Yesterday and today were great days walking to work / cooking lessons, a fun 15 minute walk from our funky Pariè pad over the river and past Notràdame. Imagine that as the walk to work everyday it would be so cool, careful Pete what you wish for as Sandy is really enjoying being away !!!
Our classes have been with different a chef each day so we got to pick up lot of tips along the way.
We deboned a fish cooked in paper with a tomato reduction and served with fennel and orange salad, yumo.
We did a starter of Asparagus with figs and a artichoke salad
Chocolate mouse dark and white with raspberries
We learned how to deboning a whole chicken then stuffed the leg section with a mushroom, and spinach filling + other stuff will have to get back to that later.
Served with sweet caramel sauce to go over then chicken, hmmm but oh so worked, the secret ingredient was soy sauce into the pan to deglaze after browning off the chicken and with some sugar to caramelised to make a sweet beautiful rich sauce Oh Oh Oh sooo yum.
We made the best french onion soup from scratch, sweeting down the onions and using the bones from the chicken as a stock, delish and served it with French bagels with melted cheese on them " Recipe to follow "
Than it was French pastries and Croissant now this was fun and I have never tried this sort of cooking / backing before and well, it will take some practice the get the filopastry that's for sure ... but now that I have the technique I will give it a burl.
As for making the croissant look like the real deal well they did ... They looked and tasted soooo soooo good, and we got to take home a doggie bag, better still, but that will cost you several laps of Notràdame then ...
As well as the cooking classes we did 2 walking tours of the Paris market area the first on day one to a local food market to pick up the ingredients for the classes. The second to try some of the small deli ... now that was great and with two of my love walking and tasting food it was a win win.
We went to the smelliest little cheese shop and tried several of the 400 different cheeses made in France.
From the runniest Brie to the mouldiest blue to a firm cheese that was the colour of pumpkin. Next was Foie Gras that was served with a Sauternes who would have thought that Foie Gras would go with a sweet wine but it cut through the rich oily flavour perfectly. I have only had Foie Gras once before back home but today sorry readers it was coming out my ears ... I loved it ...
Hmmm may be that why those jeans ripped !!!
We went to a shop that did many pates and had small firm buttery potatoes with sour cream and caviar, does it get any better ...
We yes it does, we finished at cake shop that dated back 250 years ago and still in the same family and we finished off with chocolate eclairs and the most beautiful decorated little delishest works of art.
So dinner tonight was a no go as we were grazing all afternoon so it's off to a bar for some french champaign and some more Parisian nightlife caped off by a late night stroll over the many little bridges that chris cross the river.
Bliss
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