Paris, by car
Several hours of time to talk in a warmly lit, comfortable place, punctuated by murmurs of pleasure over a sense-heightening meal, all accompanied by someone unobtrusively devoted to your service for the duration of this dream-like interlude: does this sound romantic enough for you?
At the very least, it sounds French, which explains why Chef Francis Foucachon in Moscow, Idaho, will be working very, very hard tonight.
Foucachon and his wife, Donna, own one of the area’s newest French restaurants, West of Paris, located on Friendship Square in downtown Moscow. West of Paris, a white-tablecloth restaurant, opened last fall, after Foucachon and his family moved to Moscow from France so that his sons could attend the University of Idaho and New St. Andrews College.
“We’ve been booked for Valentine’s Day since mid-January,” Foucachon said. “We are squeezing people in.”
No wonder. Foucachon is the real thing, born, raised and educated in Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France. He was apprenticed as a teenager to “Mère Léa” (“Mother Lea”), one of the greatest chefs of her time, whose clientele was shared with Paul Bocuse, a famous French chef, who did much to popularize French food in the U.S. Foucachon then spent almost a decade working in restaurants in France and Switzerland before turning his attention to his second career in theology and ministry. This is the first time he’s run his own restaurant, but he’s cooked for plenty of special events, including a wedding banquet in Texas for 2000 people, to which President George W. Bush was invited, although unable to attend.
He’s not in it for the glory, though. Great food – and more specifically, mealtime – has always been important to him for its smoothing effect on human relations and family life.
“In France, you don’t hear about so many counselors for family issues, because there is a set time, at least once a day, when you sit down together at a formal meal and communicate with your kids,” said Foucachon, a father of five. The Foucachons’ two college-age sons are the main servers at the restaurant, so it is truly a family operation.
Foucachon’s culinary specialty is sauces, the heart of classic French cuisine. Sauciers spend hours creating meat and vegetable stocks, then reducing them through long cooking to their velvety, flavor-packed final form.
“Two dishes are growing in popularity at the restaurant right now. One is pork tenderloin with wild mushroom sauce, and the other, a lamb tenderloin with a mint sauce, all made from scratch,” Foucachon said.
His simple summaries don’t do the dishes justice. The pork, for instance, is actually filet mignon of pork, cooked in Burgundy white wine and homemade white stock, flambéed with aged Cognac and seasoned with wild mushrooms. It’s accompanied by a slice of pan-fried polenta and cooked apples.
Start a meal like that with an appetizer of morel-stuffed artichoke hearts, lobster bisque, garlicky escargot, or paté drizzled with truffle oil; accompany it with crusty baguette and a glass of Cotes du Rhone; conclude with a platter of French cheeses, lavender crème brulée, or one of Foucachon’s dessert crepes, and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to Paris.
“Our meal at West of Paris was truly a dining experience,” said Moscow real estate agent Cindy Agidius, who recently took one of Chef Foucachon’s cooking classes. “It was so delicious, and very different than our usual American rush, to be served so nicely over the course of three hours. My husband and I didn’t even run out of things to talk about.”
Agidius especially appreciated how knowledgeable their server was, helping them understand what they were eating and what part of France the dish was from.
“Talk to anyone in our office – we’re all pretty enamored with (Foucachon) right now,” Agidius said.
Adding to the illusion of being in France is the wine list, which is heavy on French wines, naturellement. Foucachon has kept the list small to start with but focused on good values.
Foucachon noted the price of $49.60 on a bottle of Crozes Hermitage 2003 “les Jalets” Paul Jaboulet.
“You can’t get this wine for that price per bottle at a restaurant in France,” Foucachon explained, “but I charge less so that people can experience a really great wine.” Most of the wines are in the $20 range.
All French restaurateurs want their clientele to enjoy themselves, so you’ll never be rushed to finish your meal at West of Paris. Foucachon is slightly different, though, in that while he cares greatly about the food, he cares more about the people who are enjoying it.
“We don’t worship food,” Foucachon said. “Beyond the fact of eating well and beautiful presentation, there is the whole concept of conversation and being comfortable.”
So it turns out you don’t have to be in France, or be French, to create romance; it’s all in your attitude.
“If you take some time to prepare a nice meal and talk instead of watching TV, that’s romantic,” Foucachon said. “And that’s what you experience when you come here.”
French cooking in the sauce
Sauces are only one element of an entire classic French meal, but Foucachon believes that it is the most important one. At the restaurant, he spends one day each week making his stocks – a basic “brown” veal stock takes 22 hours, a “white” chicken stock, four to six hours. In his cooking classes, however, he suggests that home cooks can create great French food if they cook their stocks once a month and store them in small quantities in the freezer.
“Cooking is a real pleasure after that,” Foucachon said. “You make your own reduction sauce at the last minute if you have guests and serve them the most fantastic meal within an hour.”
If you take one of Foucachon’s cooking classes, held in his home near Moscow Mountain, you’ll come away with the recipes for brown and white stock, knowledge of the secret ingredients in his Gratin Dauphinois and mustard vinaigrette, and the trick to slicing shallots into a perfect mince.
But in the meantime, here are some homestyle French recipes to try that don’t require any tricks or sauces – just an appreciation for fresh food and a good sharp knife. The lavender crème brulée is one of the most popular desserts at West of Paris.
Salad of Orange, Fennel, Red Onion and Green Olives
From “Potager: Fresh Garden Cooking in the French Style,” by Georgeanne Brennan
For the dressing:
Juice of 2 lemons (about 6 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon finely chopped fennel leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chervil
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 large fennel bulb
1/2 red onion (cut stem to root)
2 oranges
1 cup torn mixed greens
12 to 16 bright green Greek or Italian olives
1 tablespoon finely chopped fennel leaves for garnish
In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients for the dressing and let stand for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature to allow the flavors to blend.
Trim away the top of the fennel bulb and remove any brown or tough outer layers. Cut the fennel into julienne strips and place in a glass bowl. Cut the onion lengthwise into thin slices and add it to the bowl with the fennel. Cut 1 orange in half crosswise. Squeeze the juice from one-half and add it to the bowl. Turn the fennel strips and onion slices, coating them with the juice. Let stand for 1 hour at room temperature.
Remove the zest from the remaining 1 1/2 oranges and slice it into thin slivers; set aside. Cut the oranges crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Remove any seeds and trim away the white pith. Refrigerate the slices until you are ready to assemble the salads.
To assemble the salads, arrange a bed of mixed greens on each plate and top with the fennel and onion. Place the orange slices on top. Drizzle each salad with some of the dressing. Garnish with the olives, orange zest, and fennel leaves.
Yield: 4 servings
Approximate nutrition per serving: 120 calories, 6 grams fat (2 grams saturated, 41 percent fat calories, 2 grams protein, 17 grams carbohydrate, 10 milligrams cholesterol, 4 grams dietary fiber, 364 milligrams sodium.
Grilled Chicken Breasts on Carrot and Green Onion Confits
From “Potager: Fresh Garden Cooking in the French Style,” by Georgeanne Brennan
For the marinade:
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 whole chicken breasts, skinned, boned, and split
1 large bunch carrots (about 12)
2 bunches green onions (about 12)
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Carrot and green onion slivers for garnish
Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a small bowl. Arrange the chicken breasts in a shallow dish and brush them with the marinade. Set the chicken breasts aside while you prepare the vegetable confits.
Remove the carrot tops and cut the carrots into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Cut the onions into 1/4-inch-thick slices also, including 4 inches of the green tops.
Put 1 tablespoon of the butter and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a saucepan and heat them over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the carrots, turning them to coat well. At the same time, in a second pan melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, turning them to coat as you did the carrots. Reduce the heat to very low and cook until both the carrots and onions are very tender and soft but not mushy, 30 to 40 minutes. Add 1/2 tablespoon of the sugar to each pan and cook the carrots and onions until they begin to glisten and melt slightly, 5 to 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare a fire in a charcoal grill or preheat a broiler. During the last 15 to 20 minutes that the confits are cooking, arrange the chicken breasts on a grill rack or a broiler pan and grill over a medium-hot fire or broil for 5 to 7 minutes on the first side. Turn the chicken breasts and cook 4 to 5 minutes longer.
To serve, warm the dinner plates. Spread half of each plate with a portion of carrot confit; spread the other half with a portion of the onion confit. Top each confit bed with a grilled chicken breast. Garnish the plates with carrot and onion slivers.
Yield: 4 servings
Approximate nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate due to recipe variables.
Chocolate Pots de Crème
From “Simple French Desserts,” by Jill O’Connor
8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup superfine sugar
2 tablespoons dark rum, Kahlua, Grand Marnier or Cognac
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
White chocolate and/or semisweet chocolate curls, for garnishing
Place an oven rack on the middle shelf of the oven. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Place the chocolate in a medium bowl.
In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and milk over medium-high heat until bubbles form around the edges of the pan and the milk mixture is just ready to boil. Pour over the chocolate and let sit for about 30 seconds to soften the chocolate. Stir until smooth.
In a medium bowl, use a large balloon whisk to beat the egg yolks together. Gradually whisk in the sugar until smooth and combined. Whisk in rum and vanilla. Gradually whisk the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks until combined.
Strain the custard through a fine-meshed sieve into a large container with a pouring spout. Divide the custard among 6 custard cups or ramekins. Place the cups in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Place the baking pan on the middle rack of the oven. Fill the pan with boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the custard cups or ramekins. Cover the baking pan with aluminum foil, piercing it in several places to allow the steam to escape.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the tops of the pots de crème appear solid but the custard jiggles slightly when shaken. The perfect consistency is soft but not liquid. The custards will firm up as they cool. Transfer the cups or ramekins from the baking pan to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature. Cover each cup with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 2 days before serving. Garnish the custards with semisweet chocolate and/or white chocolate curls and serve.
Yield: 6 servings
Approximate nutrition per serving: 622 calories, 46 grams fat (26 grams saturated, 64 percent fat calories), 7 grams protein, 48 grams carbohydrate, 322 milligrams cholesterol, 2 grams dietary fiber, 52 milligrams sodium.
Lavender Crème Brulée
From Francis Foucachon
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup milk
5 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
Fresh lavender (8 to 10 stems with the fragrant blossoms attached)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
Brown sugar
Soak the lavender in the cream and milk for several hours in the refrigerator, then bring it to a gentle boil.
In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and the sugar until smooth; add about a teaspoon of vanilla.
Filter the cream through a fine mesh sieve to remove the lavender, and then stir in the egg yolks and sugar mixture.
Pour into 8 individual ramekins; bake the ramekins in a pan of water in the oven for about 45 minutes at 300 degrees. The custards should jiggle just slightly in the middle but not be liquid when you remove them from the oven. Leave in the pan of hot water and let them cool. The custards can be chilled for a day or two at this point.
Before serving, sprinkle brown sugar in a thin layer on the top of each custard. Use a torch or a broiler to caramelize the top. Ideally, the crème brulée should be served with warm caramelized sugar on top, while the custard bottom is still cool.
Yield: 8 servings
Approximate nutrition per serving: 284 calories, 25 grams fat (15 grams saturated, 79 percent fat calories), 3 grams protein, 12 grams carbohydrate, 214 milligrams cholesterol, no dietary fiber, 32 milligrams sodium.