Stop the gachis! Eat some hachis!

My dear, poor, non French people,

I'm so sorry. Désolée, vraiment. But once again, I have to tell you that we French people are superior... You know me, I don't like to brag... It's not my fault if French people always know better! 
Take recycling for example. I find it funny to see all the media attention nowadays on waste and how to not put everything in the garbage bin. Rien de nouveau sous le soleil! (Nothing's new under the sun):  French cooks have been doing it for ages.

My grand-mother Georgine (84 going on 85 and still cooking) is the perfect example. When you've been a farmer all your life, you know how precious a "fruit of the earth" is: you don't throw easily a vegetable you gave time and sweat to make it grow... Especially when you get the miserable wages a retiree farmers' widdow get in France.
"Je jette rien", she always says...  From the water to the leftovers, she never throws anything. I guess she would be very proud of this recipe: stop the gâchis (the waste), eat some Hachis!

Le Hachis Parmentier

Ingrédients

2 pounds Meat
2 pounds Potatoes
1 cup milk
4,5 oz of butter
A pinch of grated cheese
Salt, pepper, and Nutmeg




 




Many French delicacies are actually re-use from leftovers. Hachis Parmentier is one of them: for this one I used the Boeuf Bourguignon leftover I had from last video recipe. But you can also use ground beef meet, or duck confit for example...

This recipe bears the name Parmentier in honour of a great French man: Antoine-Augustin Parmentier.
Right before the French Revolution, this pharmacist discovered the way to prevent the numerous famines that were so recurringly happening in the country: to grow and eat potatoes.

At that time, people were totally disgusted with this strange root that was only fed to the pigs. It was even forbidden to grow any at some point, because it was believed potatoes could cause leprosy!
But Antoine-Augustin Parmentier discovered that it was of a great help to fight disentry, and went on a fight to make it legal and developped all over France.
After many years of lobbying, he managed to convince Louis the XVIth (yes, the one we beheaded, but that's another story). 

But nobody wanted to eat potatoes.
Food for pigs? Non merci!
So they changed its name into "Pomme de terre" : apple of the earth, so romantic!
But non. 
Toujours non... 
So they asked the king to set up a new "potato trend", by wearing a potato flower "à sa boutonnière", at his buttonhole.
So if the King said it, did the French follow? 
Non non non!
They had rather die of hunger than eat it..

And that's when Parmentier showed that he had genius.
He asked the King for a small piece of land North of Paris. He grew potatoes there, and surrounded the field by armed guards, as if what they were protecting was very valuable... 
Parisians grew suddenly very interested in this precious plant, and started to steal it at night when the guards were not looking...

Et voilà!

That's how the love between France and Potato started, and how French Fries were born...

La recette

Preheat the oven at 350°F
Grind the leftover meat of the bourguignon
Boil the potatoes for at least 20 minutes, then peel them and mash them with milk and butter, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Spread a layer of potato purée in a large casserole dish, then spread the meat
Then spread the rest of the purée on the meat. Add some grated cheese, and hop, au four! To the oven.
Cook for at least 45 minutes.
Et voila!

Now have a piece of this delicious French comfort food... Isn't it great to recycle? Merci encore Mr Parmentier!



Bon appétit les amis!


Cécile



PS: 
If you happen to go to Paris, you should visit the Pere Lachaise cemetery. Not because you're a strange and morbid Goth, or a big Jim Morisson fan (Yes, he is buried there, even if some pretend that the casket was smaller than he was): but to go to Mister Parmentier's tomb. 
Notice the wild flowers all around. The gardeners of the cemetery never touch them: they are potato flowers planted by fans all over the world who want to pay him an hommage.

Remembrance of recipes past... Pain d'épice

My dear, poor, non French people,

Remember the good old time when you spent hours next to the mailbox (the real one, not you average hotmail-yahoo-gmail electronic version) waiting for a letter of your dear chéri? And then reading it again and again trying to figure out what he actually meant by "I like soccer and you too"?

Where are all those letters now? 

I wonder how kids today will have a reminder of their first love letters... 
That's what I thought a few months ago when I was sorting out old drawers at my mother's house. All those silly post cards and pink note-letters suddenly confronted me to the funny, romantic, and a little bit too dreamy 10 year-old me. Trop bizarre! And that's when I found it. Written on a pink cardboard, with a very cautious hand. My first recipe.


Pain d'épices (du cahier de Mamie)

Ingrédients

1 cup sugar

1 cup honey

1 cup water or milk

4 cups flour

1 tbsp baking soda

I remember exactly when I wrote it. Another day of summer vacation. Sun, public swimming-pool, bike in the woods... and boredom. I was back at my grand-mother's farm and didn't know what to do. 

She herself was more than busy as usual, in between the garden and the hens and the rabbits and the dinner to prepare. "Why don't you look in the recipe notebook and see what you can do?"

How I loved her recipe notebook! 
She had started it during World War II, when she was just une jeune fille en fleurs, a 20 year old mademoiselle. It was full of handwritten recipes copied from other friends notebooks, or cut out from the local newspaper. 
That day I decided to start my own collection. And copied her famous pain d'épice recipe.

Her gingerbread was awesome. So so simple. 
It's basically milk and honey and flour and c'est tout (that's all). Which makes it very very different from the anglo-saxon version of it. 
No spices for a cake called "Spices bread" (pain d'épices)! I know it's strange, but who cares when it's good!

She would bake one every wednesday, for me to have as a snack after the Ballet class. I would always share it with my friends, who loved it. So much that 15 years later, when my friend Stéphanie called me to invite me to her wedding, she asked for just one gift: la recette du pain d'épice de mamie Laurence. This recipe...

I still like to have it as a post work-out treat, but it's also great for a winter breakfast. Slice it and spread butter and you forget about cold feet and running nose! 

La Recette 

Put the milk (or the water, but really, milk is better) to a boil, 

and then mix it with honey and sugar.

Add slowly the flour and the baking soda. 

 Mix it well.

Grease a pan in butter and pour the mix

Bake for one hour at 200F

The pain d'épices is great the next day, and even the following days.

Bon appétit les amis!

PS: I have to talk to you about my favorite processed pain d'épices: "Prosper" de Vandame. I can still see my little brother spreading tons on Nutella on it for his "4 heures" (litteraly 4pm, the time French kids were supposed to have their afternoon snack). And we loved their ad, a remake of a song of Maurice Chevalier, Prosper.

 

Cook Faisan like a real peasant (Pheasant au vin)

My dear, poor, non French people,

Let me tell you: it's never funny to be the turkey of the stuffing. 

I guess that would be the litteral translation of "Etre le dindon de la farce", a popular French saying that means "being the laughing stock". 

Why do American people are so concerned about it ? The stuffing I mean. That what amazed me most last month as I was enjoying my first real Thanksgiving. Even a gourmet like me had never seen people fight over what should or should not be put inside an animal...Très très bizarre!

The whole ceremony is actually very exotic for a poor French girl like me. I guess I felt the same thing as an American girl in front of the Eiffel Tower: I thought I was in a movie! Loved it.
I tried to think of a similar celebration back in France, and it suddenly reminded me of family fall tradition. Le déjeuner de la chasse, chez tatate Giselle. And faisan.

Le faisan au vin

Ingrédients

1 pheasant

1 bottle of red wine

1 onion or 2 shalots

3 cloves

4 carrots

1 pound brussel sprouts

1/2 pound mushrooms

It's every 3rd sunday of September. And always at my grand-aunt's farm.

The opening day of the hunt lunch is never to be missed in my family.

Tatate Giselle is still hosting it every year, even is she's more than 80 years old now. Et le menu? Still the same..

Crudités first, with the incredible mayonnaise de tatate Giselle (made from scratch with fresh eggs from the farm, a creamy, thick, golden mayonnaise I still dream of). 

Then Bouchées à la Reine (savoury Vol au vent with sweetbread, please remind me to cook and write the recipe very soon!) 

And a game meat dish: hoar, doe, or pheasant.

And who has the more make up on? The male, on the right!

Pheasant is really a natural part of the diet in the area of France I come from.
There are plenty of woods and forests in Sologne, and they are rich in wild animals.
As it's only 100 miles south of Paris, the area has always been a holiday destination for kings, princes, and then rich families who came for a good hunt.
But the French Revolution changed it all by allowing peasants like my ancestors to also hunt, in communal woods, and I guess that's what my family celebrate every year.
The guys (and some girls of my generation, but not me, I had rather read!) would go hunting in the morning and try to come back with some trophy (they would tease each other all year long about it... but my mom always said that it was more a walk in the woods...)

This bird has nothing to do with lazy farm raised animals like hens, gooses... or turkey. It's most of the time in the wilderness, and is therefore less fatty and more muscular. It can be very dry if not prepared well, that's why I like better to have it marinate in wine 24 hours. 

La recette

Peel an onion and put 4 cloves in it

Peel the carrots and cut them in two

Put the onion, carrots and pheasant in a large bowl and pour the bottle of wine


Add salt, pepper, and some laurel and let marinate for at least 24 hours.





Then heat a cast iron pan, or just a regular cooking pot.



Brown the bird in a little bit of olive oil.



Add the marinated wine and carrots, and maybe some other herbs like thyme.

Put to a boil and then set down to low or sim, and let it slowly bubble its way, something like 2 or 3 hours.




Add the trimmed Brussel sprouts and the mushrooms 20 minutes before serving.





Et voilà!

As you can see, this recipe is very similar to the very traditional Coq au vin.
Strangely I find it easier to find a pheasant here in LA than a rooster ( at the 3rd and Fairfax Farmer's Market), but you can do exactly the same recipe with a male chicken...

Bon appétit les amis!

Be a good poire ! Teach your pears how to swim in wine!

My dear, poor, non-French people,

Let me be a good pear today, or "Une bonne poire":  this is how my French friends call someone who’s always helping everybody, even if people are taking advantage of it. 
It’s nice, at least it’s much better than being “une vraie dinde”, “a real turkey”, which is how we call people who are stupid and brainfree, I would say…

Anyway, after all your stomach has suffered last Thursday, I’m sure you’ll love this delicious and healthy dessert.

Les poires au vin

Ingrédients

4 pears

1 bottle of red wine

3 tbsp honey

1 tbsp vanilla seeds

3 Cloves, Anise, Pepper

This recipe is actually very similar to the strawberry wine soup I wrote about this summer. Let’s say it’s the autumn, warm, version of it. 
It’s the perfect way to end a good meal : no need for another big fluffy pie that will only stay on your hips and not on your palate as a souvenir…

I love doing it too because it reminds me of winter time and skiing vacation: you actually cook the fruits in something that is very similar to vin chaud, mulled wine.  

The best after a day of slaloms in poudreuse, powdery snow. (Or, after visiting half a dozen fromageries for the best Tomme de Savoie: why ski when you can prepare a Raclette or a Fondue?).

Poires are such great autumn fruits! 

Where I come from, in the Center of France, they are deeply used. 
You can find "poires tapées" (beaten pears): pears that are pealed and dried during three days in special wood ovens, and then "beaten" with a special instrument and laid in a traditional basket. 

But my favorite is la poire my grand father used to make with the fruits left at the end of the season: a pear brandy he would always serve to his good friends at the end of a great meal. 

Adults would sip a glass of this gorgeously perfumed "eau de vie" (litteraly "water of life") while we kids would try not to be seen trying to soak a sugar cube in their glass: it's called "un canard", a duck, and it's a little piece of drunken sweet heaven...

"Eau de vie"... almost like water, makes you really feel you're alive!

La recette

Put the red wine to a boil

Add the spices: the cloves, the star anis, the vanilla, and a little bit of pepper
 
Melt the honey in it

Peal the pears, leaving the stem and gently plundge them in the wine

Put on sim and Cook for 25 minutes

You can eat them warm, but I prefer them cold, they can be kept in the fridge for days.

Bon appétit les amis!

Be Chic! Cook Grilled Chicon!

My dear, poor, non-French people,

Let me tell you one thing. "La vie, c'est de la m...", as my grande amie Maha always says. Life is a bitch. You never get exactly what you wish for and alway miss what you don't have. 
Take me for example. I live in California, where the weather is 600 times better now than the rainy foggy Paris in November. 
And what do I dream of ? Cobb Salad on Malibu Beach ? Pas de chemin Joseph (I guess that's how you would translate "Now way Jose").
I dream about endives au jambon, les amis.

Endives au jambon

Ingrédients

6 Endives

6 slices of Jambon blanc

1,5 oz flour

1,8 oz butter

2,5 cup milk

Grated gruyere





Jambon blanc is one of the best jewel of French charcuterie. Sérieusement. 
My dear uncle Bernard pretends that the best in the world is made and sold in the Rue de Verneuil, not far from the Orsay Museum in Paris. 

But I can't afford the jet ticket to the Left Bank every other day, so I was delighted when I found a fairly ok one in the market this week.

Click on the pic to know where to buy this jambon

This white cured ham is in every French fridge. It's the main ingredient of the popular "Sandwich Parisien" (Baguette, butter, gruyere cheese on Jambon blanc) and also a must have for all the "never getting fat" Parisiennes: this ham is poor in calories and rich in protein.

Now it's parfait grilled with Endives. 
This strange vegetable is grown in the dark, mostly in the North of France, where it's called Chicon. 
You can also eat it in salad, with some blue cheese and walnuts for example, but it is a totally different plaisir when cooked: it gets bitter, but in a great way, the kind of taste you pull a face at when you're a kid, but adore when you get older. 
And it's a great veg' to keep your youth in, as it's one of the rare natural ingredient full of selenium, a great anti-oxydant.

And how do we marry them? With a great white dress, and a perfect sauce: béchamel. This French classic was invented 4 centuries ago for the young duke of Bechameil and is now synonym of French and Perfect comfort food. It's not that diet, so I invented another "girly version" without it, which is also a délice, a delight.

La recette

Preheat the oven at 450°F

Trim the endives, and caramelize them in a non stycky pan. (you can add butter if you want, but you can also try not to get too fat)

Add one inch of water, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, go for the bechamel...
Mix the flour with 10cl of milk.
Put the rest of the milk into a boil, and add the flour mixture when the milk is bubbling.

Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir Stir

Add salt and pepper.
When the sauce has reduced enough to your taste, add the butter in small bites.
Lick the spoon and go to heaven.

Then...

Lay the cooked endives in an oven pan

Dress them each with a slice of jambon

Pour the bechamel

Add the grated cheese
(or, if you're going léger skip the bechamel part and add a pinch of cheese)

Put in the oven for 20 minutes (15 for the without sauce version)

And....

Voilà !

The French and perfect way to eat your veggies and yout protein and your calcium while giving an orgasm to your palate...

Bon appétit les amis!

Hey pal! Come and enjoy these palets!

My poor non French people,

Le monde est petit. Really. It's a small world, and not only in that strange and non-French place called Disneyworld. 
That's what I discovered a few days ago while scrolling on Instagram. 
There it was, a picture of my favorite French petits gâteaux: Palets solognots (my whole childhood is in those two words).

Except that the caption read "Shriini Keshmeshi", which, may I tell you, is no French at all. How could a traditional Iranian cookie look so much as my very French and very perfect palets?
As the investigative reporter I still am, I decided to search this new mystery... in the kitchen of course!

Petits palets comme en Sologne (Raisins cookies made from scratch)

 Ingrédients

4,5 oz butter

4,5 oz sugar

5,2 oz flour

2 eggs

3 oz Raisins

1/3 cup of Rhum

To tell you the truth, I had never baked Palets Solognots before.
We used to buy them directly to one of my mom's cousins, who owned a little fabrique a few miles from our village. 
You would always find palets at a wedding banquet (so good with a glass of Champagne!) or on a sunday afternoon tea.

They taste like paradise (mon Dieu les petits raisins...), but what I loved the most about them was their box, and the picture on it.

Ahhhh Chambord... 
Much more than the liquor (which is totally unknown in France), it is avant tout the most beautiful castle in the world. Vraiment. 

I was a guide there when I was a student, and could talk for hours of the double stairs invented by Leonardo da Vinci, and all the secret stories around king François 1er who had it built (and to whom I was in love when I was ten years old. Yes, there was a small age difference, but what is 400 years when you have love and passion?).

Who would dream of Tom Cruise when you have Francis the First ?

So what are you waiting for? Go to your kitchen, get the eggs and butter from the fridge, and let's bake!
If you need music to cheer you up, I suggest listening to Catherine Deneuve singing and baking in the fairy, romantic, musical, French and perfect movie "Peau d'Ane" by Jacques Demy...

And where does Donkeyskin's father live ? In Chambord of course.

And now...

LA RECETTE

Marinate the raisins in the rhum for at least an hour.

Finish the rhum bottle. (No! Don't! It's a joke! You non-French people always believe everything!)

Preheat the oven at 400°F

Soften the butter, then mix it with the sugar 

Add the eggs

Mix them all so that the batter turns to a golden Catherine Deneuve's hair color

Add the flour and the raisins, with the rhum.

Mix it all and lick the spoon 

(yes, it's not good for your hips, but c'est si bon for your heart...)

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets

Bake for 10 minutes: the outline of the cookie must have changed color

 

Et voilà!

Now, after eating half a dozen palets and cooking plently, I'm afraid I can't tell you why this recipe is exactly the same as the Iranian one. (Except that the French version adds alcohol... a leopard can't change its spots...).

Maybe a French princess left Chambord for a handsome Persian prince. 
She brought the recipe with her, and when he tasted it the prince of Persia loved it so much that he said thank you in Farsi. "Merssi". 
And that's why French people say Merci...

It's never bad to dream for a while...

Bon appétit les amis!

Vive la saucisse !

My poor non French people,

You can't know how hard it is for a Parisienne to live in California like I do. 

Imagine, living in a place where everybody is smiling all the time! Where people actually say hello and "have a good day" in the shops or at the restaurant! I was so shocked when I first moved to LA that I thought people were actually making fun of me and were laughing in my back. Why couldn't they just groan and look depressed as any good and sensible Français would ?

But there's worse here.

The weather.

Sun sun sun! Always sun! Quelle horreur !

How can a decent human being live without rain? There are so many incredible meals you can't have if the weather is good...

That's why I clapped my hands and beamed with joie when the sky suddenly turned gray last week.
Another great occasion to watch Les Parapluies de Cherbourg!

And... to cook Saucisse de Morteau. 

 

Saucisse de Morteau aux Lentilles du Puy

Ingrédients

1 saucisse de Morteau
8 oz bacon
1 sliced oinion
1 onion on which you nail 4 cloves
3 carotts
1 cup lentilles du Puy
2 cups water
Laurel, Thyme, salt and pepper

Saucisse de Morteau is a smoked pork sausage which is made in Franche Comté, in the East of France. 

Actually, a real Saucisse de Morteau has to be made in Morteau or in its area. There's a protection on the name, as there are Appelation d'Origine Controlée for Bourgogne or Beaujolais. 

You don't mess with the Morteau: it has to be smoked with a special wood in special traditional houses. And people coming from Franche Comté venerate it as a national treasure. 

Take my friend Deborah for example: whenever you invite her, she comes with her saucisse. It's odd, but it's good!

It's very hard to find a real Morteau Sausage in the US (unless Deborah comes to visit you from France, of course), but I'm so happy I've found a very good one made here.

Now the other magical element of this recipe, is a little bit easier to find. 

Lentils.

Des lentilles, oui, mais des lentilles du Puy! These green lentils come from l'Auvergne, in South Center France. These French and perfect vegetables are loved by chefs and nutritionists aussi because of their great taste and healthy gifts. It's full of protein, fibers, and minerals. Et c'est bon !

 

La recette

Dice the onion, and cut the bacon in petits lardons.

Have them sweat for a while in a big pot, with some olive oil and/or butter.

When they are soft and melting like the heart of a teenage girl, add the diced carrots.

Make sure they have time to meet and chat a little, and then introduce them all to their new friends, the lentils.


Pour them in the pot, add enough water to cover them all

Salt, pepper, 3 leaves of laurel, the oinion and the cloves

Bring to a boil, and then let simmer for 30 minutes.

Then add the sausage. (make small holes in it with your fork before so it doesn't explode)

Cover, let sim for 30 minutes... and Enjoy!
 

Allez, bon appétit les amis!

PS:  

Ok, it's not very light, but it's a great healthy source of energy!

Did you know that there was actually a Saucisse de Morteau on the Tour de France, last year? It even passed the peloton! 

See Lance, why didn't you just have Morteau for breakfast...