Tag: french cuisine

Deep dive to regional France cuisine to one of my anchor place

With this idea of deep dive to regional France cuisine to one of my anchor place, I am presenting you today with a specialy from the area of Somme and Pas de Calais. This is where I grew up.  I found this photo recently on my tablet, timely!  The regional France areas live a lot on the rythm of seasonal products. For example, in Australia, we have access to zuchinis (courgettes) all year long, well it is not so true over there, the season is in summer. During the courgette season you eat ratatouille or stuffed zuchini at least once a week!  The seasons were marked by their produce and by the (compusory) requirement to help harvesting berries, asparagus, beans when it was not removing nasty weeds in the fields.

Deep dive to regional France cuisine to one of my anchor place

This photo below is from my grandfather’s garden. My grandfather, when he was not reading, was often found in his garden.  As kids we were only allowed there with an adult in case we walked over crops and damaged the well formed alleys.  Only the rabbits managed to get under the wiring on one side to enjoy the goods! The garden contained a mix of fruits, vegies plans and flowers. There were many things: strawberries, raspberries, red current, black current, asperagus, apples, pears, courgettes, artichokes, potatoes, leeks, ….  It was manicured. It was magic. We loved going there!

my grandparents
My Grandfather, myself and other family members in my grandfather’s garden

Le gateau de Mamiche

My grandmother, Mamiche,  was an amazing person. While  I would not describe her as a person who loved cooking, she exceeled in eggs in jelly, beef tongue and this chocolate cake I am presenting today now called “le Gateau de Mamiche”. Le Gateau de Mamiche is a rich, dense and textured chocolate cake.  A bit like a mud cake, although not as heavy. Recipe HERE.

dense chocolate cake

 

Le gateau battu

gateau battu Picardie

Northern France cooking is generally known for its dairy based dishes: cream, milk, butter.

This cake is a bit like a brioche but contains much less butter.  Interestingly for a raised dough, it uses the eggwhites in snow.  Fresh, on the day, it is used in some areas to go with a glass of Champagne.  Else it is delicious toasted or not with a bit of jam. This is  what we did this time. The recipe is HERE.

gateau battu Picardie gateau battu et confiture

Rhubarb Tarte

Rhubarb is a summer to autumn food.  The plant grows in temperate climate, it produces large green leaves on thick stems.  The parts used in the kitchen are the stalks.  Apparently, the leaves are toxic and are most often used for compost and in natural home made preparatation against some garden insect pests.

To prepare rhubarb, first cut off the leaves and discard and was the stalks.  Cut each end of the stalk. Pull on the sting that comes from the sides of the stalk if any and discard too.

For a rhubarb tart for about 8 people.

Ingredients:
  • 1 shortcrust pastry
  • 1 bunch of rhubarb stalks
  • 1 egg
  • 2/3 cup brown soft sugar
  • 1/2 cup of cream (if ou don’t have cream, you can use milk)

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 180 °C.
  2. Roll the shortcrust pastry and place in the tart tin.
  3. Cut the rhubarb stalks in sections 1/2 centimetre to a centimetre long and place on the pastry.
  4. Mix egg, cream  and sugar  and pour over the fruits.
  5. Bake until the crust is golden brown.

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Cherry Clafoutis

This is my recipe of the cherry clafoutis. I tried a few recipes to get there: too sweet, too thin, too bland, too much juice lost…The “traditional” clafoutis recipe contains milk, egg, sugar and flour and critically cherries with pits ON!!!

My version is slightly different to the “traditional recipe” in that I have added a little tanginess (yoghurt) to pair with the taste of the cherry.  I also choose to keep the pits (this is subject to many discussions in the cooking world.  Check my post if you want to know more!

Before we start, a few tips:

Tip: Plan a dish in which your batter will be 4 to 5 cm thick  when pouring the preparation over the fruits (or you don’t get that moist middle)

Tip:  the clafoutis rises during baking, so have a couple of centimetres of free board (it will deflate when taken out of the oven).

clafoutis with pits and stem

Serves 4

For info, my dish was 17 x 17 cm

Ingredients:
  • 300 g of fresh cherries,with pits and stems (remove the stems if you do not fancy them)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 40 g white sugar
  • 50 g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/4 cup of milk (50 cl)
  • 1/4 cup of cream (60 g)
  • 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt (120 g)
  • a nut of butter (for the dish)
Method:
  1. Butter and flour your dish
  2. Preheat the oven on 170°C.
  3. Place the fruits (with pits and stems) at the bottom of the dish.
  4. Mix the eggs and sugar together, ass the milk, cream, vanilla and yogurt. Combine
  5. Add the flour
  6.  Poiur the batter over the fruits trying to keep the stems going upwards
  7. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
  8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool until serving wrm or cold.

It keeps well at room temperature or in the fridge for a couple days.

clafoutis with pits and stem

clafoutis with pits and stem clafoutis with pits and stem