Hello readers. Well the good news is that a lot more ppl read my blog than I thought. The bad news is, many weren’t happy with last week’s. If fact, I lost two friends out of the deal. While I will not apologise for my comments, I do need to explain something. I DO NOT in any way think the Chamber of Commerce is infringing on my Grand Opening. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I am honoured that they would even consider Le Bon Marché for their “Business After Hours”. Especially since I’ve only been open for a few months. President, John and Director, Patty are some of the finest ppl in North Bay and I have all the respect for them. I did not mean for my last blog to come across the wrong way. I’ll admit it, I just wanted to show off to my family. Plain and simple. Now that the grand opening is on a Thursday, they will not be able to make it since they live five hours away and work during the week. It was my own selfishness that got in the way. Craig, Anna, Amy and Jake set me straight on the issue. Anna and I are kool. Amy and I, not so much. I guess I really hit a cord with her. We had a fight after the blog and I feel we will not be buds anymore. I want to take this public opportunity to apologise to Amy. Amy has been a strong force behind Le bon Marché from the beginning and I screwed up with her making her feel unappreciated. I am so grateful to all the ppl who have helped me in the past it’s not even funny. Craig, well he’s another story and I’ll digress on that right now. Which brings me to Jake……….. ah gentleman Jake. Jake and I have been at odds all week and have had two arguments and one massive fight. The latter of which Michelle started and she knows it ha ha ha. Like I said in the past, Jake is a ppl person and I’m not. He wasn’t happy with the blog either. One thing I really love about our relationship, as I’ve stated before, is that we can scrap and move on. The last week was a tough fight but in the end, we raised a glass of absinthe and put it behind us.
So having said all that, blogs from now on will be strictly business. So lets get started shall we?
The number one item on our dinner menu is without question the Pickerel Niçoise dish. Even the guy I buy it off of asked what we were doing with it because after my third week I was his number one client. Well, I’ll tell you what we do with it and why it’s so awesome. Like with all things at Le bon Marché we use the finest ingredients. We make every item in the menu from scratch, save two items: The French baguettes and the Crème bruleé cheese cake.
So back to the Pickerel, I’m not a fan of the “100 mile diet”. I am a fan of “if it is superior, buy it diet”. The pickerel comes in on both accounts. It comes from Lake Nippising, right here in North Bay and it is phenomenal. So you can’t go wrong with that. Marco White said “Mother Nature is the artist; the Chef is merely the technician”. So when starting with a superior product the rest is easy. Right, so the fish is skinless and is seared in a pan with a butter olive oil combination. Unless the item strictly calls for olive oil, I like to use the combination of extra virgin olive oil and butter whipped up together. The oil gives you the flavour and raises the smoking point. The butter is the nutty flavour and the brownness you get; a combination we call beurre noisette. The butter also helps with the browning of things. You get a nice colour on the item without cooking the devil outta it.
Sorry, I do get carried away. Back to the dish. We sear the fish, presentation side down and put it into the oven. While that’s going on, we make the potato niçoise. Niçoise or, a la niçoise” is French for prepared in Nice. Nothing heavy there. Extra virgin olive oil, tomatoes concassé (tomato blanched in hot water then cooled in ice water to stop the cooking and then peeled deseeded and diced), white onions, garlic (that is bought in bulbs and hand peeled and pureed in house) and belle fontain potatoes halved and stewed in a frying pan with all of the above ingredients. Seasoned with salt and pepper. A lot of ppl use salt and pepper and I have no idea why. It’s true. Pepper is a spice and it is to the individual liking. Some like it hot, some not so much. Salt is a different ball of wax. Salt brings out the natural flavour of the food. Think about it. If you dip your finger in salt and lick it, it’s horrible. But when you put it on food it makes it taste better. A great test for this is watermelon. Take a piece of watermelon and take a bite. Now sprinkle a little bit of salt on it, let it sit for a minute and then take another bite. The result is not salty at all, but rather sweet as the salt has brought all the sugars and juices to the surface and the surface is what hits your tongue first. So the salt factor is all about balance. And this is why you never, and I mean NEVER, add salt to a dish before you’ve tasted it. We have salt shakers at Le bon Marché but we do not put them on the table. The food should be salted perfectly. Now having said that, I cannot season every dish to your liking so if you feel you’d like a little more saltiness just kindly ask your server and they’ll bring you some straight away. I won’t be offended, as long as you are not offended if you see me watching you and shaking my head, deal?
My goodness, I get off track don’t I. Right, so after the potatoes have stewed and the fish is cooked, we’re ready to plate. Please don’t overcook your fish. It should be served medium at most! And even medium rare is some cases. We put the plate in the oven to help keep the food warm as the server takes it from the kitchen to the table. When the plate is hot, we place the potatoes in the middle of the plate, the vegetable mixture around the plate and the oil is used as a sauce. Please do not get freaked out by this. It is extra virgin olive oil and helps lower cholesterol and tastes amazing. Then we place the fish on top of the potatoes and top the fish with my favourite thing to make in the kitchen, fresh guacamole. Garnish the guacamole with some fried tomato skins left over from the tomato concassé (nothing goes to waste in the kitchen). Then scream for service and off it goes.
Until next time
Rusty Chemise….out!
