Food Geeks Like Us

I'm a french woman living currently in Korea. I am trying to journal about food in a personal and funky way. I have high respect for amateurism and curiosity. I love also music and colors. Enjoy!

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Makgeolli bread

"Where's home?" It can be simple to answer, as well as complex, depending on the person speaking. Personally, I have been an expatriate for a few years and my idea of home is first the place where I am. But it is also the place that saw me growing. I miss this place constantly, although I am aware that it's also the place I longed to leave while living there. Since there's no ideal place, since I deal with this "in between" place, what to do? I found a trick by asking instead : "How to bring a sense of home?" My answer is : "By making bread". And not just by baking bread, by bringing together a staple of each country, the country that saw me growing, France and the one that's been welcoming me for a while. Korea.

And here I am, proudly with my makgeolli bread. Easy to do and looking like a good french traditional bread.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp dry yeast

1/2 cup lukewarm water

3 tbsp of flour + about 500g of flour to be adjusted

1 1/2 tsp salt

about 300ml of makgeolli ( can be substituted with beer)

1 cup of walnuts, roughly chopped.

love (just joking) (not joking)

Preparation :

Prepare the sponge. In a mixing bowl, mix the yeast, the water and the 3 tbsp of flour. Mix roughly and put to wait for about 30 min.

Then, add the makgeolli and the rest of the flour, the walnuts, plus the salt. Mix a wooden spoon and finish kneading with your end. Add the flour progressively and adjust the quantity. The dough should be soft and stop sticking to your fingers.

Then, transfer the dough into another bowl, oiled or you can keep in the same bowl, cover with a kitchen cloth or some plastic wrap and let it rest for about 2 hours minimum. It will double in volume.

Punch the dough and knead for a couple of min to remove the air. Shape the dough into a log, thansfer on a baking tray covered with a cooking paper and let it rest about half an hour.

Put it to bake in an oven at about 200C/400F for about 35 minutes, with a little bowl (heat proof) containing water.

Admire your magnificient piece and let it cool before slicing it.

-Lise-Anne.

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Olive bread

I love baking bread. It's one of my favourite dishes to do at home. I guess everybody has a favoured dish to cook. Some like to do sweets, others prefer making savoury dishes, some feel uncomfortable using some tools and so on.

But personally, I love baking bread. I started baking bread often when I moved abroad and I think bread being a staple, it probably helped to create a sense of home.

I have tried different recipes, that were satisfying in many ways, but with my cheap, tiny, broken electric oven, I had to accept that I couldn't get "the" crust; a tough, crusty crust that only bread ovens can make...that's what I thought until I tried this recipe. At the end, I got a big, hearty loaf, with a sturdy crust. My heart melted. And it was Christmas.

Recipe from chefsimon.lemonde.fr

Ingredients :

for the poolish

100g of all purpose flour

10 cl of warm water (at about 25/30C)

10g fresh yeast or 1 tbsp dry yeast

a pinch of sugar

for the batter

500g of flour

10g salt

20 cl of water at 30C

5 cl of olive oil

150g of black olives, pit removed and roughly chopped.

1 tbsp of thyme

Preparation:

To make the poolish, put in a bowl the yeast, the sugar and the water. Add the flour, mix and put it to rest for 20 minutes, until the mix becomes foamy and it doubles in volume.

When the poolish is ready, add the rest of the lukewarm water and add the rest of the flour all in once, with the thyme and the olive oil. Mix with a spatula until all the ingredients are folded. 

Then add the chopped olives and knead the dough, folding on itself several times. The dough tears under the hand's pressure.

Let the dough rest until it rises in a oiled bowl, covered.

Preheat the oven at 240C.

When the dough has its volume doubled, punch the dough to degaze and shape into a loaf. Let it rise 1/3 of its volume.

Brush the top of the loaf with olive oil and put in the oven at 200C for about 35 minutes.

After, let it cool on a gril. 

-Lise-Anne.

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My first batch of homemade granola.

Do you have cereals in the morning? I don't. But from now on, I will. I've changed my mind because it is so tasty homemade. It all happened when I finally received my items from iHerb. I was waiting for the rolled oats because I was looking forward to use them for the first time. (Yeah, first times are always exciting ! ) And then, while baking the granola, I remembered a Kelloggs TV advertisement I watched when I was a kid, about the genesis of Kelloggs cereals; that time, Kelloggs used to bake rolled oats cakes but one day, on the way to deliver the cake, he fell off his bike and looking at the broken cake pieces, he had an epiphany and realised the possibility of enjoying the product in a different way...A hundred years later, in my kitchen, after the cake was done baking in the oven and cooling, I also had to break my granola in pieces, without falling from my bike this time. And then, in a plastic container, I added dried fruit. I chose, dried coconut, mango and cranberry.

Slightly adapted from Oh She Glows

Ingredients :

(dry ingredients)

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts

1/2 cup sesame seeds

1 cup pepitas

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

(wet ingredients)

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 small mashed banana ( about 2 1/2 tbsp)

1 tbsp agave syrup

4 tbsp brown rice syrup

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

(to finish)

dried fruits, total about 1 cup of anything you want, chopped if necessary.

Preparation :

Put all the wet ingredients in a saucepan and and bring it to a boil and stir it for 3-5 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, put all the dry ingredients and mix.

Pour the wet mixture over the dry mixture and stir well until all the dry elements are coated with the syrup.

On a baking tray covered with a baking sheet spread the granola.

Let the granola bake at 300F/150C for about 40-45 minutes and stir a couple of times during this time so everything is golden crisp at the end.

Let it cool and add the dried fruits.

P.S : You have to keep it in the fridge in a air-tight container.

-Lise-Anne.

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Food in Vietnam

Korean thanksgiving or Chuseok (추석) has been a great opportunity to get away for a few days, and comes always at a perfect timing. This year, Vietnam, hello ! It was the first time and I was not disappointed. I could realise Vietnam makes a noticeable effort to welcome the tourists because I felt treated fairly well and had fun. 

My point being the food, the food, the food, what's up with the vietnamese food? Well, it's a subtil combination of flavours, using lemongrass, salt, pepper, coriander, fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, etc. I was told in Hanoi, food is not spicy at all, but there are regional differences and more use of spices elsewhere in Vietnam.

I tried to get food in the streets where people were gathered on small plastic chairs on the pavement and avoided mostly the air-conditioned fancy restaurants. Locals were gathered there to get their pho, so it seemed to me it was the place to go. The food was excellent, so, since I am back, I really miss my fried spring-rolls...Let me illustrate with few pictures.

The daily food

Hanoi beer.

Spring rolls.

Various rolls .

Stir fried pho.

Egg and mushroom soup.

A very nice dessert : shaved ice covered with various jellies made with fruits, beans or corn, covered at the end with coconut milk.

See the stall with many bowls.

It's exactly the same bowl after mixing.

Fruits and mint smoothie. The mint is an amazing combination idea.

Dried/non-soup pho and spring rolls.

The cooking class

I enrolled for a cooking class. The session consisted of few hours spending shopping at the market then cooking. It was very fun. I recommended it. I am not usually fond of packaged tours but it was really the best way to get a touch of local life.

Shopping

Frogs.

After cycling a short ride to the market, we spent quite some time practicing our vietnamese using a wordsheet. We negociated the prices and triggered headaches. The highlight of my trip.

The cooking 

After being back to the restaurant, we started a chopping session.

Green papaya and banana flower salads.

Spring rolls.

White fish with galangal.

The result.

A do-it-yourself roll with the fish. I stuffed a piece of carrot in my nose. (Don't ask...)

Finally, dragon fruit on the left and a very spongy fruit I forgot the name on the right.

Hope it inspired you to try vietnamese food.

-Lise-Anne.

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A koreanized shortbread.

A while ago, I got a present. The present was a pouch containing a common korean food named misutgaru (미숫가루). It's basically a powder often consumed  as a drink, diluted in milk. It has a nutty taste, since it's made of various grains and nuts, including, black beans, peanuts, brown rice, black rice, barley and so on. I checked the composition and discovered there were even traces of apple, carrots, and sweet potatoes. So, healthy it is.

For a first use, I decided to fold it in a very simple recipe and shortbread came to my mind. Why a shortbread? Maybe because I watch a lot of british series these days? Who knows...

Ingredients :

1 cup butter at room temperature

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup misutgaru

1/2 cup rice flour

Preparation :

Cream the sugar and the butter.

Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl and fold in the butter.

Spread and flatten the dough all over a baking pan (mine was about 22 cm diameter and 2 cm thick), with a knife cut into the dough 8 equal pieces and prick the dough with a fork.

Bake at 150C for about 40-45 min.

-Lise-Anne.

If you are curious about korean drinks : http://travel.cnn.com/seoul/drink/20-best-korean-drinks-741087

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The fried chicken battle : Korea VS Japan

I have a passion for fried chicken, which is also one of the most popular dishes in Korea. After some search for a good recipe, I realised there are fried chicken recipes in korean and japanese repertoires. Comparing each country's fried chicken, is like comparing Ryu and Ken from Street Fighters, they have basically the same powers, but some caracteristics are a bit more stronger for one than the other. So, let's see how there are different. To do that, I tried at home the recipes from two successful Youtubers : Cooking with dog (Japan) and Maangchi (Korea).

The crunchiest : Korea

Maangchi is probably the best blog these days to try korean recipes at home. She's also quirky and super friendly. This recipe is my second time, she has actually another recipe which is quite different. This one is very crispy because the chicken is fried with just potato starch on it and only after is covered with a sweet seasoning sauce.

The tenderest : Japan

The chicken to make the karaage has to be marinated in soy sauce and ginger before being deep-fried. That explains the meat softness and also the deep flavour. But also because of that, the chicken doesn't remain (that) crispy. You can also be surprised by how the cook presents her videos. She does all her videos with her dog by her side, with a weird voice-over in english sounding like a robot (with japanese accent). She has a great skill though. I spent tons of time watching her videos.

The one I prefer

The day I made these two recipes, I packed them right after cooking in picnic boxes and brought them for a cool dinner by the river. The korean recipe endured well the traveling in a plastic box and was very crispy but the karaage was very welcome hours later for a late evening snack. So what can I say...Do both!

-Lise-Anne.

Maangchi : www.maangchi.com

Cooking With Dog : http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingwithdog

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Holiday Baking Day!

Today is my first vacation day, and I just spent few hours baking and eating. My belly hurts..because I ate a bit too much, of course. I tried 3 recipes, scones, english muffins and a sweet bread. The scone recipe being slightly disappointing, I'll introduce the english muffins and the bread.

  The english muffins

I had in mind to make these for a while, but couldn't find the recipe on the net because I called them scones. I am a bit confused by the switching meanings in the US and in Britain for baked items sometimes: biscuits, scones, muffins, bread...Why can't they agree to mean the same thing since they have the same words? Anyway, those breads are soft, lovely warm with butter, and perfect for small sandwiches. What I liked also is that you don't bake them in the oven, you pan fry them!

(adapted from Allrecipes)

Ingredients:

5 cups all purpose flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp dry yeast

1/4 cup butter melted

1 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 cup water

Preparation:

Warm up the milk, then add the sugar to dissolve.

In a mixing bowl, mix the yeast with lukewarm water. Wait 10 minutes.

Later, add the milk, the melted butter, the salt and the flour in 2 times, make sure the flour is blended before adding the second batch. In the original recipe from Allrecipes it requires 6 cups but I needed only 5 cups, so you may have to adapt the flour quantity as I did.

Knead until all the ingredients are folded in and transfer the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a plastic film until the dough doubles in size (about 30 minutes)

After, spread the dough roughly with your hands so it's about 1/2 inch thick.

Take a glass and cut rounds of dough and put them on a tray covered with a baking sheet and cornmeal (if you have, I sprinkled flour instead).

Let them rise again 30 minutes.

Heat a frying pan at low temperature, spread oil or butter and put the muffins. I let them bake less than 10 minutes each side, until the color is more than golden, burned color actually.

Let them cool down on a gril or eat them right away, even if your stomach hurts after.

The sweet bread

I stole this recipe from my favourite book and I adapted with new flavors. The book is The Tassajara Recipe Book and the original recipe is the Orange Raisin Walnut Cake, which became the Lemon Cranberry Pumpkin seeds cake (oh yeah). What I like about this cake, is that it's rich in flavors. The original recipe contains the zest and the juice of an orange, dried fruits, but also honey, orange water and rum. In my new combination I removed the zest to use a leftover lemon I previously stripped from its zest, rose water instead of orange water and kept the rum since I always use rum, whatever the recipe and call it vanilla extract.

(adapted from The Tassajara Recipe Book)

Ingredients;

1 cup dried cranberry

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 tsp rose water

1 cup heavy cream 

4 tbsp honey

the juice and the zest of 1 lemon

2 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Preparation;

Boil water and pour over the cranberries so they can absorb the water and drain them, and chop them roughly.

In a big bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs, one by one, plus the vanilla extract, the juice and zest, the honey and the rose water.

Add the flour, the baking soda and the salt 

Fold in the cranberries and the pumpkin seeds.

Finally, add the heavy cream and mix until the ingredients are blended.

In a cake pan covered with a baking sheet, pour the batter and cook in the oven for 50 minutes at 300F/150C.

While you are baking, don't forget to switch your TV on a good show.

-Lise-Anne.

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Vegan pineapple brown sugar muffins

This happened totally by accident. I wanted to cook leftover pineapple from a can before mold comes in (that frequently happens) and I was out of white sugar. So here we go : pineapple and dark sugar,which is an awesome combination : the sweet, almost caramelized flavor reminds me of the warm and sunny islands, drinking rum by the ocean..This cake is also vegan because no eggs and only non-dairy milk in my cupbooard. It makes me realise that being creative and being practical is often the same thing.

The batter looked unappealling because of its muddy color, but at the end I got nice, moist, exquisite tiny muffins. It would worth imagining a nice topping to turn them into cupcakes, a pineapple or caramel flavoured buttercream...Maybe another time.

Ingredients for 12 tiny cupcake size muffins :

1 cup non-dairy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup canola oil

2 tsp dark flavoured rum (or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)

1 1/4 all purpose flour

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 tbsp cornstarch

4 rings of pineapple (from a can), roughly chopped.

Preparation :

Preheat the oven at 350F/180c.

In a bowl, put the milk mixed with the vinegar to cudlle few minutes.

Sift the flour, the cornstarch, the baking soda, the baking powder and the salt and stir together.

Mix the milk mixture with the sugar, the rum or the vanilla extract, the canola oil. Fold in the pineapple pieces.

Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and blend the ingredients together. The batter is ready

Prepare the muffin pan. Put muffin cups and spray with oil.

Fill the cups at 2/3 of the cups' volume.

Bake 20 to 25 min. A wooden stick inserted at the center should come out clean.

Let them cool down and eat.

-Lise-Anne.

 Source : http://www.theppk.com/2010/11/vanilla-bean-cupcakes-with-chocolate-ganache/

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Rosewater and cardamome cookies

I thought seriously about quitting writing this blog. For various reasons. The questionable quality of my pictures, the existence of so many great blogs that are much more useful than mine, the demand in terms of time and thinking to make it better, but on top of that, the fact that I have many other things to do apart from this blog. So I let time run away without posting...to realise that I CAN'T HELP COOKING and thinking about food and shopping for food and watching movie scenes about food and planning the new dishes to cook and so on. As a consequence, I decided to keep journaling, whatever the pace, the quality and what people can think about. Food is a way of living. Hehe. These days I am trying to make good use of some new ingredients in my cupboard. One of them is rosewater. I fantasized about making pink cupcakes first, but I put this idea aside and instead I decided to use it in a simple buttery cookie recipe. I checked Google our Holiness and had a glimpse of a cookie recipe including rosewater and cardamome powder, Perfect, because I had actually cardamome pods and a spice/coffee grinder. As for the cookie dough composition, I trusted (again) Joy of baking and used her lemon cookie recipe, omitting the egg part...because I forgot. It worked very well without.

Ingredients for about 15 cookies

2/3 cup white sugar

200g butter, at room temperature

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

about 1/2 tsp cardamome powder (I grinded about 1 tsp cardamome pods)

1 tsp rosewater. 

Preparation

Put the sugar in a mixing bowl. Add and mix the caradamome powder and the rosewater.

Fold in the butter at room temperature and beat with the sugar until creamy.

Add the flour (previously sifted and mixed with the salt) and mix with your hands until every ingredients are blended in.

Shape 2 logs about 5 cm diameter. Cover them with plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator for 4 hours.

Preheat the oven at 180C/350F. During this time, place a baking shit on a baking tray.

Cut cookie dough slices about 5-7 mm thick. Place them on the paper with a inch space in between.

Bake the cookies about 12-15 min.

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Food in Daejeon, spring 2014.

Spring is my favourite season. It's time to enjoy cherry blossom, to chill outside with a bottle of beer, or to power walk by the river...korean style activities. I have been there for a while. I started lately to stroll outside after work, just to enjoy the fresh air, and I realised that not only flowers are blooming, it's also blooming season for food businesses and restaurants. Cool, it brings fresh ideas for later outings. As for now, let me introduce you to places I have been recently.

First, the brand new: The BangKok.

By the name, you can guess it's a thai restaurant and you are so right. I think it's a place to go for at least one, but amazing dish : the fried chicken. The best I had. Ever. It's crispy outside but inside the meat melts in your mouth. Far better than the chain chicken I had so far. The appetizers are also good, I had the spring rolls and another one which name's very hard to recall. I also tried some good pan fried noodles and rice topped with meat, but chicken will be always first in my heart.

Prices are reasonable. The chicken plate costs 18000. Rice and noodles dishes are between 7000 and 15000.

It's very easy to find, take the subway to city hall station, exit 5, walk straight to the next block.

Contact : http://www.facebook.com/bangkokdaejeon

Second, the ancient :별난집/byul nan jib 

I had the chance to try Daejeon specialty in the old downtown area, across the train station. The house has been existing for more than 4 decades. We had 두부두루치기/dubudurutchigi, which is basically tofu in spicy sauce with noodles, and 녹두지짐, pancake made of beans.

Both dishes were good, and the tofu is not so hot, despite the color.

To get there, go to the train station, then cross the street and then..

Contact : http://map.naver.com/local/siteview.nhn?code=11710445

I forgot the dessert.

In the old downtown, people go shopping for clothes and sport shoes, or they go to eat for free samples at 성심당/sungshimdang, the most famous bakery of Daejeon. Sunshimdang serves also reknown 팥빙수/patbingsu (shaved ice with sweet red bean paste). But if you walk few meters ahead of the bakery entrance, you can see a chocolate shop. There, I tried the chocolate bingsu. Yumyumyum..

Contact : http://map.naver.com/local/siteview.nhn?code=20697897

-Lise-Anne.

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Vegetarian pot-stickers : my take

It's been a while since my last written post, but I still keep few foodie obsessions in my mind. One of them was using the pot stickers wrappers I have been keeping in my freezer for probably more than 2 years. I tried in the past, more or less successfully to make some pot-stickers filled with meat. But this time, I wanted them meat-free.

This time,no internet for the recipe. I just wanted to figure out a recipe BY MYSELF. So, my ingredients were :

swiss chard : because I love the melting texture 

grated cheddar cheese

tofu : mixing tofu and cheese was a smart move, since tofu reminds of cheese by its texture.

I was also happy to finally use my korean ustensils.

This,

and that,

can make that.

Putting to boil the swiss chard for 15 minutes, draining and mixing the filling's ingredients were easy, but I felt troubled when it was time to assemble and seal the pot stickers. How...I just forgot, so I made few unsuccessful attempts. Never mind, it remains edible.

To cook the pot stickers, I tried 2 techniques:

one was steaming using my brand new equipment

the other was pan-frying them, then spraying some water and covering with a lid to produce some steam and fry effect, as my chinese friend taught me. I prefer this way personally.

Both were tasty anyway.

Recipe for about 20 pot-stickers.

Ingredients:

pot-sticker wrappers.(20 or more if you are a beginner)

150g of tofu 

a handful of swiss chards, boiled for 15 min, drained and roughly chopped.

a handful of grated cheese ( I would say 1 cup)

salt, pepper

a tsp of sesame oil.

Preparation :

In a bowl, roughly mash the tofu with your spoon and mix with the swiss chard and the grated cheese.

Season with salt and pepper and sesame oil.

Prepare a glass or a small container filled with water. Take a pot-sticker skin in one hand and with the other, put water on the edge of the skin.

In the center of the skin, put a teaspoon of cheese filling and fold the skin in two to make a half-moon. Press the borders to seal. Make it pretty if you know how to.

Choose a cooking method. If you steam, it takes 7-10 min, after you cover. If you fry, use a hot oiled frying pan, put the pot-stickers, wait 1 min before spraying a little bit of water with your hand. Cover immediatly with a lid and wait 2 more min. One side should be nicely golden.

Lise-Anne.

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나가사끼 짬뽕

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Fried potato on a stick. Seasoned with cheese powder just before being served.

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Philippe Conticini, un pâtissier qui sort du moule

Il eut l'idée de présenter un dessert dans un verre à bourgogne : la verrine était née ! Pour Philippe Conticini, la pâtisserie moderne est un...

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Camembert tartine

In France, you can find sandwich or tartine. These words aim at something slightly different.

Sandwich : refers to 2 slices of bread with a fillling in between. Whether you open a baguette or a pita bread, there are a top and a bottom.

Tartine ; refers to one slice with a spread on top. 

In France, while shopping for cheeses, I noticed stores sell also jam so you can associate cheese with jam. Indeed, fruit and cheese  match together very well, Consequently, back home, I made bread, opened the camembert I bought on a street market (that means quality farm production) and my friend's homemade raspberry jam jar. Perfect match.

- Lise-Anne.

The recipe bread here.

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Food journey in France. Hello home!

During this winter, I was back home in France for holiday. Since I have been always blogging from Korea, I never took a chance to blog about the food culture I grew up in. Well, don't get me wrong, it is not like I don't like it, because I have an incommensurable love for home food, Because I am curious, because I chose to live abroad,  my daily food nowadays is certainly a funny mix, including dishes from the environment I am living in now (korean), american homebaking, also health/ethical/philosophical perspectives (like vegan or raw eating) make my diet difficult to label,  I also never tried to stick to tradition, but to my surprise, since I landed, I've been realising how much I missed home. Right the day after, I went to a nearby market street to buy my weight of food.

The aim of this post is to journal about my reconnection with France through eating. So let's start.

Monday, January 27th : in the plane

Food in the plane was nothing spectacular, but decent. Chicken with creamy mashed potatoes. Bread and cake...Well, need definitely some improvement.

Tuesday, January 28th

On that day, started the real deal. I went back and forth in the market street and was extremely happy to do shopping, talk to shopkeepers. One shop for each. Cheese store for cheeses, wine store for wines, fruits and veggies and fruit store for apples, the butchery for pâtés, the bakery for baguettes...A habit that is nowadays disappearing.

The dinner menu was plateau de fromages ( a melting-pot of cheeses) with white and red wine. The cheeses included : chevre (goat cheese), trou du cru ( a magnificient play on words ), comte, a cheese flavoured with walnut oil, and a very creamy cheese named Mont d'Or (perfect also melted on potatoes). Of course with the cheese, a great baguette (baguette tradition), along with wine. The inseparable trio.

As dessert, 3 individual cakes : a raspberry tartelette, a praline millefeuille and a religieuse au chocolat.

One meal = 3 kilos. But deep satisfaction.

A good quality salted butter.

Did I mention I bought pâté for me? Mousse de foie de canard (duck liver pâté) and terrine au poivre vert (green pepper pâté).

Wednesday, January 29th

I felt suddenly closer to George Clooney because of this.

I definitely don't need to go to France for this, but. always outside home, you always have a chance to try new stuff. There are different kinds of flavors. I liked caramel more than chocolate. Chocolate tasted slightly like metal to me.

For dinner, I switched to homemaker mode and made the coca-cola cake I introduced in this blog. I wanted to cover with caramel sauce and banana slices. In my mind it looked good, but the real thing was not that appalling . Anyway, it was not about showing off. As a meal, I tried to make polenta with apples diced in curry cream sauce. Just as a memo : when you pour the polenta in boiling water, it's important to stir at the same time,  the batter kept big lumps. I let it cool down, so I could pan fry the square pieces. The pieces stuck to the pan. A bit messy. But this is the joy of home-cooking. My host appreciated. Food is about sharing. I should never forget that.

Thursday, January 30th.

This day was BREAD day! This is what I appreciate most in France after a long absence. Stale bread, toasted, with salted butter. This was my breakfast.

For lunch. I went to the closest bakery to make sure to die of bread overdose. One baguette tradition and one bacon and cheese bread, I added a big raspberry macaron as a later snack.

[From now on, I can't date properly because I stopped writing on a daily basis.]

Paris, .............

I went to a brasserie with a friend, and nothing seemed to be available on their menu. We ordered a dessert, but this dessert was not available, we ordered some tea, but they didn't have the flavour we chose. I ordered a crème brûlée, but it was industrial creme brulee. And no one can cheat me, because I worked in a hotel that served this kind. Nevertheless, I did like Amelie Poulain.

Paris, flu time

I was in France for less than a week, but I started to feel flu symptoms. For more than a week, I couldn't do anything, except lying on a couch and cancelling, my plans. But for food, there weren't any problems at all. Infinite stomach..

One of my favourite food is lebanese food, so, before marrying a couch I stopped at a restaurant in Montmartre and got this nice vegetarian plate.

Such fresh flavours..

After that, I became a couch potato. 

While living in France, I didn't have a sweet tooth, but  that time II definitely craved for these industrial biscuits.

Palmito, 

and barquette...my childhood.

Like a kid, I bought candies at the bakery.

In the morning, I had bread or croissant.

People tend to be pissed when sick, but maybe it was a blessing. Because when sick, I got love and food.

Mustard coated steack with mashed potatoes and green beans..

Omelet with green beans and plantain banana. My first time eating this kind of banana.

And finally, endives au jambon (endives rolled in ham with bechamel sauce, sprinckled with grated gruyere and baked in the oven), it was the best of the best, especially because my friend fried some chopped onions before making the roux for the sauce.

As a dessert, I had once a macaron filled with raspberries.

Good, good, good....

Something gourmets would never tell about : pizza Domino. I used to be a pizza Domino junkie (you buy one, you get another one), and I became suddenly nostalgic, especially with the garlic bread.

While lying on the sofa, I was faced with a very essential question : How much energy in a big Toblerone bar?

The answer is : the energy in calories usually recommended to a woman for a day (about 2000 Kcal). 

Hometown, Angers.

Back to my hometown, western city named Angers, There, I went straight to the best home cook I know, and it is not my mother. This person treated me awfully well with a turkey leg, flavoured braised with herbs and spices in a plastic bag that is oven proof.

My cook chopping some preserved lemons.

I enjoyed the dish with a glop of preserved lemon and ginger mustard.

Another delightful foodie time was at a local brasserie, where I ate andouillette (a sausage filled with intestines) and fries. As you can see, my french diet is quite meaty.

(inspiring shot)

I took a picture of my friend's profiterolles, because I was surprised how many times I saw macarons in France. In my memory I don't remember macarons were so trendy few years ago. Nevertheless, no problem, I love mararons.

Last stop : in the Alps.

The region being famous for its cheeseeees, my first dish was the perfect start.

Talking about cheese, let me introduce my favourite : comte! 

With a sweet juicy pear, impossible to find in Korea, it's the perfect match.

 My life was sad without a tartiflette ( Reblochon cheese baked with potatoes, bacon in white wine and cream ).

I went to 2 restaurants.

First,there was the concept one. Healthy, because everything is steamed or raw. Girly : the crowd is composed of 80 per cent women and the background was pink.

I got a delicious pasta dish, raviolis with a mushroom filling. On the menu, there are mostly pastas, salads and a soup of the day. You can have yogurts for dessert.

Then, the traditional one : a nice chalet, a cosy atmosphere in a very charming town. Traditional and regional dishes.

To start, my favourite aperitif : muscat.

Foie gras poêlé et pain perdu (pain d’épice a la cannelle). Yumyum.

Faux-filet sauce crème aux morilles ( rib eye steak with morels' cream sauce.

Home made fries.

Café gourmand,is a coffee served with desserts' samples.

A génépi crème brûlée, a chef new creation. Light green because of the alcohol, and extra creamy. Amelie Poulain again.

Pictures to show you the stunning sky in the evening. In korea, unfortunately, there are no clouds like these..

See, macarons, again and again...

Disneyland took everything from here.

And finally, the last dish.

I was in the train station, And here's the last supper. I chose carefully this one.

Conclusion:

I was sad of course, to leave all the food people behind me. But guess what I found at home?

-Lise-Anne.

[foodgeekslikeus]

My new purchase : an oil sprayer! Bought in France , I wanted it for a long time.

N.B : the brand is Lacor and the reference is 61908.