Chez Panisse - The Originator of California Cuisine 🌞

[justaprogressive]

Shallot Flan

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
12 shallots
½ cup half-and-half
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg



Preheat the oven to 275 °F. Butter four ramekins.

Peel the shallots and cook them in a small pot of salted boiling water for
10 minutes, or until very soft. Drain.Heat the half-and-half. Purée the shallots in a food processor or a
blender with the warm half-and-half and the eggs. Strain the purée through
a fine sieve. Season lightly with salt, pepper, and freshly ground nutmeg.

Pour the mixture into the ramekins and place them in a baking dish. Place
the dish on an oven rack and pour enough hot water into the dish to come
halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour. Check
for doneness with a toothpick—it should come out dry. Remove from the
oven and let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Serve this flan with a
grilled steak garnished with Glazed Shallots, if you like.

Serves 4.

Note: Young green garlic can be substituted for shallots in this recipe. Slice
the bulbs and tender portion of the stalks and stew, covered, in a little butter
and water until soft. Purée and proceed as above.

from "Chez Panisse"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152706.Chez_Panisse_Vegetables
**************************************************************************************

Summer Squash and Corn Pasta


4 to 6 small summer squashes: zucchini, scallop, crookneck
5 to 6 ears sweet corn
2 cloves garlic
½ jalapeño pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 handful cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons water
1 pound fresh, thin fettuccine
½ lemon

Cut the squashes into small dice. Cut the corn kernels from the cobs. Peel
and chop the garlic fine and chop the jalapeño fine. Sauté the squash in the
olive oil until tender and a little brown; season with salt and pepper. Add the
corn, garlic, and jalapeño to the squash. Continue cooking a few minutes
more.

Finely chop the cilantro, reserving some leaves for garnish. Add the
cilantro, butter, and water to the pan. Taste, and correct the seasoning. Boil
the fettuccine, add it to the pan, and toss all together. Add a squeeze of
lemon if the corn is very sweet. Serve immediately, garnished with the
reserved cilantro leaves.

Serves 4

from "Chez Panisse"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152706.Chez_Panisse_Vegetables

**************************************************************************************

Alice Waters

Alice Waters (born April 28, 1944, Chatham, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American restaurateur, chef, and food activist who was a leading proponent of the “slow food” movement, which billed itself as the healthy antithesis to fast food.

Waters studied French culture at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1967. She participated in the 1960s Free Speech Movement, and the idealism that was then prevalent at Berkeley was reflected in her ideology throughout her career. She studied abroad for a time in France, and it was there that her love of farm-to-plate dining took hold. Following graduation, Waters spent a year studying at the International Montessori School in London before returning to California to teach.

In the 1970s the United States was still years away from the “foodie revolution,” which by 2009 had brought farmers’ markets and organic foods to a larger audience. Waters’s prescient passion for whole, unprocessed foods inspired her and her friend Lindsey Shere to found a market-inspired restaurant in Berkeley, California, despite having little capital and no experience as restaurateurs. When Chez Panisse opened in 1971, it was with a relatively untrained staff, a set fixed-price menu that changed daily, and an uncompromising dedication to a vision that seemed to many untenable: Waters wanted to create meals that used only locally grown seasonal ingredients, and she wanted to forge relationships with the producers and suppliers of these ingredients.

These exacting tenets kept the restaurant in debt for its first eight years of business; it was frequently saved from bankruptcy by loans from Waters’s friends. When Chez Panisse finally started turning a profit, Waters had time to devote herself to other facets of food activism, such as the Garden Project, which provided produce to the San Francisco county jail and work opportunities to its former inmates. In 1996, to celebrate the restaurant’s 25th anniversary, Waters founded the Chez Panisse Foundation, which funded programs that educated young people on responsible agriculture.

from Brittanica.com

[chia]

1. The second recipe, Summer Squash and Corn Pasta, is what grabbed me. Thank you!

I'll be saving this one to try soon.

[PennyC]

2. I dined at Chez Panisse once

...and will never forget it (although I don't actually remember what I had)!