Flying over the Loir Valley is one of the most beautiful things!
After the all the excitement of getting the balloon ready to fly, drifting peacefully over forests and fields, dotted with watermills, chateaux and farmhouses gives a wonderful perspective of things on the ground.
My French Cooking Tour in the US!…During the Thanksgiving and Christmas season I did a series of cooking classes in Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
I had such a great time traveling around, with special ingredients in tow, sharing some of my favorite french recipes in family’s and friends’ homes…to spice up their holiday dinners.
Grey shrimps are fished on the beaches of the Opal Coast, along the northern Atlantic coast of France.
They are fished as the tide goes out with a special net called “haveneau”.
When we buy these beautiful blue-grey crustaceans at the open market they are still jumping lively in their baskets.
But once cooked, their color changes dramatically to an often vibrant pinkish-orange color.
Here’s why…
‘The outer shell is made of a protein, crustacynin (like all the other crustaceans), which holds in a tight embrace the underlying pigment called astaxanthin.
Ingredients
• 1 very fresh fish, preferably sea bass or other fish with good scales.
Be sure to keep head, tail and scales but empty and cut off the fins.
• Rock salt, enough to create a bed under the fish and cover the fish with about
½ inch thickness (approximately 4/5 kilos for a 1.5 kilo fish).
* Egg whites 1-3 depending on how big your fish is and therefore how much salt
you will use (approx. 3 whites for 4 kilos of salt).
• Herbes such as rosemary and thyme or herbes de provence.
• Optional, lemon, celery, fennel or bay leaf.
Instructions
Salt harvesting began in the region as early as the Neolithic, but it was in the Gallo-Roman era that the extraction by evaporation method was developed.
In the 9th Century, the monks ran the salt production and created the clay salt beds exactly as they are today.
Irrigated at each high tide, in the innermost parts, the water evaporates and the salt crystals are harvested daily from June to mid-September.
During the intense evaporation in the afternoon, fine crystals form on the surface, very white and pure, with a delicate perfume of violette, this is the “Fleur de sel” (flower of salt)
Symbol of french gastronomy, Guérande salt, and especially the Fleur de sel, graces the best tables in the world.
We are lucky to have my friend Christine that makes the weekly trip to our local market, selling her nice little bags of Fleur de sel, and very large bags of corse salt that I use for the delicious Salt Crusted Sea Bass, one of the recipes taught on my french cookery courses.
Georgina is my Araucana chicken, from tha Araucania region of Chile. She was a gift from a very sweet house guest (also named Georgina!).
Well, after almost 4 months of TLC, she has finally decided to earn her room and board and I’m so happy to have not only beautiful turquoise blue eggs but a good winter egg layer.
Her beauty has made the other chickens very jealous, but she is definitely the rooster’s favorite!
Ingredients
1 head of Chicory lettuce,
Lardons(thick slices of bacon cut in small strips-see image)
Eggs (1 or more)
Vinaigrette
Instructions
Ingredients
1 nice big chicken
1 large onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 big moroccan pickled lemons
Green olives (pitted)
1-2 cups water or chicken broth
Olive oil, salt
2 tsp of Ras El Hanout
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1-2 cups water or chicken broth
Instructions
Ingredients
300 grams of fromage blanc
The closest thing would be farmer’s cheese or cottage cheese
75 grams of white sugar
20 centiliters of whipping cream
2 egg whites (use the yolks for mayonnaise!)
Instructions
There are many versions of this in France, a classic dish that is often served on Easter Sunday. This is my “Lots to do today+Dinner party+No time to slave away in the kitchen” version. You will impress your guests as they dig in with a spoon and they will think you did spend your day cooking!
Ingredients
1 leg of lamb
Keep the bone in but have just enough cut off so that it fits in your dutch oven. Oval ones work best.
10 garlic cloves
6 tomatoes
3-4 onions
1- 1/2 cups of beef bouillon
Beer or red wine to cover leg of lamb
I use a Belgian Abbey beer, Leffe Blond
Herbes de provence
(savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano)
Espelette pepper (Basque chili pepper)
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Ingredients
½ cauliflower broken/cut into bouquets
1 cube of chicken bouillon
20 cl (1cup) of whipping cream* (crème liquide)
juice of ½ of a lemon
a “filet” (Tbsp) of hazelnut oil
caviar or lumpfish roe (black fish eggs)
salt and pepper
Instructions
Ingredients
40 cl of milk
60 cl of heavy whipping cream
8 egg yolks
200 grams of castor sugar
2 vanilla beans
Instructions
