Photo du jour: 10 Novembre 2013

Smoked salmon and capers with risotto. Sunday lunch. Recipe to follow soon. 

Photo du Jour: 8 November 2013

Bouchée à la Reine

Whichever Queen the Bouchée à la Reine was named for, must have had a very big mouth. Seriously, I suspect that the name  is actually a corruption of Lorraine, which is the home of this puff pastry case,  filled with a comforting mushroom sauce—just right for a November picnic. In Anglosaxonia, we tend to use the Belgian name for this, vol au vent, which is just what I was about to do in the picture as it's windy in Paris today. 

Photo du jour: 4 Novembre 2013

Selection of current best selling cook books in France. These include books by Christophe Michalak also a popular TV chef, and Claire Heizler, and Anne-Sophie Pic, the third generation in her family to be a three star Michelin chef. 

Photo du jour: 2 Novembre 2013

Big Fernand hamburger

According to Le Figaro, Big Fernand serves one of the five best hamburgers in Paris. Distinguished by typically French flavors and ingredients, they sure are good. The beer from the north of France wasn't half bad either. More to follow. 

Photo du jour: 1 Novembre 2013

Conger

European congers are found off both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France. This six footer (he's been chopped in half) is average since they can reach almost 10 foot in length and weigh up to 240lb, making them the largest eels in the world.

Gontran Cherrier

La basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre

Yesterday after work, I took a quick trip to Montmartre to visit the main shop of one of the most fȇted bakers in Paris, Gontran Cherrier. Extremely gifted, Cherrier has long been a part of Parisian life, but has recently achieved national fame as one of the judges on the popular TV program La Meilleure Boulangerie en France (The Best Bakery in France). His three shops in Paris have been joined by one in Singapore and one in Tokyo. It doesn't hurt that he looks like a rock-star, either.

It was very quiet when I arrived at the shop in  the Rue Caulaincourt. I took a coffee, a patisserie and a seat by the window, and within minutes the place had filled up parents and children on their way home form school, popping in for le goûter, the French equivalent of afternoon tea.

I tried his tarte aux pistaches et agrumes (pistachio and citrus fruit tart): segments of sweet orange, and sour pink grapefruit, lying on a verdant springy mattress of pistachio and almond, in a walnut-coloured bedstead of pâte sucrée—the most even and delicate I have ever tasted. Chapeau M. Cherrier. I will be back.

Gontran Cherrier, Rue Caulaincourt

Tarte aux pistaches et agrumes

Butter ratings:
Gontran Cherrier, 22 rue Caulaincourt, 75018 Paris, France

Ratatouille

My local market

Thanks to Disney, almost everyone now knows the name of this classic French dish, which is one of my personal favourites. As a child, I was brought up on the Italian 'peperonata' which is very similar, but without aubergines and courgettes (US translation: egg plants and zucchini) and is delicious as a hot accompaniment to meat or as a cold salad. Add in what are my two favourite vegetables and we are very close to perfection. 

Ratatouille, (ra-ta-too-ee) has it's origins in the southern, Provence region of France and therefore has cousins in most Mediterranean countries. You will find it on menus hiding behind names such as 'pisto' (Spain), 'caponata' (Italy), 'kapunata' (Malta), lecso (Hungary), and 'briami' (Greece). Even in France, it sometimes masquerades as the romantic 'valentine' or the mouthful 'bohémienne languedocienne'.
Tuesday morning is market morning in my neighbourhood, so I popped out to get the vegetables to prepare it. 

Ratatouille

2 aubergines (egg plants)

2 white onions

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

2 medium courgettes (zucchini)

6 large plum tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

6 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of tomato purée

2 teaspoons of chopped tarragon

1 teaspoon of chopped rosemary

salt

ground black pepper

Chop the aubergines into large cubes. Cover them with salt, and leave them to sweat their juices for about 10 minutes. 

Peel and halve the onions and them cut them into semi-circular slices. 

Remove the insides of the peppers and cut the skin into large square pieces. 

Chop the courgettes into rounds and chop the tomatoes into eight pieces each. 

All your pieces of vegetable should be about the same size. 

Heat the oil gently in a large saucepan or casserold and add the aubergines, onions, peppers, and courgettes. Cook for about 5 minutes and then add the garlic and the herbs. Add the tomatoes and tomato purée, season with salt and pepper. Add a small amount of water and then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the peppers are tender. 

Serve hot as an accompaniment for chicken or meat, as a main course, or cold as a salad. 

Give us this day ...

There are many cliches that come to mind when one thinks of France: stripy jumpers and berets, 'oh la, la!', and people wandering the streets with a baguette under their arm. When I first came to France, I was amazed to see that at least the third of these is no cliche, but a daily sight in Paris, where you are never more than 300 metres from a boulangerie. In fact, there is a boulangerie opposite my apartment, and I have made a daily ritual out of the three-minute trip across the road to buy my baguette. 

My boulangerie is a family-run enterprise and is open six days a week «de l'aube au crépuscule». The offending closing day is actually Saturday, which means that Sunday begins with the smell of fresh bread and viennoiserie wafting up from the street below. A sign in the shop proudly proclaims that all their bread is made from Sel de Guérande, salt produced in a tradition manner in the Loire estuary. 

The baguettes themselves are made by hand in the traditional method, crusty on the outside, soft in the middle, going stale in less than 24 hours, which fortunately means a daily trip to the boulangerie and starting all over again.

 

'pain de la tradition française'

My boulangerie

Bonjour tout le monde!

After two years living in the Swiss city of Zürich, I have moved, lock, stockpot, and Kitchenaid, to the city of Paris, France. So, my blog has a new look, a new name, and a new focus. Chueche Bueb, is no more but welcome to Pain, Beurre, Vin, named for three of the cornerstones of French cuisine, and dedicated to a twenty-first century take on 'mastering the art of French cooking.'
Living in Paris will be a culinary adventure, which I intend to punctuate with learning the classic recipes, as well as writing about contemporary trends and attitudes to food in France. Watch this space for hints, tips, and photographs of what I hope will be some of the best food in the world.
All the posts from Chueche Bueb will continue to be available in the archive. So, 'Uf Wiederluege, Züri' and 'Bonjour, Paris!'