I’ve been attending the NASFT Fancy Food Show since I was a child. My great Uncle was in the candy business (we called it the candy show back then) and always got my family in for a day of total indulgence!  

Now, we attend the Fancy Food Show with a different agenda. Though I always enjoy checking out all the new products in every category, my focus is finding new products to offer our clients.

Many of the wonderful products shown at the Fancy Food Show don’t really fit our product line of luxury and French foods; however, there were a few worth considering.  

More Than Gourmet offers high quality stock and demi-glace that assists chefs and home cooks in making delicious sauces. Stocks are available in veal, venison, lamb, chicken, turkey, duck, seafood, vegetable and mushroom. Though I frequently make my own stock (even those that take 48 hours), there are times when it would be so convenient to be able to start my sauce with a high quality, ready-made stock that only needs to be reconstituted. From there, I can add my shallots, garlic, wine, or whatever, to make the final sauce.  We are waiting for samples, to make sure we like the taste and quality of the stocks and demi-glace, but we are hopeful about this product line!

One of the most innovative products we tasted at the show was a line of savory macaroons. The macaroons were in three flavors, goat cheese, black truffle, and porcini mushroom. These scrumpti0us morsels are not yet on the market, and we hope to be the first to carry them.  

Some additional products we might introduce to our line include escargot, marron glace (candied chestnuts), truffle honey, and French chocolate.  We’d love to hear from you if you have other ideas or requests!  

Somewhat surprisingly, there were no producers of top quality caviar at the show.  There were several “affordable” alternatives, but nothing that we thought measured up to the two brands we currently carry, Tsar Nicoulai Caviar and Black River Caviar.

There were more booths than I remember seeing in past years marketing fresh truffle mushrooms and truffle products.  Since white truffles are no longer in season, and black truffles are at the height of their season, there were several companies with a basket full of beautiful, fragrant black truffles from the Perigord in France.  There were also truffle producers from Oregon and other regions (Oregon truffles are not the same species as Perigord truffles).  Though North Carolina has a growing number of farms cultivated the Perigord variety of black truffles, there were no producers at the show from this region.  

There were only three or four producers featuring foie gras or foie gras products, most of which we already carry on our site.  Notably, Hudson Valley Foie Gras was at the show (they don’t usually exhibit at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, only in New York), serving up fresh seared foie gras, foie gras torchon, duck proscuitto and magret de canard.  They were clearly there to not only sample their wonderful products, but also to reach out to the food community regarding the pending legislation in California, banning the sale of foie gras in the state, beginning in July 2012.  

One of Hudson Valley Foie Gras’ founders, Izzy, was there collecting signatures from those who wanted to help keep Hudson Valley Foie Gras available in California.  Hudson Valley Foie Gras raises their ducks free range, and hand feeds the ducks when it’s time for gavage. The company believes they should be excluded from the ban, based on the measures they have taken to keep the birds healthy, comfortable and stress free.  

A general observation about the 2010 San Francisco Fancy Food Show was the large number of gluten free foods being offered.  I don’t remember ever seeing so many foods marketed as being gluten free, but this year they were everywhere!  As always, there were a host of olive oils, dressings, salsas, chocolate and candy and of course cheese.  

We thoroughly enjoyed the show as we always do, and hope to soon be featuring some of the newly found French food and luxury products on our website.

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for Medallions of Ahi Tuna and Seared Foie Gras with Pinot Noir Sauce for quite some time now, and New Year’s Eve was the perfect occasion!  It worked out well, because I was able to do the sauce and the preparation for the potatoes and mushrooms ahead of time, and only  needed  about 30 minutes to complete and serve the dish.

The stacked presentation was spectacular and most importantly, the flavors and combination of ingredients were absolutely wonderful.

I followed the recipe almost exactly, and would not change a thing.  The recipe is from “the foie gras bible” titled “Foie Gras, A Passion” by Michael A. Ginor, owner of Hudson Valley Foie Gras.  The book contains almost 100 pages of information about foie gras–history, production methods, and facts, plus 80 recipes, many of which are created by the world’s most renowned chefs including Jacques Pepin, Charlie Trotter, Emeril Lagasse, Alain Ducasse, Thomas Keller and Jean-Louis Palladin.

If you are a lover of foie gras, and you enjoy cooking, you really must have “Foie Gras, A Passion”.

Ingredients:

Pinot Noir Sauce

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 pound shallots, sliced

4 portobello mushrooms, stems only, chopped (reserve caps for grilling)

3 white peppercorns

3 coriander seeds

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 1/2 cups Pinot Nior

2 cups veal stock

Crispy Potato Cakes

2 large russet potatoes

10 chives, chopped

2 egg whites

2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 tablespoons potato starch

peanut oil for frying

Grilled Mushrooms

1 clove garlic, minced

1 shallot, minced

2 teaspoons fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, marjoram and parsley work well)

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

4 portobello mushroom caps (reserved from above)

Coarse salt

Black pepper, freshly ground

Tuna, Foie Gras, and Spinach

1 1/2 pounds sushi-grade ahi tuna, cut into 6 steaks, about 4 oz each

Vegetable oil for grilling

1  foie gras, 1 1/2 pound, cut into 6 cubes, about 4 ounces each

Coarse salt

Black pepper, freshly ground

1/2 pound spinach, cleaned

1 tablespoon olive oil

Pinot Noir Sauce

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Add the shallots and saute until translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add the mushroom stems and cook until they have released all their liquid, 7 to 10 minutes.  Add the peppercorns, coriander seeds, bay leaf, and sugar, and continue cooking until caramelized, an additional 3 minutes.  Add the red wine vinegar and reduce until the mixture is dry, about 5 mintues.  Add the Pinot Noir and reduce by three-fourths, about 30 minutes.  Add the veal stock and simmer until the mixture takes on the consistency of a light sauce, about 1 hour.  Strain though a chinois and reserve.

Crispy Potato Cakes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Bake the potatoes for 30 minutes or until they are barely tender.  Let cool slightly, then peel and grate.  Add the chives, egg whites, salt, and potato starch.  Mold the potatoes into six cakes using a 2-inch-square mold; the cakes should be roughly 3/4 inch thick.  Heat the peanut oil in a large saute pan and fry the potato cakes until golden brown on both sides, about 3 minutes per side.  Set aside.

Grilled Mushrooms

Combine the garlic, shallot, herbs, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.  Marinate the mushroom caps in this mixture for at least 2 hours.  Remove the mushrooms from the marinade.  Season with salt and pepper, and grill until tender, about 3 or 4 minutes per side.  Dice the grilled mushrooms into 1/2-inch cubes.

Tuna, Foie Gras, and Spinach

Place the potato cakes in a medium-hot oven to heat through.  Brush the tuna with oil.  Season the tuna and the foie gras with salt and pepper.  On a very hot grill, sear the tuna on both sides.  In a hot saute pan, sear the cubed foie gras on all sides until brown.  In another pan, saute the spinach in the olive oil and let drain on a paper towel.  In another saute pan, heat the Pinot Noir sauce and the diced portobello mushrooms.  Place a potato cake in the center of each of six dinner plates with a small pile of sauteed spinach on top of the cake.  On top of the spinach, place one tuna steak and one cubed foie gras steak.  Spoon the Pinot Noir sauce with the chopped mushrooms around the plate.

Serve with a full bodied red wine.