Home Creations

Winter in Paris is a great time for food as shops sell very flavorful meat. As a lover of meat, I'm first in line.

At home, the duck breast was seasoned, fried, fat side down until caramelization, then turned and 'arroser' from its own oil. The inside has to be rose-colored. 

Magret de Canard avec Salade de Saumon et Oeuf.

Fall is also a good season for mushrooms, so decided to try out this recipe. On the bottom is corn covered with an Espuma of mushrooms and topped with crayfish and spinach leaf.

This next dish is a duo of salmon and tuna grilled with a wasabi puree and oven-baked cherry tomatoes with a reduction of soya sauce and honey.

Freezing morning, warm evening

Monday tends to be pastry class and today in the morning, we had to make a Gâteau Moka (a cake made out of coffee with rhum and raisins as well). It was a pretty straightforward recipe but I was quite distracted by the freezing cold temperature from walking to school in the wee hours of the morning (around 4 degrees celsius) and the temperature of the pastry room (14 degrees celsius); unfortunately, the 10 degree leap did not help one bit! I made sure I stayed near the oven as much as I could, perhaps too much.

Making the sponge cake

Ready to bake

It was literally freezing, look at the butter!

Me and my little nook in the morning...

Once the cake was out and cooled down, we cut it in 3 parts...

The best part...added the coffee cream mixture with raisins on top

And cover the cake with butter cream...

And now piping...obviously chef was the master of piping but it was good fun practicing!

Add some chocolate chips, and voila!

We finished early so we also tried out some other tricks...making roses out of paste from 70% sugar and 30% almond paste

It was a good morning overall but too cold for me, I guess I'll have to wear more layers in class, in pastry that is, and not in cuisine!!!

Tonight, however was comfortable and warm at home and a nice home cooked meal with mom! Simple, Chinese,....just what I needed!

One of the dishes we made was stuffed Doufu pok (Fried tofu) stuffed with minced pork that has been marinated in soya sauce, shaoxin rice wine, salt, cornstarch and sugar.

Before cooking...

Our family recipe is to stir fry cabbage first then when it's cooked, to add the Doufu pok on the top and let the steam cook it...But in the restaurant, you tend to find just the Doufupok with pork in noodle soup.

OBVIOUSLY it was a pork filled night (haha) and made marinated pork knuckle that has been cooked in boiling water (like a fond - stock) then set aside to cool with ricewine and salt. Simple!

Another home favorite is typical chicken soup using a baby chicken...

A Meaty weekend

I realized that most of my posts (thought I know I've already done 4) have been about meat. I am an avid carnivore and could eat meat everyday if I had to (probably not the best thing in the world though). 
In any case, I decided to prepare another favorite of mine, which I've come to love during cold winters in London: Ox tail.
Ox tail is hard to find at the local grocer's but you can always count on Chinatown. I tend to make it in a stew with tomatoes, carrots, shallots and the occasional potato but since it's not entirely winter or even fall for that matter, in Paris, I decided to make braised Oxtail with carrots. The end result was surprisingly not bad, and definitely lighter than the original recipe with the stew. 
Basically, had about 3-4 ox tail bones that you sauté first in a pan and when the outer parts turn brown, you lower the fire, add salt, pepper and the carrots (which take very long to become soft) and any other vegetables you like (potatoes, zucchini, eggplant) and let it cook in low heat in its own fat until you have it as tender as you'd like. A good 2-3 hours ought to do the trick (I like it a bit chewy so that's my time limit).

Seasonal delights

As I finally moved into and settled properly in my apartment in Paris, I decided to stock up on as much groceries as I could.
The best part about going to local food markets is the local/seasonal produce that comes to be available; and in Paris it is one of the best..


I came upon a ton of mirabelles and after snacking on them yesterday, they are definitely my new favorite seasonal fruit. I've always known what mirabelles were but never tried one before. They're basically  plums, but are yellow/green and are the size of grapes. You can easily find them in jam, especially in France, but eaten fresh are even better and the price was a good bargain (2 Euros per kilo). No wonder all these people (mostly elderly) were surrounding the mirabelles. The problem was, though, how do you know if it's good? I learned from an 80-year old french man, that you have to pick the mirabelles one by one; those that exert pressure but are soft at the tip, and that indeed fresh ones were best between July and mid-September, usually from Lorraine. 


I better stock on these before they run out!

I was surprisingly full of energy yesterday (with jetlag in tow) that I strutted to Paris Chinatown (13ème arrondissement) and bought diced pork spare ribs. It's best if you ask the butcher to cut it in smaller halves and then at home all you have to do is cut it in smaller pieces if that's what you prefer. 

Pork spare ribs with rock candy

Now pork spare ribs can be found all year round, but I find them to be a great transition to the fall season before restaurants bring out rather gamey meat, when it's not too hot and not too cold. Even at the end of august, Paris is getting a little colder, with mornings and nights averaging around 11-12 degrees celsius. This recipe is fairly easy to make, with all the usual suspects: 3/4 cup marinated in rice wine, 1 cup sweet soya sauce and 1 cup of sugar for about an hour, frying the ribs in oil covering the pan (peanut, sunflower are best), keeping the marinade for later and frying them until they are crispy. The trick is to not cook them until the meat has hardened or else it tends to get too dry. Before serving just pour the left-over marinade for quick mix and...voilà!