My life is pretty crazy right now, I’m having a hard time finding moments to post
But don’t worry, I keep cooking and shooting so I’ll have a lot of dishes to share with you once I can escape more often from by business!

This lamb and pistachio skewers recipe was inspired by the French « Saveurs » magazine although it ended up a lot different from the original. These kebabs are a variation of the Mediterranean kofta. Like the original, they’re served with a mint and yogurt sauce and can be eaten with some salad in a flatbread.

Preparation time: 30 minutes – Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

Lamb and pistachio skewers

1.3 lbs (600 g) of  ground lamb meat
1 oz (30 g) of shelled pistachio nuts
6 sprigs of fresh parsley
1 egg
1 onion
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of ground cilantro
1 squeeze of lemon juice
Salt & pepper

Yogurt sauce

2 Greek yogurts
30 mint leaves
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Prepare mint yogurt sauce: Peel and chop garlic finely. Rinse, dry and chop mint leaves. Combine yogurt, garlic, mint, olive oil, salt and pepper. Keep in the fridge.

2/ Prepare skewers: Rinse, dry and chop parsley. Peel and chop onion. Chop pistachio nuts.

3/ Break egg in a small bowl and whisk it with a fork.

4/ Keep some chopped pistachios aside for sprinkling. In a large salad bowl, combine lamb meat, onion, pistachios, parsley, olive oil, breadcrumbs and whisked eggs.

5/ Add one squeeze of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and scrunch all together with your hands.

6/ Preheat oven over grill position. Line a baking sheet on a baking tray. Wash your hands with cold water. Don’t get them totally dry, meat will stick less on your hands.

7/ Mold lamb mixture around each skewer into a kind of flat sausage. Place kebabs on the baking tray as they’re made.

8/ Bake in oven for 10 minutes, turning them after 5 minutes.

9/ Sprinkle with chopped pistachios and serve with mint yogurt sauce.

Eggs cocotte are perfect for every meal! That’s what I love about them. Perfect for brunch when served with a yogurt, a fruit salad and a croissant. Great with a salad or a soup as a light lunch or dinner. Egg cocotte is also a traditional entrée in many French restaurants.

It’s mushroom and ham version is called ‘oeuf cocotte à la parisienne’ (Parisian shirred egg) so I guess it’s been imagined in the City of Light. It’s incredibly tasty AND easy to make. Don’t be afraid to experiment around this recipe, baked eggs are fun to play with!

Next time try adding chives, chervil and tarragon along with the parsley. This herb mix is called ‘fines herbes’, it’s a nice twist on the Parisian shirred eggs original recipe. Don’t be afraid to try them with chicken or veggies, they taste great with a lot of different ingredients.

Preparation time: 10 minutes – Baking time: 6 to 8 minutes

Ingredients (for 1 serving)

1 egg
1 oz (30 g) of ham
2 portobello mushrooms
1 small garlic clove
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
2 teaspoons of creme fraiche
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 slice of bread
Butter
Salt & Pepper

Instructions

1/ Preheat oven to 500° F (260° C/Th 9).

2/ Peel and slice mushrooms. (You should never wash portobello mushrooms, they would get soaked with water and loose taste as a result. Just grate stalk if there is mud and slice off the end part. Then peel off the cap by grasping the white edge with a knife and pull to peel strips off the mushroom.)

3/ Rinse parsley and peel garlic clove. Chop both.

4/ Heat a frying pan oven medium high heat, add olive oil. When it’s hot, add garlic. Move it around the pan for about one minute so the oil gets a garlic flavor.

5/ Lower to medium heat and pour mushrooms into the pan. Add parsley and a pinch of salt. Leave for 5 minutes stirring from time to time.

6/ Grease 1 ramekin with butter or margarine.

7/ Chop ham scraps and dispose some of them in the ramekin. Alternate with a layer of mushrooms and 1 teaspoon of creme fraiche. Repeat operation once. Add salt.

8/ Break the egg into the ramekin and top with a pinch of pepper.

9/ Fill half of an ovenproof dish with boiling (or very hot water) and put ramekin on it. Bake in oven for 6 to 8 minutes. (It’s ready when white is done but yolk remains liquid.)

10/ Serve with toasted bread.

Looking for a salmon alternative for this baked eggs recipe? Click here.

My French Classics section definitely lacked beef Bourguignon. It’s an easy to make recipe although it will require time. If you have a pressure cooker, you’ll be able to reduce the cooking time. If not, there is no way you’re going to get away with it! Only time gives this wine sauce its amazing flavor

The most common side dish to be served with beef Burgundy is steamed potatoes but you can also serve it with rice or pasta. Fresh tagliatelle will be perfect with boeuf Bourguignon.

Preparation time: 15 minutes – Cooking time: 4 h 30 to 5 hours – Marinating time: at least 5 hours

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

2.2 lbs (1 kg) of beef cut into 2 inches pieces (Rump roast, chuck roast, sirloin tip, top or bottom round…)
3.5 oz (100 g) of bacon
1 carrot
2 onions
6 portobello mushrooms
1 garlic clove
1 bouquet garni (2 bay leaves, 5 sprigs of parsley, 4 sprigs of thyme)
3 cups of red wine (Côtes du Rhone, Bourgogne…)
1 cup of beef stock
2 tablespoons of olive oil (click here to buy online)
1 tablespoon of flour
Salt & pepper

Side

2.2 lbs (1 kg) of potatoes
2 springs of parsley
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/  The night before (or at least 5 hours before preparing it), rinse and chop thyme and parsley. In a large dish, season meat with salt and combine it with the red wine and the bouquet garni. Cover and leave marinade in the fridge.

2/ Peel and slice carrots, mushrooms and onions.

3/ Dice bacon.

4/ Peel and crush garlic clove.

5/ Heat oil in a large casserole or stew pot over high heat. Add beef pieces moving them so all sides get cooked equally. Keep marinade aside.

6/ Add bacon, carrots, onions and mushrooms. Sprinkle ingredients with flour and stir until flour gets a golden color.

7/ Cover with red wine from the marinade and get to a boil stirring continuously.

8/ Add garlic clove, bouquet garni, beef stock, salt and pepper. Cover and leave over low heat for at least 4 h 30. (Try checking on it and stirring  every 30 to 40 minutes so ingredients don’t stick to the bottom of the stew pot. If your sauce keeps being too liquid, uncover for a while. If it’s not enough, you can still sprinkle a little more flour. Meat is ready when soft.)

9/ 40 minutes before serving, peel and steam side potatoes.

10/ Rinse and chop parsley.

11/ Serve beef Bourguignon with potatoes seasoned with parsley, salt and pepper.

Seafood and fish have always been of my favorite dishes. I’ve grown up close to the sea and, as a result, my mom did cook it pretty often. It never came to my mind the whole eating fish habit could come to an end. Then widely consumed fishes species started collapsing like Canadian cod back in the 90s.

A very frightening documentary called « Global sushi : demain nos enfants mangeront des méduses »  (Global sushi: tomorrow our kids will be eating jellyfishes) was aired the other day on TV here. I can’t stop thinking about it since I saw it. Some scientists were explaining that we now know it’s impossible to reverse the effects of overfishing;  fishing prohibition usually comes when a species has reached a very critic level and these fishes populations never get to grow again, even after decades.

Fish farming doesn’t seem to be a solution either given that we still need to feed these fishes with smaller ones. Count something like 10 lbs of small wild fish to get 1 lb of salmon…

It got back to being a hot topic because of the actual concern for tuna, especially bigeye and yellowfin  which should be extincted over the next 3 to 5 years if we don’t do anything about it being overfished.

Think about it. We, occidental consumers, have been eating it all our lives. And, let’s face it, we’ve been eating most of the fish predators like swordfish, cod, skate and tuna. Now that huge populations in the world are in the process of accessing the western way of consumption, this will not get any better… Less and less predators in the sea, more and more smaller plankton-feeding fishes. If nothing changes, jellyfishes could replace the ones we eat in our seas during this century, Greenpeace says.

I had already stopped eating tuna sushis but I’m definitely going to cut down my fish consumption and get more information on the one I actually buy. As for scallops, you shouldn’t buy any from New Zealand as they’re endangered in that region. They’re now being farmed in most places and, as they eat plankton, it seems sustainable.

Here is a recipe I adapted from French magazine « Elle à Table » (last December issue). I used fresh scallops already opened and cleaned but if you buy them with shell, click here for explanation on how to clean them.

Preparation time: 5 minutes – Baking time: 8 minutes

Ingredients (for 6 servings)

12 big fresh scallops (18 if they’re small)
4 thin slices of Parma ham
1 garlic clove
3 tablespoons of dried breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons of parsley
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Pepper

Instructions

1/ Preheat oven to 410° F (210° C / T 7).

2/ Mix breadcrumbs, Parma ham, garlic, parsley and 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a food processor.

3/ Fold a piece of kitchen paper, pour 1 teaspoon of olive oil on it and use it to grease an oven rack.

4/ Place scallops on the greased rack and top them with Parma ham mix.

5/ Pour a dash of olive oil on top and bake in oven for 8 minutes.

Serve as a starter with a few leaves of lamb’s lettuce or rocket if you like.

This is a special recipe for me, one of my top 5 favorite. Again, nothing very recommended for a strict diet but believe me duck parmentier is succulent

It’s a French classic, the classy version of ‘Hachis Parmentier’ (Shepherd’s pie). The original recipe doesn’t use Comté cheese, you can replace it by parmesan cheese or simply skip the cheese part.

Preparation time: 15 minutes – Cooking time: 30 minutes – Grill : 10 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

2 legs of duck confit (Click here to buy online)
1.6 lbs (750 g) of potatoes
1.4 oz (40 g) of Comté cheese (Click here to buy online)
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
2 tablespoons of parsley
1/2 tablespoon of butter
1 pinch of nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Peel potatoes and cut them into 2 or 4 pieces depending on their size (bigger pieces will need more time to be done).

2/ Boil potatoes into salted water for 30 minutes (they’ll be easier to mash if overcooked). Drain water and let them chill.

3/ Meanwhile,  take duck legs off their fat and separate meat from bones and skin.

4/ Rinse and dry parsley. Chop it.

5/ Heat a pan over medium-low heat, fry duck meat  with a little bit of duck fat from the can. Add parsley and leave for 10 minutes stirring often.

6/ Mash potatoes (you can use a a food mill or potato ricer, if you don’t have any use a potato masher or heavy fork.) Pour mashed potatoes into a pan heated over low heat. Add butter, cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Stir well.

7/ You can use either an ovenproof dish or individual round pastry cutters. Whatever you’re using grease it with a little bit of butter and add a layer of duck topped with a layer of mashed potatoes.

8/ Grate Comté cheese and sprinkle on top of duck parmentier.

9/ Heat oven on grill position and bake for 10 minutes or until cheese has a golden color.

10/ Serve right away with a salad. (If you used individual round pastry cutters, separate melted cheese with a knife and carefully take cutter out.)