cooking – Page 25 – Myfrenchkitchen

It is now time for quince, pears, apples..all the lovely fruits of autumn with their heady fragrances when baked or panfried or poached. With added spices or without, they are wonderful as desserts and even better as accompaniment to venison and the heavier winter red meats. Serving it with a duck breast is something I love to do: Sauté the quince in a pan with butter and sugar, remove, add the juices of the panfried duck and reduce with some red wine, serve with the cooked duck slices and the quince on the side and a pain de campagne to sweep up the juices on the plate.. eh oui, we do love that! Doesn’t it sound delicious?

La recette:

Wash 2 large quinces and cut in quarters. Peel(optional) and remove the seeds. Cut each quarter again in half.
In a large pan, melt a large knob of butter and about 3/4 cup sugar and some lemon juice to taste. Add the quince and pan fry for about 10 minutes or until the quinces are tender and caramelized. Remove the quinces from the pan heat before they fall apart and keep aside.
Add 1/4-1/2 cup of red wine to the caramelized quince juice and reduce for about 5-10 minutes. Add the quince slices back to the wine sauce and keep warm until needed.
Serve as accompaniment with venison or duck breast or pan fried foie gras.

Pincée de fleur de sel:

Use apples or pear instead of quince.
Add spices like star aniseed, or a cinnamon stick or juniper berries..
Use honey of your preference instead of sugar.
These quince can also be baked in the oven at 180 degrees C until the quince are tender.
Serve as a dessert with a dollop of thick cream or créme fraîche.
Use the pan fried quince for tarte tatin or use and make a topping for a crumble.

Well, back from Paris; t’was a quick there and back, but that is how I have to do Paris now with all the animals waiting back here at Coin Perdu. Not that I complain because that is exactly the way I like it. Paris is wonderful, but after a week my head hurts. All is well when you don’t have parcels and bags and cameras and bottles of water and it isn’t raining and you have enough money to be taxied around. But a week of city life is more than enough – enough shoving and pushing on buses and le métro, slipping on wet métro stairs, struggling through narrow métro gateways with parcels and umbrellas, enough garlic odours on the métro from the stranger breathing in your neck and spitting his chatting into his portable above your head.

BUT…thankfully Paris is also filled with stories and a rich history and incredible beauty and there is always a good seat and (albeit expensive) coffee at the next corner. Great lunch meals at bistros, which is cheaper and sometimes better than dinners. Great places(squares) where you can eat your sandwich jambon and read your book(given it doesn’t rain). And of course, there is always le jardin du Luxembourg.

..le jardin du Luxembourg with the Eiffel tower in the background..

..Monsieur is out with his little sailboat..

*Did you know…?

total surface of le jardin du Luxembourg: about 23 hectares

ornamental lakes: 2 800 m²
lawns: 5 400 m²
Shrub beds 17 700 m²
flower beds 6 000 m²
interior perimeter: 2km
Trees forming lanes: 2 200
trees forming shade: 740
shrubs: 35 000

(source: Sénat.fr)

..the garden is still dressed in summer attire with géraniums in the pots and will soon be replaced by the habitual chrysanthémes..

..le jardin colours later in autumn with the gay Chrysanthémes..(images from November 2009)

..Luxembourg pigeons basking in the November light..

..le palais in November with its security guard an elegant backdrop to they sunny yellow chrysanthémes..

..les chaises ..- I have always been fascinated by the chairs in le jardin and I am keeping my eyes wide open to find some for my own garden..love them, don’t you?

..sketchbook exchange: my theme for the sketchbook exchange in 2008 was the chairs of le jardin du Luxembourg..see more here of our exchange Flying pictures

..la buvette des Marinonnettes..

..le Pavillon de la Fontaine..

..Don’t forget to look upwards every now and then..

..and for thirst and directions, always some help..

..after a morning spent walking, reading, watching people, watching school kiddies run relay around the fountain, witnessing a great game of tennis, drinking coffee at le Pavillon de la fontaine, doing some tai chi with other Parisiens, I said goodbye to le jardin and left by the gate of Medici..

*Read more about le jardin du Luxembourg: (they can all be translated)

..à la prochaine..

Ronelle

The regulars here on Myfrenchkitchen will by now know how much I love an apéro(apéritif), or amuse bouche, or the spanish tapas.. On weekends it is standard practice in our home to have a glass of wine before dinner with an apéro. I hope one day in heaven there will be some apéros awaiting me on weekends- that and good coffee-or else I will take my business elsewhere…

As all the regulars will alos know, is that everything on Myfrenchkitchen is simple, as these salmon amuses bouches clearly show. The only requisite is “l’envie”, the desire to make it and enjoy it.

La Recette:

Cut 140 g smoked salmon into thin strips, about 2cm wide. If possible, use wild salmon, which is much stronger in flavour. If you have your own gravlax that you made, all the better. Wash and cut green 1 large Granny Smith apple(unpeeled) into matchtsticks. Drizzle liberally with freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Wash a few branches of fresh dill.
Roll about 5 matchsticks of apple and a tiny branch of dill in a strip of salmon.
Arrange on a platter, sprinkle with freshly milled pepper and decorate with lemon slices, dill flowers and serve with cold white wine, rosé, sparkling wine or champagne.
One large Granny Smith apple and 140g smoked salmon (4 slices) make about 14 amuse bouche.Provide for 3 – 4 helpings per person if it is the only apéritif served.

Serves 3-4 people.

Pincée de fleur de sel:

Use fresh fennel or fresh chertvil instead of dill.
Add a dollop of sour cream or crème fraìche when rolling the salmon.
Serve with a bowl of mayonniase or crème fraîche as an accompanying dip.
Use other fruits in season and use smoked ham instead of salmon.

Since we are in the greens today…the hydrangeas are beautiful at the moment with nuances of green and salmon. Two Granny smith apples complete the picture in the barn.

..Green is one of the colours I love for setting tables outside. And blue. And red. And of course white. And ochre. Well, for that matter, all colours! I have a few things here at Coin Perdu which we often use for dining on the terrace in summer: rustic green rimmed glasses, old bottles, green fun plates, green banana lreaf bowls, green pottery bowls..

..Some small wild apples live in harmony with berries and egglantine rosehips..

..the birds don’t shy away from digging into the small wild apples..

..and neither do the horses..

..when going through my artwork in search of painted apples, I realized I have almost nothing. I had to rectify that immediately with a sketch. Green is a difficult colour. So many shades of it in nature. The challenge lies in creating your own green from yellows and blues with touches of reds and purples. That way you get much richer and interesting greens than the greens directly from the tube.