Ducasse Flavors of France

Rating:
Summary:
Ducasse Flavors of France
Review:
Brash, driven, and dazzlingly inventive, six-star-chef Alain Ducasse is a larger-than-life figure. At thirty-three, he was the youngest chef ever to be awarded three Michelin stars, and in March 1998, he became the only chef in our time to possess six stars. He has mentored a generation of younger chefs who have introduced his cooking around the world and has, quite simply, changed the face of traditional French cooking.

In his long-awaited American cookbook debut, M. Ducasse whares the principles and techniques of his uniquely elemental cuisine. At its core are clarity of taste, precision in execution, and respect for the food itself, which to Ducasse means retaining in a multitude of simple but striking techniques, such as combinng in the same recipe raw and cooked, hot and cold, fruits and vegetables. Ducasse uses as much of each element as he can--the trimmings, sometimes the skins, the shells, the baking juices, the pan drippings, the heads, the cooking broth, all the by-products of the process--in order to capture an ingredient's precise taste. He incorporates different preparations of the sam product into a given dish, each revealing an individual aspect of its flavor--sliced raw artichokes, braised whole artichokes, and paper-thin slices of fried artichoke, for example, might be featured together. The brilliance of his food--apparent in receipes made with no more than two ingredients enhanced by a simple aromatic element, with seasoning reduced to a few grains of salt--explains why he is "the country's star chef" (Wine Spectator) and "the Escoffier of our time" (Le Point).

Ducasse Flavors of France documents, in more than one hundred lavishly photographed recipes, the influences--Mediterranean, Provencal, and classical French--that permeate this extraordinary cuisine. Many of the recipes are simple, others complex, but all can be perfectly accomplished with a little time and patience.

Table of Contents
Introduction by Alain Ducasse
The Kitchens of Alain Ducasse
by Linda Dannenberg
With Aperitifs
Vegetables
Shellfish and Fish
Poultry and Meat
Desserts
Basic Recipes

About the Author
Alain Ducasse, the imaginative and exacting master of contemporary Mediterranean cuisine, is hailed internationally as the greatest chef of his generation. The son of farmers who bred geese and duck for fois gras, he is simultaneously chef of two restaurants: Michelin three-star Louis XV in Monte Carlo and three-star Alain Ducasse in Paris. He is also proprietor of La Bastide de Moustiers, his country inn, in Haute-Provence. This is his first book to be published in the United States.

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Summary:
BRIOCHE FRENCH TOAST WITH SAUTEED SEASONAL FRUITS
Review:
In this version of the simple pain perdu, the bread is heavily sugared, so when it is sauted, it gets encased in a thin shell of buttery caramel. The sweetness of the bread is offset by a mixture of sauteed fruits sauced with reduced rum and orange and lemon juice. Here the choice of fruits is autumnal. In the summer, you can add or substitute a couple of fresh fig halves, a half cup of whole strawberries, or a quartered peach.

For the fruit:
1/4 cup currants
1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Reinette apples, peeled, cored, and quartered (see page 237)
1 Bartlett (Bartlett-Williams) pear, peeled, quartered, and cored
1/2 small pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick rings
1/2 quince, peeled, cored and quartered
1 pomegranate, peeled and seeds scooped out
Juice of 1/2 orange
Juice of 1/2 lemon

For the French toast:
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split, or 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup milk
Four 3/4-inch-thick slices brioche loaf
4 to 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 to 1/2 pints rich vanilla ice cream (optional)

To prepare the fruit:
In a small bowl, soak the currants in the rum to soften. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir in the sugar and cook, sitrring, until it begins to dissolve, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the apples, pear, pineapple, quince, and pomegranate seeds, stir with a wooden spatula to coat with butter and sugar, and cook until softened, 7 to 10 minutes. Stir in the currants with the rum and the orange and lemon juices and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Remove from the heat and set aside.

To prepare the French toast:
Beat together the eggs, egg yolk, and sugar. With a sharp knife, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the bowl; or add the extract. Add the milk and stir until blended. Soak each slice of bread thoroughly in the egg mixture (about 2 minutes). Then remove with a slotted spatula and place on a platter. Using a fine strainer, sift confectioners' sugar over the top of each slice of bread to cover evenly.

Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the brioche slices, sugared side down, and cook until lightly browned on the bottom, about 5 minutes. Sift confectioners' sugar over the tops, turn and brown on the other side, adding a tablespoon or two more butter if necessary. Remove from the heat and place each slice in a shallow serving bowl.

Spoon the fruit over the French toast and top, if you wish, with the vanilla ice cream. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Excerpted from Ducasse Flavors of France. Copyright © 1998 by Alain Ducasse. Reprinted by permission of Artisan.

Rating:
Summary: Coffee Table Cookbook
Review: Big, bold and beautiful describe this volume.

From one of the greatest French chefs, too much of this fare is unavailable to the home gourmet. However, savory and well done is this book with its exceptional photos and stylish intros to setup this exquisite cuisine.

Some of the soups and simple seafood dishes are about all anyone except the pros could attempt due to lack of ingredients and guts to go after some of these rather complicated recipes.

Rating:
Summary: Coffee Table Cookbook
Review: Big, bold and beautiful describe this volume.

From one of the greatest French chefs, too much of this fare is unavailable to the home gourmet. However, savory and well done is this book with its exceptional photos and stylish intros to setup this exquisite cuisine.

Some of the soups and simple seafood dishes are about all anyone except the pros could attempt due to lack of ingredients and guts to go after some of these rather complicated recipes.

Rating:
Summary: Blue... blue.... this book is blue (popular french song)...
Review: Blue are the pages of this book ... blue like the sea in Monaco where the three Michelin stars shine on Louis XV first Alain Ducasse restaurant. Three other stars were offered by Michelin to the same Alain Ducasse for his second restaurant in Paris in 1998. He became the only chef in the world to be granted with 6 stars by famous Michelin France Red Guide Book. Everything is beautiful in this book. Linda Danneberg explains how she installed a photographic studio in the barn close to the third restaurant "La Bastide de Moustiers". There, on the straw from the Alpes de Haute-Provence, she helped Pierre Hussenot, photographer, to install freshly made preparations under the sun of Midi (and projectors). I did not try the recipes. This is why I will not comment them. They are detailed in plain english. Comments on Alain Ducasse 9-days-a-week lifestyle bring value to this book. It is not only a collection of recipes. It is a comprehensive deep analyis of success-factors from the king of chefs. This book is a monument as his model.

Rating:
Summary: Every page a masterpiece, for your eyes and palate!
Review: I purchased this as a house warming gift for friends, and kept it for myself! (Yes, I bought another copy for them.) Beautifully written and photographed, but best of all are the recipes. You could be sitting at the best table in France!

Rating:
Summary: Great Chef, Beautiful Cookbook, Beginners need not apply
Review: I purchased this book on sale for $24.95, however I would have paid the list price of $60 because I feel it is worth it.

The photography is absolutely stunning. If you are familiar with Roger Verge's "Entertaining in the New French Style", the photographer is the same.

Recipes I have tried with success:
Dark Chocolate Tart with Rich Pastry Dough Crust
Pear Tart: Raw and Caramelized
Jasmine Pots de Creme

Criticisms
-Many of the recipes require ingredients unavailable in this country.
-Many times, the pictures do not quite match up with the recipes, which is very frustrating when looking for visual clues.

Overall, this book is for serious chefs or those who want to look like serious chefs by putting this book on their coffee table. Many of the recipes are simple: the filling for the chocolate tart only contains 4 ingredients, but this makes them all the more challenging: there is nothing easy about the recipes.

Rating:
Summary: Great Chef, Beautiful Cookbook, Beginners need not apply
Review: I purchased this book on sale for $24.95, however I would have paid the list price of $60 because I feel it is worth it.

The photography is absolutely stunning. If you are familiar with Roger Verge's "Entertaining in the New French Style", the photographer is the same.

Recipes I have tried with success:
Dark Chocolate Tart with Rich Pastry Dough Crust
Pear Tart: Raw and Caramelized
Jasmine Pots de Creme

Criticisms
-Many of the recipes require ingredients unavailable in this country.
-Many times, the pictures do not quite match up with the recipes, which is very frustrating when looking for visual clues.

Overall, this book is for serious chefs or those who want to look like serious chefs by putting this book on their coffee table. Many of the recipes are simple: the filling for the chocolate tart only contains 4 ingredients, but this makes them all the more challenging: there is nothing easy about the recipes.

Rating:
Summary: ducasse the only wild cook from france
Review: the only person in france to decide to cook what he want without the roules of french cooking, and a great lover of mediterranean food he has the determination to propose the fusion of french cuisine and mediterranean flavors in montecarlo firte and then in paris, aGENIUS

Rating:
Summary: Great chef, average cookbook.
Review: There is no denying Alain Ducasse is the chef of the moment. However, this book was somewhat of a disappointment. The recipes are interesting, the photography decent. But the problem lies in the ingredients. Too many recipes call for ingredients that are flat out impossible to find - and he offers no alternatives. It is one thing to ask for truffles, caviar, or duck confit. It is another to require specific mediterranean fish that are not found in this country, or obscure wild game and offal that cannot be had. Substituting chicken, or even quail or pheasant just doesn't cut it.