Girl et Galette

2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 pound spicy sausage (I used merguez, a French sausage)
2 medium-large yellow or white onions, chopped
4-5 large carrots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-large zucchini, chopped in 1/2″ thick pieces (approx. the size of quarters)
1 pound dry lentils (I used green but brown is fine too)
2 cups water
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup red or white wine
1/2 teaspoon dry thyme
1 teaspoon fresh sage, julienned
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons vinegar (sherry, or red or white wine)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, with a little extra for garnish

Warm the olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add the whole sausages and cook until browned on each side, about 4 minutes per side depending on the thickness of the sausage. Once browned, remove the sausage from the pan, and set aside, covered. Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions and carrots to the sausage oil in the pan. Cook until the onion is beginning to become translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute.

Add all the remaining ingredients, with the exception of the vinegar and the parsley. Cover and bring to a boil, then remove the lid and reduce heat until the stew is at a simmer. After the stew has been simmering for about 10 minutes, add the zucchini. Leave the stew to simmer for a further 15-20 minute or until the lentils are tender.

Stir in the vinegar. Serve and top with the fresh parsley.

Bon appétit! 

We have a plethora of apples to get through. An obscene amount really. This is just the first of many apple recipes you will see posted here this fall.

Apple Brownies

100 grams (3.5 ounces) chocolate, roughly chopped (I used milk chocolate as that’s what we had on hand. Dark or bittersweet are fine too!)
55 grams (1/2 a stick or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
85 grams (3/4 cup)  granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt
85 grams (2/3 cup) all-purpose flour
1 cup apples, sliced in thin wedges and steamed for about 30 minutes or until tender
1/2 cup apple sauce

Heat oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment or foil. Butter the parchment or foil or spray it with a nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium heatproof bowl over simmering water, melt chocolate and butter together stirring all the while. Once both butter and chocolate are melted remove from heat and stir until smooth and glossy. You can also do this in the microwave in 30-second bursts, stirring between each, but be very careful not to scorch the chocolate. Whisk in sugar, then the eggs one at a time, then the applesauce, vanilla and salt. Fold in the apple slices. Stir in flour with a spoon or  spatula and pour batter into prepared pan, spreading until even. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out chocolate free.

Let cool and cut into desired size.

Bon appétit!

The smell of tomato plants is one of my favorite aromas in the world,  it’s not the aroma of the actual tomato that captivates me so, but the vibrant, husky green smell of the leaves. To me that perfume is like summer incarnate. It reminds me of running around my mom’s sunny California veggie patch as a little girl,  summertime picnics and the fledgling tomato plants I grew on the windowsill of my tiny apartment in Rennes.

I never thought it was possible to instill food with that smell, with that taste. But a few years ago I had a tomato leaf risotto at some fancy restaurant in San Francisco. I don’t even remember which restaurant it was, but that dish has stuck with me since; it was like my imagination come to life.

I’m a strong believer that with every bad situation in life there comes a silver lining; my remake of that Tomato Leaf Risotto was the silver lining that came from a recent gardening disaster. The garden scenario was too little too late this year. I got around to clearing away masses of weeds and planting about 2 months later than I should have. That coupled with the cold spring and excessive rain throughout summer resulted in rows of tomatoes plants that never bore fruit.  At least I made good use of the leaves…

Tomato Leaf Risotto

Approximately 1.1 litres (2 pints or 4 cups) stock (I used chicken but vegetable would also be nice)
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
400 (14 ounces) arborio (risotto) rice
2 wine glasses of dry white vermouth or dry white wine (I’ve also subbed apple cider in a pinch)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
2 hefty handfuls of tomato leaves, julienned

In a saucepan, bring the stock to a boil. Once a boil has been reached, turn off the heat but leave the stock on the stove. In a separate pan, heat the olive oil and butter over low heat. Once oils are warmed, add the onions and garlic, cooking very gently for about 15 minutes without browning the onions at all. When the vegetables have softened, add the rice and turn up the heat to medium.

Stir the rice constantly to prevent it from burning. After a few minutes it will look slightly translucent. Add the alcohol, stirring all the while. Once the alcohol has cooked into the rice, add your first ladle of hot stock and a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Turn down the heat to a simmer so the rice doesn’t cook too quickly. The more slowly the rice cooks the better the texture will be. Stirring throughout the cooking process ensures fluffy, evenly cooked rice. Keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring, stirring, stirring, allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. This will take around 20 – 30 minutes. Taste the rice as you go along to ensure that you aren’t over salting. You know you are finished when the rice is soft but has slight chewy bite. Dont’ worry if you haven’t used all of the stock. Conversely, If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, add some boiling water.

Gently fold the most of the tomato leaves into the risotto, saving some for serving. Top each bowl with fresh tomatoes and a sprinkle of tomato leaves.

Bon appétit! 

Like every other aspect of life, cuisine is subject to trends. One of the latest baking crazes is brown butter. All over the food porn websites I frequent I’m seeing brown butter this and brown butter that. Everyone praises brown butter for being even more rich and sultry that its plain yellow cousin. Well, I thought, I just happen to live in the region that makes the best butter in the world (if you don’t believe me you’ve clearly never tried Breton butter with sea salt…) so if brown butter is even better than regular butter, and I have access to the best butter in the world, well you can see where I’m going…

While searching for a recipe to try this illusive brown butter in, I came across Brown Butter Toffee Blondies by Martha Stewart. I am generally not a fan of blondies…Normally when I eat a blondie I’m thinking “where’s the chocolate?” But I thought a blondie would be a nice simple palette on which to showcase the brown butter. I must admit, I was right. And as I didn’t have toffee and it’s hazelnut season here, I thought some roasted hazelnuts were in order to compliment the brown butter instead of the toffee, though I’m sure that’s delicious as well.

Brown Butter Blondies with Roasted Hazelnuts

Adapted from Martha Stewart

285 grams (1 1/4 cups or 2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for pan
250 grams flour (2 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
550 grams (2 cups) sugar (Martha uses brown sugar as well but I don’t have access to it in France)
3 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup roast hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with parchment paper.

In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the butter about 5 minutes or until it turns golden brown; remove from heat, and let cool. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In another bowl, combine browned butter and sugar; whisk until smooth. Add eggs and stir until thoroughly combined, beating until the mixtures is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add vanilla, and beat to combine. Add flour mixture, and hazelnuts. Mix until thoroughly combined, and pour into prepared pan.

Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes (do not overbake). Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before turning out of pan onto a cutting board. Peel off parchment paper; cut blondies into 3-inch squares or into shapes with 1 1/2- to 2-inch cookie cutters.

Bon appétit! 

Our cupboards are sparse as we’ve been sick, running around after new sheep and dealing with our extremely anxious dog who had surgery last week and is not at all happy with the plastic cone around his head. Needless to say, we haven’t made it the shops lately. So instead of making soup from stones, I made it from a heap of onions. As we’re still feeling sick, I ended up making a much lighter onion soup than the traditional French Onion Soup.

Onion Soup with Heaps of Sage

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
A large handful fresh sage leaves, with 8 leaves reserved for serving
6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
8 onions, peeled and sliced (use white, yellow or red onions or a mixture of the 3 if you have them all on hand)
3 shallots, peeled and sliced
3 leeks, trimmed, washed and sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 cups beef, chicken or vegetable stock

Put the butter, olive oil, sage and garlic into a heavy bottomed pan over low heat. Stir everything together and then add the onions, shallots and leeks. Season generously with salt and pepper, but remember the saltiness will intensify during the cooking process. Place a lid on the pan, leaving it slightly ajar, and cook for 50 minutes, making sure the onions are not browning much or sticking at all. Remove the lid for the last 20 minutes, allowing the onions to become golden and velvety. Don’t skimp on the cooking time; it’s the slow cooking that develops the amazing flavor!

When your onions and leeks are soft and silky, add the stock. Bring to the boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve with 2 or 3 fresh sage leaves a top.

 But you can’t take American style chocolate chip cookies away from her. Despite the many obstacles that prohibit making a true American style chocolate chip cookie here in France, I’ve managed to come up with a pretty tasty recipe (if I do say so myself). The obstacles being that it’s difficult to find many of the key ingredients such as brown sugar, vanilla extract and chocolate chips. You can make your own brown sugar with molasses and regular white sugar, but I hardly ever have molasses on hand as that is not the easiest thing to find here, nor the cheapest. And to be honest, the molasses here tastes weird to me. While they have vanilla flavor here which can be found in the baking section of most grocery stores, it is a freaky concoction of vanilla caramel syrup with sugar added, and is far too sweet.  They also have vanilla sugar, which are little packets of vanilla flavored sugar, but that never seems strong enough and the flavor always seems to just disappear. The pépites de chocolat or chocolate chips which are available in the supermarkets are terrible quality and freakishly small in size. In spite of it all, I have prevailed! Voici, my recette for Chocolate Chip Cookies in France…

Chocolate Chip Cookies in France

200 grams butter
150 grams sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons honey
325 grams all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon sea salt (don’t add if using salted butter)
1 teaspoon baking soda
200 grams chocolate, broken into 1 inch chunks (it’s okay if they are not perfectly symmetrical – this adds rustic character!)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (375 degrees Fahrenheit). In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until they are well incorporated. Mix in the honey. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (not including chocolate). Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Mix in the chocolate chunks. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are a nice golden brown. Let cool (or else your burn your tongue like I do constantly in my impatience) and enjoy, preferably with some vanilla ice cream or a glass of organic milk!

Bon appétit!