Posted by Chanda
One of my favorite French dishes is quiche and when I was a student living in France, some of the French girls in my dorm used to make Quiche Lorraine for us to enjoy on the weekends. Here is a recipe I got from one of them:
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
10 ½ tblsp butter
6 eggs
2 ¼ cups bacon
2 cups shredded gruyere cheese
10 tblsp of fresh liquid cream
4 ¼ cups of milk
water
salt, pepper
1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. Prepare the shortcut pastry. Sift the flour into a bowl. Place the salt in the middle of the flour as well as 1 egg yolk and a ½ cup of water. Mix with a wooden spoon. Add the softened butter, then mix again.
3. Knead the dough for a few minutes, then make it into a ball and let stand for 20 minutes.
4. Next, dice the bacon and blanch it for a few minutes in a frying pan with a little bit of cold water. Drain and set aside.
5. Beat the 5 remaining eggs in a bowl along with the fresh cream and the milk, a pinch of salt and some pepper.
6. Roll out the dough and arrange it into a buttered pie pan. Then, sprinkle the bacon and cheese on the bottom and pour in the egg mixture.
7. Place in the oven for 30 minutes. Serve hot.
Although many Americans may want to eat this for breakfast or brunch, the French usually eat it for lunch or supper along with a mixed salad and bread.
Posted by Chanda
I just finished eating a juicy entrecôte (rib steak) and am feeling thankful to the French for this delicious cut of meat…but, then again…is it really French? And come to think of it, the French fries…I don’t think they are really very French either. According to Wikipedia, ‘entrecôte‘ is a piece of meat (beef) cut out between two ribs. And now, it turns out that what the grocery store sold to me as ‘entrecôte‘ is really a ‘contre-filet‘ or sirloin steak which is the portion of the sirloin on the side of the bone opposite the filet. Oh well, it was so very tasty anyway, especially since it was smothered in sauce Roquefort! Here’s my husband’s recipe for Roquefort sauce:
Ingredients
2 cups of softened French Roquefort cheese
2 cups of heavy cream
2 tsp black pepper
Pour the cream into a saucepan, throw in the pepper and boil until reduced by half. Then, add the cheese and whisk until smooth. Serve warm drizzled over a juicy, grilled steak.
Posted by Chanda
When I studied in Paris, I lived in a student dorm. We were given breakfast and supper on weekdays. For breakfast, we had our choice of hot chocolate or coffee and milk and could eat as much bread with butter as we wanted. Most of us ate at least a whole baguette so we wouldn’t be too hungry at lunchtime (we wanted to save our meager student finances). Many of the French students that also lived in the dorm would bring their own cereal and eat it in a big bowl of milk or they would bring Nutella (a chocolately-hazelnut spread) to have with their baguette bread and some of them were even so very kind enough to share their Nutella with us. Those days were real treats! For lunch, we would usually have a crêpe filled with ham and cheese, just ham or Nutella again! Sometimes, we would splurge and get a döner kebab with fries or even eat at one of the Parisian university student dining halls where we would get a three-course meal for a small fee (around 3 Euros). Then, for supper, the bell would ring in the dorm and all the students would go downstairs to the dining room, where you were served a catered-in family-style meal. It usually included some kind of meat dish with plenty of sauce and some vegetables, bread and afterwards, a petit suisse (a type of fromage frais made from cow’s milk and cream), yogurt or cheese and water. When I made a weekend visit to a French friend’s house, the family meals were delicious and again included some kind of meat or fish dish with sauce and some vegetables, some kind of salad, bread and cheese. When I was an aupair and stayed with a French family, the meals usually were very similar…some kind of meat dish with lots of sauce and some vegetables, some kind of salad, bread and cheese. In that case, wine was often served along with bottled mineral water. Some people say the French diet is similar to the American one, but tastier!
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!
