07/07/2013
Fennel and Smoked Salmon Soup

I brought back this great book from London by chef Peter Gordon, and I have to admit we made this soup not so long ago when it was still “cold” here, but here’s the recipe, it’s still delicious…

The Ingredients (for 4 persons)
2 heads fennel
2 stalks celery
30 g butter
2 courgettes
3 spring onions
2 baby gem lettuces or baby cos
100 g peas
200 ml single cream
600 ml chicken or vegetable stock
salt and pepper
100 g sliced smoked salmon
1 tbsp fresh dill

The Recipe
1. Thinly slice all the vegetables. Sauté the fennel and celery over moderate heat in the butter without coloring. Once they begin to wilt, put a lid on and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the courgette, spring onion, lettuce, peas, cream and stock and bring to the boil. Cook over a gentle heat until the peas are cooked, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Season with salt and pepper, then ladle into four hot bowls. Place the salmon on top and sprinkle with the dill.

03/07/2013
Pique Nique Chic

J’ai une bonne nouvelle mes petits chats, le soleil et la chaleur arrivent (enfin) ce weekend! J’ai repéré ce petit kit Hermès pour un pique-nique chic sur les bords de Seine, il est constitué de couverts en liège et d’un ouvre-bouteille, d’une nappe en lin, le tout dans un joli pochon en feutrine, pour 950 euros (quand même).

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I have good news my little cats, the sun and the heat are coming (finally) this weekend! I spotted this little Hermes kit for a chic picnic on the banks of the Seine, it contains fork and knife made out of cork, a bottle opener, a linen tablecloth, all in a nice felt bag for 950 euros (indeed).

Vous vous rappelez aussi du Kelly en osier? Do you remember the wicker Kelly?

Les porte-monnaie fruits à croquer / The yummy fruits wallets

Le site d’Hermès est tellement beau que je peux passer des heures à regarder leurs petites animations… / Hermès‘s website is so pretty I can spend hours looking at their animations…

26/06/2013
Strawberry and raspberry tart, pistachio mascarpone

Ah strawberries! If the sun and temperature are conspicuously absent this “summer”, we can still take comfort with good gariguettes and ciflorettes strawberries. Nothing fresher than this pretty pie to finish a generous dinner!

The Ingredients

for garnish

– 100g ricotta

– 100g mascarpone

– 1 tablespoon pistachio paste

– 250g strawberries

– 1 basket of raspberries (about 125g)

– 1 tablespoon sugar

for the pastry

– 250g flour

– 100g butter

– 1 egg

– 100g sugar

– 1 pinch of salt (if your butter is not salted)

– 1 organic lemon

The Recipe

Place the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. In another bowl, mix the sugar, egg and salt.
Pour this mixture into the flour with the lemon zest and mix.
Add the softened butter into small pieces and knead by hand.
Form a ball, then spread it with a roller. Place it in a buttered pie pan.
Bake 15 to 20 min at 190 ° C, until the pastry is golden.
Mix the ricotta, mascarpone, pistachio paste, sugar, and lay on the cooled pie.
Arrange with the strawberries and raspberries on top.

25/06/2013
Oh My Cork

It’s been some time that cork has won the hearts of designers, even the Bouroullec brothers are using it for their office partition project for Orgatec, that you can see at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs until September 1st.

Here is a selection of my favorite products!

1. “Torno”, Materia – Inga Sempé
2. “Luno”, Maxi Design – Martin Jakobsen
3. Dessous de plat / Table mat – Zara Home
4. “Plug”, PCM – Tomas Kral
5. “Appo” – Carlo Trevisani
6. “Natura”, La Mediterranea – Hector Serrano
7. “Cork Stool”, Vitra – Jasper Morrison

20/06/2013
The Virtual Coffee

A few days ago I was invited to discover Le Laboratoire, a creation and exhibition space created in 2007, at the frontiers of science and design. I had already talked about his creator David Edwards Harvard professor, who presented their latest product, LeRe, fully biodegradable and natural, which can either be plugged with a chocolate capsule containing coffee, or an espresso capsule, all to be inhaled in order to get a “shot” of coffee.
We took the opportunity to visit the exhibition The Virtual Coffee which runs until September 15 and offers a multisensorial experiment over coffee: notes to smell created by Olivier Pescheux (big parfumer from Givaudan who created amongst others Higher Dior, 1 Million and some Dytpique perfumes), a “bang” from which you can suck up coffee smoke, or taste the filtered siphon coffee from Coutume. Listen, smell, taste, it even ends up by discovering the new concept of Ophone, a device used to send olfactory messages (imagine you’re eating a lemon pie at your mum’s, well you could – a day perhaps – send this smell to your friends across the world!).

LE LABORATOIRE
free
Fri – Sat – Sun – Mon : 12h – 19h
4, Rue du Bouloi 
75001 Paris

18/06/2013
Vietnamese chicken noodle soup

What to do with leftover roast chicken? A good flavored broth, and it’s not complicated! Here is my version of a Vietnamese noodle soup, inspired of the Mien Ga recipe from the book Paris Hanoi I had told you about.

Ingredients (for 2 people)

– The remains of a chicken

– 1 tbsp sesame oil

– 1 tbsp soy sauce

– 1 clove of garlic

– 1 stock cube

– a dozen fresh shiitake

– rice noodles or vermicelli

– fresh coriander

– fresh bean sprouts

The Recipe

Bone your chicken. Fry with chopped garlic and sesame oil.
Cover with a liter of broth and soy sauce.
Add the sliced shiitake and cook over medium heat for a few minutes.
Serve with cilantro and bean sprouts.

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Original recipe from Paris Hanoi

Ingredients

– 200g transparent vermicelli

– 20g of dried mushrooms

– 1 tbsp fish sauce

– 1 whole chicken

– 2 shallots

– fresh chives

– fresh coriander

– 2 tbsp sunflower oil

The Recipe

Cook chicken in a pot of water for 1:30. Cool, then cut the flesh into thin strips.
Soak the noodles in warm water for 5 minutes, drain and cut into pieces.
Soften dried mushrooms in warm water for 15 minutes then cut into slices.
Peel the shallots and cut into thin slices. Fry them in a pan with hot oil. They should be golden.
Arrange noodles and chicken in bowl and pour the broth. Add a few drops of nuoc-mâm, mushrooms, scallions, cilantro and chives.