Rover's

Recipes from Seattle's Chef In The Hat

The French and food. They go together like, well, a hat on a head. Seattle's own Chef In The Hat, Thierry Rautureau has been serving “Pacific Northwest cuisine with a French accent” for the past 18 years at Rover's. If you've eaten any of Thierry's creative dishes you may well be thinking there's no way you can recreate them at home. We're here to tell you that it's time to revisit that belief.

Born in the Muscadet region, Thierry grew up on his grandparent's farm, started a cooking apprenticeship at 14 and worked in the profession in several areas around France. In 1978, he headed to Chicago and worked at La Fontaine for three years. In the early 80s, he moved to Los Angeles, working at restaurants like The Regency Club, Mangia and The Seventh Street Bistro. During a trip to Seattle for a friend's wedding, the group ate at a small Madison Valley restaurant called Rover's. The chef mentioned the restaurant was for sale. In August of 1987, Thierry opened with 32 seats and a wine list just shy of 50 wines. The restaurant now seats 50 and the wine list has over 500 wines. After all the good experiences (and a few difficult times), he's ready to share his recipes.

The catch? Thierry has a very spontaneous style of cooking. He rarely writes anything down and dishes change from day to day. Enter Cynthia Nims, a local writer who has published a number of cookbooks herself (see the Seattle DINING! story) and attended cooking school in France at La Varenne. The perfect collaborator with Thierry, she's been able to bring structure to the recipes, letting his creativity shine through.

So although you may think you can't possibly recreate recipes from Rover's, keep the following in mind:

Thierry and Cynthia--still smiling!

• Ingredients are key. Thierry has said “…I still maintain that the Northwest is one of the regions, if not the region, of the United States with the best supply of local foods.” He gets most of what he needs right here in Seattle. You can, too. To assist you, there is a resource section at the back of the book. Stores and locations are listed along with suggestions on what you can find.
• Recipes have been tested extensively in the home kitchen setting with equipment most of us own already. Cynthia's already made the mistakes for us—we can avoid pitfalls thanks to her.
• Each recipe includes some background information and explanation. For example, the house-cured salmon recipe has lovage leaves as an ingredient. Personally, these are a mystery to me and I would have no idea what to use as a substitute if I couldn't find them. But in the pre-recipe paragraph, the book states: “Lovage, a broad-leafed herb that has a bright celery-like flavor, is an old-fashioned herb not commonly available today. Look for it in gourmet groceries. If you are unable to find lovage, you can use celery leaves instead.” Voilà, all your worries taken away in just a few sentences.

Cynthia Nims--mistake maker and tester extraordinaire

For people who read cookbooks like novels, this type of information makes reading a fun learning experience. But beyond recipes, the book gives you a glimpse of the kind of chef Thierry is and what it's like to dine at Rover's. It includes suggested multi-course tasting menus “in the French tradition.” The tasting menus are made up from recipes in the book and offer a number of small bites as opposed to one large plate for a meal.

The book is broken into segments of salads, soup, cold appetizers, hot appetizers, vegetarian dishes, seafood, meat, sorbets and desserts. The last section is foundation recipes—these you will use no matter whose recipes you're re-creating.

A “Glossary of Ingredients and Techniques” is also included. Read and discover how to prepare artichoke bottoms, clarify butter, choose and serve caviar or fix foie gras (although you will want to keep this quiet in case your neighbors are protesting the treatment of ducks—it seems to be happening frequently around town right now).

Another nice addition is a one-page “Food and Wine Pairing Principles” by Cyril Fréchier, sommelier at Rover's for more than 15 years. He shares some simple rules he uses to pair wines with food. It's easy to be intimidated by the thought of “pairing correctly.” To my mind Cyril's most important point is at the end of the page: “Sometimes the pairing is off, the flavors clashing, in which case I revisit my train of thought and consider another candidate. A new lesson has been learned.” Even the professionals are off every now and then—the fun is in the trying. His wine suggestions accompany each recipe.

Whether you're creating a meal from this book for yourself, family and friends or pairing wine with the dishes, don't be intimidated. Jump in with both feet (and hands), enjoy the process and revel in the final product. What's the point otherwise?

Connie Adams/December 2005

Buy it now from Amazon.com