The Reds are Coming!

One of the greatest soups in the world is the humble and often overlooked Russian Borscht, which is a rustic and hearty beetroot soup made with basic and cheap ingredients. There are as many recipes for Borscht as there are Russians, so pinning down a definitive example of the soup is impossible. Our best attempt is the recipe below!



Russian Borscht

1 tbsp Olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 stick Celery, finely chopped
1 tsp caraway seeds
300g raw beetroot, peeled and coarsely grated
1 medium potato, peeled and diced
1 medium carrot, coarsely grated
150g cabbage, finely sliced
1.2 litres vegetable stock
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Sugar
soured cream
salt and fresh ground black pepper


Heat the oil in a large pan and sweat the onion, garlic, celery and caraway seeds for about 2–3 minutes until softened but not coloured, then add the beetroot, potato, carrot and cabbage.

Pour the stock into the pan, season and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 45 minutes or until the vegetables are completely tender and the soup has thickened slightly.

Season the soup to taste, and then stir in the vinegar and sugar. Ladle the soup into serving bowls and garnish with a dollop of soured cream (this is very important). Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Bread

No knead bread has been taking the internet by storm over the last month or so. A guy from a New York bakery gave a reporter his recipe for a bread that amazingly does not have to be kneaded. Instead the dough has a really long rise (between 18 and 24 hours). The recipe and technique have been so popular that heaps of food blogs and forums have featured it. We're now onto our fourth of fifth loaf and it's terrific, especially as we don't have our Kitchen Aid mixer here in London. It makes a loaf with a chewy, golden crust with a crumb with lots of air holes. It's the sort of thing you'd pay lots for at a fancy bakery. You can definitely see why it has been so popular.

L'As du Falafel

Paris has the reputation for being expensive food-wise but there are good, cheap places to eat in Paris if you know where. Kebabs rightly have a dubious reputation in many countries, and some of the "meat-on-a-stick" places in Paris look very dubious indeed (and serve chips in the kebab). One side street in the Quartier Latin has even been nicknamed Salmonella Alley. However, there is a little corner of Paris selling fresh, healthy Israeli-style falafel kebabs - rue des Rosiers, in the heart of the Marais, Paris's Jewish quarter. There are several Israeli kebab restaurants lining the street, all with waiters outside trying to tempt the punters in. Going on the recommendation in several guidebooks, we chose to go to L'As du Falafel (The "Ace" of the Falafel). Painted on the outside in big letters is the slogan "often imitated, never equaled" and signs outside the restaurant proudly proclaim that Lenny Kravitz is a fan. So it looked like a safe bet. We both chose the "falafel" option, and were presented with a warm pita bread stuffed with tahini, hummus, red and green cabbage, aubergine, tomatoes, cucumber and around eight crunchy, warm falafels. For only 4€ each (takeaway), these falafel sandwiches are incredible value. They're healthy, filling and, above all, incredibly tasty. We've been back several times (boringly, we've got the same thing each time, they're just so good!) and have never been disappointed. So if you're in Paris and looking for a cheap, delicious lunch or dinner, you can't go wrong with L'As du Falafel.
(For suggestions on where to take your falafel to eat, there is a little park next to Le Musée Carnavalet nearby the restaurant, or follow rue des Francs Bourgeois down to the Place des Vosges.)

Vegetarians beware

We spent our last evening in Annonay with my host family, who had decided to serve the French dish pierrade. I had never heard of this before so I was curious to find out what it was. In fact, it's French style teppanyaki. First of all I should tell you about the raclette we had the time before. Raclette is a smelly French melting cheese, which you melt and pour over boiled potatoes and gherkins. This dish is so popular in France that you can buy electric raclette makers - a heated, two-layered appliance with tiny frypans to put your cheese into for melting. These raclette makers can also be used for pierrade, as the top layer of the appliance is basically a hot plate to cook your meat on. So for the pierrade, my host mother had prepared several bowls of thinly sliced meat - veal, duck breast, chicken and beef. The idea was to take a slice of meat and cook it to your satisfaction on the grill then eat with various side sauces. We started with the veal, then moved onto the next meat and so on. However, by the time we got to the beef, we had all eaten more than enough meat. I'm not sure how much weight-wise we would have eaten but I'm sure we ate at least 8 pieces of meat! After this carnivorous feast I was hanging out for something green and healthy, but instead we were served pommes dauphinois, rich with potatoes, cream, butter and cheese. Heart attack on a plate. Thank goodness it was an unusually cold summer day. I'm not sure we would have coped otherwise. The potatoes were quite tasty, as was the meat, but we left feeling like we'd need to go on detox the next day! Luckily we were leaving the next day to London, the home of such healthy delights as the full English breakfast and bangers and mash...(it's OK, though - we're self-catering).

La cuisine française

French cuisine is highly regarded and has given the world many great dishes and techniques, and good food plays an important part in French people's lives. They are rightly scornful of cultures that have lost the tradition of eating meals together as a family, as many French families still eat a three course lunch or dinner together every day. However, in some aspects French people have a long way to go when it comes to food, especially in their approach to foreign cuisine. We love French food but we also love Italian, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese etc and in any one week in NZ would cook meals from several different cuisines. The ethnic food we cook in NZ may not be strictly authentic but we at least always try to adhere to the general principles of a cuisine. The family we are staying with at the moment are great cooks when it comes to French food, but any deviation to this is a bit hit and miss. Take pasta, for example. To me, and I'm sure to most NZers, pasta is the ultimate easy meal - mixed with a tasty sauce and sprinkled with parmesan. In this household, and many others in France, pasta is a side dish. It gets mixed with butter then, at the table, you mix in tomato ketchup, mayonnaise (optional), and gruyere cheese. OK, it's not altogether inedible, but that's not really the point. You'd think the country right next door to Italy might have picked up some tips on how to serve pasta! Many people seem to have a limited knowledge of foreign cuisines and it is difficult, or very expensive, to buy foreign ingredients. In Paris, a small bottle of regular-brand soya sauce in Paris was going for around 8 dollars. We also found out, to our dismay, that corn chips sold as "chilli-flavoured" are actually curry powder flavoured!
The other thing we have found living here in Annonay, is how easy it is to please people with the sort of food we cook regularly. We've made several loaves of bread, and even though they haven't worked as well as in NZ due to differences in flour and oven temperatures, everyone has raved about them. It seems that is unusual for people to make their own bread here, which I suppose is normal given the numerous bakeries everywhere. Stu also made his famous German plum cake to rave reviews. It was unlike anything that people had tasted before, as cakes here are usually dense and chocolately, soaked in alcohol, or filled with pastry cream (not that there's anything wrong with any of those!). When it comes to us trying to make or give suggestions about French food, however, we have encountered a bit of distrust, as surely a foreigner wouldn't know how to make French food properly. I was chastened by a French guy yesterday for suggesting that you could make pastry in a food processor. Heaven forbid!
We're very glad to come from a country that, possibly due to having no real food tradition of its own, has embraced the food of the world.

Aux Trois Cochons

The bouchon is an institution in Lyon, "atmospheric" restaurants serving traditional Lyonnais food. The décor generally follows the same formula - red and white tablecloths, dark walls, mirror behind the bar - as does the food. Lyon is famous for "snout-to-tail" eating, with delicacies such as tripe, pig's ears, chicken livers and veal feet. For squeamish diners there are quenelles, light and fluffy fish dumplings, and saucisson. Having read that the rue des Marroniers was the best place to find bouchons, we headed down there with empty stomachs ready to sample the famous cuisine. Aux Trois Cochons had a good looking three-course menu for 18.50€, and was already fairly full of happy looking diners so we headed in. The décor was classic bouchon, but instead of traditional French music playing we had the pleasure of listening to a local radio station.
Stu opted for pig's ear salad, while I opted for saladier lyonnais, a selection of regional specialties such as pickled pig's cheek. Stu's plate was packed with frisee lettuce topped with thinly sliced pig's ears tossed in parsley and garlic. The pig's ears were chewy and gelatinous and were lacking the required crispiness but were somewhat saved by the taste of the garlic and parsley. My entrée, on the other hand, was an unmitigated disaster. The first problem was that everything was fridge cold, so had obviously been made up in advance and just taken out before serving. The olive oil potatoes were undercooked, old-tasting, and lacking the aforementioned olive oil. The white beans were also undercooked to the point of being inedible. The pig's cheek and herrings were tasty but only because they had not required any intervention from the chef. Holding out hope that the next course would be better, we waited for our mains - chicken liver vol-au-vent with quenelles for both of us. The chicken livers had been made into a mousse in the form of a small "cake" with a pastry cap, surrounded by a tomato sauce with slices of quenelle in it. Unfortunately our hopes were dashed upon the first mouthful. The chicken liver cake tasted bland, bordering on unpleasant, but at least the texture was terrible! It was grey and grainy without proper seasoning. As for the tomato sauce, I would not be surprised if they had used Dolmio pasta sauce, and it did nothing to improve the dish. The only thing that I can say about the quenelles is that they were truly Michelin-grade (and I don't mean stars).
Having already paid for dessert, we decided to give the restaurant one last chance to redeem itself. Stu decided on a tarte aux pralines and I took a crème caramel. Praline usually designates a hard caramel with nuts in it but in the Lyon region it is instead a red coloured candied nut mixture. In a praline tart, the praline is melted and baked on a short pastry shell. The Aux Trois Cochons's version was basically sickly red goo on tough pastry, with only two nuts on the top. A dollop of cream could have perhaps negated the sweetness, but there was none to be found. Now, a crème caramel is a classic French dessert, an upside-down caramel-coated baked custard. It's a relatively easy dessert to make at home, and when down well is a delicious combination of creamy custard and sweet caramel. My crème caramel was presented as two cut-out pieces of custard with a caramel from a bottle squirted over the top. The custard was rubbery and fridge-cold and the caramel was too sticky. Nestle sells ready-made crème caramels at the supermarket for a fraction of the price which are much better examples than this one. With our plates once again returning to the kitchen unfinished the wait staff didn't even bother to ask us whether we'd enjoyed the meal or not. The finishing touch came on paying the bill when they tried to charge us for a coffee that we hadn't ordered. Like the chicken livers, the evening left a bad taste in our mouths. So much for Lyon's foodie reputation!

Harry's Bar

For cocktail enthusiasts, Harry's Bar is an icon. A New York-style bar in the middle of Paris, where most of the clientele speak English, Harry's Bar has given the world such famous cocktails as the Bloody Mary, the Sidecar and the White Lady. Being rather into cocktails ourselves, we couldn't leave Paris without at least one trip to the mother ship. The bright neon lights outside announced that we had found the right place - on rue de la Daunude, near the Opera Garnier - and on entering, the barman told us in French and English that there was a piano bar downstairs. We followed his instructions, which turned out to be a good idea as it was much less smoky in the piano bar. A murmur of conversations in French and English could be heard over the sound of the old jazz standards being played on the piano. The menu, which is in English, has a section with cocktails invented by Harry's Bar, as well as the usual suspects. It also contains the rules for being an IBF, or International Bar Fly. It seemed that you had to buy an awful lot of cocktails to be admitted to the "bar", and at 12.50€ a pop I don't think we'll ever be in danger of breaking the IBF rules. Stu and I both ordered a Sidecar, which is mixture of brandy, Cointreau and lemon juice. Anyone can mix different alcohols and juices together to make an alcoholic drink, but the real art of making a great cocktail is to make it taste much more innocuous than it is. This means finding the perfect harmony between alcohol, sweet, and sour tastes. Harry's Bar, as expected, had the equilibrium just right. A good thing, too, because the measures are on the large side. Instead of the usual martini glass, our drinks were served in a small wineglass, almost filled to the brim. Sipping our drinks, we sat back and enjoyed the music, laughing when the piano player turned down an American girl who asked him to play Sweet Caroline for her. We left the bar slightly tipsy, slightly out of pocket but extremely content.

Chez Leon

With its large number of North African immigrants, Paris is a great place to find Moroccan food, and the French population seems to have readily embraced this cuisine. Couscous, the North African staple, although easy to prepare at home, is so much better when prepared the traditional way, steamed over simmering broth until light, fluffy and fragrant. Seeking a great couscous meal we headed for Chez Leon on Boulevard Beaumarchais, a busy street between the Bastille and the Marais. As soon as we were seated, several small plates of complementary nibbles were placed on our table. Marinated carrots, olives, tuna spread, artichokes amongst other things. All delicious and nicely washed down with a kir. We both chose a couscous dish as our main course - me a couscous royal and Stu a lamb couscous. Couscous royal is "the" couscous dish - a combination of chicken, lamb, merguez sausages simmered with vegetables and chickpeas. First up, we received a large plate of couscous, as fluffy and light as we could have hoped for. No matter what you do at home it's impossible to achieve the same result, which is always our main reason for eating at a restaurant. Next up, we received a large oval platter full of meat and vegetables (Stu and my mains had been put on the same plate). There was a chicken drumstick, a lamb shank, a lamb kebab, a lamb chop, two lamb patties, and a merguez, as well as courgettes, carrots and parsnips. If this wasn't enough for two people, we were also given a bowl of broth with chickpeas in it. To spice things up, we also had a jar of harissa, a firey chilli and garlic paste, which you mix into the couscous. There was a lot of food, but we managed to eat at least two-thirds of it. The different pieces of lamb had all been spiced slightly differently, and the chicken had taken on the taste of the vegetables. The vegetables were so soft that they were falling apart, and had soaked up the flavours of the broth that they had been cooked in. To accompany the food, we drank a half bottle of Moroccan red wine. Yes that's right, Moroccan wine. Different tasting from any wine we've tasted before, but it matched the food perfectly. Having no room for dessert, we left the restaurant after our mains feeling full and satisfied. Chez Leon may not be the fanciest or best Moroccan restaurant in Paris, but it's "honest". For around 18€, you get more than you can eat of good, traditional Moroccan food. Add to this the pleasant, attentive wait staff and you have a restaurant that we'd be more than happy to return to.

Welcome to La Grande Bouffe

Welcome to the spinoff blog of Em and Stu in the merde. This blog will be dedicated to our quest to seek out good food and drink in all its guises. We'll have restaurant reviews, recipes and random thoughts on various food related issues.

Bon appetit!