Stuffed Tomatoes, Eggplants, Red Bell Pepper…

The recipe can be used for either one or any combination of vegetables. Courgettes can also be stuffed that way.

Ingredients:

4 bell peppers
Or
4 tomatoes
Or
4 eggplants
Or
4 zucchini
Or
Any combination of the above

Stuffing:
1 green tomato cut in small cubes
1 green bell pepper cut in small slices
1 onion shredded
2 garlic cloves crushed
Bunch of parsley leaves shredded
2 cup of rice (arborio or basmati)
1 cube of vegetable stock
2 eggs
1 spoonful of corn flour
Salt, pepper, paprika
Olive oil
Optional: minced meat 200 g
Veal, pork, chicken or a mix of any of them

Carve the vegetables so you can stuff them.
Prepare the other vegetables and either fry them (in a wok?) in olive oil starting with the onions and adding the rest 5 minutes later. Let it stir for 15 minutes.
Or mix all your vegetables with a little olive oil, spread them out on a tray and place in oven for 1 hour 160C (320F) and let them roast.

Cook the rice with two volumes of water for one volume of rice and 1 cube of vegetable stock.

When all the ingredients are ready and have cooled down, mix in a bowl the cooked rice, the vegetables, the garlic, the parsley, the eggs, the corn flour, salt pepper and paprika plus the meat if you are going to use it.

Fill the vegetables with the stuffing. Use the “cap” of the vegetables on top or add some breadcrumbs. It there is too much stuffing (almost always the case!), spread the extra quantity on the oiled dish you’re going to use to roast the vegetables. Cover the stuffing with breadcrumbs.

Add the stuffed vegetables, drizzle with olive oil and let it cook in the oven at 160C (320F) for 1 hour or longer until cooked and a little brown.

Bon appétit!

Cabbage and sweet potatoes soup with Thai green curry

1 green cabbage
1 sweet potato
2 carrots
2 yellow onions
1 red onion
5 bay leaves
1 vegetable cube
1 chicken cube
1 liter water
Salt pepper
Green curry
Coconut milk
1 bunch of coriander

Grill the cabbage, carrots, sweet potato cut in pieces with a little oil for an hour and a half at 160 °.

Brown the onions in olive oil and butter. Lower the heat and cook for 20 minutes. Add water, broths, bay leaves, salt, pepper, green curry, coconut milk. When cooked, remove the bay leaves.

Add the grilled vegetables. Reserve two pieces of grilled cabbage and cut into strips.
Mix the rest. Add the slices of cabbage and chopped coriander, adjust the seasoning. Serve.

Soupe au chou et patate douce au curry vert

1 chou vert
1 patate douce
2 carottes
2 oignons jaunes
1 oignon rouge
5 feuilles laurier
1 cube bouillon légume
1 cube bouillon poule
1 barquette bouillon poule
1 litre eau
Sel poivre
Curry vert
Lait de coco
1 bouquet de coriandre

Faire griller le chou, les carottes, la patate douce coupés en morceaux avec un peu d’huile pendant une heure et demi à 160°.

Faire revenir les oignons dans huile d’olive et beurre. Baisser le feu et laisser cuire 20 minutes. Ajouter l’eau, les bouillons, les feuilles de laurier, le sel, le poivre, le curry vert, le lait de coco.

Ajouter les légumes grillés. Réserver deux morceaux de chou grillé et les couper en lamelles. 

Mixer le reste au robot. Ajouter les lamelles de chou et la coriandre hachée, ajuster l’assaisonnement. Servir.

English translation

Cabbage and sweet potato soup with green curry

1 green cabbage

1 sweet potato

2 carrots

2 yellow onions

1 red onion

5 bay leaves

1 vegetable bouillon cube

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 chicken broth

1 liter water

Salt pepper

Green curry

Coconut milk

1 bunch of coriander

Grill the cabbage, carrots, sweet potato cut in pieces with a little oil for an hour and a half at 160 °.

Brown the onions in olive oil and butter. Lower the heat and cook for 20 minutes. Add water, broths, bay leaves, salt, pepper, green curry, coconut milk.

Add the grilled vegetables. Reserve two pieces of grilled cabbage and cut into strips.

Mix the rest with the robot. Add the slices of cabbage and chopped coriander, adjust the seasoning. Serve.

Rabbit

A recipe from the past...

My Tchoutchouka

Boufarik, early 20th century.

This is one of my earliest food memory from my youth in Boufarik, Algeria. The family recipe has been lost I fear so I recreated it from various internet sites.

We can imagine that it is eating tchoutchouka that made me feel so happy in front of the our house rue Borely La Sapie...

And that's the house 40 years later in a photo taken by one of my Algerian colleague who happened to know the place and lived nearby in Algeria before moving to France.

So, here's the recipe.

Serves four

4 oignons (big or 6 medium)
4 red bell peppers
4 tomatoes (big or 6 medium)
4 garlic cloves

(you'll notice I tried to make the proportions easy to remember 😉)

1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of Harissa (or any hot pepper paste, Mexican or otherwise)
1 tablespoon of sugar

olive oil
salt

optional:
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of red vinegar

The first step can be passed if you dont mind the skins. Otherwise, you make a little incision in the tomatoes and plunge them in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drains and let them cool in a closed container (Tupperware?)
For the bell peppers, you roast then on a tray in the oven for 10 minutes until the skin is blistered! Afterward, you let them cool in a closed container like the tomatoes. The steam they produce when cooling will make the skin easier to remove.

Peel the tomatoes and the peppers.

Cut the tomatoes in cubes and the peppers in not too small strips.

Peel the garlic and cut in small cubes.

Pour some olive oil in a pot (as little as is needed so the signs don't burn) and fry the oignons first on high heat so they would brown then medium heat for 15 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add a little more olive oil plus the cumin and fry the peppers for 15 minutes.

Remove and reserve.

Add the tomatoes, the garlic, the rest of the spices, the sugar, stir and bring to a boil.

Add the oignons, the peppers, bring to a boil again reduce heat and let it simmer for an hour without the lid, stirring the preparation occasionally. Add salt to you taste, add the vinegar now if you feel like it. It will add a little tartiness if you find the tchoutchouka overly sweet. Same for Tabasco, jalapeño, chipotle, make it as hot or mild as you like.

The tchoutchouka is traditionally eaten with eggs cooked in its middle. A pan works perfectly. I did it in a little fancy way for the sake of the photo. Enjoy!

Palmiers ~ Recipe ~

Recipe for the world famous "Palmiers" by Jean-Paul!

1 puff pastry sheet.
100g salted butter
150g caster sugar
1 spoonful cinnamon


Remove  the pastry from the fridge at the last moment. Better, put in the freezer for 5 minutes before working with it.
Flatten it if it's sold rolled but keep it on the paper it comes in or spread it on baking paper, spread very soft butter all over the pastry (soften in the microwave but not to the point of melting it).
Sprinkle caster sugar with a spoon all over the pastry (and the butter). You can use maple sugar it you like and I guess honey might work.

Use a rolling pin so the sugar will stick better to the pastry.

Add or don't add cinnamon powder over the sugar depending on taste or for variety.
Fold once each side to the middle (1). Repeat (2). Fold the two rolls of pastry on themselves (3)

Fold the baking paper and put back in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Cut in 0.7 cm (0.8 cm will do ;-) slices (4). Spread the slices on baking paper on an oven safe tray. Leave enough space between slices as they will expand while cooking.

Add a little sugar on each slice if you like your "Palmiers" sweeter.

Pre-heat your oven 200°C/392°F. Put the tray in the oven and check after 20 minutes. It will take between 20 and 30 minutes for your "Palmiers" to be cooked and caramelized.

That's it. Let them cool. Enjoy!

It was delicious with a Nutella like hazelnut paste. As with the cherry sauce (cherry jam, frozen cherries, one lemon juice, one lemon zest, one teaspoon Maïzena, slow cooked for 5/10 minutes)

A list of ten books

Inspired by John Barnett on Facebook.

A list of ten books that have stayed with me/meant the most to me/ books I keep coming back to.
Of course, I couldn't limit myself to ten so there are twelve of them... or more.  It could have easily  been twenty.

In no particular order.

James Joyce: Dubliners
The fist James Joyce I read. Troubling and sad. An unflinching vision of Dublin that made me love the city nonetheless.

John Ashbery: Some Trees
I can recite from memory most of the poems in it. I could have chosen "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror". It shaped my taste for modern poetry and led me for no special reason to Allan Ginsberg.

Carson McCullers: Reflections in a Golden Eye
I started reading her with The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Ballad of the Sad Café but this story of self deception and sexual frustrations is the one that stays with me. Can't help having visions of Marlon Brando applying makeup to his face...

Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust
Clever and mean. Funny and sad. I sometimes dream I'm trapped in a jungle, forced to read Dickens aloud forever.

Virginia Wolf: Mrs Dalloway
Of course I was a little intimidated the first time I read Virginia Woolf. But once I had started, it felt familiar I spoke directly to my heart.

John Cheever: Falconer
A chance discovery. I read it in one sitting, fascinated.

Jonathan Franzen: Freedom
Yes it is a best-seller. But beautifully written and complex. I couldn't put it down despite its 500 plus pages. On the other hand, I couldn't finish The Corrections. I hated so much all the characters it made it painful to read.

Ian McEwan: Sweet Tooth
A recent book, maybe not his best but I can't resist a doomed love story that ends well...

Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
I could have been any of the twelve or more Murakami books I've read (I'm thinking of Kafka on the Shore) but this one brings back haunting images of the horrors of the Manchuria war including the description of a man skinned alive by a very muscular Mongol shepherd...

Kate Atkinson: One Good Turn
My first Kate Atkinson. I remember laughing out loud on the beach reading it and the worried looks of my fellow sun bathers... Never read a bad book by Kate Atkinson.

Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
A retro science fiction book. Partly written in invented Yiddish so challenging to read for some. I just loved it. The redemption of the policeman through love made me cry.

Edmund White: A Boy's Own Story
I was young and impressionable when I read it. The frank description of gay sex left me mesmerized...

Peter Høeg: Smilla's sense of Snow
A story like none other I had read before. The 100 words for snow, Copenhagen's frozen harbour, the death of the little boy on the roof.  The end is a little lame but I don't care, one of my favorite book forever.

I hated it when they changed the title to Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow!

But I like the original title a lot...