James Peterson

Dashi is the basic broth used in all manner of Japanese soups, stews and sauces. It’s as fundamental to Japanese cooking as a basic meat broth is to cooking in the West. To make dashi, a whole bonito (a relatively small tuna-like fish) is dried and smoked until it resembles a hardened, dark brown banana. This process takes about a year. Once the dried bonito is in hand, it is shaved with a device that looks a little like a shoebox but with a razor sharp blade running across the top. The bonito is shaved on the box, much like potatoes are sliced on a mandolin or a plastic Japanese slicer.
Dashi is best prepared just before serving (including the shaving of the bonito). To begin the broth, take a 12-inch length (for a quart of dashi) of konbu (giant seaweed) and put it in a pot with a quart of cold water. Slowly bring to the simmer. When the simmer is reached, take out the konbu. Add a large handful of bonito flakes—that you’ve either shaved yourself or bought in a plastic bag–to the broth, off the heat, and let infuse for one to two minutes. Strain.
Dashi has a distinct smoky taste and delicate sea-like flavor that make it useful for any number of seafood dishes, Japanese or otherwise. Eric Ripert, the chef at Le Bernardin, in New York City, does a number of interesting things with dashi. He once served what tasted like dashi with lime juice—the juxtaposition of tart and smoky was delicious—that had then been clarified like consommé. I also once had a cold fish dish, set on a round of dashi that had been set with, I assume, gelatin or possibly agar.

A custard is a mixture, usually one containing some milk or cream, that’s set with whole eggs, egg yolks, or egg whites. It’s helpful to know that one egg or two egg yolks or two egg whites reliably set 2/3rds of a cup of mixture, even a little more. Once you know this formula, it’s possible to convert any number of mixtures into custards. Soups can be combined with eggs, baked in molds, and unmolded on plates. Leftover or fresh cooked vegetables can be pureed and set with eggs. Sweet custards include pots de crème and crème brulée, both of which are set with egg yolks alone and crème caramel which is set with whole eggs.
To make crème brulée, flavor simmering heavy cream with sugar and vanilla to taste and pour it into about 12 egg yolks per quart of cream. Bake in a bain-marie (see page 000) until the center doesn’t wiggle when you gently move the pan back and forth. Chill the custards, sprinkle with a thin layer of sugar, and use a torch or broiler to caramelize the sugar. I like to serve crème brulée with berries such as raspberries arranged on top. I also sometimes make a large crème brulée with berries and then spoon it out at the table.
A pot de crème is made in the same way as a crème brulée except that flavors other than vanilla are more common and there’s no top sugar crust. Try flavoring pot de crèmes with coffee (simmered in the cream and strained out), ginger (powder worked into the egg yolks or fresh ginger infused in the cream), saffron (combined with cardamom is awfully good), chocolate (cocoa beaten with the egg yolks), eaux de vie (stirred into the cream, off the heat, just before baking), whisky, Cognac etc.
Crème caramel or, as the French say, crème renversée (upside down cream), is made with milk and whole eggs, about 1 egg per 2/3 cup of milk. Before the milk, sugar, egg, and flavoring mixture is poured into ramekins, the bottoms of the ramekins are lined with a thin layer of caramel (see page 000). The crèmes are unmolded just before serving.

Essentially pancakes without leavening, crêpes are thin and delicate and, despite their reputation, are a snap to make. I make a stiff batter with eggs and milk (mostly eggs) that I work with a whisk until smooth. I then gently whisk in milk until the batter has the consistency of slightly thick heavy cream. (It is important when making batters to add only enough liquid to form a smooth paste and then, once the paste is formed, add the rest of the liquid. This prevents lumps from forming and keeps you from having to strain the thing.) Much is made about allowing crêpe batter to rest but, I, always in a rush, rarely bother.
It’s ideal to have flat non-stick crêpe pans (four is the right number for when you get good) but regular non-stick or well-seasoned frying pans will also work. Start by making crêpes one at a time in a pan brushed with melted butter. When the butter froths and then stops frothing, ladle in the batter. Work on establishing just the right amount to cover the pan so you don’t have to pour off the excess if you accidently add too much. You may see, for example, that one crêpe takes a ladle ¾ full. When the pan is hot, ladle the batter in quickly and all at once. Pick up the pan and move it in all directions to get the batter to cover its surface. If there is excess batter, pour it off into the bowl of batter. Cook over medium to high heat until you can the edges of the crêpe begin to brown. Pick the crêpe up with your fingertips and flip it over. (Flipping it by just jerking the pan isn’t easy.) Cook for about a minute on the second side. Stack the crêpes on top of each other. If you’re not using them right away, put a sheet of waxed paper between each one. You can refrigerate them, covered with plastic wrap, for about a week or freeze them for months.

A crème anglaise is simply milk that’s been sweetened, flavored, and thickened with egg yolks. Unlike most custards, which are allowed to set, crème anglaise is kept in constant motion so that rather than setting, it thickens. It is usually flavored with vanilla (a whole split vanilla bean is simmered in the milk) but other flavorings such as coffee (ground, simmered with the milk, strained), chocolate (cocoa worked with the egg yolks and sugar), or spices such as cinnamon can also be used.
Crème anglaise can be made thick or thin depending on the number of egg yolks used which can range from 8 to 20 per quart of milk. I usually settle on 12. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar (I use 7 ounces sugar per quart which is a little less than the classic until the yolks are pale and pour in half the simmering milk. Return the yolk mixture to the pot of milk (off the heat) and stir thoroughly. Now the tricky part. Put the pot over medium heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Keep a close eye—if it boils for a second it is ruined—to watch for when it starts to thicken. Traditional recipes say to hold the spoon sideways after dipping it in the crème anglaise and make a streak with your finger. When the streak stays in place, the custard is ready. I find this technique problematic, in part because I don’t like to stop stirring the crème anglaise even for a second. A better method is simply to look at the crème anglaise while you’re stirring and notice how the ripples that form as you stir, transform into silky waves. Don’t expect a crème anglaise to get thick like a béchamel sauce, but rather like the consistency of cream that’s been ever so slightly reduced.

Butter that’s been clarified has had all the milk solids (which are proteins) and water removed. Clarified butter is useful for sautéing and browning foods because it has a much higher smoking point than whole butter. It’s the proteins in whole butter that burn at a relatively low temperature. Clarified butter is also used for making emulsified egg yolk sauces such as hollandaise.
There are two approaches to making clarified butter. In kitchens when relatively large amounts (more than five pounds) of butter are being clarified at a time, the butter is simply melted in a large pot and allowed to sit. Any foam or froth that has floated to the top is skimmed off. The butterfat, which floats in a layer above the water and milk solids, is then skimmed off with a ladle.
With smaller amounts of butter, it makes more sense to make ghee, also called beurre noisette. Ghee behaves in the same way as butter that’s been clarified using the first method, but it has an incomparable nutty butterscotch flavor. For this reason, it is great in sauces (including pastry cream) and in any sauce calling for clarified butter. To make ghee, melt a few pounds of unsalted butter in a pot and boil the mixture until the froth subsides and brown particles begin to attach to the sides and bottom of the pot. When a brown crusty layer has formed on the bottom of the pot, immediately stop the cooking by submerging the bottom of the pot in a bowl of cold water. Strain the butter through a chinois (fine mesh sieve) or coffee filter to rid it of milk solids.
Many chefs and cooks don’t bother making clarified butter (or ghee) because of the extra work and instead add oil to whole butter when sautéing under the mistaken impression that the oil will raise the smoking point of the butter. The oil, in fact, has no effect since the milk solids still burn at the same temperature regardless of the liquid medium.

Butter that’s been clarified has had all the milk solids (which are proteins) and water removed. Clarified butter is useful for sautéing and browning foods because it has a much higher smoking point than whole butter. It’s the proteins in whole butter that burn at a relatively low temperature. Clarified butter is also used for making emulsified egg yolk sauces such as hollandaise.
There are two approaches to making clarified butter. In kitchens when relatively large amounts (more than five pounds) of butter are being clarified at a time, the butter is simply melted in a large pot and allowed to sit. Any foam or froth that has floated to the top is skimmed off. The butterfat, which floats in a layer above the water and milk solids, is then skimmed off with a ladle.
With smaller amounts of butter, it makes more sense to make ghee, also called beurre noisette. Ghee behaves in the same way as butter that’s been clarified using the first method, but it has an incomparable nutty butterscotch flavor. For this reason, it is great in sauces (including pastry cream) and in any sauce calling for clarified butter. To make ghee, melt a few pounds of unsalted butter in a pot and boil the mixture until the froth subsides and brown particles begin to attach to the sides and bottom of the pot. When a brown crusty layer has formed on the bottom of the pot, immediately stop the cooking by submerging the bottom of the pot in a bowl of cold water. Strain the butter through a chinois (fine mesh sieve) or coffee filter to rid it of milk solids.
Many chefs and cooks don’t bother making clarified butter (or ghee) because of the extra work and instead add oil to whole butter when sautéing under the mistaken impression that the oil will raise the smoking point of the butter. The oil, in fact, has no effect since the milk solids still burn at the same temperature regardless of the liquid medium.

While I’m not going to give a complete lesson on making hollandaise sauce, there are a couple of tricks and caveats I’ve learned over the years.
Hollandaise sauce is essentially an emulsion of butter and egg yolks that’s been flavored with lemon. One important trick is to whisk the egg yolks with cold water—about a tablespoon per yolk–over heat until the mixture fluffs up and stiffens. You have to be careful at this stage to avoid ending up with scrambled eggs. By doing this, you establish an emulsion or actually a foam—called a “sabayon”—before you add the butter. This makes the sauce lighter (you’ve beaten air into it) and also prepares the egg yolks for the addition of butter. Since the sabayon is already a foam (a foam is essentially an emulsion that also contains a gas, namely air), you can work the butter in relatively quickly than say if you were making a mayonnaise. This keeps you from overbeating the sauce which can turn it an off green.
Most of the time, hollandaise is made with clarified butter which yields a thicker sauce (almost as thick as a mayonnaise) than when it’s made with whole butter which, of course, contains water. When whisking the clarified butter into the sabayon, make sure the butter isn’t too hot—you should be able to hold your hand on the side of the pot—or it will cause the sauce to break.

Most of us assume a hare is just a big rabbit. This is not the case at all as hare, which is very large relative to rabbit, has red meat instead of white and a full gamey and very distinct flavor. It appears on menus in France during the fall, but rarely in the United States, in part, no doubt, because it’s illegal to buy food from hunters, at least for sale in restaurants. Hare is available in the United States (usually from Scotland) but it has been frozen. Frozen meat, while as flavorful as fresh, has the nasty habit of going from rare to well done in about 2 seconds.
While those not accustomed to game may find hare a little strong, for those of us who like it, it is one of nature’s great treasures. The legs can be braised (they tend to be tough but can contribute to the sauce) but the saddle (see under rabbit for more about the anatomy which is similar) should be roasted rare. It can be boned in the same way as a rabbit saddle (see page 000) and stuffed or not with all sorts of delicacies including foie gras and truffles.
Hare’s most famous interpretation is probably the civet, a stew finished at the end with the animal’s blood. An authentic coq au vin is an example of a civet.
My own approach to cooking hare is to bone the saddle (see an earlier entry for rabbit) and roast it (stuff it or not) quickly after braising the legs. I chop up the liver, combine it with any blood and an amount of butter equal to the size of the liver, and work the mixture through a strainer. When the saddle is roasted, I whisk some of the braising liquid from the legs into the giblet butter and then return this mixture back to the pan of braising liquid. I heat but don’t allow the sauce to reach to the simmer. I slice the saddle and serve the sauce on top or, if I’m presenting the whole thing at the table (a rather dramatic sight), I’ll sauce the whole saddle on a platter.
Hare is available frozen (the sale of fresh authentic game is illegal in the U.S.) from Scotland. It is sold by purveyors of fine poultry products.

Before we can eat rabbit we need to get over our bunny rabbit anxieties. I know they’re cute, but so are lots of other things such as baby chicks. They also happen to be pretty stupid, so don’t think eating a rabbit is like eating a cat.
Once these anxieties have been overcome, there’s the rabbit’s somewhat confusing anatomy. Typically, a rabbit’s forelegs are removed and cooked with the rest of the rabbit to provide savor to the cooking liquid, but are not served. The head, if there is one, is split in half. The rib cage is cut away from the meaty rear part, called the saddle. The two large thighs are removed.
Young rabbits can be cooked just like chicken, cut into pieces and fricasseed or sautéed, fried, grilled, or roasted. Because rabbit has no protective skin as does a chicken, it should be brushed with melted butter or oil when it’s being grilled or roasted.
Older rabbits are something else entirely and need to be long-braised. When done correctly, a long-braised rabbit is among the most delicious of things. When braising an old rabbit, it’s ideal to have the throat slit and the blood saved in a jar with a teaspoon of Cognac. (The Cognac prevents clotting.) The pieces should then be larded (see page 000), browned, simmered in broth until easily penetrated with a knife (2 to 3 hours), the braising liquid reduced and degreased and the rabbit glazed with the reduced braising liquid. The delicious braising liquid can be left as it is or finished with the blood (which turns the dish into an authentic civet) by whisking a little of the hot braising liquid into the blood, returning the mixture to the pan, and then heating gently, without boiling, to thicken the sauce. Cream, mushrooms, and truffles are a few other possibilities for this elegant dish.
People who cook or order rabbit for the first time may find it difficult to eat because of the way it’s put together. The thighs are similar to chicken thighs, but the saddle confounds people because the meat, in four different muscles, runs the length of the saddle on both sides. The two loin muscles and the filets (on the underside of the saddle) should be cut away with a knife by running lengthwise along the saddle.
To avoid the anatomy problem all together, you can bone the saddle and serve it in elegant rounds. To do this, slide a knife along the underside of the two filets that run the length of the saddle on the bottom. Don’t detach the filets completely, but continue scraping the knife along the bones that underlie the filets and then around the bones to the other side. You then cut under the loin muscles, separating them from the bones, but leaving them attached along the middle of the saddle. The trickiest part is cutting the two loin muscles away from the bone. To do this, leave a little of each bone imbedded in the flesh and remove the strip of bones just before serving.

The next time someone makes a comment about the questionability of eating sweetbreads, ask them if they ever eat hotdogs. Why something so delicious and delicate should be eschewed by Americans, I have no idea, but sweetbreads may be the most delicious and satisfying of all the organ meats. They are certainly the most expensive.
If you buy a whole sweetbread, you’ll notice that it’s comprised of two pieces. One piece, rather long and scraggly, is the pancreas and is called by the French, the gorge, meaning “throat.” The second piece, a nicely formed and tight round, is the thymus, called by the French, the noix, meaning nut. Of the two pieces, the noix is the most desirable because it better holds its shape and is easier to cut into nice even slices. When buying sweetbreads, try to get just the noix; by no means, accept just the gorge.
Virtually all recipes put sweetbreads through an initial blanching and weighting to firm them up and help them keep their shape. Ideally, they should be soaked in salted water overnight (they’re very perishable) in the refrigerator. The salt helps draw the blood out of any veins visible on the surface. The next day, they should be covered with cold water, the water slowly brought to the simmer, and the sweetbreads spread out on a sheetpan. Another sheetpan, weighted with a pot or some cans, is placed on top and the hold contraption allowed to rest in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours.
Once the sweetbreads have been weighted, little pieces of fat and tissue should be removed and the sweetbreads are ready for cooking.
While sweetbreads can be fried, they are usually either sautéed or braised. To braise sweetbreads, sweat some mirepoix, put the sweetbreads on top in a single layer, add a little good broth—enough to come about a fourth up the sides of the sweetbreads—and perhaps a little wine (Madeira is good). Cover loosely with foil and bake for uncovered about 25 minutes in a medium oven until the sweetbreads feel firm to the touch. They are then ready for slicing and serving.
Before slicing, however, make a sauce with the braising liquid in the pan. One approach is to boil down the liquid until it caramelizes, deglaze with a little broth or wine, and finish with cream and/or butter. Other ingredients such as mushrooms, herbs, or truffles can also be added to make elaborate and luxurious sauces.
One of the most luxurious dishes I’ve ever encountered were the truffled sweetbreads tasted at Joel Robuchon’s restaurant, Jamin, in Paris. The sweetbreads had been weighted and sliced—standard for sautéing—coated with egg yolk and dipped in finely chopped truffles so that the sweetbreads ended up being actually black. The sweetbreads were then gently sautéed in clarified butter.
Of course sweetbreads can be sautéed in less rarefied ways by lightly flouring them or breading them by flouring, dipping in beaten egg and finishing with fresh breadcrumbs. They should then be gently sautéed in clarified butter. Once sautéed, you can serve sweetbreads with a sauce. What is most typical is simply a little butter cooked in the pan until it froths. You can also add a few capers, some lemon juice, and tiny crispy croutons to make sweetbreads à la grenobloise.