← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
French Cooking for Your Paris Olympics Watch Party
00:23:05
We’re talking about French cooking ahead of the Paris Olympics with New York Times food writer Melissa Clark.
Loading summary
Transcript57 lines
- [00:00]
Wix Advertiser
How many times have you wished you could be in two places at once? With wix, you practically can. Wix's website builder is packed with powerful AI tools to make running your business online easier. Build a full site just by talking with AI, get an AI agent to manage your sales and marketing, or work like a 10 person team, even if it's just you. So you don't need superpowers to get everything done. You just need Wix. Try it now for free@wix.com Our state.
- [00:29]
MultiCare Advertiser
Has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because MultiCare has been here guided by a single purpose, making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org.
- [01:03]
Melissa Clark
Listener support WNYC Studios.
- [01:16]
Koosha Navadar
This is all of it. I'm Koosha Navadar in for Alison Stewart. Today, the Olympics are finally here. Well, not here in the New York area, but the games have officially, officially begun in Paris. Some events like archery, soccer and rugby are already underway, but most will begin after the opening ceremonies. And if you want to watch that, it'll start around 1:30 Eastern Time tomorrow, which is Friday. And the ceremonies, they're going to take place on the river with with each country's athletes in their own boats making their way down the Seine. Reportedly, this is the first time that the athletes won't be introduced in an arena. And it'll also be the first time that the Ceremon will begin with the parade of athletes. And it's also the first time in recorded history that America's own Snoop Dogg will be among the last people tasked with carrying that that famous symbol of the Olympic Games, the torch. We trust that he's been practicing to avoid dropping it like it's hot. So with all of that coming up tomorrow in gay Paris, we know that some folks will be struck with the fear of missing out if you can't make it to the games this time around. But if you want to watch the games and you can' to the City of Lights yourself, we wanted to help you bring a little Paris to your own Olympic swatch party with some French cooking. Joining us now to share some recipes, hosting tips as well as her love of all things French, please welcome back to the show New York Times food writer Melissa Clark. She's the author of over 40 cookbooks, including Dinner in French, Melissa, Bonjour and Merci Beaucoup. For coming on the show.
- [02:57]
Melissa Clark
Oh, bonjour, acoush. It's so great to be here. Great to talk French food and the Olympics. This is exciting. Are you excited?
- [03:03]
Koosha Navadar
I am tres exite. As I would say in my seventh grade French class.
- [03:08]
Melissa Clark
Love it. Love it.
- [03:09]
Koosha Navadar
Listeners, we're talking about French cooking ahead of the Paris Olympics. If you've got plans to watch the opening ceremonies tomorrow and you're looking to bring a little bit of Paris to your table, give us a call with your cooking ideas, your questions. We've got food writer Melissa Clark here. She'd be happy. She'd be excited to take your questions and your calls. Calls. Give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. That. That's 212-433-WNYC. So, Melissa, you're a Francophile. What are you hearing from the French people in your life about what it feels like on the ground in Paris right now?
- [03:49]
Melissa Clark
Well, actually, it's funny because no one really knew what to expect. I think a lot of Parisians, a lot of my friends who live in Paris really got out and they were like, okay, we're going to the country or we're going to travel. We don't want to be in Paris during the O. But there is a core group who are there. They're on the ground. They're sort of watching what's happening. And it seems like it's chaotic, but it's surprisingly not as crowded as they thought it was going to be, which is good. Life is interrupted because it seems to be hard to get places. Certain streets are closed, certain restaurants are closed. Some restaurants are empty, some are overfilled. So everything takes a little more planning. But as far as crowds go, it's not as bad as they thought. And they're happy to be in Paris and happy to be right there with the Olympics starting in the opening ceremony tomorrow. So I think it's a thrilling place to be.
- [04:35]
Koosha Navadar
I can imagine. You know, on Tuesday of this week, we shouted out some good food picks for folks who will actually be in Paris for the ceremonies. And we'll get into some Parisian home cooking with you. Before we do that, I was wondering, for you or for your friends that you were talking to off the top of your head, are there any restaurants in Paris in the City of Lights that you would want to shout out.
- [04:56]
Melissa Clark
Oh, gosh, you know, I don't know what's open. I haven't done my research on what's open in Paris, so I would be afraid to miss speak. I can tell you where to celebrate here. I can tell you what to cook, but I feel like I'm not, I didn't do my what's open in Paris research. So I'm sorry.
- [05:11]
Koosha Navadar
No worries.
- [05:12]
Melissa Clark
I don't want to send, I don't want to send listeners to a place and it be closed. I can, you know.
- [05:16]
Koosha Navadar
Well, you know, it's, it's a great excuse to use the collective power of New York City as a part of this segment. So if you're listening and you have a restaurant you want to shout out, give us a call or send us a text, you know, text us for this. 212-433-9692. So, so Melissa, what would you cook that would both show off fre cuisine but also provide the sort of unique nutritional requirements that'll help, you know, athletes perform at their best? Because I'm thinking that the athletes were, they're going to have Michelin rated chefs cooking for them to showcase French cooking. So, so what would, what would you cook if you were in that position?
- [05:53]
Melissa Clark
Oh, well, I mean, you know, well, first of all, there, of all the places to be an athlete right now, I feel like there, it's, being in Paris is the luckiest because you really have chefs who just, they are out there to make you happy as well as make you fit and make you feel good. So it's just a great place to be. Spectators can also eat at these restaurants, which is actually, that is something I can shout out. I know that the restaurants that are open to athletes are also open to a lot of spectators. So, you know, that's where to go right now because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to eat where the athletes are eating. So I would say go there and what I mean, you need to eat. You know, I think it's interesting. I was doing a bunch of reading on it and it seems that vegan and vegetarian restaurants, very vegetable forward plant based cuisine is a big part of it. It's actually 60% of what they're serving. So they're thinking of the health of the athletes. Of course you need your carb rich foods, you need your potatoes, you're in France and you need your baguettes and you need your croissants because you're not going to be in Paris and not enjoy all of that for all of us couch potatoes at home. I feel like we don't necessarily need to worry about getting our diet just right. We just what we need. When you're sitting at home watching The Olympics, you need food that is easy to eat, easy to reach for, easy to snack on. Everything needs to be made in advance because you don't want to get up in the middle. I mean, you're watching Simone Biles. You don't want to get up and miss something and try to, like, you know, find a dish on the. On the stove. You want to have it all in front of you, ready to go. And so at the New York Times, you know, we. At NYT Cooking, we did a lot of recipes that are perfect for what the French called the apero. So the apero, it's an aperitif. It's a. It's a very cocktail or glass of wine that you have with a bunch of little nibbles right in front of you. And setting up an apero is a perfect way to take in the Olympics. You can have a few little bites, like olives and nuts and cheese and baguettes, or you can make just a few things and bulk it out. One of my favorites is gougere. Kush. Have you ever had a gougere?
- [07:57]
Koosha Navadar
I have had a gougere. In fact. Tell us about it.
- [08:00]
Melissa Clark
Are they not delicious? They are so good.
- [08:02]
Koosha Navadar
It depends on the cheese, but. Yes, it depends on the cheese. I'll say that. But tell us about a little bit.
- [08:08]
Melissa Clark
Well, actually, it's interesting that you say that because you can make. So gougere is a French cheese puff. It's a fancy French cheese puff. It is easy to make. You can just whip. You make the batter in a saucepan. And if you were a pastry chef or a fancy French chef, you would use a pastry bag and a starred tip to make these beautiful little puffs. But I use a spoon. You can actually two spoons. You just take the batter, whisk it together in a sauce pad, add lots of cheese. Gruyere is traditional, but you could use Parmesan. You could use cheddar. What is your favorite cheese? Gush. What would you do? Would you. Are you a Parmesan person?
- [08:45]
Koosha Navadar
I would definitely choose Parmesan over Gruyere. I don't know if that's not French enough for me.
- [08:51]
Melissa Clark
Well, you know, I mean, don't forget the Olympics is an international event. Absolutely.
- [08:55]
Koosha Navadar
So it. Does mozzarella count? Yeah. Do you have recommendations for things to accompany with gougere? Like you mentioned, when you can nibble around the board, you have a glass of wine, what do people normally serve along with it?
- [09:09]
Melissa Clark
Yeah, so gougere would be. And again, we have recipe at NYT Cooking and it's fabulous. And that's what you serve with your wine. And you serve those either hot or room temperature. But if you want to have something out. Dorie Greenspan. And Dorie Greenspan, for those of you who don't know, lives part time in Connecticut and part time in Paris. So she's the perfect person to, you know, tell us what to eat while we're watching the Olympics in Paris. She has a recipe for a salmon riette. Now, riettes are nutritionally made with pork. It's like a pate, basically. It's like shredded pork in pork fat. It's so good. And you spread it on your baguette or your crackers. Her version uses fresh and smoked salmon. So it's much lighter. A little honey mustard in there for tang, some herbs, and it's just a delightful, delightful, light, fresh thing. You can make it a few days ahead. It gets better if you make it a few days ahead. Just, you know, pop that out in a little bowl and have your, your crackers. I would also have olives with that. I would have little cornichon, which are these little sour French pickles which are delicious and they contrast really nicely with the rich salmon. I would absolutely have some. You know, you want to have some crudite, you just want to cut up some crudite. Fancy way to say cut up vegetables in French, because here we are and you don't even need a dip for those. You know, one of my favorite simple things to do with a plate full of cut up vegetables. Take some flaky sea salt, sprinkle it on top, and then take your favorite spice mix, whatever spice mix you have in your cabinet that you love. You know, if it is going to be, I mean, like a garam masala, a Baharat A. I have a Persian black lime spice mix, whatever spice mix, or even just ground cumin right on top with the flaky sea salt on top of your cut up veggies. No dip necessary. And you'd be surprised how many of the, the platter will just go because they're so crunchy and fresh and spicy and salty.
- [11:04]
Koosha Navadar
Melissa, I don't know if you know this, but I am Persian. And hearing somebody talk about the lime, which I know exactly what you're talking about to pair with this. It's so fun to think of the international angle that you can do with this. And you know, I was, I was wondering traditionally, to get back to the salmon riette, they're like you said, traditionally made from pork and poultry. When you change up the protein to a fish like salmon. What else has to be updated to make the most of that change? Is it the pairings or is it something else in the recipe itself?
- [11:33]
Melissa Clark
Well, you know, pork or poultry, you can do duck. Duck riet is actually, you're right, is a perfect riet because it has duck. And pork have enough fat intrinsically in the meat. So when you're making it, you're basically taking the pork or the duck, confit it in its own fat and that fat is what makes it creamy. Salmon does not have that much fat. I mean, it is a rich fish, but you need to add more fat. Dori uses a combination of, I think she uses olive oil, butter and mayonnaise. But you could use just olive oil if you wanted to. The point is you need to be able to have enough streaminess and fat so that you can basically spread the fish onto a cracker or onto a piece of bread. So that's a big difference.
- [12:17]
Koosha Navadar
Oh, interesting to make up for the fat that, like pork, for instance, definitely has an abundance.
- [12:23]
Melissa Clark
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
- [12:24]
Koosha Navadar
Listeners, we're talking about French cooking ahead of the Paris Olympics. We're here with Melissa Clark, the New York Times food writer. If you've got plans to watch the opening ceremonies tomorrow and you're looking to bring a little bit of Paris to your table, give us a call with your cooking ideas or your questions for Melissa, what would you love to learn more about how to cook? What are some of your favorite French foods to prepare for a party? Or what would you love to try while you are at a French themed Olympics game watching party? We're taking your calls on French cooking and your Olympics watch party. Hit us up at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Melissa, I understand you also want to shout out an extremely French classic, the quiche, particularly the quiche Lorraine, which from reading the recipe, I thought it sounds like an Olympic event in here's how you describe it, and I'm quoting, there are plenty of opportunities in cooking to riff and freestyle and many dishes that you can legitimately set and forget until mealtime. But this quiche Lorraine is definitely not one of them. If you aren't in the mood to build stone by stone the most classic, tender, custardy, haunting quiche you've ever had in your life, continue on and come back another day. Wow. Melissa, unpack that for us. Where does the word haunting come from?
- [13:53]
Melissa Clark
Well, I mean, you know, it's I think a Quiche, a perfectly made quiche is an alchemy of things, right? It's not just one ingredient. It's the perfect balance. And when you taste a perfect, I mean, there's, you know, there's a lot of bad quiche out there. We've all had a broccoli quiche or a spinach quiche and sort of wondered, why are we even bothering? But when you make a quiche Lorraine, because it is. You've got enough eggs and you're using heavy cream, you're not using milk, you're not using yogurt. You're just diving into the full French heavy cream egg custard. You've got your cheese, your gruyere cheese, you have your bacon. And that combination of ingredients gives you something that you will remember for the rest of your life, and it will haunt you. And every time you see another quiche out there that looks maybe kind of dubious, and you're thinking, that's not my quiche, you will remember the true quiche Lorraine. So that is why I use the word hot. Take the recipe.
- [14:48]
Koosha Navadar
Yeah, no, go ahead, go ahead.
- [14:49]
Melissa Clark
I was gonna say it's not that hard to make. I mean, it really isn't that hard to make. I mean, the hardest part, I think the custard is easy because making a custard is just whipping together, you know, whisking together some eggs and some heavy cream. The hard part is the pastry is making a homemade pie dough. So if you are comfortable making pie dough, this is really quite easy. If you're not, that's where the stretch comes in and that's where you might think, okay, I'm gonna challenge myself and I'm gonna make this beautiful crust. And you know what? If you buy a ready made pie crust, none of your guests will know and I will not tell on you. So there's so many ways to get this onto your table and I highly recommend it.
- [15:26]
Koosha Navadar
Melissa Clark, can I put you on the record? It's okay to get pre made pie crust.
- [15:30]
Melissa Clark
It is okay to get. I mean, what is the choice? Let's see. I'm not gonna make this beautiful because, you know, so buy the pie crust, make the dish. It is a great recipe. Again, NYT Cooking has it for you and your guests will love it and.
- [15:45]
Koosha Navadar
Love you if you do try to make that pie crust. If I'm understanding it correctly, there's two items that might be a little less common for people that you mentioned. One is a false bottomed fluted tart pan. And then there's Also baking beans, which are not to be confused with baked beans. Can you talk about these kitchen tools a little bit, why they're so important for the recipe?
- [16:06]
Melissa Clark
Yeah, well, so, you know, it's funny because the quiche, the tart pan is if you're going to make a, you know, if you're going to make a really classic one and you want be able to take it out of the pan and serve it in this really beautiful way, you need the false bottom quiche pan, which basically it's like two pieces. And you bake, you lie the pastry in the pan, and then when the pastry is firm and baked and golden brown, you can just lift it right out so you don't have the edges of the pan anymore, you just see the crust. But you can also do it in a. Just a regular old pie pan, nine inch pie pan. Whatever you have, that will work too. It's not going to be quite as beautiful when you serve it, but it's going to taste just as good. So don't let that be a barrier. However, you do need what we call, you know, either baking beans or something to. Or you can use rice, dried beans, rice. Or you know what? I use pennies. I have a big jar full of pennies that I have washed. They're clean, and I keep them in a jar and I reuse them for my pastry crust. Because what happens when you make a pastry, when you make a pie dough, if you don't have the filling in it, you're doing something called blind baking it, which means you're baking it first so it gets golden before you add the filling and the butter in the crust. Imagine a croissant, right? What happens in the oven when you have a croissant with all that butter? It puffs up the butter, makes it puffy and flaky, which is great for the sides, but you don't want that on the bottom. You want the bottom to stay flat so it holds your filling. So you take a piece of foil or parchment paper, lay that on the pastry, pour in your beans or your pennies or your dried rice. That weighs it down, keeps it from puffing. You have more room for custard, more room for bacon, more room for cheese.
- [17:46]
Koosha Navadar
You know, we just got a text coming in that says, pre, cook the pie crust before you add the filling. Which is exactly what you're describing here, right, Melissa?
- [17:53]
Melissa Clark
Exactly.
- [17:54]
Koosha Navadar
Yeah. We have another, we have another text here that just says ratatouille. And I'm gonna take that to mean that this listener wants to Know more about ratatouille. Can you tell us a little bit about ratatouille, which I personally love both the movie and the food.
- [18:08]
Melissa Clark
Oh, my God, both are fantastic. Best watch the movie while you're eating a big plate of ratatouille. That's the perfect thing. Ratatouille is the per. It is a summer dish from southern France. It is the essence of summertime. It's eggplant, tomato, zucchini, peppers and onions. And all of these beautiful summer vegetables are cooked separately. This is the thing about making a true French ratatouille. Julia Child taught me this, and I've gone with it ever since. You cook the vegetables separately in the same pot. You start with one. You cook your onions until they're golden and, you know, nice and soft, and your peppers, and then your eggplant and your zucchini and your tomatoes, and then you combine them. And by doing that, you make sure that each vegetable is cooked until it's soft but not too mushy. It's not falling apart. You want the integrity of the vegetables, and then you combine them, and then their flavors min. Of course, there's garlic because it's southern France, and tons of herbs, and it. Lots of olive oil. And it's such a delicious main dish, side dish, breakfast, lunch, dinner. I love ratatouille. You could put it in a pie crust, you could put it in a quiche.
- [19:15]
Koosha Navadar
Wonderful. You know, I think we have somebody that called in last segment here that might have called back. Hey, Howard, did you call in last segment or you want. You were talking about Vanilla Sky. We didn't take you, right?
- [19:26]
Howard (Caller)
No, no. This is about food now because I go to a lot of French bistros.
- [19:29]
Koosha Navadar
I love it. Hey, Howard, give us your recommendation.
- [19:32]
Howard (Caller)
Okay. The person being interviewed will know about them. One is a croque monsieur and another one is a croque madame. Right?
- [19:40]
Melissa Clark
Love it. Yes.
- [19:41]
Koosha Navadar
Howard, what do you love about. About those two? Tell us a little bit.
- [19:45]
Howard (Caller)
They're basically hot sandwiches with cheese, and one is with them, and other ones with turkey. And you could find them at bistros here in New York and in France. They're very, very tasty, very simple.
- [19:57]
Koosha Navadar
Awesome, Howard.
- [19:58]
Melissa Clark
Thank you.
- [19:59]
Koosha Navadar
We're gonna have to pause it there, Howard, just for time, but I wanna say thanks for hanging with us. I know we couldn't get to your call last segment, so I appreciate you calling back. Melissa, let's talk about these croque monsieur. Croque madame seem like a good way into French cooking, right?
- [20:12]
Melissa Clark
Yeah, actually, thank you, Howard, for that because those are great suggestions that I hadn't thought of. So what they are, it's basically ham and cheese sandwiches. The croque monsieur is just the ham, the cheese. And then instead of it just being a toasted sandwich, like a grilled cheese, you take bechamel, which is a creamy white sauce with even more cheese, pour it on top and bake it in the oven. And it's just this bubbling, golden brown, cheesy, delicious sandwich that you must eat with a knife and fork. This is not a pick up and eat with your hand sandwich. And then a croque madame has an egg, fried egg right on top. So you have the runny egg yolk on top of all of that bechamel on top of that cheese. It is, they're just so good. Also, we, of course, we have recipes at NYT Cooking. We have a lot of recipes at NYT Cooking. And you can get them in bistros. Every French cafe has a croque madame or a croque monsieur. They're really easy to find and they're really just. They are, they make, they supercharge your grilled cheese. So if you want a special French grilled cheese, this is the way to go.
- [21:16]
Koosha Navadar
And I'm thinking for listeners that are trying to host a party here, they might hear a sandwich and think, well, do I have to make many sandwiches to enter? Entertain like 15 to 20 people? You can probably just make one and slice it up, right? Like, is there an easy way to make croque madame and croque monsieur for large groups of folks?
- [21:33]
Melissa Clark
Yeah, you know, we actually, I don't know if I'm pretty sure we have a recipe. It's think croque monsieur casserole. Think of it like a gratin. You take your bread instead of doing individual sandwiches, you take your bread, you put it in your casserole dish, you put your butter, your ham, your cheese, more bread, you pour the bechamel on top, more cheese, and you bake it. And so it's basically like a giant casserole of sandwiches. And then you slice and bake that. It's such a good recipe to serve to a crowd. I mean, everybody loves this. And it's also, you can assemble the entire thing the day before, keep it in your fridge, and then just pop it in the oven right before you want to bake it like a half an hour before. So that's. It is so. Thank you, Howard. This was a great idea and it goes really, really well with gymnastics.
- [22:23]
Koosha Navadar
We got Another text that I want to. I might have to show off my French accent here, but Pisa la diere, is that a food that you would recommend for folks that want to make food for a French party?
- [22:34]
Melissa Clark
Yes, actually, you should just make Pisa lardier for every party because it's one of my favorite things to eat in the entire world. Okay, so we're back in southern France. I love that. I love the listeners. We're all in southern France together here in New York right now. Exactly. And so it's so Pisa lardier. It's like a pizza, but it's instead of tomato and cheese, it's got caramelized onions and olives. And then the best part of it for me, it tons of anchovies right on top. And yes, you can skip the anchovies, but why would you. Because they are the best part. So you make this by. This is actually where you want to buy premade puff pastry. You want to just get a thing of puff pastry or some bread dough. You can buy like a pizza crust or some pizza dough, roll it out, caramelize your onions and put them on top, your black olives, your anchovies, pop it in the oven and then this is. You cut it up and you can eat it warm, you can eat it at room temperature. It is great for an apero, for. It's great with, with white wine, with red wine. And it's convenient because out of this one, you know, recipe you'll get probably like, you can get, you know, 15, 16 little squares. So it's good for a crowd. Wow.
- [23:53]
Koosha Navadar
Well, we'll have to pause it there. I'm already pretty hungry. It's one o'. Clock. I cannot wait for lunch to come. I've been speaking with Melissa Clark, the staff writer for the New York Times food section and author of Dinner in French and 40 other cookbooks. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [24:10]
Melissa Clark
Oh, thanks for having me.
- [24:13]
MultiCare Advertiser
Say what you want about AI, but it's here and it's helping businesses get more done in a day. Wix's website builder is infused with AI so you can stay ahead. Create a beautiful, functional website just by describing your idea. Track how your site appears in AI search results, create custom images on demand, or launch an entire campaign in a matter of minutes. WIX gives you AI wherever you need it. Try it now for free@wix.com. since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. In addition to this award winning reporting. Your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.