We’re Here, We Sear, and We Most Definitely Do Not Schmear!

Seared fois gras for your Monday feasting

What do you do for a little something special on a Monday night? Tonight is a visit from Alishia. She had this Thanksgiving notion to bring foie gras and Sauternes over for a tasting. Alishia explains further, “I bought the fois gras during Thanksgiving last year in France.”  (GFind out more of the details on HER THANKSGIVING BLOG POST.)

Like Cynthia and I and our Food Day DC celebration (tune in for that post coming soon!), Alishia brings a flair for style and an optimism for creepy food products like foie gras. I mean, it’s a little daunting—duck liver mousse? Really? It’s a bit much for an American palette. But if you were in the Dordogne, France—during what she calls “Frenchgiving”— you’d gobble down some foie gras and Sauternes too!  She decided to bring a little Issigeac, France, to my doorstep tonight.

Now, how precisely this experience fits into the larger theme of alunchboxblog, I dare not posit an answer; however, the culinary adventure is half the joy of creating meals worth eating. The very idea of bringing Sauternes to work with some foie gras, well, it’s positively revolutionary. This is a must-try at least once.

The joy of a fine Sauternes

As you may know, politically correctly speaking, foie gras is a tad dicey. It’s made in such an inhumane, hideous way, that I completely get the idea of not even trying food like this. Yet, I have had seared foie gras before and been pleasantly surprised by the depth of flavor. Food ethics aside, tonight was a great night for the affair—Congress had given up on scoring a Grand Bargain; some crazy-ass police officer pepper-sprayed protesters at U.C. Davis, in California; and the stock market had dropped 250 points (again). A little foie gras might make America seem worth living in for a while—a note to all my international readers:  it’s not been a particularly terrific three years here in the states. Hell, if nothing else a little protest might make America a better country. So in honor of Alishia bringing contraband into America, here’s how you enjoy a most disturbing treat!

Straight out of Issigeac

Foie Gras Contraband

Truth be told, there’s no need to sear foie gras. However, if the idea of eating a whole duck liver disturbs you, I’ll give you a few tips on doing so.

Ingredients:

1 small glass jar of vacuum packed foie gras. Orange rubber ring-sealed.

Maldon Sea Salt or Fleur de Sel

Cracked White Pepper

Dijon (yellow) mustard

A very hot frying surface

First step: opening that damned French vacuum sealed jar.  Just getting the thing out of the jar was nearly a catastrophe.  We just couldn’t wrap our brains around how to get that damned orange rubber ring to pop open the jar.  But with a few clicks on my trusty iPad2 (BTW, I’m reading that Steve Jobs book—it’s a total page-turner, don’t miss it), we found that you pull that orange tab outward away from the jar.  This ended up taking the two of us: I grabbed the jar, Alishia the orange tab and we pushed away from each other. Once you do get a good solid grip on it, the jar pops open easily as air wheezes out.  Then the foie gras can pop to life; out comes a mass– like a tumor of foie gras.  Yeeeeesh!

Yikes! Only the French...

But don’t let the look scare the crap out of you! Place gently the easily damaged ball of fatty glop on a cutting board. Find the finest center area, and slice perfect slices to set aside for toast points that do not have seared foie gras on them. If you do have a nice solid liver and get a few perfect slices of the foie gras—exquisitely pink and off-grey inside—then you’ll want to save those slices for eating the liver on toast points with a touch of yellow Dijon moutarde.

Salt and pepper each fragile slice of the crappier looking pieces, ones that you deem more sear-able. You may find that it’s more helpful to take the scraggy, messy ends and seared these—seared, they go from looking a bit manc-y to looking class A perfect.

Salting and peppering is particularly helpful prior to searing, and doing so adds, indescribably, a little je ne sais quoi. But still, the texture isn’t so appealing as the whole liver foie gras, right out of the jar.

Dare I?

If you just cannot be bothered to sear the foie gras, you will be joining the good company of millions who have gone before. But beware! Do not smear the foie gras across your toast. God knows why, just don’t. Frankly, when it’s room temperature, foie gras looks like something you should smear. Like a delicious cream cheese, it just seems so spreadable. But that’s what the French folks say—no schmearing. Well, it probably sounds much better in French.

As we chatted about the latest wild successes at work and the agony of the loves and losses in our lives, I found myself wondering, what would Alishia think about that horrible Lars Von Trier flick I just saw with Kirsten Dunst? And then suddenly, she blurts out, “You know that Kiefer is SOOOOO short.” Obviously Dunst didn’t really rate a mention.

We were talking about Kiefer Sutherland—who is like five feet tall and captivates in the second half of the film. Short dudes who are famous became the subject of the night. She was crystal-frigging clear though—Alishia only dates taller guys. I thought wow, she and I are so on the same wavelength. Perhaps it was the foie gras but the honesty just poured out this night. Or perhaps it was the “Melancholia”—that Kiefer was the best thing in that art schlock and he was top of mind…but really…this isn’t a movie reviewing blog, so I’ll move on…or, no, wait another minute here…

Taking Your First Bite is the Greatest Challenge

Naturally, this led me to ruminating on the thoughts of my pals Alan and Peter who had gone to see “Melancholia” with me. Peter had also had visions of a very tall man in Kiefer from all those explosive evenings in front of the tube watching “24.” But one night in Laguna Beach while having dinner with his brother, he noticed that Kiefer was at the table next to them. When he got up to have a smoke or whatever, much to Peter’s surprise, Mr. Shorty shocked with his very presence. Well, what are you going to do?!

In the end, while you may not learn much about foie gras and Sauternes from my blog post today, I hope you get a sense of where food can take you.  It took Alishia and me ‘til like midnight or so.  A long, lovely evening of nibbling, fine wine and chatter—what a way to get a work week rolling.  Happy Mondays, everyone!

Down to the last morsel

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