The Samovar

So, a while ago Edward the Bonobo suggested that I should spend less time on politics, and more time on food, so this entry is devoted to the delights of eating in Paris.

Let’s start with my local cake shop (well, local to where I work, not where I live), La Boulange cinquieme. After trying most of the pâtisseries near where I work, this one won out for me, for their fantastic tarte aux framboises. If you happen to find yourself in the latin quarter of Paris (the 5th arondissement), I can recommend a visit (although there’s somewhere else you should go too - more on that below). You’ll find it near the southern end of rue Gay-Lussac (but watch it, it’s not open at the weekend). Here are a couple of pics of some the large cakes I bought for my dad’s birthday party, although I’m afraid the picture quality is not very good because they were taken on my phone, first the tarte aux framboises (they do little individual ones too):

And the Opéra (a sort of chocolatey coffee wafery affair):

I bought four cakes from this shop for my dad’s party, including a clafoutis (a sort of baked custard and fruit tart) and a tarte aux noix (walnut and caramel tart). I was actually quite lucky to get them, because normally for the large tarts you need to order in advance (something I didn’t know at the time). It was quite fun going into the shop and saying “Bonsoir, je voudrai quelques tartes entiers, s’il vous plait“, “Oui Monsieur, lesquelles?“, “Er… les toutes“, “Les toutes?!”, “Oui, les toutes“, “Tres bien Monsieur“. It’s not often you get to go into a shop and buy up their whole stock of something. And I’ve had very friendly service there ever since then. (Please excuse my almost certainly wrong French above.)

The other cake shop you should visit if you are south of the river in Paris is Pierre Hermé about half way up rue Bonaparte north of the Jardin du Luxembourg. The French take their pastry very seriously, and this is reflected in the fact that Hermé was awarded the Legion d’honneur in 2007. I went for his most famous cake, the Ispahan. The photo below is from his website because my camera phone photo doesn’t do it justice. I had the small, individual version of this tart, which consists of a rose macaron like biscuit, with raspberries, lychee and a rose petal cream. Wow! If you love cake and you don’t mind the expense (it was about €6-7 for an individual portion), it’s definitely worth the trip.

While I was there, I also couldn’t resist getting one of the famous macarons (a tiny little sandwich of two almond meringues with various different fillings). His flavours are very unusual. Normally you get things like raspberry, chocolate, coffee and so forth. I went for his olive oil and vanilla macaron and I can tell you it was amazing. I shall be back to try some of the others, although I’m not sure about the foie gras and chocolate one.

Next stop, chocolate. A friend advised me about a chocolatier called Patrick Roger which he claimed was the best in France. So, while I was doing christmas shopping, I thought I’d pop in and get some presents there. He wasn’t wrong, eating chocolate from this place is a seriously different experience to eating chocolate from anywhere else I’ve been been. Or in the words of my mum after she’d eaten some - what is the point of eating ordinary chocolate ever again after something like that?

While I was there, I noticed that the shop sign had something which seemed rather boastful. It said Meilleur Ouvrier de France (best [chocolate] maker in France). Well, it turns out that this is an award given every three years to the best places in various categories (food ones are the ones I’m interested in, but they also do many other things). So now I’m on the lookout for more MOF shops (the MOF website is unfortunately totally hopeless and can’t be used to find out where they are). I found the MOF fromagerie at the north end of the rue Monge near where I work, and bought some cheese there, but to be honest I’m not a huge fan of smelly, mouldy French cheese so this wasn’t such a revelatory experience as the chocolate.

Last but not least, restaurants. I haven’t had such good luck in restaurants in Paris as I had hoped, so nowhere stands out particularly. If you want an excellent and inexpensive place in the 13th arondissement (where I live), I can highly recommend l’Ourcine on rue Broca. They do a set three course meal for €30, which was fantastic both times I went. If you want something a bit posher than that, but you don’t want to go to the sky high trois étoiles places, you might like Au Trou Gascon in the 12th arondissement (just north of the river to the east). I had the five course dîner Gourmand which is very good value at €50, and consisted of:

• Gambas, royale de foie gras, émulsion de chataîgnes (prawns, foie gras mousse, chestnuts)
• Noix de St Jacques, endives fondantes (scallops with endives)
• Filet de biche, semoule de brocoli, fumet cacao (fillet of venison, some sort of brocoli thing, smoked in cocoa?)
• Faisselle pastorale, miel citronné, huile d’olive et pignons (faisselle is a soft white cheese, here served with honey, olive oil and pine kernels)
• Glace chocolat noir « minute » servie devant vous, éclats de marron, meringue vanillée (very dark chocolate ice cream with chestnuts and vanilla meringue)

Other than the cheese, which as I’ve said I’m not a big fan of, it was all delicious. I wouldn’t have minded a more interesting pudding that chocolate ice cream and meringue, but it was a good one.

OK, that’s all for now. Expect a report if I get round to visiting somewhere like the restaurant Hélène Darroze (the only Michelin three star restaurant in Paris run by a female chef). The lunch menu seems just about possible for a special occasion, at €70.

Today I finally got round to visiting Paris’ chinatown. It has taken me an inexcusably long time given that it’s only about 10 minutes walk from me, but my excuse is I’ve been busy. Didn’t take any photos, but here’s one from france-for-visitors.com:

Anyway, the good news is that this means I can now very easily buy the somewhat difficult to find ingredients for making a good Thai curry (recipe below).  I’m coming to the conclusion that one of the best ways to buy prawns is raw and frozen, in large boxes from Chinese supermarkets (at a very low price). Whenever I’ve done this in the past, they’ve invariably been really good quality, and today was no exception. Frozen prawns have a bad reputation, but perhaps that’s based on prawns frozen after being cooked, or ones that have been frozen, defrosted at the supermarket and sold to you looking as if they were fresh?

The recipe

This is how I make it, any thoughts?

• Thai curry paste - you can make your own, but I never quite feel it’s worth the effort when there are quite decent ones available. I really should have a go some day though, it’s not that difficult. For the one I use, about 1 large teaspoon per person seems about right.
• Coconut milk, about 200 ml per person (half a tin).
• Garlic, chopped.
• Some vegetables. I used mini-aubergines (I find the Thai green aubergines a little bitter for my tastes) and red pepper.
• Some meat or fish (optional). I used prawns today. If using meat, chop it into bitesize pieces.
• Fish sauce, to taste.
• Lime leaves, finely chopped. These can be a killer to get hold of. Your best bet is in the frozen foods section of a Chinese supermarket. I used to live near a Thai supermarket that had them fresh, but apparently it’s no longer legal to import them unfrozen into the EU. I use about 2 leaves per person.
• Thai basil, ripped or roughly chopped. The name is a bit confusing, as what one shop calls Thai basil another may call holy basil and a third may call sweet basil. The one I mean has an aniseedy smell to it. About 10-20 leaves per person.
• Groundnut oil

Heat some groundnut oil in a wok or saucepan until the oil is hot but not smoking. Add the garlic and stir until it begins to colour. Put in the curry paste, and cook it, stirring, for a minute or two. Add the coconut milk and bring it to a boil. If you’re using meat or fish other than prawns (which only take a couple of minutes to cook), add them now. Add the fish sauce and a little water depending on how thick you want the sauce. It’s actually quite nice to put quite a lot of water in and turn the Thai curry into more of a soup, and eat it the Thai way (with a bowl of rice which you pick up with your spoon and dip into the soup). Add the vegetables and or prawns in an order which means they’ll be cooked by the time your rice is cooked. It only take about 6-7 minutes for chicken or about 2-3 minutes for prawns. Finally, a minute before the end, put in the lime leaves and basil.

Make sure not to attempt to eat with chopsticks (a common faux pas in Thai restaurants is to ask for chopsticks).

I made this tonight (sea bass with chanterelles, trompettes de mort and a brunoise of ratatouille). Fantastic. Also looks an interesting blog for a foodie who has just moved to Paris…

I asked for suggestions on courgette risotto a while ago, and tonight I finally got round to making it - delicious!

In the end, I stuck to the basic plan I already made, cut off the skins, put the flesh in the risotto early so that it partially dissolves, and cook the chopped skins separately. I cooked the skins until they were quite brown although I didn’t bother to get out my griddle pan in the end. I also toasted some pinenuts, and put in some chopped herbs (oregano and parsley) and a tiny squeeze of lemon. I served it with some homemade pesto.

I think there are a few things I would do differently if I was doing it again, so here is my recommended recipe (not quite how I did it):

Ingredients (for 2)

• 2 courgettes, skins taken off and roughly chopped, flesh finely chopped (I only roughly chopped it, and I think it would have been better done fine)
• Handful of pinenuts, toasted
• Herbs, chopped (some combination of parsley, oregano, marjoram, basil, mint probably)
• Lemon juice to taste (probably about 1/3 of a lemon’s worth)
• Pesto (optional, it was quite nice but fine without)
• Onion, risotto rice, parmesan, stock, wine, butter, oil, salt, pepper

Soften onions in olive oil, add risotto rice and toast for a minute or so. Pour in some wine or dry vermouth and boil until dry. Put in the finely chopped courgette flesh, some stock and half the herbs. Cook as a normal risotto.

Meanwhile, saute the courgette skins in butter on a high heat so they soften a bit (but not mushy) and brown. Add the lemon juice and herbs to this. Toast the pinenuts.

When the risotto is ready, stir in the pinenuts, parmesan, butter, salt and pepper and test for seasoning. Finally, lightly fold in the skins, herbs and lemon mixture.

Serve with the pesto on the side.

So I have this idea in mind that I want to make courgette risotto but I’ve not done it before and most of the recipes I’ve looked at don’t look that inspiring. I feel with courgettes you need to do something with them rather than just stick ‘em in and hope it tastes nice.  Any thoughts?

Some of the ideas I’ve had so far:

• Two ways of cooking them: slice off the skins and roughly chop them, and do the same with the insides. Cook the insides along with the rest of the risotto so they dissolve into the risotto. Meanwhile, saute the chopped skins on a high heat  for a short time so they retain some texture and stir into the risotto right at the end.
• Herbs: I think the BBC recipe I looked at a few days ago had the right idea - lots of herbs. I was thinking about basil, parsley, maybe oregano, maybe mint.
• Pesto: Never tried the combination of pesto and courgette but apparently it’s fantastic. I was thinking perhaps a small amount at the side rather than stirring it in.
• Pine nuts: Thinking about pesto, the idea of toasting some pine nuts and stirring them into the risotto seemed a good one for taste and texture. What about other nuts?
• Third way: a Raymond Blanc recipe I was looking at had courgette ribbons - very thin slices of courgette, marinated in oil, salt, pepper and (I think) lemon; then cooked for a very short time on a high heat, covered. They sound nice and could be used in various ways in a courgette risotto - perhaps as a base, on the side, or even stirred in.

There’s also another question - what would courgette risotto go with? I usually have risotto on its own, but perhaps in this case it would be nicer made in a smaller quantity with some sort of meaty or birdy thing.

While I’m here - any thoughts on aubergine risotto? Apparently it’s very good - also never tried it.

Not a film by Ingmar Bergman, but a discovery in the garden:

Yum! I win.

Mostly just an excuse for writing down my pesto recipe (below).

Last night I cooked tagliatelle with pesto, peeled asparagus, broad beans and fresh peas, with a decoration of tomato concasse (the final e should have an acute accent, it’s just raw tomatoes peeled, seeded and finely chopped). Damn good - I recommend it. The freshness of the uncooked tomato balances the rich cheesiness of the pesto.

Pesto (for 2)

•  80g basil leaves, removed from the stalks and carefully washed and squeezed dry
• 1-3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 2-3 tbsp pine nuts
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 40-80g pecorino or parmesan, or a mixture of the two (use sardo, a Sardinian ewe’s milk cheese for maximal authenticity), grated
• Salt and pepper

Blend the basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, salt and pepper to a rough puree. Stir in the cheese. Add a few tbsp of the boiling pasta water just before draining and mixing them together to loosen it up a bit.

On my old blog, barbecues featured heavily, but so far this one has remained BBQ free. Sunny weather in London over the last few days means I can finally remedy that.

That’s scallops wrapped in pancetta flaming away there. It’s a delicious barbecue combination, but the large amount of fat in the pancetta dripping on to the charcoal and going on fire makes it a little bit dramatic.

Fillet steak! Not from meatsacks. Macro mode on my phone is pretty nifty too.

Not everything involved death to animals though. These tomatoes for example (which were dressed with - of course - single estate extra virgin olive oil and 10 year old balsamic vinegar) only contributed to world misery indirectly, being, as they were, flown in from Sardinia at the cost of the average global temperature. More eco-friendly British asparagus also featured:

But not stomach-friendly as you might be able to tell from the large yellowish rectangular object in the picture above.

Finally, we washed it down with my very own ultimate (in the sense of fatal) hot chocolate.

In a previous entry I posed an ethical question for vegetarians - would it be OK to eat meat if you could grow it without an animal? Well it turns out that people are already doing this. In fact, this man is already doing it:

At the moment, it’s not that appetising, here is a frog steak they made:

It is also, rather expensive:

The only problem was that no one was interested in eating his fish nuggets, perhaps because his tiny goldfish filets matured in something called fetal calf serum.

…

Matheny estimates that a kilogram of laboratory meat would cost about half a million dollars if it were grown in calf serum.

In order to make faux meat a reality, then, one of the first tasks is to develop an inexpensive ersatz nutrient solution from plants or mushrooms. Maitake mushrooms, for example, have already proved to be a possible alternative.

It also turns out that vegetarians have already been discussing the issue (both in favour of the idea, and against it).

Some other interesting links:

• From Innovation Watch
• The Guardian got in on the act (incidentally, it’s a nice case of nominative determinism that the Guardian’s science correspondent is called Ian Sample)

A thought strikes me - would it be OK to eat meat if it came from an ‘animal’ without a nervous system (central or otherwise)? This may seem a silly question to ask because all the animals whose meat we eat actually does have a nervous system, but what if our understanding of biochemistry were to improve to the point where we could - say - grow a steak without growing a cow? Or if we could knock out a combination of genes in an animal which produce its nervous system and get an animal to give birth to what is essentially just a meat sack? My feeling is that even a vegetarian would have to agree that the former is acceptable, although possibly not the latter.

The second question that follows on from this is: would it be OK to eat meat from an actual animal if it was possible to grow its meat without killing a whole animal? My feeling on this is that in this circumstance nobody could justify killing and eating animals.

So are we destined for a future of ethical meat eating?

Postscript: The other question this raises is: what about animals with a minimal nervous system like a snail say? How do vegetarians feel about eating these? A snail has about 20k neurons compared to about 100k for a fruit fly, 1m for a cockroach, 21m for a rat and 300bn for a human - according to this unsourced wikipedia entry. It seems to me that if you’re willing to swat a fly you should be willing to eat a snail.

Post-postscript: One other question raised is would it be ethical to eat human meat that had been grown in this way? Anyone for ethical cannibalism?