Lunch in Paris is a book by Elizabeth Bard, it's "A Love Story with Recipes". I bought a copy when we went to the book launch of Nearly Nonsense, Hoja stories, a book written by Rina Singh, a teacher at my children's school. I had made a character doll for this book and was invited along to Nicholas Hoare bookshop to attend. I love this book store, it had a great selection of books, in lovely surroundings, wood all around and books attractively displayed.
I have tried 3 recipes from here so far and they have all turned out great. Being the kind of cook that I am though, I make some adjustments to the recipes if I don't have the necessary ingredient or if I think it doesn't require as much sugar or salt!
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| Choquettes |
The second recipe was the Mamy Simone's Tabbouleh, using cous cous instead of the Bulgar wheat that is the norm. It called for pink grapefruit juice for the dressing, but as I had none, I used orange juice instead, it worked quite well. The mix of herbs were flat leave parsley and mint, but I threw in some cilantro (coriander) and spring onions too. It was delicious, a mix of cous cous, raisins, the finely chopped herbs, chopped tomatoes, cucumber and a dressing of orange juice, lemon juice and olive oil with salt and pepper to taste. I have no picture of it but it was colourful and appetising. Will see if I can find a similar image of it. I had made far too much though, it lasted us all week!
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| Tabbouleh |
Yesterday I tried making the yogurt cake or 'Gateau au Yaourt'. It calls for whole milk yogurt and tinned apricots. Here's the recipe from the book
Yogurt Cake
1 cup plain yogurt( whole milk yogurt)
1 cup sugar ( but I used less than this and it was ok, about 3/4 cup)
A larger pinch of sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 vegetable oil (I used canola)
2 large eggs
1 2/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
zest of 1 lemon
One 16 oz can apricots, drained and quartered
Preheat oven to 350F, lightly oil a 10 inch round cake pan and line with parchment paper.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, salt and vanilla, whisking until smooth. Add the oil in a steady stream, whisking to combine. Add the eggs one by one, whisking to incorporate after each addition.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda: add to the yogurt mixture, whisk lightly to combine. Stir in lemon zest.
Transfer batter to your cake pan, top with the apricots. Bake on the centre rack of the oven for 40-45 mins, until golden brown and slightly risen. A toothpick in the centre should come out clean.
Cool cake on a rack. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature. This cake actually gets moister with age, so it tastes great the next day. Simply cover the fully cooled cake with aluminium foil, an airtight container or plastic bag will make it soggy.
I dusted a bit of sifted icing sugar over the top just before serving, adding my little touch to an otherwise delicious cake.
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| Apricot Yoghurt cake |
There are several other recipes in this book I would like to try, I have not finished reading the book yet, am only on page 118, but the mackerel with white wine, the savoury cake with bacon, chervil and figs, the poached cod with wilted leeks and home made mayonnaise, lentils with white wine, herbs and tomatoes, braised beef with red wine and thyme, goat's cheese and figs, mini almond cakes with a raspberry button or Financiers aux Framboises ( sounds so much more sexy in French, I think) are all worth having a stab at.
I also baked some flapjacks yesterday, the only ingredient that is healthy in this are the oats, the butter, brown demerera sugar and golden syrup make this sinful but in the nicest way possible. Mitch and Dave cannot get enough of it. Jasmine's friend Jasmine who came round yesterday ate 4 squares! The only demerera sugar I could find here was moist and had smaller crystals then the demerera sugar I used to get in the UK. The recipe I use is from Mary Berry's Ultimate cake book
8 oz margarine ( I used butter!)
8 oz demerera sugar ( I used 6 oz)
2 tbsp golden syrup
10 oz oats ( I mxed this with a 1 oz of flaked almonds)
This recipe makes 24 squares
When I had melted the first 3 ingredients and added the oats, I found the mix to be too wet, not like before, so I added another 2/3 cup of oats to the mix. I wonder if this was because of the moist demerera sugar I had used. 2/3 cups is probably another 3-4 oz of oats, this was way out as far as the recipe was concerned. Luckily, it turned out fine after about 25 mins in a 160C oven. Mary says to bake for 35 mins, but I shorten baking times and adjust accordingly, as all ovens differ in their fierceness. The resulting flapjacks were perfect, Dave's description, in that it had just enough crisp but still soft and moist...hahaha, it's difficult to describe, but the buttery sweet heaven was well received.
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| It tasted better than it looked! |
Finally a pic of the spoils
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| What's left of the cake |
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| 6 squares remain |
Elizabeth writes about moving to Paris to live from New York and talks about Pixie Dust, that little something, from Tinkerbell in Peter Pan to help little girls fly. She was writing about a low point in her life, after having finished a Masters Degree in London, only to find herself without a job, and having to return to New York to her old job.... I know exactly how she feels, I too am in need of some Pixie dust........a bit of much needed help and magic.
