Paris: 4e Jour

Déjeuner

Breakfast was originally supposed to be at the open-air market at Place de la Bastille, but with all the luck in the world, I had been ill-advised by Lonely Planet; the market only opened on Saturdays. After an eventual detour to another market at Place d'Aligre, we were ready for lunch

Lunch was originally supposed to be at Les Grand Marchés, a café at Place de la Bastille (which would have been the perfect segue had the market been open), but with all the luck in the world, the café turned out to be closed.



Luckily, I had learned from the lessons of the previous days, and my back-up was Les Vins des Pyrénées, a bistro not too far from where we were. Thankfully, they were open, and so we installed ourselves for a comfortable lunch.



My first course was a pumpkin soup, which didn't really break new ground, but it was quite competently prepared, and satisfying on a cold blustery day, even though it was not very hot. Oddly it tasted somewhat carroty, which is unsurprising since carrots are a natural addition to pumpkin soup, but I did think the pumpkin flavour was somewhat overpowered.



My main course was a slice of roasted leg of lamb with thyme and mashed potatoes. I've always wanted to roast a leg of lamb (Anthony Bourdain has an awesome seven hour leg of lamb recipe I've been dying to try), and after trying this tasty morsel, I'm quite convinced that it would be an excellent main course - the lamb was succulent and served with a rich sauce.

Les Vins des Pyrénées
25 rue Beautreillis
Metro St-Paul/Bastille

The rest of the day was spent walking around Paris, exploring assorted food-related joints, such as A L'Olivier, a boutique specialising in olive oils and vinegars. The aroma of the shop was wonderful, with the fruity and oleaginous notes of the various oils blending and wafting to form one unctuous, mellow perfume.

À l’Olivier
23 rue de Rivoli
Metro St-Paul



Another place we popped into was Cacao et Chocolat, a chocolate shop with a South American theme - many of their pralines had Aztec designs and motifs. I was particularly attracted by their macarons, and bought a few, in order to compare them to the ones I was looking forward to from Ladurée and Pierre Hermé. Cacao et Chocolat's macarons actually weren't too bad, but certainly weren't as attractive or imaginative as their more famous cousins, as I would find out the day after.

Cacao et Chocolat
36 rue Vielle du Temple
Metro St-Paul



Next stop was Mariage Frères, where I was quite surprised at how seriously Parisians took their tea. I always thought the French found tea relatively unsophisticated in comparison to coffee and chocolate, but this venerable teahouse was a clear indication that tea was obviously a respectable drink and a valuable commodity.

Mariage Frères
30 rue du Bourg Tibourg
Metro Hôtel de Ville

Dîner



We went to Robert et Louise for dinner, supposedly a countryside-styled, traditional restaurant, complete with fireplace and leaking rafters.



An old-fashioned eatery calls for old-fashioned food, and there's nothing new-fangled about pork rilletes. Just a lot of pork fat and liver. Coarse, sinewy and porcine, the rillete was very nice.



Equally old-fashioned was the duck confit, served with roasted potatoes and some lettuce. While the duck confit was falling off the bone, I was slightly disappointed that the skin wasn't crispy and crackling, as is usually the case here. Apparently the house specialty is a massive côte de boeuf that is roasted over the afore-mentioned fire, and is enough to feed two.

Robert et Louise
64 rue Vielle du Temple
Metro St-Sébastian Froissart

Technorati Tags: Miscellaneous Food, France, Paris, Les Vins des Pyrenees, Robert et Louise

Paris: 3e Jour

Déjeuner

Paris, I discovered, is the city of back-up plans. I had planned to go to a bistro recommended by Lonely Planet near the Gare de Lyon, but when I got there, I found that it had closed. Apparently Paris is also the city of unforgiving consumers.

I was somewhat at a loss of where to go for lunch, as even though I had a back-up venue, it was a considerable distance away. Deciding to go for it anyway, I passed a bistro along the way that seemed popular.



Relying on my Singaporean gut instinct that crowded eateries necessarily mean better food, I decided to have a seat. Since the weather was so fine, I sat outside, at the terasse, rather than indoors near the smokey bar.

The best thing about France is the prix fixe menu, allowing you to order the daily specials for a set price. Often this is a two-course affair; you get to choose an entrée and a main course or a main course and dessert as part of the formule.



I ordered the filet mignon au cumin et poivre, which I assumed would be a steak of some sort, and was quite surprised to see it turn out as a blanquette-style dish, with a creamy sauce and mashed potatoes. Still, I knew it would be good just looking at it, and the heavy cast-iron pan it was served in. It was, too, the filet mignon, while not medium-rare, was still tender and juicy, given an unusual flavour by the addition of the cumin; while the mashed potatoes were wonderfully creamy.



Dessert was the moelleux au chocolat, which I have since discovered is the French word for molten chocolate cake, derived from moelle, bone marrow. Quite appropriate too, once you think about marrow oozing from the hollow of a bone. In any case, the moelleux was simply amazing. Unlike most molten cakes, this one contained no flour, making it rich and soft and light; almost soufflé-like. The ice-cream also contained real vanilla beans to elevate it to the sublime, a sublimity enhanced by the artful decorations of chocolate sauce and caramael swirls, extra effort not commonly seen in most Parisian bistros.

La Valise
36 Boulevard Diderot
Tel: 01 44 73 95 15
Metro Gare de Lyon

After that excellent lunch, it was time to do some exploring. So what would I find interesting in Paris?



Well the answer is fairly obvious. I went to take a look at E Dehillerin, apparently the oldest supplier of cooking and kitchen equipment in Paris. While the things they stock are not significantly different from Sia Huat, the prices unforunately are.

E Dehillerin
18-20 rue Coquillière
Metro Les Halles
Website



My next stop was A. Simon, yet another supplier of kitchen equipment, but with a greater emphasis on patisserie. I espied there Stéphane Glacier's newest book, Un Amour de Macaron, which, as one would expect, is entirely devoted to macarons. Unfortunately, it is also entirely in French, and rather large.

I was somewhat tempted to buy a sheet of Silpat from A. Simon, but in the end decided to save my money. If you do happen to go for a visit though, A. Simon does offer some good deals on its professional pastry equipment.

A. Simon
48 rue Montmartre
Metro Les Halles
Website

Dîner

Dinner was supposed to be at a restaurant recommended by a friend, but unfortunately, it was closed on Tuesdays. Paris is definitely a city of back-up plans, but I had rather foolishly not made any back-ups for dinner. As a result, we ended up eating at a brasserie near the area, Cafe Etienne along rue Etienne-Marcel.



I had a French onion soup to start, and unusually it came with DIY bread and cheese - I had to float the bread and top the soup with cheese myself. I suppose it gives the diner the option of eating their bread while it's still toasted, rather than floating soggily in the soup. I thought it was somewhat untraditional though, as you forego the melted and browned cheese that is so characteristic of French onion soup.



As a main course, I had the beef bourguignon, which was fork-tender and moist, not at all dry as some of my attempts have been. I was amused by the presence of the tagliatelle, as I always thought Julia Child was joking when she said the dish was traditionally served with egg noodles.



I decided to be adventurous with dessert and ordered a Tarte Tatin instead of my usual chocolate craving. Unfortunately, I find I'm not much of a cooked fruit person, especially when it comes to dessert. I didn't really enjoy this dish at all, and would probably have been happier with something chocolatey.

Technorati Tags: Miscellaneous Food, France, Paris, La Valise, E Dehillerin

Paris: 2e Jour

Déjeuner

I rather naively thought that I'd be sufficiently well-fed in Paris simply by relying on my hunter's instincts and walking among the boulevards, picking an eatery at random and thus settling down to enjoy a superb meal. Thankfully, a friend in London lent me his copy of Lonely Planet to see me through.



One of the recommendations was Café de l’Epoque, though I forget where it was located. It was said to be very classic, though in the poor weather there wasn't much to enjoy about the outdoor ambience. Indoors though, it was very cosy, with its globe lights, salon windows and mirrors; probably what Lonely Planet was referring to as "classic".



I had a Croque Italien, which was basically toasted bread, topped with ham, melted cheese and tomatoes. Nothing extraordinarily fanciful, but it was suitable for a light brunch.



This was followed by a Chocolat Liegeois, a very decadent French dessert involving three scoops of dark chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce and masses of whipped cream on top. A fantastic treat for any chocoholic.

Dîner

Dinner was originally supposed to be at L'Ardoise, a small restaurant just off the avenue des Champs-Elysées, but unfortunately they were completely full for the night and simply could not entertain us. As I had not made any backup plans, we were left having to wander the streets in search of food.

Eventually, we found our way to the somewhat touristy eating spots in the Notre Dame-St. Michel district, and settled into one of the nameless brasseries for a meal.



I rather foolishly ordered the mussles cooked in white wine and onions, simply because it seemed a fairly French thing to have, before I remembered that in a venue such as this, the freshness of the seafood was likely to be quite suspect. Sure enough, the mussels were not fresh at all, and no amount of wine could have changed that fact.



My main course took the form of a grilled entrecote steak, as I hadn't had a decent steak for about eight weeks. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed by what was one of the thinnest steaks I'd ever seen, and a bunch of discoloured and distasteful green beans. Although the meat and potato gratin weren't actually that bad, I could not bring myself to eat the beans at all.



Dessert was a pair of profiteroles smothered in chocolate sauce. Some things you know are going to be bad just by looking at them, and the profiteroles were one such item. They looked, and tasted, like instant profiteroles which had been defrosted from the freezer, and tasted completely artificial.

I was greatly disappointed by dinner, and couldn't believe that food in Paris could be of such appalling standard. It wasn't even a complete tourist trap, as I noticed some French eating there as well, causing me to entertain serious doubts about the French reputation for gastronomy. Still, I only had myself to blame for not planning where to eat and leaving it up to chance, so I resolved that I would eat much better from the next day onwards.

Technorati Tags: Miscellaneous Food, France, Paris

Paris: 1e Jour

Dîner

I arrived in Paris at about 10pm, and because I was feeling peckish, Wanyun took me to supper at a nameless (or rather, I just didn't bother to remember its name) brasserie about fifteen minutes from Cité Universitaire. After discovering how much of my French I'd forgotten, I finally managed to order some water and something to eat.



I wasn't all that hungry so I settled for a ham omelette. It wasn't exactly the sophisticated Parisian fare I was expecting, but I hadn't had an omelette in England for eight weeks, and this one was deliciously fried on the outside, but still a little runny on the inside. I devoured it quickly, and looked forward to the rest of the week.

Technorati Tags: Miscellaneous Food, France, Paris

Recipe: Rabbit Stew

It's been quite a while since I've managed to do any proper cooking at Oxford, so I decided to usher in the end of term in a decidedly celebratory way.

I am generally not a fan of white meat, and I would prefer beef to chicken any day. However, after I once had the most fabulous stewed rabbit in Provence, rabbit meat has become one of my favoured meats.

Now, a lot of people get very squeamish around rabbits, and refuse to countenance the thought of eating them. Mainly because rabbits are cute and fluffy, so people can't bring themselves to eat them. I have no such problem, since when it comes to food, I'm an animal egalitarian. However, if you are in the least bit uncomfortable about rabbits, be warned that a skinned rabbit from your local butcher's is a very ugly thing, looking like some deranged chupacabra.

So I decided to cook a rabbit stew, after discovering that rabbits are much healthier than poultry (less fat and cholestrol), and not that expensive (one rabbit costs GBP 3.50 from Oxford's covered market). Being new to rabbit cookery, I had to look around for a recipe, but as with most stews, the basic principles are the same, and you could even use a coq au vin recipe to cook a lapin au vin. In the end though, I settled on a modified version of this one.

Ingredients (Serves 2 - 3)

1 rabbit, jointed
1 tin (500g) peeled tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
5 sage leaves
5 sprigs thyme
3 sprig rosemary
300 ml dry white wine
300 ml chicken stock



Notes on ingredients: Ask your butcher to joint the rabbit for you. Save the heart and liver for making stock or enriching your sauce, or be lazy and throw them away. Rabbit forelegs cook faster than the hind legs and saddle, so you can choose to save them for stock or throw them in to cook in half the time. Depending on the size of your pot, you may need more liquids than the quantities specified.



On medium-high heat, heat some olive oil in a large pot and sauté the rabbit joints till they're golden. You can dredge them through flour (as in the photo) first, but it's not strictly necessary.



Once your rabbit joints are browned, remove them. In the same oil (add more if you've run low) fry the garlic till fragrant and golden, and then sauté the vegetables till the onions soften.



Add half the wine and stock to stop the vegetables from cooking any more.



Return the rabbit joints to the pot. Try not to let them rest on the vegetables, or you risk burning them at the bottom.



Add the canned tomatoes and their juice, as well as the rest of the wine and stock to just about cover the rabbit. Throw in the sage, thyme and rosemary at this point as well.



Bring the contents of the pot to boil, then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. The more observant among you will probably have noticed the similarities between this recipe and other slow-cooked recipes, like osso bucco.



Simmer the stew, covered, for an hour or so, or until the rabbit meat is tender. There appears to be some considerable disagreement as to how long rabbit should be cooked before it's tender. Many recipes say 30-45 minutes, but I've seen some going up to 2 hours. Cooking time depends on how generously you interpret "simmer", so the best bet would be to check the rabbit after half an hour, and consequently every fifteen minutes or so until it's just right.

Bear in mind though, that the forelegs take a much shorter time to cook than the rest of the rabbit, so either remove them earlier, or add them to the stew later.



Serve the stew with any filling carbohydrate, like potatoes, noodles or rice. A real treat on a dark and shivering English night, or equally appropriate during the warmer Easter period.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Rabbit Stew