Ingredients:
4 (6-ounce) ramekins
Salt and pepper, to taste
8 eggs
1 pound green garlic tops
¼ cup sake
¼ pound Honshimeji mushrooms
Butter
1 teaspoon white miso
¼ pound crabmeat
1/8 pound fresh rock shrimp
Beurre monté*
¼ teaspoon lemon juice
2 Tablespoons chopped Fines Herbes, such as parsley, chives, tarragon, or chervil
Piment d’Esplette (or spicy Hungarian paprika)
4 slices toast

* To make a beurre monté, bring 1 Tablespoon of water to a boil in a saucepan. Bring the heat down to moderate and whisk in chunks of cold butter, 1 or 2 at a time. Once the butter has started to emulsify, more butter may be whisked in faster. Hold the beurre monté between 160°F and 190°F for poaching, being careful not to boil or it will break.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Butter 4 (6-ounce) ramekins and season them with salt and pepper. Crack 2 eggs into each ramekin and place in a water bath. Set aside.

Blanch green garlic tops in well-salted boiling water. When the garlic tops are tender, shock them immediately in ice water. Puree them in a blender with water and the sake until smooth. Pass through a chinois. Set aside.

Sauté the mushrooms in butter, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the miso, crab, shrimp and buerre monté. Cook over low heat until the shrimp and crab are fully cooked. Add the lemon juice and fines herbes; season to taste with salt and pepper and Piment d’Esplette. Set aside.

Cook the eggs over medium heat for 15-18 minutes, or until just set.

To Assemble and Serve:

Re-heat the green garlic sauce. Spoon some over each ramekin with eggs. Place seafood and mushroom sauté over the top. Serve with toast.

 Chef Tony Maws most common recipe question is how to make chicken “interesting.” Here he offers his recipe for Poulet au Vinaigre. It’s easy enough to make on any busy weeknight, but  good enough to make for company.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken cut into 6 pieces
butter or olive oil or other cooking oil
8-10 sliced button mushrooms
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
¼ cup white wine
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp tomato puree
4 cups chicken stock (or enough cover 1/3 way up the chicken)
Bay leaf
Thyme Sprigs
¼ cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper

Salt and pepper both sides of the of chicken. Sear with skin side down in medium hot pan with butter and/or oil. Turn and baste until nicely brown on both sides.  Remove from pan. Add chopped mushrooms, shallots, and garlic and more salt and pepper if needed. Add tomato paste. Deglaze with white wine red wine vinegar. Reduce until almost dry.

Add chicken back and add chicken stock until 1/3 way up the chicken. Add bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Cover and cook  approximately 15 minutes in 400 degree oven. Test for doneness. Remove chicken to a plate and add juice back to pan.  Add butter and cream to taste; simmer and reduce until you can coat the back of a spoon with the liquid. Pour on chicken and serve. (Serves 4)

Here’s how to make a traditional Lyonnaise style terrine:

Ingredients:
1 cup stock or water
3 slices stale white bread with crust removed - crumbled or chopped
1 clove garlic crushed to a paste
1 lb. livers (can be duck, rabbit, chicken, squab or a combination)
1/3 lb. beef marrow (optional)
salt, pepper, four-spice (quatre épices), paprika
3 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
2 tbsp Armagnac

Combine stock or water with dried bread and garlic and cook over low heat stirring continuously so as not to brown until it is a paste. Grind livers, marrow, with bread paste, by putting through a food grinder or pulsing in a food processor. Pass through fine mesh sieve, discarding remnants. Whisk in eggs, cream, Armagnac, and seasonings. Butter a mold or terrine and line with parchment paper. Pour in mixture. Immerse mold in a bain mairie or water bath. Cover and cook in preheated 325 degree oven approx. 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out just clean.   Let rest until room temperature. Refrigerate and serve terrine well chilled on toasted country bread.

To enhance your barbeques, here is the secret of how to prepare one of our signature dishes, Red Chile-Marinated Skirt Steak

Ingredients:
5 pounds of skirt or hangar steak

For Marinade:
6 New Mexican dried red chiles (rehydrated)
6 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 cloves
10 allspice berries
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
1 cup canola oil
½ cup soy sauce
salt to taste

Grind all of the spices and seed the chiles. Put all marinade ingredients into a blender and puree. Rub on skirt steak and let sit overnight. Grill to desired level of doneness.

It doesn’t get much easier than this incredibly simple salad.

Ingredients:
4 bunches mixed radishes (red, purple, French Breakfast, White Icicle, etc…)
6 Tblsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp French walnut oil
2 Tbsp good quality red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
salt (preferably sea or Kosher) and fresh cracked black pepper.

Rinse all dirt and grit from radishes from and cut into quarters. Put mustard, vinegar salt and pepper into a mixing bowl. Gradually wisk in the oils, and adjust the seasoning. Gently toss radishes with the vinaigrette and serve. (serves 4-6)

Here is Chef Tony Maws’ recipe for one of the most popular recent appetizers on our menu: Velouté of Macomber (Sweet) Turnips. . In the restaurant, we serve the dish with seared foie gras, but you can make a simpler version of it at home in just a few easy steps.

Ingredients:
3 lbs Macomber turnips peeled and diced
1 leek - small dice
1 qt chicken or vegetable stock (or water)
¼ lb butter
1 cup crème fraîche
sea salt, pepper

Season and sauté leek in a little bit of butter until soft. Put diced turnips into stock pot; add stock and enough water to cover turnips by two inches with liquid. Season liquid soup base and bring to boil. Return to simmer. When turnips are thoroughly cooked, combine turnips, leek, butter and crème fraîche and turnip liquid. Blend, season, and pass through a strainer. Adjust thickness of soup with whatever liquid remains in stock pot. Based on size of your blender, do in batches if necessary, using the same proportions. Serve hot with fresh snipped chives. (serves 4)

In the autumn, visitors to the Bistrot invariably ask us how we make carrots taste so yummy. Here’s the answer—give it a try!

Ingredients:
2 pounds of carrots, peeled and sliced (all the same size)
2-3 tbs butter
salt and pepper
1 cup full-bodied red wine
1 cup stock or water
chopped chives and parsley

Saute carrots in butter, salt and pepper until just slightly (but not too) brown—about 10 minutes or until the juices are released, stirring occasionally.

Add red wine and stir to combine pan juices and goodies. Cook until liquid is reduced to a syrup consistency. Add stock or water. Cover and continue cooking on very low heat until carrots are tender. If necessary, reduce liquid until thick. Add one tablespoon butter and chopped chives and/or parsley.

Eat out and feel at home. Chef Tony Maws-two-time James Beard Nominee for Best Chef, Northeast - combines French-inspired “nose -to-tail refined rusticity” with  ”no exceptions”  local, seasonal, & organic or natural ingredients. Enjoy  the bar (in Food & Wine’s ”Top 100 in US”), ”Our Sunday Best Brunch”, and Tasting Menus …Thanks to GQ Magazine for naming us #2 (!) in list of 10 Best New Restaurants in US, to Food Network Magazine for awarding us “Best Breakfast in MA” (for our cooked-to order-Brunch doughnut), Boston Magazine for 2010 “Best Bigtime Chef” Award and Bon Appetit for featuring our burger on the Sept cover!
Our Memorable Chef’s Whim “Surprise Me!” Menu $39-Sun after 9 pm.
After Hours “Night Flite”-dessert, coffee & surprise-$13 after 9 pm

Like anyone else who has ever travelled to Lyon, when Chef Tony Maws lived in the capital of French gastronomie for six months, he fell in love with this simple, creamy herbed cheese dish that is typically served at the end of a meal. But it works just as well as an hors d’oeuvre, that will be sure to impress at any party! Here is his take on the classic recipe:

Ingredients:
1 pound fromage blanc or other fresh cheese
2 shallots, minced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 Tblsp. Extra virgin olive oil
3 Tblsp. Good quality red wine vinegar
chopped chives
leaves picked from 2 sprigs tarragon, chopped
leaves picked from 2 sprigs parsley, chopped
salt and pepper

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate. Let the mixture infuse for a few hours. Adjust the seasonings as needed - the mixture should be full flavored. Serve with crusty bread. Will keep refrigerated for 5 days.

Sometimes it is the least obvious menu offerings that garner the most attention from our guests.  This salad dressing takes a bit more time and effort than your standard oil and vinegar, but we guarantee you’ll like the results.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup blood orange juice*
1/3 cup Seville orange juice (sour)*
1/3 cup red grapefruit juice*
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 inch ginger sliced
2 shallots - sliced
pinch salt
pinch of dried chile flakes
1/2 cup canola or grapeseed oil
lemon juice
pistachio oil (available at most specialty markets)

Combine the first nine ingredients in a saucepan, and cook at high heat on the stovetop until the sugar and honey are dissolved. Remove from heat and let stand for one hour to infuse.

Transfer to a bowl, whisk in canola or grapeseed oil and lemon juice to taste. Toss salad with dressing and top with a few drops of pistachio oil. Bon appetit!

* You can substitute other citrus juices if you have trouble locating any of these.

Many people think of rhubarb as a fruit because most of us are used to seeing it in a pie, but technically, it’s a vegetable. It has a ton of its natural acidity and tartness, but those flavors, when tamed with something sweet, can produce great results. The Perrier in this recipe gives the soup a nice brightness and effervescence that makes it dance on the tongue. This is nice because come dessert time, your palate is often a bit dull after all that wine and food.

Ingredients:
8-10 stalks of rhubarb (rinsed well)
4-5 springs of tarragon
1 small knob of ginger (sliced and smashed)
1 vanilla bean (split and scraped)
approx ½ cup vanilla sugar *
1 tbsp hibiscus tea (in a sachet)
1-2 oz white wine
pinch of salt

Slice rhubarb into 1/8 inch discs. Combine everything but the hibiscus tea in a large pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Add tea and let steep for three minutes. Remove sachet. Put in large bowl, which you put in a larger bowl filled with ice cubes/water. Top with fresh tarragon, mint, or fennel. As an added bonus, you could top the soup with a lovely vanilla or crème fraiche ice cream or a berry sorbet.

*Great tip: To make vanilla sugar, save used vanilla pods (when you see the price, you’ll want to!) and leave above the stove until dry—a few hours. Simply place in a mason jar and cover with sugar. Use whenever sugar is called for in recipes.