Dinner Menu in Provence with dear friends from Mison
A Dinner Party in Provence with friends from Mison
Mison is the small village in the very north of Provence in which I live in the summer. I’m so happy to have these friends in the village and I look forward to hosting them every year.
These friends are all foodies and love good wine. So no matter what, we eat and drink well and have a great time!
This blog includes the dinner menu, a rough outline of how I came up with the recipes and menu, and my prep timing so I could be the host partaking in the dinner as well as the chef.
The dinner Menu
hors d’œurvre
Prosciutto et Melon - Melon Prosciutto
Crostini aux Tomates - Tomato Crostini
Vins:
Champagne de Nicolas Feuillatte, Grand Réserve Rosé Brut
Rosé de Clos De Garaud Intemporelle (thanks to Remko and Sheila)
Entree - First course
Artichaut Farci- Stuffed Artichoke
Vin:
Anne Pichon Sauvage, Vermentino 2020
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le plat - Main course
Poulet au Muscat de Vacqueyras - Chicken with Muscat sauce from Vacqueyras
Gratin Dauphinois - Scalloped Potatoes
Hericots Vertes - Green Beans
vins:
2009 Château Fourcas Dupré - Listrac-Medoc (thanks to Marc and Dianna)
(plus a couple more… see photo below thanks to my guests)
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fromage - Salad and Cheese
Salade Verte - simple green salad
Fromage - Four local cheeses
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la dessert - Dessert
Gâteau à la Prune - Plum cake
vin:
Muscat de Beaumes de Venise La Legière 2016
A lovely Feast
Because of COVID, we hadn’t seen one another for two years. It was great to catch up and enjoy good food and wine together.
Developing the menu, flavors and Recipes
I started with Champagne and my mother brought melon prosciutto for the entrance of my guests.
Because it had been so long since we had seen one another, I wanted us to mingle around the bar for a while allowing me to monitor the food while enjoying my guests. With an abundance of tomatoes, I decided on Crostini aux Tomates at the bar while we drank a lovely rosé. It was perfect.
Crostini aux Tomates
Tomato Crostini
I serve this regularly in Portland and in Provence when there is an abundance of cherry tomatoes
Method: Simply cut the cherry tomatoes in half. Place the tomatoes open face up in an oil brushed pan. Brush the top of the tomatoes with an herbed garlic olive oil and salt. Cook in a high heat oven for about 45 minutes. If you want them sweeter, keep them in longer. Slice a baguette and prepare the same way with oiling the bottom and top with herbed oil. The toast won’t take as long as the tomatoes.. only 10 minutes or so.
Let the tomatoes and toasts cool. Sprinkle a little balsamic vinegar on tomatoes.
To assemble, spread a “spreadable cheese” on toasts. I used fromage nature here in France. You can use goat cheese, mascarpone or something similar. Place the herbed tomatoes on top. Sprinkle with fresh thyme and serve.
Artichaut Farci
Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms
This was a lovely balanced first course with nice acidity, richness and color.
I wanted the first course to be fresh and vibrant with color since the main course of roasted chicken and scalloped potatoes was going to be creamy with elegantly beautiful shades of white on the plate. The firm, meaty artichoke bottom held spinach, garlic and lemon zest which sat on top of a fresh vibrant tomato sauce. It turned out really nice ! You can see the recipe and method on my blog here.
The Main Course
This rich traditional feast had a rustic elegance. I loved it! The simple - no fuss potatoes cooked in cream paired beautifully with the rustic roasted chicken. The muscat butter sauce on the bottom of the plate and over part of the potatoes had a bit of a sweetness and acidity that complimented the cream and herbs.
Gratin Dauphinois
Scalloped Potatoes
Who doesn’t like potatoes and cream? It’s such a luscious comfort food.
This is so easy to make after you have the potatoes sliced! No cheese, just potatoes and cream. Here’s a recipe that I found many years ago from Epicurious.com. Of course I didn’t use turnips, but if you need a detailed recipe, it’s a good recipe to follow.
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*note - Generally speaking, the difference between Scalloped Potatoes and Potato Gratin is that scalloped potatoes are cooked only in cream and/or milk. Potato gratin includes cheese layered in the potatoes. Very often, as in the recipe link above, the names have become interchangeable.
Originally, Gratin Dauphinoise was raw sliced potatoes cooked in milk or cream without cheese or eggs. The name came from the region Dauphiné that includes the Haute-Alpes. Mison borders this department. The best potatoes to use are thin skinned yellow potatoes from France.
The word “gratin” basically means a crusty top dish. In most cases, it’s easiest to make a crusty top by adding bread crumbs and cheese on top. So many recipes now include cheese on top of the dish. I invite you to bake it without cheese. The starch of the potatoes with the cream creates crusty edges and top.
Method
for Gratin Dauphinois
With a mandolin, thinly slice yellow potatoes. Ideally they should be about a penny’s width. Heat up a bunch of cream and half cream with a couple of whole pealed garlic cloves smashed, shallots thinly sliced, nutmeg, sprigs of thyme and plenty of salt. Watch to make sure it doesn’t boil over. Once warm, take the solids out and discard the garlic. Reserve the shallots and thyme sprigs.
In a buttered baking dish, spread out half of the potatoes in layers. Then spread out half of the shallots on top of that layer. Repeat spreading the rest of the potatoes, then the rest of the shallots on top. Pour the flavored cream mixture over the potatoes. Put the sprigs of thyme on top. Cook for 45 minutes to an hour in a 200C (400F) oven until bubbly and browned on top.
Poulet au Muscat de Vacqueyras -
Chicken with Muscat sauce from Vacqueyras
This was inspired by a recipe “Poussin Vallée d’Auge” from the Normandy region.
I’ve had this lovely cookbook for many years: Saveur Cooks, Authentic French Rediscovering the Recipes, Traditions, and Flavors of the World’s Greatest Cuisine printed in 1999. The recipe “Poussin Vallée d’Auge” (Poussin with Calvados and Cream) from the Normandy region has been something I’ve made many times. I altered it here using only whole chicken legs, small onions instead of pearl onion, and muscat from Vacqueyras (close to my house) instead of Calvados from Normandy.
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Method
Early in day, or the day before, salt the chicken and put on a drying rack in a pan uncovered in the refrigerator. Take out about 1 1/2 hours before you want to cook them. Coat them with plenty of soft butter then add pepper. Put in a roasting pan (mine was a little too small for the amount of chicken. It’s better if there is more room around them so you get more caramelization in the pan and around the chicken pieces.). Scatter the peeled small onions (or pearl onions) around. Add fresh thyme sprigs under and around the chicken. Roast in a high heat oven at 200 (400F) for approximately 45 minutes or until done. Baste every 10 to 15 minutes with the butter and the drippings. (Because they were a little too stuffed in my pan, they didn’t brown as much as I wanted, so I also put them under the broiler for 5 minutes at the end). Take the chicken and onions out of pan. On the stovetop, deglaze the pan with some Muscat, then add approximately 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Muscat and reduce down by half. Add cream (as much cream as you want). I used about 3/4 cup. Whisk and let thicken nicely. Before serving, turn stove off and whisk in a knob of butter.
Salad and Cheese
as usual, I forgot to take a photo. But it included all local cheeses with crusty bread served along side of a simple green salad.
Dessert - Plum Cake
This is a cake I make all of the time and have given the recipe to many people because they love it. I love it too ! You can use any fruit that is in season. We had fresh plums, so that is what I used. I will make a recipe blog for the cake one of these days :)
It’s all about the timing.
How I organize hosting a dinner party. Of course if I am hired to do a dinner, I’m not sitting down at the table, which makes life a lot easier for timing. But when I’m a part of the dinner as well as the chef, I try to have things well organized so things go smoothly while my guests are here.
My Day Prepping..
The order of things during the day before my guests arrived…
First thing’s first.. as always, I salted the chicken legs early in the morning on a drying rack and put them back in the refrigerator. I could have done that the night before, but this was fine since they were small pieces.
Second, I set the table. I love all of my finds here in Provence for my table setting. I love to go to antique markets in Nice, Forcalquier, and Aix-en-Provence in which I found the glasses and silverware. Plus, my grandmother had the blue and white bowls, so they are special. It’s shown here with the first course.
Third, I prepared the ingredients for the tomato crostini so they were ready to put together right before the guests arrived.
Next, while the tomatoes were in the oven, I prepared the dessert and cooked it right after I took the tomatoes out of the oven.
While the dessert was in the oven, I prepared the first course ingredients so I could have them ready to go in the oven 15 minutes before my guests arrived. See my recipe here.
Once the prep for the first course was done, I prepared the ingredients for the potatoes gratin and had it ready to go in the oven.
An hour and a half before my guests arrived, I took the chicken out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature. I prepped them before roasting. Plus I put the cleaned green beans in a pan with olive oil and water ready to cook. And had the salad washed for the salad course.
after the Prep work was done
Once all of the prep was ready, I took a shower :)
Then it was a matter of keeping things moving during the evening.
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The order of timing during the evening
before guests arrived, I…
-Took cheese out to soften for the cheese course.
-Assembled the appetizers on a plate and had them sitting ready to eat on the bar.
-Put the artichoke hearts in the oven about 15 minutes before my guests arrived.
when guests arrived
-Greeted guests and poured champagne :).
-Took artichokes out of the oven.
-Put both the chicken and potatoes in the convection oven.
-Reheated the tomato sauce for 1st course.
-Plated up first course.
-Allowed my guests to help take things to the table while I checked on the main course.
-Realized chicken was cooked beautifully, but not as brown as I wanted, so I put it under the broiler for 5 minutes.
-Took out the potatoes to rest.
-Ate my first course with my guests.
-Excused myself from the table and heated the green beans.
-Took chicken out of the pan and made the sauce in the same pan.
-Plated up main course.
-Ate, drank and was merry :)
-Plated up the salad and passed the cheese with the salad course.
-Continued eating and drinking.
-Plated up dessert.
What can I say, it was a lovely evening!
Thank you to my guests for making such a great evening!
Thank you for reading. please feel free to comment or ask questions below.