Easter 2022

It's been a long time since we held an Easter dinner. In fact, I don't recall having cooked a nice Easter meal since 2017, the year that my mother died and the year that we decided to pull up stakes and move across the country from Virginia to Oregon.

We didn't really find a tribe to celebrate with in McMinnville in 2018 and 2019 and then COVID obliterated the opportunity in both 2020 and 2021. Things have changed in 2022. Since moving to Bend in February, we have not only found a receptive group of friends, but thankfully COVID has relented, at least for the time being. It wouldn't surprise me, however, to be re-reading this post in a few months, once again in lockdown. It wouldn't surprise me at all, so it is now or never to celebrate.

For this particular celebration, I thought I'd go back to my roots and classic schooling to do some really simple French bistro-style food for dinner, starting with a classic terrine maison, then onto dinner with lamb chops, a green peppercorn sauce, asparagus, and pommes Anna. Although the food is simple, the devil is in the details.

John and Heidi in the Spirit!

Shanda Brought Ann Beautiful Sunflowers

Pregaming it at the Kitchen Island

Cocktails

Tom and Shanda arrived within minutes of John and Heidi and we got our cocktail on. For events like this, I prefer to spend my time visiting with friends rather than tending bar, so I generally make one or two cocktails in advance. Ann picked the cocktails this time: a classic Crusta and a cocktail that I worked out involving Mezcal and Maraschino. I don't have a name for the latter cocktail, but I really enjoyed it, so I may come up with a name at some point.

Cocktails, Awaiting Guests

Cheers! Santé! Skol!

The Crusta, pregenitor of the Sidecar, comprises Cognac, lemon juice, simple syrup, triple sec, orange bitters, and Maraschino, stirred on ice, strained up into a stemmed glass with a sugared rim, and garnished with a lemon twist. Classically, I've seen the drink served in a coupe lined with a wide slice of lemon peel around the bowl, but I didn't have enough lemons for that. 

The Mezcal cocktail is all about a smoky profile. It starts with high-quality muddled Maraschino cherries, a bit of syrup from the cherries, a little Maraschino liqueur, lime juice, and a low-end Joven Mezcal. Save the good Mezcal for drinking neat! It is served at room temperature, strained up into a stemmed glass rimmed with smoked salt and garnished with a cherry. It is not at all sweet and the Maraschino adds a floral character to the smoky Mezcal.

Appetizers

Terrine, Cheese, Pickles, Bread, Mustard

What's more French bistro than cheese and charcuterie? For appetizers with our cocktails, I made a terrine and some pickles, and Ann made a delightful loaf of bread. We bought a hunk of Sawtooth cheese, a washed rind raw cow's milk cheese similar to Muenster, from Cascadia Creamery in Trout Lake, Washington, across the Columbia River about three hours north of us.

The terrine is ground pork garnished with ham, pork fat, pistachios, green peppercorns, porcini mushrooms, and dried cherries. I would usually use pork liver in the terrine, but being brand new to Bend, I have no idea where to source good pork liver and moreover, I like to take guests' temperature on liver before I serve it to them.

Ann's Boule

Pommes Anna

Invented in Paris in the 1800s, pommes Anna is one of those classic dishes in the French culinary pantheon, a layered cake of potato slices, butter, and salt, browned on the stovetop and baked to doneness. Although it is surely out of favor in the 21st century, I like it for a party because it is impressive to look at, meltingly delicious, and best of all, because it cooks in the oven, I can spend my time with guests while it cooks. I think that it is such a wonderful dish that is in danger of being forgotten that I trained all my sous chefs in how to make it so that they can pass it down to their crews. 

Slicing Yellow Potatoes Old School
on the Mandoline

Pommes Anna, Pre-Slicing

To make pommes Anna, you should slice potatoes thinly, about 1/8 inch or 3mm. To do so, I use my old-school French stainless steel mandoline, pictured above. I don't use it much any more, but it used to get a workout at the restaurant. This is probably my third or fourth one, several having been destroyed by the rigors of the restaurant kitchen.

If you are looking for something just to make this dish, I would not recommend that you spend $200 on a classic mandoline. A cheap Japanese benriner or even a knife will work just fine to slice the potatoes, as much as I do love the heft of the old-school hunk of French stainless steel. 

The choice of potato is up to you. Starchy russet potatoes hold together better and brown better, but the texture is drier and way less sexy. Waxy potatoes, such as the Yukon Golds that I used for this one, don't hold together or brown as well, but my God, is the texture ever sublimely sexy! I would say choose starchy potatoes until you have a few pommes Anna under your belt and are comfortable with the technique, then switch to waxy potatoes.

To bake the potato cake, you will need a heavy, fairly straight-sided, oven-proof pan. I use my antique Griswold #8 cast iron frying pan. The company that makes my copper pans, Mauviel, actually still makes a $500 copper pan just for making pommes Anna, entirely overkill! If you don't have a cast iron pan, maybe this dish will convince you to get one at a thrift shop near you.

My frying pan holds about five pounds of potatoes, so I sliced five pounds of Yukon golds in the afternoon before guests arrived. One of the good things about waxy potatoes is that they don't really oxidize all that much (as compared to say russets which brown while you are peeling them) and can be prepped well in advance.

I assembled the gâteau just as we were finishing our appetizers, by arranging the potato slices in pretty rings, doused with clarified butter and sprinkled with salt every layer. I always build up the center higher than the edges because the center will sink, yielding an uneven cake. The first step is to build the cake on the stove top over medium heat. Then you cover it with foil, weight it with a very heavy pan, and bake it covered for about 25 minutes in a really hot oven, say 450F. Finally it gets uncovered and baked until it is cooked through and nicely colored, say another 25 minutes.

When it went into the oven for the initial covered bake, I went outside and fired the grill to preheat in anticipation of grilling lamb chops and asparagus for dinner. Grace, who is making her final Easter appearance with us (she has only days to live), watched the proceedings outside from the comfort of the dining room rug, looking through the French doors to the patio where all the action was.

Queen of the Dining Room

Easter Dinner

Dinner was a really simple affair. Along with the pommes Anna, we had grilled lamb chops and grilled asparagus paired with a northern Rhône, a Crozes-Hermitage rouge, always my go-to wine for lamb.

As for all simple cooking, the devil is in the details and in the quality of the ingredients. I marinated the lamb chops in red wine, garlic, rosemary, and black pepper for three days before hand. The marinade, I strained and reduced, then finished with Dijon mustard, shallots, green peppercorns, glace de viande, a splash of heavy cream, and at the end, a little cold butter swirled in, to make a refined flourless sauce poivrade for the lamb.

I found some beautiful large asparagus at the market, it being the height of asparagus season. For home cooking, I snap the stems off where they will break, assuring that they will be tender. But because this was for a special occasion, I cut the stalks all to the same length and then peeled the tough outer skin off them. If you are going to peel asparagus, you really should invest in a serrated edge peeler which will make your life so much simpler. For thick asparagus headed for the grill, I like to blanch them first. Otherwise, you risk charring the outside on the hot grill before they can cook through.

Almost Ready to Feast, Filling Water Glasses
and Lighting Candles

Pommes Anna and Grilled Asparagus

Lamb Chops: The Main Attraction

For dessert, Ann dipped cannoli shells into chocolate and made a filling of ricotta, tiny chocolate chips, and lemon zest. She also made the excess dipping chocolate into bark sprinkled with salt and toasted pistachios. Along with those, I opened a 1991 Quinta do Vesuvio Port that I bought on futures 30 years ago. At it's current state of evolution, it tastes like a warm marionberry pie and blackberry syrup.

1991 Quinta do Vesuvio Port

It really was great to get in the kitchen and cook some real food for a change, although the pile of dirty dishes at the end is always a bit of a bummer! John, Heidi, Tom, and Shanda, many thanks for your great company and for sharing a meal with us in our new home!