Dîner clandestin

Here is an interesting article found in My Little Paris. Let me translate for you what those 'clandestine dinners" are all about.

"You won't know the address or the menu. The only certitude: the evening will be magical, and the dishes exquisite. Those underground dinners are imported from the United States and are appearing these days in Parisian apartments. The concept is to gather in one living room 10 stangers who will share a fine gourmet dinner.

Our favorite is Hidden Kitchen. A young american couple passionate about food welcomes you in their apartment and offers you a gastronomic fare they have prepared for you. Throughout the evening, ten prodigious dishes accomapnied with the corresponding fine wines appear in your plate {...} Tongues loosen and little by little you get to know the other guests {...}



Here is the link to this fabulous idea of hidden kitchen. the famous Chocolate and Zucchni blog wrote about Hidden Kitchen here. And I'm borrowing their picture of this devilish corn soup to illustrate this post.

I looked on the site everywhere: no indication of prices, which renders the whole experience even more underground and mysterious. My guess is that it probably fills your stomach meanwhile digging a pretty deep hole in your wallet.

It's not for everyone. I think most would rather go to a restaurant than take the risk of not liking the food or the guests. But I am intrigued. I think this is an idea that will spread for several reasons, one of them being that with the torrential influx of young, creative chefs, there is not work for everyone. Many extremely talented chefs will get a chance to be creative without the constraint of working for a restaurant owner, or the cost of owning one. The other reason is that this tells a story. It's not boring. It's mysterious, it's adventure, it's exclusive. And you get to meet new people, also risk takers, so the adventure is complete.

Reminds you of something? Cooking in French, (not to toot my own horn.. but okay I will toot my own horn,) is just like this. It's adventurous, it's out of the box. It's for the kind of people who want to try new things before everyone else. It's fun and different.

Of course, Cooking in French is about learning a language rather than eating snails and caviar. It's also about the joy of getting your hands dirty in the kitchen and the satisfaction of learning a language and cooking skills at the same time.

One thing Hidden Kitchen has over cooking in French: I ask you to help with the dishes, but I promise you it will be 'en Français.'

Osso Buco et Polenta LIVE!

Or nearly live.

Here is a fantastic way to practice your French while cooking. Or at least while salivating. Côté Cuisine offers delicious looking French recipes and the video of the recipes to go along and make you drool like you've never drooled before.

Now, when I teach, I go wayyyy slower and you get to make me repeat each vocabulary word and verb a thousand times, I never get tired of it.. But for the more advanced speakers I think this is pretty cool.



I don't want to harm little veal any more than I want to harm bunnies, but boy oh boy do I love Osso Bucco!. I've never made it quite this way but let's give it a try shall we? The video of Osso Bucco with Polenta is here. I'm impressed by the sound quality, the image is crisp and clear, and it's short enough that you can listen to it several times and not get bored. Also you can stop and repeat after each sentence.



To help you follow this viedo recipe I'm translating the ingredients. So here we go: Gorgeous Osso Cubbo with Polenta. Did I mention I would gladly kill for great Polenta. This recipe involves marscarpone and have to post this asap so i can run to the store to get my hands on mascarpone NOW.

Here is a translation of the recipe to help you along:

For the meat
2 veal chanks (1 per person)
1/2 lbs veal meat cut into chunks
1 stick celery cut up
2 shallots
thyme
zest of three oranges (no white, only the zest)
3 garlic cloves
2 cups white wine
water to cover
salt
pepper


For the Polenta
2 cps polenta (get the expensive kind with coarse texture0
4 cups water
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1/2 cup mascarpone
1/2 cup parmesan
1/a cup butter

For the vegetables
4 asparagus
4 young carrots
the cooking juice of the veal chank.




La recette? C'est tres simple:

Turn on the oven to 350
cover the shank bone with aluminum foil so that the bone remains white
add salt and brown in a pan with a bit of butter
add the rest of the meat and brown
add the celery, the zest, shallot and garlic and let brown while stirring occasionally. Don't let it burn.
Once the mix is nice and brown, add the white wine, then the water and pepper.
let it boil. Once it has, cover and insert in over for 2-1/2 hours.

For the polenta:
Let the cut up onion cook without browning, until translucent. Add the polenta, the garlic then the cold water. Add salt and pepper. Cook very slowly for 30 minutes while stirring. (I could stir Polenta amorously for hours, it's that wonderful) or more depending on the quality of the polenta; the better quality the polenta, the more it will need to cook. At the end of the cooking time, add the mascapone and the parmesan. Taste and add salt if needed. Somehow you can never salt Polenta enough. Pour it in a mold lined with plastic wrap (the sucker will stick otherwise!) Then cut into pretty little shapes.

For the veggies: Cook them in salted boiling water but only long enough for them to remain crunchy. Add the carrots to the Veal shank pot, let cook on the stove, then add the asparagus until they are well coated and cooked.

Personally, I would serve this family style by opening the lid once everyone is sitting around the table. Added bonus: less dishes. But if you want to be fancy you can serve it by arranging the shank, the veggies and the sauce on a nice platter and decorate with the polenta cut outs.

I like my bunnies... à la moutarde.

The American language has far more words to dispose of than the French language, yet in some instances I find it curiously lacking. I wonder if it’s not because some states of perception are simply out of the British/American consciousness (oohh, burned!) But really: for example the expression se régaler'. Is there the equivalent in English? Se régaler means something like to feast oneself, to enjoy but from a purely sensory standpoint. It means delighting oneself via the senses, taste, sight, touch, smell. You have not fully understood the French until you have accepted this particular state of consciousness as an honorable goal.



What does it have to do with cute bunny rabbits? Ahem.. A lot, unfortunately.

We French love our rabbits. The flesh is moist and delicious, the taste… Ah, especially when paired with mustard cream sauce it’s simply… Okay, we're monster. We have no qualms about 'se régaler' at the expenses of bugs bunny.

But NO! Not I! I must not succumb to this barbarian habits. I'm American now. It is WRONG of me salivate over the image above.

So today I will make my lapin à la moutarde lapin-less. I'm cooking poulet à la moutarde instead. Et nous allons nous régaler. We’re going to… die a little in convulsions of pleasure over… chicken in mustard sauce.


(note how the bone is elongated in the picture. Hint: it ain't chichen.)

The best French mustard is still Amora but difficult to find here. It cooks much better than the Maille mustard because it doesn’t get lumpy nor does it lose its bite. Also I find the Maille mustard too sweet for this recipe. In the absence of both, I like Trader Joe’s plain mustard best. Nothing fancy or flavored with horseradish, honey or other nonsense. Mustard flavor needs no improvement. Let’s keep it simple, as traditional French cooking should be.




Here is a chicken in mustard sauce recipe I have been using to everyone’s delight, borrowed from the blog Le coyote se régale. (Se régale: remember the expression?) If you can read French, the blogger is très ‘sympa’ (the definition of sympa--short for sympathique--means a hybrid of easy to get along, kind and with a sense of humor. Her post describes her efforts to remove the head of the poor bunny without looking at it, without thinking of the brain in it, and --since she only bought half a lapin—her feeling of jealousy toward the person who got to buy the headless half. C’est très drôle.

Poulet à la Moutarde

One tablespoon butter
One chicken cut up (or only dark meat if you prefer)
One onion (diced)
4 carrots (diced)
1 leek (diced)
One turnip (diced)
Three cups of white wine
One cup mustard
Parsley (1/4 of a cup, chopped)
1/4 cup whipping cream or crème fraiche
Salt, pepper


Melt the butter into a deep pan. When it’s hot and foamy and before it turns brown, sauté the chicken on all sides. Once the chicken is browned, set aside on a plate.

Sauté the chopped onion. Let it get translucent, not burned.

Add the wine, stir. Make sure to scrape and incorporate the residue of chicken browning and the onion into the wine. Cook it for three minutes, then add half the mustard, the diced vegetables and the parsley.

Add the browned chicken and enough water to nearly cover it. Cover for 30 minutes so that the liquid doesn’t evaporate. Then uncover for ten minutes so that the sauce can reduce. If the sauce is too liquid after those 40 minutes, continue to cook until it gets a bit thicker (like a thick soup.)

Remove the chicken and set aside.

Add the cream and the rest of the mustard to the sauce and let it cook for five minutes.

Pour the sauce over the chicken, or place the chicken back with the sauce if you prefer to serve the poulet a la moutarde in the pot.

Serve with tagliatelle. Why Tagliatelles, I’m not sure, but in France, that’s what we want to eat our lapin à la moutarde with if we are to attain gustatory nirvana.

Don’t forget to practice your French by reading the kitchen antics of Le coyote se régale. The images was borrowed from this website which has an alternate recipe.

Taking the time to smell the muffins

On Thursday I brought a small mountain of home-made muffins to my son's high school tennis match. It was my turn to bring the snack. Not wanting to stand out as being too French, (my sons have reproached this to me before) I settled for very American muffins.

When I opened the trunk of my car and the smell of warm-out-of-the-oven pastries came wafting through the tennis court, it almost created a small revolution. It was an away game but suddenly we had court advantage. The other team had, I believe, pretzels and rice crispy treats. I experienced the joy of feeding my teenager multiplied by 28 HUNGRY boys. The nicest compliment (i think) came via one of the boys who said to my kid, 'your mom's a stallion' !? I had never heard that one before.

The boys were so appreciative, it kind of killed me. The fact that they took notice that this was a homemade snack touched me. Life is so rushed, I thought. They have come to expect very little from their eating experience. A snack is something to ingest so you don't fall.

But to me eating and feeding others is SO much more. It is joy at every turn. Or it can be. Or it should be. To be able to connect with that joy is a gift that some of us have forgotten exists. I think you have to make that choice, the choice of connecting with the experience every step of the way. Planning and shopping can be a rushed, stressed experience, or it can be a joyful process that begins in the kitchen calmly with sitting down with a cup of tea, or a glass of wine and a beautiful cookbook. The few minutes of being mindfull, as opposed to mindless also apply to the time spent inside the store and inside the kitchen. I do not believe that going to costco in a rush and full of resentment at the added work to buy a tub of some sort of snack will take any less time than to add flour to eggs, to milk. Beside it would take all soul away from the experience. I believe that the more rushed our lives are the more it is crucial to remind ourselves to pay attention to the soulfulness of things.

The fact was, as I fed and nurtured the tennis boys, I was first and foremost feeding and nurturing myself. i was expanding time, connecting with my senses, having fun. It took 30 minutes to stir the ingredients together, ten minutes to pour the 60 or so muffins into the tins, another 30 minutes to cook (during which i wrote the first draft of a short article.) The expression on the kids face when they smelled the air and realized it was actually THEIR snacks that smelled so divine: timeless.

Oh, and by the way, I probably spent a fraction of what those store-bought-plastic wrapped -sugar and salt loaded snacks cost.

This anecdote is not to teach anyone how to make muffins. Yours are probably better than mine, but to reflect on the pleasure of feeding people and the importance of taking time, of observing time and deciding how to make that time count. The pleasure of feeding goes beyond the pleasure of cooking. A friend of mine tells me about her family scrambling at the end of the day looking for what she called 'dinner food' inside the refrigerator. I'm not sure what dinner food means exactly, but it sounded sad to me, I imagined them like a pack of hungry wolves having to fight with each other for their share.

I know what some of you will think: But I don't have time! I'm too rushed! I cook only for myself so what's the point?
To you i answer this: time is running out! It is time to learn how to slow down and pay attention. It's time to capture whatever joy we can from our daily actions. In other words: it is time to smell the muffins!

The image above in not of the muffins i made, because I don't know how to take pictures, so i borrowed it from a person who can.

Verrines: Rillettes de saumon

My friend Claire has a beautiful cookbook about Verrines called Verre Gourmands, by Benoît Molin. I used one of the recipes here with a twist: I added a cucumber and yogurt layer to the mix for a more springy feel. This morning i am demonstrasting this recipe and the French lesson that accompanies it to Lynn and her friends for a birthday brunch. I am making verrines for twenty this morning, but you can adapt the recipe to less people. remember, verrines usually don't come alone, but are part of a series. Less (in quantity) is more. A verrine should leave you wanting... for the next verrine.

Verrines de rillettes de saumon.



Here is a French recipe perfect as a pretty and refreshing appetizer.
(Voici une petite recette Française parfaite comme entrée jolie et rafraîchissante.)

Cook salmon in the oven (cuisez le saumon au four) with two tablespoons of soy sauce (avec deux cuillérée à soupe de sauce soja) and one teaspoon of fresh grated ginger (et une cuillérée à café de gingembre haché). Cook until the fish is cooked but not dry. (cuisez jusqu’a ce que le saumon soit cuit mais pas sec.) Let it cool completely, (laissez refroidir complètement) then shred it with fingers (éfrittez avec les doigts) and reserve (et mettez de côté.)

Dice the smoked salmon.
(coupez le saumon fumé en petits dés)

Chop chives, parsley, green onions and reserve
(Coupez la ciboulette, le persil et les oignons vert)

Cucumber layer: (couche de concombre)
1 large container non-fat or low fat yogurt.
1 tablespoon good mustard (Mailles) (moutarde)
juice of one lemon, salt and pepper. (citron, sel, poivre)
2 large English hothouse cucumber, chopped (concombre)
parsley. (persil)

Salmon layer: (couche de saumon)
smoked salmon (saumon fumé)
the cooked salmon cold (saumon cuit et froid)
juice of one lemon (le jus d’un citron)
chives (ciboulette)
salt and pepper

Crème fraîche layer: (couche de crème fraîche)
1 container low fat sour cream (use crème Fraîche at your own risk, and only if you’re a bad girl J)
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes or hot sauce to spice things up

To assemble the ‘verrine’ pour one tablespoon of the cucumber mixture. Gently add one tablespoon of salmon mixture. Gently add one tablespoon of the crème frâiche mixture. Top with green onions (or fish eggs) Enjoy.

Verrines

There are new words on every French lips: Verrines and apéritifs dînatoires. And if you wanted to go full-French, you could have an apéritif dînatoire during which you would serve des verrines délicieuses.

Verrines are a beautiful way to serve food, and as the name indicates, the food is served in a glass, which allow for playing with layering and transparencies. If using oven- proof glasses, verrines can be served cooked, but they are often served cold.

Here is a beautiful image of verrines found on la Cuisine de Fabrice. I love how it is displayed with the candles adding un air festif to the verrines.



Here is a verrine made with shirp, salmon, fish celery and green lemon. beautiful and tasty.



Apéritifs dînatoires indicate that things are going to be done simply. It is the french's way to simplify and serve mostly appetizers (but a lot of them) as opposed to the pressure of a sit down dinner. In theory the aperitif dînatoire would be done before going to a club or the theater. It is meant to last a shorter amount of time. the word apéritif indicates the consumption of alcohol, bien sûr!

My (cheap and quick) coq au vin

This beautiful image is proably not coq au vin but it's beautiful and was created by one of my favorite food stylist, Yvette Kookt
My husband feels guilty, he says. He brings lunch to work, and his co-workers are tortured by the smell of coq-au-vin wafting through the office as they munch on limp sandwiches and crunch-less salads. This is just not fair, they say. Oh but of course it's not fair. Life isn't fair: You have a French wife!



But I feel no guilt. (Also I'm not in the office to deal with their growling stomach. ) I feel that they too could make coq au vin and eat it at work.

The only big deal about coq au vin is its reputation. It impresses guest and makes for great leftovers because its tastes concentrate a bit more after a night in the refrigerator and a quick warm up on the stove. I'll go as far as to say that Coq au vin is one of the cheapest, leanest and easiest French meal to make.

Everyone who possesses a stove top can make coq au vin. It require no awesome skill, nor is it expensive to make. The fact is that my husband's lunch is probably lower in fat than the average store bought salad, cost less, and took no more than fifteen minutes to prepare, plus an hour or so of cooking time which doesn't count because you can be watching top chef on tivo as it cooks.

Yes, I can prepare a coq au vin in fifteen minutes, and so can you.

Here is my recipe, with costs of all ingredients purchased at trader Joe's, to show you how that delicious meal cost no more than $20 to make.

2 packages of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, ($10)
1 bottle of cheap red wine ($4)
1package of mushroom already cut up ($2)
bacon bits (leftover from breakfast) if desired.
1 onion ($.50) cut into cubes
2 carrots ($1)cut into slices
I small can (12 oz) tomato puree ($1)
2 cloves of garlic (.50)
5 twigss parlsey (.50)
1/2 teaspoon thyme (.5)
1 bay leaf (.00002?)
2 tablespoons of flour (.10)
2 tablespoons Safflower oil. (.5)
One Maggi chicken or vegetable bouillon cube (.10)
salt, pepper

Heat the oil in a large pot.
Brown the onion, let them turn golden but not burn (burt onions taste bitter) about five minutes.
Add the garlic, the chicken and let the chicken brown, about ten minutes.
When the chicken is browned, Add the flour. Stir and coat the chicken with the flour.
Add half the bottle of wine and enough water to cover the chicken entirely. Add all remaining ingredients except mushrooms half the parsley and the bacon.
Let it boil, then reduce temperature to simmer and cover for an hour.
ten minutes before serving, add mushrooms and bacon (optional).
garnish with fresh parsley.
Serve with steamed potatoes, pasta or rice

See? fast
Cheap: I'm counting six portions of two things each, which brings the cost of each lunch to under 4 dollars.
Lean: Note that the chicken is skinless thigh and very lean. The rich and creamy aspect of the sauce comes not from cream or butter but from a sprinkle of flour added at the right time.
and easy!