French bistro – Page 2 – Myfrenchkitchen

We have been cheated a bit out of spring and summer here in France this year, but we have had our week or two of beautiful, perfect hot weather! When looking back, it was all good, however short. I am lucky enough to have my birthday in summer and we had the most beautiful evening, spent around our bistro table with friends and family. It was special.

..birthday around a bistro table..

..and around the fire, every evening..

..the sound of running water, every day..

..fruit and fruit and fruit..

..alcohol free mojito, especially for me..

..always an apéro with our glass of wine, in this case stuffed cherry tomatoes with ricotta and herbs..

..tomatoes from the potager for dinner..

As far as automne goes..the leaves haven’t coloured yet and the days are still sunny and warm, with slight winds, clouds are rolling by fast in the blue skies and the waters of the streams are still, awaiting the first rainfalls.

But before I start sounding like Thursday’s weatherman..

Welcome back to Myfrenchkitchen! I’ve had a busy summer and September was spent doing only art every day, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I posted my art when I had time and if you are interested you can see some posts on Africantapestry. It was a great month for me , trying different methods and mediums, searching for new directions. I did a lot of plein air painting, just practiced techniques in the evenings, making terrible messes( on the canvas and my clothes!), but I enjoyed every minute!

..three houses, oil on linen..

“A big thank you to everybody who supported me and especially Monique, who was there with me EVERY day, in spite of her busy schedule. Your encouragement and support throughout the month…I can’t express how much that meant to me! Please drop in at La table de Nana and catch up on her beautiful posts of this past summer…just an inspiring place to visit!! When I am down, I visit Monique at La table de Nana..”

..young chicks..

..Gubi and the geese, Aglaé and Sidonie..

..Roquefort..

..Gaitchi, Gubi and her fillette Dumêla..

So. With these images of our sweet animals , I say goodbye! to summer and its fun and hi there! to fall and its splendour. Even on my Pinterest page, I have gone “autumn”, so inspired by the decorating for fall, the colour of the sunsets, the champignons, apples and acorns, the deep and atmospheric colour of nature just waiting to explode.

..spider webs on an early September morning..

à trés bientôt

Ronelle

Who doesn’t know les madeleines de Marcel Proust..? Those well-known shell shaped petits gateaux with their particular little hump on the one side and the ribbed shell opposite side.

Recipe translation:

90g butter and a little more for the pans
90g flour
75g sugar
10g honey
pinch of salt
2 eggs

*Melt the butter. In a bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and salt for 5 minutes. Add the flour. Stir in with a wooden spoon. Add the cooled off melted butter and the honey. Leave to rest in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Remove the dough from the fridge and leave at room temperature for 30 minutes. Melt the extra butter and brush the insides of madeleine pans. Fill the pans with the dough, about 1 tsp into each cavity. Bake for 10 minutes(5 minutes for the mini madeleines). Remove from the pans before completely cooled.

Extract from Proust, la cuisine retrouvé, Le Chêne, 1991. the recipe is created by Alain Senderens, who was inspired by the cooking of Proust.

Suggestions:

Add the lemon zest of 1/2 lemon
To get the nice hump on your madeleine, it is necessary to have the dough cool and the oven temperature high.
Bake the mini Madeleines only 5 minutes.
I prefer the real old fashioned metal pans. The ribbed shell effect is much more pronounced than when using the silicone pans.

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-My chickens produce small eggs with large egg yolks and I have to use 2 of them to replace 1 normal egg-

-Zest from a lemon to flavor les madeleines-

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Il etait une fois…La madeleine, histoires et recettes d’un produit d’exeption lorrain – Michel Caffier

(book to be found at Amazon.fr)

Marcel Proust said: (roughly translated from below) “One winter’s day, when I came home; my mother saw how cold I was and offered me a cup of tea. I didn’t usually drink tea and I refused, but then I changed my mind. she brought me some small cakes called madeleines which seemed to be molded in a scallop shell. Still overwhelmed by the sad day I had and the sad day that lay ahead , I mechanically brought a teaspoon of tea, in which I softened a piece of madeleine, to my lips. At that moment, when it touched my palate, I trembled, suddenly very aware of something extraordinary happening to me. I was overcome with a deilcious pleasure; isolated, without notion of its cause..I ceased feeling mediocre, ordinary, mortal. Where could this powerful joy have come from? I sensed it had something to do with the tasting of this tea and cake.”

This wonderful little book is all about la madelene, how this delicious French petit gateau was born, how it got its name, how it is labelled;, sold at the stations by young maidens, the influence of St Jacques de Compostelle and it ends with the traditional recipe, which is the ones I used, and a list of additions to change the madeleine with some chocolate, hone, lemon and more.

Legend has it that one day, at the chateau de Commercy of Stanislas, in the middle of a beautiful meal, the maître d’hotel reported an incident to the prince: out of anger towards his chef, the assistant chef took out his anger on the serving of the dessert. It is unsure in which form this revenge was, but the fact was, that there was no dessert to be served. A maidservant, witnessing the distress of the maître d’hotel, offered him a solution.Tender petits gateaux, the way her grandmother made it. Necessity reigns and Madeleine Paulmier was given permission to present her little cakes for dessert. Of course it was a huge success and so la Madeleine was born.

A typical scene at the station of Commercy: young women selling madeleines to travelers. In a poem, Jacques Prévert recalls these little cakes so often bought by the soldiers of Verdun with their last trip. (postcard dated beginning XXth century).

At Commercy, the sign the bell ringer was created by the Colombe family, a line of bakers for over 150 years.From the 1780’s, Claude Colombe used the secret recipe of Madeleine Paulmier.