A French word: gâteau, a French recipe: gâteau aux pommes

Gâteau = cake, masculine noun (le gâteau = the cake, un gâteau = a cake, des gâteaux = cakes)
Pronounced ga-tow (even in the plural, you don't say the x)

There are quite a few expressions in French which use the word, among others:

"C'est du gâteau" = Easy-peasy, piece of cake
"Des parts du gâteau" "Partager le gâteau" = a share of, or to share the spoils, the booty, the profits.
Marie-Antoinette's famous phrase at the time of the bread riots in Paris: "Qu'ils mangent du gâteau" = Let them eat cake! (There is some doubt whether she ever pronounced the words, and in the affirmative, exactly what it was she meant.)

My recipe for today is a gâteau aux pommes (= apple cake), quite easy to do, very useful to have on hand for teatime or even breakfast.

For one cake for about 6/8 people you will need:

• 160 gr self raising flour (or plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder) (de la farine)
• 160gr melted butter (it can be salted or unsalted) (du beurre)
• 160gr sugar (or less if you like less sweet, about 130gr would do) (du sucre)
• Eggs (weigh them with their shell, you need 160 gr in all) (des oeufs)
• Three apples peeled and cored (these should be fruit that stay firm when cooked, you don't want them to go mushy) (trois pommes*)

Now don't panic if you can't get your eggs to weigh the right amount. Just weigh three or four eggs, and adjust the amount of the other ingredients to be exactly the same, OK?
Preparation:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C
2. Grease a cake tin.
3. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs well with the sugar. Add the flour, stir well and add the melted butter. You can do all that in a mixer if you wish. BUT do not put the apple in the mixer. We don't want to end up with apple purée.
4. Use one cored whole apple to cut a few fine rings with which to decorage the top of your cake. Chop the rest of the apples into little chunks, about the size of your thumb nail.
5. Stir these delicately into the cake mixture, pour into your cake tin, and gently place the apple rings on top.
6. Put in the oven for about half an hour, but this varies so greatly from oven to oven that you will have to check. First of all you will notice that your cake is beginning to smell "cakey". This will remind you to have a look if you haven't set a timer. The cake should be brown but not black on top. It may crack open a little, pleasingly, on top. Test the inside with a skewer, it should come out clean. If it doesn't, pop the cake back for 10 minutes. It is maybe better slightly, slightly undercooked than overcooked. If you use free range eggs (des oeufs de poules élevées en liberté), it will be a beautiful golden colour.

Gâteau aux pommes

This gâteau aux pommes is good warm or cold. It will keep for a couple of days wrapped (once cool) in tinfoil. But actually it disappears amazingly quickly. Take a slice to work for your dessert. Eat a slice for breakfast or tea.

You will notice that the basis of the cake, without the apples, consists of the same quantity of four ingredients. In French, this base is also called a "quatre quarts" (four quarters). If you want to make a bigger or smaller cake, use any quantity you like, as long as they remain equal (weigh the eggs in their shells). The only ingredient you can use a bit less of is sugar.

A quatre quarts base can be used plain, without the apple, with grated lemon or orange zest and a teeny bit of juice, with caraway seeds, with a tablespoon of rum, a handful of ground almonds, your imagination is the limit, to make a whole host of different variations.

I like to bake it in a bread tin, rectangular rather than round. It makes cutting slices so much easier and the slices cut this way are simpler to pack in a lunchbox for instance than the triangular shaped slice cut from a round cake.

Bon appétit.

*There is an expression "Haut comme trois pommes" which is used affectionately, most usually of children, who are not yet very tall (literally "as tall as three apples").

A French word: sandwich, a French recipe: sandwich à la truite fumée et aux crudités

No, don't groan, there's no harm in knowing that a word in your own language is exactly identical, except for the pronunciation, in French. It may be very useful not to search your brain for what it might be, when in truth it is just "sandwich".

So, sandwich, masculine noun, le sandwich (the sandwich), un sandwich (a sandwich), des sandwiches (sandwiches). Pronounced saand-weech.

The French are great sandwich eaters (mangeurs de sandwich). The legendary French lunch hour, which used to last at least two hours and enabled everybody either to return home or to eat in a restaurant, has been seriously curtailed, until 30 minutes now is generous, but people sometimes take much less. And they like to take sandwiches on trains, on picnics, and generally whenever they know they are going to need an "en cas" (something to nibble). The most ordinary everyday sandwich is a "jambon beurre" (ham, butter), but which when lovingly made, can be superb, with fresh crusty baguette, buttered with unsalted or (in Brittany) salted butter, and a good fat slice of jambon à l'os (a slice hand cut off a whole ham), is heavenly. Another favourite is "saucisson beurre" (French dried sausage), with or without "cornichons" (gherkins). Or "rillettes" (pork scrapings). No butter here, too rich.

My recipe for today is a sandwich à la truite fumée et aux crudités (smoked trout and raw vegetable sandwich), fit for a king or a queen! We have near me here in Quimper a smokery that has received medals for its wonderful smoked trout. You can use smoked salmon of course (saumon fumé). Be careful not to buy just any old smoked salmon or trout. Quality varies greatly. Some are over-coloured and taste of nothing but salt. If you can find organic fish (du poisson bio), buy that. And I used homemade whole grain bread (du pain complet), satisfying, tasty and good for you.

Ingredients

For one sandwich you will need:

• two slices of lightly buttered whole grain bread
• two small slices of smoked trout
• a couple of lettuce leaves
• a couple of small spinach leaves
• 1tsp chopped red onion
• some sprouted seeds (I used sprouted alfalfa and sprouted wheat)
• a spring onion top
• fresh red chili if you like it, or a bit of Tabasco
• NO salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper
• a few drops of lemon juice
• grated carrot (optional)

Preparation:

1. Butter the bread lightly (go right to the very edges of the crust, it's so much nicer than getting a mouthful of dry crust which is about as easy to eat as a t-shirt...)
2. Place the leaves on the bread, overlapping the edges if possible, topped with the trout
3. Spread all the other ingredients around, add a bit of fresh chili (I'm a chili nut)
4. Put the top slice over the bottom slice, and press down hard so that you can get your mouth around it.

 

Sandwich à la truite fumée et aux crudités

 

This sandwich will keep fairly well if made the night before for your lunchbox the next day. It will keep extremely well if made the same morning and wrapped tightly in cling film or tin foil. It is packed with nutrition and is a damned site nicer than a cheeseburger.

Bon appétit.

A French word: fenouil, a French recipe: salade de fenouil à l'orange

Fenouil (masculine noun, le fenouil) pronounced f (as in fern, without the ern) nou y (as in your without the our), f-nou-y, with the stress on the "nou" = fennel, a bulbous, aniseedy tasting vegetable used in salads or cooked, whole or sliced. It is good with fish when cooked, with duck and other fatty meats when in a salad. You don't really say "un fenouil", or use it in the plural. Fennel seeds (des graines de fenouil) help the digestion and may be used scattered over a salad, or cooked with cabbage for instance, or even in a herbal tea (tisane). Here I am talking about garden fennel, but it grows wild in a lot of places in France (du fenouil sauvage). In this case the stems and flowers are used, often for barbecuing fish: a fairly thick layer between the fish and the embers gives a satisfying flavour and the smoke smells lovely too while you are waiting, drink in hand, to eat.

Image via Wikipedia

The recipe I'm going to give you today is for a fennel and orange salad: salade de fenouil à l'orange.

You will need, for 4 people:

• 1 good sized bulb of fennel (or two smaller) with some nice green fuzzy leaves
• 2 oranges
• a small amount of sprouted seeds of some kind to garnish
• 1 tsp of chopped red onion
• salt, freshly ground black pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the vinaigrette

Preparation:
Wash the fennel, remove and reserve the nice green shoots, trim any dry bits at the top of the stalks. Slice the fennel vertically. This is important. It is much less stringy this way and makes prettier slices. Sit the fennel on its bottom, stems upwards, and slice downwards into very fine slices, no more than 2mm thick. Arrange tastefully in the centre of a serving dish.

Salade de fenouil à l'orange

Peel and slice the oranges, removing as much pith as possible. Cut each one in half (following the direction of the segments, that is, top to bottom, not side to side). Lay each half on its flat side and slice (no more than 3mm). Arrange these slices either side of the fennel. Pour any orange juice over the fennel and orange.

Roughly chop the green parts of the fennel and sprinkle over the top. Add the chopped red onion. Garnish the dish with the sprouted seeds, either sprinkled or in one ball.

Make a dressing (vinaigrette) with half a tablespoon balsamic vinegar (vinaigre balsamique), one and a half tablespoons of olive oil (huile d'olive), salt and pepper to taste. Spoon over the salad, but do not toss until everyone has admired your presentation. The pale green of the fennel and the orange look wonderful together. Si simple, si bon! (so simple, so good!)

Bon appétit.

A French word: galette, a French recipe:galette des rois

Galette means a round flat pastry (pronounced ga (as in gas, without the s) let (as in house to let), ga-let) and is a feminine noun (la galette = the round flat pastry, une galette = a round flat pastry). In fact it can mean a lot of round flat things that one eats, such as galette des rois (= a pie eaten on 6th January, the day of the 3 Kings, Epiphany), a galette complète (which is almost the national dish of Brittany, a large buckwheat pancake topped with bacon, eggs, cheese, and a host of other things, making a complete meal), a galette de pomme de terre (a potato pancake made of mashed potato or shredded potato fried up crispy). It can also mean those funny flat spare tyres they sometimes put in cars nowadays.

I am going to give you the recipe for Galette des Rois. You may even have time to assemble the ingredients to make one for January 6th.

The recipe is for 6 people. You first need to make frangipane (feminine noun, la frangipane), which is a sort of thick creamy paste made of ground almonds. We can cheat here in France, there is a really excellent packet version!

Preparation:

1. Heat your oven to 200°C.
2. Make the frangipane. You will need 150gr ground almonds, 2 pkts vanilla sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1/10 litre milk, 70gr sugar, 1 tbs fruit alcohol (eau de vie= literally water of life) (pear, raspberry) or rum, 75gr melted butter.
3. Off the heat, put the almonds, vanilla sugar, sugar, egg, and milk into a non stick saucepan, and stir together. Over a low heat, stirring constantly, whip until the mixture thickens slightly. Be careful not to scramble the egg. Off the heat again, add the melted butter and the alcohol. Leave to cool.
4. For the tart, you will need two rounds of puff pastry (roughly 26cm diameter). Buy the best quality puff pastry you can, it makes all the difference. You cannot use anything but puff pastry for this recipe. On a greaseproof paper covered baking sheet, place one round of puff pastry. Spread the frangipane mixture over, leaving about 2 to 3cm all around for sealing.
5. Now this bit is important. Find a fève (= bean). If you don't have a French porcelain fève, use a butter bean, haricot bean, red bean, as long as it is raw and hard. Slip this fève into the frangipane at the very edge of the tart. The custom is that the person that finds the fève is king or queen for the day (and in France they have a crown!), and they choose a person of the opposite sex to be their queen or king. So that there is no cheating as to who gets the fève, the youngest member of the family goes under the dining table, and as portions are cut, shouts out the name of the person to be served.
6. To go on with the recipe: Place the second round of puff pastry over the top, seal with milk or egg, pressing down well, glaze the top with egg or milk and use the tip of the knife to trace patterns if you wish.
7. Pop it in the oven for 40 minutes. Serve warm. It warms up very well, but NOT in the microwave as this will make the puff pastry go soggy!

Bon appétit.

PS: why not keep a little book, or a web note pad, with the vocabulary you are learning. Copying words out helps to memorize them.

PPS. The photo is at the bottom, I'm sorry. I just lost half of my text when uploading a photo in the middle... very annoying.

Image by joriavlis via Flickr

A French word: magret, a French recipe: magret de canard caramélisé au miel et à l'orange

Magret = duck breast (pronounced ma (like mama) - grey) is a masculine noun: le magret (= the duck breast), un magret (= a duck breast).

In fact, magret just means breast (of a fowl), but since other birds are rarely used, it is usually taken to mean duck breast. The full translation of duck breast is magret de canard, canard meaning duck. The word magret does not apply to a chicken breast. The word for that is blanc, blanc de poulet, blanc meaning "white", the white meat. Magret comes from the word maigre meaning "lean", as it is the leanest meat on a duck.

Recipe: Magret de canard caramélisé au miel et à l'orange (caramelized duck breast with honey and orange).

Magret de canard caramélisé

For one person:

• One duck breast with the skin
• half tsp salt, freshly ground pepper
• 1 tbs Kikkoman soy sauce
• 1 tbs honey
• the zest and juice of one orange

Preparation:

1. Heat the oven 200°
2. Wipe the duck breast with paper towel until nice and dry. Prick the fat side of the breast with a skewer or fork. This will help the fat to escape and make the skin crispier. With a sharp knife, score the fat in one direction and then the other to make diamond shapes. Do not score the meat under the fat.
3. Place in an oven dish skin side up, rub with salt, grind pepper over the breast, drizzle the soy, grate the orange rind over the scored side, pour the orange juice over and let it run into the dish, and spread the honey evenly.
4. Place in the hot oven for 20 minutes or until the skin is really crisp. The meat should remain pink. Duck is not nice when it is overcooked. This cooking time depends entirely on the thickness of your duck breast.
5. Serve either whole or cut into diagonal quarter inch slices, accompanied with chips (french fries) and a green salad.

The magret in my picture may look a little singed, in fact it is just deliciously caramelized. This, with a dozen oysters, was my New Year's Eve dinner this year.

If you eat magret in a French restaurant, the waiter will ask you: "Et la cuisson?" (and how would you like it cooked?),or words to that effect, to which you may answer either "bien cuit" (well cooked, at which he will certainly frown), "à point" (fairly well cooked) , "rosé" (just pink, which is personally how I prefer it), or "saignant" (literally "bloody", or not very cooked at all). Have your answer ready in advance, don't get caught out! These adjectives also apply to beef (steak) and lamb.




Bon appétit.

A French word: voeux

To start this French cuisine and French conversation blog, I am going to transfer a month and a half's worth of posts from another blog which I started on 1 January 2012.  So it may read a little strangely at first, more especially this post which teaches you how to say "Happy New Year" in French.

After transferring all these posts, I shall post regularly in a normal fashion. So spread the word among family and friends: this isn't just going to be a grammar/vocabulary blog, it'll be a collection of wonderful food, and if you learn all the words and all the recipes, you'll impress everybody, you'll have a compendium of French food, and the vocabulary to take you through the menu of any French restaurant.

The word of the day is "Voeux", which is actually the plural of "Voeu".

Both are pronounced identically, just a V sound, like the V at the beginning of "Very", but you don't say the "ery". Say it: V(ery). Easy.

"Voeu" means a wish and is a masculin noun (un voeu = a wish) and when you add an x at the end, becomes the plural "Voeux" = wishes.

On New Year's Day, you say to everyone you meet "Tous mes voeux" (= all my wishes, pronounced tou may v), "Tous mes meilleurs voeux" (= all my best wishes, pronounced tou may mayeur v), or just "Meilleurs voeux" (= best wishes, pronounced mayeur v).

You are officially allowed in France to go on greeting people whom you have not yet wished a Happy New Year in this way until 31st January, after which it is a bit late. And of course, usually, the greeting is accompanied by at least two, sometimes three or four, kisses on cheeks. The French don't hug much yet, thank goodness, they shake hands or kiss on both cheeks.

Actually, it is meant to be written with the o and the e sort of stuck together, but my computer doesn't seem to want to do that for me. Doesn't matter, when people hand write it, they don't often stick the two together.

Voeu can also mean a vow: faire voeu de chasteté (make a vow of chastity).

Now you can go out and use today's word when you give New Year's greetings to friends and family!