"In my cooking, the notion of terroir takes on a geographical, cultural, and imaginative dimension. Terroir is a space in the mind.”
This recipe is served as three separate dishes: white asparagus jelly with french parsley topped with white asparagus ice cream; raw asparagus cut extremely thin and served in almond milk infused with a few drops of orange and lemongrass; and lukewarm asparagus served with a light pea sabayon and sprinkled with bacon powder.
Thanks to its sandy soil, the Sologne region has been one of France's main white asparagus production centers since the end of the 19th century. At the height of the season, we can serve fresh asparagus that ,in good weather, grows in the course of a single night.
Our cooking tobacco is made from the various types of mushrooms we found while strolling in the forest. Once they were picked, we hung the mushrooms on a small string above the hearth to dry before grinding them into powder.
We called this powder "cooking tobacco" because it looked like snuff. Didier Clément's cooking tobacco blend consists of a dozen or so mushroom varieties and is created like a blend of spices.
An exclusive recipe, our cooking tobacco can be purchased at our store Clémence, Epicerie Fine & Curieuse.
While doing research on the first culinary treaties written in Old French, Marie-Christine Clément came across a list of spices which included "seeds of paradise.”
Immediately intrigued, the couple set out on a real-life treasure hunt to find the medieval spice. After a year and a half of research, Didier resumed his medieval seasoning experiments and began grinding spices in a mortar.
Amazed by the delicacy of the spice with its subtle peppery taste and hint of aniseed, he decided to pair it with some jumbo shrimp.
The dish was awarded a perfect score (20/20) by Christian Millau. Marie-Christine and Didier Clément succeeded in reintroducing this spice into French cuisine after it had been forgotten for five centuries. An exclusive recipe.
The notion of sweet spices emerged from the rediscovery of this spice and was employed for the first time at the Grand Hôtel du Lion d’Or.
This dish was made to be paired with a special vintage by Didier Dagueneau, the famous winemaker from Pouilly-sur-Loire.
Derived from ungrafted grapevines, the Astéroïde was supposed to be named "Bazar" but the winemaker, giving in to the pleas of Chef Clément, decided to highlight the wonderfully aromatic and long-lasting nose of this legendary vintage by associating it with brilliance of the stars.
The dish consists of a sea bass caught by line off the coast of Brittany and prepared with fennel, celery stalks, and incredibly smooth and sweet lemon confit.
The main idea for this dish was to both protect and flavor the pigeon meat during cooking.
The bard was therefore transformed into stuffing with spices and a hint of garlic, and slid between the skin and the meat.
A few weeks after putting this dish on the menu, Marie-Christine Clément came across an article by Jean Bottéro describing the oldest known recipes in the world, dating more than 20 centuries before Jesus Christ.
The goal here was to recreate, in a modern version, the full complexity of flavors of "lièvre à la royale" without any of the heaviness.
A cocoa leaf is added to the hare stew, the sauce of which (containing hare blood) is also thickened with cocoa for a tangy and velvety taste.
The dazzling umbellifer angelica grew in all the medieval gardens and served as one of the primary plants in medieval pharmacopoeia.
The plant was referred to as "archangelic" for its ability to relieve various ailments. Didier Clément was first drawn by its freshly cut smell during a walk in the gardens of Villandry.
He decided to prepare it as a childhood dessert with a caramelized brioche – a gourmet version of French toast or a baba – soaked in syrup. He then added some angelica sorbet, which perfectly recreates the fresh and lively fragrance of this little-known plant, nonetheless considered the European ginseng.
Having experimented with a number of harvested ingredients, Didier Clément has found the elderberry to be one of his most popular wild flavors. In fact, he can use it both in savory dishes, lobster for example, or in sweet concoctions.
The harvest takes place in the middle of May when the umbels are in full bloom, using long poles at the crowns of the trees.
The stalks are removed from the umbels to ensure the flavor is as fruity as possible, and the berries are left to marinate in a syrup which, when bottled, should sit for several months before being served. This gourmet dessert is served with dulce de leche.
