On location: Paris

Two hungry Londoners in Paris.

On arriving in Paris for a two night, three day sojourn, pretending to be French, I decided to keep a food diary. The Sicily diary had been a great success, as well as highlighting how much one can eat. So here's what happened en France.

Day Un

Petit déjeuner:

Café au lait and cappuccino

Pain avec beurre et confiture (rouge)

Déjeuner: Le Timbre

Pea soup with pork croutons (!)

Terrine with onion marmalade and cornichons

Cochons noir (black pig) with fava beans

Confit du canard with sweet red peppers (stuffed with mashed potato - genius)

Espresso x 2

Diner: Le Hangar (good recommendation by Time Out)

Salmon tartare with basil on cucumber

Salad of haricots verts with Parmesan - oh so good

Boeuf stroganoff with small crispy potatoes - rare steak mixed in with cream and wine...

Matt, with his strong love for duck, went for a duck and foie gras pie with mash and nutmeg topping - zut alors!

Espresso x 2 served with small biscuits and gooey chocolate truffles

Day Deux

Petit déjeuner:

Café au lait x 2

Croissant x 2 (good dipping in coffee occurred)

Déjeuner: Nanashi (organic Japanese bobo canteen - bourgeois bohemian)

Organic lychee lemonade (oooh)

Heineken

Chirashi salmon - hot rice, salad, smoked salmon chunks, ginger, sesame seeds and some small shoots

Chicken bento - bulgar wheat and rice mix with chicken and shitake mushrooms in a real tasty sauce. with leaves, tomatoes, carrot and sesame seeds, broccoli and courgette. Small feast in a box.

Diner: Claude Colliot

Warm white asparagus, rhubarb and radish salad. Mouth watering.

Crab with an egg yolk on top, with yellow courgettes and apple puree. Fancy pants. Creamy. Yellow. Good.

Veal cooked in liquorice with perfect seasonal vegetables

Suckling pig flavoured with tobacco with perfect seasonal vegetables

Chocolate ganache with glazed fruits, nuts and orange cream

A small goats cheese

Day Trois

Petit déjeuner:

Two boiled eggs x 2

Café au lait x 2

Déjeuner: Le Pommette

A mozzarella type cheese with garlic and truffle oil

Green salad avec tomatoes, goats cheese, grapes and potatoes

Meats with salad and rosemary potatoes

Diner: (waiting for the train)

One salty sausage, half a goat's cheese and a bag of Lays crisps (a must)

Followed by a coke, an Orangina and a Lipton ice tea - salt overload

Bon appetit!

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Sausage rolls

A couple of weeks ago Charl had some of her uni friends round for lunch, it was a sunny spring Sunday afternoon so we had a picnic in the garden before heading to the park.
My contribution to the spread was some homemade sausage rolls, they are really quick to make (as long as you have some puff pastry already defrosted and you aren't hideously hungover). You can definitely tell the difference from frozen pre-made sausage rolls and using homemade pastry makes them even more buttery and tasty. We ate them along with some delicious salads, crusty bread and a cheese and ham cake that Julia had made from a recipe in that weekends Guardian magazine. They were very well received, one of our guests, Leo, even said he would never be able to eat bought sausage rolls again because they wouldn't be as good!!

Best served warm from the oven

Rachael x


Ingredients:
400g puff pastry (either bought or homemade)
450g pork sausage meat
1 onion peeled and grated
2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1 egg beaten

Method:
Mix the sausage meat, sage and onion together in a bowl and season with a little salt and pepper.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface as thin as you can into the shape of a rectangle. Cut the rectangle in half length ways.

Divide the sausage mixture in half and form them into 2 rolls the same length as the strips of pastry.

Place a roll of sausage meat down one side of each of the pieces of pastry, brush the beaten egg along one side of the pastry and fold the rest of the pastry over to meet it, covering the sausage meat. Use your fingers to make sure the edges are completely sealed together.

Slice the 2 large rolls into 2 inch portions. Coat the sausage rolls with some more beaten egg and use scissors to make a V shaped snip in the top of each one.

Place on a baking sheet and cook in the oven at 220C for 20-25 minutes.

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