Bonne année and happy year of the tiger!
Thank you to everyone who donated to Menu for Hope 6 - with your help we raised a total of $78,898 for the UN World Food Programme. That's an amazing effort in just over two weeks!
Thanks also to Cuisine who so generously donated this year's prize on La Dernière Miette, to Ed Charles at Tomato for coordinating the Asia-Pacific prizes, and of course to Pim who makes Menu for Hope happen every year.
Congratulations to Miriam Gawith who is the winner of a one year subscription to Cuisine. You will be receiving an email shortly about how to claim your prize.
A full list of prize winners can me found at Chez Pim.
Thanks again to all who participated!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Congratulations Menu for Hope 6
Monday, December 14, 2009
Menu for Hope 6
I guess I should start with hello, since it's been a while. I have been on 'sabbatical' working on other projects, but a very good project has happily brought me back to this blog, and I hope you'll be inspired to get involved too.
Menu for Hope is an annual food blogger fundraising campaign that launches today, Monday 14 December and runs through until 25 December.
Started six years ago by San Francisco food blogger Chez Pim, this year's Menu for Hope is raising money for the UN World Food Programme Purchase for Progress initiative, enabling smallholder and low-income farmers to supply food to WFP’s global operation. The programme helps farmers improve their farming practices, puts more cash directly into their pockets in return for their crops, and helps strengthen local economies by creating local jobs.
Over the last three years Menu for Hope has raised a quarter of a million dollars (US) by offering a whole range of food-related raffle items that you can bid on. A US$10 donation will buy you one virtual raffle ticket toward a raffle bid item of your choice.
La Dernière Miette is offering a one-year subscription of the award winning New Zealand food and wine publication Cuisine and a copy of their 2009 food and wine guide Cuisine Wine Country as raffle bid item (the prize code is AP10, see below for instructions on how to enter). Please note that shipping of this prize is only available to New Zealand residents. If this excludes you, but you know someone who lives in NZ who you think would enjoy the magazine, you can still enter the raffle by bidding on the Cuisine prize, and nominate that person as the recipient. If you don't know anyone in New Zealand, see the full list of prizes from bloggers around the globe.
How to donate and enter the Menu for Hope raffle
Here's what you need to do:
1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice from our Menu for Hope main bid item list.
2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation (note that all donations are processed through Firstgiving, and never by the bloggers hosting the prizes).
3. Please specify which bid item you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code ~ the Cuisine prize code is AP10.
Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 - 2xEU01, 3xEU02.
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.
The winner will be announced at Chez Pim on 18 January and shortly here on La Dernière Miette.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me on miette[at]dernieremiette[dot]com.
So please help fight hunger worldwide this Christmas, and make a donation!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
La Famille
Up until a month ago La Famille was a relatively quiet spot to grab cheap meal on a Sunday night with an amazingly priced fixed menu three course meal for €10. These days, since a recent write up in a cute little French blog My Little Paris, you are more likely to find a queue of over 200 people stretching its way up rue Trois Frères in the fading evening sunlight. If you have the patience to stick around (we were chatting amongst a group of friends and didn't mind the wait) and eventually get in the door you'll find the familiar retro deco of their sister café Le Refectoire in the 11th. But you'll most likely be distracted by the smoking cocktails that come adorned with fresh passionfruit or boxes of mini smarties, and are as good as they look.
Last Sunday, the place was positively buzzing, chat and intrigue kept us busy in the street, the cocktails kept us busy at the bar, and the atmosphere in the mezzanine dining room once we were seated was cosy and inviting. The menu was less inventive than it's reputation had promised, consisting of a carrot and cucumber salad with crayfish and sesame, traditional beef lasagna, and a dessert of raspberries and mascarpone. The first two courses I found delicious, and despite the fact I found the dessert to be a little disappointing, I think the meal was well worthy of the €10 price tag.
As the evenings get warmer, I think there will be more and more reason to stand in the street on a Sunday night for a spot at La Famille. If you want first seating at the 8pm opening, you need to go around 7:15 to beat the queue. And for those with less patience, the cocktails are good any night of the week - without the wait.
La Famille
41, Rue Trois Frères
75018 Paris
01 42 52 11 12
Trompe l'oeil ~ culinary trickery
If you think that the dinner menu for the friends we had over last week was the old English classic of fish'n'chips and ice cream sundae.... well, you'd be wrong.
It all started after a sangria or five the previous Saturday night with two devious friends Jasmine and Heloise. Inspired by the concept of trompe l'oeil, we thought a little food deception would be the perfect thing for an April Fools get together.
The guests were none the wiser, having only received a dinner invitation on the Monday - even M was in the dark and was banished to the bedroom with his laptop when dinner prep began. So Jas and I, we whisked, and blended and concocted, adding saffron here, a little marmite there, until all the colours and shapes and textures were just right.
The 'faux' menu for the night:
Scrambled eggs (unfortunately in all the excitement we ate the entrée before we could photograph it!)
Fish'n'chips
Ice cream Sundae
The real menu for the night:
Minced scallops in saffron thyme cream sauce
Deep fried pineapple, cinnamon banana chips, with mascarpone and berry coulis
Bolognaise 'pudding' with tri-colore mashed potato and gravy.
Eaten in that order, it was really quite disconcerting. Even knowing what was coming, my taste buds were still confused like someone had crossed wires in my brain. The entrée was fairly unchallenging in this regard - although people were intrigued by the flavour, they were still expecting savoury, and they really had more fun trying to guess what the real dish was. It was when we brought out the fish'n'chips that people started to raise eye-brows. Sarah, who didn't eat fish was starting to look nervous (we had to *scramble* (literally) to make her 'real' eggs for the entrée on discovering this). And at first there was a definite reluctance to take any of the berry coulis 'ketchup'. The sweetness of the dish took everyone by surprise, and whether it was a trick of the eye or the mind or just an interesting revelation, but some guests thought the deep fried pineapple had the distinct texture of fish.
But it was the last dish that really had the brain fuses smoking. Three generous scoops of ice cream ~strawberry (= beetroot), vanilla (= plain mashed potato), and my favourite, mint choc chip (= spinach and black sesame seeds) ~ with a thick dark 'chocolate' sauce, and a 'chocolately' pudding underneath. Or not. The expectation to taste cold sweet ice cream and sauce, confronted with the experience of warm savoury mash with a rich salted gravy, was boardering on down right disturbing. The form of the mashed potato plated with an ice cream scoop was so completely deceiving to the eye, that every mouthful was an act of trickery.
The first two courses: definitely tasty. But the last? *Delicious* is not a word that comes to mind, mostly cause it was just so darn weird. But definitely a lot of fun.
I didn't note down the exact ingredient measurements, as this was a guessing game of trial and error as much as anything else. But I can give you a quick run down of what we did, in case you feel like attempting a little trompe l'oeil wizardry yourself.
'Faux scrambled eggs'
Remove the coral from the scallop and mince in a blender (Use the pulse function so you don't over mince). You want the pieces to be small enough to resemble the clumps of egg white in scrambled eggs.
For the saffron cream sauce - I finely diced a couple of shallots and a clove of garlic, and gently panfried till soft but not coloured, added a spring of thyme and about a tub of creme fraiche (you can use heavy cream if crème fraîche isn't available). Colour the cream sauce with saffron until it reaches a buttery yellow, scrambled egg colour. Simmer on a low-medium heat until the sauce has thicked (if it is too runny it won't coat the scallops in a believable way). Set aside covered or in the refrigerator if for several hours. When ready to cook, strain the sauce and combine together with the minced scallops in a frying pan until the scallops are cooked through.
Serve: on toast with chopped parsely for the full scrambled eggs effect.
'Faux fish'n'chips'
Remove the thick skin of the pineapple and cut length ways into 1 - 1.5 cm thick slices. You should get about 4-5 slices for an average sized pineapple. Cut into the rough shape of a fish fillet, pat dry with paper towel and set aside. Make a batter with about 100g self-raising flour, 2-3 tablespoons sugar, a pinch of salt, and enough water to make into a thick batter consistency (about 130mls). Set aside while you make the banana chips.
Slice bananas up into the shape of french fries (or wedges if you prefer), sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar, and bake in the over until golden and chip-like (at about 150°c).
Dip the pineapple fillets into the batter and deep fry in vegetable oil until golden. Serve with a berry coulis (frozen raspberries cooked in a pan with sugar until liquidy and then blended til smooth. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. Strain to remove seeds and then put back on the heat to reduce to a thick sauce-like consistency. For the mayonnaise, whisk an egg with sugar in a bain marie until just before boiling point. Stir constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking. Whisk in mascarpone until smooth. Allow to cool and refrigerate to thicken.
Serve: on squares of news paper, for the really authentic fish'n'chips look.
'Faux ice cream sundae'
Finely chop shallots and garlic, and heat in a pan til soft. Add minced beef, and a teaspoon or two of cocoa and paprika (for colour mainly but also for flavour, the cocoa worked surprisingly well) and cook until browned. Then add a tablespoon of tomato paste, quarter of a cup of red wine and half a cup of stock and allow to simmer until the liquid has reduce to a thick sauce.
Make mashed potatoes and divide into three equal batches, leaving one plain for the vanilla flavour. Boil a beetroot until cooked through, and blend in a food processor with a little oil and crème fraîche until smooth. Strain and add enough of the pink beetroot liquid to the mashed potatoes to colour it 'strawberry' but be careful not to make the mash too sloppy as it will not scoop well. For the mint-choc chip, steam, chop and blend a large handful of spinach, adding a little oil to help the blending process. Strain and colour the remaining batch of mash a light peppermint green colour. Toast some black sesame seeds and add to the mash for chocolate chips.
We made a basic gravy using a little marmite and worcestor sauce to get the rich dark colouring of chocolate sauce.
Serve: in classic sundae glasses if you can find any, but dessert bowls will do just fine. Place the bolognaise at the bottom, with a scoop of mash (you'll need to use the kind of scoop that has the metal arm that runs around the inside of the scoop, to help release the ice cream balls.
Bon appetit et bon courage!!!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Chocolate dipped orangette
A couple of weeks ago M and I were invited to dinner at the apartment of two new friends. He is a lovely bearded smiley man, and she a beautiful redheaded photographer. I love meeting new people (especially ones that give you a list of their favourite Paris eats on first meeting) and both being great storytellers and *gourmandes* it was like we were old friends from the beginning. Alix had been dreaming of country houses and Easter lamb and although mid week we were minus the country setting, the view onto the Sacre Coeur from their 6th floor apartment and a delicious roast gigot was the perfect way to spend an early spring evening.
I wanted to take them a gift, something more fun than just a bottle of wine. I had kept the rinds from the blood oranges I had used to make fresh juice a few days earlier and candied them in a sugar syrup with cardamom pods. They were delicious and quite beautiful just on their own with their ruby flecked skins, but I was not convinced that the flavour of the cardamom had really come through in the sugar syrup, so I decided to dip them in cardamom scented dark chocolate to give them that extra bit of magic I was looking for in an edible present. I figured they were a gift that would last a while if necessary, but as it turned out they were the perfect accompaniment to Alix's fruit salad dessert and after a couple of Olivier's poire digestifs (hiccup), somehow they miracously disappeared that night....
Just a sprinkle of about 1/4 of a teaspoon was enough to infuse the chocolate with a subtle almost eucalyptus flavour that wasn't too overpowering. You could play around with this though and add any spice you like to your melted chocolate: vanilla, cinnamon, or even a hint of chilli.
Chocolate dipped orangette
6 (blood) oranges
3 cups sugar
100g dark chocolate (the best you can afford)
6 cardamom seeds (removed from pods and ground to a powder) or 1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder
Squeeze oranges ~ drink immediately or keep juice aside for another recipe.
With a sharp knife remove the bitter white pith from the orange rinds and cut into thin strips ~ I prefer bite size orangette so I cut them small and shape them with diagonal ends.
Place the orange pieces in a covered pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Drain and repeat again, removing as soon as they have come to the boil. This process draws out the bitterness from the skin and will get rid of any nasty sprays from the orchard, if you're not buying organic.
Combine sugar with 2 cups of water and heat until the sugar crystals have dissolved.
Then throw in the orange peel and simmer gently until the peel is translucent – about 15-20 minutes.
Strain from sugar syrup and place on baking paper to dry. The sugar syrup keeps well in the fridge so don't throw it away. You may find that the sugar crystals solidify but these will dissolve when you heat it the next time you want to use it.
Melt chocolate and ground cardamom in a bain marie (a pot or heat proof bowl suspended over a bowl of boiling water on the heat) and dip the orangette pieces into the chocolate until they are half enveloped in a velvety chocolate robe ~ leaving half of the bright orange skin exposed. Leave to set on a baking sheet (they will set at room temperature but will do so much faster in a refrigerator).
Pop in a little plastic bag, tie with a ribbon and add a blossom flower, and you have a sweet little gift to take to the chef of your next dinner party.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Le bonheur de legumes! Carrot and Beetroot Cake
One of the true luxuries about living in Paris is the abundance of local food markets. Strange that it should be a luxury to have access to fresh farm produce in countires that are agriculturally abundant. Yet in so many cities we are at the mercy of the food politics of large chain supermarkets and the suppliers with which they chose to stock their shelves with.
In Paris, there is no comparison between the endless options of the outdoor food markets, and the fruit and vegetables that are left to languish under the piercing helegen lights of the supermarket produce section. When I lived in london farmers markets were almost prohibitively expensive and they only appeared once a week in my neighbourhood - so buying fresh market produce became a game for the fat walleted or the geographically adventurous. So I am endlessly happy that in my neighbourhood across the channel I have several fabulous markets right on my doorstep. My favourites are the marché de la Bastille which is one of the biggest in Paris, on Thursdays and Sundays and it's smaller incarnation marché Popincourt just up the road on boulevard Richard Lenoir on Tuesday's and Friday. *Plus* there is also the marché d'Aligre just south in the 12th arrondisement, open 7 days a week. Pretty spoiled huh?
But on Saturdays I have found the motivation to hop on the metro (or velib if the sun is shining!) across Paris to the 16th arrondisement to the marché Président Wilson. The reason: vegetable celebrity Joël Thiébault. Specialising in heirloom varieties of garden vegetables, he has amoungst his weekly spread at least 6 types of beetroots and a multitude of carrot varieties from a delicate pale yellow to my favourite ~ a deep red variety with a bright orange centre, hilariously called Purple Haze. The possibilities alone for culinary artistry on the plate had me buying a kilo of carrots and 3 varieties of beetroot - traditional deep red, red and white candy striped, and the buttery pale yellow. And to make it even better, his farm is less than 8km from Paris so this is truly local produce.
This is a great market to share with visitors to Paris. Along with the incredibly fresh ingredients and beautifully presented stalls, from fishmongers with bright-eyed catches, to gallic fleur de sel and caramel au beurre salé (salted caramel... I stop and drool everytime I pass this stall), it is also conveniently situated outside two museums - Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (both of which currently have great shows at the moment). If you go around lunchtime (closer to 12 than 1pm) the market is still lively and you can grab yourself a delicious traditional lebanese crèpe from one of the market stands when you're done and find a spot in the sunshine to eat it on the stairs that run down the side of Palais de Tokyo, looking onto the museum's vegetable garden art project. In the summertime especially, the terrace of Palais de Tokyo gives a fantastic view onto the Seine, Quai Branley (and the controversial archtitecture of it's namesake museum) and... what else but the Tour Eiffel.
It was a few weeks ago now that I lugged home, across town, my multicoloured bounty, and being less spring-like than it is now I was inspired to make a slightly savoury, homey kind of cake. Taking a basic carrot cake recipe from Stephanie Alexander I played around with the ingredients a little, adding beetroot for colour and its earthy sweetness, added some sultanas and dried cranberries I had in the cupboard, and substituted regular sugar for a mix of raw organic whole sugar that I was testing out from my local organic food shop, and golden syrup. I have never really been a fan of whole nuts in sweets things (yes, I do realise I am in a very small minority with that one) but if you're into that kind of thing adding walnuts or almonds would also be tasty. A cream cheese icing (so sadly!) turn out to be too sweet a contrast so instead I made an citrus sugar glaze, which created the perfect zingy complement to the earthy cake flavour.
With my left over beetroot I roasted whole beetroots burying them in a mountain of rock salt (or kosher salt) in the oven for about an hour, and threw them together to make a salad with steamed broccoli and crumbled feta, with a orange zest dressing. The beetroot were sweet and buttery and soft enought to eat with a spoon.
And for the rest of the week I brightened up my lunchtime vietnamese noodles with a sunshine palette of red yellow and orange julienned carrots. Almost too pretty to eat. But not really!
Carrot and Beetroot Cake with Orange Sugar Glaze
250g unsalted butter
190g raw whole sugar
1 tablespoon golden sugar
3 eggs (lightly whisked)
300g self-raising flour
zest and juice of 1 small orange
1 beetroot (grated)
2 red carrots (purple haze!)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup dried cranberries
For the orange glaze
Juice of 1 orange
Squeeze of lemon juice
4-5 tablespoons of icing sugar (this can be adjusted depending on how sweet and think you want your glaze)
Preheat oven to 180°c. Grease and line a baking tin. You can use a regular 21 inch round cake tin, or for something a little different you can use a loaf tin, slice it up and eat it like bread!
Combine butter and sugar in a pot and heat until sugar has dissolved into the melted butter. Allow to cool slightly (enough so that the mixture will not begin to cook the eggs) and add the lightly whisked eggs. Sift in flour in small amounts, mixing as you go, until it is all combined into a cakey mixture. Then add the rest of the ingredients and pour into the cake tin.
Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden skewer comes out clean and the top of the cake bounces back when pressed. At the end you may want to cover the tin with foil to prevent the top from burning (I forgot to do this with near disasterous results!)
Combine icing sugar, orange and lemon juice and pour over the cake when warm. I sprinkled the top with pralined almonds for a little crunch (a sprinkle of praline crunchiness doesn't really count as nuts in my book).
Perfect for a weekend afternoon snack!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Cook Bookmarks I
It's been quite a week. My morning coffee still hasn't quite done the trick, and it's only Thursday.
I have been working on catering a cocktail (as in a party, not the drink) for the launch of a new perfume and celebrating spring with a fête de la printemps at Galerie Vivienne with my friends at À Priori Thé. It was great fun testing flavours, making hundreds of cupcakes iced with hand piped buttercream spring flowers (so twee I know, but I love it!), and the late nights just didn't seem so bad working with such a fun team. I am just sorry I don't have any photos of all the beautiful and tasty treats we made. My favourite: edible flowers filled with piped avocado cream (the signature canapé of À Priori Thé). Delicious and one of the most beautiful edible creations I've ever seen.
Apparently the first official day of Spring isn't until Saturday, but it feels like it's arrived *early* in Paris. The warm blue skied days and the newly sprouting blossoms (well, I've only just noticed them...) have got all sorts of spring recipes whirling around my head. But I am going to give myself a day or two to recover. So in the meantime, here are some fun cook bookmarks from Paris and around the web that I've come across in the past weeks:
Arguably one of Paris' best food blogger, David Liebovitz defers to foodie friends for their favourite food spots in Paris. He's also keeping good company on the Times best 50 food bloggers list, and *new to me* is my new favourite food blogger who's got top spot on my reader, Matt Bites. Totally adorable he makes me want to squeeze his cheeks, run out and get tattooes, and make everything on his blog.
I might be against bottled water, but these are beautiful and the proceeds go to a good cause. You can check them out in Paris at Colette (along with Barbie's 50th anniversary party, and their notriously snotty waiting staff) til this Saturday, and after that at Maison Baccarat.
An interesting way to record a lunchtime obsession with Sandwiches. I wonder about the state on this guys scanner though...
Germany's answer to molecular gastronomy?
Not so egg-cellent: Another element to add to Hugh's Chicken Out! campaign perhaps?
Thinking eco, Sarkozy has a new look for Paris.
As for me, for the rest of the week you're most likely to find me *on~the~road~to~recovery* here, here, or here. Relaxing.
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