Everyday French Home Cooking

One of the things I’ve truly enjoyed doing here is cooking.  My son thoughtfully got me a book entitled “La Cuisine: Everyday French Home Cooking” with the idea that these would be things that could be made easily and would use ingredients I would find here.  It was a bit heavy to add to my suitcase but I am oh so glad that I did.

Being in the kitchen is especially pleasant because I have a very large window that actually opens.  I can open both sides wide and breathe fresh air as I cook. 

I go to the market,  the butcher and baker to get what I need.  So far I have not used a single thing from a can.  My sister asked me if this made it more expensive.  I’m not sure if fresh is more expensive than cans but I do know eating at home is cheaper than the restaurants.  And I do save money because I can purchase just what I need.  For example, when I’m making a veal chop I can buy just one. 

Results of 1st Shopping Trip -- 3 Stops

The picture above shows one of my early meals.  A tomato and avocado salad made with homemade mayonaise.  I’d never made mayonaise from scratch before but I did her.  I’m not sure I won’t use bottled when I get home.  The meat is a veal chop.  Every meal includes fresh bread from the baker. That is a story in itself.  This meal includes Sancerre wine and some delightful cookies from another baker’s.  Yes we do have two – we actually have four. 

I’m also very pleased with Omelet Parmentier.  As you may recall, I had one in Paris and questioned why a potato omelet was called Parmentier.  A blog reader, Charlotte Berry, provided the answer.  She said “Antoine-August Parmentier, 1737 - 1813, was a French agriculturalist who did more than anyone else to popularize potatoes in Europe.  We had them first here in the America's, but during his lifetime potatoes became wildly popular over on your side of the pond.”

In any case, one of the first things I tried was an omelet parmentier.  It turned out great and I’ve had it several times since for breakfast or lunch.  I get the small potatoes from the market and when any are left over, I have an omelet for lunch or dinner. (The school is closer to my apartment that during the week I have lunch at home almost every day.

Probably my biggest challenge was making a Fromage Blanc & Walnut Tart.  Not because it was hard to make, but I stuggled a bit to get the ingredients and tools I needed.  It started when I saw recipes in the cookbook using fromage blanc.  I had no idea what it was and didn’t immediately see it here in Sancerre.  So when I got a ride to the supermarket, I thought I’d get some.  I had no idea what it was and no one else seemed to know either. I was looking with the cheeses and one of my fellow students suggested that maybe it was just white cheese and any white cheese would do.  However, I continued searching  ultimately found a container labeled fromage blanc.  I bought it.

When I got home, I found there weren’t as many recipes in the cookbook using fromage blanc as I thought.  The one that was most appealing to me was a walnut tart but none of the stores in Sancerre had walnuts.  (Clearly this was a timing thing as the butcher and the market had them the following week.)  A French friend came through with walnuts from her yard.  I wondered

 how I was going to get the nut meat out without a nut cracker or a nut pick.  I cracked them with the rolling pin. (The man in the upstairs apartment thought I was going a little crazy when he kept hearing pounding.)  Unlike English walnuts I was able to pull the meat out and break the shell with my fingers if I needed to.  No need to a nut pick.  These walnuts are also a little smaller than the English ones I usually use.  I didn’t notice a difference in taste.

The tart was good, but I still don’t know what fromage blanc really is.  It is the texture of sour cream but it doesn’t have the sour taste.  I was at a restaurant yesterday that had it as a dessert and I thought about seeing if they just serve as it comes from the container or if they do something to it before serving but the pull of rhubarb tart was too great.  I still have almost five weeks in France so maybe I learn about fromage blanc.

Back to the walnuts, there are walnut trees all round the city with loads of walnuts.  So for my second tart I just went to the road out of the city and picked walnuts I needed.  Okay, those of you from the country may think this is no big deal but for us city girls this is a new experience.  (The chestnuts are now falling so I’ll have to see if I can make something with them.)

In addition to being exposed to some great new recipes, I’ve also learned that you can cook just fine without all the fancy gadgets.  (Several of us even questoned whether we still knew how to open a wine bottle with a plain old corkscrew.  Guess what they still work.)  The apartment has the basics and thanks to the last renters I have a good knife for cutting.   Adjusting the measures for French ones and the oven tempatures was a bit challening until I discovered a conversion page in the back of the cookbook. 

One might argue I haven't learned much about French cooking since this is an American cookbook, but I would say it is French enough that rabbit is in the meat section, not the game section.