Duck Confit, Part 2: Artichokes a la Provencale

The table was set, the black olive tapenade was made, and the next step was to prepare the Artichokes a la Provencale. Apparently people from Provence drink a lot of dry vermouth. I'd actually never made fresh artichokes before, and I wasn't quite prepared for how prickly they can be. The purple insides were beautiful, though, and the recipe seemed very simple.

Ingredients:
8 artichokes
1 lemon
2 small onions, quartered
5 cloves of garlic, cut in half
a bay leaf
Fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups Nouilly Prat (dry vermouth...the most French part of the dish. Josée di Stasio gives white wine or white wine vinegar as suitable substitutes)
Water

The only labour-intensive part of this dish is trimming and preparing the artichokes. After that, they can be placed in the cooking pot with all the other ingredients and simply simmered for 25 minutes before serving.

Directions:
1. Break off the stems of the artichokes. Di Stasio says "If you want", but I insist because otherwise your artichokes will never sit up straight in the pot, and certainly won't be able to drown in the vermouth, which is what is desired.
2. Remove the base leaves of the artichokes (there are layers of leaves and the bottom ones can all be pulled off)
3. Cut off the top inch of the artichokes. Just slice it right off. There's nothing edible there. Then cut off the pointy ends of the leaves around the sides. Rub the top and cut parts of the artichokes with lemon juice as you go. Don't cut yourself or it will sting. Imagine what the artichoke is going through...It's a plant, not an animal, Amie. It does not sting.
4. Get a small spoon down into the centre of the artichoke and scoop out the fuzz. This step will hurt a little if your artichokes aren't perfectly ripe, at least that's what I think happened. My spoon technique was sub-par and I had to try to get the fuzzy parts out with my hands. Not such a great idea, as it turned out. The ones that I think were purple and ripe had soft fuzzy bits that came out very easily, but the ones that were not purple inside didn't really want to let go of their fuzzy bits, and felt that a good way to show their disdain for me trying to scalp them would be to poke my fingers. They didn't bleed and nothing got stuck into them, but my hands stung for a while afterward, as if little pieces of invisible, needle-like fuzz were lodged inside.
5. Rub the fuzz-less inside with lemon juice (this is where it'll hurt if you didn't get all the fuzz out). Di Stasio says you can cut the artichoke in half to do this whole fuzz-scooping step, which makes everything ten times easier, but it will wreck the final presentation. This dinner was all about presentation. No half artichokes on plates. That's like giving half a rose. Although now I think I would be forgiving of someone who gave me half a rose, if they'd had to cut it in half to get a thorn out.
6. Hard part's done. Find a saucepan to fit the artichokes standing up. Remove the artichokes. Cover the bottom of the saucepan with oil, and now place the artichokes back in the pan. I don't like di Stasio's wording on this one (I used my own wording above). With hers it would be too easy to pour a bunch of olive oil and then try to fit the artichokes, only to discover they don't quite fit. I got lucky, but that RARELY happens. Test the pan before you pour any oil.
7. Add everything else. The liquid should come two-thirds of the way up the side of the pan, so add enough water (or broth) until that's the case. Since I was using water, I added a bit more Nouilly Prat as well, for flavour. The broth is supposed to be salty at this point, and it definitely wasn't since I used water, so I added a bit more salt too. The problem here is that it's hard to mix it into the broth very well, so you can only really make one adjustment. Guess right the first time, or suffer with under- or over-salted artichokes. It's not the end of the world since you're not going to drink the broth anyway. At least, that's not how I was going to plate it.
8. Now leave the pot alone until 35 minutes before you want to serve the artichokes. I waited until guests arrived and then turned the heat up to medium-high, to bring the broth to a simmer.
9. Simmer 20-30 minutes and check that they're done by pulling off one of the leaves of the base and tasting to see if it's tender. You can also prick the bottom of the artichoke with a fork, but this seems malicious. I don't know what you expect it to do in response besides getting angry.

To serve, I placed the artichokes on individual plates and dressed it with a little broth. The olive oil created a beautiful effect as it separated from the vermouth on the plate (like when balsamic vinegar separates from olive oil in a dish, but more subtle in colour). The inside of the artichokes were beautiful, and the elegance of the appetizer was just what I hoped.

So far so good. On to the main course.

Lentil Stew: "À La di Stasio"

"Cooking is an addictive game, one that is gourmet and so very sensual....Enjoyment is the key word of this book, one I've wanted to write for a long time and which is my own way of receiving you all at my table." -Josée di Stadio, À La di Stasio

Before I moved to Montreal I met a Quebecoise girl playing a Murray Schafer gig around a lake at sunrise in Northern Ontario. The whole thing may have been a sleep-deprived hallucination, but I vivdly remember a long conversation over lentil soup. The soup was fine, but it was the garnishes that were surprising. Fresh mint and toasted coconut. The coconut brought out the nuttiness of the lentils, and made you feel like you were eating a whole meal in a small bowl. Maybe also my stomach was fooled because lunch was at 8am and supper was at 2pm, but I'm pretty sure I started loving lentils at that moment. Until then I had only thought they were what vegetarians ate because they didn't know what they were missing. So from whom did the idea of toasting coconut come? They deserved an award. In fact, the mysterious chef already had six.

The recipe was explained to me by my Québecoise cabin-mate in a very French way. "You take some of this and some of this...add this...let it simmer, then just a little of this..." etc. It turned out that the coconut and mint revelation, as well as the initial inspiration for the soup, had come from a Quebec cooking show called "À La di Stasio". The show was hosted by one woman, Josée di Stasio, who presented beautiful, simple recipes with little tips that helped the cook-at-home along. There were also two cookbooks, but both were in French, and I couldn't find any of the episodes online or on television. Quebec television seems to like to stay in Quebec. Like it's a secret that the rest of Canada's not allowed to know, because if they did then we would have access to the secrets of amazing food. They would never allow it.

Flash-forward three years and many, many lentil soups with coconut later, and I find the first À La Distasio cookbook at Chapters in Montreal in English. Apparently the French have reconsidered and capitalism won out. A bit sad, but the book is beautiful. The recipe titles are hand-written, every recipe has variations, notes and serving suggestions (but just that - suggestions, not rules), and the recipes themselves are classic gourmet. Smoked salmon mousse, duck confit, panna cotta, but also simple ideas like fennel and apple salad. One of my favourite ways to judge a cookbook, though, is by the quality of its side dishes, and this one has an entire section lovingly devoted to them. This is not a book that only considers the meat and starch in a meal. It includes two pages on roasting (rendering useless my magazine roasting bible), and two on how to cut, cook and season various kinds of leafy greens so they're not just leafy greens (mostly salt, pepper, lemon or garlic. No need to make it fancy, but a need to make it interesting). There are also two pages on how to serve cheese (how very acceptable), a page with 9 variations on mashed potatoes, one with 5 on basmati rice, two pages on oysters, and another two on making a simple cocktail hour platter (the Québecois 5 to 7), none of which are intimidating to undertake.

My point was lentil soup. I was actually surprised that there was no lentil soup in the book. Maybe Josée di Stasio had only done the recipe on her show and not put it in her book? Then I saw that there was in fact a recipe for lentil stew, and at the end of the recipe there was a note that to make it a soup, just add more broth. Simple. No mention of the coconut or mint, but she needs a reason for people to watch the show. She's such a lovely lady that it's worth watching watching for her air of dignity and calm kindness.

In true French style, here's the gist of the recipe:

1. Bring a pot of water and lentils to a boil, and when it gets there drain the lentils immediately. French wisdom. Gets rid of the starch and makes it more digestible, though they'd never talk about that...It would be awful to foolishly think you could skip this step.

2. The recipe calls to melt duck fat and sauté onions, carrots, celery and garlic, but in case you JUST ran out of duck fat, olive oil or butter will do fine. You just want to sweat the vegetables, not stir-fry them, so keep the heat low for 10 minutes. They shouldn't brown.

3. Add the seasonings: stock, some bay leaves, something that seems French (I used thyme, sage and a little parsley)

4. Then add the lentils and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Four steps. Leaving lots of time for your cocktail, or to prepare the meat confit she suggests you serve with it, as the stew is actually labeled a "side". This also leaves time to chop fresh mint, the smell of which will take over the whole kitchen, or to put some shredded unsweetened coconut in a skillet over medium heat until it browns to sprinle on top. Serve as you wish.