27/04/2016
Cooking and cinema

Pour la troisième année, Nespresso – partenaire officiel du Festival de Cannes – organise des dîners d’exception avec des chefs de renom autour du cinéma.
Pour le premier dîner des jeudi 12 et vendredi 13 mai, c’est le chef Armand Arnal (La Chassagnette, Arles – 1 * Michelin) qui s’est glissé dans Underground d’Emir Kusturica. Emu par le rythme effréné et la folie de cette incroyable amitié (qui valu à Kusturica sa deuxième Palme d’Or en 1995), le chef propose une cuisine brute et dynamique autour de légumes grillés.

Les samedi 14 et dimanche 15 mai, c’est au tour de Jean-François Piège (Le Grand Restaurant, 2*) de faire son cinéma. Le chef renommé célèbre Le Guépard, de Luchino Visconti, Palme d’Or à Cannes en 1963. Il va s’inspirer de la cuisine italienne et revisiter des plats qu’on croit tous connaître, tout en finesse et élégance…Des trompe-l’oeil étonnants, comme ses fameuses spaguetti carbonara qui sont en réalité des calamars!

Et c’est Cédric Béchade (L’Auberge Basque, St Pée sur Nivelle – 1 * Michelin) qui ferme la danse mardi et mercredi 18 mai, et qui se glisse dans la peau de Jean Dujardin de The Artist, de Michel Hazanavicius, qui gagne le Prix d’Interprétation masculine en 2011.

25/04/2016
Banh mi with lemongrass chicken

Do you know banh mi? They are Vietnamese sandwiches composed of French baguette (inherited from the French colonialism in Indochina!) and fresh ingredients such as coriander, grated carrots, chicken or beef balls… It’s super good. Here is my version!

The Ingredients (for 1 banh mi)

– 1 chicken thigh
– 1 lemongrass
– 1 large piece of ginger
– 1 onion
– 1 garlic clove
– 1 stock cube
– 1 carrot
– 1/2 cucumber
– fresh coriander
– 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
– 2 tablespoons of olive or sunflower oil

for the mayonnaise
– 1 egg yolk
– 1 tablespoon mustard
– 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
– sesame oil
– olive oil

The Recipe

1. Grate the carrot, and make it marinate with rice vinegar and oil.
2. Grate the cucumber, salt it and let it disgorge.
2. In a casserole with water, boil the peeled onion, peeled garlic clove, the stock cube, lemongrass, ginger, and chicken. Add salt and pepper. Simmer for 45 minutes over medium heat.
3. Remove the chicken, let it cool and then bone it entirely.
4. To make the mayonnaise, whisk the egg yolks with salt and pepper, add the mustard, a little rice vinegar. Add sesame oil and oil while beating until the mayonnaise thickens.
5. In a baguette, place the mayo, cilantro, carrots and cucumber and chicken.

24/04/2016
Cooking with Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson is one of the most recognized contemporary artists in the world, and his Berlin studio is one of the most important of the art scene, an incubator of research and experimentation. Every day, 90 people gather around a participatory lunch, eco-friendly, organic, and experimental, feeding both their stomach but also the thinking and creative studio process. All these meals are related in Studio Olafur Eliasson: The Kitchen, on top of 100 vegetarian and organic recipes, with the vegetables picked up from the garden installed on the roof of the studio.

Divided into nine chapters – studio, body, plants, seeds, micro-organisms, DNA, minerals, universe – the book also invites chefs, scientists, artists, writers to interact on these various topics. These contributions highlight the importance of food and the ecosystem developed by the studio. “Cooking is all about taking care of others. It is a sign of generosity and hospitality that creates a link, enriches relationships and translates thoughts into dishes. The kitchen has a history of giving and sharing. When we cook, we use the world while producing it. While eating, we participate in this universe by bringing light into our body.” Olafur Eliasson

Studio Olafur Eliasson
Phaidon editions / 368 pages
39,95€
available on May 15th

17/04/2016
Schiaparelli SS16

“Eating is not only a material pleasure.
Eating well gives a spectacular joy of life, contributes greatly to the good will and happy relationship of men. Morally, it is very important. ”
ELSA SCHIAPARELLI, SHOCKING LIFE 1954

The 2016 Spring-Summer collection of Schiaparelli is breathtaking of beauty. Like an extraordinary feast, the silhouettes are colored with delicacy, the sequins vegetables stand alongside crystals lemon pins, or Dali’s embroidered lobster. The skirts are transparent, sensual back are revealed, pastels collide and opulence appears on golden plates, an exquisite festive table.

Founded in 1920 by Elsa Schiaparelli, the historic house closed in the 1950’s, but has since been re-opened in 2012. Schiaparelli saw its first show since 1954 last year on the Paris Haute Couture scene. It is now the talented Bertrand Guyon who is the head of the artistic direction of the house.

06/04/2016
Blood orange gluten free cakes

You may have noticed that I have been sharing some gluten-free recipes for some time now (fraisier, beetroot cupcakes, chocolate tart) but you’ll surely see more here because I recently stopped eating gluten. Not to follow a trend as some may think, but simply because I feel better without it and I have less health glitches related to the ingestion of gluten. I can assure you though, these little cakes will delight the taste buds of everyone, whether you are celiac, intolerant or love gluten !

The Ingredients (for about 10 cakes)

– 20g rice flour
– 40g chestnut flour
– 50g corn flour
– 2 eggs
– 100g softened butter
– 50g white sugar
– 40g brown sugar
– 1 blood orange organic
– 1 teaspoon cinnamon
– 1 tablespoon orange blossom essence

The Recipe

1. Mix the eggs with the sugar.
2. Add the flour and the soft butter into small pieces. Mix vigorously.
3. Add cinnamon and orange blossom.
4. Cut the orange into thin slices, get the juice of both ends that you can add to the dough.
5. Pour the batter into small molds, place the orange slice on it.
6. Bake for 30 minutes at 180 ℃ (T6).

28/03/2016
Saveurs sauvages

I had the chance to eat at great restaurants several times but the culinary experience that marked me the most was the one of an unusual restaurant, beyond time and borders, lost in the depths of Gruyère in Switzerland. It was the story of Judith Baumann, a unique and innovative chef – named chef of the year in 1998 in Switzerland – who cooked with vegetables and flowers from her garden, with all her pickings from surrounding forest (berries, fruits, mushrooms, plants,…), and with products from her region. But that was before because La Pinte des Mossettes was taken over by another team in 2011. Today, Judith continues to share her passion for cooking by giving classes in her charming chalet lost in the mountains. The workshop is available on 3 seasons, summer, spring and fall. Although my photos might evoke fall, we were in the middle of August, under the rain and fog! In the morning, we head to the kitchen. Immersed in the universe of Judith and surrounded by her stunning collection of bones, we prepare thin waffles for a raw beet gazpacho, we sublime mini bruschetta with elderberries and borage flowers, or prepare brown stuffed quail ballotines with buckwheat and wild blueberries. After the lunch, we head to the forest in search of berries, flowers and edible leaves with a professional picker. We taste everything: alchemilla, Common Hogweed, ground elder, meadowsweet, euphrasia, burnet; and fill our baskets with wild blueberries and swamp cranberries. MAGICAL!

Les Saveurs Sauvages
Les Pelley d’Amont
1654 Cerniat
Suisse