Le Réveillon chez Martha

Foods to Ring in 2010

It's not a New Year's party until the black-eyed peas and buckwheat blinis are on the table.

By Martha Rose Shulman | Monday, 28 December 2009 | 17:43

When I lived in Paris in the 1980s, I was known for my Supper Club chez Martha, paying sit-down dinners that I prepared in my Left Bank apartment once a month for 25 people. I was also known for my New Year's Eve parties. I loved to celebrate and dance to bring in the new year, but I hated to go out into the jammed Paris streets. My way of getting around that was to throw an annual New Year's Eve party. I provided the dance floor (I lived in a large apartment near St. Germain des Pres) and a buffet, and guests brought champagne and desserts.

I gave my Reveillon parties with a couple of friends, who invited their friends (who invited their friends). The number of people at the party grew every year. It reached its peak at about 150, an estimate based on the number of empty champagne bottles left after everybody had gone home. We lined them up in the long hallway that went from the kitchen to the entryway of the apartment; 75 bottles made two long rows and a great Polaroid picture that I wish I could find.

People would begin to arrive at the apartment after 10, and by midnight the party would be peaking. But waves of arrivals continued throughout the night, on into the morning. Mine was just one in a long list of parties for many of the guests, especially those who arrived after midnight. On New Year's Eve, Parisians usually go out en groupe, with old friends, often the old bande from college or even high school days. If I invited one friend, and she brought her boyfriend, they'd usually come with the rest of the group they'd been out with all night. The metro stops running at about 1 a.m. in Paris and doesn't start again until 5:30 or 6, so those who needed the metro to get home would just stay until it started running again.

I had two long tables in the dining room of my apartment, and they both served as buffets. One was for desserts -- the beautiful cakes and tarts that people brought from Paris bakeries, and the two big copper pans filled with tarte tatin that one friend brought faithfully, every year. Another friend brought ice. At that time Paris had only one ice depot, and Rob would pick up a 20-kilo sack and bring it over to ice down the champagne bottles, which we put in big plastic tubs that I used for catering jobs. Since everybody brought champagne and I had a substantial stash of my own, there was never any danger of running out. Guests took it upon themselves to tend bar, and the corks never stopped popping.

blinis and lox For my buffet, I chose foods that were festive and that didn't need tending -- huge, colorful salads, cheeses and assorted breads, blinis with smoked salmon, dips and pates. I never wanted to stop dancing once I began, so it was essential that my work in the kitchen be done when the party was in full swing. The most that I had to do was to reheat blinis and replenish salad bowls and bread baskets so that the buffet always looked fresh.

The most important of the dishes that I served, and still serve every New Year's, was my black-eyed-peas salad. I had lived in Austin, Texas, before moving to Paris, and in Texas you eat black-eyed peas on New Year's for good luck and prosperity (because small round beans resemble coins and swell when they cook). Being a superstitious woman, I've always stuck to that tradition, though I never prepare them in the traditional way with ham hocks and greens. I make a Southwestern-style salad with a cumin vinaigrette, crunchy diced peppers and cilantro. I knew I was on the right track with that salad one year when a beautiful African-American dancer from South Chicago, who was in a Paris production of a review called Black and Blue, showed up at the party. She devoured the black-eyed peas and said: "Except for my mother's, these are the best black-eyed peas I've ever tasted."

New Year's Black-Eyed Peas Salad

Serves 6 to 8

You can serve this salad warm or chilled. I often make the beans several days ahead, marinate them in the vinaigrette, and add the chopped pepper and cilantro after I reheat the beans in the vinaigrette.

Ingredients

For the beans:

1 medium onion, cut in half

3 or 4 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound black-eyed peas, washed and picked over

2 quarts water

1 bay leaf

Salt to taste

For the dressing and salad:

¼ cup red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar

1 garlic clove, minced

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 teaspoons lightly toasted cumin, ground

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ cup broth from the beans

⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 large red bell pepper, diced

½ cup chopped cilantro

Directions

Combine the onion, black-eyed peas and the water in a soup pot or Dutch oven and bring to a boil.
Skim off any foam from the surface of the water. Add the garlic, bay leaf and salt to taste (about 2 teaspoons).
Reduce the heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Taste and add more salt if desired. Cover and simmer 10 to 15 minutes, until the beans are tender but not falling apart.
Remove from the heat and carefully drain the beans through a colander or strainer set over a bowl. Remove the onion halves and the bay leaf. Transfer the beans to a large salad bowl.
In a Pyrex measuring cup or a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin and mustard.
Whisk in the bean broth, then the olive oil. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Stir the dressing into the warm beans. Stir in the red pepper and cilantro, and serve, or allow to cool and serve at room temperature.

Advance preparation: The beans will keep for 5 days in the refrigerator; toss them with the vinaigrette, but if you aren't serving them right away, wait and add the cilantro and red pepper just before serving.

Fennel, Red Pepper and Mushroom Salad

Serves 8 to 10

This salad always appears on my New Year's buffet. It never wilts; indeed, it gets better as it sits.

Ingredients

2 pounds fennel bulbs, trimmed, quartered and cut into very thin crosswise slices

2 large red bell peppers, seeded and cut in thin 2-inch slices

8 mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced (¼ pound)

2 tablespoons minced parsley

1 tablespoon minced chives

2 ounces shaved Parmesan

For the dressing:

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 garlic clove, very finely minced or pressed

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together the lemon juice, vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. Toss with the salad and serve.

Buckwheat Blinis

Makes 15 large blinis

I make small blinis for my parties, so that people can eat them as finger food. Blinis can be made entirely with white flour, but these earthy buckwheat blinis are much more interesting ... and Russian. Serve them with sour cream and caviar or smoked salmon.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 tablespoons lukewarm water

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm milk

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon salt

½ cup buttermilk or plain yogurt

2 eggs, separated

Directions

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a large bowl. Stir in the warm milk. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes, until creamy.
Combine the flours and salt in a medium bowl. Stir into the yeast mixture. Stir in the buttermilk or yogurt, and the egg yolks. Mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour or longer, until spongy and bubbly.
Beat the egg whites to soft peaks. Fold them into the batter. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or more. The batter should continue to bubble.
Lightly grease a heavy griddle or skillet and heat over medium heat until hot. Drop on a small ladleful of batter. Cook until holes break through, about 1 minute. Flip the blini over and cook on the other side for about 30 seconds, until nicely browned. Transfer to a plate. If not serving right away, wrap in foil and reheat for 30 minutes in a medium-low (300 to 325 F) oven.

Martha Rose Shulman is the award-winning author of more than 25 cookbooks, including "Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes From the World's Healthiest Cuisine," "Mediterranean Light," "Provencal Light" and "Entertaining Light."

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites