Strawberry tiramisù

This might surprise some of you, but shopping and cooking are not the only things that eat up all my time. I also read - and not just cookbooks. When lovely, poetic Lucy invited readers to turn to page 123 of our current reading, count five sentences and post the following three, I came up with this:
"Look at the sky," she said quickly. The sky had grown darker. "I think it will thunder again."
It seems fitting that the haunting novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters explores the theme of greed, as today's recipe is for greedy people only (which means anyone who might be reading this blog, I hope). I first spotted this summery variation on classic tiramisù at the bakery Bread & Roses in Paris, and had been wanting to recreate their recipe for months.
A little research led me to a recipe by Alsatian Christophe Felder, former pastry chef at the Hôtel Crillon in Paris and a prolific author of pastry books. Felder uses ladyfingers, but I followed the advice of the pastry chef at Bread & Roses and replaced these with pavesini biscuits. He showed me the little packets of thin, airy biscuits and said, "This is the true tiramisù biscuit." Authentic or not - there seems to be some debate on the subject - the pavesini turned out to be just the right size for my tapas glasses, also known as verrines.
Another change I made was to add a splash of Baume de Framboise, a raspberry liqueur from Burgundy which I keep on hand for making kirs with white wine. I might have used more, but I knew that Sam would be testing this dessert. Finally, I replaced Felder's red-tinted sugar with crumbled amaretto biscuits, which added a touch of almond that complements the fruit.
By the way, if you think it sounds a bit technical to pipe the mascarpone cream with a pastry bag, consider that Sam was bouncing around at my side throughout the making of this dessert, and yet it still turned out fairly presentable. A spoon would do fine, too.
I don't think I need to tell you that you'll want soft, sweet strawberries for this - nothing that would bounce if you dropped it on the floor. Lately I've been flirting with bankruptcy by indulging in daily baskets of ciflorettes and gariguettes, early strawberry varieties for the impatient (and greedy).

Strawberry tiramisù
Serves 6-7

1 lb 2 oz strawberries (500 g)
1 tbsp confectioner’s sugar (icing sugar)
2 tbsp cold water
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp strawberry or raspberry liqueur or syrup (optional)
3 eggs
4 oz sugar (100 g)
14 oz mascarpone (375 g)
7 ladyfinger biscuits or 14 pavesini biscuits (small Italian biscuits)
A few amaretto biscuits, for the garnish

Take 200 g (7 1/2 oz) of the strawberries, choosing the least pretty ones. Place these in a blender or food processor with the confectioner’s sugar, cold water, lemon juice and raspberry liqueur or syrup, if using. Blend until smooth and strain into a shallow bowl. Set aside in the refrigerator.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. In a mixer, beat the egg yolks and half the sugar (50 g/2 oz) until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the mascarpone and whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, starting off on low speed and gradually increasing the speed. As they increase in volume, slowly pour in the remaining sugar (50 g/2 oz). Beat until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, starting off with 1/3 of the whites to lighten the mixture.

Soak the biscuits in the strawberry juice as you assemble the ingredients for the tiramisu. Cut the tops off the strawberries, then cut them in half lengthwise and place them upside-down around the bottom of the glasses. Using a pastry bag or a small spoon, place a dollop of mascarpone cream in the bottom of the glass. Top with a soaked biscuit (or 1/2 a ladyfinger). Cover with more cream, then place a biscuit on top of this and cover with a spoonful of the strawberry purée. Cover with cream to the top of the glass, then smooth off the surface with a palette knife.

Repeat this procedure for each of the individual desserts and chill for at least 2 hours. Just before serving, sprinkle the top with crumbled amaretto biscuits.

A quietly delicious Paris pâtisserie

My love affair with French food began with pâtisserie and I still take pride in knowing where to find the best, from Pierre Hermé's passion fruit and milk chocolate macaron to Sadaharu Aoki's green tea millefeuille. That's why I was surprised to come across an interview with Pierre Hermé in which he spoke of a pastry shop that had somehow escaped my notice.
Though I thought I could sniff out sugar from miles away, La Petite Rose is in a residential part of the 8th arrondissement not far from where I live when I'm in Paris. You can imagine that I wasted no time in dashing over there to see what I had been missing since it opened a couple of years ago.
In an age where pâtisseries and chocolateries are looking ever more intimidating, with stark facades that barely suggest there might be cakes inside, it was refreshing to find this cheerful shop with pastries in the window and a few tables scattered outside and inside. The walls are painted pale pink and chocolate brown, a combination that seems to me typically Japanese. Pastry chef Miyuki Watanabe is indeed from Japan, and she let me take a few photos while she shyly told me about training in Tokyo and working at Gérard Mulot before opening her own shop.


I resisted the small but exquisite selection of pastries as I was on my way to a three-course lunch, but chose a few chocolates, which I proceeded to gobble, lunch or no lunch. Most original was the soft nougat wrapped in dark chocolate, though my favorite was probably the subtly zingy ginger-spiked ganache. At €4.70 for about ten chocolates, her prices are well below those of the ultra-chic chocolatiers of St-Germain, and I couldn't detect a difference in quality.

Next time I'll be sure to try her Valentin, the chocolate mousse and crème brûlée cake that Hermé recommended, as well as her chocolate and raspberry macaron. (I won't be afraid to go back to this shop, since I didn't destroy any cakes.)
On the way out, I looked to my right and admired this view of Sacré Coeur as I crossed the street: proof yet again that Paris always holds new surprises.


La Petite Rose, 11, boulevard de Courcelles, 8th, 01 45 22 07 27.

Five minute soufflé

Soufflé is the quintessential show-off dish, so it's no wonder the French have kept quiet all these years about how easy it really is to make.
This version from chef Christian Plumail in Nice is one of the simplest and best I have ever eaten. It calls for only four ingredients - lemon, eggs, sugar and a pinch of salt - and comes together ridiculously quickly with the help of an electric mixer.
You can bake the soufflés in ramekins, but I've found that my tapas glasses withstand the heat of the oven and create an even more dramatic result.
The only secret to this recipe is to fill the ramekins or glasses right to the top and smooth them off with a knife before baking. If you get the timing right (the recipe below works perfectly for me), they will hold their shape for a good two or three minutes after coming out of the oven.
Of course, as the French say, "A soufflé waits for no-one." Be sure your guests wait obediently for their soufflés, and not the other way around: soufflés are not known for being docile.
I'm lucky enough to have heaps of local lemons in my kitchen as the lemon season is at its peak here. If this isn't the case where you live, look for organic or untreated lemons so that you can use the zest without having to scrub the fruit.
I often serve this soufflé with an apple and star anise compote, but have also paired it with raspberry sorbet: lemon and raspberries are made for each other, I think.

In Paris, the soufflé is the little black dress of the dessert world. Here are a few of the most spectacular that I've encountered (so far):

- Grapefruit soufflé with grapefruit sorbet at Le Jules Verne.
- Grand Marnier soufflé at the St-Germain bistro Chez Dumonet - Joséphine.
- Vanilla soufflé at the Le Troquet in the 15th arrondissement (the pastry chef made a collar of butter around the top of the ramekin so that the soufflé would rise evenly).
- Chartreuse soufflé at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.
- Valrhona chocolate soufflé at Paule Caillat's cooking class.

Lemon soufflé
Serves 4

2 untreated lemons
3 eggs
50 g + 1 tbsp white sugar (1/4 cup + 1 tbsp)
A pinch of salt
Butter and extra white sugar for the soufflé dishes
Icing sugar (Confectioner's sugar)

Carefully butter four individual soufflé dishes and sprinkle with sugar to coat each dish evenly.

Zest the lemons and chop the zest finely. Squeeze one of the lemons and set aside the juice.

Separate the eggs. In a mixer, whisk the egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar until the mixture thickens and lightens in color. Add the lemon zest.

Clean the whisk and beat the egg whites in a separate bowl with the pinch of salt until stiff but not dry. Add the 1 tbsp sugar, then the lemon juice bit by bit.

Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and beat with a whisk to lighten the mixture. Add the rest of the egg whites, folding them in gently with a spatula.

Fill the soufflé dishes right to the top, smoothing the surface with a knife. Sprinkle with icing sugar. Place the dishes on a baking sheet and bake in a 375 F (180 C) oven, preferably on the convection setting, for 8 minutes, until well risen and lightly browned.

On top of the world (20,000 leagues under)

One of my more bizarre childhood memories is of being stuck at the top of the Eiffel Tower. My family came to Paris often so I don't know how old I was, probably eight at the most. Just before the elevator reached the very tip of the tower, it came to a grinding halt.
I don't know how long we hung there until help came: probably no more than a few minutes, though it must have felt much longer to most of the tourists who were crammed into that stifling lift. I remember people sweating and praying. I remember feeling detached from it all, too young to fear death or disaster. I remember someone breaking the glass at the top of the elevator, which was above the platform, and having us climb out. That seems unbelievable now.
Strangely enough, my family never discussed this incident in years to come and I can't even be entirely sure that it happened. I've been up the tower a few times since with visiting friends and each time the incident floats back into my mind, though it seems too surreal to be truly scary. Certainly I wouldn't let this vaguely remembered childhood trauma get in the way of a good meal, so I jumped at the chance to have lunch with my friend Alison at Le Jules Verne last week.
Star chef Alain Ducasse took over this restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower about a year ago, but it closed for renovations only recently, reopening a few weeks ago with a neo-retro look in brown tones by Patrick Jouin. We had a rare sunny day for our lunch, ensuring a clear view to La Défense, and at 4.30pm we were still lingering in the now-empty dining room as the waiters circled about slightly restlessly. We took the hint and had the restaurant's cushy private elevator all to ourselves on the way down (with no incidents, I'm happy to report).
Ducasse has brought this restaurant back up to the heights it deserves, and the €75 lunch menu is a relative bargain considering the chef's generous hand with truffles. Here are a few images* from our (à la carte) meal:

The view from our table.


Butter with the Jules Verne logo, great with the buckwheat bread.


Lobster with celery root salad and black truffle. I think the picture speaks for itself.


Marinated sea bream with lemon, capers and Iranian oscietra caviar.


Endives with ham and black truffle. They don't make them like this in Sam's school cafeteria.


Sole with symmetrical potato strips and the tiniest baby leeks. I thought the spuma was superfluous.


Savarin doused in its own not-so-little bottle of Armagnac.


Unsinkable grapefruit soufflé, served unabashedly with grapefruit sorbet.


Lemon marshmallows. How did they know I love lemon?


* Thanks to Alison for letting me use her amazing little Lumix camera.

Happiness

Yakisoba at Zen in Paris.
The first place I go, suitcase in hand, when I come in from the airport.
Now you know my secret.

Zen
8, Rue de l'Echelle, 1st, 01 42 61 93 99.

Saffron rice pudding

I'm having a hard time concentrating on my chosen subject this morning, so potent are the chocolatey aromas wafting from the oven at Emilie's Cookies. I have set up shop here while some major renovations take place in our apartment, and it's only because I'm meeting a friend for lunch at La Merenda that I have steeled myself while fist-sized balls of dough studded with chunks of finest-quality bittersweet chocolate emerge from the oven as comic-book-perfect cookies.
Besides, today I'm here to talk about saffron, a scent that doesn't soothe in the way of chocolate but titillates and intrigues, occasionally dominating a dish completely (as in risotto alla milanese) but more often blending mysteriously with other spices. A yellow tint is, of course, no guarantee that a dish contains saffron - turmeric often stands in as a cheap substitute, as do some dubious substances that mimick the real thing.
Being the world's most expensive spice, saffron is subject to an alarming amount of abuse and fraud. Nothing illustrates this better than the golden threads that some Iranian friends of Nadim's brought him back from a trip to the Himalayas. They had visited a spice market and were curious to compare Indian saffron with that of their own country, which is considered the best in the world. Nothing on the front of the package set off alarm bells, so Nadim happily threw some of the saffron into his rice. It came out smelling and tasting like wet nylon carpet. Only then did he notice what was written on the back of the box. Read it carefully and you'll understand just how far cynicism can go in the spice business.

One spice grower who is most definitely not cynical is Thierry Pardé, who cultivates the precious crocus sativus bulb on a one-hectare farm in the fields of the Gâtinais south of Paris. The idea of French saffron seems surprising these days, but in the 17th century the Gâtinais was renowned for its saffron and over the past several years a few dedicated growers have revived the tradition.
I first came across Thierry at the Salon Saveurs in Paris, one of the food events I consider most worthwhile because it brings together producers from all over France who would otherwise be tricky to track down. On my first encounter with him I bought three small tubes of saffron, which disappeared in no time and left me longing for more. These long, deep ochre threads were not only the most perfectly formed I had ever seen, they were also the most potent – two qualities that make them prized among the top chefs in France.
At December’s Salon Saveurs I wasn’t about to make the same mistake, so this time I picked up 1.5 g of saffron, a relatively huge amount considering that Thierry produces only 1 kg in a year from 150,000 flowers. The little jar cost just over €30, but it’s money well spent as it takes just a few of the stamens to transport a dish to Italy, Spain, North Africa or the Middle East.


Thierry warns never to buy powdered saffron, which he says could be mixed with bricks, chalk, rust or even lead. Judging from Nadim’s experience I’m inclined to believe him. Once you’ve got your hands on the real thing, he urges you to treat it with care to preserve all of its qualities. This means infusing it in liquid (warm or cold, never hot) for at least three hours and adding it to any dish just before the end of the cooking time over gentle heat. You can infuse it in water, broth, white wine or milk, though I’ve noticed that milk seems to absorb and temper its dramatic yellow-orange color. Use about 2 threads per person in desserts, 3 per person in savory dishes.
Thierry gave me the idea of adding saffron to rice pudding, bringing a distinctly adult twist to this childhood dessert. Since the recipe in his booklet was charmingly vague, I adapted my own recipe from the cookbook Petites recettes pour grandir. In that recipe I used orange zest and orange flower water; here I replaced them with lemon zest and saffron. One of the things I love about rice pudding is that it doesn’t need much sugar, making it the perfect post-Christmas indulgence. It’s also an economical dish that is only as rich as you want it to be (you can use partly skimmed milk or make it richer, and yellower, by adding an egg yolk or two along with the saffron).
I like my rice pudding on the runny side so that it doesn’t go solid after resting overnight in the refrigerator, so don’t be alarmed if it still seems a little liquid at the end of the cooking time. To me it tasted best cold out of the fridge a day after it was made, but there is a good chance it won’t last that long.


Rice pudding with lemon and saffron
Serves 4

When this pudding didn’t turn deep golden as I had hoped, I infused more saffron in a little water overnight and added it the next day. As you can see, the milk again soaked up the color – but fortunately not the flavor, which enlivens this otherwise soothing dessert.

8-12 saffron threads, depending on their strength
30 ml whipping (double) cream or crème fraîche (2 tbsp)
750 ml whole milk (3 cups)
60 g sugar, raw cane sugar if possible (1/3 cup)
70 g short-grain rice, such as Arborio (a generous 1/3 cup)
Zest of 1 lemon, finely chopped
A pinch of salt

Stir the saffron threads into the cream and set aside at room temperature (or in the refrigerator in summer) for a few hours to infuse.

Bring the milk to a simmer in a medium saucepan and add the sugar, rice, lemon zest and salt. Lower the heat and cook very slowly for about 1 hour, stirring every few minutes and removing the skin that forms on the surface.

When you can see the rice grains at the surface of the milk and the liquid has thickened, turn off the heat and stir in the saffron-cream mixture. Cover the pot and set aside to cool. The rice will continue to absorb the liquid.

Pour into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap (clingfilm) directly on the surface to stop a skin from forming, and serve chilled.

I'm submitting this post to Weekend Herb Blogging, which was created by Kalyn's Kitchen and is being hosted this week by Cooking in Westchester.

World Peace Cookies: rejoice!

I'm not the first blogger to discover Dorie Greenspan's all-time favorite World Peace Cookies, but I must add my voice to the chorus of praise from people whose lives have been changed forever by these chocolate sablés.
As Dorie herself points out, this recipe is really a straightforward slice-and-bake cookie. The difference is that it comes from Paris pastry chef Pierre Hermé, who has been described as "having a computer in his mouth." When Pierre tastes a chocolate cookie his computer tells him, "just think how much better this would be with fleur de sel."
It's a simple addition, just half a teaspoon of pure white Atlantic salt crystals, but what a difference it makes. Just about any cake or biscuit is improved by the addition of a little salt, yet here the salt brings a new dimension, one that makes these buttery cookies laced with cocoa and hand-chopped chocolate simply impossible to stop eating.
The name comes from a neighbor of Dorie who believes that if everyone ate these cookies every day there would be no more reason for war. But what I like about the title is that it's open to interpretation. The way I see it, if each of us gives a few bags of these cookies to the people around us at Christmas (or at any other opportunity), the world will be that much more peaceful. If you happen to live in Paris, imagine how the attitude of that bus driver - the one who closes the door on the young mother with the stroller - might change if you handed him a bag of World Peace Cookies (well, it's worth a try).
I've set the example by selflessly giving two bags of these cookies to Sam's teacher and her assistant - something I was able to do only because I hadn't allowed myself to taste them yet. It's a mystery to me how kindergarten teachers maintain any kind of peace in the classroom, so I thought these couldn't be more appropriate.
These sablés mark the beginning of my Christmas baking, which has got off to an awfully late start this year. As I write there are two fruit-laden puddings steaming on the stove, one of which will make my parents very happy on Christmas Day. The other I will give to producer Loulou at the market, who was kind enough to contribute his candied orange rinds to this year's pudding.

Meanwhile, my local grocer Antoine is picking up a 3-kilo block of top-quality chocolate from the wholesale shop for me so that I can continue my bid to spread world peace.
Try Dorie's recipe and you too will rejoice, I promise.

Menu for Hope: Time is running out!

Would you like this chic little book to be yours?
You have only until tomorrow to buy your raffle tickets for Chez Pim's fundraiser Menu for Hope, which this year is supporting a school lunch program in Lesotho. The money raised will help provide two meals a day for 137,000 children, some of them nomadic herd boys as young as seven years old.
The winner of my prize, EU01, will not only receive a signed copy of Gourmet Paris, which shortly after its release last month won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for best culinary travel guide (oops, have I mentioned that before?), but also a one-day Edible Paris custom food itinerary, which includes a personalized written walking tour covering markets, food shops and restaurants plus maps locating each place mentioned.
I've just received my own copies of this classy book with its plain brown cover and find it a delight to hold in my hand. The book covers everything from the best neighborhoods for food shopping to markets, luxury food shops, the finest places to buy and drink wine, and where to you can learn to make macarons, sushi or boeuf en croûte in French or English. In total this compact package contains more than 500 addresses, many of them gorgeously illustrated by Alain Bouldouyre. I especially like the nifty notebook at the back for keeping track of your own finds.
For a minimum donation of $10 this prize could be yours - but tomorrow is the cut-off date! Don't miss the chance to buy tickets for this and other fantastic prizes, some of which I'm hoping to win myself (so don't bid for Wendy's whisky, OK?).

Menu for Hope: Win an Edible Paris itinerary and a copy of Gourmet Paris! (Prize EU01)

Since I started blogging about eight months ago I've realized how powerful this medium can be. For me, blogs have become a daily source of entertainment, inspiration and knowledge. I'm constantly amazed by the talent and generosity of food bloggers - and never more so than when they team up to help those in need.
Chez Pim's fourth annual Menu for Hope comes at just the right time of year, when I for one need reminding that the luxury foods so beloved of the French during the holiday season are just that: a luxury. Last year this event raised an impressive $60,000 for the UN World Food Programme and this year's proceeds will go to a school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. If this seems a little abstract, visit Pim's Flickr page to see striking photos taken by the members of this community with disposable cameras that were provided by the Menu for Hope organizers.
My contribution to the incredible list of prizes is an Edible Paris custom food itinerary worth €200. Whether you're visiting Paris for the first time or have lived there for years, I will do my utmost to give you a fresh taste of the city. The itinerary includes a detailed written walking tour for a specific day (including opening hours), maps to help you locate each place mentioned and restaurant recommendations for that day. And heck, I'm feeling so generous that I'll also throw in a signed copy of my newly released book Gourmet Paris, which recently won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Culinary Travel Guide!
The minimum cost of a ticket is $10 and, whether or not you win a prize, you can't lose by taking part in this event. To bid for more European prizes, visit Food Beam where the adorable Fanny is the event's European host. You have until December 21st to mull over the tempting packages and try your luck. Winners will be revealed on January 9th at Chez Pim.

A sour taste

Some women buy jewels. I buy pastries. The luxury I allow myself might be relatively small, but I take huge pleasure in every moment of the experience. That's why nothing depresses me more than dour service in a pâtisserie, which goes against my belief that sharing space with chocolate and cakes all day should imbue people with well-being.
In fairness, I'm the one who provoked the pastry chef's stern disapproval at Pain de Sucre, an ultra-chic Marais pâtisserie whose whimsically named cakes - the Lili, the Rosy Rosa - normally fill me with glee. I made a mistake and I'm deeply sorry for it. Still, I wish I could have left the shop feeling a little less disgraced.
Before dropping into Pain de Sucre (more literally than I expected), I had spent the morning showing a small group the food highlights of Paris. We joined a long queue to try the coal-black truffle macarons at Pierre Hermé, made of the pungent black tuber rather than chocolate. At the deceptively modest-looking Blé Sucré we sampled the famed lemon tart, as well as a fluffy new coconut and pineapple pastry called the Aligre. Though both pâtisseries were at their busiest, the staff could not have been more patient and cordial. On the way back to the Métro, I walked past Pain de Sucre and despite the morning's indulgences decided that a few more pastries couldn't hurt.
I am always fascinated by the shop's innovative éclairs and this time I ordered a raspberry one, plus three macarons, a glossy-topped scone and a praline-filled chocolate bar for Philippe. As I was about to pay, I thought of Sam and said to the cashier, "I'll just take a chocolate lollipop." He made no move to stop me as I took a few steps and pulled out a lollipop from a small stand above the cakes. Unfortunately, the display wasn't as stable as it looked and two of the lollipops fell off — one of them directly onto a €40 cake, creating a dent in the fluffy white icing.
No-one had noticed and I could have got away with sneaking out without a word. Honesty overcame me, though, and full of remorse I pointed out the damage to pastry chef Didier Mathray, who worked with star chef Pierre Gagnaire for 10 years before opening this shop.
"You should not have done that!" he exploded. "You should never touch anything! Look what you've done to that €40 cake!"
I apologized again but he made it clear that my blunder had been unforgiveable. I then paid €19.50 for what I had bought, feeling very very small and suddenly remembering what it's like to be Sam's age. On the way out, I once again tried to convince him of how much I regretted my gaffe. He muttered blackly and shook his head, not looking at me.
Once out of the shop, my remorse started to lift a little. Someone of Mathray's skill would be capable of touching up that icing, I was sure. And lollipops are meant to be touched - aren't they? Why else do they put them in those tempting stands?
The stress must have got to me a little, though, because I didn't manage to photograph the cakes without taking a bite out of each one in the hope that they would lift my spirits. Not surprisingly, they tasted a little sour.

Happy to be in Paris

There is no denying that the Métro strike is irritating: how cruel and inhuman to shut down the only line that leads directly to the Salon du Chocolat at Porte de Versailles.
But, somehow or other, Paris always brings a smile to my face.
I walked down this street after chatting with Michel Chaudun, who must be the city's warmest and happiest chocolatier. He isn't taking part in the Salon du Chocolat because he doesn't need to: the crème de la crème of Paris society comes through his glass door each day. His chocolates are expensive at 98 euros a kilo (about $60 a pound) but their exquisite freshness sets them apart, even at the highest level of Paris chocolate.
Michel produces around 300 kg (660 lbs) of chocolates every day in his doll-sized workshop, known in French as a laboratoire, and just about all of this is sold the same day. He insists on filling each box of chocolates to order to prevent the chocolates from "contaminating" each other (his word). Even his display case is designed so that the chocolates are not shut in. "Chocolate needs to breathe," he says. Once you buy them his chocolates keep for up to three weeks, preferably just below room temperature, "but it's up to my customers to eat them as quickly as possible," he chuckles.
That's not to say that Michel Chaudun's loyal customers are stuffing themselves with a pound of chocolates every day. The beauty of enjoying chocolate in Paris is that it's perfectly all right to stroll into a deluxe boutique and order une petite gourmandise, which might be one or two ganache-filled chocolates or a mini-box of Michel's little square truffles. My latest discovery is his Veragua, a simple but extraordinary combination of dark chocolate, praline and caramel.

When chocolate is this finely balanced, a little takes you a very long way - a good thing when your Métro line has shut down and there is no Vel'ib for miles.
Michel Chaudun, 149 rue de l'Université, 7th, 01 47 53 74 40.

Domesticity

When I moved to France in my mid-20s I left a life of domesticity behind. I had been playing housewife since I was 19 and it was time to go off on my own, unburdened by the battery of kitchen equipment and glossy food magazines I had accumulated over seven years.
In Paris, it became a game to prove that no dish was unachievable with my minimalist equipment: two temperamental burners, a mini fridge and an oven just big enough to hold one small tin of brownies. I whipped egg whites by hand to make (mini) cheese soufflés and rustled up vegetarian lasagne with fresh artichokes, eggplants and mushrooms from the market when my friends came over. I no longer had a breadmaker or a pizza peel, but in my new location around the corner from some of the world's greatest bakeries, Poilâne among them, this wasn't an issue.
As my life has grown more domestic once again, the appliances have started creeping back into my kitchen: first a lime-green Magimix food processor, then (oh, joy!) a scarlet KitchenAid mixer, my sister's wedding gift to us. But I would still say I've been pretty restrained - until a few weeks ago, when I definitively crossed back into the camp of the appliance-crazed.
It all started with a search for the perfect blender. I was frustrated with the way my green food processor, pretty as it looks, couldn't make a satisfying smoothie or whiz a soup to a creamy purée. I started shopping around and saw that a powerful blender costs €150 and up. Around this time, Ximena wrote alluringly about making homemade Nutella in the Thermomix. The thought of a machine that could grind hazelnuts to a fine powder, melt chocolate without burning it and whip a few ingredients into a smooth paste piqued my interest. The machine's cultish side added a certain mystery: you either have to buy one from a representative, Tupperware-style, or take the risk of ordering an older, perhaps pieced-together model on eBay.
The price difference between the powerful blender and the Thermomix didn't seem that great, until I decided to go for the most recent model available on eBay, the TM21, rather than an orange model from the 1970s (Thermomixes are said to be indestructible, something that I sincerely hope is true). This machine is neither new nor fashionable, though it is catching on with chefs - Philippe grew up with one in his kitchen, and in Spain it's considered a kind of Valium substitute for housewives. My second-hand, 1998-vintage machine cost €415, about the same as a new KitchenAid. Do I regret it? Not for a moment.
It's not the prettiest appliance in my kitchen with its functional black, white and stainless steel design, but the Thermomix is probably the closest thing you could have to a friendly little robot that does the cooking for you. I had to get the Nutella recipe out of my system (total success) before I could start experimenting with the 1,000 or so recipes that came on a computer disk, which incidentally I couldn't open on my Macintosh.
The only disappointment has been smoothies, which were one of the reasons I wanted to buy a blender in the first place. Thrilling as it is to use, the turbo setting really works best with larger quantities of liquid - at least 1 litre (4 cups) is ideal. When I've tried to make smoothies for one or two people, I've ended up with frustrating lumps of fruit.
But the Thermomix's many qualities compensate for this. I know that its possibilities are almost endless - crumbles, stews, cookies, bread, granite - but so far I haven't got much beyond playing with different soups. I love it that I can let the machine do the chopping, heating and stirring, only intervening to press the Turbo button at the end (or not if I want a chunkier texture).
I want to reassure you that I don't plan to dedicate this blog to the Thermomix - devoted as I am to it, I still consider it just one of many tools in my kitchen, the most important of which are my hands. Once in a while, I will include Thermomix instructions alongside the conventional recipe if I think they might be helpful, though most recipes are easy to adapt once you know how to use the machine.
If you don't have a Thermomix - and chances are you don't, as they are really a European phenomenon - don't let that stop you from making this cream-free soup with a vegetable that people, for some reason, don't often think of pureeing. To make it, I used some wonderful young broad beans that one producer at the market had planted late, resulting in spring-like vegetables in early October. You could also use green beans, being sure to remove any strings.

Broad bean soup with bacon and sage
Serves 2-3

2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
13 oz broad beans or green beans (350 g)
1 medium potato
2 cups vegetable stock (I used Marigold bouillon powder)
4 oz bacon (100 g)
A few fresh sage leaves

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the finely diced onion and a pinch of salt, and stir over medium-low heat for a few minutes until the onions become translucent.

Top and tail the broad beans and chop them quite small. Peel the potato and cut it into small dice. Add the beans and potatoes to the onions, stir well, then add the vegetable stock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 10 mins, or until the beans and potato are tender. Purée the soup in a powerful blender and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cut the bacon into small pieces and fry until golden (if using French lardons, I think it's worth blanching them for 1 minute first to remove some of the salt). Remove the cooked bacon from the fat with a slotted spoon and fry the sage leaves in the bacon fat until crisp. Top the soup with the bacon and a couple of sage leaves before serving.



Thermomix instructions: Heat the oil for 3 mins at 100 C, speed 2. On speed 6, add the quartered and peeled onion through the hole in the lid and chop for 10 seconds, or until there are no big lumps. Heat for 3 mins at 90C, speed 2. Add the whole, trimmed beans and chop on speed 6 for 10-15 secs. Add the vegetable stock and peeled and diced potato and cook for 10 mins at 100 C, speed 2. Purée on Turbo for 1 min and season to taste with salt and pepper.

For the garnishes, proceed as in the recipe above.

A rustic fruit tart

In France you are either a pastry chef or a baker, rarely both.
Pastry chefs are precise perfectionists who know just how many grams of gelatin it takes to bring structure to an airy raspberry mousse. They are chemists but also artists, who finish off their creations with a single red rose petal or a paper-thin square of white chocolate streaked with gold.
Bakers are more instinctive types who sense the need to adjust the amount of flour in their pain au levain to the humidity outside. They like to make cakes, but chances are you'll never find them fussing with agar-agar.
Much as I love making and eating any kind of pastry, if I had to choose a camp I'd definitely fall into the second. Dough of all kinds comes naturally to me, while I have to kick my lazy side into submission to make the more complex French pâtisseries with their layers of mousse, ganache and sponge cake.
Eric Kayser is my kind of baker. His famed baguette Monge is probably one of the top five baguettes in Paris—it's always hard to judge, since the quality of baguettes can vary from day to day—but what I really love are his rustic fruit tarts. Just as I prefer to make the more rustic cakes, they are also (rather conveniently) what I prefer to eat. They give you something to sink your teeth into, and they don't collapse into a messy heap when you try to share them.
After reading about Les tartes d'Eric Kayser on a few blogs, I found myself ordering it impulsively on Amazon one day. A few days later it arrived, like an early Christmas present with its red and green tart on the cover (redcurrants with matcha tea filling, very intriguing).
Of course, I couldn't wait to try it out and for my first project I settled on the pear and grapefruit tart, which I seem to remember finding irresistible at his bakery in rue Monge. It's the combination of the cream-colored pear and pink grapefruit that does it for me - without the grapefruit, it could easily look boring.
Pâte sablée is not new to me, but it's always interesting to read a baker's tips and probably the wisest words in this book are (my translation): "The only real secret to good tarts is time. You need to let the doughs breathe, allow them to relax, protect them. The ideal is to prepare them the night before."
Indeed, I've noticed that whenever I make a tart at a slow, relaxed pace, allowing the dough to rest in the fridge before and after I roll it out, it doesn't do anything nasty like shrink or tear.
Even though this is a rustic tart and therefore, in principle, easy, it was a two-day project because of the overnight resting time for the dough. I also decided to poach the pears myself rather than use canned pears as Kayser suggests. It's pear season, after all. Honestly, though, I think canned pears would be just fine.

I also spent a little time wondering what to do about pistachio paste, an ingredient I can't easily find in Nice. I was almost ready to use green-tinted almond paste from Auer, which the saleswoman had assured me was made of pistachios (hah!), when I remembered that I still had a few Bronte pistachios from last year's Salone del Gusto in Turin. It wasn't enough to make Pierre Hermé's recipe for pistachio paste, which calls for 500 g (a little more than 1 lb) of pistachios, but I found my own solution to make just enough for my tart.

My dear friend and guru Sylvie thought the bitterness of the grapefruit added nothing to this tart (which she gobbled up anyway), but I love their bright pink color and think that a poor-quality imported grapefruit was to blame. This tart might be best made with canned pears during grapefruit season (around February in France). See what you think.


Pear and grapefruit tart
Serves 6-8

For the pears in syrup:
2 pears, not too ripe
500 ml water (2 cups)
125 g sugar (4 1/2 oz)
1/2 vanilla bean

For the pistachio paste:
15 g pistachios (1/2 oz)
15 g powdered sugar (1/2 oz)
1 egg white (you won't need all of it)

For the pâte sablée (enough for three tarts):
300 g butter at room temperature (11 oz)
60 g white sugar (2 oz)
125 g powdered sugar (4 1/2 oz)
60 g powdered almonds (2 oz)
5 g salt (1 tsp)
2 whole eggs
500 g flour (1 lb 2 oz)

For the filling:
Poached pears (see above)
2-3 pink grapefruits
125 g butter at room temperature (4 1/2 oz)
125 g white sugar (4 1/2 oz)
125 g powdered almonds (4 1/2 oz)
10 g flour (1/3 oz)
3 whole eggs
30 g pistachio paste (1 oz)
2 tbsp apricot jam

For the pears:
Peel the pears, cut them in half and scoop out the cores with a spoon or melon baller. Combine the water, sugar and vanilla bean, scraping out the seeds from the vanilla bean and adding them to the water along with the bean. Bring to a simmer, lower the heat and cook at a simmer for 25-30 mins, until soft when pierced with a knife. Set aside to cool in the syrup, then remove from the syrup and drain on paper towels overnight in a covered container in the refrigerator.

For the pistachio paste:
In a pestle and mortar or small electric grinder, pound or grind the pistachios to a fine powder. Add the icing sugar, then just enough egg white to make a thick paste.

For the pastry:
In a food processor or mixer (I used my Kitchenaid with the paddle), beat the butter until soft. Add the sugars, almond power and salt, mixing well. Add the eggs one by one and combine, scraping the sides of the bowl. Add the flour and mix on low speed just until the dough comes together.
Form the dough into three flat rounds and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Place two in the freezer for future use (they can be defrosted overnight) and one in the fridge.

Finishing the tart:
The next day, remove the pastry from the fridge and let it warm up for at least 20 mins before rolling it out. Use just enough flour so that it doesn't stick to your board, and roll it as thinly as seems feasible, turning it often.
Roll about half the dough around your rolling pin and quickly lift it up and place it in the tin (Kayser likes square tins and so do I). If it tears, you can always squeeze the cracks together. Press the pastry into the corners of the tin, then cut off the overlapping pastry with a sweep of the rolling pin. Press the edges a little higher than the edge of the tin to compensate for any shrinkage.
Let the dough rest in the fridge for another 30 mins at least while you prepare the filling.
Using a sharp knife, peel the grapefruit from top to bottom, removing all the pith. Holding the grapefruit in one hand, cut between the membranes to release the segments.
Cut each piece of pear in half, then cut each quarter into three even pieces.
For the filling, beat the butter in a mixer until soft. Add the sugar, almond powder and flour. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well, then the pistachio paste.
Pour this mixture into the pastry (without blind baking the crust - if Kayser says you can do this, it must be OK!). Top with alternating pieces of pear and grapefruit. Bake at 180 C (375 F) for 35-45 mins, until done. (Kayser's recipe says to bake the tart at 160 C for 35 mins, but I found that it wasn't hot enough or long enough.)
Once the tart has cooled, melt the apricot jam in a small saucepan and brush it over the tart for a glossy finish.

A big coffee éclair

Coffee éclairs and I go back a long way, to my first year in Paris when I was four. My memories of that year are vivid, probably because I was learning a new language (I entered the maternelle knowing only how to say "oui" and "non" and came out fluent, at least temporarily) and adjusting to a new culture (in Canada park wardens don't blow the whistle and aim a threatening finger at children who step on the grass).
I particularly remember going for walks with my dad and marvelling at the chaotic traffic along boulevard Garibaldi. At the time no self-respecting Parisian would drive anything but a Citroën 2CV and these seemed to crash into each other a lot more often than cars do nowadays in Paris. I entertained myself by watching cars back down our one-way street - reversing at high speed was still an acceptable way of getting around the one-way street problem - and waiting for the inevitable crunch of metal on metal. The drivers would get out of their cars, yell and shake their fists, then get back in and casually drive away.
My dad, being a fellow gourmand, always found time for a pastry or ice cream on these walks. In the early 1970s (!! am I that old?) most pâtissiers still made their own ice creams and sorbets, which were displayed outside the shop. Eating coffee ice cream made me feel very sophisticated and it wasn't long before I discovered the coffee éclair, with its crisp choux pastry, coffee pastry cream filling and shiny coffee glaze.
I think my love of cooking may have sprung from the coffee éclair - or, rather, the lack of it in Canada. My mother had a book called La pâtisserie pour tous by Ginette Mathiot (Le livre de poche) and, as soon as I was old enough (around 8 or 9 years old), I began teaching myself to make French pastries. The results were often pretty disastrous and I shed my share of tears but after a while I did master the éclair, more or less.
Our family's original copy of this classic book has gone missing and only recently did I think to buy one of my own. Looking at Mathiot's brief instructions for the most complex French pastries, I could understand why my pastry apprenticeship was strewn with obstacles (the instructions for making bûche de Noël, a complicated rolled and decorated cake, are six lines long). The book also made me realize how flawed memory can be: I eagerly started looking for the croissant recipe I remembered, only to realize there isn't one.
I haven't yet revisited Mathiot's coffee éclair recipe, but when I do I promise to give you a full report. In the meantime, I had one of my most spectacular éclairs ever in Paris at the restaurant Rech, which has recently been taken over by star chef Alain Ducasse. The XL éclair has always been a specialty at this art deco seafood restaurant in the 17th arrondissement, and Ducasse has wisely kept it on the menu. The glaze was so good that I wanted to pick up the éclair and lick it, but I've grown a little more dignified in the past 30 years or so, at least in public.
After all these years I still have a special fondness for the éclair, an untrendy pastry that has lately taken a back seat to the show-off macaron. I feel gratified that Sam, with no encouragement from me (really!), has developed his own passion for the coffee version. Though he is tolerant of my solo trips to Paris, he is having a hard time forgiving me for eating this entire éclair without him.

La rentrée

After a few weeks away it's always a pleasure to come back to Paris. You might think I would be jaded after all this time, but my first glimpse of the city is inevitably a thrill. This time there was quite a lot to catch up on: the city has made thousands of sleek silver bicycles available at stands throughout the city and there is free wireless Internet access in parks and libraries.
I wasted no time in trying out both, first at the poetically named Bibliothèque l'Heure Joyeuse in the 5th arrondissement, where I enjoyed an inspiring view of Saint-Severin church as I worked. It's a children's library, but French kids have good library manners and it felt much more serene than any café. I tried to pick up the Internet in the Palais Royal gardens today but discovered that not all gardens are equipped with WiFi (I could have gone to Les Halles, which is rather less romantic).
Having mastered the Velib system in Lyon and ridden my own bicycle for ten years in Paris (which I proudly still have in Nice), I couldn't wait to get on a bike. To my amazement this proved simple, requiring no permission letter from my parents or multiple passport photos. I simply punched in a request for a seven-day pass (€5) at one of the stands, authorized a deposit of €150 which would be used only if I failed to return or damaged a bicycle, and helped myself. The bikes are rather heavy in the front and I felt a little nervous as my precious new computer jiggled in the basket - would the insurance cover it if I hit a big cobblestone and it went flying over the handlebars? I decided not to take my computer along for the ride next time.
I'm taking advantage of my time in Paris to catch up on restaurants and the shot above is from Hélène Darroze's new bistro Toustem, whose dining room across from Notre Dame is an odd juxtaposition of heavy beams, gothic doors, orange floors and white chairs. I've never felt completely at ease in her ultra-chic rue d'Assas restaurant, but here her cooking is at its generous best. I loved this dish of macaronnade, penne in a mushroom cream sauce with big chunks of pan-fried foie gras.
If you look carefully you can see Darroze in the background (second from the left in the group of women) - she was not in the kitchen but had dropped in with pictures of her baby girl. What does a two-Michelin-star chef drink on her day off? Diet Coke - so you don't ever have to feel embarrassed about ordering this in a Paris restaurant.

Tapenade

Alain Dutournier, chef at the very chic restaurant Le Carré des Feuillants in Paris, once said to me that he considers it uncivilized to drink without eating. I'm inclined to agree, even if it might sound a bit extreme. What could be more civilized, after all, than the Italian aperitivo with its array of tiny sandwiches and snacks?
The French sadly haven't adopted this generous approach and even on the Cours Saleya, with its year-round sunny terraces, I often have to content myself with a saucer of stale chips or a puny dish of olives. I've even been known to make a run to the local épicerie to buy my own peanuts or chips, which is not a very civilized thing to have to do.
What a shame, when rosé lends itself so well to the apéritif ritual. Sunny, crisp and never snobbish, rosé is my drink of choice all summer long. With a glass of rosé in front you, it's impossible to feel down because pink wine implies that the sun is shining and you're taking a moment to appreciate life, albeit in a less extravagant way than with a flute of champagne.
Some southerners believe that rosé tastes best when sipped near the sea - something about the way the salty air mingles with the aromas - and there may be some truth in that, but I like this low-profile Provençal wine so much that I'd like to see more people drinking it all over the world. Nothing tastes more natural than rosé with any of the Niçois dishes I love so much (what else could you possibly drink with salade niçoise?), but it also goes beautifully with Japanese, Thai or Indian food.
As I sip a glass of rosé while cooking - or should I say throwing together a salad, which is what I more often do in the summer here - there is nothing I like better than to whet my appetite with tapenade. Its name comes from tapeno, the Provençal word for capers, and anchovies have become just as essential an ingredient somewhere along the way. Of course I can buy good tapenade, particularly at the Cours Saleya market where some of the producers sell jars of this salty black paste made with their own olives, but making my own is a ridiculously easy pleasure.
The key, as you might have guessed, is to find a willing slave - er, partner - to help pit the olives. You can use the flat blade of a knife and squash each olive, or invest in an cute little olive pitter as I have. Use pitted olives from a can and you will regret it: tapenade can only be as good as its main ingredient.
Being in Nice I use the small fruit called caillette, otherwise known as the olive de nice. The true Niçois olive, which like many wines and a few foods has an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée to protect it from imitators, ranges in color from pale green to purply black and is cured in a salt brine for at least two to three months. Wrinkly black Nyons olives also make wonderful tapenade.
Jacqueline Bellino, who produces organic olive oil in the hills behind Nice and has won prizes for her tapenade, changed the way I made this condiment. "You should keep the capers and anchovies to a minimum," she says. Her rule is to restrict these two ingredients to no more than five per cent of the total weight, allowing the flavor of the olives to come through. Like Jacqueline, I now make a very restrained tapenade - but that doesn't stop me from throwing in extras such as walnuts, herbs or a little lemon juice.
Tapenade is probably best enjoyed on toasted slices of good baguette, but you can of course cook with it as well. On the rare occasions that students ask to prepare rabbit in my cooking classes, we stew it with tapenade, tomato, onions and herbs, and you can also toss tapenade with pasta, fresh chunks of tomato and basil. Red mullet with tapenade is another classic local dish. Don't forget that green olives also make beautiful tapenade - try adding almonds, which complement their lighter flavor.

Tapenade
Makes about 1 cup

I prefer not to give a quantity for the oil, as the amount needed will depend on the oiliness of the olives. The blacker the olive, the oilier it is likely to be.

9 oz black olives (250 g)
1 tsp capers
4 anchovy fillets packed in oil
Good quality olive oil
Lemon juice (optional)
Black pepper

Pit the olives by pressing them with the flat blade of a large knife or using an olive pitter. In a food processor, blend the olives, capers and anchovies, adding enough oil to create a smooth mixture. Add a little lemon juice if you wish and black pepper to taste.

Paris in the summer

For many years I never understood why French people take their holidays en masse, hitting the highways and airports like so many sheep. I made a point of staying in Paris over the summer to enjoy the plummeting stress level and traffic-free streets. Summer is the time for champagne picnics on the banks of the Seine, for parties on the pedestrian Pont des Arts, and for cycling the wrong way down cobbled one-way streets (something that intrepid tourists can now try thanks to Velib', a new program that is making 20,000 bicycles available for an annual rental fee of €29 plus an hourly charge, with the first half hour free).
The only downside to lingering in Paris over the summer is that hard-working chefs, shopkeepers and market stallholders are among the first to join the exodus. I remember visiting the Saxe-Breteuil market in late July to find it positively desolate, with only two lonely merchants. Most bistros close for the entire month of August and sometimes part of July, and even the famed ice cream shop Berthillon pulls down its shutters in hot weather as founder Raymond Berthillon didn't want people eating his intensely flavored boules "just to stay cool".
Fortunately, some of the city's best restaurants and food shops are going against tradition to stay open this year. If you're planning to be in Paris this summer, have a look at my article on the Fodor's news wire to see how you can satisfy the most likely food cravings, from cheese to ice cream. I can also design you a custom itinerary based on your interests.
Just don't try to get in touch between August 11th and 25th - I'll be on holiday.

A classic tarte aux fraises

You know you've lived in France a long time when strawberry tart with crème pâtissière starts to seem banal. In any pastry shop in Paris you'll find this classic, the scarlet berries perched on an eggy cream and glazed with red jelly. I like it, but it's not something that I've thought of ordering in years (well, would you, when you could have Pierre Hermé's raspberry, rose and lychee tart or Sadaharu Aoki's salted caramel tart with milk chocolate?).
I associate crème pâtissière with the Cordon Bleu, where I worked as an interpreter for nine months when I first moved to France twelve years ago. Every Thursday the pastry chef, a man of blessedly few words, would turn out dozens of cakes and éclairs and tarts with quiet precision in the course of a two-hour demonstration. On these days my diet (if you can call it that) consisted solely of cakes and perhaps I had my fill of crème pâtissière, the obligatory filling for so many French desserts.
In Nice I like to fill strawberry tart with nothing but strawberries, the prettiest ones left whole and the rest boiled with sugar and a little lemon juice to make a vivid red jelly that I drizzle over top. As fate would have it, though, I found myself recently at a little restaurant in the pretty town of La Turbie called Café de la Fontaine. It looks like a regular café but is in fact the annex of the elegant Hostellerie Jérôme, where chef Bruno Cirino turns out some of the best food on the Côte d'Azur - or so I hear, as I haven't yet eaten there.
We arrived very late for lunch, past 2.30pm, but the waiters made room for us in the cacophonous dining room (the terrace is presumably a bit quieter). I went for the steak-frites with béarnaise, which was remarkable for the quality of the meat, while Philippe had the equally meaty pork with blood sausage and Sam devoured a plate of asparagus-stuffed ravioli. It was all lovely, not haute cuisine but clearly good quality ingredients prepared with thought and care.
All the time, though, I had my eye on the strawberry melba on the blackboard menu, hoping against hope that the waiter wouldn't come along and cross it out as he had most of the other desserts.
Finally, the plates were cleared and the moment had come.
"Three strawberry melbas, please."
The waiter looked regretful. "We've just run out. We have strawberry tart, though."
It wasn't much of an endorsement but at least I would have my strawberry fix. And then the big wedges of tart arrived, with delicate pastry, a surprisingly light vanilla-scented cream and sweet ruby berries. A marvel of simplicity, this tart reminded me of why crème pâtissière should never be filed away under "too old-fashioned."
Naturally I wanted to recreate this tart at home, with the same light pastry cream. The classic French recipe is often quite dense, with butter giving it a glossy finish but adding weight in the stomach. I slightly modified a basic pastry recipe from Books for Cooks no. 7, a compilation of recipes from my favorite cookbook shop in London, and tinkered with the pastry cream from O délices to make a strawberry tart that came remarkably close to what I had eaten in La Turbie.
In summer I prefer to make pastry in the food processor, which keeps it as cool as possible. Lately I've taken to sifting the flour, a step I used to ignore, as I've concluded that it really does produce lighter pastry. I didn't bother with red glaze (pastry chefs use melted redcurrant jelly), but you might sprinkle it with icing sugar.
The key is real vanilla bean and the sweetest, juiciest strawberries you can find - but you didn't need me to tell you that.

Classic tarte aux fraises
Serves 6

For the pastry:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (175 g)
5 tbsp icing sugar (45 g)
Pinch of salt
3 oz very cold butter, in pieces (90 g)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp ice water (30 ml)

For the crème pâtissière:
1 1/3 cups whole milk (350 ml)
1/2 vanilla bean
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar (75 g)
1/4 cup flour (30 g)

1 1/2 lbs strawberries (700 g)

Pastry: Sift the flour and icing sugar and place in the bowl of a food processor with the salt. Pulse once or twice to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg yolk and water and process until the dough forms a ball. Be careful not to overmix, but do let the dough come together. Turn the dough out onto a board and work it very lightly until smooth, pressing it forward bit by bit with the heel of your hand.

Roll the dough out immediately (going against tradition, which says to let it rest in the refrigerator) and line a 9-inch (24 cm) tart tin with the pastry, cutting the edges off with a rolling pin. If it tears, don't be afraid to press it back together, using stray pieces of dough to reinforce any weak spots. Place in the refrigerator for at least an hour before using.

Preheat the oven to 425 F (200 C), or 400 F (190 C) on the convection setting. Line the pastry with a round of parchment paper and fill with beans or rice. If you don't have beans or rice, you can use a second tart tin of the same size instead (if you have one!).

Bake for 10-15 mins, until the pastry starts to brown around the edges. Remove the paper and weights or tart tin and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so, until evenly golden. Set aside to cool.

Crème pâtissière: Pour the milk into a medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds of the vanilla bean into the milk and add the bean to the milk. Bring to a boil, being careful not to let it burn.

In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Add the flour and whisk well until smooth. Pour the boiling milk slowly into this mixture, whisking constantly. Return the milk mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking to prevent lumps from forming. Lower the heat and continue to cook the pastry cream, whisking, for 2-3 mins over very low heat to cook the flour (if you're using an electric burner, switch to another burner so as not to burn the pastry cream). Remove the vanilla bean, pour the cream into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap so that the plastic touches the surface, preventing a skin from forming. Set aside to cool.

When the pastry and pastry cream have cooled, pour the cream into the pastry shell and spread it out with a spatula. Top with the strawberries, cut in half, with the cut side facing upwards to prevent too much juice from soaking into the cream.

Chocolaterie Galler

Like most people who have spent a large chunk of their lives in Paris, I'm a bit snooty about chocolate. I walked past Chocolaterie Galler in the boisterous market street rue d'Aligre many times before deigning to go inside, simply because it was a Belgian chain. I've long preferred the sober intensity of French ganache fillings to the nutty sweetness of Belgian praline, or so I thought until I met Yves Filleul, whose infectious enthusiasm - and surprising chocolates - quickly won me over.
Yves doesn't make the chocolates himself but you would think they were his babies, so lovingly does he present them. He is quick to explain that Jean Galler trained with legendary French pâtissier Gaston Lenôtre, with the result that his pralines are less sweet than those of his Belgian contemporaries (apart from Pierre Marcolini, who can compete with the best Paris chocolatiers). Galler loves to experiment with new fillings but his aim is always to please rather than to shock - as Yves put it, "when you taste one of his chocolates you should want another one."
Having been to this shop alone and with groups, I can confirm that a single chocolate here is definitely not enough. Yves likes to offer newcomers the curry-filled chocolate pictured above, which is the perfect example of how Galler achieves a balance of flavors. Twelve curry spices go into the praline filling, but Galler uses warm spices only so as not to bombard the palate with chilli or pepper. Because the curry filling is quite subtle you can really taste the Java milk chocolate coating.
At the moment Galler is also experimenting with different salts, which are all the rage in France this year. I tried a chocolate flavored with fleur de sel de Guérande, the pure white salt that rises to the top of the water on this island off the Atlantic coast. Combined with Breton butter, it creates a smooth filling with a surprising taste of the sea. If you're feeling really adventurous you can buy this chocolate as part of marine series that also includes chocolates made with black Hawaiian salt, wakame seaweed from Brittany and nori, the Japanese seaweed that's used for sushi.
I was also intrigued by the even more esoteric Kaori chocolates, which come in the shape of long, pen-like sticks for dipping into little "inkpots" of flavorings. Through a great stroke of luck (thank you, Sally), I received these as a gift recently. Philippe, Sam and I sat down for a serious tasting, dipping each of the seven filled chocolates (saffron, cardamom, yuzu, ginger, vanilla and coconut, and strawberry with balsamic vinegar) into the three pots (orange, matcha and poppy seed, and kalamansi, a type of lime). Not every combination was pure poetry but I was surprised by how good the ginger tasted with the green tea and poppy seed powder and I liked the kalamansi syrup with just about everything.
A house classic is the langue de chat (cat's tongue), a chocolate in the shape of a cat's head inspired by the Belgian political cartoonist Philippe Geluck. If you develop a cat's tongue addiction you'll be in famous company: according to Yves, Woody Allen indulges in one every day.
I still have a special fondness for the more austere French ganache-filled chocolates, if only because it's easier to stop at just one (or two). But I'll never walk down the rue d'Aligre again without dropping into Yves' shop and tearoom, where in colder weather you can taste one of the richest cups of hot chocolate in town.
You might be interested to know that Yves, like Jean Galler himself, recommends storing chocolates in the refrigerator in warm weather - it beats letting them melt into a puddle. Wrap the whole box in plastic to protect it from the humidity and take it out of the fridge 20 minutes before serving, if you have the willpower to wait so long.

Chocolaterie Galler
13 rue d'Aligre, 12th, 01 43 40 34 45.