Chanterelles, Mission Figs + chicory

Xavier Veilhan’s Fig and Chanterelle Salad for T Magazine

  • Xavier Veilhan’s Fig and Chanterelle Salad for T Magazine
  • Xavier Veilhan’s Fig and Chanterelle Salad for T Magazine
  • Xavier Veilhan’s Fig and Chanterelle Salad for T Magazine

NOTES

Look for chanterelles that have little sign of moisture, but whose edges are firm and plump. Whatever you do, don’t wash these delicate mushrooms! Clean them simply with a mushroom brush (I use a pastry brush too), removing the dirt from the surface. Serve with crusty toast.

INSTRUCTIONS

Brush chanterelles with a mushroom or pastry brush to remove debris (do not wash with water). Remove any woody stems, and tear any larger mushrooms in half. Dry sauté the chanterelles in a pan on medium heat for five minutes. Add Kosher salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, stir to coat. Remove the pan from the flame, add sliced figs to the pan to warm just slightly, and set aside.

Arrange lettuce in a shallow bowl, and toss with remaining olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a generous pinch of flakey sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Top with chanterelles and figs. Garnish with parsley and chives and serve.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

MODERATE

  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
SERVES

4

  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
PREP TIME

10 MINS

Salad

  • 1 
    head 
    mild chicory lettuce (speckled radicchio, escarole, castelfranco)
  • 8 
     
    ripe black mission figs
  • 1/2 
    lb 
    fresh chanterelles
  • 2 
    tbs 
    extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/8 
    tsp 
    Kosher salt
  • 1 
    tsp 
    high-quality balsamic vinegar
  •  
     
    Flakey sea salt to taste
  •  
     
    Cracked black pepper to taste
  • 1 
    tbs 
    flat leaf parsley, leaves torn
  • 1 
    tsp 
    minced chives

INSTRUCTIONS

Brush chanterelles with a mushroom or pastry brush to remove debris (do not wash with water). Remove any woody stems, and tear any larger mushrooms in half. Dry sauté the chanterelles in a pan on medium heat for five minutes. Add Kosher salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, stir to coat. Remove the pan from the flame, add sliced figs to the pan to warm just slightly, and set aside.

Arrange lettuce in a shallow bowl, and toss with remaining olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a generous pinch of flakey sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Top with chanterelles and figs. Garnish with parsley and chives and serve.

This article first appeared on TMagazine.com on January 15th, 2019.

For the mixed-media artist Xavier Veilhan, the studio is not only a place of work, it is also a place for living. “I don’t own a computer. I don’t even have a desk,” he says, “I prefer to let people who know what they are doing take care of the technical aspects of my work.” And there are indeed many technical aspects to his varied work which ranges from 3-D printed sculpture to ambitious installion. Last year, he transformed the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a state-of-the-art recording studio, inviting world-class musicians including Thurston Moore and Brian Eno to bring the private work of recording music into the public sphere. While Veilhan notes that many of his peers in the visual art world have rejected the convention of the studio to “work on airplanes and outsource their production,” he has adopted the opposite approach: “I do not have a fancy home, or a beach house, I have this studio instead.” In 2007, he collaborated with the French architecture firm Bona-Lemercier to transform an old storage hangar in Paris’s Bastille neighborhood into a space where he could produce and fabricate his work, cook intimate lunches and an annual party for the city’s La Fête de la Musique, an event that brings up to 500 of his friends into the studio to see world renowned DJs perform. The studio’s design, while delightfully unconventional with its netted banisters and large kitchen space, is precisely tailored to Xavier’s 24-hour needs.

The studio’s kitchen is where Veilhan’s interests in/obsessions with design, art-making and food converge. This is the heart of the building, and as close as Veilhan comes to claiming an office of his own. The walls are stacked with objects of intrigue, from obscure nautical instruments to editioned works of art. He drinks from an unassuming institutional water fountain that is actually a sculpture by the American artist Marc Ganzglass, entitled “Meteorite Inclusions (Fountain).” Veilhan’s eyes light up as he reveals the magic hidden within the piece: the pipes are formed from fragments of an iron meteorite.

Just back from his daily visit to the Bastille farmer’s market, he arranges a bounty of earthy, orange chanterelles, jammy end-of-season figs, and a silver skinned bonito onto the cast-concrete countertop of his custom, boat-like kitchen, with curved angles and a striking economy of space. Today, like most days, Veilhan will prepare lunch for his dozen o so employees, a welcome improvisation with Paris’s most superior produce.

He grabs a box of rice from a bank of storage boxes designed by the Bouroullec brothers. The sleek filing system runs the length of the kitchen, each container filled with dry goods and labeled — risotto, pasta, chocolat, pasta. The very same boxes are filled with paperwork and press clippings in the workspace across the way. As he cooks, he banters with a team working on a bank of computers perched on the platform overhead.

When the fish is poached, the salad dressed, he rings an antique copper bell, summoning the staff to the table. The team gathers, passing their plates to Veilhan for generous helpings. Lunches like these are a mainstay; so much so that the team finds themselves at a loss without them. Jessica, the studio manager insists, “We don’t know what to do when Xavier is traveling, lunch time is complete chaos!”