winter – Page 6 – 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

“Un rideau de flocons blancs ininterrompu miroitait sans cesse en descendant vers la terre; il effaçait les formes, poudrait les choses d’une mousse de glace; et l’on n’entendait plus, dans le grand silence de la ville calme et ensevelie sous l’hiver, que ce froissement vague, innommable et flottant de la neige qui tombe, plutôt sensation que bruit , entremêlement d’atomes légers qui semblaient emplir l’espace, couvrir le monde.” Guy de Maupassant, boule de suif.

“It was early autumn, then, before the snow began to fly. –(There’s an expression for you, born in the country, born from the imaginations of men and their feeling for the right word, the only word, to mirror clearly what they see! Those with few words must know how to use them.) Men who have seen it, who have watched it day by day outside their cabin window coming down from the sky, like the visible remorse of an aging year; who have watched it bead upon the ears of the horses they rode, muffle the sound of hoofs on the trail, lie upon spruce boughs and over grass – cover, as if forever, the landscape in which they moved, round off the mountains, blanket the ice in the rivers – for them the snow flies. The snow doesn’t fall. It may ride the wind. It may descend slowly, in utter quiet, from the grey and laden clouds, so that you can hear the flakes touching lightly on the wide white waste, as they come to rest at the end of their flight. Flight – that’s the word. They beat in the air like wings, as if reluctant ever to touch the ground. I have observed them coming down, on a very cold day, near its end when the sky above me was still blue, in flakes great and wide as the palm of my hand. They were like immense moths winging down in the twilight, making the silence about me visible.” – Howard O’Hagan Tay John

…Voilà coin Perdu in January! Quiet and silent behind its curtain of white…

..Our barn, where we are living until the house is finished..

..A view on the bench, where I dream and plan, except in winter. Then I dream and plan by the fire..

..Forgotten socks …

..and terracotta pots waiting to be cleaned..

..Two adorable faces, waiting for fresh hay..

..The Eiffle tower, a bit askew in the potager..

..Old barrel rims, waiting to become arches in the potager..

..The wine bottle rack, serving some different purpose every so often..

..The road to la toilette requires snow boots..

..”La toilette” in snow attire..

..Velouté de butternut..

Recipe:

Clean and chop and onion and fry in some olive oil.
Add some cleaned Butternut, cut into chunks.
Cover with vegetable or chicken stock until vegetables are completely covered. simmer until very tender.
Mix to a puree and put back on gentle heat.
Add coconut milk to the soup according to your preference.. Season and leave to simmer gently on low heat for about 10 minutes.
Add the juice of 1 orange, season with salt and pepper.
Serve warm with freshly grated nutmeg and crusty bread.

So, on this quiet, hushed snow note, I leave you..

à bientôt!

Ronelle