This plum-blackberry pie recipe and technique—from chef Laurent Gras and writer Mitchell Davis—can be adapted to use just about any summer fruit that you like. Try substituting the vanilla to your taste with almond extract or any liqueur. If working with extremely ripe and juicy fruit, add an extra tablespoon or two of cornstarch to adequately thicken the filling.

Featured in “4 Simple Steps to Baking Better Pie.”

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If you just started eating in restaurants yesterday, you might think that cabbage was a new ingredient popularized by contemporary Nordic chefs. Of course, for millennia cabbage has been a mainstay of the masses, a hearty, filling vegetable that can grow in climates as diverse as Poland and Provence and keep in a cold cellar for months on end, longer if fermented. It’s common in traditional dishes of food cultures as varied as Japanese, German, Chinese, and British.

And still it was a surprise for us to realize that both Laurent’s grandmère in Provence and Mitchell’s grandmother in Fort Lee, New Jersey, made stuffed cabbage on a regular basis. Of course, their recipes were different. Like many bubbes in the area, Mitchell’s grandmother would make a filling of ground beef with onion, rice, raisins and, on occasion, ground gingersnaps—her secret weapon. She’d wrap the meat mixture in individual leaves of cabbage and braise these rolls in a sweet and sour tomato sauce typical of Mitteleuropean Jews. This kind of stuffed cabbage is known in Yiddish as holishkes and you can find it on menus in Jewish delis as well as in Jewish homes around the world.

Laurent’s grandmother worked over a woodburning stove in a country house outside Antibes. First, she’d prepare a filling with rice, peas, several types of pork, and plenty of garlic. Then she’d line a large bowl with a clean dish towel on which she’d arrange leaves of blanched Savoy cabbage. This she would fill with her forcemeat and shape into a sphere resembling a whole cabbage. Finally, she’d poach it in a light stock until it was cooked through. This dish is known as lou fassum in the flower-growing town of Grasse, where it is from. And although it sounds as if it could be the name of one of Mitchell’s grandmother’s country-club friends, lou fassum is local dialect for stuffed cabbage.

Like many humble, regional French dishes, this one has a heartiness and earthy allure that makes it immediately familiar and comforting, even if you’ve never eaten it before. In the kitchen, after so much care goes into making it, an attachment grows between the cook and lou, so that when the latter emerges from its fragrant poaching liquid and the cook pulls back its swaddling to reveal a beautiful green orb, he can do nothing but beam with parental pride. At the table, slicing a wedge reveals a filling as complex and beguiling as a fine country pâté. Though of peasant origins, lou fassum is equally suited to more sophisticated dining. A little black truffle in the filling would not be out of place.

Just a few decades ago, lou fassum (aka sou fassum, lou fassun, chou vert en fassum, or chou farci à la Grassoise) was once so common in the region around Grasse that just about every housewife had a fassumier, a reusable mesh net with an opening at the top to help shape the dish. Fewer home cooks attempt it today, though it is still available in the center of Grasse on the menu at the Michelin-approved restaurant named, aptly, Lou Fassum. Maître cuisinier de France chef Emmanuel Ruz makes individual fassums that sit confidently on his dégustation menus alongside more contemporary preparations of foie gras, fresh pastas, and wild game.

Redolent of garlic and dense with several varieties of fresh and cured pork, our lou fassum is about as straightforward as it gets—though we have left out any offal (liver, spleen, or what have you), which would likely find its way into the traditional Grasse mix and could be added if you like. Preparation isn’t difficult, but it does take some time, so it’s a relief to know it can be made a day or two in advance, held and cooked, or cooked and held until reheated to serve. (It’s delicious at room temperature, too.)

With a better public relations team, lou fassum might find itself in the pantheon of great spherical stuffed dishes, alongside haggis and, perhaps, San Francisco sourdough bread bowls filled with clam chowder.

Thanks to Robert Burns, haggis has poetry to prove its worth, but lou fassum has its own prayer, known as the Grasse Bénédicité: O bèu façun tant desia, gràci à Dièu ti sies pas creba, Preguen bèn sou boun diou, avans de li coupa sou fiou. I.e.: O nice cabbage, so desired, thank God you hold out, Let’s pray to the Good Lord before cutting the string.

How to Make the Ultimate Stuff Cabbage

Flavoring a Farce

As with flavoring a sauce, it is important when making a filling or forcemeat—known as farce in French—to build up layers of flavor. You start with the main ingredient, pork in this instance, and add elements to reinforce or fill out the flavor from there. To the ground pork in this filling we add cured but not smoked bacon, prosciutto, and cooked ham to make the pork flavor richer and more complex. (Smoked bacon would overpower the whole thing.) We add some earthiness with mushrooms, onions, and garlic. A fresh, green taste comes from peas and Swiss chard. The cheese and a few grinds of black pepper tie it all together.

About Poaching Liquid

The role of any poaching liquid is to capture all of the flavors of whatever is poaching in it, and also to become the backbone of the flavor of what is being poached. There is a give and take. The liquid has to be light to start, with few ingredients, so that it can take on whatever is given to it. In this dish, the stock, made from chicken and tomato, has a delicate flavor and some sweetness that balances the richness of the pork and the bitterness of the cabbage, which ends up almost tasting sweet itself. As is often the case, the poaching liquid is the basis of the glaze and can even be served as a bouillon along with the meal.

Using the Right Cabbage

Savoy cabbages, which have a crinkled, tender but sturdy leaf, are the ideal choice for lou fassum—the leaves are easy to peel away without breaking, and the beautiful veins on each leaf make the dish even more visually striking. If you can’t find Savoy, green cabbage can also be used. To prepare, blanch the whole head in boiling water until its outer leaves tenderize, then remove each leaf whole. Repeat as needed. Red cabbage should be avoided, as it will color the farce in an unappealing way.

Cooking en Torchon

A clean, thin dish towel is a common tool in French kitchens. Perhaps its widest-known application is foie gras en torchon, a preparation of fattened duck liver that is rolled in a towel like a sausage and poached. Laurent has three or four towels in his kitchen he uses only for cooking (i.e., not for drying dishes). You can also use several layers of cheesecloth, but be sure to purchase good quality cloth that doesn’t throw off any threads. In a pinch, plastic wrap can also work.

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“What were you cooking?” a neighbor asked. For hours, the rich aroma of beef braising in wine had wafted from the kitchen, under the door and into the hallway of the Manhattan apartment where we were working. Tenants waiting for the elevator had, apparently, begun to salivate. Pot roast has that effect.

Just about every carnivorous culture has a thing for braising meat, the universal method of transforming tough-but-tasty cuts into succulent morsels. Patience, more than fancy cuts, is what you need to melt connective tissue and amp up umami, the distinct meaty flavor that results when protein breaks down into glutamic acid. When done right—long and slow, with lots of patience—braising brings lesser cuts into the spotlight. And when applied to a crosscut beef shank (most shank meat ends up ground in hamburger), braising can turn an understudy into a showstopper.

Mitchell grew up on brisket, the preferred pot roast for Ashkenazi Jews the world over. A full brisket cut from the kosher-able forequarter of the cow (the hindquarter, where you get loin and rump, is difficult to kosher due to the complex laws of kashrut) weighs upwards of 10 pounds. Perfect for a family affair, a cut this size will feed 12 or more, especially when paired with traditional Jewish sides like pan-fried potato pancakes, kasha, and noodle pudding. (From their absence on the Jewish table you’d think green vegetables were difficult to kosher as well.) In his new book about Jewish food, Rhapsody in Schmaltz, Talmudic scholar and humorist Michael Wex reminds us that until Texans started smoking it, brisket was “a pariah cut dear only to those who had no other choice.” And yet, with enough onions, garlic, tomato products, seasonings, and cooking liquid—which, occasionally, might have included a can of Coke—Mitchell’s mother could make a brisket that her children considered as toothsome as filet mignon.

In Provence, Laurent’s grandmother made a daube of wild boar, which hunters would parcel up for the neighbors to share. She marinated the (unkosher-able) wild pig’s meat at room temperature in a wine-filled, screen-enclosed garde-manger for days before adding aromatics. She’d then seal it in an earthenware daubière, the distinctive vessel with an indented cover. Into the lid’s indentation would go water to mitigate the heat and evaporation produced by a wood fire, allowing for an even, moist braise.

Historically, anything cooked in a daubière—artichokes, celery, goose—would be considered en daube, though sometime in the beginning of the 20th century, beef became the default. In The Food of France, Waverley Root notes that, surprisingly, white wine was traditional in daube de boeuf à la provençale. But more on that later.

Long before then, sometime in the 18th century, a heavily spiced, red wine-soaked braise known as boeuf à la mode (essentially, “stylish beef”) became fashionable in France, so much so that it was exported to England and to America, where it became known as alamode beef. Hannah Glasse’s largely plagiarized classic British cookbook from 1747, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, includes a recipe that calls for a leg of mutton or piece of beef, wine or ale, mushrooms, and an assortment of spices. In fact, spices may be responsible for the dish’s rise to fashion; the 18th-century spice trade brought exotic flavors from abroad into the limelight. By 1796 when Amelia Simmons wrote American Cookery, America’s first cookbook, alamode had become a verb. Simmons gave directions for two different techniques to alamode a round of beef. One involved curing the meat with saltpeter and steaming it for several hours (similar to corned beef); the other bathed the joint in claret and sealed it in a pot with bread dough and braised it for hours and hours.

To update the traditional pot roast—to make it more stylish, if you will—we chose a beef shank, crosscut like osso buco. It’s an impressive piece of meat, large enough to feed up to six, that any good butcher should be able to provide. We use white wine, whose acidity renders the finished dish bright and balanced. To build layers of flavor, the meat is put in a covered pot to which the wine is added in small quantities and reduced to almost dry before adding more. The steam and the acidity help tenderize the meat. A rich stock and aromatic vegetables are added last to keep the flavors distinct and true. Then the whole thing goes in the oven to braise until the meat becomes perfectly tender.

Like a couture dress, every piece of meat takes some personal attention; the exact length of cooking time and seasoning required differ from one to the next. But the end result is always à la mode.

Keys to the Ultimate Braise

The Cut

Chuck roast or chuck shoulder is a common choice for pot roast. In this case, however, we used a crosscut beef shank, which often ends up as ground hamburger. It usually requires that you special order it, but any good butcher should be able to provide this cut upon request.

Braise and Reduce

Braising can be as simple as placing all of your ingredients in a pot, covering it, and cooking over low heat until tender. But to bring out the best of this beef shank, we braised in stages. To create a concentrated reduction and introduce fat-cutting acidity, we added white wine in stages (red can add meat-toughening tannins and muddy flavors). With each addition, the pot is covered to produce an acidic steam, which helps break down collagen and connective tissue and build flavor.

Standards of Stock

Following reduction, a rich bouillon rounds out the braise’s flavor, adds complexity, and boosts the aromatics in the braise itself. A stock is enriched by being boiled twice with meat and aromatics, then strained. In traditional French kitchens stocks can be reboiled two, three, or four times. To save time, effort, and ingredients we start with a store-bought stock. The short ribs used for the second boil can be removed and reserved for another meal, seasoned, seared in hot duck fat or oil, and served with a strong mustard dressing, or taken off the bone and tossed into a meat sauce or salad.

Aromatics and Acidity

Shallots, chiles, olives, herbs, and mushrooms added to the final braise bump up the dish’s umami—a funky flavor that adds depth and complexity, and is found in foods like sundried tomatoes, dried wild mushrooms, soy sauce, and miso. A little fresh passion fruit adds additional acidity and complexity without the distraction of lemon or other citrus. A splash of good apple cider vinegar would also work.

Relish and Radishes

We wanted accompaniments that would cut through richness and provide texture. Bright acid and fresh vegetables are key. We incorporated herbs and scallions into a salty, tart relish bulked up with sinewy, slippery flaxseeds. Likewise, crunchy roasted radishes, with their bitter greens intact, balance the luscious flavors of braised meat.

Braise Like a Pro

The Ultimate Pot Roast

The post The Obsessive’s Guide to the Ultimate Pot Roast appeared first on Saveur.

This funky flaxseed, herb, and vinegar relish complements the Braised Beef Shank with Roasted Radishes and Flaxseed Relish to balance out the pot roast’s richness with acidity and texture.

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Unlike stocks, which are often incorporated into dishes like sauces or stews, bouillon—which comes from the French verb for “to boil”—is a fortified broth that can stand on its own. This version, which starts with beef broth, is enriched, thickened, and deeply flavored by simmering beef short ribs for several hours. We add a touch of soy sauce and tomato for umami. Use it as a braising liquid, then reduce it into a rich, shiny sauce.

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A low and slow braise is the best way to transform tough cuts of meat into fork-tender morsels. This version, made with a crosscut whole beef shank, is cooked in white wine and rich homemade beef bouillon layered with vegetables and aromatics for added complexity. Crunchy roasted radishes and a funky flaxseed, herb, and vinegar relish balance the pot roast’s richness with acidity and texture.

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Serve this simple but gussied-up dipping sauce with all kinds of party snacks, especially our ultimate pigs in a blanket.

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Pie evokes nostalgia for a pastoral past—fresh-baked, buttery goodness cooling on the farmhouse windowsill—and yet it touches just about every American soul, urban and rural alike. Historical records indicate that in 1895, some 22 million pies were baked and sold in Manhattan alone. That’s when a nickel got you a coffee and two slices of pie, which was considered a very fine and fast workingman’s lunch.

In 1872, William Thompson founded what’s considered the country’s first pie wholesaler in Manhattan, just north of Canal Street, and eventually produced more than 20,000 pies a day—long before sophisticated automation or refrigeration. But by the 1970s, James Beard, born in 1903, the same year Thompson died, was unhappy with the quality of New York’s pies, noting, “It seems the only way to get a good pie is to make it yourself.”

And making a good pie is easier than you think.

Although no one can deny the British roots of our own pie tradition—even the all-American apple pie has a centuries-older English antecedent—there’s something unique about our workaday approach to pie. Crusts are rolled and pressed, fillings sweetened and dumped, the whole thing baked or chilled until set. Like early American furniture, American pies are beautiful in a rough-hewn way.

Contrast that with a French tart, the shortbread-like crusts neatly trimmed and pre-baked, crème patissière piped just so, fruit and other toppings arranged with the precision of Napoleon’s Grande Armée, the whole thing glazed to a vitrine shine. Each piece of a tart is compact and tight, like a couture jacket. The pitch of the French tart ring and the American pie plate says it all: French tarts stand erect; American pies recline.

Amid our current fascination with local and seasonal eating, the pie holds a special place, and for the grower of fruit, pie making serves a practical purpose, like jam—a way to honor the harvest while using up excess. Cups and cups of fruit go into a pie filling. Make ’em, freeze ’em, bake ’em. Use fresh or frozen fruit. You can preserve the taste of one season before you delve into the next.

Crust Musts

Though not difficult, there are two important aspects of pie baking that require particular attention. The dough should not be overworked, neither when mixing it together nor when rolling it out. What exactly overworked means is, of course, difficult to define, especially if you are new to the craft. Resist the urge to combine everything to the point where it looks well blended and smooth. A slightly shaggy mass dappled with bits of butter is fine. If in doubt, stop sooner than you think, as rolling it out will work it more. Letting the dough chill, both literally and figuratively, between mixing and rolling is more important than it seems. The resting time allows the elastic strands of gluten (the protein in flour) to relax, making the dough easier to manipulate, more likely to hold its shape, and more delicate to eat.

Flawless Filling

The second matter is the filling, the preparation for which you should allow some time. (Make the dough and start on the filling while it sits.) You don’t necessarily have to peel your fruit—though peach pie is better without the fuzz. But you do have to pit, slice, or otherwise pare it. Sprinkle the prepared fruit with sugar and let it macerate for a moment so you can drain off any juice that runs. Doing so will help prevent a soggy bottom. Toss with some cornstarch to bind any remaining juice as it bakes and add whatever seasonings you like before you dump it in the crust to seal.

Steamy Does It

How do you top that? There are many options. A woven lattice is beautiful and lets moisture and steam escape so that the filling concentrates and compacts. A whole double crust increases the ratio of crust in each bite, a good thing, right, Martha? (Make sure to cut steam holes to release the moisture.) Crumbles and crumbs are other delicious topping possibilities. Open-face is easiest and pleasing in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of way.

Bake your pie longer than you think. When it first looks done, it isn’t. Keep it going and going so that the filling is cooked through and the crust is crisp, top and bottom. If in doubt, bake it longer. An hour and a half is not too much.

Then Cool It

One last thing: Let your pie cool completely before you slice and serve. You will be tempted to dig in before then, but doing so will destroy the integrity of the filling, which will revolt by pooling into puddles in the pan. Mind you, as the French are masters of restraint and discipline, Americans are all about immediate gratification and indulgence. Consider yourself warned and do what you have to do.

Bring it Home

Blackberry-Plum Lattice Pie

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