Jamie Oliver and some Seriously Good Grilled Zucchini Salad

I'm going to be honest and I say I was against Jamie Oliver at the start. It's like when the new girl shows up in school and she's popular and pretty and gets good grades AND plays sports, and on top of that she's nice and has an adorable British accent and everyone loves her. You just have to dislike her on principle. Until she wins you over with her perfect niceness too. Okay, this is not exactly like that. Jamie Oliver is not a girl. He's not new on the scene. And he didn't win me over with his niceness. But you get the idea.


For our wedding, one of the families I babysit for, gave us this book full of tantalizing recipes. Everything looked so good that at first it just served to aggravate my jealous dislike, so what changed my mind? Zucchini. Zucchini did it. Every fall, I scramble to find ways to use up zucchini, and while I've certainly found some good ones, like this Zucchini-Feta Tart or this Garam-Masala Salmon with Zucchini, anyone who can get me to actually ENJOY zucchini after the insane amounts of it my CSA foists on me in the fall, is definitely worth a second chance. Besides, I read my classics and I know that it's not good to hold on to prejudice forever. If Lizzy did, where would she and Mr. Darcy be? Not nearly as happy or as well-loved by generations of readers that's where. Not that I'm comparing Jamie Oliver to Mr. Darcy or anything. Oh dear, this is getting out of hand.

I guess what I'm saying is, this salad is delicious. Absolutely delicious. Worth it if you like zucchini. Worth it if you're totally sick of zucchini. Worth it if you want to be in vogue and also if you'd do anything to avoid such a fate. You can make this a bunch of different ways with different accompaniments. This is one version I made and loved.


3-4 zucchinis (depending on the size)
1/4-1/2 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small garlic clove
1 bunch mint
1 cup creamy goat cheese (I used Petit Billy)
sea salt, pepper

Slice the zucchini as thin as possible. Cook the slices on a hot grill or barbecue. (I don't have one so I do this in my oven on the boiler setting, but as a result they come out softer and less crunchy I think than Jamie intended. Still good though.) In the meantime, roughly chop the mint and set aside. Make up a sauce by squeezing the lemon to taste into the olive oil. Press the clove of garlic in a garlic press and add to sauce. When the zucchini starts to brown, serve onto plates. Put a dollop of goat cheese in the middle of each serving. Liberally, sprinkle with mint, and spoon the sauce over. Salt and pepper to taste and serve warm.

Playing House and Herb and Chocolate Cheese Balls

As children pretty much everyone plays house - or some version of it. In France, kids call it "playing Daddy and Mommy" (jouer au papa et à la maman), but it's the same idea: re-creating the domestic environment and trying out new roles or old roles with new names and new personalities. The funny thing is, as we get older, we may stop playing pretend but we still try on new roles and discard old ones as we go through different phases of life: student/adventurer/apprentice/first apartment/first serious relationship/mom/dad/mentor/etc. The list goes on and is different for each of us.


Still, I think our childhood fantasies come along with us. The excitement of little things, of shiny objects, of new toys. For me, that comes out in the kitchen. I was fluttering like a 5-year-old when I unwrapped my new fancy milk and sugar bowls and these romantic cognac glasses bought with the last of our wedding money (which went quite a bit further than it was supposed to because there was a sale when we went to first pick our gifts up and we got them all for a lot less than we thought, so we had money let over to spoil ourselves with both useful and pretty things).


And speaking of childhood delights, in my last post, I made Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham from this recipe book: Des recettes régressives pour gourmets notstalgiques (Regressive Recipes for Nostalgic Gourmets) and I've continued to experiment, with a culminating trial last week when we invited a friend over for an all-chocolate dinner! It started because I knew I wanted to make a chicken mole inspired recipe from the book and D. wanted to make a white chocolate mousse. It was clear that the theme was chocolate, but now how could I incorporate it into the appetizer?



I'd been wanting to try these herbed cheese ball appetizers and I thought, "why not try them with chocolate!" It was a resounding success.

For 24 balls

240g (about 8.5oz) cream cheese (The recipe calls for Kiri and that's what I used. In the US cream cheese would be perfect.)
24 raisins

Whatever toppings you want; I used:

chives
sesame seeds
curry powder
paprika
cumin
unsweetened cocoa

Form 24 balls of cheese around the 24 raisins. Roll in the toppings of your choice and serve!
Our favorite toppings were (in order) chives, cocoa, sesame, cumin. The curry powder and paprika were both a bit overpowering, but if you like strong/spicy tastes then you could give them a try. Next time I'd try more fresh herbs and sweet spices (ie coriander or garam masala).

Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham

Early in the week I was going through one of those sick-of-the-world crisis, you know, where you see the bad side of everything and the good hardly seems to balance it out, much less triumph. The weight of thousands of years of oppression seemed to be dragging me down and the black cloud of deep-rooted prejudice was obscuring my usual optimism. In the depths of the social justice doldrums, a sudden ray of light burst through and that ray of light said, "I want to make cookies!" All right, all right, it's no Book of Revelations but still... I tried to reason it away - I'm on a diet! - but it was a very insistent insight. "Fine, fine," I grumbled, "cookies."

And in midst of vigorously creaming together the butter and the sugar - the old-fashioned way, no machines - to the rhythm some of favorite cooking music, the black clouds started to slink away. By the time the smell of cookies was wafting through the apartment, I was full-out dancing in the living room and the world seemed brighter. I may not be able to eradicate prejudice or stupidity but, dammit, I can make cookies and that's gotta count for something.


Sometimes it's important to get back to basics: the recipes you've known all your life, the ones your mother made, the ones you discovered when you first started cooking, the ones that are too easy for "real chefs", or made with silly ingredients, the ones that make you feel good, that have too much butter and more than one kind of sugar, because maybe those are the recipes that change the world - or at least YOUR world - and that's about all you can hope to change anyway.

Long philosophical digressions aside, let's get to the recipe. It comes from a book the mom of one of the girls I babysit for gave to me called De recettes régressives pour gourmets notstalgiques (Regressive Recipes for Nostalgic Gourmets) - the only picture I found was of a later edition (above) but that's the idea. It revisits exactly the kind of foods I'm talking about - the fun foods you ate as a kid - and playfully adapts them for adult taste buds. I've already tried a couple of the recipes and have marked a bunch more. They're simple and sophisticated, like these Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham.

for 4 people

1kg (2.2 lbs) potatoes
20 leaves basil (optional)
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
8 slices Parma ham (or Bayonne, or other similar)
6-8 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Cook in salted boiling water for 15-20 minutes, until soft. Drain water, put potatoes back in the pot with the olive oil and mash (with a potato masher or fork). Mince all but 4 basil leaves (if using) and add to the puree along with the Parmesan cheese. Reheat the puree on low heat mixing in the ingredients.

Lay two slices of ham on each plate, ladle the puree on top and fold up the sides of the ham. Garnish with the left-over basil leaves and Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately and enjoy!

The BloggerAid Cookbook is here!

Very exciting news: The BloggerAid Cookbook is now available through the Create Space Estore (a branch of Amazon)!

La nouvelle : Le BloggerAid Cookbook est actuellement disponible sur Create Space (une branche d'Amazon).

Inside: a collection of international recipes submitted by food bloggers from around the world who want to make a difference by raising funds for the UN World Food Programme. It includes a recipe for Sausage and Peppers by yours truly!

Dedans : des recettes internationales, proposées par des bloggeurs du monde entier dans le but de combattre la faim en soutenant le World Food Programme de l'ONU.

How exactly we're helping: One hundred percent of the proceeds from the cookbook will benefit the WFP's School Meals, a program that nourishes school children in developing countries in an effort, not only to combat poverty and hunger, but also to promote education.

Comment cela va aider : cent pour cent des bénéfices seront donnés aux programme School Meals, qui nourrit des enfants à l'école dans les pays en dévelopement pour combattre la pauvreté et la faim, et pour encourager l'éducation.

To purchase: Click here, or on the cookbook cover to get to the estore!

Pour l'acheter : cliquer ici, ou sur l'image du livre en haut. Si je comprends bien, le livre est envoyé du Canada, mais la boutique en ligne peut l'expédier partout dans le monde !

View and Review : Divine, Heavenly Chocolate Recipes

The devoted bloggers over at BloggerAid...Changing the Face of Famine are always coming up with wonderful new initiatives, and recently they've launched the View and Review program, in which agreements were reached to partner cookbook publishers with BloggerAid and to offer members participation in book and product reviews. I, of course, immediatly signed up, very excited about the prospect of getting free cookbooks, testing new recipes and then telling you about it!



Then, when I finally got my first one, I got sick! So... while I meant to test at least 3 or 4 recipes before writing, I only got to test 2. I did however, read quite a few of the recipes AND drool over -- er, I mean, look at -- all the pictures. My other quick caveat is that Divine: Heavenly Chocolate Recipes, published by Absolute Press, is a recipe book that's supposed to accompany Divine chocolate (a fair-trade farmer-owned chocolate company "with a heart"), which unfortunately is not distributed in France. I did buy organic fair-trade chocolate products to test their recipes, but I'm sure they would've been better with the chocolate for which they were written!


Divine has a great introduction with the story of Divine chocolate, the meanings of the Adinkra symbols on their products, as well as helpful tips about working with chocolate. The cookbook is very well presented. The recipes are laid out in a way that is easy to read at a glance. You can quickly see if the recipe is a complicated or simple and whether or not it appeals to you. There are a wide ranges of recipes from cookies to brownies to cheesecakes to drinks and even a small savory section with a couple recipes that would be great for the holidays. Also all the oven temperatures are in Celcius, Fahrenheit and gas mark -- very useful for those of us straddling systems!

Considering that, I was surprised that author seems to assume that we all have every modern convenience. I would have liked to have seen alternative methods proposed for those without a food mixer or other amenities.


I tested both the Butterscotch Swirl Brownies and the Honey Chocolate Madeleines and both times had some trouble with the batter (again, possibly because I didn't have the right chocolate). When I tried to swirl the chocolate into the brownies, it mostly ended up mixing in in some places and staying on top in others, making the texture a little mushy once cooked. (Though still yummy of course.)


I didn't quite master the Honey Chocolate Madeleine batter either, which never became thick at the beginning, like it was supposed to, and the end result tasted good but had a texture more like cakey brownies than like madeleines.



Still, there are quite a few delicious-looking recipes still to try (White Chocolate Cookies Studded with Cranberries, Toasted Pecan Shortbreads, Lemon and Chocolate Tart...) and I know some guinea pigs who will be happy to test until I get the batter just right!

A big thank you to Absolute Press and View and Review for letting me test this cookbook!

Sunday hangover?

Après les croissants de dimanche dernier, vous pensez peut-être que je passe tous mes dimanches à ne rien faire, car j'ai fait la fête la veille. Et puis, pourquoi pas après tout... mais en fait, j'avais l'intention de poster une recette de muffins pomme-noix (ça sera pour la semaine prochaine, c'est sûr !) sauf qu'hier soir D. m'a fait cadeau d'une super soirée pour mon anniversaire, avec notamment un punch merveilleux (dont la recette est un secret que je ne peux pas dévoiler ici).


After last Sunday's croissants (let someone else do the baking) you all are going to think I spend my weekends partying and waking up bleary-eyed. And why not, after all? But the truth is I was intending to write to you about some yummy moist apple-walnut muffins today (next week - I promise!) but last night D. threw a party for my birthday, which was a few days ago, and made a delicious punch from a secret recipe that I can attest included rum - lots of it! A bunch of people came and they brought presents and wine and other goodies, including two wonderful food-related gifts:

Book about exotic ingredients, their properties and simple recipes in which to use them.

J'ai reçu plusieurs cadeaux très sympas dont ce beau livre de cuisine sur les ingrédients exotiques et comment les préparer.

Whipped cream maker!
Et un siphon crème et chantilly !

By the way, if anyone has any good Swiss chard or celery root recipes, I received both in my CSA basket this week and have no idea what I'm going to do with them! Hope you had a restful weekend.
Appel à recettes : si vous avez des idées pour utiliser de la racine de celeri ou des blettes, j'ai eu les deux dans mon panier bio et je suis perdue ! J'espère que vous avez passé un bon week-end.

Lamb Masala

En français ici.
Ok, I know what you're thinking: You're putting a lamb dish in your folder for cheap recipes?? Cheap compared to what? Caviar? Let me explain. One of the important things to do when you adore food but don't have a huge budget is to look at what's a on sale, particularly in bulk. With meat, one of the ways it becomes affordable is when it's past or almost past its sell-by date. Here's where you have to carefully inspect the piece you're buying to make sure it's still good, and you need to go shopping on a day when you'll have some time to cook because you can't let it sit around!

This was the case last week at the supermarket with lamb. There were pounds and pounds of lamb about to be thrown away because the sell-by date was yesterday and they were selling them for cheap. I love lamb. Sooooo... I bought a bunch and spent the afternoon making a big pot of lamb masala, froze some and ate some during the week.

This recipe is inspired by one of my favorite cookbooks, Mes recettes indiennes, written by a mother-daughter team (just like my adopters over at Equal Opportunity Kitchen!), in which traditional South-Indian recipes are adapted for occidental ingredients and schedules. Indian food can take some initial investment because there are a lot of spices to buy, but spices keep forever and you can use them to make lots of ordinary dishes taste amazing. I decided to invest in learning to cook Indian food when I realized I was spending all my money eating at Indian restaurants :-) Believe it or not, aside from the lamb, I had all the ingredients already on hand for this recipe!



Ingredients:

1 kg lamb (they use shoulder cut -- how do you say that in English?)
3 large onions
2 medium-sized tomatoes
1 small piece fresh ginger (about 1 inch long)
2 garlic cloves
2-3 potatoes
5 Tbsp dried, grated coconut
3 cardamom pods
a pinch cinnamon
5 cloves (or 1/2 tsp ground clove)
a pinch cumin
a pinch black pepper
a pinch turmeric
10 curry leaves (optional)
1 1-inch piece fresh hot pepper
a pinch cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbsp masala powder
2 Tbsp ghee (or butter)
2 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt

Now, these girls do lots of prep. They peel and cut everything at once so all they have to do is add it to the pot. I'm not always so organized, but I'll write it down that way and you can do as you please. The only thing I never prep first is the potatoes because then they just sit there all peeled and naked, while the rest of the dish cooks... scandalous!

Cut the lamb into bite-sized pieces. Peel the onions, putting aside the first layer of each one. Slice the rest of the onions and set aside. Cut the tomatoes into large chunks. Peel and chop the ginger (alternatively, if someone you know is not big on ginger, you can leave it whole for flavor and take it out to serve). Peel the garlic cloves and cut in half.


To prepare the coconut sauce, heat the olive oil in a pan. Add one of the reserved onion layers, thinly sliced, and the coconut. Cook on medium heat for 8 minutes (the coconut will start to brown) and add the cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, pepper and curry leaves. Cook, stirring, another minutes or two and remove from heat. Let cool while you're cooking the rest. Once cool, add 1/2 cup water and mix well.

In a large pot, put in the lamb, onion, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, turmeric, fresh hot pepper, and pinch of cayenne. Salt and add the lemon juice. Add 1 1/2 - 2 cups water (enough to just barely cover the meat and veggies) and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer 25-30 minutes.

Peel, chop and add the potatoes, masala powder, and coconut sauce. Let simmer another 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes are tender. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

For the garnish, heat the ghee/butter in a small pan. Brown the 2 reserved onion layers, thinly sliced. Either mix into the curry, or (as I prefer) use to garnish.

Ok, this is a long entry, but I can't let you go without saying how happy I am because my wonderful mentors, Psychgrad and Giz, over at Equal Opportunity Kitchen, have given me an award:


Yay yay yay! There don't appear to be specific rules for accepting this award, but I would like to send it along to two cooking blogs that I really appreciate.

One old favorite:
First to Camille over at croquecamille, my fellow Paris blogger, pastry chef extraordinaire, and (along with her husband Nick), cook of the best mexican food in the area :-) Her blog talks about living and working in Paris and cooking with the ingredients found here. If you haven't visited her blog, you definitely should.

And one new favorite:
Lately I discovered this relatively recent blog, Apples and Butter, and I've been thoroughly enjoying every entry so far. The concept is to balance apples (the healthy) and butter (the rich) and so far the recipes seem to do just that with a nice dose of delicious. Also I was thrilled to see that Apples and Butter has been adopted by Kristen herself over at Dine and Dish, so I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it!

Also, I would like to send off this award to one non-cooking blog that's very close to my heart, a French literary blog to be exact (although you will find some material in a rubric in English), Le blog littéraire de Delphine Kilhoffer. D.K. talks about life as a writer/proofreader in Paris, about books, about words, and lots of other interesting topics. This site definitely merits the title "Brilliante Weblog".

Nouvelles recettes à venir / exciting new cookbooks!

When I came across Simply British online, a French cookbook with new and revisited British classics: Irish stew, roast beef and potatoes, crumble and scones for teatime, I knew I HAD to have it! Quand j'ai vu ce livre de recettes sur le web, Simply British, annonçant que la cuisine britannique avait "fait son come-back, un vrai rebirthing !", j'étais intriguée. Et quand j'ai lu : "Découvrez le fameux irish stew (agneau mijoté, pour ceux qui ne sont pas à la page), le kedgeree, le mash, les trifles et crumbles... hum... britannique, vous avez dit britannique ?" j'ai failli crier à haute voix, sans épargner les voisins, OUI!! J'AI DIT BRITANNIQUE!

And then, oh dear (!) I'm a sucker for Amazon's silly deals, and I thought, Simply British plus Sandwiches (another book by the same authors) for only 15 euros -- I mean, I LOVE sandwiches! Result : I have two new cookbooks I can't wait to start experimenting with. :-) Et, bon, ils sont forts chez Amazon car ils m'ont proposé Simply British avec Sandwiches, un livre des même auteures, pour 15 euros... et j'adore les sandwiches... et puis c'est presque l'été, non ? Pique-niques? Tout ça, non ?

Pour vous mettre l'eau à la bouche / Some teasers for your drooling pleasure: Soupe aux petits poids à la menthe (garnie de lardons), Pea soup with mint, cottage pie, trifle...

Envisagez les pique-niques... / Think picnic... : Fromage de chèvre, jambon cru et figues /Goat cheese, prosciutto and fresh figs; poulet à la mangue /chicken and mango; cheddar et chutney...

Joy of Cooking

Those who cook are probably already friends with, the Joy of Cooking, you know, large, weighs about 500 lbs (a lot when you have to bring it across the ocean in a little suitcase and the weight limit is 50 lbs), and is practically the bible when it comes to basics. Sometimes it pays even to look up the kind of things you thought you knew.


This morning, for example, I was looking for something to add to my lunch of leftover couscous, a tomato, and a slice of ham, and I was inspired by the French custom of often bringing hard-boiled eggs on a picnic. Ok, hard-boiled eggs aren't my favorite, but I had to do with what was in the fridge and could be easily packed. So, I thought to myself, "eating lunch at school in between classes is sort of like a picnic (only less fun and more rainy) so what the heck!" And I was inspired to look up hard-boiled eggs in the Joy of Cooking, just to see what it had to say.


Bring to a boil enough water to cover a single layer of eggs by 1 inch. Gently lower eggs (or egg in my case) into water. Return water to boil and immediately reduce heat to a simmer for 14 minutes. (This is what I did, although Joy also suggests 12 min for smaller eggs and 15 min for jumbo). Plunge eggs into cold water to stop from cooking further.

And let me tell you, it was the best hard-boiled egg I've ever had. Even the center stayed moist, though cooked through like it was supposed to be. Perfect with a little salt. Mmm-mmm.

So while we're at it, two for one, here's a recipe that Amy's aunt Louise taught me for the perfect soft-boiled egg:

Place egg(s) in a pot in a single layer and cover with cold water so egg(s) is(are) just completely covered. Bring water to a boil on high heat. As soon as water boils, remove pot from heat, cover
and start a timer for 3 minutes. After 3 min, run egg(s) under cold water to stop from cooking further. Break open top with a knife and eat or spoon out egg onto a piece of toast (I toast and butter toast during the 3 minutes and it usually works out pretty well).