My French Food Project

This year I turn 30. I'm going to learn how to make 30 French recipes my French grandmother and mother have cooked for me over the years.

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Œufs mimosa - recipe #30!!

I know this entry is a little late, but I can assure you the dish itself was created on the 30th of December 2015! 

To make œufs mimosa simply boil some eggs, carefully take out the cooked yolks, fill the hole with home-made mayonnaise and sprinkle the yolks on top. 

I made the mayonnaise using a spoonful of Dijon mustard and the yolk of one egg as the base. To stop it from splitting, I also added Grand-mere’s secret ingredient: one teaspoon of warm red wine vinegar. I then slowly added groundnut oil whilst using an electric whisk. Fastoche!

Maman was telling me while we were making these that when she was little Grand-mere would often make œufs mimosa as a starter for Sunday lunch and there’d always be mousse au chocolat as dessert. But she can’t remember what was served in between! Mind you, a meal consisting of mayonnaise and chocolate sounds okay to me. 

And on that note... Bonne Année and Bon Appétit everyone! 

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Croque monsieur

So here’s a controversial question: what are the ingredients of a croque monsieur? 

Bread. Ham. Cheese. Yes. 

Bechamel sauce. Maybe. 

Some would argue that my version is a mere ham and cheese toastie. This may be true, but I think it’s tasty all the same. 

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Ratatouille

So it turns out I’ve been making it wrong all along... 

You’re meant to fry the courgettes (and aubergines if you’re using them) a bit before adding them to the tomato sauce mixture. It does make sense as it stops them from going completely mushy, but means you get an extra pan dirty! 

We had this with some fish and rice to soak up all the juices. 

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Gâteau au yaourt

The beauty of this cake is meant to be that you use the yoghurt pot to measure out all your ingredients. However, I used yoghurt from a large tub this time and so had to measure everything out!

The unusual ingredient in this cake (other than yoghurt!) is oil. I used sunflower oil with some vanilla essence, or you can use almond oil. It makes a moist cake, which is particularly good just out of the oven. 

I added some lemon zest and juice for a bit of flavour, but it’s tasty plain as well. 

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Pommes de terre sautées

What do you do with leftover potatoes? Fry them in leftover duck fat of course.

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Friday night in avec Maman watching Julie & Julia. Julie Powell cooked all 587 of Julia Child's recipes in 365 days!

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Boeuf bourgignon

It’s Tuesday night and France are playing England at Wembley. TV dinner.

We’re having boeuf bourgignon which I made last night. I added a secret ingredient this time: a couple of squares of dark chocolate. It made it very rich and tasty. While you can’t see it in the photo, we had a salade verte course afterwards...

Allez les bleus!

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Petit salé au chou 

If you put “petit salé au chou” into Google translate it comes up with “dirty little cabbage”. A more accurate, albeit less amusing, way of describing it is slow-cooked salted pork with cabbage. 

Maman made this the other weekend. Miam miam et bon anniversaire Papa!

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Tarte aux fraises

Look what I made with Maman last weekend! 

Making sweet shortcrust is more difficult but the trick is including an egg to keep it all together. Still, as always, Maman made it look a lot easier than I probably would have found it doing it myself...

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I’ve just done a quick count... 

Today I posted my 22nd recipe. So that’s 8 more recipes to go with 14 weeks until the end of the year. It’s looking okay! 

22 | by hannah.aviva | fliikr 

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Cheat’s moules frites

Go to the local fish and chip shop to buy some chips. Once home, heat up some prepared mussels in their sauce in a pan. (I bought mine here: https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Scottish-Mussels-In-Garlic-Butter-Sauce-Waitrose/14993011) I added some cooked celery to give a bit of texture too.

I know it’s not the same as the real thing. But it’s Saturday night and I’m in south London, not on holiday in Brittany which is where my love of mussels began.

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Soupe à l'oignon

The first time I had onion soup it was brought out as late night snack at a cousin’s wedding - the French equivalent of a bacon butty or a piece of wedding cake. 

There’s no wedding today, but it feels very autumnal out there and so a good day for soup. Here’s the recipe I’ve followed: http://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_soupe-a-l-oignon_10891.aspx 

This recipe starts in much the same way as the pissaladière recipe i.e. with a lot of onion slicing and a lot of butter. While the onions do caramelise butter, the soup’s brown colour comes from the beef stock that is added a bit later. 

Of course the best bit about onion soup is the cheesy croutons, so make sure they’re big and have plenty of time to soak in all the yummy juices. 

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Pain perdu 

Translates as “lost bread” aka French toast or eggy bread. And that’s about as complicated as it gets because all you have to do is soak some slices of bread (brioche works well) in an egg and milk mix and fry in butter. Then sprinkle with sugar. 

I like to add a bit of cinnamon too but I’m not sure how authentically French that is…

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A couple of gems Dad dug out recently. Thank you :-)

Looks like I already took my pastry very seriously as a two year old!

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Today was a good day. I found a book about fromage in a charity shop.

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Salade niçoise

I spent a lovely long weekend in Nice earlier this year (photographic evidence above) and somehow managed not to eat a salade niçoise while I was there, so I decided to make one at home instead. This is something that mum would make for us to take to school in a lunch box and I sometimes do the same now for work. 

You’d normally make it with French beans, but I happened to have some runner beans (and tomatoes!) from the garden so I’ve slightly deviated from the traditional recipe. The obligatory olives, tuna, boiled egg and anchovies are still there though. Oh and plenty of olive oil! 

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Quiche lorraine

For this I made the same shortcrust pastry as for a sweet fruit tart. I made it the day before and so there really wasn’t much to do after that. You just need to remember to take the pastry out of the fridge an hour or so before rolling it out. Blind bake the pastry for 20 minutes or so before adding the filling.

For the filling I fried some lardons and put them down on the pastry base. Then poured a cream and egg mixture on top (one small pot of single cream + 3 eggs + a little pepper). Put it all in the oven (220C) for half an hour. Keep an eye on the colour and cover with tin foil for the final bit if needed.

You can eat it cold but I like it best still a little bit warm from the oven. Serve with a big salade verte. What else!