My sister’s husband has a passion for Nutella. When Ferrero put out a 40th-anniversary Nutella jar* of woolly mammoth** proportions, Christian bought one and actually spooned his way through it. Not in one sitting, admittedly, but still.

I love my brother-in-law dearly, so when he and my sister came to dinner a few weeks ago, I thought I’d treat them to Nutella ice cream for dessert. I considered going the classic ice cream route, starting with a custard base to which I’d add Nutella, but I was feeling under the weather and this was more work than I wanted to tackle.

Instead, I used a much easier, much more straightforward formula: equal weights of Nutella and evaporated milk (lait concentré non sucré), combined and churned into the creamiest, most indulgent concoction ever to emerge from my ice cream machine.

Nutella and evaporated milk churned together into the creamiest, most indulgent concoction ever to emerge from my ice cream machine.

This first attempt at Nutella ice cream was wildly successful (and I do mean “I would marry you if I hadn’t already married your sister” successful) yet two problems remained: 1- although the French version of Nutella contains no transfats, it still leaves much to be desired on the nutritional front, and 2- the one-to-one ratio resulted in an ice cream that was, in my opinion, sweeter than strictly necessary.

It took little brainjuice to figure out a solution: replace the Nutella with an all-natural, organic equivalent, and use less of it.

Nutella Ice Cream From Just Two Ingredients!

My organic store stocks several brands and variaties of chocolate hazelnut spread, involving different proportions of hazelnuts and chocolate. After studying the labels for a while, I set my heart on Jean Hervé‘s Chocolade, for three reasons: I’m already addicted to his stone-ground nut butters, a portion of the company’s sales is donated to a charity that builds schools in Madagascar, and the guy has a ponytail.

As the obligatory spoon test revealed***, this Not-ella is less sweet than its world-renowned cousin, and less eerily smooth, too. It would be unfair to describe the texture as grainy — it is not — but the tongue senses and aknowledges that real hazelnuts have given their lives for the cause.

And I’m happy to report that, when enrolled in this Nutella ice cream project of mine, La Chocolade performed to the complete satisfaction of all who had a chance to taste it before the tub mysteriously emptied. The ice cream was most often paired with the best sablés in the galaxy (I’m serious): Poilâne’s punition cookies, which now come in an adorable spoon shape to serve with coffee, or, for a limited time only and until the Saint-Valentin crap finally boils over, in a heart shape.

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* I believe this collector’s item weighed in at 5 kilos (~11 pounds).
** Did you know woolly mammoths had a flap of hairy skin over their anus to keep out the cold? Can you think of a more endearing feature? or a more appropriate topic to discuss with your V-Day date?
*** The spoon test should be conducted as follows: take spoonful, place on tongue, close mouth, draw spoon out, close eyes, swish, chew, swallow.

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Salade Tiède de Potimarron et Haricots Blancs

I write this from a café where I like to go and get some work done when I find it difficult to concentrate at home. Today, however, an unforeseen challenge has materialized on my path. Sitting a few tables from mine are two living clichés: a blond, middle-aged, French casting director and a young, craggy-bearded, khaki-vested film director from LA. They are in deep conversation about finding the perfect actress (dark-haired, curvaceous, Middle-Eastern-looking) for his next feature.

He’s cool as a cucumber, but she’s holding her end of the discussion in such a throaty, heavily accented voice that even Leonard Cohen in my earphones can’t white-noise it out. But, the eavesdropper in me must admit, the crux of the matter is that it’s all wildly entertaining — especially since I can hear the entire dialogue effortlessly, as I pull up the imdb pages of the actresses they’re considering.

This is a down comforter of a salad, sweet without excess, and filling in a way that’s most welcome after a run through the park in late afternoon.

But this is unrelated to the matter at hand. The matter at hand is this warm winter salad, which, come to think of it, is also curvaceous and Middle-Eastern-looking, but is booked all through 2010, sorry. It is loosely inspired by a recipe for pumpkin and chickpeas in a tahini dressing that appeared in Casa Moro, the middle panel of Sam Clark and Sam Clark’s cookbook triptych*.

The underlying concept of this dish stuck with me — winter squash and legumes! hello, luminous idea! — and I recreated it from memory** on Sunday night, using the potimarron I’d bought at the market the day before, white beans, almond butter (my jar of tahini has been residing in my neighbor’s fridge since New Year’s Eve, when he borrowed it to make hummus for the party), and a sprinkle of pinenuts for extra crunch.

The result is a down comforter of a salad, sweet without excess, and filling in a way that’s most welcome after a run through the park in late afternoon (i.e. when it is dark enough that the toddlers have been dragged home, but not so dark that you trip on tree roots and abandoned toys).

I didn’t have any cilantro (I can’t find it at the market in the wintertime) and I’d already used up my weekly allotment of parsley, but if you have some sort of leafy herb on hand, the salad will enjoy the greenness of it.

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* I kid you not: the husband and wife who own Moro really are called Sam(uel) Clark and Sam(antha) Clark, Clark being the latter’s maiden name. Ionesco would have loved it.

** To see a version that’s closer to the printed recipe, take a look at my friend Molly’s rendition.

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Guimauve — the French marshmallows — is the stuff clouds are made of. They have the soft and cottony flavor of childhood, and resistance is futile when I spot the pretty pastel cubes in pastry shops.

Rarely am I disappointed, but I do have to mention this one recent time when I bought an assortment from Pain de Sucre and got mostly weirdo flavors nobody in their right mind would want in their marshmallows — I’m talking chicory and whiskey, angélique, or saffron and chili pepper. I mean, really, I’m as open-minded as the next person, but what’s next: reblochon? Fortunately, I’d had the wisdom to get a few of their coconut-coated chocolate marshmallows as well, so I was able to make it up to my seriously shaken palate.

Painful memories aside, guimauve has been a long-time resident on my make-my-own list. I’ve been collecting recipes for French marshmallows for years like they were butterflies, but never actually followed through. Why? Because they all called for sirop de glucose, a thick glucose syrup that’s dearly loved by professional pastry chefs but has yet to become a home baking staple. I know where to find it, but I don’t feel like buying a 2-pound tub just to make marshmallows.

Guimauve is the stuff clouds are made of. It has the soft and cottony flavor of childhood, and resistance is futile when I spot the pretty pastel cubes in a pastry shop.

And then one day, Christophe Michalak came along and showed me the way. As part of the publicity for his recent book C’est du gâteau !, an interview of him appeared in ELLE, along with his basic recipe for guimauve. And, miracle or miracles, that recipe called for honey, not glucose syrup.

I clipped it and threw out all the others*.

Rose and chocolate are Maxence’s and my favorite guimauve flavors, respectively, so my plan was to make a single batch and flavor one half with rose syrup, the other with cocoa powder, guestimating the amounts of flavoring because the printed recipe didn’t include these measurements.

The whole project worked out so well I had to pinch myself to believe I had really brought into this world such ideally fluffy cubes of French marshmallow perfection (rather than sleepwalked to the nearest pâtisserie and pillaged their stock).

And if my datebook is to be trusted, it seems Valentine’s Day is around the corner, so if you’re the sort who gives a fig, this might just be the perfect gift. You can dream up endless variations in terms of flavoring and coating to match your sweetheart’s tastes: I recommend orange blossom water and fruit purées of all sorts, and chocolate-dipping is always a winning strategy.

Don’t be intimidated by the length of the recipe; it’s not difficult at all. The version that was published in ELLE had been streamlined in the extreme to fit the narrow side bar, but I reincorporated as much detail as I thought would be useful to a first-time guimauve-maker.

* I’m kidding. I would never throw out a recipe.

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Earlier this week, I attended a two-day conference on molecular gastronomy — sometimes refered to as the “science of deliciousness” — and the relationship between technique, technology, and science.

It was a free and public session, organized by the INRA, the French institute for agricultural research, and the engineering school AgroParisTech. Our lecturer was none other than Hervé This*, co-creator of this scientific discipline that studies the physical and chemical phenomenons that take place in cooking. In passing, 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of molecular gastronomy, and I hear this will be suitably celebrated in Paris around March 20.

I am no longer used to sitting for hours in a cramped classroom, and my right knee made a point of telling me that, but someone like Hervé This makes you want to unearth that satchel and do it all over again: his passion, his enthusiasm, his talent for teaching, and his facetious ways make fourteen hours of lecture go by in a blink.

You should note that Hervé This hosts monthly seminars in Paris — also free and open to the public (by email registration). These are a fantastic opportunity to witness debates and experiments during which you’ll finally get to the bottom of such vital questions as: does adding a potato to an oversalted soup have any sort of effect? Should one beat meat to tenderize it? Do hand-cut fries actually taste better than machine-cut fries? (The reports are then made available on the French society for chemistry’s website.)

I’ve learned a lot during these two days, and the contents of the lecture will soon be published in book form by the INRA, but here are a few bullet points handpicked from my notes.

* The “h” is mute here, and This’ last name is pronounced “tiss”.

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