Lunchtime in Paris

Chicken with Lemon and Olives - Part II

Important: please make sure to read Part I of this post for the full chicken with lemon and olives experience, thanks.

So, when we left off yesterday the chicken was marinating in the fridge. This morning I got up and prepared all the ingredients for cooking:

Clockwise from upper left, grated onion, the marinated chicken, olives, chopped parsley and coriander and fresh and preserved lemons.

The olives are just so perfect,  and now let's get down to cooking.

Getting started, the stove top is clean, the marinated chicken in the cassorole (which is way too small) with some of the grated onion and the parsley and coriander.

Ok, so we bring to a boil and cover, and wait...30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add the olives and the preserved lemons and cook some more...

This kind of slow cooking is always better when you have helpers. Here is my daughter hanging out by the stove, testing and giving advice...while I reduce the sauce...this is an ideal cooking situation.

The chicken has been placed in the serving platter, and the reduced sauce is going on top, adding the fresh lemon juice at the end is the key to a successful sauce.

And whoops, the photo shows that my equipment is perhaps not so up to date, be assured, I didn't burn the sauce, that old black circle is from once long ago popcorn making...real people don't go out and buy new casseroles when they do recipes and anyway, I like this casserole, I've been using it for 20 years now.

And ready to be served, some very delicious chicken with lemon and olives, make sure you have some good bread to soak up the sauce,

and it's nap time for me, what an adventure, please do try this recipe yourself it's just lovely,

happy lunching

Chicken with lemon and olives - Part I

As promised, here is the first installment of "Chicken with Lemon and Olives".

It's all thanks to this fabulous book:

Here is my much loved, much used and oft spilled upon copy of Paula Wolfert's wonderful book. You can get your own copy here and at 12.35 USD, it's a bargain.

The recipe for Djej Emshmel (Chicken with Lemon and Olives) is posted over at epicurious (link to the recipe and also some instructions for preserved lemons). I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the recipe here so I'll just let you go the the link and you can print from there if you want to try this yourself. It's exactly the same as the recipe in the book.

My shopping mission was successful and here are all my ingredients. I got my two chickens from the Moslem butcher shop and they are free range hallal chickens...so authentic. If you can't get hallal perhaps you could try kosher but in any case you should make sure they are free range.

It is very important to follow this recipe exactly. Paula has written about preserved lemons and in her own words: "Their unique pickled taste and special silken texture cannot be duplicated with fresh lemon or lime juice, despite what some food writers have said." She is right! and if words are not enough to convince you how about this:

The picture is not great because it was getting late and I was losing the light but I think it should still be obvious that the fresh lemons (on the top) and the preserved lemons (on the bottom) are not the same. And in the case where you can't find these near where you live you can order online so now you have no excuse not to try them.

This dish has to be marinated over night (hence the installments). Here is the chicken before it went into the fridge in it's marinade of salad oil, saffron, ground ginger, paprika, cumin, salt, black pepper, and thinly sliced garlic.

Tune in tomorrow to see how it turned out and til then,

happy lunching!

A very green lunch

mmm...a lovely chocolate cake from Geulin in Etretat (photo from November 2005)...you must visit this place. It's cool because they also have family in California and they make the same excellent cakes...

And now that I've got your attention and your chocolate fix is fixed I need some help.

Over at Becks & Posh (very well known food blog for food bloggers in the know), they announced a food/wine photography club challenge (intended I suppose for all of us food porn wannabees).Anyway, I signed up and you can see my efforts here. This link will take you to flickr and after that you're on your own (I always have such difficulty signing in). In any case my flickr name is "happylunching".

If you are interested you can post your green food photos too...it's a cool idea and you've got until 10 May to get your photos in. You'll get some good honest critiques on what people think of your work and some advice on how to make your photos better...

My actual lunch today was just a repeat of previously shown stuff, and I had such a stressful day I wound up feeling ill all afternoon...do bosses just plan for this sort of stress on purpose before a three day weekend? You tell me.

And so here is where I need some help. I'm posting two photos of some strange berries I bought in Belleville at the Asian grocers. Do you know what this Asian food item is?



Mysterious green berries and here's another shot:



thanks for any info on this and also, in other news I've found out that Paula Wolfert's fab recipe is on epicurious and to me that means public and so I'm on for it.

Starting tomorrow...Chicken with lemon and olives...

til then may all your lunches be filled with mystery!

More "sel et poivre" for lunch

I went for a long walk on my lunch hour today and got my lunch at an Asian place very close to the Gare Saint Lazare.

The typical 13:00 Paris lunch line. You'll also notice that this place simply calls itself Asiatique (Asian). They do a mix of Chinese, Vietnamien, Thai, and they also have sushi and Japanese brochettes. Quite a variety and not expensive.

I ordered the "Menu C" which included poulet sel et poivre (salt and pepper chicken), riz cantonnais (cantonese rice) and a diet coke for 6,90. I also got a salade thailandaise (Thai salad) for 1,60 for a total of 8,50.

At most places salt and pepper chicken is chicken wings but not here. These are nice big pieces of chicken but the best thing about this lunch was that the rice did not have any peas in it (I'll eat most anything and the food items I really don't like are few and far between but peas, peas, I don't like peas).

The Thai salad had a nice tangy taste and was served with crushed peanuts. I wish this place was closer because then I could visit more often...

And here is what I passed by on my way home from work crossing through the parc Monceau. This is my favorite season in Paris; everything is turning so nice and green. Also I've been trying to improve my photos and so I fooled around with the tools in Picasa and I kind of like the results, please let me know what you think.

Tomorrow's Friday and then it's the weekend and I'm still wondering if I should cook something...if I do, it will be something delicious from my favorite Paula Wolfert cookbook...perhaps chicken with lemon and olives from Morroco?

Happy lunches to you and yours!

Antipasti salad for lunch

Today I went back to the place where I got the fajita. The restaurant is named "Be Well" and it's located in the 8th on rue Miromesnil. It's new management so I'm testing to see what's best and they are pretty friendly too, the guy at the counter made a point of remembering me from the last time.

So, for 9,90 euros here is what I got. An antipasti salad, some bread, a diet coke and a slice of cheesecake. The normal salad menu is 8,90 but that only includes certain deserts and since I wanted the cheesecake I had to pay 1 euro extra.

This was a good salad. Aside from the green lettuce there were some lovely cherry tomatoes, radishes, sundried tomatoes, fresh mushroom, pickled artichoke hearts, pickled eggplant and parmesan shaving. Everything was fresh and good. The only remark I have here is that perhaps a simple vinaigrette would have done instead of whatever mustard color thing they serve.  It would be nice to have a choice.

My salad beckons...

And here's the cheesecake. Be Well does good deserts; my chocolate cake from the last time was delicious and this cheesecake was good too. There was something in the crust that reminded me of home...

So, my boss is away for the next two days and I've got a three day weekend coming up. I'm actually toying with the idea of cooking something...perhaps I should give this more thought.

Happy lunching!

An uneventful office lunch

Today's lunch was a rather bland chicken tikka wrap (they called it a fajita on the menu but I don't think so).

The "fajita" with salad, a diet coke and a lovely chocolate cake for 9,90 euros.

International food naming practices...that is a good study for someone's PhD. This food item which was actually good (although a bit bland) was called a fajita and the place where I got it also does a thing called wraps but to me this is a wrap...who knows?

Unfortunately the photo of the chocolate cake came out too blurry so here's another close up of the fajita/wrap:

Sort of like a nice bland chicken salad (what do you expect in the stodgy business oriented 8th arrondisement...far from any real food adventure) wrap fresh from the sandwich press (ergo the grill marks).

Happy lunching!

Pho dac biet for lunch

Alas, although the pho was quite good (went to Dong Huong again) I failed in my quest. As those of you who visit regularly are aware, I get lots of good info from Kirk at mmm-yoso!!! and when he wrote about tendon and how much he likes it I decided I wanted to try some too.

So, on Sunday I went back to Belleville and got the Pho Dac Biet (Pho Special - the pho with everything...so they say). And just for those of you who want to practice your French, here is the pho entry in wikipedia.fr.

This is the small bowl for 6,10 euros and ok, it has the raw beef, it has the brisket, it has the tripe, and the beef balls but where oh where is the gân (tendon). Unfortunately it was not in my soup so I will have to head over to the 13th sometime soon.

In order to console myself I also ordered:

A strange drink. On the menu it is called the four seasons (quatre saisons). I've often seen these in Asian restaurants but never had the courage to try.

Here it is all mixed up. It turned a much lovelier shade of pale green as time wore on. Anyway, this drink contained julienne strips of green jello, bright orange tapioca pearls, some strange ingredient that was like a rice crispy, crushed ice, and milk. It cost 2,80 euros.

And, how did it taste? Actually it was not that bad but I don't think I'll order it again. The nearest thing I can compare it to is the milk left over in the bottom of the bowl when you've finished your fruit loops.

And that, fellow lunchers, was how I spent my Sunday afternoon, happy lunching to all of you!

Lunch in Little Jaffna

While researching today's lunch I found out that the Indian neighborhood where we ate today  actually has a name: Little Jaffna (excellent article in English). This area in the 10th arrondisement of Paris has lots of little restaurants and Indian shops and I've been coming here for years but this was my first visit to Shalini (in French with some photos and the menu and prices).

First of all here is a picture of the street, rue du Faubourg Saint Denis, near metro La Chapelle:

As the shopkeepers are mostly all from Southern India, they speak English! and here is Shalini, where they speak English as well.

We had a most excellent lunch today and it was amazingly inexpensive. I went with my two daughters and so since there were three of us I have lots of pictures.

I got the 12 euro menu which included samosas, lamb masala with rice  and vattalappam for desert.

As served and close up on the filling:

These were some of the best samosas I've ever had; they were light, fresh and very tasty!

The delicious lamb masala, once again very fresh.

And here is my wonderful discovery for the day, vattalappam. Apparently this is a traditional Sri Lankan desert and it's really good. Sort of like custard with a special exotic taste. I highly recommend that if you've never tried this you run right out and go and find some, you won't regret it.

My oldest daughter got the 10 euro menu which included shrimp badji, chicken kourouma (with rice), and barfi for desert (don't let the name put you off, it's good).

Very nice and crispy and fresh  and they were fried just right (not too greasy).

The chicken kourouma.

and the rice for two with cashew nuts and raisins.

Here is the barfi. It was not quite as outstanding as the vattal appam but it was good.

My youngest daughter always gets biryani when we go to Indian restaurants so she had the shrimp biryani for 9,90 euros.

It just looked so beautiful and was tasty as well with lots of good shrimp. She also ordered a mango lassi (yogurt drink) for 3 euros but she didn't want any desert.

This is a photo of the condiments and if you look closely at the fork, you will see that it has a hallmark. Eating with real silver silverware and at these prices? I think I've found my new favorite Indian restaurant in all of Paris.

A final photo of the lovely poster overlooking our table.

So, a great lunch for a very reasonable price and good service too. We were the only Europeans in the place and while we were eating I noticed lots of neighborhood Indians coming in for takeout so although I've not seen any other reviews of this place I think it must be authentic and all three of us were very happy with our lunch today.

May you always be blessed with delicious lunches!

Duck's tongue for lunch

Sunday afternoon my oldest daughter and I decided to try Sinorama, a Chinese place in the 13th arrondissement of Paris that's gotten several reviews for being really "authentic".

It doesn't look like much from the outside, just a little low building on the corner of avenue de Choisy and rue Docteur Magnan. We went for a late lunch (14:30) and so by the time we were finished the place was practically empty. The service was good, although a little rushed but I imagine they just get in the habit of rushing when there are big dinner crowds. In any case, they are very efficient and polite.

It was nice and spacious and they stay open all day so you can eat at odd hours (anytime before 8 pm is odd for the French) and avoid the crowds. They also have those excellent big tables with the round tray part in the middle that holds the various dishes and turns around. When we first arrived there were two very big groups enjoying their lunches as well as several smaller groups and they were majoritarily Asian (a very good sign).

Anyway, I wasn't sure that I would dare but I did it, I ordered the duck's tongues.

5,50 euros, they were served in a very nice black bean sauce. As for the tongues themselves...I ate them as did my daughter but really the taste is pretty boring. They are sort of soft and gelatinous but the sauce was really good! This is probably not the kind of thing you would want to order if you are in the early stages of dating either because there is a lot of cartiledge and you may have to wind up using your fingers.

We ordered another starter just to be on the safe side. Shrimp roll fried in bread crumbs. They were nice and crunchy and there were a lot of them. It was really enough for two people and cost 7,00.

Then we ordered two different dishes and rice. Both dishes were served on sizzling platters (I think this is hot plate in English but really I like sizzling better) and they did come out of the kitchen sizzling. The first one was "three stuffed treasures" (trois trésors farcis):

It was sizzling so much my lense got steamed up:

Tofu, both green and red peppers, and eggplant stuffed with a shrimp filling. This was also served in a excellent sauce with black beans. It cost 12,00 and was most definitely enough for two people but of course we wanted to try lots of stuff so we also got:

The sizzling seafood! It looked beautiful but this sauce was more boring than the stuffed treasure sauce. Kind of bland, but perhaps it was because this was just so much food...and in Paris they don't do the doggy bag thing so no sense ordering too much.

It is very unusual in Paris to get such gigantic servings of food. When things are sort of expensive you just figure it's because the ingredients are more costly.

So, next time (and I do plan on going back) we will know better and either they'll be ten of us or we'll order less. With two appetizers, two main dishes(12,00 each), rice 1,40 and tea 3,00 the total came to 40.00 euros but it was enough food for 4 people! So Sinorama gets thumbs up from me and I suggest you check it out as well.

Happy lunching!

ps. I posted at work today and now I'm back home and I've been informed that  Calvin Trillin ate here, way back in 1998 (in English)

A special Easter bunny lunch

Ok, so it's the holidays, Easter, and I'm feeling nostaligic and missing the States, perhaps  "confiture de fraises des bois avec beurre de cacahuette sur fines tranches de pain de mie" will comfort me...

and, on a rather more personal note this post is presented by my very special sweet sweety, Violette (pictured above in a taste test), she is a Tibetan Spaniel (Epagneul Tibetain) and I don't know what I would do without her, so let's see, here are the ingredients:

And so, it's confiture de fraise (strawberry jam), beurre de cacahuettes (peanut butter) and fines tranches de pain de mie (thinly sliced white bread) and this is for all of you who say, Yes, it does indeed taste better with a French name and I must say I agree for this was a sandwich from the Easter Bunny.

Peanut butter and jelly, mmmm

And what is this? well ok, it looks like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but then, on the left "Fluff" and yes I found Fluff in my local Monoprix so of course I had to continue my sandwich:

So, spread the fluff

and direct from the Easter Bunny, a perfect American peanut butter, jelly and fluff sandwich...who would've thought it possible?

Happy Easter to all my fellow lunchers!

however Violette was not so sure

and so, our final suggestion to all of you is that you carefully sniff out your lunches, who knows what may lurk in the heart of a sandwich. Gros bisous to my sweetie Violette, je t'aime, and may the Easter Bunny be kind to you...til tomorrow,

happy lunching