Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce

For many Americans, the quintessential French stew is boeuf bourguignon—beef cooked in Burgundy red wine. The stew, featured regularly at Jacques Pépin’s mother’s restaurant, was made from tougher, cheaper cuts of beef, which had to be braised a long time to get tender and to stay moist.

For this beef stew, Jacques uses a special piece of the shoulder called the flatiron steak. This long, narrow piece is extremely lean, tender and moist, and it makes an ideal stew. He does not use stock, demiglace or even water. He makes his stew strictly with a robust red wine. This rich, winey beef stew is always a hit with his chef friends.

Pairing Suggestion

Though Jacques’s hearty stew is inspired by boeuf bourguignon, classically flavored with red Burgundy, he prepares his version with the rich red wines of the southern Rhône, particularly those made from the Carignan grape. Two great wines to seek out—for cooking and drinking—are the gently tannic 2004 Domaine Marc Kreydenweiss Perrières, from the Costières de Nîmes region, or the wild herb-scented 2004 Domaine de Nizas Carignan.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds beef from the flatiron part of the shoulder
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 bottle of red wine
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• 15 cipollini or pearl onions
• 15 cremini mushrooms
• 15 baby carrots
• 5-ounce piece of pancetta
• 1/4 cup water
• Dash of sugar
• Chopped fresh parsley

Directions:

1. Buy about 2 pounds of beef from the flatiron part of the shoulder. Remove the skin or sinew from the top. Alternatively, use lean beef chuck in the same manner. Cut the meat into 8 pieces.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a cast-iron pot that is attractive enough for the table. Arrange the meat in one layer in the pot, and season it with salt and pepper. Cook on top of the stove over high heat for about 8 minutes, browning the meat on all sides.
3. Add 1 cup of finely chopped onion and 1 tablespoon of finely chopped garlic. Cook over moderate heat for an additional 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1 tablespoon of flour. Mix in well so that the flour doesn’t form lumps. Stir in 1 bottle of red wine. Add 2 bay leaves, a sprig of fresh thyme, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Stir well and cover.
4. Place the pot in the oven and continue to cook for about 1 1/2 hours; the meat should be soft and tender and the liquid properly reduced. The recipe can be prepared to this point up to a day ahead.
5. For the garnishes, peel 15 cipollini or pearl onions, wash 15 cremini mushrooms and peel 15 baby carrots. For the lardons, you will need one 5-ounce piece of pancetta. Bring the pancetta and 2 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan and simmer for about 30 minutes; drain. Cut the pancetta into 1/2-inch slices and then cut the slices into 1-inch-wide lardons.
6. Combine the onions, mushrooms, carrots and pancetta in a skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1/4 cup of water and a good dash each of sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes; at this point, there should be practically no water left. Uncover and cook over high heat, sautéing the vegetables until nicely browned on all sides, about 4 minutes.
7. To serve, mix some of the vegetables and lardons into the stew and sprinkle the rest on top as a garnish. Add a little chopped fresh parsley and serve.

by Jacques Pépin

Pasta with Sausage, Basil and Mustard

In matching spicy sausage with a creamy mustard sauce and fragrant basil, British cookbook author Nigel Slater created a quick pasta supper with warm, mildly spicy flavors, perfect for a cool fall or winter evening.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound penne or medium shells
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 8 hot Italian sausages, meat removed from casings and crumbled (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons grainy mustard
• Pinch of crushed red pepper
• 1 cup thinly sliced basil

Directions:

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente; drain. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large, deep skillet. Add the sausage meat and brown over moderately high heat, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and simmer, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the cream, mustard and crushed red pepper and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat, add the pasta and basil and toss to coat. Serve at once.

by Nigel Slater

Zentan

Fusion with a flourish

The Donovan House hotel should have come on the scene with a splash. Its sister properties—the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles and 60 Thompson in New York City—are frequented by everyone from Jude Law to Jay-Z. Its rooftop pool and lounge boast stunning views of the city.

Instead the property, just off DC’s Thomas Circle, opened with a scramble. Its much-hyped pan-Asian restaurant was to be overseen by Todd English, the Thermolon-pan-hawking celebrity chef. But when the hotel debuted over Inauguration weekend, there was no restaurant—and no Todd English. Before the debut, as guests were supping on room service delivered from Il Mulino down the street, English announced he was pulling out.

The owners of the hotel didn’t have to look far for a replacement. Susur Lee, a Hong Kong–born chef who’s a culinary star in Toronto, had been wooed by the group to open Shang in its hotel on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. By early summer, he was quietly running the show at Zentan. The dining room is a slick but generic-looking space—communal table, twig-painted wallpaper. A hanging platform of faux cathedral candles, the most dramatic design touch, barely lights the room.

Lee is an unassuming presence here. His signature isn’t splashed across the outdoor sign, and the waiters don’t invoke his name with reverence. His cooking style, though, is anything but reserved. Lee’s roots are in Asia, but his menu reads like a wandering travelogue. Dinners can range from jerk chicken to oyster crudo with ponzu sauce to pork ribs with mango salsa.

One of the best ways to start a meal is with the Singapore Slaw, which is to Lee what salmon pizza is to Wolfgang Puck and what a foie-gras burger is to Daniel Boulud. The $16 salad, which Lee has transported to many of his restaurants, is piled with 19 ingredients—our waiter managed to recite 13 before trailing off—and arrives looking like something Willy Wonka might eat when he wants to lay off the calories. But the foot-high tangle of daikon, jícama, pickled red onion, and carrot, tossed with frizzled shallots, edible flowers, hazelnuts, and salted-plum dressing, addictively balances cool, crunchy, salty, and sweet. I couldn’t help ordering it on every visit.

Excitement over Asian-fusion cooking may have faded long ago, but Lee makes some other strong cases for it. Take the chickpea-and-onion tempura, another longtime hit in his repertoire. A messy mound of crispy chickpea-battered onions drizzled with minted yogurt, mango chutney, and ginger, it tastes like a mash-up of onion rings and the cool Indian chickpea dish called papri chaat. I ordered the dish as a side one night and spent more time with it than with the slightly overdone—in both the cooking and food-trend senses—miso-marinated black cod. French and Cantonese come together beautifully in an entrée of sliced skirt steak marinated for a day in a mix of Korean chili and soy, then grilled and topped with shallot brown butter and toasted hazelnuts. The same goes for the roasted salmon, rare in the middle, accompanied by silky yuzu-scented hollandaise and served, like many entrées here, in a Cheesecake Factory–like portion.

But then come reminders of why Asian fusion went the way of the ThighMaster. The pulled-duck roll, an appetizer, consists of a flabby crepe enrobing shreds of duck confit and onion marmalade. Even if the confit had much flavor, it would be hard to discern under the odd garnishes: a slathering of goat cheese and a few slices of dried pineapple.

There’s also too much going on in a $37 plate of Mongolian-style lamb chops marinated in curry, shallots, ginger, and onion oil. The lamb itself is good—charred on the edges, tender and pink inside. But does it really need carrot-cardamom chutney, peanut sauce, and sticky-sweet glazed bananas? Lettuce wraps holding clunky, almond-crusted lobster fritters are unwieldy and devoid of lobstery sweetness. But most disappointing is the dim sum dessert sampler, with its pasty, gritty coconut rice pudding and lumpen mochi.

Some of the best dishes here stick closely to tradition. Lee’s hot-and-sour soup—spicy with white and Szechuan peppercorns and flecked with cilantro—is the most memorable rendition in the city. A half duck, soy-marinated and braised with aromatics, needs only a lotus crepe, a few herbs and leeks, and a swipe of bean djan paste—now, that’s a duck roll.

A good part of the menu is devoted to raw fish—from traditional sushi to inventive rolls and crudo. Particularly notable are the precisely cut nigiri and sashimi layered with Japanese yellowtail, bluefin otoro, or sea urchin.

No boutique hotel dares to open without a list of $12 cocktails. Some—a cherry-muddled mojito, the citrusy vodka-based Thom—sip beautifully. Others, such as the Robitussin-like pear margarita or the too-fiery, Thai-chili saketini, you might be tempted to pour into one of the orchid vases.

And so it goes. Zentan can make you smile; it can just as quickly let you down. And whether it will ever feel more like a destination than a placeholder remains to be seen.

Whatever happens, I’ll take another helping of Singapore Slaw.

by  Ann Limpert

Where's the Beef?

My friend the meat lover sniffed a bait-and-switch.

Settling into our mauve booth at J&G Steakhouse in the W Hotel one night not long after the restaurant opened, he launched into an earnest rant against the delicately portioned arrangements of local, seasonal cooking that have come to define Washington’s culinary landscape and pronounced his desire to dig into a “real meal”—“real” being in direct proportion to the amount of meat on the plate.

His eager expectation of mammoth slabs of beef and hubcap-size plates of creamed spinach and hash browns was upended by his first glance at the menu, a clean and comprehensive document of soups and salads and oysters and appetizers and fish and meat courses. So where, um, was the porterhouse he’d been promised?

His eye fell on a small, tidy list at the bottom of the page—it was as if the printer had forgotten that steaks were essential and had contrived a quickie solution.

My friend’s confusion intensified when he gazed up at the ceiling, which seemed to stretch upward to infinity, as if this were some secular cathedral. A glowing white cathedral: white walls, great, soaring columns of white. The setting was such a repudiation of the dark, clubby dens common to DC’s beef emporiums, it was as if some makeover show had been given a mandate to make a radical statement.

“This is a steakhouse?” he asked.

Well, no. Properly speaking, this is a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant, number 25 in an empire that includes outposts in Paris, Bora Bora, and Qatar. The house style is clean and light and bright, full of Asian accents and concentrated, fresh flavors. Famously, it eschews the meat-based sauce reductions that have long defined haute French cooking. Fish, not meat, is the exalted protein. In short, it would be hard to come up with a chef whose vision is more antithetical to the steakhouse ethos than Vongerichten.

So why J&G Steakhouse?

Over $15 cocktails, we trotted out theories. Was this some bizarre manifestation of the famous French disregard for Americans’ culinary habits? After all, to a people for whom a proper repast is a hamburger, is it possible that “steakhouse” is regarded as synonymous with “restaurant”?

It’s possible. But I believe the name speaks more to the lingering perception of a city that, gastronomically speaking, has only recently moved to the left of center.

J&G is the fourth faux steakhouse to arrive here in five years. The common denominator of all of them? A chef/impresario hedging his bets, proffering a singular culinary vision to woo the city’s foodies while extending a hand to the hidebound and cautious.

Charlie Palmer Steak came first. It dared to serve its hulking cuts of meat in a clean-lined, open room with modern accents. Its steaks were appropriately massive, but so was the slab of seared foie gras, as if to prove that a delicacy could be made brawny.

Then came Laurent Tourondel’s BLT Steak, a metrosexual’s idea of a steakhouse—a place that evokes rather than embodies the clubby, manly atmosphere and reserves its conviction not for its cuts of beef but for its Gruyère popovers and chicken-liver pâté.

Bourbon Steak, Michael Mina’s place in Georgetown, arrived last winter, its butter-poached steaks touted as innovations in a genre that really can’t be improved. But the best things about it turned out to be the seafood and fish and the array of treats seemingly contrived to justify the eye-popping prices, particularly the truffle-buttered rolls and the duck-fat French fries.

Even the area’s best steakhouse, the celebrityless Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington, is not a conventional steakhouse, a place where power players come to be fed and stroked. Ray’s is for the little guy, a personal statement—the steakhouse as neighborhood bistro.

So is the conventional steakhouse dead in this once steak-mad city?

J&G doesn’t come to bury the notion; but it doesn’t come to revive it, either. Of all the celebrity-chef-backed steakhouses, it’s the least manly, the least power-centric, the least interested in the burly particulars of size, cut, and weight.

Is it a coincidence that the dish I liked least in my three dinners at J&G was the New York strip? (Was it also a coincidence that it was the meal I took my meat-loving friend to?) It was a good piece of meat—prime, corn-fed, properly seasoned, and correctly cooked—but after a few bites I lost interest; the various sauces, which come in cute containers made to resemble marrow bones, didn’t help, adding new flavors as opposed to enhancing the savor of the meat. It seemed to have been cooked out of duty, not out of love.

On the other hand, I slurped down a bowl of tomato-watermelon gazpacho, its flavors so sweet and clear I wished I’d had another coming. A bowl of delicately fashioned corn ravioli came ringed by a basil purée so pure and defined it could have doubled as a liqueur or extract.

Such clarity is a hallmark of Vongerichten’s operations. Most Asian-fusion restaurants attempt to mix Western proteins with Eastern spices, only to wind up at best with lightly exoticized versions of their Western selves. Vongerichten goes further and deeper in his marriages, with the result that his Western-leaning dishes convey an Eastern lightness and elegance and his Eastern-leaning dishes possess a Western heft.

Not that anyone not already familiar with the master chef’s approach would ever guess it from a cursory glance at the menu. Fried calamari? Crabcake? Where, one might ask, are the chef’s renditions of Buffalo chicken wings and potato skins?

Indeed, not long after the news began circulating that Vongerichten would become the latest celebrity chef to jam his knife into the DC chopping block, churls took to the blogosphere. The master chef wouldn’t be bringing a version of the vibrant, casual Spice Market, his restaurant in Manhattan’s meat-packing district, they moaned, let alone the serious, formal Jean Georges, a foodie destination in Midtown. J&G, many groused, would amount to a cautious, tempered display of the great chef’s genius.

Well, no again.

The calamari turns out to be pretty marvelous—the lightest, crunchiest I’ve ever had. This wasn’t something old; this was something new. The crabcake was even more surprising. It’s hard to innovate with a crabcake without coming across as pretentious or deluded or both; it’s almost always best to let the sweet, delicate, musky-flavored meat stand alone, without too much adornment. J&G’s is the exception. The lump meat isn’t mounded into a dense cake but—like the renowned “crab bomb” at Jerry’s Seafood in Maryland—is fashioned into a loose mound, then thrust under the broiler. The pool of ginger vinaigrette it sits in is a smart counterpoint, functioning in much the same way that a rich, well-strained broth does with a gently cooked filet of fish and adding a subtle tang.

As at Bourbon Steak, fish and seafood are often the better, more interesting choices. Such unusual varieties as tilefish and local blackfish turned up in the first few months. The former got a careful searing to crisp its skin, then was set atop a Chinese-mustard sauce that warmed but didn’t singe the tongue. The salmon tartare would be right at home at Spice Market—a rich, sumptuous dish that manages not to feel like a grand indulgence. Oysters are immaculately shucked and kept cold. The only false note I encountered in three visits was a pungent chili sauce that might have complemented its square of halibut had it been deep-fried rather than seared.

There’s a polish and finesse to many of the dishes that belies the no-tablecloth setting. Downstairs, in the stylized, low-ceilinged bar that Vongerichten calls a “cellar”—where the brief menu includes the excellent hand-ground burger and the tartares—the contrast is even more pronounced. There’s also a polish and finesse to the service. The staff, many of whom come from Vongerichten’s other properties, wear ties and glide through the dining room with model comportment, as if this were a two-star Michelin restaurant. Hostesses, servers, and runners smile naturally—not always a certainty these days, even at the finest establishments.

One of the benefits of empire is that Vongerichten has a deep pool of talent to draw from and doesn’t have to spend time bringing a new staff up to speed. J&G at two weeks was a smoother operation than many restaurants after two months or even two years.

Another benefit: The impresario chef can cut deals with suppliers that less-well-financed restaurateurs can’t. That helps explain the excellent list of wines by the glass, which rivals in length, depth, and variety the standard-setting lists at Vidalia, Cork, and Proof.

Empire has its drawbacks, too, the biggest of which is pervasive anonymity—a sense that the dining room, beautiful as it is, could be in any major city in the world. And as precise as the cooking often is, as thrilling as some of the flavor combinations are, what is there to ground the restaurant in the here and now? Only the crabcake and the blackfish say “local.” Would it be too much trouble for the kitchen to learn more about the culinary traditions of the region and incorporate them into the grand vision for J&G? Is it possible to allude to halfsmokes and skillet-fried chicken, to pho and wats, while retaining the essential character of a Vongerichten kitchen?

But that’s a quibble that could be lobbed at any of the celebrity-chef restaurants that have come to town. J&G isn’t more impersonal than they are, and already it stands apart for its crispness and exactitude. I look forward to sitting again in the soaring, light-filled space and digging into more plates of polished, simple cooking. I won’t return for one of the steaks, though, and I won’t call it a steakhouse. Nor, I imagine, will my friend, who may never trust me to take him out for a porterhouse again.

by  Todd Kliman

Rising Sun Hotel

The Rising Sun Hotel is the harbour side inn of your dreams with a thatched roof, ancient beams and haphazard wooden floors, and dates from the 14th century. It is steeped in history with oak panelling, crooked ceilings, thick beachstone walls and creaking uneven floorboards.

It was in one of its rooms that R.D. Blackmore wrote several chapters of his West Country classic Lorna Doone. It sits overlooking a tiny picturesque harbour and Lynmouth Bay with its stunning backdrop of the highest hogback cliffs in England, and situated on the edge of the Exmoor National Park, where herds of deer, wild ponies and birds of prey roam free.

As it has grown it has absorbed neighbouring cottages including the one (featured here) in which Shelley and his 16-year old bride Harriet are said to have spent their honeymoon. Shelleys Cottage has lost none of its romance and now consists of a double bedroom with half-tester bed, sitting room, private garden with quite spectacular views and is ideal for those wanting something extra special.

Many of the bedrooms have half-tester beds and were refurbished by international designer Suzanne Lansdell of 'Pour La Maison' in London, combining the latest design fabrics with traditional elegance within a 14th century ambience, assuring their guests of an unforgettable romantic experience.

Their approach to food is confident and it is clearly presented, with a lot of the raw ingredients produced in the area, like Lynmouth Bay lobster, local game and salmon fished from River Lyn itself. For starters the choice could consist of: Cornish crab with sweet pepper and mascarpone tortellini; chicken liver and foie gras parfait with homemade piccalilli; Italian tomato bread soup or Parma ham with black figs, rocket leaves, toasted pine nuts and vintage balsamic.

There is a wide range of fish and seafood dishes, such as fresh langoustines with chilli and garlic, but you might care to go for the braised pheasant with pancetta and quince and Braunton greens; slow cooked belly pork with pommery mash potato and spinach, or rib eye steak served with a béarnaise sauce and hand cut chips.

The times given are for the service of food in the restaurant, an excellent choice of bar food is available from 12:00 to 15:00 and 19:00 to 21:00; this generally focuses on fresh local fish and game as available, and, according to season may include Lynmouth Bay Lobster salad, Exmoor game casserole, fresh sea bass and other generally 'upmarket' bar food in the region of £7 - £12 per dish.

They offer an extremely enterprising and well put together wine list, of varied international parentage, with many of the choices below £20, and the vast majority under £30; also three dessert wines and a very decent selection of half bottles, over ten in all.