tartines are slender, carrying just a thin layer or two of ingredients, you can use up that lone slice of ham, the one tomato left in the basket, the few spoonfuls of soft cheese, or the odd olives to construct a good-looking and very tasty tartine.
You can build your sandwich on any kind of bread. In France, most tartines are constructed on thinnish slices of country bread that's been grilled more often than toasted, and usually on just one side. (The tartine bread Parisians love is pain Poilàne; see
[>]
.) But you can use a piece of baguette—sliced into rounds or cut lengthwise—or, if you're using delicate ingredients, you can base the tartine on a slice of brioche (see Bonne Idée,
[>]
), challah, or white or whole wheat bread.
L
A CROIX ROUGE IS ONE OF
the busiest cafés in our neighborhood. It's also one of the best places to get an idea of what's in fashion, since it's around the corner from designer boutiques like Sonia Rykiel, Prada, and Yves Saint Laurent, and everyone who works in the shops crams in at lunch time—or waits outside in the hopes of cramming in. And
cramming
is really the operative word: there isn't a millimeter of space between tables! But the staff is friendly, the location unbeatable, and the best-selling Saint-Germain roast beef and Norvégienne smoked salmon tartines as stylish and thin as the café's clientele.
W
HENEVER YOU SEE THE WORD NORVÉGIENNE,
meaning Norwegian, in France, you can be sure smoked salmon is in the picture.
| 1 | very large slice country bread, about ⅓ inch thick, or 2 smaller slices heavy tight-grained bread (rye works) |
| Butter | |
| Enough paper-thin slices smoked salmon to cover the bread in a single layer | |
| Capers | |
| Freshly ground pepper | |
| Lemon wedges |
Lightly grill one side of the bread or toast it on one side in a toaster oven. As soon as it's toasted, spread that side with butter. Cover the bread with the salmon and, using a long heavy knife, cut the bread crosswise into strips about 1 inch wide. Scatter the capers over the salmon, sprinkle with pepper, and put a couple of lemon wedges on the side of the plate.
MAKES 1 SERVING
SERVING
White wine's the drink of choice here.
| 1 | very large slice country bread, about ⅓ inch thick, or 2 smaller slices heavy tight-grained bread (rye works) |
| Mayonnaise | |
| Cornichons or gherkin | |
| 2 | paper-thin slices rarest-possible roast beef |
| Salt and freshly ground pepper |
Lightly grill one side of the bread or toast it on one side in a toaster oven. As soon as it's toasted, slather that side with mayonnaise. Thinly slice a cornichon or two (or part of a gherkin) and scatter over the bread, then cover the whole surface of the bread with the beef. Season with salt and pepper and, using along heavy knife, cut the bread crosswise into strips about 1 inch wide.
MAKES 1 SERVING
SERVING
At La Croix Rouge, this sandwich is served with a knife and fork, but the best way to eat it is to treat it as finger food. A glass of red wine is perfect with this.
While the baguette remains the symbol of France and the daily or thrice-daily bread of the land, there are dozens of other loaves that are made by bakers of every region. But one bread and one name that stands above all others is the
miche
from Poiláne. The
miche
is not just a bread you can sink your teeth into, it's one you can wrap your arms around: it boasts a diameter of 12 inches and tips the scale at over 4 pounds. Its crust is dark and crackly but chewy; its crumb, or
míe,
moist, tight, and the color of café au lait; and its taste is wholesome, wheaty, and just a bit sour, the signature tang of
levain,
a natural leavening akin to a sourdough starter.
The Poiláne
miche
is remarkable for its beauty as well as its substance—you get the sense that this is a bread that could sustain you for days. For sure, it sustains thousands of Parisians each day, some of whom buy it directly from the boulangerie, where it is baked in an ancient wood-burning oven, some of whom find it in their local supermarkets, and many of whom pay an extra euro at neighborhood cafés to have their tartines made on pain Poilane. Walk around the city, and you'll see cafés with signs saying "Ici Pain Poilane," and where you find the signs, you'll find people having plate-sized slices of Poilane bread, grilled and buttered for breakfast or covered with anything from roast beef to sardines for lunch. In fact, while any bread can be used to make a tartine (see
[>]
), the quintessential slice for the French open-faced sandwich is cut from the center of a
miche
and then cut crosswise in half, giving you a generous amount of real estate on which to build a tasty sandwich and allowing you the option of cutting the halves into strips dainty enough for tea. These days, all across America, artisan bakers are producing loaves reminiscent of Poilane's
miche.
If you can find one, grab it; if not, make your tartines on slices of hearty rye bread or any other large close-grained loaf available. And then, when you're in Paris, do what so many food-loving visitors do: make a pilgrimage to Poilane and taste the loaf that bread bakers around the world hold up as the standard to which they aspire.
T
HIS TARTINE ALMOST CREATED ITSELF ONE
Sunday morning on my return from the boulevard Raspail market. When I set my flimsy market bag on the counter, it toppled over—it was the baguette's fault—and out tipped the soft goat cheese from Philippe Gregoire's stand and a brown paper bag of strawberries so ripe their aroma had made me dizzy all the way home. The bread, cheese, and berries looked so beautiful strewn across my counter that I put them together immediately. And the combination was so good that I used it at dinner the following night, topping the tartine with a few drops of syrupy aged balsamic—truly unnecessary and truly good.
While most tartines are made on large slices of country bread, I think this one is best on a slice of baguette about ⅓ inch thick (think crostini). And while other tartines make good afternoon snacks, I think this one is best served later in the day with a glass of wine.
I've given instructions for making 12 cocktail-sized tartines, but since this is more an idea than a formal recipe, feel free to use more or less cheese or strawberries, to change the bread—thinly sliced pumpernickel would be great, but it's not a bread that's easily available in Paris—to use or not use the balsamic, or even to swap the berries for cherries or figs, fresh or dried, depending on the season.
| 12 | slices baguette, about ⅓ inch thick |
| About ¾ cup soft, spreadable goat cheese | |
| About 16 ripe strawberries, hulled and cut in half | |
| Coarsely ground or crushed black pepper | |
| Balsamic vinegar (optional) thick |
The day I first made this tartine, I just cut slices off the baguette and used them fresh, and you can do the same, or you can treat the baguette as you do breads for other tartines and grill or toast just one side of it. If you warm the bread, let it cool a bit so that the heat won't melt the cheese. Spread the goat cheese over the bread and top each tartine with a few berry halves. Sprinkle with black pepper and finish with a couple of drops of balsamic vinegar, if you'd like.
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
SERVING
I like this tartine with a chilled white wine, preferably one from the Loire Valley, where chenin blanc is the reigning grape and goat the
roi
of cheeses. But if you end up using cherries or dried fruits, you might want to pour red wine. In fact, topped with dried fruit, these tartines would make a nice addition to a cheese platter served before dessert.
STORING
These should be made as close to serving time as possible.
T
HIS RECIPE COMES FROM MY FRIEND
Rosa Jackson, who teaches cooking in Nice, her hometown, and Paris, her former hometown. It's what Rosa calls "a treasured Niçoise street food, sold in every boulangerie of Vieux Nice [the old city] and at several stands specializing in quick eats." Not that it's so quick to make, since the base is a simple yeast dough that needs about an hour to puff, and the onion topping, the hallmark of a proper pissaladière, needs almost as much time in a skillet to become golden, slightly caramelized, and full of flavor. However, both the dough and the onions can be made ahead, so that with a little planning, you can get your pissaladière into the oven in a flash.
The name
pissaladière
can make you think of pizza, but it derives from the anchovy paste,
pissala,
that is sometimes stirred into the onions to intensify their flavor. Indeed, anchovies are frequently part of a pissaladière's decoration—you often see them placed on top of the onions in a crosshatch pattern—as are black olives, preferably the small black, shiny olives native to the Niçoise area, which are strewn over the pissaladière.
Pissaladière can be a starter, a snack, or, paired with a salad, a light meal. If you fall in love with the pissaladière but find yourself short on time, you can substitute puff pastry for the dough—it's not truly Niçoise, but it's often done, and often by chefs. (See Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza,
[>]
, for inspiration.)
| FOR THE DOUGH | |
| 1¼ | cups bread flour or all-purpose flour |
| 1 | teaspoon salt |
| 1 | teaspoon sugar |
| 1 | packet active dry yeast (you can use rapid-rise) |
| ⅓ | cup warm water |
| 2 | tablespoons olive oil |
| 1 | large egg, at room temperature |
| | |
| FOR THE ONION TOPPING | |
| 2 | tablespoons olive oil |
| 6 | medium onions, halved and thinly sliced |
| 1 | thyme sprig |
| 1 | bay leaf |
| About 12 good-quality anchovies packed in oil | |
| Sea salt and freshly ground pepper | |
| About 12 Niçoise olives, pitted or not |
TO MAKE THE DOUGH:
Whisk the flour,salt, and sugar together in a large bowl.
Stir the yeast into the warm water and, when it's dissolved, whisk in the olive oil and egg (make sure the egg is not cold). Using your hand, a sturdy rubber spatula, or a wooden spoon, make a little well in the center of the flour, then pour in the yeast mixture and mix until you have a rough dough, a matter of minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for about 5 minutes, or until it is smooth. Rinse out the bowl, rub it lightly with oil, and turn the dough around in it until it glistens with oil. Cover the bowl, set it
aside in a warm place, and let the dough rise for at least an hour, or until it has doubled in size.