Eating Our Way Through Paris

Paris is known to many as le cité des amour yet to me it's more like le cité du manger and that's pretty much all we did.

The last time Coasts were on their European tour I packed my bags and my mother off to a quick sojourn to Berlin and then Hamburg. (How was that two years ago?) The only difference this time was that the venue/ country had changed and Coasts joined label mates The Hunna, oh yeah and there was a new album so I guess pretty much everything had changed really.

On Sunday night, after a delayed Eurostar trip, my mother and I checked in at the Saint Louis Pigalle hotel before heading out to explore the Pigalle neighbourhood, from the Moulin Rouge to the Sacre Coeur where the 10pm service was just about to start: cue the organ music.

Le Bon Bock was the venue for dinner/supper and was a great find. It is the oldest restaurant in Montmartre and used to be a popular haunt of artists like Toulouse La Trec. Here my journey through classic French dishes began with onion soup and confit de la canard.

On Mondays, many (if not all) of the museums and tourist attractions are closed which left us with no choice but to explore the cobbled streets of Paris, and, most importantly, the gastronomy.

When I had researched the foodie scene before we came out one of the places that had stood out to me was Soul Kitchen on the Rue Lamarck but I could not for the life of me find it. In its place, the Hardware Societé offered a very appetising alternative.

Fried brioche served with pannacotta, poached pear and lashings of chocolate sauce may not be your usual breakfast fare but omg you really need to try that like right now!

Hotel two of two for our Paris mini city break was the Best Western Saint Martin Bastille, just opposite the Bataclan and, as the name suggests, situated in the Bastille area of the city.

Dalloyau famously provided the Palace of Versaille with Pattiserie delights up until the French Revolution and they can now add me to their prestigious list of customers as we happily stumbled across one of their Salon de Thé(s). We sampled the gorgeously light Delice de Chef and the absolutely divine Tonka - brb in heaven right now.

The Little Café, in the Marais part of town, continued my foray into the world of classic French dishes with Boeuf Bourginon. For dessert, I opted for the Pain Perdu, made with croissants and served with a deliciously sweet caramel sauce.

Our final culinary stop or the day (Monday) was Jones, formerly known as Bones. Here diners can enjoy a four-course meal that is a delight to the senses or indeed for individual dishes. It would have been criminal to not at least try the exquisitely prepared food even if I had eaten a three-course meal only a few hours previously and those smoked carrots were simply stunning.

On our last full day in Paris, we visited the Pere Lachaise, the notorious graveyard where many famous faces are buried; Jim Morrison and Frederic Chopin included, as well as a memorial to Oscar Wilde. Alas, If I had only been there a few hours later I could have played everyone's favourite game 'spot The Hunna'

Frederic Chopin

Jim Morrison

Oscar Wilde - he's not actually in there though

The snowy stroll (read hike) left me feeling particularly hangry by the time we approached
Notre Dame. The aptly named Brasserie Esmerelda was as good a spot as any for a crepe and a chocolat chaud as it was getting pretty cold actually.

The plat du jour on the Rue Babylon was Côte du Boeuf, accompanied by dauphinoise potatoes and a bearnaise sauce. Our brasserie of choice just happened to be opposite Le Bon Marche, the Harrods of Paris which at the time of visiting housed the Sous La Ciel art installation by Leandro Erlich.

The Musee d' Orsay is not actually a museum at all but an art gallery housing five storeys of everything from impressionism to sculpture including work from Toulouse Le Trec who by the way I approve of your choice of restaurant/bar but dude what is that artwork?

On the way home to the hotel we stopped off at a patisserie for madeleines and a l'imperial - berry goodness encased in créme de pistache with a biscuit base.

Next stop: Le Maroquinerie.

P.S. We bought croissants for the journey home aka our super fun 7am Eurostar train.

One last day of baking

 Our last day at Le Gargantua arrived too soon but don’t worry too much because we still had Fraiseiers and a whole lot of choux to look forward to. 

Unlike the previous days at Le Gargantua, there was to be no morning excursion. Instead we spent the whole day in the kitchen cooking up a storm, indeed between the Choux de Pistache: choux pastry shells with a cracklalan top filled with pistachio cream, Fraisiers,; biscuit jaconde (which is actually a sponge cake) creme patissiere and lots and lots of strawberries (remember those from the other day, I told you that they would be making a reappearance)  and finally Coffee Religeuse, as seen on GBBO, this includes more choux pastry, creme pat and coffee flavoured royal icing. Oh and we baked the baguettes as well.

With temperatures outside nearing 35°c and the ovens and stoves at full blast, you can imagine that it was rather hot in the kitchen and I spent a good part of the day helping myself to ice cold beverages from the drinks fridge. 

Our day was divided into two separate parts; in the morning we baked and prepared all of the components needed; including making the highly anticipated creme pat, whilst the afternoon was set aside for construction and assembling the troops…I mean choux nuns.

By the latter stages, the temperature in the kitchen was getting really quite intense and no sooner had we piped one bit of cream than it had to go back into the fridge again.

There is a lot of pressure is patisserie that everything needs to look beautiful which for me is not something I’m exactly very good at. This inevitably led to pistachio creme patisserie spilling out from the crevices of the choux bun and rather wonky looking nuns in the religeuse.

The Fraiseiers was surprisingly quite alright, it even made it to the picture table and you can see my  take on the Le Gargantua’s Facebook page (as well as my Tarte Tatin and chicken too) Looks don’t matter too much though, it's all about the taste and I can assure you that they were all delicious. 

Tomorrow, after breakfast, we will bid a fond farewell to our lovely hosts Marlene and Tom and thank them for a stunning week of food, glorious, food and to think I didn’t have to do any washing up, not once! #winning 

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Defeated by the baguette

It’s time for some patisserie! 

I awoke full of excitement as the day’’s field trip was to the chocolatiere in Nerac! La Cigale was actually the inspiration for Joanne Harris’ novel (and later film) “Chocolat” and the nearby bastide town of Vianne was the namesake of the main character. 

The chocolatier at La Cigale is nothing short of a magician and the ways in which he works with chocolate are a wonder to behold. The flavour combinations are out of this world and I particularly enjoyed to spiced ganache which incorporated the flavours of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg etc.

After loading our arms full of heavenly chocolates we strolled around the old town and stopped for a spot of chocolate tasting. 

We arrived back at the house for a lunch of croque monsieur and lentil salad before assembling in the kitchen for our first session of patisserie!!

Chocolate and lemon tarts are clear favourites at any patisserie yet the recipes and ways in which these classic tarts are made can differ quite significantly from one establishment to the next. 

We made a lemon curd type filling for the lemon tart as well as a chocolate ganache made with creme anglaise for the chocolate tart.

The base of both of the tarts, a sweet shortcrust pastry was blind baked before adding the filling and then chilling in the fridge to set. 

My brain really was not working today as I kept miscalculating measurements. I even managed to splatter Marlene with lemon goo when I was trying to blend. (Sorry!)

Alas, it would seem that I was finally defeated by the baguette. A baguette (in case you didn’t know) is a very airy and light bread which has lots of air pockets and a crunchy crust. It, therefore, requires the gluten to be worked well.

In the bread world, this would normally require a lot of kneading to get the stretchy gluten working yet the dough for a baguette is very wet so it's less a case of kneading than it is of slapping the dough on the table. Cue my baguette dough to go flying all around the kitchen.

Once the dough is nice and smooth and very, very stretchy will need a long prove, preferably overnight. As you are slow proving the bread dough it should be kept quite cool, which for the south of France means keeping it in the fridge. 

Our baguettes will be revisited and baked tomorrow.

OMG its soufflé

The second day at Le Gargantua started with a trip to the old town Castelajoux where we purchased ingredients for the day's dishes including basil, white and yellow peaches, fava beans (aka broad beans) and strawberries…strawberries?…but they aren't on tonight's menu. 

The local produce growers were all out in force with a beautiful selection of fruit and vegetables including some really great looking cep mushrooms yet as it was technically still early in the season for them (well according to what my mother has always told me, late August/September is mushroom time) we shied away from them in favour of local and ripe fare. 

Remember that last word, we’ll revisit that one later.

I was super duperly excited to start cooking because today meant soufflé! I’d never made a soufflé before this and was keen to try. I think that I’ve always avoided trying to make a soufflé because they are so light and delicate and I’m really not very good at makings ‘delicate’ in any way shape or form.

On our first day we had made a range of rustic dishes which could all be made in advance and therefore there wasn’t much more work required on them before dinner. Well apart from plating up. 

Today, however, the dinner party plates require additional attention so whilst we prepared all the elements in the afternoon and set the groundwork, we later came to revisit and cook the dishes just before they were served. 

We began the afternoon session by preparing a béchamel sauce of the soufflé. This was then turned into a sauce mournee with the addition of egg yolk and cheese, thus making it lovely and rich. It was then we added any additional ingredients to our soufflés to make it our own creation I added chives from the garden to mine whilst Andrew went for the more adventurous option and put chilli in his. 

Next up we filleted the mackerel and poached the peaches in white wine flavoured with saffron and ginger.

At 7 pm, shortly before dinner, we gathered in the kitchen to finish off off our dishes. Starting with the soufflé: 

We whisked egg whites before carefully folding the fluffy mixture into our sauce being mindful to keep as much air as possible in the bowl. The next step was to transfer the mixture to a greased ramekin dish and placing it in the oven in a bain marie. This will mean that the soufflé is cooked in steam. 

Pro tip: open the oven for 20 seconds half way through the cooking process to let the steam to the oven. 

Everyone watched the oven anxiously as they saw their soufflés slowly rise but I was scared to join them as I was worried that mine would simply collapse and sink miserably. 

It appeared that my fears were misplaced as quite on the country my soufflé rose like a majestic soaring eagle, not only looking the part but also looking really quite nice actually. 

For the main, we blanched and then peeled the fava beans before purring with onion, garlic and a bit of double cream. This was served with mushrooms, (not the ceps from earlier btw) crushed potatoes and our mackerel fillets. Alas just as I moving the mackerel from the pan and onto my plate with a pair of tongs I dropped it and it fell to the floor. 

The dessert also went a bit pear shaped, or should I say peach shaped, as the peaches did not peel very easily once poached. This was due to them not being very ripe. It’s alright though, cover it up with enough chantilly cream and everything will be fine.

It was Richard and Sue’s last night at Le Gargantua as they would not be joining us on the patisserie part of the course. We bid them a fond farewell and lots of group pictures.