Cheesecake at last and Foie Gras

I know I have been promising for like a month now this Cheesecake recipe, and trust me I have been working on it !! I think I finally have it worked out. I mean you can't eat cheesecake everyday, so I had to take a break once in a while so I would stop eating it. I'm having a hard enough time not gaining weight on a daily basis living in this country.

Ok so this of course is the recipe for France, since this is suppose to be a blog about cooking American food in France right? So although my few loyal followers are all American, I'm going to stay with the original intention and do this for France ok? Ok thanks !

A Spring foam pan
a large bowl
a mixer ( or kitchenaide)


for the cake:
960 gms of kiri
156 ml cream
190 grams of sugar
5 large eggs
90 ml of gran marnier ( you can use 2 cafe spoon vanilla and 1 cafe spoon lemon zest instead, or other flavored liquer if you like)
3 soup spoon of flour

crust:

200 gms of speculus cookies
112 gms melted butter
1 soup spoon sugar
(ok the butter varies wildly with the cookies you use, you want the crust to be pressed into the bottom of the spring foam pan, but still a bit crumbly other wise your cake will leak butter all over your oven. I suggest adding the butter to the ground cookies slowly and when you have a crumbly slightly pliable substance, stop.)

Topping:

450 ml creme fraiche
2 soup spoons of vanilla sugar

Preheat oven to 140 C
Grind the cookies in a food processor until they are the consistency of bread crumbs, add the sugar, and then the melted butter until the mixture can cake up a little bit between your fingers, don't add too much butter or you will have a mess in your oven. Press the crust into the pan and refrigerate until you are done making the filling.
Put the kiri into the working bowl with the sugar,cream, flour and the gran marnier and blend until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, blending for about a minute between each one, scraping down the sides of the bowl and make sure all ingredients are completely incorporated. When the crust is set ( about 20-30 minutes ) pour the filling into the pan and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes. The baking time can vary quite a bit too , so I would set the timer for an hour and take a look at the cake, if it is set, not cracking and still a little wobbly in the middle , its done. If its more than a little wobbly ( like you should get actual ripples when you give it a little shake or anything) put it back in the oven for 10 minutes and check it again. While the cake is baking make the topping by blending the ingredients until well blended. When the cake is done, remove from the oven , top with the topping and return to the oven for another 10-15 minutes. When the cake is done remove from the oven and put on a cooling rack. After about 5 minutes or so run a knife around the top edge of the cake and undo the clasp on the pan, but leave the pan in place, this is just to loosen the cake from the pan in case it is stuck anywhere. After the cake has cooled down to room temperature you can re-clasp the pan , cover with plastic and refrigerate, or just remove the pan sides and wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight. Eat the next day !!

In other news, we went to Mount St. Michel last weekend and had some really really really good foie gras at La Mere Poulard. We also had the craziest omlete I have eaten so far with seared foie gras ! We neglected to take pictures until our plates were empty ( whoops) but trust us the food was fabulous ! Here is a link of the restaurant, but I digress.
http://www.mere-poulard.fr/Resto.aspx

After eating the foie gras we felt the need to make some because the kind you can buy in the grocery store here isn't fresh enough or its over cooked . I know, I know, you can't hardly even get the stuff in the states and here we are complaining we can't find it fresh enough, what a couple of snobs !! Well our snobiness drove us to buy a piece of foie gras and terrine cook it ourselves. We started the 5 day process on Monday and today we ate it............ahhhhh its like, dare I say, sex on toast? Anyway here is a picture of our first Foie gras terrine attempt !!

Chocolate chip cookies

I think if you try and name a classic American cookie, a chocolate chip cookie would be right up near the top of the list. We love our Nestle's Tollhouse chocolate chips or Ghiradelli Chocolate chips, or Reese's peanut butter chips. We have a lot of variety of chips in the USA, white, milk and dark chocolate, peanut butter, butterscotch and mint as well. In France I never found the variety of chips, but you can use chocolate bars even, just break them up!! There is a ton of variety in the chocolate bar department in France for sure !

So heat the oven up to 150 C and use a cookie sheet with parchment paper on it in the center of the oven. Bake these for 12 minutes each if you like them chewy and a little longer if you want them crunchy.

226 gm butter doux
330 gms #45 flour
1 cafe spoon salt
1 cafe spoon baking soda
52 gms vanilla sugar
275 gms brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
25 ml milk
300 gms of chocolate chips
optional: nuts, dried fruit

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Don't burn it, if you do start over. Sift the flour, salt and soda together and set aside. Pour the butter into a bowl and add the vanilla sugar and brown sugar, cream with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add the egg and egg yolk and milk until well combined. Slowly add the flour mixture until combined, then add the chocolate chips and any optional ingredients. Chill the dough for about an hour. scoop onto a pan or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, bake for 12 minutes.

Back in Brittany

Well, back in Brittany after a lovely two weeks in New Orleans. I'm homesick of course and well what a better cure for that then the kitchen right? So today I made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and creamy tomato soup !! yummy. I will promise to get my act together and post something worthwhile this week !!

Stay tuned for Cheesecake, but for now.............

I love cheesecake , I mean who doesn't? Its right up there with creme brulee !! So when Frederic and I were in the USA in October I took him to The Cheescake Factory in fact it was the first thing we did after picking up the rental car ! He fell in love at first bite with cheesecake...of course. When we came back to France I promised to make him some.Prior to coming to France I rarely made desserts, but I married a man with a wicked sweet tooth so I've been making cakes and cupcakes and custards and creme brulee of course! Much to my surprise there is no such thing as cream cheese in France. I know that is hard to believe considering they have enough different kinds of cheese here that you could eat a different cheese every day for a year and never repeat a selection. So the hunt was on for a replacement for cream cheese. Now I know you can make cheesecake with Ricotta as well, but I wanted to find a useable substitute for cream cheese. We made a little trip to Portsmouth UK early in December and of course stopped into a grocery store. I'm one of those people who has to go to the grocery store no matter where I am, just to see what they have going on in the store. Sure enough there was Philadelphia cream cheese. I immediately bought 5 containers and some molasses sugar. I have no idea what molasses sugar is but I couldnt find molasses in France either and was trying to make gingerbread so I bought some. Anyway about the cream cheese, its made in Belgium, which is next to France and for some reason you can buy it in the UK and not in France.
So I made a cheesecake with speculous ( who came up with that name for a cookie really ? ) as a crust ( no graham crackers or vanilla wafers in France ladies and gentlemen !). Then began the hunt for a suitable replacement for cream cheese. I think I have found the cheese finally and I made a cake this week, but it came out a bit dry, so I need to adjust something before I pass on the recipe.

In the meantime........I'm going a little trip to Malaga, Spain and Gibralter and Tangier, Morocco....maybe I will find some grocery stores. I'm planning on eating fried sardines on a stick in Spain and couscous in Morocco for sure. Im also planning on getting a page of stamps in my passport !!

p.s. Happy Birthday fellow Aquarians !

Carte de sejour !!

I'm a bit exhausted from getting up at 5 30 am and driving 2 hours to Renne, but I have my temporary Carte de sejour now!! I am "signed up" for a so far non existent French language class via the internet too. I don't imagine there will be an government provided French language class before I leave France, so it appears I have escaped that requirement!! France has new requirements of people settling here that require you to pass a french test and if you dont you are required to take 400 hours of classes. You also must pass a medical exam and have a job skill assessment done. Since I have no intention of working here and I live in the country and there are no french classes within an hours drive , I was basically exempted from these two requirements. I was happy about that, Im not so happy about the 450 dollars it cost me, but hey, Im legal for a year now. Should have some food up this week hopefully , then we are off to Malaga, Spain for 4 days ( and hopefully a page of stamps on my passport) to explore Malaga ( duh) Gibralter and Tangier, Morocco. Then we are home for a week and then off to New Orleans for my 50th birthday and Mardi Gras Woo HOO.

Banana bread

Banana Bread !!

In the USA we call this bread, but in France if you make a bread with sugar or any sweetening, its referred to as cake. I have no idea why, but it seems like in America we name the food after the pan we cook it in or something. Like cake is made in a cake pan, bread in a bread pan, pie in a pie tin right? Except I think there are exceptions to the rule, take cornbread for example we cook it in a cake or pie tin ( or cast iron skillet) and we call it bread. So to keep it easy, in France if its sweet, it is not called bread, plain and simple. So we can call this banana cake or bread the choice is yours. You can eat it hot or cold, with or without butter, with creme anglaise on top if you want even.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup All purpose flour ( 225 gms Farine de ble)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder ( 2 1/2 cuilleres a cafe poudre a lever)
1 tsp salt ( 1 cuillere a cafe de sel)
1/3 c. unsalted butter ( 75 gms beurre doux)
1/2 c. honey (113 ml miel)
2 eggs beaten ( 2 oeufs)
2 c. mashed ripe bananas ( 450 ml puree de banane mure)
3/4 c chopped walnuts ( 70gms de noix coupee)


Butter and flour a standard loaf pan and preheat the oven to 325F (160C). Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In another bowl mash the bananas into a puree. In a third bowl whisk or beat the butter with the honey until creamy, add the eggs and banana pulp and blend to smooth with a spoon. Add flour mixture and blend until just blended, dont over mix. Add nuts, mix gently, pour into the prepared bread pan and bake for 40-50 minutes. The bread should come out clean when pierced with a toothpick, if not return to the oven for 5 minute intervals until a toothpick comes out clean when put in the middle of the bread. Cool a few minutes on a rack then remove from the pan and cool completely. Refridgerate after completely cool. The bread can be eaten warm or cold. Its delicious warm with melted butter !!

Life without Chili powder

I asked on Facebook and in a couple of emails to friends for some imput on what every one's favorite american foods were. This is what I have so far:

Philly cheesesteak
hamburgers
hot dogs
chili dogs
corn dogs
green bean casserole
BLT
Pie
bbq
mac and cheese
clam bake
crab cakes
stone crabs
sub sandwiches
sloppy joes
fried chicken
gumbo
jambalaya
pizza
french fries
tuna melt
meat loaf
pancakes
chili
huevos rancheros

I loved how the answers varied depending on where you grew up. Everyone from New Orleans had a full on cajun/creole list and the people from the NE never mentioned anything like the people from the south did.

Of course hamburger restaurants are the top producing restaurants as far as fast food, and really you can get a hamburger just about anywhere ( even the polo lounge for christs sake). Right behind hamburgers is mexican food though. Mexican and Chinese food have been eaten in USA since the 1800's so the cuisine is part of the American palate now.
So here in comes the challenge this week. I was trying to make chili and cajun food without chili powder. You can't get chili powder here at all. Somewhere back in the day, probably like 2 generations back we didn't have the incredible variety of dried spices and spice blends we have now. The first commercially produced chili con carne came out in the early 1900's and cajun and mexican food had been eaten in homes before that, so surely there was a way to make it without chili powder right? I started with chili, here is what I did. Now I like my chili with beans. I know if your from Texas this is a big no no, but I'm not from Texas so pfft.

try it out if you want and see what you think:

Chili con carne


250 gms ( that is about 1 cup) of red beans, kidney beans ( really any beans you like, it will just change the color if you use black or white beans but you can use black, white, pinto , red, kidney)
soak the beans in water over night with 1 tsp each of onion powder, garlic powder, coriander and cumin, they will need about 3-4 times the amount of water you used for beans so 4 cups of water if you use 1 cup of beans)

350 gms (3/4 lb) hamburger meat, ground chuck is fine
500 g tomato puree ( I know some chili purists say no tomato either , but I like it, so its in there. this is like 2 cups )
2 Anaheim chili's chopped( the 8 inches long or so sort of thin green ones)
1/2 habenaro chopped( or more if your daring and wear gloves please !)
3 cups beef broth
1 bell pepper chopped
2 onions chopped
6 cloves garlic sliced
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cumin
salt to taste
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp oregano
Olive oil

In a very large thick bottomed pot or dutch oven, pour in the beans and soaking water , throw in a bay leaf and bring to a boil. skim the scum of for the first 10 minutes of boiling , then lower the heat to a low boil and cover and cook for an hour or so.Remove the bay leaf, most of the water should be absorbed or boiled off at this point. If at anytime during cooking the beans become dry, add some beef stock. In a frying pan put a tbsp or so of oil and add the onions and garlic, cook for 5-8 minutes on medium heat until translucent. Add the chili's and peppers. I recommend wearing gloves when chopping chili's or your hands will burn for hours afterwards. Salt to taste and cook for about 10 minutes or so, then add the hamburger and oregano and sweet paprika( you can sub turkey burger, chicken burger tofu even for beef if you don't want to use beef)cook until meat is done, but don't let anything brown. Add all this to the beans along with the tomato sauce and remaining beef broth. bring to a boil then reduce heat, cover the pan and let simmer for 2-3 hours, checking occasionally to be sure nothing is sticking to the pan, stir when you check it and taste for salt and heat. At this point the beans should be cooked through and you should have a good idea what the heat index is . If it is not hot enough , add some cayenne. If its too hot you will need to serve with a spoonful or more of sour cream on the top to bring it down a few notches. You can serve with cheese too to reduce the heat. Let the pot cool and refrigerate over night, this incorporates the flavors. Reheat an hour or so before you want to eat and correct the seasoning. I like cornbread with chili, but you can serve with chips, over a hot dog, over french fries, with or without cheese, on eggs , or all alone !


let me know if this is clear or if the directions are hard to follow ok !! I made mine with a full habanero, but I think its far too hot for anyone in France to eat so I backed off on the chili in the recipe, a full habanero is pleasantly spicy to me, but very hot to others, so experiment away and remember to wear gloves !!!