What to Eat in France | Page 4 of 4

WHAT TO EAT IN FRANCE: STRAWBERRY-FINANCIER CHARLOTTE

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, June 3, 2015 Permalink 0

French Recipe: Strawberry, Rum, Almond and Cream Trifle

A charlotte is traditionally fruit sautéed in butter which is then placed in a mold lined with bread. In our day, the bread is usually ladyfingers, but I’ve used financier, a dense almond flour cake made with beurre noisette, giving it a distinctive flavor.

Insteading of sautéing the strawberries, I’ve marinated them in rum and used the marinade to “wet” the cake, similar to the way the British make trifle.

600 g strawberries
2 T. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 T. rum
3/4 c. water
4 financier cakes, individual size (or other type of soft, but dense, almond cakes)
200 g thick cream
1/2 vanilla bean
2 T. brown sugar

4 parfait dishes

Top strawberries and cut in half. Place in mixing bowl.
Mix in 2 T. brown sugar and cinnamon.
Add rum and water. Mix gently.
Leave for 30 minutes, mixing gently from time to time. A natural sauce should form. If it doesn’t, add a little more water and rum.
Meanwhile, mix cream with vanilla from vanilla bean and brown sugar.
Break up 1/3 of each financier into each parfait cup. Spoon in 1/9th of strawberries into each cup, pouring some juice onto the cake to moisten it.
Cover with 1/9 of cream.
Add two more layers of financier, strawberries and cream, in the same proportions, ending with cream.
Decorate top with bits of strawberry, mint, or dark chocolate.
Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

WHAT TO EAT IN FRANCE: WHITE ASPARAGUS LABEL

Published by Jonell Galloway + Sunday, May 24, 2015 Permalink 0

Vintage French Label for White Asparagus

by Jonell Galloway

Traditionally, the French eat white asparagus. It is only recently that they have acquired a taste for the green asparagus that comes from Spain and occasionally Italy. White asparagus is grown underground so that the chlorophyll so it won’t turn green.

This label dates from the fifties, and says “asparagus in stems” (I wonder how else asparagus can be), and categorizes them as “extra fat,” which the French consider the best. This particular brand is from Belgium.

Modern labels are similar.

FRENCH RECIPES: POT-AU-FEU OR PETITE MARMITE

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, May 23, 2015 Permalink 1

Emmanuel Ménétrier / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

ESCOFFIER’S RECIPE FOR POT-AU-FEU OR PETITE MARMITE

Pot-au-feu and petite marmite in today’s vocabulary are the same thing. Until the nineteenth century, the term pot-au-feu simply referred to a family soup to which was added different ingredients every day, usually with beef and chicken added on Sunday. The regional variations were endless, depending on availability and season and depending on the cook.

In 1829, the French etymology dictionary defined pot-pourri as “the name our fathers gave to the pot-au-feu.” In the nineteenth century, the recipe started to take on its modern ingredients of beef, root vegetables and a veal bone, but it still included chicken, which many people, including my French butcher’s wife, leave out these days.

Escoffier, who codified French cuisine in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, set down the recipe in Le Guide Culinaire in 1902, still calling it petite marmite. The regional variations started to disappear, and the recipe has now been simplified by most home cooks to contain only beef, no chicken. Escoffier insisted on the importance of the chicken, but today, one rarely finds a pot-au-feu with mutton, veal, pork, chicken, duck or turkey. The other name, petite marmite, has pretty much gone out of usage.

WHAT TO EAT IN FRANCE: POT-AU-FEU

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, May 18, 2015 Permalink 0

WHAT TO EAT IN FRANCE: POT-AU-FEU

by Jonell Galloway

The French might claim pot-au-feu as their invention, but my guess is wherever there has been a pan or a pot, humans have made variations of it. Classical pot-au-feu, also known as petite marmite, is nothing more than beef and/or chicken and vegetables cooked in consommé with a marrow bone, with the chicken giblets thrown in at the end. There are regional variations, of course, some with veal or pork, and occasionally even mutton. Traditionally, carrots, turnips, leeks, pearl onions, celery and cabbage are used. These are added to the consommé along with the marrow bone and brought to a boil, then simmered gently for four hours.

The soup, vegetables and meat are then served in a bowl with toasted bread, the meat sometimes eaten on the side and sometimes in the bowl. Traditional garnishes include mustard, pickles and coarse salt. It is normally paired with red wine.

David Downie: Brittle Delight

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, February 28, 2011 Permalink 0

by David Downie

Confession time: for the last 25+ years I’ve lived in Paris and traveled the byways of France and Italy, tasting and writing about delicious food and lickerish wines. I’ve rarely felt gastronomic nostalgia for my native land, though the food and wine of California admittedly aren’t bad (this is serious understatement as you all know). But I have an incurable passion for peanuts in all sizes, shapes, and clonal varieties. I also love other spicy nuts, and, the real shocker, brittle. Yes, brittle. Peanut brittle not only hits all the right pleasure buds. It also whisks me back to the happy days of my youth in San Francisco and Berkeley, when “wild” was the operative descriptor.