Posts tagged w/ French Christmas

French Holidays - Still Looking for Ideas for Your Christmas Menu?

Posted by Chanda

Why not add some French flair to your holiday dinner?  Some very traditional French Christmas choices include dinde de Noël (Christmas turkey) which is prepared in a variety of interesting ways, chapon (capon) and any dish with foie gras including tatin pommes foie gras.  

Here is a recipe for Tatin Pommes Foie Gras from the Marmiton website.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
3 or 4 apples
10 ½ ounces of raw foie gras
1 puff pastry
butter
caster sugar
2 cups of sweet white wine
cream

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400ºF.
Peel the apples and slice them.  Brown them on low heat in butter with a little bit of caster sugar.
Arrange them in a rosette in a cake pan.
Deglaze the frying pan with half of the wine and pour it into a saucepan.  (Deglazing means that after you remove the foie gras, you add the wine to the hot pan.   Scrape up all the brown bits. The wine helps lift them from the bottom of the pan and stir until it has all been lifted from the bottom of the frying pan. The wine will continue to reduce until you have only a small amount left.)  Set aside.
Quickly fry the sliced foie gras on both sides.
Salt and pepper and place the slices on the apples.
Deglaze the frying pan again with the rest of the wine and add it to the saucepan.
Place the pastry puff on top of the foie gras and put it in the oven for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the wine in order to reduce the sauce.  Add the cream and bind.
Remove the foie gras pastry from the mold upside down.
Serve accompanied by the sauce. 

Joyeux Noël!

 

French Christmas Carols

Posted by Chanda

Well, the holiday season is here in many parts of the world.  Although France is home to many different world religions, it is predominantly Roman Catholic (85% according to WikiAnswers).  So, everything to do with the Christmas season can be found in France as well as Québec.  Thus, this month I will write a few different articles about Noël.  And to start it all off, I’m going to give you some titles of French Christmas carols and see if you can figure out what their English equivalents or translations are…

Vive le vent
Douce nuit
Le divin enfant
Noël blanc
Rodolphe
Venez divin Messie
Viens, peuple fidèle
Mon beau sapin
Au royaume du bonhomme hiver
Aujourd’hui le roi des cieux
L’enfant au tambour
Les anges dans nos campagnes
Falalalala
Maman embrasse le Père-Noël

So, write a comment if you know any of them and I’ll provide the answers in an article in a couple of days.
Bonne chance!