This Cookbook Brings Paris to Your Kitchen
Award-winning cookbook author and food blogger Clotilde Dusoulier’s latest book, Tasting Paris: 100 Recipes to Eat Like a Local, is filled with insight into today’s Parisian cuisine. “Paris isn’t just about regional cooking,” she says, so her book isn’t just a pretty postcard. “It’s a portrait that reflects the multiculturalism of now.”
Among the recipes she includes are ones with Chinese, Vietnamese, and North African influences, such as rice and ginger soup, and Moroccan orange salad. And with each recipe she explains its connection to Paris in the context of history-even painful events. The gâteau nantais is a cake from Nantes, a city in western France that was the country’s largest slave port in the 18th century; a baker from that time created a cake infused with French Caribbean flavors, including rum and vanilla.
During a visit with Dusoulier in the Montmartre neighborhood, where she lives, she explains that the area around Paris has always been very fertile farmland. “You could get fresh flour right here. There were 26 mills!” she says.
Quiche lorraine is the most classic of French quiches, and it is ubiquitous in Parisian bakeries and charcuteries. The flaky crust holds a silken custard, rich with the flavor of good eggs and nutmeg, and the savory, chewy jolts of diced ham and bacon bits-or, really, lardons, short thin strips of pork belly that are a basic punctuation of cooking in the northern half of France.
In Paris, you purchase them by the weight at the butcher shop and they’ll chop them in front of you as they chat about the neighbor’s cat that ran away. If your local butcher won’t make them, get thick-cut bacon and slice it crosswise into short matchsticks.
Quiche lorraine makes your house smell divine, or at least like my mother’s kitchen, which is the same thing to me. Invite friends over for lunch on a Sunday and offer this, with a great big bowl of sharply dressed greens, and they may ask to move in with you.
Above all, she says, “this book is an expression of my love for the city. It’s joyful and inspirational. There is something magical about Paris, and this is my magic snapshot.” As for the recipes themselves, she claims almost “guaranteed success” and says “it’s my most accomplished book yet.”
Quiche Lorraine Recipe
Classic ham & bacon quiche
Makes one 10-inch (25 cm) quiche; Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients
5 slices (5 ounces/150 g) thick-cut bacon, plain or smoked, cut crosswise into short strips
4 large eggs
¾ cup (180 ml) crème fraiche or full-fat sour cream
1½ cups (360 ml) whole milk
¹⁄8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¹⁄8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
2 ounces (55 g) thick-cut ham, diced
Mixed greens, lightly dressed with Bistro Vinaigrette, for serving
Instructions
Make the tart pastry and use it to line a 10-inch (25 cm) pie or quiche pan.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Top the dough in the pan with a sheet of parchment paper, add pie weights (or dried beans), and bake for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small dry skillet, fry the bacon strips until just browned, about 10 minutes. Drain. (Keep the rendered fat for another use.)
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs lightly with a fork. Gently stir in the crème fraîche, milk, pepper, and nutmeg; avoid beating too much air into the mixture, or the filling will puff up and then crack once baked.
Remove the tart shell from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 300°F (150°C). Lift the parchment paper carefully and remove the pie weights.
Scatter the bacon and ham evenly over the tart shell, then slowly pour in the egg mixture without disturbing the bacon and ham. Bake until the filling is golden brown but still a little jiggly in the center, 50 to 60 minutes. Let set for at least 15 minutes before serving. Enjoy warm or at room temperature, with a salad.
For more information about Clotilde Dusoulier, head over to her blog, Chocolate & Zucchini.
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