King for a Day

There are days when I walk by my local boulangerie with a sigh and say “I could never make that.” Mais si. To paraphrase the words of our esteemed President: Yes I can.

This past Sunday we were invited to a Galette party – to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany. The traditional cake is a dense almond cream called frangipane, tucked between two layers of puff pastry. Inside the cake is hidden a tiny figurine – la fève – originally a broad bean. He who finds the fève is king for a day – paper crown and everything.

I was expecting a store bought version, but when we arrived – G. colleagues were mounding a freshly whipped bowl of almond cream into the center of the puff pastry. I’ve experimented with frangipane over the years – everyone from Eric Keyser to Lenotre – too sweet, too slippery, too something. Finally, with eternal thanks to Virginie – I have a recipe for the ages. Light, not overly sweet, laced with rum – I’m sure it will be wonderful as a base for summer fruit tarts as well. I’ve left the recipe in grams – so you’ll have it that much sooner. As soon as I get around to making it at home, I’ll post the conversion.

I’m thinking seriously of making myself a paper crown – just to have one on hand in case of emergencies.

Galette des Rois

2 sheets of puff pastry, they are circular in France, yours may be rectangular – can’t hurt
100 grams of salted butter, if you can find it with sea salt crystals – so much the better
100 grams of granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp dark rum
½ teaspoon almond extract
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
150-180 grams of ground (powdered) almonds
2 teaspoons of powdered sugar

Heat the oven to 410°F

Whip the butter until soft and airy. Add the sugar and cream the two together until light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs, whisk to combine.

Break the third egg into a cup, stir lightly. Pour ½ of the 3rd egg into the batter. Put the cup with the remaining ½ egg to one side. Add the rum, vanilla and almond extract to the batter, whisk to combine. Then add enough ground almonds so that the batter will hold its shape when mounded on the pastry – it should be just thick enough so that it doesn’t ooze all over the place like a B-movie blob.

Line a large cookie sheet with wax paper. Unroll your bottom sheet of pastry. Put the frangipane on top, spreading it into a thick layer with a spatula, leaving a 1 ½ -2 inch border all around. Place the other sheet of puff pastry on top. Add two teaspoons of powdered sugar to the ½ egg in your little cup . With a pastry brush, use the egg wash to seal the edges – you can crimp them as well. Brush the top of the galette with the egg wash as well. Make a small hole in the center of the top crust for the steam to escape. Being careful not to pierce the pastry, you can carve the traditional pinwheel design.

Bake at 410° for 10 minutes. Lower the oven to 315° and bake for a further 10 minutes. Cool for 15 or 20 minutes before serving. Make yourself a silly paper hat.

Serves 8-10

This Little Piggie Went to Facebook...

As I was walking by the butcher today, I took my nose out of my scarf long enough to notice an unusual number of whole piglets. Yes, piglets. Piglets roasting, piglets dangling. Piglets, piglets everywhere. When I asked why, the butcher told me that tomorrow is Noel Orthodox – Christmas in the Orthodox Church. Good to know.

While I was snapping my little photo, Madame behind the counter asked what it was for. Turns out she loves to read in English and took the blog address. This seemed like a good time to mention that I had a book coming out in which their shop plays a significant role. Learning to hold your own at the butcher is a Parisian rite of passage. “Deboning” was not part of the standard vocab in my highschool French class. One of the butchers bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon. Yum.

In honor of my recent flying leap into the 21st century, you can now become a fan of Lunch in Paris on Facebook. The page will list events (Brooklyn Kitchen on Feb 6th, anyone?), and even as we speak, there is a fascinating discussion on the virtues of ugly vegetables.You can also follow along on Twitter, because I’m sure at least some of you think about food as often as I do…

Out With the Old...

Happy 2010 everyone! It still sounds a bit science fiction to me. Where's my jetpack?

Every year between Christmas and New Years I do such a quantity of shopping and cooking - that come January 2nd, I feel like I could sip nothing but flat ginger ale through a plastic straw till March. Every year I try to outdo myself - but it’s often the last minute experiments that become the year-round keepers.

Thanks to my mother-in-law’s rather elevated taste in beverages, in the aftermath of the holidays I am always left with 2 or 3 half empty bottles of champagne. I keep it around (re-corked) and use it in place of white wine in my recipes. Whenever I do, something simple and extraordinary happens. I become a better cook.

I get it – very few people outside of France have leftover champagne hanging out next to the Diet Coke in the fridge. (Come to think of it, I’ve never seen my mother-in-law drink a Diet Coke). So think of the following recipes as a good excuse to buy some. Next time you have something to celebrate, open the bottle before dinner, pour a glass for the cook (essential, I think), use a splash in the recipes, stick a cork back in and drink the rest with dinner.

I used the end of one bottle to cook the fish we had on Christmas Eve. My mother in law suggested that I wrap the sea bass in parma ham, the meaty flesh of the fish stands up well to pork – I’ve done the same with andouillette sausage, but the ham was even better – it crisped up in the oven, clinging to the bass like a second skin. I stuffed the fish with parsley and added a handful of green olives flecked with herbs de provence. The champagne was an afterthought, poured in the bottom of the dish to keep the fish from drying out in the oven – but as the ham rendered its fat and the olives crinkled in the heat, the champagne became the base for a wonderfully complex sauce – no bite, just a bit of sparkle.On Christmas Day, I used the end of bottle number two to add a bit of acid to a creamy root vegetable soup. The champagne had just enough dry wit to balance out the mellow sweetness of the parsnips and butternut squash.

So just when you thought the season for special occasion eating was over – here’s a mini-menu to keep in mind. Valentine’s Day anyone?

Parsnip, Carrot and Butternut Squash Soup with Champagne

It is terribly important to use good quality veggies for this soup. My mom tried it with watery supermarket carrots and white wine and found it “blah”. If you can, try to find “dirty” carrots – those that have been harvested and buried in sand.

1 pound carrots (preferably “dirty” or organic (3 large), very thinly sliced
1 pound parsnips (2 medium), very thinly sliced
1 ½ pounds of butternut squash (about half a large squash), diced
1 onion, diced
5 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
½ cup (plus a splash) champagne
4 cups chicken broth
1 ½ cups milk

Prepare the vegetables. Heat the oil and butter in a large stock pot. Add onion, sauté for 4-5 minutes until beginning to color. Add carrots, parsnips and squash; stir to coat with oil/butter. Cover with the lid ajar about an inch, and cook for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the veggies are sweet and tender.

Add the champagne – it will sizzle off pretty quickly. Then add the chicken broth. Using a hand blender, puree the soup. Add the milk and blend a second time for good measure. I add an extra splash of champagne at the end for kicks. Serve piping hot with crusty bread and oozy cheese.

Serves 6 as a light meal, freezes beautifully

Sea Bass with Parma Ham, Green Olives and Champagne

For Christmas I made this with 3 large bass for 6 people (that’s smallish French portions as part of a multi-course meal. If I was making it again, I think I might use smaller individual bass, just because they look so spectacular served whole. It is important that you ask your fish monger to scrape the scales off the fish – or do it yourself with a regular dinner knife (scrape against the grain) – you want to be able to eat the crispy parma-wrapped skin.

3 large bass, gutted with the scales scraped
Coarse sea salt
Handful of flat leaf parsley
8 slices of parma ham, sliced paper thin
Good handful of green olives with herbs
Splash of champagne

Heat the oven to 410° F.

Rinse the fish thoroughly, removing any stray scales with your fingers. Place the fish in a shallow casserole dish. Sprinkle the inside of each fish with sea salt, and stuff with a few springs of parsley. Wrap each fish with a 2 slices of ham, leaving the head exposed. Scatter the green olives on top. Pour a good splash of champagne in the bottom (about a ¼ inch), bake for 30 minutes until the skin is crispy and the flesh is firm and opaque down to the bone.

Serves 4-6

The World's Most Decadent Leftovers...

Foie gras and fig jam with whisky on toasted rye nut bread...Vive la France!

P.S. - That paper peeking out from under the coffe table - that's the actual cover of Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes - Little Brown sent it last week. The book comes out on Feb 1st, so this is getting real. Soon I'm going to start putting annoying little links at the end of each post reminding you to pre-order. No reason for faithful blog followers to pay full price...

Daily Flaneur: X-mas Breakfast in Bed

Panettone for us, a bottle for Augustin. Merry Christmas everyone!

A Fridge Full of Christmas

You know it’s Christmas in Paris when the refrigerator looks like this: the fruit drawer is full of cheese, the cheese drawer is full of foie gras, the four bottles of water on the door have been replaced with champagne and the lettuce (wrapped loosely in a dishtowel) is wedged in over two broad, beady-eyed live crabs (nicknamed Gerard and Gaston). G. forgot they were in there. When he opened the door they started rustling - he thought it was a poltergeist.


It’s not even Christmas Eve and I feel like we’ve been eating forever. My new strategy is to skip one meal a day – so I can actually be hungry for the next one. So far, so good. I had a fine appetite for lunch today with friends: duck terrine with pistachios, rare calf’s liver in sherry vinegar and light as a feather baba au rhum with freshly whipped chantilly (I love when they leave the bottle of rhum on the table).


It’s been glacial and snowy in Paris these past few days. We even had a dusting on the geraniums. This, of course, makes staying in the house cooking – and eating – that much more appealing. Last night, G.’s grandma came to meet her first great-grandson. I made pot au feu, which is essentially boiled beef (I use beef cheeks and veal shank) and vegetables garnished with mini pickles, mustard and parsley – with the beef bouillon served on the side. It’s perfect warm tummy food. Finished with a few bottles of red wine and a Mont d’Or Vacherin cheese so creamy it needed to be scooped with a spoon, one could consider never leaving the house again.



This morning G. went to the post office to pick up the next round of cheese – an entire Saint Nectaire (the size of a generous chocolate truffle cheesecake) and two etch-a-sketch size chunks of Cantal – a gift from his great aunt, which has been waiting at the post office for 3 days. As if postal workers don’t have enough to deal with over Christmas – someone behind the counter was stuck sitting next to our odoriferous package.

Since G.’s family is from Brittany, on the Channel coast, Christmas dinner chez nous is usually fish, and fruits de mer (shellfish). My mother-in-law is very particular about her oysters. Only those from the seaside town of Cancale will do. They are hard to find in Paris, so ixnay on the oysters. The still-squirming langoustines were 79 Euros a kilo, which seemed excessive, even for Christmas. That’s how I ended up with Gerard and Gaston. I will boil them alive tomorrow, and let them hang out on the windowsill until fully cooled. My neighbors across the way hang socks. I hang crab.

Pot au Feu

3 large beef cheeks (about 4 pounds of meat) – you can use a mix of meats – traditionally different cuts of beef – sometimes I add a large veal shank (it’s nice to have something with a bone)
Sea salt
1 onion
5 cloves
20 whole peppercorns (black or mixed)
A small bundle of fresh thyme
A bundle of parsley (on the stem)
2 bay leaves
8 carrots (what my mom calls “dirty carrots” – they’ve been harvested and buried in sand – so they are mature and extra sweet)
8 golden turnips
1 large bulb fennel
12 small potatoes, peeled
3 leeks, trimmed and cut into 4-5 inch lengths

To garnish: mini cornichon pickles, chopped flat leaf parsley, dijon mustard, coarse sea salt

Place the meat in your largest stockpot and cover with cold water, add some salt, the onion pricked with the 5 cloves, and the rest of the spices. Bring to a boil, skim the foamy fat, and simmer, covered, for 3-4 hours. Beef cheeks have a lot of gelatin that needs to dissolve – so as long as you cook them at a slow simmer, there’s not much risk of drying out.

Add the veggies, and cook until tender but not falling apart. If you don’t have a seriously large pot, you’ll have to do this in stages, for example – add the turnips, fennel and carrots, wait until they are cooked through, then fish them out. Add the potatoes and cook through. The leeks take the least amount of time. If you do the vegetables in stages, you can add everything back to the pot to heat up just before serving. You might want to season the bouillon with more salt as you go along – up to you.

Serve the meat and veggies on a platter. Pass the pickles, parsley, mustard and additional coarse sea salt. Serve the steaming bouillon in bowls on the side.

Serves 6-8

Presentable Lentils

I can cook myself out of a funk. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Last week I was thanking the world for all its riches, this week I’m having trouble dragging myself out of bed and I can’t seem to dig a path toward the surface of my desk.

Part of this, I think, has to do with child care – we have not yet availed ourselves of the many fabulous options for French day care – not even sure what we could get into at this point. Not sure why the new parent exhaustion has decided to hit me now – but here it is, and it feels like a sledgehammer.

I was on the phone with my mother last night trying to put together documents for Augustin’s American citizenship appointment next week. They need proof that I actually lived on US soil for 5 years. I have my college transcript of course, and Paul found some electric bills and old pay stubs from my job at the American Craft Museum. But my childhood, it seems, has been all but erased. Mom called back later, just for fun, to tell me she’d been to the vault and found my 1st grade report card from Ms. Lydia Becker, saying, in so many words: “Elizabeth is very creative, but doesn’t quite have her shit together.” What else is new? I’m working on it.

The apartment, it has to be said, is a disaster at the moment – if we were trying to adopt a child, we would never pass inspection. Somehow half the contents of the linen closet ended up in the bathtub – and what came out simply won’t go back in. I tried to remedy the situation by throwing out a shoebox of old make-up – the lipstick from my wedding (was it really that brownish?) and some Annick Goutal perfume samples that I couldn’t bear to toss because I love the name – Ce Soir ou Jamais (tonight or never), but hate the smell.

Thank god, cleaning out the cupboards in the kitchen is a lot more satisfying than the bathroom. I have a city kitchen – so there is not much room for stock, but I do have my staples. No matter what else is out of whack, I can usually count on having a box of Puy lentils and a can of tomatoes on hand.

The French are very attached to lentils; they are sensible unpertenious year-round fare - served cold and al dente in summer salads or warm and spiced under a piece of pan roasted salmon for a dinner party. Lentils are yet another example of what Americans might eat only as diet or health food that the French eat just because they're really good.

Often I just simmer my lentils as a vegetarian dish – onions, a can of tomatoes, some broth cubes, lots of chopped parsley a bit of white wine. But this week required a little extra omph, so I added a cured ham hock – which gave the whole pot a wonderful smoky sit-by-the-fire-and-put-your-feet-up flavor.

When I de-boned the pork and spooned some lentils into shallow bowls – it looked rather put together, like something you might see in a trendy “comfort food” bistro of the moment. Not bad for the back of the cupboard. I figure, if I can still put together a presentable dinner, it’s possible that I’m not quite as strung out as I feel…

Stewed Lentils with Smoked Pork

1 smoked ham hock
500 grams (2 ½ cups) dried Puy lentils
2 tbsp. oil olive
1 medium red onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped

1 small blub of fennel, with stems, chopped
A handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, including some stems, chopped
1 fresh bay leaf

A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes (with their juice), chopped
1 cup of dry white wine
6 cups of water or broth
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

To serve: chopped fresh coriander, sour cream or cream fraiche, fresh lime

Heat the oil over a medium heat in a large stockpot. Add the onion and carrot, sauté for 5-10 minutes, until the onion is translucent.

Add the lentils and stir to coat with oil. Add the wine, broth, chopped tomatoes, parsley and bay leaf and a good grinding of pepper. Place the ham hock in the center. Leave to simmer over a low heat with cover ajar until the lentils are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 1 hour.

Debone the pork. Serve lentils in a shallow bowl topped with chunks of meat – I like to serve with a slice of lemon or lime and some fresh coriander on top. There will be enough meat for two. Enough leftover lentils to get serve another 3 or 4. The leftovers make excellent soup – try stirring in a little cumin when you reheat. Then serve the lentils, steaming hot, with a dab of fresh plain yogurt or sour cream – squeeze over the lime and a add some chopped fresh coriander.

Serves 2 the first time around with meat, enough lentils for 6