Fooding - an interesting concept

Hi everyone,

I must say I haven't been very active these days in writing on this blog as things have been very very busy here in Paris, where I have been for the past month. No more sumptuous diners at home, but some interesting culinary discoveries.

Indeed, I went last week with my friend Vincent to an event called the "Fooding Week" in a magnificent historical monument in Paris XIII's arrondissement. For the very little sum of 10 euros, we were able to enjoy a four-course diner prepared by Michel Roth, the head chef of the Espadon, the Ritz's restaurant. Au menu: salmon in champagne sauce and pultry supreme with foie gras and truffles.

Not only was it delicious, but it was also very interesting as he opposed XVIII century meals (prepared by l'Escoffer) and today's vision of these same creations. It appeared that everyone preferred today's version, lighter and more surprising in termes of flavours compared to more dense and richer meals of the past;

Cooking is evolving and how glad were we to taste that evolution...

Arugula salad with roasted walnuts

Yesterday,while cooking a new recipe of lasagna et lemon custard tart for the friends I invited to the traditionnal tuesday's Mardi Gras, I remembered all of a sudden that I hadn't prepared anything for the starter course. I wanted to come up with an appetizer that was easy to make, quick and...healthy.

While thinking about the great week end I had in Napa and how great the food was in the region, I remembered a salad that was listed on the menu: arugula salad with roasted walnuts, pear and gorgonzola.

Too bad I had no pears and no gorgonzola...but that didn't matter as it was time to create something new!!!

I started by roasting the walnuts in a filet of olive oil at medium heat. Then I incorporated two tablespoons approximately of raw brown sugar that I completely forgot I had in my kitchen. I then laid out the arugula on the plates, added the caramelized walnuts and shaved parmesan (that I buy from Trader Joes's).

For the sauce, I used my special ingredient: pomegranate balsamic vinegar, which I mixed with olive oil, pepper and salt.

The result was great and everyone wondered what was special about the salad. When I said that I had roasted the walnuts with sugar, my friends immediately thought that It had to be complicated...well in fact not at all! So give it a try if you don't have a lot of time or if your kitchen closet is not as garnished as usual.

Have a great day!

Tomorrow's menu

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to post tomorrow's Mardi Gras menu with great nostalgy as it is probably the last one since my good friend Nida is going to Turkey and since I am personnally returning to France in less than 10 days.
Hence tomorrow will be a perfect evening..to remember.

Moreover I am back from my trip to Napa Valley which was absolutely fantastic and tomorrow's dinner will be the perfect occasion to test a sweet white wine from Peju winery - a 2006 Carnival - whose name seems to have been created for our Mardi Gras.

So here is tomorrow's Mardi Gras Menu unveiled:

***Menu de notre dernier Mardi Gras***

Three red bell pepper tart with pine nuts and parmesans

Arugula salad with roasted walnuts

Lasagna..with a californian touch

Plateau de fromages de Napa

Tarte au citron de Menton

I'll see you tomorrow!

A saturday in Santa Barbara

Hey everyone,

I went to Santa Barbara this week end with some great friends to do some wine tasting. This was actually my second time in SB, but last time since I almost ran out of gas on the way there and there are not a lot of Chevron's or Arco's on the scenery PCH...As a result, I didn't have enough time to visit the wineries.

This time we all made the resolution to leave in the early morning to beat traffic and have a nice long day in wine country and it turned out to be really great. We all left the Metro 417, our downtown LA residence at 9AM sharp and headed to SB.

We first had brunch on State St in Downtown Santa Barbara and I had the best egg benedicts ever on crabcake...how original and how good!

Just before 1PM and with a far from empty stomach, we went to Beckmen winery, one of Santa Barbara's well known wineries. We sipped all sorts of wine on a sunny terrace and ended up buying their 2006 Syrah which is really great.

After a stop in Santa Inez, we headed to danish style town Solvang..and went to a really cute winery where we repeated the wine tasting process. I purchased a bottle of San Giovenesse which I enjoyed yesterday with my tilapia crumble...great wine but extremely strong compared to usual french wines. What a great souvenir!

After our wine tasting activities, we decided to stop in upscale Montecito and watched the sunset on a beautiful beach. It was then time to head back to LA...what a long drive.

I really enjoy wine tasting and what is so special about it in California is that the wineries are often right next to the beach. It reminds me of Cape Town where I grew up and which I still thinks is one of the world's most fascinating cities.

This week end, I am going to take the wine tasting to the next level as I am heading to Sonoma and Napa for my last week end in California. I'll be back...I promise!

Tilapia, coco milk and curry crumble...

I am a big fan of crumbles. At first - and this was already a couple of years ago - I was only aware of two types of crumbles: apple crumble and red fruit crumble. Apple crumble was a recipe I was accustomed to as a result of growing in very Bristish South Africa in the 1990's and red fruit crumble was one easy alternative to the original apple crumble recipe. Crumble in my mind was desert related..obviously!

While I still think that these are amazing deserts, I am now exploring new forms of crumbles that are no longer deserts but fabulous entrees. Although it might sound a bit unusual at first, when one thinks of it, a crumble is just a granulous mixture of butter, flour and sugar...but when removing the sugar and substituting the flour with bread crumbs...well you get a crumble that is no longer for desert...but for tilapia, salmon, tuna...and all sorts of other ingredients that you would not have thought of.

Here I will unveil a very easy recipe of tilapia and coco milk crumble.

Liste des courses

A little over a pound of tilapia without skin

1 lemon

Cilantro

A little less than a stick of butter

1 cup of coco milk

3/4 of a cup of bread crumbs

2 tablespoons of curry powder
Salt

Four easy steps

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F. Cut the tilapia in small squares. Zest the lemon and squeeze it. Mix the coco milk with the lemon juice and the curry powder. Add a little bit of salt.

2. Cut the butter in small pieces. Put them in a bowl with the bread crumbs, the lemon zest and salt. Mix together with your fingers so as to obtain a very granulous mix.

3. Put the tilapia in an oven dish and pour the coco milk mix on top. Cover the mixture with the crumble mix.

4. Place in the oven and let bake for 15 min. Take out of the oven when cooked and decorate with the cilantro.

A table!

Pate brisee...or short pastry

This recipe is really not a recipe in itself...it is the starting point for all kinds of tarts that will make perfect appetizers or entrees.

When I was in Paris, I had never ever made a pate brisee as they are easily available in supermarkets. Now that I have tried homemade pate brisee and seen how easy and quick it is to make, well I will try to never again buy already made dough. I promise...

How delicious is a homemade crust...!

The only detail that you may want to acknowledge is that pate brisee needs to rest for about half a day in order for it to release its full savour.

You will need

1 stick chilled unsalted butter

1 egg

1 1/3 cups of all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

How to make a pate brisee

1. Sift the flour into a medium mixing bowl. Add the salt and diced butter. Rub the mixture with the tip of your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Form a well in the center of the mixture, add the egg, and blend it gently with a fork. When most of the egg is incorporated, knead gently until the dough comes together. If it is a little dry, add ice cold water.

2. Shape the dough into a slightly flattened ball. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for up to a day. Let stand at room temperature before using in order for the dough not to crack.

What is even more amazing is putting secret ingredients when making the dough...Try putting rosemary or gratted parmesan cheese and you will be surprised...just like your guests.

So far, I have made a red bell pepper tart with parmesan and pine nuts as well as an onion quiche with my homemade pate brisee and both have turned out really well. I will put the photos very quickly...and the recipes of course.

Chocolate and Zuchinni cake

I made this cake on my First Mardi Gras after reading Clotilde Dussolier's book - extremely inspring as it combines french taste with American eating habits. Hence a certain sentimental value as it represents the very first steps of my cooking experience in LA...

This chocolate cake is really good and it lighter than my personal favorite as the texture is "fluffy".

It is really worth a try and is perfect for all occasions!

List of ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 eggs

2 cups unpeeled grated zucchini

1 cup good quality bittersweet chocolate chips

How to make a surprising cake...

1. Preheat the oven to 350* and grease a 10 inch round pan with butter.

2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour , cocoa powder, baking soda and powder, and salt. Process in a separate bowl the butter and the sugar until you obtain a creamy mixture. Add the vanilla and eggs mixing well between each addition.

3. Reserve a cup of the flour mixture and add the rest to the egg mixture. Mix until just combined... the batter will be thick...do not worry!

4. Add the zucchini and chocolate chips to the reserved flour mixture and toss to coat. Fold into the batter and blend with a wooden spoon. Pour into the cake pan.

5. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Let cool to room temperature before serving and glaze with melted chocolate...

Enjoy!

My favorite chocolate cake

This chocolate recipe is my all time favorite as it is what the french call "mi-cuit" ou "fondant", meaning that the interior of the cake is half-baked..letting you fully appreciate the chocolate.

You will need..

- 2 bars of hershey dark chocolate (7 oz. or 200g)

- 3/4 of a cup of flour (3 oz. or 80g)

- 4 eggs

- 1 cup of sugar (6 oz. 150g)

- 1 and 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (salted butter is nonetheless an option)

Four easy steps

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit (180* celsius)

- Put the chocolate in a saucespan over moderate/low heat and let it slowly melt. When it is completely melted, blend in the butter. Mix together to form a delightful mixture.

-In a bowl, mix together the flour, eggs and sugar till the mixture is smooth. Incorporate the chocolate and butter mix. Mix together till homogeneous.

- Pour the chocolate cake batter into a round mould and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Tips

This cake is extremely easy to make - less than 10 minutes - and the only tricky part is to make sure that the cake is not overcooked (never let it in the oven for more than 25 min) while still being of consistent texture.

This cake can be served with strawberries on the ice and whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

This recipe is my personal favorite though I have recently tried Clotilde Dussolier's Chocolate and Zucchini cake and Jamie Oliver's brownie, both of them turning out to be great.

This cake nonetheless is a winner thanks to its half baked interior and it will please all your guests. Bringing it to coworkers is also a great option..trust me :).

Why I am late...

Hi everyone,

I am quite sorry for my relative silence but I have been up to a lot lately and asking myself a lot of questions and on top of that I have been very very busy. Thinking takes time and as a result I still haven't had a chance to post recipes. I promise it will be done before tomorrow...

Thanks,

Raphaelle

Eggplant crumble with parmesan cheese and pine nuts

Shopping basket:

- 2 long eggplants

- 4 tomatoes

- 4 large basil leaves

- 1 stick of butter

- 1 cup parmesan freshly grated parmesan cheese

- 3.5 oz. flour

- 2 oz. pine nuts

- 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

- 3 tablespoons virgin olive oil

- Salt and Pepper

How to make a fabulous crumble....

1. Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Cut the eggplants in half and cover with a filet of olive oil. Place in oven tray and let bake for 30 min.

2. In the meantime prepare the parmesan and pine nut crumble:

- Roast the pine nuts in a pan using a filet of olive oil

- Put the pine nuts in a large mixing bowl and add the flour, butter and parmesan in order to form a crumble. The crumble should be slightly "buttery". Do not be tempted to add more flour...

3. Cut the tomatoes in quarters and take out the juice and the seeds. Cut what is left of the tomatoes into small cubes. Take the egglplants out of the oven and very gently put aside the interior of the eggplant with the help of a spoon and cut it into thin pieces. Be careful not to tear the eggplants when taking out the inside. Add the eggplants to the tomatoes and mix into bowl with four tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Add the chopped basil leaves.

Pause: Let's pause for a minute as this can be tricky...

You should have on the one hand a buttery looking crumble and on the other hand a vegetarian mix with the diced tomatoes, eggplants and basil leaves.

4. Place the tomato and eggplant mix into the emptied eggplants so as to fill them up completely.

5. Place the crumble mix over the eggplants so as to completely cover them. Place in oven for 30 min.

Enjoy!!!

Tips

I have been making this crumble a couple of times - I think it is my favorite recipe - and this time I replaced the traditional balsamic vinegar by a pomegranate balsamic vinegar that I purchased at The Bountiful Basket, a great wine tasting boutique in Carmel by the Sea, California. It's definetely worth a try!

I also replaced traditional grape tomatoes by red Heirloom tomatoes from Ralphs and it added another dimension to the overall taste.

Mardi Gras...the art of cooking while having fun

With my turkish neighbor in LA who is becoming a very good friend of mine we invented a concept on friday night based on our desire to have fun by cooking together. We randomly chose a day, tuesday it would be, on which we would test our cooking skills and enlight each other on how to be a better cook. Nida actually started cooking recently and to my mind is not bad at all. In fact we had a great dinner with her two weeks ago when she made chicken provencal and basil cream pasta. Delicious!

So since we decided to cook every tuesday - both to learn and to have fun - we named our recurring event: Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is a french celebration that dates back from the Middle Age and that consists of a day of eating, drinking and having fun. The interesting part though is that translated in english, it literally means Fat Tuesday. Well fat tuesday it would be!

For our first Mardi Gras, we debated on the menu. Two girls, two boys would be attending the reception. Asia, Europe and America would be represented at our table so the menu had to please every attendee while still being original, delicious and stunning in appearance.

After a couple of hours reading Jamie Olivers's Chef cookbook, Cyril Lignac's - a contemporary cuisine chef- recipes and brainstorming, we came up with a quite pleasant menu:

Menu du Premier Mardi Gras

Entree

Petit toast with cheddar and turkey on a toasted garlic bread

Main course

Eggplant parmesan and pine nut crumble with its tomato, basil and pomegranate balsamic vinegar filling.

Desert

Chocolate and Zuchinni cake.

How did it turn out? Well first we had a great evening. While our guests were enjoying our petit toasts we struggled to grate the zucchini, peel the eggplant, dice the tomatoes but with a lot of laughter helping us forget how much effort fine cooking requires. It was then time to sit down and eat...finally. The dinner was great - though the eggplant crumble raised some eyebrows- and desert served with wipped cream was heavenly.

I can't wait for the next Mardi Gras though we haven't yet figured out the menu...

A table!

My appartment at the Metro 417

Hi, This is me in my downtown LA appartment. This photo was taken two weeks ago by my best friend Vincent who came to visit me in California.

La rue Mouffetard...the start of a culinary adventure..

Why a blog..on cooking

Hi everyone,

My name is Raphaelle and I am from France (not from Paris, but from a great town in the South called Montpellier). I am currently living in Los Angeles as I am working in a finance company in downtown LA, transferring from the French office for three months. Lucky me! This is not my first time in the US - in fact I come to the East Coast to visit my mom twice a year - but coming to the West Coast or to SoCal is a premiere. So far so good...

Why create a blog? And why on cooking?

No I am not a desperate housewive thinking of how to please my husband (by the way I don't have one) or children for dinner..although there is a little bit of truth there I must say. The reality is that I dicovered cooking a year ago when moving in to my first Paris appartment and discovering the joys of living in la Rue Mouffetard, a village like neighborhood in Paris. I started going to the local market - le marche de la rue Mouffetard- every saturday morning and trying out new recipes...ranging from a simple apple crumble to more sophistacted dishes such as "carre de veau servi avec son beurre ail/persil" which tastes fantastic. The simple fact of waking up on a saturday morning and saying hello to the shop owners is probably what I miss the most here in LA where my daily grocery shopping now consists of Trader Joes's, Whole Foods and Ralphs. I try to alternate the mass retail store/ perfectly organic but expensive concept.

The whole idea of writing a blog had been trotting on my mind for a couple of days and while making a random turkey sandwich with a little personal touch, I said to myself: wow, maybe you should open a sandwich restaurant.... That idea quickly disappeared as I said to myself that simply adding grilled cheese, aragula and black pepper did not make me a Jamie Oliver or a future restaurant owner. And that being humble was a key to success...

Nonetheless, I said to myself well cooking is a great thing and sometimes great recipes come from very little things. That is why creating a blog where I could share my ideas was a humble beginning and yet a first milestone on what could turn out to be a long path. But then again a beginning is needed for everything, right?

I have to add that cooking is something I really enjoy as it represents a distraction from my every day life as an investment banker. Considering the current financial turmoil. I wake up every day and think that I should diversify my "career" options as banks are maybe not an option anymore. Moreover I tend to think now that having a balanced lifestyle is quite enjoyable and cooking (and going to the gym in consequence) is now a part of that...

Speaking of that, I must say that this blog will not solely be focused on cooking...i will also try to share some of my insights on America and the American Culture which I am modestly trying to discover in a changing context.

Well with this being said and a part of my reasons for creating this blog, I have one last thing to say: enjoy!