Tuesday 23 February 2016

Adventures In Food: France (Again) (and Again!)



{patisserie}

I have been lucky enough to visit France three times. I know right. The
first time was with Kyle in 2014, then Mum and I visited Paris together in summer 2015. A few months later, in October 2015, Kyle and I were back visiting Provence and Lyon. Lyon is known as the culinary capital of France and we certainly enjoyed ourselves there. Here are some of the French foods I enjoyed since my first visit.




{champagne}

Mum is really into wine so we popped champagne on the Eurostar from London to Paris to celebrate!



{quiche}

Shortcrust pastry with a savoury egg custard filling. A great quick lunch to grab from a boulangerie (bakery) as they can be eaten hot or cold, and there are usually vegetarian options available with veggies and cheese!



{fresh produce and cheese}

Not technically a specific dish, but worth a mention as we often ate simple salads with seasonal produce and great local cheese. Picking up a few things (cheese, baguette, tomatoes, fruit) was a great option for a picnic lunch.



{cervelle de canut}

In Lyon we went to a typical bouchon for a three course meal. Well, maybe it was not a typical bouchon, as they are usually extremely meat-heavy. It took a while to find one that had French vegetarian options (as opposed to pasta or other 'tourist-friendly' food). Side note: so many restaurants around the world don't understand what vegetarians or tourists want to eat! Being both was sometimes quite tricky. Anyway, I ended up trying three French dishes, two of which are typical for Lyon. Cervelle de Canut is a cheese spread made of fromage blanc (fresh cheese, similar to yoghurt), herbs, shallots, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar. It was served with steamed baby potatoes and salad.



{quenelles}

Course two at the bouchon was quenelles. They are the sausage-looking things on my plate although usually they have more of an egg-like shape. Lyon is famous for quenelles de brochet (fish dumplings) and I was keen to try a veggo version. I'm not 100% sure what was in mine but it was like a pan-fried light dumping- delicious with that tomato sauce!



{fondant au chocolat with crème anglais}

Third course was a delicious chocolate fondant/lava cake which was oh so gooey. An international classic. Served with a light custard to cut through the richness.



{chouquettes}

We actually bought these at McDonald's on a bus stopover! I think it's so interesting what national favourites show up at McDonald's! Chouquettes are little puffs of choux pastry (same as eclairs) covered with nib sugar. They don't look that impressive (especially inside my fast food bag) but shouldn't be underrated.



{crème caramel}

Another French classic of creamy baked custard and with a caramel sauce at the bottom.



{tarte aux pralines}

In Lyon our Airbnb host recommended we visit a particular patisserie to try the praline tart. I wasn't expecting it to be bright pink! It was really yummy though with a filling of praline coated almonds and cream.



{mille-feuille}

Mille-feuille is one of my all-time favourite pastries (there is even a recipe for it's cousin,
passionfruit custard slice, here on the blog!). I love the combination of layers of flakey pastry (mille-feuille means a thousand leaves), creamy custard and sweet icing. Mille-feuille are also sometimes called Napoleon, not sure why though! Leave a comment if you have any insights!

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