As the leader for centuries in Haute Cuisine, France deserves a place at the Tea Table. Although the British have embraced Afternoon Tea to such an extent that it has become a cultural institution, Tea Rooms can also be found in France. And indeed, the elegant French cheeses and pastries, famous throughout the world, are perfect for a tea party. Furthermore, the foundational principles of French cooking—using the finest and freshest ingredients and giving intense attention to every detail of food preparation—are in perfect harmony with the Philosophy of Tea. Fortunately good quality French breads and cheeses are readily available in American and Canadian grocery stores and delicatessens, freeing you to focus on the other savories and sweets.
Although contemporary French food exhibits amazing originality and variety in both ingredients and techniques, we have chosen to focus on traditional French classics that would be familiar to the average American or Canadian home cook. These are foods of French origin that our mothers or grandmothers may have made simply because they are good for us and taste wonderful. We know you and your guests will enjoy this little journey through the French countryside, sharing tea, and perhaps a little champagne, and eating some of the tastiest food the world has to offer.
However, please keep in mind that French food is never fast food, so we hope you will read the entire menu and all the recipes carefully before you begin your preparations. We recommend doing your grocery shopping two days before your tea party and making a final quick trip to the bakery for fresh bread the morning of the gathering. Several of the foods on the menu can be made the day before, and others can be partially prepared in advance and finished before the guests arrive. The onion soup can be made a day early and refrigerated. You can reheat it and prepare the toasted bread with melted cheese just before serving. You can also cook the green beans, potatoes and eggs for the Salade Nicoise, a day early and prepare the vinaigrette. The batter for the Madeleines can be mixed the day before they are baked, and the Chocolate Mousse can be prepared early and refrigerated. Finally, although we may spend several days, or even centuries, in French Purgatory for this suggestion, we even think you can make the Tarte Tatin a day early and rewarm it just before serving time.
However, please keep in mind that French food is never fast food, so we hope you will read the entire menu and all the recipes carefully before you begin your preparations. We recommend doing your grocery shopping two days before your tea party and making a final quick trip to the bakery for fresh bread the morning of the gathering. Several of the foods on the menu can be made the day before, and others can be partially prepared in advance and finished before the guests arrive. The onion soup can be made a day early and refrigerated. You can reheat it and prepare the toasted bread with melted cheese just before serving. You can also cook the green beans, potatoes and eggs for the Salade Nicoise, a day early and prepare the vinaigrette. The batter for the Madeleines can be mixed the day before they are baked, and the Chocolate Mousse can be prepared early and refrigerated. Finally, although we may spend several days, or even centuries, in French Purgatory for this suggestion, we even think you can make the Tarte Tatin a day early and rewarm it just before serving time.
Menu
Beverages:
Assam Tea
Orange Tisane
French Press Coffee
Champagne
Calvados
Savories:
French Onion Soup with Gruyere Toasts
Quiche Lorraine (Savory Bacon and Cheese Pie)
Salade Nicoise (Vegetable, Tuna and Anchovy Salad)
Selection of French Cheeses with Baguettes and Brioche
(Roquefort, Brie, Fourme D’Ambert, etc. -- It’s good to offer a variety of hard and soft cheeses, mildly flavored as well as sharp or pungent -- Toasted almonds and dried apricots make a nice accompaniment)
Sweets:
Chocolate Mousse (Rich Chocolate Pudding)
Madeleines (Shell Shaped Mini Sponge Cakes)
Tarte Tatin (Apple and Caramel Tart)
Beverages:
Assam Tea
Orange Tisane
French Press Coffee
Champagne
Calvados
Savories:
French Onion Soup with Gruyere Toasts
Quiche Lorraine (Savory Bacon and Cheese Pie)
Salade Nicoise (Vegetable, Tuna and Anchovy Salad)
Selection of French Cheeses with Baguettes and Brioche
(Roquefort, Brie, Fourme D’Ambert, etc. -- It’s good to offer a variety of hard and soft cheeses, mildly flavored as well as sharp or pungent -- Toasted almonds and dried apricots make a nice accompaniment)
Sweets:
Chocolate Mousse (Rich Chocolate Pudding)
Madeleines (Shell Shaped Mini Sponge Cakes)
Tarte Tatin (Apple and Caramel Tart)
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Recipes Included:
French Onion Soup with Gruyere Toasts French Onion Soup is one of the enduring triumphs of the culinary art. Yet it is comprised of the most humble ingredients—copious amounts of onion, a simple broth and a topping of ordinary bread and cheese. However, in French country cooking, nothing is ordinary. If you own a set of individual soup crocks or ovenproof ramekins, use these to serve this amazing mixture, topped with freshly toasted bread and oven-melted cheese. Quiche Lorraine (Savory Bacon and Cheese Pie) Quiche is a savory custard pie of French origin and a very appropriate addition to the Afternoon Tea table, as it can be served, hot, warm or at room temperature. The variety of fillings for quiche is limitless, from broccoli and cheddar to potato and onion and any number of meats, sausages or charcuterie. For our very traditional French tea, we will serve the most famous Quiche of all, from the Lorraine Valley, an agricultural region where fine quality bacon and cheese are readily available. You can make this procedure very easy for yourself by using a pre-packaged piecrust, but we have included the recipe for butter crust if you prefer to go old school. Salade Nicoise (Vegetable, Tuna and Anchovy Salad) Salade Nicoise, named for the Mediterranean city of Nice in which it originated, is a colorful composed salad in which all of the ingredients are decoratively arranged on a platter like a vibrant mosaic. Guests are encouraged to help themselves to the items that most appeal to them and then add a little dressing if they wish. Traditionally, this salad contains boiled eggs, tuna and anchovies along with olives, ripe tomatoes and other fresh garden vegetables, some cooked and some raw. This protein packed presentation is really an entire meal in itself. We think you will enjoy creating this visually charming dish as much as your friends will enjoy eating it. For convenience, you can cook and marinate the green beans and potatoes the day before composing the salad. Chocolate Mousse (Rich Chocolate Pudding) Rose read somewhere years ago that the quality of a French restaurant can be deduced from the quality of the Chocolate Mousse that it serves for dessert. Today, French restaurants serve all sorts of ethereal granitas, foams, and snows in an astounding array of flavors. And the Chocolate Mousse Rose was served recently at a very high end restaurant in Honolulu was accompanied by “Candied Peanuts, Gros Michel Banana, and Popcorn Ice Cream.” But the Chocolate Mousse was still Chocolate Mousse, that magical and unapologetic combination of chocolate, butter, eggs and cream that you can make yourself without very much trouble at all. Our Chocolate Mousse is adapted from Death by Chocolate by Chef Marcel Desaulniers. Madeleines (Shell Shaped Mini Sponge Cakes) Madeleines are charming little shell shaped sponge cakes that are, as Marcel Proust pointed out decades ago, the essence of French Afternoon Tea. You must invest in a Madeleine pan to bake these little marvels, but this small expenditure will be well worth it, as you can spend the rest of your life baking Madeleines. You can bake pumpkin Madeleines in the autumn and cherry Madeleines in early summer, but here we offer the traditional golden Madeleines adapted from a recipe by Michelin starred Chef Daniel Boulud. For convenience, you can make the batter the day before your French Afternoon Tea and bake the Madeleines just before your guests arrive. Tarte Tatin (Apple and Caramel Tart) Tarte Tatin is French apple pie. It is baked upside down with puff pastry on top and the apples on the bottom, bubbling in a hot bath of luscious, oozing caramel. To serve a Tarte Tatin, the cook needs to invert the warm tart onto a serving platter so that the caramelized apples will be sitting on top where they belong. This process could lead to tragedy. Julia Child, the brilliant American chef who almost single handedly awakened Americans to the glories of French cooking, made a Tarte Tatin on her televised cooking show. When it was time to invert the tart, the entire thing fell apart, on camera, into a pile of crumbling and sticky pieces. Undaunted and ever cheerful, Julia simply picked the pieces up and reassembled them with her fingers onto a lovely platter and happily held it up for her viewers to admire. There is a lesson here for every person who longs to share tea and well-cooked foods with friends: Do not strive for perfection! A broken tart is only a tragedy if you allow it to be. It will still taste wonderful, and your friends will love you even more for your humility. French chefs may be depicted in the American media as arrogant prima donnas, but a real chef knows that cooking, like life itself, is filled with both joy and sorrow, and we must embrace both. If your Tarte Tatin comes out of the pan perfectly, enjoy this little moment of glory. But if your tart comes out like Julia’s, no tears, please. You and your friends may celebrate this moment of perfect imperfection forever. |
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