Seared Foie Gras on Blueberry-Sage French Toast & Grilled Wagyu Long Bone
Last week, we left the city and spent a few days house sitting in the burbs for my family. We got to spend some time with Gino, our new Golden Retriever puppy and cook an extravagant meal in my parent’s kitchen. My family doesn’t have as an adventurous palate as we do, so since they were gone, I wanted to make something that would typically never be seen in their kitchen. We walked Gino, or more like Gino walked us, down to John Dewars on Linden street, which is where I get my meat when I’m not in the city.
They have the best quality meat around and they also stock some unusual ingredients. I went inside in search of foie gras. Foie gras is the controversial ingredient that is most commonly made in France. It is the fattened liver of a duck or a goose, and it is extremely delicate and expensive. The reason it has been so controversial is because of the process in which it’s made.
Gavage is the technical name for the technique used to fatten the birds up when they are young. It involves jamming a tube down the bird’s throat and force-feeding it corn, five to ten extra times a day, in order to fatten the birds’ liver. Even though the technique dates back as far as 2500 B.C, and the animals don’t have a gag reflex, you can see why some people consider it inhumane.
Whether you find it disturbing or not, the flavor of the foie gras is incomparable. Its rich, buttery yet delicate texture is a real treat, and I can see why it’s so expensive. Because it’s so rich, I only bought a small amount in order to make an appetizer portion for the two of us. Some people prefer their foie gras molded into a pate’ or a terrine, but I think it tastes the best when it is pan seared. Traditionally, seared foie is served with toast and some type of sweet sauce, usually made with berries to balance out the richness of the liver.
Siobhan started baking early in the morning when I left for work the day before, because I had an idea in mind. She went out into the backyard and snipped a bunch of fresh sage from my mother’s garden and bought some fresh blueberries. I am not much of a baker, so I let her do her thing and I came home to a giant loaf of blueberry-sage bread. The loaf was dense and moist, studded with plump berries and swirled with a chiffonade of woodsy sage. The combination or herbs and berries was new and exciting.
I decided to dredge a few slices of the homemade bread in a beaten egg and make an insane French toast. After all, foie gras is a delicacy in French cuisine, why not let it rest on a bed of French toast? I slowly toasted the bread in a non-stick pan and got my foie gras out of the fridge. Because of its high fat content, you really don’t want to handle the liver too long because it will melt in your hands.
Letting it melt would be an expensive mistake so try to keep it melting in your mouth and not in your hands. I let my pan get smoking hot before I even brought my foie near it. This was judgement time and I was getting a little nervous because if you sear it the wrong way or leave it in the pan it could literally disappear before your eyes. It was like trying to sear a pat of butter. The one inch thick slice of liver hit the pan and the whole kitchen started to sizzle, I quickly flipped it over after a few seconds and started basting it with all of the fat that had already rendered out of it.
Before I knew it, the foie had shrunk in half and it was seared, and warmed throughout. I plated it atop my blueberry-sage French toast and garnished it with some blueberry compote that I had leftover in my freezer. Since the foie is super rich, I sprinkled some minced lemon zest on top just to cut through some of the fat and keep your palate fresh and clean. Our forks slid right through the warm foie and each buttery bite dissolved on our tongues. Classically Foie Gras is served with Sauternes, which is a French sweet, dessert wine.
We opened a half bottle of Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois or otherwise known as the poor man’s Sauternes. Just as syrupy and delicious but for a fraction of the cost. This dessert wine is served chilled, and it perfect to pair with belt-poppinly rich foods such as foie gras and Roquefort blue cheese. It is made from the Muscat blanc grape and is full bodied and sweet.
There are tons of beautiful flavors or ripe apricots, mangos, quince, and honey. It looks like a bottle of melted 24 carat gold and the finish is long and luxurious. I don’t know what filled me up more, the Muscat or the foie, but we definitely needed some time before I started our main course. Just when you thought I couldn’t make anything more intense than a foie gras appetizer, John Dewars runs a special on two pound Wagyu beef “long bone” chops! Obviously, I couldn’t pass that up so I grabbed one for myself and a more human-like steak for Siobhan.
Wagyu is one of the most flavorful grades of beef because it’s fattened and lazy, making the meat intensely marbled with flavorful fat. The cow’s diet consists of chestnuts and beer which I guess is a little bit better than corn through a tube. I obviously didn’t want to mess around with the magnificent flavors of the beef, so I simply seasoned it with salt and cracked black pepper and I rolled the bone in tin foil so that it wouldn’t burn on the grill. While I seared this giant sledge hammer, I went inside and made a quick goat cheese mashed potatoes with a sprinkle of chives. I cooked the long bone to medium and plopped it down with a mountain of mashed. I opened a bottle of 2008 Orin Swift’s The Prisoner because it it has enough raw power to stand up to this massive chop.
The red blend consists of primarily Zinfandel but also has traces of Cabernet, Syrah, and Petit Syrah. This is an explosion of fruit in your mouth! The ripe berries and the new French oak swarm your palate, followed by a soft tannic finish. If I didn’t have such an over the top steak on my plate, this wine would kick its ass and take its lunch money. If I was alone, I would have picked it up like a lollipop and eaten it like a Flintstone. Even Dino (I mean Gino) got to gnaw on the bone (that was the size of my forearm) after I was done with it. Yabba Dabba Do!
