I often think about how privileged France as a culinary country is. The two oceans alone – the Mediterranean to the South, the Atlantic to the West – are an endless source for excellent ingredients. I just prepared some excellent palourdes, hard clams.
Categories: Apéro, Dinner, France, seafood • Tags: Cooking, Food, Food photography, French cuisine, recipes
serves 4 (as a starter, in Europe) 1 cup lentils (look for small French lentils, it won’t work otherwise, “Le Puy” would be perfect) 1 carrot, chopped into (small!) cubes 1/2 onion 2 cloves 1 bay leave 1 cinnamon stick salt, pepper for the vinaigrette, and to finish the salad: 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard salt, pepper, sugar 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion 1 tablespoon finely chopped celery stalk 1 tablespoon finely chopped tomato flesh (seeds removed) (good) vinegar (white wine, […]
Categories: Apéro, Dinner, good food, Lunch, nature, signature dish, Whatever Works • Tags: Crossover, Food, Vegetarian
…is easy-to-do and goes with all kinds of cold cuts and morsels. Serve it with a (home-made) foie gras, with some ham, some chicken breast or a thinly sliced pork roast; it makes a great companion for hard mountain cheeses like the beautiful Ossau-Iraty from the French Basque region or for soft blue cheeses like Roquefort or Italian Gorgonzola or the very British Stilton. In fact, play around with it – who knows which combinations you will come up with. […]
Categories: Apéro, good food, signature dish, Snack, Whatever Works, World • Tags: Cooking Skills, Food, recipes
A slice of fresh bread spread with a rich, creamy, comforting liver paté can make a beautiful supper as long as you avoid the pre-packed “French” supermarket fare. Just do it yourself! It’s easy, it’s ten times better and it makes you feel good and skilled. Here’s a perfect home-made Parfait de foies de volaille: What do you need? Here’s your shopping list: 300 gr. chicken liver, 150 gr. best salted butter (demi-sel), 2 shallots (or 1 white onion), 2 cl Cognac […]
Categories: Apéro, good food, signature dish, skills, Snack • Tags: Food, France, recipes
…when it looks like this beautiful pack of anchovies. It’s a can wrapped in a box I bought at the organic food shop just around the corner today, a very retro style thing after all. But this doesn’t seem to be just about nice design and good marketing. If you follow the trace of producer Ortiz on the web, you’ll stumble on an informative website telling the story of this family business since 1891. And if only half of the […]
Categories: Apéro, good food, seafood, skills, Whatever Works, World • Tags: Anchovies, Beauty, Food
…at the Baron Rouge you will find all you need for a nice apéro or rustic lunch or dinner, or you just have a glass at any point of a sunny day watching people passing by and friends shaking hands, you know the deal: this is a feel-good-place, easy-going, nice, very Parisian, just ’round the corner of the Aligre market, just perfect. They serve paté and cured ham on wooden platters, you can go for just a piece of cheese […]
Categories: Apéro, Whatever Works, Wine • Tags: Baron Rouge, Wine
…the big guys from Brittany or the small ones from Southern shores. I wouldn’t know any other food that was so ridiculously cheap and yet so incredibly delicious. Fry them – lightly coated – in a pan, and you’ll get a crunchy snack. Marinate them in vinegar and wine, and you’ll have an elegant apéro. Cook and grind them with lots of garlic, parsley and lemon juice, and you’ll produce a great spread for your small toasts or Italian style […]
Categories: Apéro, Dinner, good food, Lunch, seafood • Tags: Cheap Food, Sardines
If you’re not familiar with the expression “cocktail dinatoire”, never mind, but it’s a clear signal that you’re neither French, nor familiar with Parisian habits. The pattern is always quite similar: friends, or friends of friends, invite you to a cocktail dinatoire in order to neither overwhelm you with a full-blown, formal dinner invitation, nor treat you too carelessly by just serving a glass of wine. I always thought of it as a crossing between happy hour and dinner whilst there’s […]
Categories: Apéro, Dinner, Drinks, France, Paris, Snack • Tags: Cocktail, Cocktail dinatoire, Cooking, Food
…or I’ll be bursting at the seams before this weekend! French Savoy makes part of the galaxy of sausage heavens and when you come home after a long day of skiing, hungry as a hunter, you don’t say no to a good slice of bread and a slab of air-dried or smoked saucisson or jambon, would you? Or when you walk down the main street of Les Saisies high up in the mountains, how could you miss Régis Bozon’s butcher […]
Categories: Apéro, hero butchers, Whatever Works • Tags: Beaufort
…with these little darlings called Rouget, or Rouget Barbet. It’s a great fish from Mediterranean shores and makes a great remedy against any sign of a winter depression. These guys love olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, garlic, they are ready to be grilled, oven-roasted, pan fried but whatever you choose, they will never lose their very special character and good taste. Wanna try? Here’s a good basic way to prepare them: Get the rouget fillets from the bones. Mix 2 tablespoons […]
…can be fun when you have a kitchen aid like my little son. He’s 4 years old and interested in cooking and dining, it seems. But even if he only tries to impress me with his skills, he’ll be learning a lot about cooking and life as a whole while helping me in the kitchen. Children should have their hands on real food very often in order to become decent grown-up people. Unfortunately, many parents don’t care too much about […]
Categories: Apéro, skills, Whatever Works
…when you’re living far from the sea or in some remote village far off the supply chain. So imagine Paris as a paradise when it comes to seafood of all kinds. Every morning, you’ll find the best products coming directly from the Mediterranean AND the Atlantic’s depths and shores. This morning, I’ve been strolling around and made it into the realm of the very ancient “Marché des Enfants Rouges”. It’s not a thriving market, actually, the vendors look bored and smoke […]
