Eat the French food loved by Julia Child
If you’ve seen the movie “Julie & Julia,” you may get a craving to eat the kind of beautifully prepared French food that inspired Julia Child. Fortunately, you don’t have to go to France or to Canada.
Croissants, beef bourguignon, coq au vin and duck confit are signature French fare offered on the South Shore and in Boston. And with a number of French restaurants participating in Summer Restaurant Week, now through Friday and Sunday through Aug. 21, the cost to indulge is less than usual because a prix fixe three-course meal is only $33.09. Bon appetit!
Beef bourguignon
Beef bourguignon is one of the most popular items at Petit Robert restaurants, especially during Summer Restaurant Week.
“It is the most demanded thing on the menu,” said owner and chef Jacky Robert. “When we take it off, we have practically a riot.”
Robert makes a version different than the one featured in “Julie & Julia.” He uses beef cheeks – from the jaw – while Child used beef chuck – from the leg. He cooks it with lots of red burgundy wine, rather than a combination of wine and stock, and squeezes on lemon juice at the end.
“The jaw is very gelatinous and very tough at the same time, so it stands up to long cooking,” said Robert, who grew up in Normandy, France, and studied cooking in Paris. “Once it’s cooked, the gelatin is very soft, so it melts in your mouth. And the lemon juice brings out the flavor of the sauce.”
Like Child, he uses lots of butter to brown each piece of meat and to sautee the onions, mushrooms, carrots, garlic and bouquet garni.
Robert met Child when he came to Boston from France in 1972 to work at Maison Robert, the former renowned Boston restaurant owned by his uncle, Lucien Robert, who was a good friend of Child’s. He has fond memories of her.
“Julia spoke fluent French and was always speaking with exclamations,” he said. “She’d say, ‘How do you do this? Why does it taste so good?’ And I would say, ‘Because I used butter, and she would say, ‘Of course.’ She was always asking questions, even though she knew the answers and it would make you feel good.”
Since the first Petit Robert Bistro opened in Kenmore Square about four years ago, others have opened in the South End and Needham, offering classic, affordable French cuisine with entrees for less than $20.
Croissants
Duxbury pastry chef Philippe Odier makes croissants the way he learned in France, where he grew up surrounded by wonderful tastes and smells in the bakery his parents owned.
“The croissant should have a nice volume and be very flaky and light,” he said. “It should be rich enough in butter to melt in your mouth, but not so rich that it is greasy.”
For his stores, French Memories in Duxbury and Sharon, and Cafe Vanille on Beacon Hill and in the Chestnut Hill Mall, Odier prepares the classic plain and almond croissants, as well as flavored variations made with croissant dough but shaped like Danish pastry. These have fillings of fresh cranberry and walnuts, apple and cinnamon, apricot, honey cinnamon and dark chocolate.
There are no cutting corners in his kitchen, where bakers use plenty of butter and hand-fold layers of dough and butter.
“You get the flakiness and lightness when the butter permeates,” he said.
Odier knows well the difference between an authentic French croissant and the ones sold at fast food restaurants, since he developed a test market recipe for Burger King about 20 years ago. That used far less butter and machines that could churn out tens of thousands per hour; to keep price down, Burger King eventually replaced the butter with margarine.
“There’s a big wow when people see the difference,” he said. “They’re like two different products.”
Coq au vin
Coq au vin is a staple of French cuisine and a favorite at Brasserie Zapp, a French restaurant at the Red Lion Inn in Cohasset.
“It’s a strictly French way of making chicken,” said chef Carl Berens, who studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and interned with Julia Child in 1976. “It’s marinated and stewed in burgundy wine, and the meat is so tender that it falls of the bone.”
The dish is made with legs from a capon – a castrated male chicken prized for the tenderness of its meat. The legs are marinated overnight in burgundy wine, bay leaves and salt, then sauteed in lardon (pork fat) until the skin is crisp. The marinade then is poured in the pan and stews the chicken. Finally, a sauce is made by reducing the marinade and adding demi-glace (a rich brown sauce), pearl onions and mushrooms. It’s served over buttered egg noodles.
Berens learned the preparation from another chef, but recalls valuable lessons Child taught him.
“She was smooth to listen to and I loved that she was very articulate,” Berens said. “I learned a lot about poise from her and how to keep a cool head in the kitchen.”
Duck confit
Chef Marc Orfaly fuses French with other cuisines at his Boston restaurant, Pigalle, but will emphasize the French during Restaurant Week.
“People were excited that we did some classic French food for Bastille Day, so we’re doing that for Restaurant Week,” said Pigalle co-owner Kerri Foley, who is married to Orfaly.
For duck leg confit, the duck is salted and cooked slowly in its own fat, imparting a rich flavor and crispy skin. Orfaly serves it with duck liver-herb stuffing and a cherry sauce.
“It’s a very French preparation,” Foley said.
Other classic dishes offered are pig trotter terrine with panko crust, lentils du puy (a French green lentil) and dijon vinaigrette and sole meuniere with braised Swiss chard, oyster mushrooms and onion confit.
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