edible flowers – Myfrenchkitchen

I adore a ceviche in summer. Its cool and fresh and tangy. Its easy and quick and without fuss. An none dancing around a hot stove or oven. And everybody loves it. There are so many variations, play around with fresh, fresh fish and ingredients and create your own ceviche, according to your likes. You need fresh fish and fresh herbs and limes and the rest is up to you.

Recipe:

olive oil
2 large spring onions with medium bulb
2 cloves of garlic, cleaned
fresh ginger, cleaned
250g sea bream or other delicate white fish
3 green limes
1 lemon
Grated rind of one lime
4 TBSP of cold fish stock
fresh coriander leaves
Half green chilli pepper, seeds removed
1 mango, sliced into cubes
Small cucumber, sliced into cubes
1 red onion, halved and sliced.
Small edible flowers (optional)

Leche de tigre: Roughly cut the spring onion whites, the garlic, the chilli pepper and the cleaned ginger and add to an electric mixer.
Add the juice of the limes and lemon, the cold fish stock and the grated rind of the lime to the mixture.
Mix it all together until a smooth liquid. Add about 2 TBSP of olive oil.
Clean and dry the fish filets, cut into thin slices and add to a large porcelain bowl.
Pour the leche de tigre over the fish to cover and marinate the fish in the fridge for about 30 minutes to and hour.
Add the cubed mango and cucumber to the fish mixture.
Divide the mixed ceviche between 4 plates.
Spoon over the rest of the marinade(leche de tigre).
Add some sliced green of the spring onion, some chilli pepper rounds without the seeds and some sliced red onion. Drizzle with olive oil.
Lastly, decorate with fresh coriander leaves and one or two small, colourful edible flowers.
Serve cold.

Serves four as a starter

Pinch of salt:

Use very fresh fish and keep cold.
Leche de tigre – tigers milk…. lime juice, fresh herbs and some fish stock.
Skip the fruit and use only the cucumber or use another fruit of your choice.
The leche de tigre, or marinade cooks the raw fish.
Enjoy

It happens to all of us: that day when the house is empty but the people hungry. If you have a baguette at hand(like all French homes do), some kind of fruit, like red berries(which you should have, because they are packed with health benefits!) and some ham somewhere( if you dig deep enough, I’m sure you’ll find a substitute!)…well, then you have a meal and a great one at that. Good enough for a snack or a lunch or a brunch or a light dinner.

I am not giving any formal recipe for this baguette aux fruits rouges, it is all up to you own imagination. see the pincée de fleur des sel for some guidelines..

Pincée de fleur de sel:

Use baguettes and cut in half so you have a solid “base” which helps prevent the bread from going soggy.
I used a cheese with walnuts as a spread , added the red berries of my choice, drizzled with olive oil maple syrup and a little lemon juice, topped with thin slices of parma ham and grilled quickly in the oven for a minute or two. Serve warm with extra chopped walnuts and maple syrup.
Serve with a green salad if preferred.

blueberries, black currants, red gooseberreis, raspberries, blackberries

..a sign for every shop..

I am sure you marvel at all the interesting sign shops wherever you go. Well, me too! The most exciting ones to the most boring ones. sometimes a boring one will actually push me to enter, just to have me praise my perception of the shop being as uninteresting as its sign. Or maybe to prove myself wrong and that I might just find some treasure…

Whichever way, a sign outside a shop lures us inside. And yes, there has surely also been the disappointment in a store’s interior with a charming sign flirting outside. Still, we enter a store with expectation after looking up and seeing its sign…

Some are brightly colored, tongue in cheek, funny… will they invite you in?

Some are not very indicative of what its store is all about, but that could be good tactics…

Some are regional and they have to really be original to stand out..

Some plays on our desire to remember the past…

Some very elegant …

And those with a personal name has you want to discover more…

then there are those you have no clue what might await inside but you love what the name represents…

And there are those for special customers…

And some are so often hidden in lovely greenery, it comes with the profession…

Proof goes to show…hidden in the foliage…

Sometimes though, high and clearly marked in old script..!

And then there are the handmade ones to suit every occasion…(so by the way, this was mine many years ago with an exhibition in my gallery at home)

Mine again…in the atelier…just to distinguish between the art studio and the “pretty”art exhibition!

Originality abounds!

In the wine area a multitude of signs direct you to the multiple domains and cellars and wine shops. This is the grande grappe de raisin just opposite from where we lived and was always a beacon.

These following ones were all in close proximity when we lived in Montlouis sur Loire.

Cave of course meaning in this case wine cellar….the bunch of grapes is there to make sure you don’t arrive with your climbing gear.

An oringal way of luting passers by to a wine cellar and regional products.

With this sign I had a personal affair….right behind it is a parking where I always went through to get into the main road. this sighn always blocked my view to check for oncoming traffic, so I had to get out and move it back as you see it standing now, got back into my car, checked my left and rights and into the traffic I went. Not quietly and patiently, but rather doorslamming and sighing and armslinging and a lot of ZUT, ZUT, ZUT! It happened every day for the whole time we lived there. It is just one of those things. Instead of going over to the cellar and fixing it, I just moved the thing each time with a French attitude. I miss it.