Veal Paupiettes

Today is all about a recipe. A recipe for a nice meal, a recipe to surprise your guests or just for the pleasure of food.

Bon appetit !

Veal Paupiette – Serves 6
6 veal filets
2 onions
1 cube of chicken stock
20 cl of white wine
2 branches of thyme
10 bay leaves
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt and pepper

For the stuffing
200g of bacon
200g of mushrooms
2 garlic cloves
1 handful of parsley

For the mushroom sauce
300 g of mixed wild mushrooms
1 finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 crushed garlic cloves

Preparation
The stuffing
In a food processor, chop 200g of mushrooms, the bacon, the garlic, the parsley and season with a pinch of salt and pepper.
Fry the mixture in a non-adhesive frying pan at high heat for five minutes. Set aside.

The paupiettes
Finely chop the onions and set aside.
Flatten the veal filets with a rolling pin.
Place a tablespoon of minced meat in the centre of the filets.
Roll filets and tie them to create rolls with the minced meat at the centre to create ‘paupiettes’.
Dilute a chicken stock cube in 25 cl. of boiling water.
In a frying pan, cook the paupiettes with a drop of olive oil and the onions until browned.
Add the white wine and bouillon to the paupiettes and onions.
Add the thyme and bay leaves, season and leave to simmer for 30 minutes.
Remove the paupiettes from the fire and filter the cooking juice.

The mushroom sauce
Chop the mushrooms
Put a pan on a high heat until warm and a drop of olive oil.
Add the mushrooms with the crushed garlic and cook over a gentle heat for 7 – 10 minutes
Pour in the white wine and chicken stock
Bring the sauce to a boil once again and cook for 5 minutes or until the mushrooms have softened.
Add the mushrooms to the paupiette cooking juice.

Serve with rice and the sauce on top.

Road Trip

The sun and the heat have finally decided to say Hello.

Dresses and skirts are ready for a journey away from the cupboard where they’ve hibernated all winter.

Sunglasses are back, happy to show off their myriad of shapes and sizes.

All is set to make the best of the summer holiday.

It’s now time to start your engines and get ready to enjoy a food speciality road trip of France.

In Normandy, give a ‘l’Omelette de la mère Poulard‘ or ‘Camembert‘ a go.
In Brittany, you can’t escape the ‘crêpes‘ and ‘kouign amann‘.
Along the Atlantic ocean, you wouldn’t resist either the ‘foie gras‘ or ‘confit de canard‘.
Further south, don’t miss the ‘Poulet basquaise‘ or a few ‘boles de Picolat’.
The beautiful south east will tempt you with a ‘ratatouille‘ and a refreshing ‘Salade niçoise‘.
Spend an afternoon hiking through the Alps to prepare yourself for a ‘Gratin dauphinois‘ or a ‘fondue savoyarde‘.
Swinging by the Massif Central, experience the ‘lentilles du Puy‘ or ‘escargots de Bourgogne‘.
Heading back north east, it’s time for a ‘Quiche Lorraine‘ with a glass of ‘Champagne‘.
Finally, make your last stop in the north to enjoy a ‘gratin d’endives‘ or a very tasty ‘tarte au maroilles‘.
For those who are ready for a little overseas travel to the French Islands, a ‘colombo‘ or ‘acras de morue‘ will bring you the sun you miss.

Quiche Lorraine – 6 persons
1 shortcrust pastry
350g of smoked bacon, diced
200g of grated cheese
4 eggs
40 cl of ‘creme fraiche’
2 pinches of nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C / gas 6
Stretch the pastry into a tart form and put it into the fridge.
Place the bacon in a pot of boiling water for one minute and drain.
In a non-stick pan, fry the bacon for 5 mn at medium heat without oil or butter.
Drain the bacon on absorbent paper.
In a salad bowl, mix the eggs with the cream, the nutmeg, the salt and the pepper.
Add the bacon and the pieces of ham.
Pour the mixture on the pastry in the tart form and cover with grated cheese (preferably gruyere).
Place in the oven for 40 mn.
Serve with lettuce.

You can also find this recipe on a foodie friend’s blog – http://www.eatlivetravelwrite.com – http://bit.ly/eC9e2

The best of leftovers

Sometimes, the hidden magic of cooking is not in the dish you enjoy the day you’ve cooked it but how good it tastes the next day.
I don’t know if you have ever opened the fridge one day, only to tell yourself: ‘no need to cook tonight, it’s left over evening!’ You may also have experienced that subtle feeling that suddenly, your whole evening has a very different feeling to it… like it has to be Sunday.

You could have cooked for hours the day before, giving it all your best and yet, not only will the leftovers taste a hundred times better, it also has the chance to be given a second life, with all the spices blended perfectly to create a new, unique flavor… and the only thing you’ve done is reheat it.

Leftover is a whole new field for creativity and imagination, where you wonder ‘how am I going to transform this into a completely different dish.’

Peppers & bacon pasta – 2 persons (recipe created by my dear love!)
250g of penne
2 red peppers
1 green pepper
3 slices of bacon
A can of tomato sauce
The secret (and optional) ingredient: two tablespoons of cream cheese
Fresh basil leaves
5cl of white wine
Salt, pepper and Olive oil

Boil penne to taste.

Chop the peppers and bacon. Fry in a pan with some olive oil until soft. Add the tomato sauce, the white wine, the cream cheese and let it cook for another 5mn. Add some salt and black pepper.
Once the pasta is cooked, stir it with the sauce and serve!

24 hours later… the left over recipe
The pepper & bacon pasta leftover
A can of tuna
Some grated parmesan
Some basil leaves

Put your left-over in a microwave-friendly bowl, cover with the tuna, the chopped basil and the grated parmesan. Warm it up 5 minutes in the micro-wave … enjoy!

Take your time and relax… It’s brunch time

It has become an addiction. Every day of the week, the only thing I’m looking for is the weekend’s brunch. To wake up slowly on a Saturday and Sunday morning and enjoy a brunch in bed made of sweet and savoury food, that’s what you call pleasure.

The other option, which requires a bit more effort is to get yourself ready and go to one of those places where everybody is waiting for their coffee to feel awake and wearing their most comfortable clothes, ready to enjoy a relaxing and easy-going moment.
In restaurants that serve brunch, time stops and it feels good…

My best place for a brunch? The Coffee Parisien in Paris (4, Rue Princesse, 75006 Paris).
This is where I had my first brunch experience and it still remains the best one. And it was also the day I kissed my future husband for the first time but shhhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone!

So what is a perfect brunch made of? Well, there is no perfect recipe. Brunch is all about how you would like to enjoy it but here some basics ideas that will make everybody happy:

– Coffee, tea or hot chocolate for those like me who don’t drink coffee
– Juices
– Yoghourt and fresh fruits
– Eggs cooked in every way (best way to express your creativity!)
– Ham, chicken slices, sausages, beans
– Bagel, cream cheese and salmon
– Jam, Nutella, butter
– Croissant, scones, Hot cross buns, bread, etc.

Today, our brunch wad made of chopped vegetables (courgettes, tomatoes, pepper) cooked in a pan and mixed with an egg that we ate with Irish Potato Farls (very English, you won’t find that in France, unfortunately) and some chicken slices.. Very good!
We then had fresh fruits mixed with yoghourt. Perfect way to start the day.

But the best of the best still remains the famous… Egg Mcmuffin (you know, like the one in McDonald but much better because you make it yourself!)

Egg McMuffin recipe – One person
One English muffin
One egg
One slice of bacon
One slice of burger or Emmental cheese

Poached your eggs by carefully breaking them into water that is a gently bubbling or simmering for about 3 mn. Then, carefully lift the egg out of the water with a slotted spoon
In the meantime, fry your bacon in a pan
Cut the muffin in half and toast it
Once everything is ready, sit the bacon, the cheese and the egg on top of one half of the muffin. Add  the other half and put your EggMcMuffin in a sheet of greaseproof paper.
Put it 10s in the microwave and it’s ready!