Special guest: Eliane

The Causse Mejean doesn’t have too many places to eat out and enjoy local products nor sleeping options… but it wasn’t always the case… until 15 years ago there was a magic place where to eat and that was also an inn. The place where my parents went while looking for a place to sleep when they were honeymoon touring the region. I have never known the name of the inn it has always been “chez madame Fage”. This place was where you could have delicious soup made from the kitchen garden vegetables, a salad just freshly taken and dressed simply, the marvelous chocolate mousse the daughter Eliane would make for dessert. It had the rustic flavors while being perfectly prepared and fresh. I keep beautiful memories of this place. The aperitif under the wisteria, the big wooden tables, the check table cloth and napkins… a picturesque place. Mas Saint Chely, where “madame Fage” was is just a 30min walk from our house through a pasture track, and of course we decided to take the walk up there, not knowing what to expect as madame Fage closed 15 years ago, the bread-shops and the other very few places in the village also closed down more than 20 years ago.

As we were making our ways through the village I instantly recognized the kitchen garden, the winding street and the terrace covered with the wisteria. Nothing had changed. I climbed up the stairs and knocked and Eliane opened the door as she would always do! For a moment time had stopped!

She offered us drinks on the terrace, with the same glasses and the same fresh water, what was new for us was her lavender syrup. Made with the wild lavender flowers found on the causse, it was devine so I needed to ask her recipe and share it with you.

Lavender syrup

– a large handful of lavender flowers rather fresh

– 1L of clear water

– 600g to 1kg of sugar

Wash the flowers gently. In a large pan filled with the water, bring them to a boil for 2min then stop and leave for 24h. Add 600g to 1kg of sugar for 1l of liquid depending on how sweet you like it and how long you want to keep it (the longer the sweeter). Bring to a boil and cook at low heat for 10min. Let cool down and bottle the syrup… that’s it!! Drink diluted with water or use in cooking… with grilled white meat, desserts…

Cat hiding in a street of Mas Saint Chely

August 29, 2019

Lozère

Hello there!!! You may have wondered where I was all this time… well… after another crazy busy week in Tokyo, a rapid stop in Paris, and a long drive, I was in Anilhac in my parents country house to celebrate their 50´s wedding anniversary. The house is not equipped with internet and there is no 3G or 4G coverage there either. So obviously I had to be disconnected for a while. After that I went straight to Germany for work and now I’m finally on my way back to Paris for a last stop for work before heading home… pfiou…

Being disconnected from my phone wasn’t a big deal to be honest… I can totally live without it and days in Anilhac we’re actually busy with hiking, flying and very little cooking as mom had planned everything… I only made pancakes for the whole family one morning…

Lozère is not very famous for food and staples: the most well known products are chestnuts from Cevennes, cheeses made of sheep milk, honey, wild berries, and wheat… that’s probably it… it’s a very barren region, with tough winters and dry summers, very poor. Mostly sheep and shepherds. Actually, the house is a former sheep house my parents transformed 45 years ago in a country house.

Life for me in Anilhac is about being outside, hiking, reading and drawing by the fireplace, then having meals all together.

Meals there are usually simple… a very lot of cheeses for me (this place is cheese heaven!!), and some cured meat for A., fresh vegetables from the neighboring kitchen gardens, and some wild fruits from the garden or harvested during the hikes: plums, hazelnuts, blackberries… oh… and braised potatoes of course! Baked in the embers of the fireplace.

Oh! And my parents had a surprise for us: I finally managed to fly a glider from le Chanet airfield… it was quite an experience… after seeing my sister doing it 37 years ago, and always wanted to try…

August 25, 2019

Ugly yummy ravioli

I must say that I hesitated a lot before posting the picture of these ravioli but then remembering them each time I watched them in my photo list, how delicious they were, I couldn’t not share them with you. And anyway you know that plating is not something I am very good at, probably because we are always starving by the time food is ready as I always start thinking about preparing something to eat once I am hungry and A. is stomping in the kitchen asking when food will be ready… and when he will be able to eat… so at some point efficiency enters the equation and things get ugly… yet delicious…

And that exactly the story of these ravioli made with the leftovers of the bouillabaisse my way fish and fresh edamame. Instead of eating the fish with rice in a Japanese way I wanted to make pasta… and make fish ravioli. When all set about fish ravioli and I got started with the flour I realized I put all the remaining eggs in the brioche for breakfast (and since we are traveling to Europe soon I keep my fridge minimally occupied)… whatever… I thought, I made vegan ravioli in the past in a kitchen take over and could do without the egg. Then I realize that once the bones removed the piece of fish I had wouldn’t fill many ravioli, so I browsed my fridge and hesitated between butternut squash or edamame… but really we’re just mid august and I don’t want the summer to end yet so I opted for edamame. And here is the full recipe of these ugly yummy ravioli!!

Edamame and fish ravioli

– 100g of flour

– 2tbs olive oil

– a bit of water

Mix the flour and olive oil, add water until you obtain a hard ball. Knead well until soft. Add a bit of water if necessary. Your vegan dough is ready.

– a piece of white meat fish cooked: steam, court-bouillon, grilled… I used the olive flounder from the bouillabaisse.

– a handful of edamame

Boil the edamame and peel them. Remove the bones of the fish. In a bowl mix them together crushing the edamame. When you obtain a crumbly purée it is good enough.

Now just roll the dough and make the ravioli as usual. Finally boil them, dress them with olive oil, salt and pepper and a few more edamame… or find a much nicer way to dress them and tell me what you did!!!

August 14, 2019

Bouillabaisse my way

As you already may know or you can check here, bouillabaisse is a classic summer dish in my family. My grand mother, and now my mother prepare it for family gatherings. While I love it and have helped preparing it many times with my grand mother as a child (I even fished the soup…) this is something that I absolutely cannot prepare now as the preparation of the fishes indisposes me. The single idea of emptying a fish and cleaning it, or cutting a fish head or crushing a whole fish just makes me sick. That’s why I always ask at the fish stand that they do it to me or I buy sashimi cuts or clean cuts far from the belly. And so you may remember that recipe of simmered fish a few weeks ago… well I got the same cut again. And while I was thinking of preparing it exactly the same way, an outing to Hoff market in Ohara to see our pottery teacher has made me change my mind as I bought lovely potatoes there. Indeed there are always a few stands selling organic locally grown vegetables. This potatoes made me crave a kind of bouillabaisse. So I made it my way. I first prepared ichiban dashi with konbu and katsuo bushi to replace the fish soup. Then I sliced the potatoes and add them to the soup. After a bit added the fish and a bit of soya sauce, sake, and two lovely purple tiny bell peppers (optional and not in the classic bouillabaisse, but I really wanted to try them) , and cooked under cover for 15min. And served.

The fish cooked in the fish stock and with the potatoes definitely had a familiar taste and reminded me a lot of bouillabaisse, but without all the annoying parts!!

Have a good week!

August 11, 2019

Fennel

Since living in Japan I have discovered many vegetables I had never seen or never eaten before. A whole new world of vegetables discovered but at the same time many of the vegetables I loved in Europe have disappeared from my plate. There are three of them I for sure really miss: porcini, artichoke and fennel. The first one there’s nothing much I can do about it, except buying dried porcini, which how good they may be they never ressemble the fresh ones. For the second, canned artichokes in oil may be a poor compensation… growing some is so far out of the question as our kitchen garden is rather small and they take up a lot of space… may be next year… but fennels… they were the perfect seed for my kitchen garden. It was without counting for the poor weather we had this spring/early summer. Out of the few fennels seeds I planted only three survived the constant rains, one disappeared probably drained at some point, the remaining two held on, but only one grew properly, the other probably missing sunlight. So here I am with my one and only precious vegetable!!! What I did with it? Eat it from bottom to top with pasta and grilled sagochi (spanish mackerel).

It was super simple and a really great combination. I grilled the fish on the skin side, then removed the skin and bones and in a pan with olive oil cooked the fish again with the fennel simply washed and chopped. Topped troffie with the mix and was super happy to enjoy the familiar anise flavor!!!

August 8, 2019

Plum works

A story of great success and massive failures…

Like every year in June I did my share of plum works. With a garden that produces a lot more fruits that I can handle, I actually spend more time picking fruits to give away rather then cooking them. This year I prepared umeboshi like every year, one for Tokyo and one for Isumi, one plain, one with red shiso. Things were looking really good with both until 3 days ago when I discovered that my preparation in Tokyo was covered with mold. And way too much of it to attempt any rescue operation. Everything went down the thrash… Hopefully the one in Isumi seems to have been doing well and with the beautiful hot weather this weekend it was the perfect day to take them out to dry.

One other thing I made this year was plum and red shiso syrup. Usually I prepare plain syrup, but this year I had some extra shiso so I decided to use it in the syrup. Plum syrup is delicious with cold or hot water and with sparkling water too. With the shiso I find it is much better cold. I gives a beautiful color to the drink too. A nice pink.

Finally, there was one thing I didn’t tested before but I have heard so much about is ume-su 梅酢, not to mistake with ume-shu 梅酒. Ume-su is the liquid you obtain when pressing the plums with salt and in which umeboshi bath until drying. It is basically a mix of fermented plum juice and salt. Ume-su is well known to combat summer heat and because of the salt and mineral it makes the perfect recovery drink. It is used like syrup diluted in water. The salty and plum flavors are super delicious, the one with shiso also. Now that I have tested it I love it and often use it together with syrup to have a good balance of sweet and salty flavor, a perfect drink to use after long time gardening in the heat or playing tennis!

The ume-su can be used to pickle vegetables: cucumber in plain ume-su, daikon, turnips, myoga… in the the shiso one. It will color the vegetables in pink so it’s better to use white vegetables. The ume-su can be kept indefinitely in the fridge for further use, so don’t trash it! If you didn’t have a chance to pickle plums this year, you buy ume-su only at JA shops and local coop shops.

August 4, 2019

Pizza!!!

I don’t know why, but quiche and pizza are two things I could eat anytime. Winter, summer, with fresh seasonal vegetables, it’s always happiness in my plate!!!

Recently I haven’t kneaded much… week days are all too busy and weekends none the less but with different activities and more to come as our construction is almost finished and now I will have fun thinking about the new garden. 24h is way too short to do all I want to do!

I love to prepare pizza with the local products from Isumi, with all the cheese farms around making mozzarella, the local tomatoes and the variety of fresh vegetables, there is always something to put on your pizza to make it fancy. In the full summer heat now, okra are a nice option and they are particularly good when baked. Adding some fresh radish tops as the rucola season is over and you have a perfect summer pizza.

For the dough I always use the recipe from the Kayser bread book. But now that I know that I can speed up the kneading without affecting too much the result, I cam prepare pizza dough in no time. It’s simple, never fails and with the room temperature at 27-28 now it rises in 45min, so no need to plan too long ahead… so there will be more pizza coming soon I’m pretty sure!

What do you like on your pizza??

August 2, 2019