So here we are making pot-au-feu

It's getting chilly out and I'm stuck inside so conditions are met for making Pot-au-feu, a classic French peasant dish of beef and winter vegetables in a lovely beef broth. I made the classic recipe, without potatoes and with a marrow bone, but I'm guessing you could chuck in pretty much what you want.

This is for 6-8 people, and you will need, as well as a long wintry afternoon at home:

Meat:
500 g of paleron (shoulder blade cut)
500g of gite (topside cut of beef)
500g of plat de cotes (brisket?)
N.B. These are the French cuts, and are different in other countries. Ultimately what you're after are three different cuts of beef: a fatty, a lean and a gelatinous. Consult your butcher if in doubt.
1 marrowbone per person

Seasoning
3/4 garlic cloves
1 large onion
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
sea salt
bouquet garni

Veg:
4 large leeks
2 large celery stalks
5/6 turnips
5/6 carrots
2/3 parsnips

Recipe:

First take meat (not bones) and cut into largish pieces (about 2/3 pieces per person untimately), put in huge casserole and add 2,5 litres cold water. bring very slowly to the boil (it should take at least 15 minutes) and skim all the collagen and crud that will appear on surface every ten minutes or so. Simmer gently for an hour or so.

Second, add your seasoning: peeled onion studded with cloves, peeled and crushed garlic cloves, bouquet garni, peppercorns and a tbsp of sea salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for a couple of hours. Remember to skim away the crud from time to time

Third, add the veg which should by now be peeled/washed and cut into large chunks. (I cut the leeks, carrots etc into 3, the turnips in half etc). Add to the pot and let simmer for about 30 minutes.

Finally, once your veg is cooked add the marrow bones for about 20 minutes right at the end. they generally drool fat into the soup which can make it all a bit fatty (personnally I don't see the prob) so you can always fart around by wrapping them in muslin/gauze and then putting them in pot.

Voila! add salt and pepper, and serve with mustard, coarse sea salt and gherkins. It keeps in fridge (possible to remove excess fat once it has formed a hard layer) or freezes, and makes great leftovers.

Bon appetit!

So here we are gourmet cooking

Doing without Delia by Michael Booth

In a nutshell: food crazy Brit who is tired of Jamie Oliver style 20 minute feasts decides to move to Paris and join the Cordon Bleu school of super classic French cookery. Trials, tears and some excellent foodie hints.

The blurb: written in a personal, blog-ish style, mister nice-mike the bumbling brit, joins one of the most prestigious cookery schools in the world. There is a lot of "me me me" here, how well he intergrates with the market folk, how good he is at school, how upset he is at boiling lobster when pregnant and alive (the lobster, needless to add...). That said, it is full of behind-the-scenes funny anecdotes and this book is well worth reading if you are a serious food and cook fan as it is packed full of useful hints (from how to make a decent stock reduction to how to chop, from great recipes to a lot of "cutting the bullshit" explanations). On a more serious level it also deals with the central issue of whether a career in food is adapted to all gastronomes/gluttons.

IMHO this book has its place between Bourdain's "kitchen confidential" and Reichl's "comfort me with apples". Less abrasive and hilarious (and probably honest) than the former, less openly sentimental than the latter, it has its good moments and more to the point some great food and cooking advice. Want to know how to make a good nantua sauce while reading about the ultimate cookery course (without paying the 8000 euro fee)? This is the book for you.

So here we are eating stew

Yes, it's summer, yes it's the heatwave and the temperature in Paris hit 38°. But why not eat stew? Cos it's too hot and stodgy for such weather that's why, but god it was good.

Summer beef stew
Serves 4.

600g stewing beef (for bourguignon for example)
3 large tomatoes, 2 carrots, 2 floury potatoes
300g fresh beans in their shells (borlotti, white)
300g mushrooms
6 fat cloves of good garlic
1 large or two small red onions
3 small fresh white onions
at least half a bottle of dry white wine
a few sprigs of parsley and a bouquet garni
a bit of flour, 2tsp paprika, a sprinkle of hot chilli powder, a large pinch of saffron.

1) Heat a couple of glugs of olive oil in a big pan (low to medium heat) and add meat so that it starts to brown all over. After 5 mins or so add 2 finely chopped garlic cloves, stir and let cook for another 5 mins. Do not let garlic burn. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in 2 tsp of flour, stir in and make sure that all the flour soaks up some fat (there must be no more visible).

2) While meat is cooking prepare vegetables: put tomatoes in boiling water for 30 secs, remove skin and white stalk inside and most of the seeds. Peel garlic cloves. Peel and chop carrots and potatoes into half-thumb sized chunks. Chop mushrooms, white and red onions to same size and pod the beans.

3)When meat is ready put in this order:
a)tomatoes (stir), paprika, about half the wine, bouquet garni, chilli powder, onions, 4 whole garlic cloves. Let bubble and stir for a few minutes until the alcohol burns off.
b) Add carrots, potatoes, beans, mushrooms, parsley, saffron and enough wine to cover it all. Stir. Let some of the alcohol burn off again.

4) Leave it for at least 4 hours, simmering gently with lid on, and occasional stiring or it will stick at the bottom and burn. Add more wine if it looks to dry, or boil it up if it looks too wet.

5) Serve on bed of raw baby spinach leaves (soup plates recommended).

So here we are at the Chateaubriand

Dad was 65 in August but we only got round to celebrating with a nice meal out last week, in fact just a few days before Chook's birthday (at this rate, we will probably celebrate that in August...). The nice meal out was eaten at the Chateaubriand, a restaurant near us on the avenue Parmentier (11th). It's a very interesting place, and that's before you even eat. They've kept the slighlty old fashioned, nicotine-stained and dark wood decor that dates from the 30s : there is a shiny zinc bar and old menu boards from that time, and classic bistrot wooden tables and chairs. The food however is on the futuristic side of modern. They don't claim any link to El Bulli or Hestor Blumenthal, but certainly admit the chef is in to taking flavours apart and finding those perfect, and sometimes unusual combinations.

5 courses. 43 euros. The same for everyone (though they had no problem with vegetarian mum).

Amuse-bouche/starter : Firm, perfect dices of sardine with slivers of fresh green olives, grapefruit, a pesto "cream" and beautiful green grilled gindilla pepper (not hot, but with wonderful crunch and 'green taste') with sel de guérande.

Fish course : 2 perfectly cooked scallops (sealed and caramelised brown outside, raw and melt in the mouth inside), sitting on a stripe of helianti mash/cream (a root vegetable, cross between jerusalem artichoke and celeriac flavor), trail of vanilla foam (not sweet) and, get this, orange salt. Coarse salt that tastes of oranges. My personal favorite.

More fish course : flaky opaque seabass with light and crispy skin, over which have been negligently flung chanterelle mushrooms, hazelnuts, mustard leaves (bit of earthy tang), small dark muscat grapes. A small heap of onion compote.

Meat course : a neat little lump of veal, pink in the midlle, surmounted by slices of pinf radish and sitting on a purple potato mash, drizzled with a sauce made with ultra-fresh (only just dead?) cockles which may have been raw. the vegetarian was exactly the same only the veal replaced by fish. The whole dish had a ring of infanticide to it.

Cheese or dessert? I went for the cheese : a fully mature brie, golden and and creamy with a crust that looked like the parched, cracked earth you see in drought lands (a bit whiter, admittedly); a vintage comté, smooth and strong with a crunch of salt; and a fresh little goats' cheese. Yum.

The others went for dessert, which they all liked but i thought bordered on the nasty : an avacado mousse and thin slices of pineapple topped with an acerola (south american fruit, very sour, tastes a little of passion fruit) foam, stabbed with a nut and caramel snap. Too sour, too sweet, too avacado.

All in all absolutely amazing and lovely. As they change their menu gradually but constantly (they replace a course or so every day), the food evolves with the seasons and the whims of the chef. Will return as soon as can afford. Highly recommended.

So here we are with the november veggies

Interesting developments on the veggie box front! here are the last couple of weeks.

Saturday November 22nd

500 g carrots, i.e. 2 (they are getting huger and huger)
half a cauliflower
500g potatoes
a huge (child's football) beetroot
half a celeriac
large bunch of celery
3 lovely apples (belle fille de salins variety?)
250 g of hideous, tough, yellowing, slug-chewed spinach (went straight to bin)

Ham and celery soup (serves 2)
This turned out to be a great little recipe : soothing to make, warming to eat, cheap and healthy. One important ingredient was the ham bone I got very cheap (1€50) from my local butcher/deli. It was about 20 cm long and still had plenty of ham on it.
First, take bone and remove nice bits of ham, i.e the pink moist bits, not the fatty/gristly or fast-stuck-to-the-bone bits. Try not to eat them all. In a dish, arrange the bone with a quartered onion and a roughly chopped carrot (tomatoes, shallots, herbs could also be added) and put in oven to bake for about 20 minutes until lovely juices have appeared and the bone has coloured a bit. When done, throw all this into a pot. Add half a dozen peppercorns, bay leaf/ves, and around three big handfuls of celery leaves. cover with cold water and leave on low heat for at least an hour. Make sure it is bubbling but not boiling.
When ready, skim of scum and remove celery leaves and all other solids (strain). Boil vigourously to reduce to correct quantity (you want about a pint per person for main course). Add half a very finely chopped carrot, ditto shallot, ditto celery stalk and some light pasta (I used alphabet, but vermicelli would be great). These should take about 5 minutes to soften. Salt, pepper. At last minute add ham.

Saturday November 29th

We were at the AMAP all morning as it was our turn to do the "permanence". We opened up shop (actually it's a restaurant*), set up the tables and so on, arranged the veg, and ticked off people's names as they picked up their stuff. At the end,we swept and tidied and washed away the mud, and took all the remaining veggies :)

500g potatoes
250 g lovely, small, shiny yellow little onions
500g carrots (one!! can they get any bigger?)
500g of the lovely apples
250 g spinach (I waded through the boxes looking for the nice fresh baby leaves)
250 g beetroot
half a celeriac
1/2 a "broccoflower" (see here for a picture as it is possibly the most beautiful thing in the veg world!). Called Romanesco cabbage in French.

* a associative restaurant that runs according to a really cool concept, maybe subject of next post.

So here we are veg boxing and cooking indian food

Saturday 18th october

500g potatoes
half a bunch of spectacularly mutant carrots
250 g beetroot
a large handful of cherry tomatoes
250 g monstrous yellowing spinach leaves
a tiny, beautiful aubergine
half a head of brocoli
a radiccio salad
a long skinny red pepper

beetroot à la Madhur Jaffrey (serves 2)
Heat some oil in a pan, medium hot. Add 1 tsp of cumin seed and a few seconds later a finely chopped clove of garlic. Soften for about a minute. Add one roughly chopped onion and stir for a minute or two. Add a tsp of flour, a half tsp at the most of red chili powder (cayenne pepper) and stir for another minute. Add 3 medium chopped beetroots, cut into chunks, half a tin of tomatoes (or equivalent of fresh peeled ones) and 250ml water. Bring to simmer, put on lid and let simmer for about 1/2 an hour, or until beetroot is softish. Take of lid and boil until sauce has reduced. If beetroots are still hard, add water and repeat until they have lost their crunch.

So here we are veggie boxing

Chook and I have been going to the AMAP for a year now. AMAP, or Association for the maintain of peasant farming (or loose translation from the french)is a general term for the people who do veggie boxes. The idea is that you pledge to buy fruit and veg from one producer near where you live for six months and in return every saturday you go and collect your organickish produce. The AMAP is mainly a bobo,token conscience-gesture towards sustainable farming. In reality it is usually a rather dull and soggy bag of alien vegetables.

For 7euros50 a week (that's 187 euros for "half a basket" every week for six months)we usually get about 4 kilos of fresh, mostly edible, very seasonal vegetables (very rarely fruit) and of course the odd slug.

So, in the spirit of seasonal food, here is what we get:

Saturday 4th october

500g potatoes, watch out for the slimy/split/full of holes.
Half a big bunch of carrots, mutant, usually shaped like male genitalia/mandrake roots.
one green pepper, long and skinny.
One fat small lettuce, good.
500g tomatoes
1 large raw beetroot
1 large turnip
A big bunch of lovely , gorgeous baby leeks, thickness ranging from little finger to flower stalk.

leek and potato mash (serves 2):
Leeks : finely chopped white parts in to discs (should have around a soup bowl full), melt in butter at very low heat, salt and pepper and a splash of milk.
Potatoes, cut potatoes (3 medium ones) into small cubes, boil in salty water till almost decomposing. Drain, mash with fork, add butter, add milk and a bit of creme fraiche.
Combine leeks and potatoes and serve with lamb chops.

Saturday 11th october

500 g potatoes
500g tomatoes
250g turnips
half a big bunch of carrots
250g spinach leaves, huge, tough, half eaten by bugs and yellowing at the edges
a big beetroot
a small leaf lettuce
a long skinny red pepper

Red early autumn soup (serves 2):
Finely chop half a large onion and put it at low heat in some olive oil till soft. Add 4 or 5 chopped tomatoes and let them decompose. Add a chopped red pepper, then a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tsp of paprika and let simmer on low heat.
Fry bacon or lardons (upto 200g) making sure you drain away the white salty liquid. Once browned, throw into red mixture. Let flavours combine and add more paprika to taste.
Blitz til smooth, the more bacon you have the less smooth it will be.
When ready to serve stir in a tablespoon of creme fraiche into each bowl and add some chopped chives and basil (optional)