Fooding Toulouse 8 juin/june

The food event of the year in Toulouse will take place June 8th at Les abattoirs from 6PM to 10PM.
For only 5€ you can have a taste of some original goodies from (local) chefs like the man himself: Michel Sarran.
And all the money will go to ACTION CONTRE LA FAIM.
Check out the menu/program at www.lefooding.com

Kitchen Gadgets

Really Cool: astronaut ice cream
Food technology at it's hottest. Originally made by the Whirlpool Corporation for the Apollo missions. At Thinkgeek the freeze dried ice cream comes in three flavors: Neapolitan (chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla); mint chocolate chip; chocolate chocolate chip


The designers at Umamy think up beautiful objects. You can look at them on the website, you can't buy them in a store unless you ask the makers if you have the budget...
Funny little kitchen helper that avoids the pages of your cookbook flipping back and you trying to fold them down with your hands full of butter...


Nice table to eat at when you're in a hurry.



Things to eat or to look at ? Edible design by unicahome


Handy bag when you go to the market. When you don't need it you roll it like a pair of socks in a small package. So now you can say NO to plastic bags and always have your own AND collect all colors.

Slow food: Caviar d'Escargot

I woke up this morning sweat-broken and feeling confused with a this voice in my head repeating "caviar d'escargot". And I remembered vaguely somebody had said something lately about this new snail caviar graze ...
So while waiting for the appointment with my shrink to help me work through this snail childhood issue, I decided to do some research what's this food is all about.
In France snails are quiet common staple and dish served in restaurants. They're not as bad as it sounds, provided they are Fresh and not the canned version (but isn't that the same rule for every thing?). When you're new to snails or want to make sure you get the real thing go to L'Escargot 38 rue Montorgueil Paris 1e. Metro Sentier.

Eating the eggs of snails could be the next culinary frontier for some. In the 1980ties they started to produce the caviar from the snails' eggs. Just preserved in brine they were pretty tasteless and uninteresting. Now the pearly white and rather big eggs from the Helix Aspersa Maxima get a more delicate treatment with fleur de sel de Guérande, rosemary oil and citric acid. They come out tasting like a walk in the forest after the rain with a hint of mushroom and oak leaves and a pleasant crush (is that the shell?)
A real delicacy with a price to match: around 1500€ per kilo.
1 snail produces about 100 eggs that's 4g per year. And they are not killed to get the eggs unlike the real caviar.

For recipes and buying online in English: www.bienmanger.com



pour des recettes de caviar d'escargot: (aussi commender en ligne) www.bienmanger.com
www.750g.com




sources: de Jeager and Reuter

Fruits de Hasard

Des fois un truc fait avec des "fruits de hasard " peut être une grande réussite.
Comme la semaine dernière quand j'ai improvisé un "kebab aux coeurs de canard". Les enfants aiment bien le coeur de canard et je ne savait pas quoi faire comme accompagnement. Car les pâtes et le riz on avait déjà mangé tout la semaine...
Donc pourquoi pas le mettre dans un pain de pita et servir avec une salade de tomates et concombre pour faire un repas rapide.

Comme sauce j'ai "inventé" le houmous-tzatziki :
mixer

• une boite de pois chiche
• avec un pot de yaourt
• 1 cuil. de tahina (pâte de sésame)
• 1 gousse d'ail ou plus pour les courageux
• 1/3 concombre
• un peu de huile d'olive
• sel, poivre, coriandre (feuilles et poudre)

Les enfants n'ont pas trop aimé, heureusement comme ça il reste plus pour les adultes (:

brique-à-brac

Today we made tapas partly from leftovers. I just love to have different things on my plate. The variety of textures, colors and tastes is what turns me on like a kid in a candy store!

Brique à l'aubergine:

• left over cooked egg-plant-red onion- garlic-olive oil mix
• and feta
• roll in to the very thin pastry (called feuille de brique in France) I think it's what you use for baclava or other Greek dishes.

heat in a bit of olive oil until golden brown

Oeuf de caille-Chorizo on toast:

• First you fry the chorizo slices in a dry pan, put aside.
• We use a Dutch "poffertjes pan" to fry these little eggs in, so they stay in a rounded shape
• Make thin toasts and dress them with the chorizo and eggs

Red pepper-goat cheese-feta spread:
I wanted to stuff the canned red peppers, but they turned out to be hugh and not the small ones i was expecting. So to big to stuff with soft goat cheese.

• So i diced the peppers and mushed them with
• some left over feta and soft goat cheese
• herbes de provence.

Caviar d'Aubergine:

• 1 eggplant cooked in the oven the day before.
• mixed with garlic
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper

Tomato salad with olive oil and spring onions

Fresh crusty bread

Wine was out, we had emptied the bottle while cooking (: