French Chef Favors Minestrone

What makes a good chef great? What combination of talent, persistence and good luck does it take to make it toward the top?

That’s a good question we ask often at La Varenne Cooking School in Burgundy, France, one we recently explored in depth with the visit of Chef Jean-Michel Bouvier from L’Essentiel restaurant in Chambery.

This year Bouvier was awarded his first star by the Guide Michelin, the indispensable, all-powerful, red-bound guide to French restaurants, which is bought by more than 3 million diners. A one-star restaurant is “worth a visit,” two stars merits “the detour” and three stars, the ultimate accolade, is “worth a special journey.” There are only 20 three-star restaurants in the whole of France.

With one star, Bouvier has his foot on the ladder to the top, and in many ways his career to date has been a model. He started as an apprentice at age 15, spending two years working on pastry, then a year in cooking for the equivalent of a double major.

Then began the grueling round of leading kitchens in which talented “commis,” just out of school and still in their teens, are sorted from the herd.

“It’s tough,” says Bouvier. “A young cook can earn good money very young in a mediocre bistro, but the experience of working with a great chef is irreplaceable. It’s thanks to Michel Guerard that my style of cooking is both old and new, contemporary but based on the classics.”

To be a commis in a top restaurant means long hours on double shift, an average 12 to 14 hours a day, 5-1/2 days a week. Wages are at the legal minimum, the only consolation being there’s no time off to spend any money. Good commis ensure the smooth running of a kitchen. Ability is rapidly recognized, so a young cook may become sous chef by 20, in charge of roasting, or the coveted fish or sauce stations.

Then comes the first big step. Having done two years with Michel Guerard in southwestern France, Bouvier graduated to sous chef at Lucas Carton in Paris, one of the most famous temples of gastronomy.

“I had to earn the respect of the other chefs,” he says, “to earn the title of chef.” (In French, “chef” also means leader.)

Here began the networking crucial to entering the inner circle of the French culinary world. When Lucas Carton’s Chef Alain Senderens was asked for a likely young talent to pull a long-established restaurant out of bankruptcy, he suggested Jean-Michel Bouvier. Five years later, with the restaurant turning a healthy profit on doubled turnover, Bouvier took a deep breath. He went back home to fulfill the dream of most aspiring chefs: opening his own restaurant.

This is where so many go wrong. Many chefs can cook well, some can also run a kitchen efficiently, but to own and operate a restaurant is a quantum leap into big business.

A chef who can take over his restaurant little by little from the previous generation starts with a huge advantage. At the Top 20 listed in the Guide Michelin, more than half the chef-owners come from a cooking background, and many inherited the restaurant directly.

Bouvier was not so lucky. His family are truck farmers (now they raise herbs and salad greens for the restaurant). He had to borrow more than a half-million dollars from the bank.

“Now, at the end of three years, we’re just breaking even,” he says.

Meanwhile, he concentrates on his cooking, focusing on the ingredients and mountain ambiance of the surrounding province of Savoy. Bouvier’s dishes are punchy with wild herbs, crunchy with nuts, fragrant with honey. He loves to use game - pigeon, rabbit, wild boar and mountain goat - in season. Trout comes from Lake Annecy and chanterelle mushrooms from the local woods.

“My greatest problem is ingredients,” he sighs. “Good carrots are easy to find at $1.80 a bunch, but I can’t afford that. I have to search out good things at a reasonable price.”

Like most chefs, Bouvier bursts with energy, making little of 18-hour days spent on his feet. He habitually drives four hours to my cooking school in Burgundy after the dinner service and is in the classroom bright-eyed and ready to teach at 7:30 a.m.

“This is vacation!” he declares.

He has launched his own cooking classes as well, which have led to written recipes and a cookbook, another flag of the rising young chef.

The future is a glint in his eye, a converted country home where he and his wife, Catherine, who runs the dining room, can entertain fewer guests in a more leisurely style. Would he like two Michelin stars?

“Well, perhaps, but definitely not three. That life kills you. It’s an inferno.”

Minestrone of Langoustines with Basil

“For me, this is the best of simple cooking,” says Bouvier.

Soup:

1 pound langoustines (large prawns) or medium raw shrimp

Salt, pepper

2 medium carrots, cut into small dice

2 zucchini, cut into small dice

1/2 cup vermicelli pasta

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 shallots, chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1/4 cup cooked white kidney beans

1 tomato, peeled, seeded and diced

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Fish stock:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 carrot, diced

1 onion, diced

1 pound fish bones, cut into pieces

Large bouquet garni of thyme, rosemary, parsley and bay leaf

2 cups dry white wine

2 quarts water

Pistou:

1 large bunch fresh basil

3 garlic cloves

3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted

1 cup olive oil

Salt, pepper

Peel shrimp, reserving shells.

To prepare fish stock, heat oil in pan and sweat carrot and onion until soft, 5 to 7 minutes. Add shrimp shells, fish bones, bouquet garni and wine and simmer 5 minutes. Add water and simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes. Strain stock. Return stock to pan and boil until reduced to 3 cups.

Meanwhile, to prepare pistou, puree basil, garlic and pine nuts in food processor. Gradually work in oil with machine running so sauce thickens and emulsifies. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Bring medium saucepan of salted water to boil. Add 2 diced carrots and simmer until just tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon. Add zucchini and simmer until tender, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove and add to carrots. Add vermicelli and simmer 1 minute. Drain and add to vegetables.

Heat oil in large pan and saute shallots and crushed garlic until soft, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in tomato puree, then stock.

Bring stock to a boil. Stir in shrimp, vegetables and vermicelli, kidney beans, tomato, Parmesan cheese and 1 tablespoon pistou. Bring just to boil and adjust seasonings. Spoon at once into warm soup bowls and serve remaining pistou separately.

Yield: 4 servings.