5 tasty treats you absolutely should eat in Paris

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birthday, cafe, cake, chocolate, cocktails, ice cream, Paris, paris food, restaurant, treats

I realise the title of this post makes it sound like I may be up for heckling people in the street who happen to be eating a baguette or a croissant. “Hey! You over there! You should be eating that in Paris! How very dare you!?”

While that would be fun, that is not my intention. Rather I’d like to recommend to you five wonderful culinary moments you simply must experience during any visit to the stunning French capital.

I gingerly made the step from my twenties to my thirties last summer and I knew there was only one city that could make me feel like this decade was going to be my classy, sophisticated and oh-so cultured decade.  Only Paris would do.

The city was everything I’d dreamed it would be. Crammed with beautiful, elegant buildings, endless people watching opportunities and buzzing with an unmistakable joie de vivre. But the thing that truly bowled me over, was the delicious food that I indulged in for every meal of the day.

Now I know Paris is considered to be a top foodie destination, I haven’t been living under a rock cake. But what really struck me was that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to give your tastebuds their holiday of a lifetime.

Here are five of the best things that passed my lips during my birthday week in Paris…bon appetite!

Macaroons from Ladurée under the Eiffel Tower

I trotted into this plush little cafe en route to the icon of all Paris icons, the Eiffel Tower. It wasn’t serendipitous, I’d done my research – Laudree is famed for producing some of the very best macarons in the French capital.

I felt my breath quicken as I took in the array of their pretty pastel coloured delicacies. And while the interior was almost intimidatingly bijou, the staff were warm, attentive and happy to help me select my flavours. I got a little carried away and immediately chose rose, coffee, salted caramel and chocolate flavoured macaroons. Then I remembered, it’s only nice to let my boyfriend pick some too, and he went for raspberry, peach, strawberry and vanilla.

Sitting on the long stretch of grass in the shade of the epic Eiffel Tower nibbling these little beauties is one of my best memories of Paris.

From Laudree on Rue Bonaparte to the Eiffel Tower, it’s a 40 minute walk, but you can take in the charming streets and burn off those calories before a macaron even touches your lips, so why not.

Boeuf Bourginon in Montmartre

Few things could be more French than a steaming bowl of Boeuf Bourginon. Our apartment was on the border between the rough and ready Pigalle area (think Moulin Rouge and a sex museum…) and the quaint, pretty Montmartre – the setting of the film Amelie.

Sacre Coeur in Montmartre

On our first evening we wandered the busy streets of Montmartre in search of some dinner. The majestic Sacre Cour crowns the hill, but the surrounding streets are like a Parisienne Disney Land, jam-packed with tourists and tacky souvenir shops. Instead I’d recommend that you head a little downhill, to the quieter streets, where restaurants are better quality and locals meet for late night chats over a glass of wine.

We were tired and hungry, so alas I did not note down the name of the restaurant, but Boeuf Bourginon is a classic dish and the key component here is the setting – Montmartre is quite magical.

Opera cake from Dalloyau

I first tried Opera Cake in an Edinburgh cafe and bakery called Falko in Bruntsfield. Upon finishing, I calmly placed my fork back down on the plate and proclaimed the Opera cake to be the best cake I had ever eaten. And the trip to Paris offered the perfect opportunity to trace this little slice of heaven back to its roots.

Cyriaque Gavillon of Dalloyau patisserie is credited with creating the Opera cake in 1955. Its layers of almond sponge soaked in coffee, chocolate and ganache tick all my boxes, and the slice I ordered on my birthday was everything I dreamed it would be.

What could have been a better birthday cake?

Strawberry champagne cocktail while people watching

If there’s one activity I’d recommend in Paris – it’s people watching. Parisians were fascinating to me, with their effortless style, endless midday glasses of wine and nonstop smoking that somehow did not ravage their complexions.

Hop off the metro at Cite and you’ll emerge in a lovely market that sells all kinds of wonderful lanterns that you simply cannot buy because it will destroy your luggage allowance. Then head toward the Palais de Justice and on the corner you’ll find a busy restaurant called Les Deux Palais. It isn’t cheap but it’s a great place to rest your weary legs and watch the world go by.

My boyfriend enjoyed their beef carpaccio, while I opted for a light salad. The strawberry champagne cocktail from the specials board, however, was the real star of the show.

Ice cream beside Notre Dame

And finally…a proper little hidden gem. Just five minutes from the aforementioned Palais de Justice, on the corner of Boulevard du Palais and Quai du Marche Neuf, you’ll find an unassuming ice cream shop window attached to brasserie Le Soleil D’or. Buy ice cream from here – it’s insanely good. I had strawberry and my boyfriend had caramel, and it was such a meltingly hot July day we had to scoff them down before they turned to liquid. But, oh my, so good.

It was incredibly hard to narrow the list down to five things, but if you try any of these I promise you won’t be disappointed. If you’ve been to Paris, I’d love to hear what tasty treats you’d recommend? After all, something tells me it won’t be long until I return…

 

 

 

 

 

Gluten-free Italian stuffed chicken and chocolate pecan brownie

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chicken, chocolate, chocolate brownie, dessert, dinner, Gluten Free, italian chicken, pudding

It must be pretty difficult being gluten intolerant, watching everyone else tuck into whatever they fancy and missing out on tasty grub all the time. Which is why I decided to restore some balance when I cooked dinner for the first time in my new weasel den.

The trick was to find something everyone would enjoy, but that was also gluten free for my gluten-intolerant Mammy.

I decided a chicken dish would be most likely to please everyone’s palette and picked up this nifty little recipe from BBC Good Food, which I tweaked a bit to suit my own tastes.

Gluten-free Italian Stuffed Chicken (for five)

Ingredients

200g full-fat soft cheese

Handful chopped black olives

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 teaspoon of Oregano

Some chopped sun-dried tomatoes

5 ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

Recipe

1.)    First of all, mix the soft cheese, olives, sundried tomatoes, garlic and oregano in a bowl.

2.)    Next, use a sharp knife to cut a slit along the side of each chicken breast, then stuff with the soft cheese mix.

3.)    Pop on a baking tray and season the chicken. Top with sliced tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil.

4.)    Roast for 20 minutes at 220C, or until the chicken is cooked through entirely.

I served the Italian chicken with roast potatoes, side salad and some crusty bread, plus a bottle of my Portuguese favourite Vinho Verde. The trick with the roast potatoes is too cover in olive oil and season, then cook on a low heat for 2 hours until they are crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Think making a gluten-free dessert is a bit of a challenge? Try this super easy recipe for a chocolate brownie from Delicious and you’ll see how easy it is.

Gluten-free Chocolate Brownie Dessert (makes 6 portions)

Ingredients

100g good quality dark chocolate

3 medium free-range eggs

70g caster sugar

75g ground almonds

25g pecans

1 teaspoon of ground coffee (I used Sainsbury’s Fairtrade Colombian Coffee)

Crème fraiche and raspberries for serving

Recipe

1.)    Use the vegetable oil to grease an 18cm square cake tin.

2.)    Melt the chocolate over a bowl of simmering water, stirring gently.

3.)    Separate the eggs, whisking yolks and sugar until pale.

4.)    Add melted chocolate, almonds, coffee and pecans and stir.

5.)    Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks, then gradually add to the mixture.

6.)    Pop in the oven for 18 minutes at 180C, keeping watch to make sure it doesn’t burn.

7.)    Leave to cool in the tin, then cut into squares and spoon some crème fraiche and raspberries on top to serve.

Let me know if you try out either of the recipes? Enjoy!

Curiouser and curiouser…an evening of beer and chocolate

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beer, beer tasting, chocolate, chocolate tasting, edinburgh, edward and irwyn, innis and gunn, innis and gunn pop up bar

Photography by Mary Overmeer

Few things in life give me greater pleasure than a well-crafted beer or a devilishly indulgent piece of chocolate. Understandably then, I almost did a backflip* when I heard about A Curious Evening of Beer and Chocolate at the Innis and Gunn pop-up bar.

Independent, Edinburgh-based brewing company Innis and Gunn teamed up with artisan chocolatiers Edward and Irwyn for a tastebud seducing evening of beer and chocolate matching.

Since my plus one was a little *ahem* late I spent some time nursing a rather tasty Innis and Gunn Blonde and pretending to scribble some very important notes in my little notepad. Luckily I got a chance to grab a few words with Kirsty – one of the Edward and Irywn chocolatiers – who told me about their plans to open a kitchen up in Morningside in September, and that they believe in making chocolate the old-fashioned way, using techniques like hand tempering.

The tastings kicked off with an Innis and Gunn Original paired with Heather Honey Honeycomb milk chocolate. The comforting chocolate evoked memories of distant Christmas mornings, but my usual favourite beer didn’t have quite the same appeal when mixed with something else so sweet.

Next came a Stewart Brewing Coconut Porter paired with Rye Crumb Vanilla Salt Coconut Meringue – as if my night of beer and chocolate wasn’t going well enough, now I had coconut thrown into the mix – bliss! The chocolate was a challenging mix of hearty coconut, with the sweetness of chocolate and salty toasted molasses which danced back and forth on the tongue. The porter (which I’d tried and loved before) was also delicious, yet I felt the flavours were not contrasting enough to make it an interesting pairing. Rob suggested a chilli beer might have been better to complement the cool coconut flavour.

Next up was the talk of the evening – an Innis and Gunn Rum Finish paired with a deceptively normal looking slice chocolate, the Perfume Spiced Valrhona Blend. The explosion of flavour from the chocolate was quite simply stunning – spiced with vanilla seeds, clove, cardamom and rose – and I thought the pairing with Rum Finish was spot on, perhaps mostly due to the interesting combination of rum and cardamom.

The final indulgence was an Innis and Gunn Canada Day special brew, accompanied by Malted Honey Salted Caramel in extra dark milk chocolate. Made with Scottish Blossom honey, the chocolate caramels were positively melt-in-the-mouth. I’d happily line up eight of these badboys with a nice bottle of red for a quiet night in…

All in all a spiffing evening, and just writing about the chocolate is literally making my mouth water. Now counting down the days until Edward and Irwyn open their doors in September…

Thanks to Mary Overmeer for allowing me to use her wonderful photographs in this post – you can find her at @MaryOvermeer or check out her website.

Hot stuff: Mexican cookery class at Leith Academy

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Caribbean, chocolate, cookery class, Cooking, Home, Leith Academy, Leith Walk, mexican cookery class, Mexican cuisine, mexican rice, Mexico, Rob, scotch bonnet, torrejas mexicanas, tortillas

Saturday was one of the hottest days of the year so far, and things certainly heated up in the home economics classroom at Leith Academy. It was the inaugural Mexican Cookery class – part of Leith Academy’s adult learning programme – and my first one-day cookery class.

Having bought what seemed to be enough ingredients to feed a family of four (Mexicans) for two weeks, I loaded up my very kind boyfriend Rob like a packed donkey and we carted ourselves over to the school. In hindsight, it would have made a lot more sense to take the class with some friends, as most of the other attendees had, so I could have shared the ingredients and spread the cost. But hey, you go to school to learn, don’t you?

The class was taught by the very personable and knowledgeable Sara, who gave us all a little insight into the type of food real Mexicans eat when at home. The idea behind the class, she said, was to tackle misconceptions about Mexican food – and the colourful menu did just that.

Interspersed with cooking tips, were facts about the ingredients and little quips about everyday life in Mexico – I feel like I came away with much more than simply the experience to create some great Mexican dishes.

Apparently Mexican food is one of two UNESCO world heritage cuisines, the other being French. Mexican food is also one of the world’s first fusion foods – following the Spanish invasion Mexico was used as a port between east and west, so there is a strong Arab influence, plus Indian and Caribbean flavours.

Sara showed us a large lump of chocolate, which looked more like a brown patty than the slick packaged stuff we’re used to, and explained that was what she ate as a child for a treat. Real chocolate doesn’t contain any of the sugar like ours does, and has a more bitter taste.

Without a fajita or a burrito in sight, we started with the main course since it needed to marinate and then spend a few hours in the oven – pork baked in banana leaves. The meat was smeared with all manner of deliciousness, including dried chilli pequin, and achiote paste. Achiote is an aromatic spice made from the seed of a tree in the Caribbean, and while smelling lovely…dyed my fingers, skin and clothes a rather fetching shade of bright orange!

Once the pork was ready, we folded it into a parcel of banana leaves – I got mine at the Chinese supermarket on Leith Walk – and apparently they were the most impressive banana leaves ever, they were almost as tall as me!

Cooking the refried beans proved pretty easy, and Sara said refried beans with chorizo or bacon spread on toast is a typical breakfast in Mexico – sounds good to me.

Making the tortillas was most fun. Authentic tortillas are much smaller than the ones we buy in the shops over here, by about half the size. The trick was to get the dough just the right consistency, so that it stuck together and didn’t break when you pulled it apart.

Traditional tortillas are made with maize flour, which is gluten-free – I’ll be making these for my mum. I got a little bit of a rhythm going with my tortilla making, so while one was cooking I was busy flattening the next one.

Additionally we made some tasty Mexican rice and onion salsa with real kick (hello, scotch bonnet).

Finally – and in my pudding-loving-mind, most importantly – came the Torrejas Mexicanas – stacks of yumminess made from bread and manchego cheese covered in beaten eggs then deep-fried. Later I served with a vanilla crème sauce, sprinkled with flaked almonds and cinnamon. Heaven.

I left the class with a real sense of achievement and three bags full of food – perfect for a special anniversary night with my lovely donkey 🙂 Can’t wait for my next cookery class at Leith Academy…

Scoffing up the crumbs at Lovecrumbs café

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artisan roast, Baking and Confections, cafe, cake, Cake decorating, chocolate, coffee, Cooking, edinburgh, flat white, Home, leith, lovecrumbs, raspberry, rose, sponge cake, west port

The latest newcomer to the Edinburgh cake scene is Lovecrumbs café in the West Port. Starting life in a small industrial unit in Leith, these ladies sure know a thing or two about rustling up a damn good cake.

The café itself is rather sweet and rustic, with an eclectic array of furniture – nope, no matching chairs here – and potted plants in the window. The homely feel really worked well with the cakey treats on offer, which ranged from salted chocolate tarts to traditional scones, all displayed beautifully in an old wardrobe.

I couldn’t resist trying the Rose and Raspberry Sponge – it was simply divine and took around twice my normal cake eating time to consume since I was determined to savour every scrumptious mouthful. Along with the cake I had a flat white, made with Artisan Roast coffee much to my delight.

Lovecrumbs looks set to establish itself as a must-try for cake lovers in Edinburgh, and the place was already heaving by the time I’d scoffed up all the (love)crumbs from my plate. I was very impressed by the sunny disposition of those behind the counter too, even though they were clearly very busy it was service with a smile all the way.

An Easter treat…

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chocolate, creme egg, cuckoo's bakery, easter, treats

A happy hungry weasel Easter to you! If you fancy a little Easter treat get yourself down to the lovely Cuckoo’s Bakery on Dundas Street and indulge in one of these creme egg cupcakes. Even the ganache is creme egg inspired – delicious. Bit sad I have to wait a whole year to enjoy one of these again, but in the meantime I’ll be working my way through some of the other tasty offerings from Cuckoo’s Bakery – Eton mess, caramel shortcake and raspberry ripple cupcakes – oh my!