January 27, 2017 Lunch – Le Troquet, Dinner – Beef Strogonaff

January 27, 2017  Lunch – Le Troquet,  Dinner – Beef Strogonaff

Breakfast was yogurt, fruit salad, milk, and granola.

Aaron called in the morning and we touched base again at 11:30.  He was getting his shoes shined on Gold Street, so I suggested we meet at Le Troquet, which is next door to the shoe shine shop at the corner of 3rd and Gold.

I had heard that Jean Pierre had closed the restaurant on Pan American and I saw him in that very French pose by so many French chefs, leaning in the open doorway of the restaurant waiting for his first diners last Saturday watching the people walking to the Women’s Protest at Civic Plaza, of which we were among.

So I was curious to try Le Troquet.  I met Aaron outside the restaurant putting coins into the meter where his truck was parked.  When we entered Le Troquet we were greeted with a gasp of recognition by Jean Pierre, who was in the front of the house.  I introduced him to Aaron and we had a small chat, like friends who were catching up on too many years of not seeing each other.  I told him I would return, now that he was cooking in our neighborhood  and asked what he recommended for lunch.  Jean Pierre answered, “The chicken in Tarragon Sauce is the Special of the day.”

Voila, that is what I ordered when a young lady came to take our order.   Aaron said he loved Trout Amandine, which was offered, so he ordered that.  It was a chilly day, so we both ordered bowls of French Onion Soup.  Soon we were served steaming hot French Dinner rolls with slits in the top so one could slide pieces of butter into them.  They were delicious, crisp slightly browned on the outside and soft on the inside.  It was like an appetizer bread course.

Then we ate our soup more slowly and enjoyed it's rich slightly sweet broth and softened sliced onion with bits of the cheese encrusted toasted bread crouton.  We both agreed that the soup was our favorite course.

Soon the entrees came.  My chicken breast was floured and sautéed, then sliced and drizzled with a thick mushroom, tarragon, and wine cream sauce.  The effort to make a fresh mushroom, tarragon, and wine cream sauce was refreshing and made me recall what a wonderful chef Jean Pierre is and how fabulous to still have him cooking in the community after all these years.

I moved to Albuquerque in 1981 and started writing food reviews for Albuquerque Monthly around 1985. As I recall one of my first assignments was to pick the ten best fine dining restaurants in Albuquerque.  I recall that I was only able to recommend eight restaurants that year and Jean Pierre’s was one of them. I recall that he then owned Crepe Michel in Old Town.  The others, if I recall correctly, included Smiroll’s and Antiquity, also in Old Town, Andre’s Restaurant at the Doubletree Hotel, the Marriott’s fine dining restaurant, perhaps café Miche on Wyoming if it was open then, and the restaurant on Rio Grande a few blocks north of I-40, and the steakhouse at 1008 Eubank and perhaps Andrea Chavez’ new American restaurant at Edith and Central that became Artichoke Cafe as we know it when she sold it to Terry and Patty Keene.

As I told Aaron and Jean Pierre, Jean Pierre is the longest serving French chef in Albuquerque, who is still cooking and may be the longest serving French chef in New Mexico.   Before I moved to Albuquerque he started Comme Chez Vous, then located on Lead near UNM in the location that later became Amerasia, which Mickey owned and served wonderful Dim Sum at, and is now a kabob restaurant.  Then he opened Crepe Michel in Old Town that was later taken over by Francie.  I think he then opened a Comme Chez Vous in Santa Fe, then I think he cooked at the Territorial House in Corrales before Peter White took over (I remember eating boar for the first time there), and then the restaurant on Pan American, if I recall history and names correctly.

Aaron’s Sautéed Trout Amandine was perfectly cooked, cooked with the skin side down that left the meat tender and the body of the Trout tender with a mound of browned almond slices piled on the fish.  Both of our plates contained small piles of blanched and sautéed diced yellow Squash, haricot vert, blanched carrot slices, a pile of couscous, and a lovely baked half of tomato garnished with bread crumbs.  I ate every morsel of mine and tried a bite of Aaron’s trout and enjoyed every morsel.  My chicken cost $14.25, Aaron’s Trout cost $14.50, and the French Onion Soups cost $7.95 each, which seem to me to be very fair prices for a superb French bistro run by one of New Mexico’s best French chefs.  I shall return soon for a dinner.

Yesterday, we needed milk, so I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home from a deposition and bought a rib steak for $6.99/lb., ½ lb. of white mushrooms for $1.98, and an eggplant plus a gallon of milk.

We boiled the last half of a head of cauliflower with three peeled and diced potatoes, which Suzette whipped into a mashed consistency in the Kitchen Aid bowl.

Suzette the thawed and heated the PPI Boeuf Bourguignon with a large handful of spinach and we had a lovely PPI meal with a glass of Wellington 2010 Morehardt Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon.

Tonight when Suzette asked he what I wanted for dinner I answered, “Beef Stroganoff”.

Suzette fetched ½ onion, five cloves of garlic, the ½ lb. of mushrooms, the rib steak, and 1/3 of a green bell pepper and I chopped then into cubes.  We sautéed the onions, garlic, and bell peppers in butter until they softened.  Then I added the mushrooms and sautéed the mixture about fifteen minutes until everything  seemed cooked .  Then we removed the vegetables to an enameled Le Creuset casserole  and added 1 T. of butter to the large skillet and cooked the beef.  While the beef was cooking Suzette added about ½ cup of Crema and salt and pepper to the vegetable mixture.  When the meat was beginning to tun grey bur still had some reddish color internally, we added the meat and the PPI Boeuf Bourguignon to the mixture and then added a large handful of spinach to the mixture in the casserole.  Suzette the heated a bag of PPI spaghetti and divided it into two pasta bowls and we each spooned Beef Stroganoff over the mound of spaghetti in each of our bowls.

We drank the last of the 2010 Wellington Cab and then opened the bottle of Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon that Ricardo and Cynthia brought us last Saturday.  We liked the Charles Shaw cab also, especially with the Stroganoff.

Bon Appetit