If your goal was to convince the average jaded New York restaurantgoer that classic French cooking is not dead, you probably wouldn’t do so by offering up an oeuf en gelée, that old charcuterie warhorse consisting of a poached egg secured in a straitjacket of aspic, a.k.a. meat jelly, and looking like a science experiment. In fact, you probably wouldn’t touch aspic with a ten-foot pole. But Bistro Pierre Lapin chef Harold Moore is on a mission to change our thinking regarding such things. “Dishes like eggs in aspic don’t get the respect they deserve,” he says. “Even if the ones I’ve had in Paris are bland and underwhelming.” The solution: When making the consommé for the aspic, he substitutes extra-smoky smoked pork hocks for the traditional veal knuckles and calf’s feet to give it a bacony flavor because “who doesn’t love bacon and eggs?”
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On the chalkboard menu at Bistro Pierre Lapin; $11; 99 Bank St., at Greenwich St.; 212-858-6600.
*This article appears in the January 7, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
