Squid with Saffron Rice - Riz Safrané aux Calamars

Afriend of mine who lives in Italy gave me an Italian cooking book as a wedding present (that's almost 11 years ago!!!) Flipping through the pages recently in search for new ideas, I realized how little I knew about authentic Italian cuisine beyond the not-so-Italian dishes that are served here (or in France). It led me to wonder about Spanish food.  When it comes to Spanish cuisine, I was even more ignorant beyond the tapas, churrios, paella and jamon iberico.... . Strange in a way when you realize that Italy and Spain border France but despite this geographic proximity developed very different cuisines.
One of the spices I wrongly-I-suppose (90% of the world production apparently comes from Iran although in the US, I was surprised to learn that it is still produced in the Dutch Lancaster county (about 2hrs away from Philadephia)) associate with Spain is saffron. My mother used to have tiny tiny red boxes of saffron when we were kids and I remember loving to play with them...(as part of my love to reorganize the spices box!!) but I never realized the value of these boxes until as adult I had to face the shocking price of saffron. Tiny treasure boxes as saffron is indeed one of the most (if not the most) expensive spice in the world!

I generally cook saffron with seafood and rice (like we do in the South of France in the fish-soup Bouillabaisse) and since I have been trying to serve different seafood to my family recently, I thought that it would be a great idea to use squid instead of white fish in this dish.
I served it to my family the other day and my husband compared it to a Spanish paella (which he enjoys more than a risotto) explaining to our children what paella is really about, where it is eaten, what saffron is about, etc.. Yet the kids were more intrigued by the squid (I had asked to have tentacles as well as the head!!) which led us to talk about these little sea creatures too!!
To be honnest, this dish has nothing to do with a paella (no chicken, no shrimp, no mussels, no tomatoes) but yet again, there must be a few different paella recipes in Spain! So why not? All that I know is that we all loved it and I know that I can now put it on the list of dishes that I know will score high with my family. So if you can afford it, purchase a little bit of saffron and try it out. You won't be financially richer but you will be culinary-wise...a little bit of Spain in your home. Because no matter how long I live in Philadelphia, I will have a hard time associating Saffron with the nearby Dutch county! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
- 1 pound squid cleaned and cut into pieces
- White rice (about a cup)
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- a few stigma of saffron
- a cup of dry white wine (optional)
- 1 cup of green frozen peas
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil for sauteeing

• In a large pan, saute the onion, garlic and bell pepper in olive oil
• Add the rice and saute it until fully coated with olive oil
• Add 1 cup of white wine and two cups of water
• Add the saffron
• Bring to a boil and then simmer until rice is fully cooked, stirring often and adding extra liquid if needed.
• Just before serving, add the frozen peas

My Comments

• There are definitively different grade/quality of Saffron. I purchase the small Spanish Saffron from Trader Joe's. It might not be the best Saffron ever but it suits my needs and budget.
• If you like risotto-like dishes, you could use Arborio (short grain) rice. I would not use brown rice in this dish since the squid are already a little bit chewy....

Tuna and Salmon Ceviche

Until sushis became widely popular, it was really rare to eat raw fish in France. Except for their steak tartare or fresh oysters, French people don't really eat raw proteins. Sure, you'll always find one person who likes to gobble one fresh raw egg (aka gober un oeuf) but even if I can eat pretty much anything and I LOVE soft-boiled eggs, I can't gober un oeuf. Beurk...
The first time I ate ceviche was while traveling in South America (that's where it's originally from in case you did not know). My husband having lived in South America as a child enjoyed ceviche so we ordered shrimp ceviche one evening in Chile. Shrimp or fish is generally marinated in lime which "cook" them so you never have that feeling of eating raw shrimp/fish like you would if you had sashimi in a Japanese restaurant.
Like most recipes, every country in South America (at least the coastal ones with the exception of Argentina where fish is not mainstream at all),  has its own ceviche recipes. Back when we lived in Ithaca we were invited for dinner to our Ecuatorian friends' house (she really is from Argentina but being married to an Ecuatorian she had gotten used to eating ceviche, the Ecuatorian way that is). And for us who expected a raw-lime marinated-type of dish, we were really surprised to be served a shrimp soup  that had been cooked in a ketchup-based sauce topped with popcorns!! It was nonetheless very good but as you can expect, my husband who has very specific narrow ideas of what a ceviche should taste like, was disappointed! Not that he did not enjoy the dish (he liked it a lot) but this was not the ceviche he was expecting. And when it comes to food, expectations (especially the ones referring to one's mother's cooking) can be extremely dangerous! (My advice: never-ever dare trying to serve a dish that has been served to your spouse by his mother while growing up! No matter how good your recipe is, his expectations will kill your dish! The only solution, call it something totally different!!!)

Here is my brother's tuna-and-salmon ceviche recipe. He made is for us back in August (and yes, my husband liked it despite the fresh ginger and soy sauce ; his expecations were different since no shrimp were served!)  I made it again last weekend when we had a nice day that gave us a Summer day in October. It's definitively not a recipe I'll cook in the middle of cold weather... but something to keep in mind for next Summer, unless you live in the Southern hemisphere or in a climate where it feels like Summer everyday! Lucky you! Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:
- 1 pound of ahi tuna
- 1 pound of fresh salmon skin off
- fresh ginger : the quantity depends on your taste: I tend to like it a lot so I use a lot ; I grate about 1 inch.
- soy sauce to taste
- green onion (2) chopped
- 1 small red bell pepper, diced
- a few capers (optional)
- one mango
- 4 limes, juiced

• Prepare the marinade: mix the pepper, together with the mango, green onion, capers. Mix in lime juice, fresh ginger and soy sauce. 
• Cut the salmon and tuna in tiny cubes.
• Pour the marinade on the fish and put in the fridge for 30 minutes. The longer you'll marinate the fish, the more "cooked" it will be.

My Personal Comments

• If you are planning on serving it to kids (or adults who can't chew on fresh ginger), dice the ginger instead of grating it and remove the ginger pieces before serving.
• You could replace the pepper with a cucumber (if easer to digest). The idea of the pepper is to add "crunchyness" to the dish.

Marinated Ahi-Tuna Steaks

"In pepper or in paper?"did my flatmate asked me one day, showing me a pepper mill in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. We were just talking about the tuna recipe I had planned to cook for our bi-weekly dinner parties with our friends B&L in San Francisco...and he could not just put spicy+paper together even though he had seen me cook "en papillotte" before.  I know there is a major pronounciation difference between the two words but when come the evening: fatigue and a glass (or two) of wine make my French accent thicker, hence the confusion... and the funny situations I have got into over time!
So that night, the recipe for tuna was calling for pepper... and since I wanted to make sure not to use the 10-month-old pepper jar that was in our kitchen,  I had purchased high-quality multi-colored whole pepper corns that day. Pretty! High quality! High intensity! That pepper was soo spicy that we could just not possible eat the pan-seared tuna steaks. IMPOSSIBLE! Each bite was starting a fire...... After two bites, we decided to cut off most of the pepper to still eat the tuna. We drank a lot (and not just water!) and enjoyed a dressing-less salad to calm the heat!...  The next day though, we all felt that our skin was still perspirating pepper! That remained one of my best culinary disasters, yet a memorable moment full of laughter shared with great friends. And I laugh about it whenever I purchase/eat tuna!

I have not tried to cook tuna "in paper" nor have I tried "tuna in pepper" with my children yet. When we purchase raw tuna, I generally marinate it for a few hours (overnight is best) in a mix of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper (not too much!!), tomatoes, thin onions slices, and balsamic vinegar (I don't have a fix recipe, I just adjust the dressing to my liking.) We then just pan-sear the tuna in olive oil and eat it with a salad or over rice.  Easy. Tasty... but not as funny as my tuna steaks from San Francisco! Bon Appetit!

Galettes au saumon fume - Smoked Salmon Savory Crepes

There is something I miss about not spending the Holidays in France : delicate food all over the place and the endless conversations about food! At this time of year, it seems that the only thing French people are obsessed concerned about (beyond unusual heavy snow) is food. You can't miss it, it's all over the place (yes, more than usual!!) : on magazines cover, on TV, in every single shop in town, in supermarkets, etc.

Traditionally French people have two meals  : a small souper on Christmas Eve (originally a soup to warm you up after Midnight mass) and a big lunch on Christmas day. These days, people will choose from oysters, snails, smoked salmon, foie gras, boudin blanc, seafood vol-au-vent, fancy mushrooms feuilletés with truffle, crabs, lobster, coquilles saint-jacques, etc. On Christmas day, the stuffed turkey with chestnuts is common but so are capons, guinea fowls or any game meat. You might not believe me but a traditional public school Christmas lunch à la cantine would include venison (from public daycare all the way to high-school!!) And I am not even talking about dessert, marrons glacés ou les chocolats, let alone about wine and Champagne! A feast that everyone is looking forward to and won't feel too guilty about (because they eat a balance diet without snacks during the rest of the year!) And just in case you are not stuffed enough by reading this list, just bear in mind that French people tend to do it all over again on New Year's eve and New Year's Day! Et oui!

So yes, I miss that. I miss having a choice. I miss watching wonderful shop windows full of délices. I miss overhearing the conversations around food, the petits trucs exchanges among friends or colleagues to make a recipe really over-the-top. I miss the atmostphere it creates in France where, for once (and not because of strikes (or snow)), the whole country is fully paralyzed because it's engaged in food! Call me crazy... but I do miss it!

Smoked salmon is now ubiquitous in France and in the US (I purchase mine at IKEA, c'est pour dire!!)  and has therefore lost its "holiday special" place in our menu. My children love it on their bagel or mini sourdough crêpes... and I love it just plain with capers and lemon or, like here, in a savory crêpe. This is maybe my favorite galette ever... and just for that it deserves a special post, even around the Holiday season. Why? Because, like any other French citizen, I am thinking about what to make for Christmas Eve (lobster?) and for Christmas Day (capon? charlotte aux fruits rouge? snails?)... so I don't have much time to cook for the daily meals until then. So serving une galette is a perfect dinner option! Happy  Holidays and Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:

- Recipe batter can be found here

- Smoked salmon

- Creme fraiche

- Chive

- Capers/dill/lemon

- Black pepper

Thai Lemongrass Shrimp Soup - Soupe aux crevettes et à la Citronelle

We got our first snow in Philadelphia last week, which makes me long for warmer days already. Since I don't have a trip au soleil planned anytime soon in my agenda, I can only dream of these warmer spring and summer days... "les jours où on met juste une petite chemise, un short, et hop, on s'en va", as would my daughter say refering to the hot days when she only wears a short and a t-shirt!
Since it's winter, soups are au menu at least 3-4 times a week chez nous. And because I always try to introduce new dishes to my children, I have been making this shrimp version of Tom Ka Gai soup lately. I discovered Thai food while living in San Francisco... and can't get enough of it (and yes, I'd love to take a trip to Thailand to visit this beautiful country and eat more authentic food).  Same with my husband, who does not mind having "just" a Tom Ka Gai soup for dinner (if with shrimp, he is a little bit disappointed!). Same with my children who enjoy it but still prefer la Soupe Chinoise that they request more, especially when I am about to serve du potage aux legumes!
As I was serving this soup the other day, we talked about Thailand and the fact that one of his classmates was going to move back there permanently in a few weeks. H. then said "oh, il va manger de la soupe aux crevettest tous les jours alors?" (he is going to eat shrimp soup everyday then...). I don't know if Thai people eat shrimp/Tom Ka Gai soup everyday in Thailand... but I sure could have some often in the cold days of winter in Philadelphia! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
- 1.5 L (6 cups or 48 Fl oz) vegetable (chicken) stock
- 4-5 shrimp per person ( or 1 or 2 chicken breast, cut in thin slices)
- 1 Lemongrass stalk
- 4 keffir lime leaves
- 1 cup mushrooms (shiitake prefered)
- 1 small piece of galangal
- a few fresh red chilies (2-3) (or red crushed pepper)
- 1/2 to one can coconut milk
- 2 Tbs (30 ml) lime juice
- 2 Tbs (30 ml) fish sauce
- Fresh coriander or fresh Thai basil
- sugar (optional)

• In pot, grate the end of the Lemongrass stalk; cut the rest of the stalk and keep it for later.
• Pour vegetable/chicken stock and bring  to a boil. Add shrimp/chicken pieces and mushrooms , reduce heat to medium-high. Cook until shrimp/chicken is cooked. Reduce heat to medium heat.
• Add lemongrass stalk, galangal, kefir leaves, coconut milk, chilies and fish sauce. Cook for about 2-3 mn.
• Reduce heat to minimum, add lime juice.
• Adjust the flavor: if not salty enough, add more fish sauce, a teaspoon at a time; if too sour, add a few teaspoon of sugar; if too spicy, add more coconut milk; if not spicy enough, add more chili peppers.
• Serve with fresh coriander or basil.

My Personal Comments

• I serve this soup as a main course for our family. I add a little bit of rice noodle if I feel that they won't have enough that evening.

Shrimp with Saffron Rice

Saffron is one of these spices that I don't use a lot. For once, real saffron is expensive. Then, French people don't use it that often in their daily cuisine! The only French two dishes I can think of that always require Saffron are Bouillabaisse, a fish soup that often served in the South of France (it originated in Marseille),and Sauce Rouille, which, as it turns out, is mostly served with a Bouillabaisse... I have personally never made my own Bouillabaisse and since I don't like raw garlic, I tend to avoid Sauce Rouille!  My mother did have a few tiny-tiny boxes of Saffron among all the other spices. They were tiny yellow boxes, the size of a watch battery, sold together in a glass spice jar. Since my siblings and I were always reorganizing the spices (that was one of our favorite game in the kitchen!), we could not resist playing with the little Saffron boxes. Of course, our mother would not let us, which only increased our interest in Saffron. While I remember playing with the yellow boxes, I don't remember what my mother was using it Saffron in (I'll have to ask her).

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Scallops with Leeks, Dill and Orzo

This is one of my emergency dinners. It's not the fastest one but one that I can actually prepare in less than 20 minutes, which gets into my "emergency" category. The reason why it falls into this category is that I always have the ingredients on hand. Frozen scallops. Fresh leeks when on sale at the market or fresh frozen leeks when on sale at the market. Orzo. Orzo? Yes, I did not know what Orzo was either until I saw it at the supermarket a few years ago. And even if "orzo" means "barley" in Italian, what Americans call "orzo" is really a rice-shape wheat pasta (clever marketing guys!!). Why do I always have it at home? Well, it's different than the usual pasta. It's confusing fun to tell my children that we are eating pasta even though it looks like rice; it's also much cheaper than made-for-children-cute-pasta, which I tend to avoid (with the exception of the alphabet pasta). Dill? Since we are not purchasing much processed food in our family and try to reduce the amount of salt we eat, we use herbs a lot to flavor our cuisine. I love herbs and I want my children to appreciate them as much as I do. And since I have met so many children who would pick at the green stuff on their tomatoes (that would be basil, chive, tarragon, dill or parsley), I have made it a point to serve herbs to my children everyday (d'accord, maybe only every other day) since they were able to chew and swallow them. Some were hidden in a dish (like in this recipe), others were in the open, sitting pretty on a slice of tomato or swimming along cucumber dices in a yogurt-base sauce.
As a result, on a weekly basis, we purchase: dill, cilantro, Italian parsley, basil as well as thyme or/and rosemary. When available, I also purchase fresh mint, tarragon or chervil; I don't really know how to use sage.
I can't wait for nicer weather to be around so that I can start growing my own on my balcony. In addition to reducing my "herbs budget", it will give a project to my children who will be even more excited at eating basil/cilantro/parsley/tarragon/chervil/chive/dill/rosemary/thyme that they would have picked the leaves themselves! Trust me! Bon Appétit!

 Ingredients:
- 1 pound of frozen scallops
- 2 small leeks, washed and sliced
- Orzo
-  Fresh dill
-  2 Tb of butter
- Salt, black pepper to taste

• In a saute pan, over medium heat, cook leeks in butter.
• Add scallops and cook until scallops are fully cooked
• In the meantime, cook Orzo according to instructions
• Add fresh dill to scallops and serve over Orzo
• Add salt and black pepper to taste

My Personal Comments:

• Obviously, you could use any other small-shape wheat pasta instead of Orzo. You could even use rice!

Soupe Chinoise - Chinese Soup

Since we started taking our children out for Phõ, they have been more into big bowl of soups. Not the Velouté d’épinards or the Soupe aux Poireaux I tend to make but the big bowls of soup that are Phõ-like. Since I have not looked for a recipe for Phõ yet (any suggestions?), I have been making my own "Soupe Chinoise" as we like to call it. And since while traveling through China once, I saw French cookies that looked nothing like French cookies to me, I don’t mind calling this soup a Soupe Chinoise even if it does not come close to an authentic Chinese soup.

My children love this soup : they like the idea of playing with chopsticks, adding toppings, diving for pieces of chicken (or shrimp), being adventurous and adding a few drops of hot sauce, etc. What they like best though is to slurp their noodles. For once they are allowed to make noise while eating something! And we explain to them that it’s perfectly accepted in some Asian countries to slurp your noodles. “Ohlalala, c’est super,” exclaimed my daughter. My son could not be happier and he would make as much noise as possible while slurping his noodles, which has the immediate effect of making us all laugh. And there is nothing more pleasant than a family dinner with laughter all around. Tant pis if the kitchen table looks like a someone just got out the shower without drying themselves a little bit (it happens often in my family and not just with the younger generation !) Tant pis. Because we all enjoyed a meal together and that’s what’s the most important!

The beauty of this Soupe Chinoise is that you can make it the way you want and build it up for your children. You just need broth (chicken, beef or vegetables), proteins (chicken, shrimp, tofu, beef), Asian noodles (rice or wheat), vegetables (carrots, mushrooms, bean sprouts, Napa cabbage, bok choy, onions), extra toppings (fried onions, chive, cilantro), seasoning (sesame oil, hot sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce) and you are all set. Be creative! Let your children be creative and experiment (even with chopsticks!). Let them slurp their noodles and slurp yours too! It would make them laugh… and chances are your Soupe Chinoise (or whatever you call it) will be one of their favorite dish! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:

- 6 cups (750ml) of water
- 1 bouillon (chicken or vegetables)
- 2 TB (30ml) Fish Sauce
- 2 TB (30ml) Low Sodium Soy Sauce
- Carrots, pealed and sliced
- Napa Cabbage (or bok choy), cut into small pieces.
- 1 small onion, minced
- chicken breast, cut into small pieces
- Asian Noodles (I prefer wheat noodles but rice noodles would make it gluten-free)
- Chive (for topping)

• In a saute pan, saute the onion, the carrots and onion in Soy Sauce
• Add Chicken and cook until chicken is fully cooked
• Bring water to a boil. Add bouillon and fish sauce
• Add noodles and cook noodles in the stock.
• Add vegetables and chicken.
• Serve in large bowls topped with chive, raw onion bits and raw cabbage.
• Serve with hot sauce/sesame oil, etc...

My Personal Comments:

•  I like to put raw cabbage on top of the soup for crunchiness
•  I personally like the chicken version better than the shrimp version.
•  Don't hesitate to put more fish sauce/soy sauce if you like a stronger taste.

 

Broadening Horizon : Steamed Mussels with Lemongrass Curry

This recipe is the perfect illustration of why you should try to cook different things from scratch for your family. Your children are wonderful little human beings who won't stop surprising you. Whatever they do, including finding a new way to destroy your furniture; whatever they say, including new bad words picked up in school, is just mind-blowing to you. All these little steps that they take as they grow is what's make being a parent fun and rewarding (OK, having to wash the sofa cover for the nth time this year is not fun).

We cook mussels a few times a year, which is definitively not enough (they are so good!)... Most of the time, I cook them in a butter-white-wine-mirepoix sauce and we eat them with French fries. The best mussels I ever ate were in Guelph, ON (Canada) at the restaurant of the hotel we were staying. The menu listed Mussels in a Curry sauce and that was really appealing to me that evening. Boy, they were good! So good, I could have had another serving. So good, I almost made us an extra night so that I could eat them again! C'est pour dire!

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Crayfish and Potatoes Salad

When I used to work in Paris, I was traveling to England a lot. I always loved to travel (some) for work as it gave me an extra opportunity to discover places I had never been before (but who on earth want to do tourism in Basingstoke, dites-moi?). On some occasions, I could also meet up with friends living in London and that was always a plus. One thing I came across while in London was the Prêt à Manger delis. They had the best fancy sandwiches ever (back then) and it was a compulsory stop for me. I would particularly love their crayfish (écrevisses in French) sandwich with fresh arugula. I would get it often and would enjoy every bite of it!
When I moved to the US, I was happy to discover that they were actually opening locations in New York City. Not that we lived close to New York City (Upstate New York feels VERY far from New York City). But somehow, it made me feel better. Unfortunately for me, they did not offer my favorite sandwich.  I do remember reading that one of their main challenges was to make New Yorkers love crayfish!

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Seafood Salad with Avocado, Tomato and Grapefruit

We have this tradition in my family where the one whose birthday we celebrate has to choose his/her lunch menu (you would have to ask my siblings and my parents to tell you whether there was one specific dish I always requested because I can't just think of one right now). This is my older brother's favorite salad. He would inevitably choose it for his birthday lunch menu and we would tease him about it because he was SO PREDICTABLE with his lunch appetizer! Since we started  living away from each other (and now literally around the world), we started to pool birthdays. For instance, if we only see each other in July, then we'll pool the June/July/August birthdays together, making it a little bit trickier for the menu selection but never impossible! The advantage of pooling birthdays is that we get to celebrate someone's birthday a few times (let's say my brother and his wife would celebrate my brother's birthday with their children at their home and then with us/my parents/relatives on another day). The other advantage is that we have learned not to care so much about THE actual birthday day.

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Angel Hair Pasta with Shrimp and Lima Beans

As I try to balance our meals over the course of one week (more on that in an another post), I have come to serve shrimp about every other week in different settings. This recipe is made with Angel Hair pasta, which as a child, we would only eat cut in my grand-mother's bouillons (soups)!! So it was quite an experience to start cooking them in a real pasta dish!  Spaghetti could be a good substitute but I like the finesse of Angel Hair pasta better in this dish.

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