Making crispy tartines at Le Pain Quotidien
I recently had the pleasure of making French tartines in a beautiful new bakery/restaurant Le Pain Quotidien in Coconut Grove. It was fun to gather around a communal table with other food writers and learn this technique from the restaurant's Founder Alain Coumont.Coumont opened the first Le Pain Quotidien in Brussels, Belgium in 1990 with the idea of creating a place that guests could adopt as a second home, and be served food and bread that adhered to the principles of simple cooking and slow living that he found – and still finds – so important.His passion showed through on that evening, as he described the fresh-baked sourdough bread, made in house, that we used to create the tartines.As we sipped on wine, he took us through the process of making the avocado toast and prosciutto, ricotta and fig varieties, taking the time to speak about each ingredient.
First, fresh avocado along with kale salad with carrot ribbons were placed in front of us. We gently spread the mashed avocado liberally on our toast which was topped by the colorful kale salad. A quick sprinkling of salt and cracked black pepper, some chopped fresh flat leaf parsley and the tartine was ready to be cut.
