City Of Lights – PORCINI RISOTTO

Paris

It was a trudge, weighted down with gear, to get to our apartment in the 11th arrondissement of Paris but it was worth it. The small dwelling on the ninth floor overlooked Paris with the Eiffel tower standing tall in the distance.

Non-existent kitchen

Although it was a studio with a virtually non-existent kitchen (no oven), it was clean and comfortable. Our first order of business was to put some food in the fridge. We had taken advantage of the market in the south of France and brought some chèvre (Picodon), saucisson, tapenade and, pâté with us but we needed some fresh food to balance things out.

Marché d’Aligre

The marché d’Aligre is just a few blocks from where we were staying so we grabbed a shopping bag and hit the bricks.

Heavily laden stalls

The market was hopping with heavily laden stalls of all the freshest produce available for the season. The stall workers were yelling out their special of the moment like “one bunch one euro” or “cheapest, best tomatoes in Paris” and hoards of people were pushing and nudging their way to clamour for an eggplant or leek.

The market hall

Inside the market hall were purveyors selling fresh meats and game. One had all sorts of game birds, heads and sometimes feathers intact, so you could identify their breed like a Mallard duck, Bresse chicken or Guinea fowl.  At the other end of the counter, a section was devoted to organ meat with containers of calf brains, sweetbreads, kidneys still in their fat and cow tongues.

Pâtés and rillettes

Next to that was a huge selection of pâtés and rillettes made with the game they sold. Rillette is a delicious pâté like preparation made by cooking the selected meat (usually pork, duck or goose) in its own fat, very slowly. When it is cooked to the point of falling apart the meat is left to cool in the fat and then shredded and packed into a mold. It’s definitely not diet food but it’s damn good.

Fresh cèpes

Finally, my eye spotted something I had been looking for, fresh cèpes (porcini in Italian). Some had been cut in half to show they were bug-free, they smelled heavenly too.

Risotto and omelette

With those in the bag, Nat and I discussed how they could be used and decided on a nice cèpe risotto and maybe a mushroom omelette for breakfast. Although risotto is not very Parisian it’s super delicious and we had not eaten it for ages. Next to the mushroom stand was a gentleman selling freshly roasted chicken which would yield some delicious meat and give me some chicken bones to make a fresh stock for the risotto.

A bottle or two of wine

Carnaroli rice, leeks, tomatoes, garlic, celery, a piece of parmesan and a couple of heads of lettuce topped us up, now all we needed was a fresh baguette and a bottle or two of wine and we were good to go. Lucky for us you can’t swing a cat in Paris without hitting a bakery, in this case, it was Moisan bakery (Nat’s maiden name), so it was meant to be.

Removed all the meat

Returning to the apartment I quickly removed all the meat from the chicken and threw the bones in a large pot along with the greens from the leek, some garlic, a chopped carrot, a couple ribs of celery, a homemade bouquet garni and water to cover.  

Candlelight

The stock was put to simmer for a couple of hours and then strained into a smaller pot, easy! With my homemade stock and fresh cèpes, our risotto (recipe below), was an incredible success and we enjoyed it by candlelight looking out at the city with the Eiffel tower twinkling like a Christmas tree.

Lili and Mars

We awoke the next morning to an email from Lili and Mars (sister and brother-in-law) saying that they had arrived in Paris. It was the first time for both of them and they were ready to get into it.

Père Lachaise

10:30 am at Père Lachaise it was then, to see some graves. Père Lachaise is the most famous boneyard in Paris, some of the people buried here include Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and for you food history buffs Brillat Savarin.

Gastronomic writer

Savarin was a famous gastronomic writer who died in 1826, the inventor of the low carb diet and namesake of the famous Normandy cheese, among other things. The character, Chairman Kaga, of Iron Chef fame, was modeled after Savarin and popularized the quote “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are”, a mantra of Savarin’s.

The Bastille

Once we had checked off all the tombs of interest on our handy graveyard map we headed for the gate and walked back down towards the Bastille in search of a frosty beer.

Rivoli Street

Working our way down Rivoli street we noticed that most bistros have a happy hour starting at 5 pm when beer is priced more realistically. We decided to continue walking until we hit the first café after the magic time by which point we were all spent and 2 pints was enough to wrap up the day.

Passerelle Solférino

The Musée d’Orsay was on the agenda for the next morning which greeted us with sunny skies. On our way to meet with Mars and Lili, we stopped on the Passerelle Solférino to secure a bright pink padlock we had been carrying with us for this purpose.

Padlocks of love

Padlocks of love, a tradition that is thought to have started in Hungary in the 80’s, has since spread worldwide (there are locks on the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet) and judging by the number of locks we saw, there are a lot of lovers out there.

Musée d’Orsay

The Musée d’Orsay, housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, is absolutely beautiful. We walked its halls for hours taking in works by Toulouse Lautrec, Monet, van Gogh and many more.

3rd arrondissement

Cocktail hour came quickly, heading up into the 3rd arrondissement, so we stopped at l’Impérial on Rivoli for a quick lunch of croque monsieurs and mushroom and cheese stuffed crèpe with a fried egg. Forging on, we finished off the day window shopping and meandering the city streets.

Musée de la Chasse

The next day we decided we would do our own thing so Nat and I headed off to the Musée de la Chasse (The Hunt Museum).

Mounted animals

It turned out to be a pretty cool find that had interesting displays of mounted animals, wildlife settings, hunting-related artwork, even a crazy collection of bird calls.

Polidor bistro

That evening we all met at the Eiffel Tower and walked our way across town stopping at Les Invalides for a photo session and then ending up at the famed Polidor bistro, recently featured in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

15 years ago

Nat and I visited the Polidor 15 years ago on our last trip to France and had a great meal. This time, however, it looked as though the owners may have changed and although the cramped original interior remains unchanged, the food was less than stellar. That said, they did not completely miss with the foie gras terrine or the chicken with morel sauce but the confit of duck was dry and in my mind incomplete without duck fat fried potatoes instead of a sautéed cabbage accompaniment. The house wine was tasty and took the edge off enough to turn it into an enjoyable experience, an experience that has been served up since 1845.

Monsieur Le Prince

A quick stop for a warm cognac on a cool sidewalk terrace at the busy intersection of rue de l’Odeon and Monsieur Le Prince ended our outing. Nat and I made the long walk back to the apartment, stopping to take some pictures along the way and appreciate the shimmering Seine river.

Clean out the fridge

On our last day in Paris, we met Mars and Lili and ended up back at the Marché d’Aligre for coffee. We picked up a few goodies including spit-roasted ham and a warm baguette and wandered back to our apartment to clean out the fridge for lunch. Mars and Lili took the last piece of saucisson with them as we said goodbye until we would see each other back in Ottawa.

Techno Parade

We were getting ready to go out again when we heard loud music and what sounded like a lot of people at street level.  We followed the music and ended up at the Bastille monument, in the middle of the annual Techno Parade, what a scene!

The Green House

Our last dinner in Paris was supposed to be a romantic dinner for two at a picturesque Parisian bistro but we were both exhausted and felt a little under the weather so we decided to check out a more casual pub that I had read good things about online. The Green House is an Irish pub crossed with a French bistro.

Grim

Approaching the front door we noticed that, at 9:00 pm, there was not a soul in the place. We quickly kept walking thinking that if they weren’t busy at nine on Saturday things could be grim.

Canadian compassion

“Bonsoir Monsieur Dame!” the owner called out as we continued, that was enough for our Canadian compassion (along with the drizzling rain) to make us stop and reconsider. The decision was made to help put something on the books for this lonely restauranteur and we semi-reluctantly returned to be his first customers of the night.  

Irish man

The owner, an Irish man, has been running the place for twenty years.  After his chef left five years ago, he discovered that with some creativity he could cook and serve.

Prix fixe

A €16 prix fixe menu of three courses was written on a chalkboard and placed next to our table. We ordered up a couple of pints of Kilkenny while he prepared our first course of rabbit terrine with greens for me and a grilled goat cheese salad for Nat.

Delicious!

A warm baguette was quickly snipped up with a pair of scissors and our first course was in front of us in no time, delicious!  As we ate more people started to arrive and soon there were twelve more customers looking to order.

Second course

The owner’s tempo picked up with the crowd but he did not get flustered as he rushed from kitchen to bar to customer and then back to the kitchen producing plates of hearty delicious food. Our second course was cod with a lemon beurre blanc (recipe below) and steak frites with brandy peppercorn sauce.

Charlotte

We finished off with a pear charlotte with raspberry coulis and semolina cake with crème Anglaise.

Irish coffee

I decided to cap off the evening with an Irish coffee (since we were in Paris!), a shot of espresso with a double shot of Jamieson topped with crème fraîche and served in a wine glass, very Fr’Irish?!

European adventure

Well, it certainly was not what I had planned for our final dinner of this European adventure but somehow it really was our style, kinda wacky with a dash of the unexpected and never dull. The next afternoon we would put Europe behind us for a while and start looking forward to what new adventures await us back home.