Vegetables – Page 27 – Myfrenchkitchen

Topinambours counts under “the old vegetables/foods” which have been making a come back the last few years. Previously I made a Velouté de topinambour which is great. This time it is is cut into chunks, sprinkled with powdered espelette pepper and baked in the oven on a bed of fresh thyme.

Suggestions:

Sauté some apple chunks in butter, add a bit of cassonade(brown sugar) and fry until nicely caramelized. Mix gently with the baked topinambours and serve warm.
The piment d’espelette can be replaced by any other chili of your choice, either dry and in powder form, or finly chopped.
Cook the topinambours in water on the stovetop until almost tender and then add to an oven pan with the seasonings to caramelize. It shortens the baking time.
Serve the topinambours on a bed of salad greens or as an accompaniment to any meat.
By adding créme frâiche after baked in the oven, you can serve it with a pasta or add it to a saffron risotto.
Be sure to have it nicely tender or else it has a “burning” taste, much like raw potato.
It is a healthy alternative to potatoes, seeing that it has a lower glycemic index than potatoes.
Enjoy!

…topinambours…

Piment d’espelette is a variety of pepper, with a light “bite” that is produced in the Basque region of France. Because of its fragrant flavour and taste, it is frequently used instead of pepper. We also find a beautiful fleur de sel d’espelette, which is powdered espelette mixed with a good quality fleur de sel, which is what I used on my baked topinambours)

…piment d’espelette…

For Liandri’s birthday in beginning of Octobre, we had dinner le chateau de Beaulieu here in Tours. A nice quaint hotel with a menu gastronomique; we could choose between foie gras, turbot, pigeon, filet de boeuf, magret de canard, carré d’agneau… A small dinng room, a local wine list as well as some distant cousins, nice dessert, coffee and olde worlde ambiance. A charming place to stay and dine when you visit our area.

…chateau de beaulieu…

…Olde world memories for olde world foods…

We are leaving for Hawaii tomorrow for ten days. I’m looking forward to this break – I am really a bit tired and fatigued! Maybe summer was just too much fun!

I didn’t want to buy extra food for dinner tonight. The point is after all to clean the fridge when leaving. I had broccoli in the fridge. And it is cold and raining. And I still have to pack and clean up. So dinner was to be a broccoli soup. Or rather…a velouté. I always have a problem with broccoli soup. I can never get it to be tasty. It always tastes like over cooked broccoli. Awful.

…velouté de brocoli et fleur de sel à la vanille…

I sautéed two shalots in olive oil. Then added a big broccoli head with enough vegetable stock to cover the broccoli completely. I let it simmer until the broccoli stems were tender. Removed from the heat and with a hand blender, blended until smooth. I added some milk and a swirl of cream for thickness and mixed through, placed back on the heat and slowly brought back to boil and removed from the heat. I Seasoned with some vanilla salt(fleur de sel with scraped seeds from a vanilla seedpod) and a turn of the pepper mill. Still tasted bland. So I added a handful of chopped fresh tarragon, the grated skin of a lime, some lime juice to taste, and a drizzle of white balsamic vinegar. After mixing the soup again with the handmixer, I strained it through a fine sieve to get a velouté. Tasted again. Not too bad, but still not what I’m looking for in a broccoli velouté. I served it warm in bowls with a dollop of mayonnaise and a last sprinkling of the vanilla fleur de sel. The maynnaise adds a nice touch to the soup I thought.

I’d love to try a nice broccoli soup recipe, because I DO love broccoli! So, If you’re reading here and you have a nice broccoli soup recipe, please leave a link to your recipe in the comment section, so we can all delight in what’s good! If you don’t have a link, you can shortly describe your recipe in the comments.

I’m off packing now and will be back beginning of October. Until then: Try, Test and Taste…always!

…trying to get to Hawaii…