I usually eat my beets cooked. This time I decided to eat them raw and grate them, like you would do with carrots. They’re equally delicious, and thinking about it, prefer them raw, their texture is crunchy like a carrot and their sweetness is even more pronounced. For people who hate beets, I would suggest to give it a try to eat them raw. France is a big importer and consumer of hearts of palm, I remember when I was young, my mom used them a lot in salads, so I was glad I could find some in the store here. Basically it’s the middle of the palm trunk that has been cooked. This salad has a lot of textures, and complimentary flavors (nutiness of the edamame, sweetness of beets and carrots) so it’s quite interesting for the palate. It’s bright, it’s fresh, it’s crunchy, so pretty to look at too. The carrots are cut with a peeler to make ribbons, you can’t really yell on the picture since they’re at the bottom of the plate. I used a special vinegar I brought back from France, it’s made with raspberry pulp and is not as acid as regular raspberry vinegar but more fruity and thicker. Here it is – Those fruit pulp vinegars are becoming very popular, they add a lot of character to any dish. You can find different flavors such as mango, fig, etc… Ingredients for 2

• 2 medium size golden beets, peeled and grated
• 4 medium size carrots, peeled and cut in ribbons
• 1 can of hearts of palm, cut in 1 inch pieces
• 4 tbs edamame

For the vinaigrette

• 4 tbs olive oil
• 2 tbs raspberry pulp vinegar
• 1 tsp cilantro, chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Make ribbons with carrots using a potato peeler. Grate beets. Place carrot ribbons on a plate, then add beets.

Divide edamame around and lay hearts of palm all around the plate. Poach eggs.

For the vinaigrette, mix ingredients together. Pour vinaigrette on top of the salad. Add egg and add extra vinaigrette on top.

Yesterday the lunch was light since we had been invited by our neighbor’s for the Chinese new year to a restaurant. Usually, if I know my dinner will be more substantial than usual, I balance it out with a light lunch. After all, it’s all about balance…

I love this soup, I love it even more, because of its beautiful dense color. The flavor is naturally sweet, fresh and very delicate. I made two versions, one with a poached egg, and one with a yogurt cream with chopped mint. They’re equally delicious and nutritious. This soup is quick to make, the peas don’t need to cook for a long time to keep their flavor and color, so here we have a quick and delicious soup. The picture with the poached egg is a bit off, the egg got a little messy.

For 2-3 people

• 3/4 large yellow onion chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 lb peas either fresh or frozen
• 1.5 cups baby spinach
• 1/2 bunch mint, chopped
• 2 eggs or more (depending on the version)
• 3 tbs plain yogurt (depending on the version)
• vegetable broth
• salt and pepper

Preparation

In a large pot, heat olive oil, add onions and soften them. Add peas, stir and cook for about 1 minute, then add broth. Cook for about 15-20 minutes, then add spinach and mint. Cook for an additional 5 minutes. Adjust with salt and pepper. Blend soup to obtain a smooth mixture.

Poach egg and add to the soup or mix yogurt with some chopped mint and add ti the soup.

 Anytime I eat a poached egg, it reminds me of this teenager sitting next to our table, at Gary Danko, a well known San Francisco restaurant, who was astonished to see a yolk running while he poked a poached egg on top of his salad. He could not believe his eyes. He shout out loud, Oh it’s fascinating!!!

Fascinating might not be the word, but poached eggs are certainly delicious. Lentils and eggs are a quite a good match.

I used lentilles du Puy, which is a French green lentil and the best of all green lentils. Lentilles du Puy only comes from a little town called Puy-en-Velay in France, in a region of Haute-Loire where you can find a micro climat perfect for growing lentils (what you can find in the US under the name French lentils, are not necessary French). They still use traditional methods to grow them, with no fertilizer and natural irrigation, the crops are harvested the first two weeks of September.

Lentils from Puy-en-Velay are traced back to 1600 so it’s nothing new. They call lentils in France, “caviar des pauvres“, “caviar of the poor”, which was long considered a poor people’s meal. The difference between green lentils and brown lentils (lentilles blondes) is that they are less starchy, don’t loose their shape, and more flavorful.

Of course, you could use brown lentils if you don’t have the other kind, but don’t overcook them, or they’ll turn into a purée. I call this a stew because it’s thicker than a soup, but you can make it thinner and make into a soup, you can also, blend the lentils and make it into a cream…it’s all about the way you like it.

Ingredients or 4

• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 celery stalk diced
• 1/2 leek, diced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 300 g lentils
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 cloves
• 5 tbs crushed tomatoes
• vegetable bouillon or water
• 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
• 4 eggs
• truffle oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

In a large pot, heat olive oil. Add onions and brown them. Add garlic, stir for a few minutes, add all the other vegetables. Add bayleaf and cloves and mix well. Add broth and cover until lentils are cooked but a bit firm. Add salt and pepper.

Poach eggs in water (see for technique).

Divide lentils among four plates, place one egg in each plate, drizzle with truffle oil, pepper and parsley and serve hot.

When you eat out, salades niçoises are always more or less the same, with minor variations from one restaurant to another…and often a little on the boring side. So after a few thoughts on how to make things a little more exciting and with a different way to prepare them, I came up with a salad that has the ingredients of a salade niçoise (less the salmon), that was lovely. Most of the ingredients are here but in a different way to present and cook them, which modifies all the textures and make them very interesting and exciting. Here the green beans are cut and mixed with the greens and cherry tomatoes. The olives are turned into a tapenade which is an olive paste from the South of France spread on top of the bread. The egg is poached and not boiled and the other final touch is the salt, I used sea weed salt (from Brittany) but of course, you can use any other sea salt.

If you want to remain traditional and feel the salmon shall not be seen on a salade Niçoise, use tuna instead. This salad is really fun, and you can play with it using your imagination as you wish. For instance, if I had quail eggs, I would have poached two quail eggs and made two tartines, instead of one. Now there is not one particular recipe for salade niçoise, and each cook can make it the way he wants, even though the traditional recipe is not supposed to have any cooked ingredients, only raw. So if you want to say that my salad is not a Niçoise, like a Nicois (a person from Nice) would probably say. Well, I am ok with that…it is nonetheless delicious.

Sometimes for specific recipes, I like to remain as close as the original recipe as I can, but in some more “flexible” recipes, I also like to have fun in the kitchen and play around with food…but obviously it needs to be good or it shall not have its spot on the blog.

Ingredients for 2

• 1 salmon filet of about 1/2 lb
• 4 small round yukon potatoes
• 1.5 cups fine green beans
• about 20 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 1 cup of mixed greens or arugula
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2 bell red pepper, roasted,  peeled and cut in stripes
• 2 eggs
• 2 baguettes slices or country bread

For the vinaigrette

• 2 tbs extra virgin unfiltered olive oil
• 3 tbs lemon olive oil
• juice of 1 meyer lemon
• orange-champagne vinegar or any mild fruity vinegar
• about 8 leaves basil, chopped
• Sea weed salt
• pepper

For the tapenade

• 1/4 lb kalamata olives
• 2 good quality small anchovies
• about 6 capers
• 1/2 garlic clove
• 2 tbs olive oil

Preparation

Start by cooking the potatoes in water. When the potatoes are about 3/4 cooked but still a little firm in the center, remove from stove. Let them cool and then peel. Set aside. Cut the salmon in about one inch cube pieces.

Cook green beans in boiling water until cooked but still firm. When cooked remove from stove, then let them cool and cut in about 2 inches pieces.

Using a wooden skewer, place one piece of salmon, then one potato, until you have two pieces each on each skewer.

In the meantime, in a container mix cherry tomatoes, salad, green beans, bell peppers. Prepare vinaigrette by combining all ingredients together.

For the tapenade, mix all ingredients together in a mixer. Toast baguette and spread tapenade on top.

Broil skewer in the oven until golden brown and salmon cooked all the way through or pink (depending on your tastes).

Poach egg in boiling water for about 2 minutes (poaching technique will come in another post).

Pour vinaigrette on salad, toss well and keep some vinaigrette for the skewer.

Plate first salad/beans/tomatoes mixture, then place skewer on top, add the remaining vinaigrette on top of skewer. Serve with tartine of tapenade topped with poached egg, and drizzle with olive oil.

What do you do when you have dandelions in the refrigerator, no time to cook and a huge craving for dandelions? Well, you can make this lovely tartine. I did not feel like having just a plate of sauté dandelions, so tartines are always a great way to combine greens and other vegetables, and top it off with a poached egg.

Ah my beloved dandelions, did you know that the word dandelions came from the French “dent de lion” or “Lion tooth” because of the dented sides of the leaves that look like lion’s teeth? so “dent de lion” became dandelion!

I loved the wild ones, and I used to go pick them up in the field with my parents and eat tons of them when I was still living at home. I think that time of ramasser les pissenlits et les manger (dandelions pick up and eating) is part of my best memories. If I start doing that here, people would think either I am homeless or insane. My neighbor’s garden has tons of dandelions, and I have been staring at them for a while but obviously I don’t see myself going there with a knife and start digging their garden. The farmed dandelions are not as bitter and the leaves are a lot longer, so I prefer from far the wild ones.

I could not find the exact English for word tartine, it is typically French, basically a slice of bread with a bunch of different things on top, or a simple tartine de beurre, which can be a delight if you have great bread and salted butter. Tartine cannot be translated by toast which is mostly made with American style bread (loaves style). So I will leave tartine as being a tartine.

When grilling the tomatoes, do not over-grill them or they’ll get mushy, just one or two minutes each side. The olive vinaigrette adds a final delicious touch to the tartine.

For 3 tartines

• 3 slices of country bread
  
• 1 bunch dandelion
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3 tomatoes, sliced
• 3 eggs
• lavender salt
• sea salt and pepper

For the vinaigrette

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbs kalamata olives, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbs parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Wash dandelions.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add dandelions and cook for 5-7 minutes until tender. Remove from stove and drain. Let it cool and squeeze with your hands extra water.

Heat olive oil in a pan, add 1 garlic clove, stir well and add dandelions, adjust with salt and pepper, and sauté to coat dandelions with oil and garlic.

In a grill pan, grill tomatoes. Remove from the grill and sprinkle with lavender salt and pepper.

Poach egg in water.

Grill each side of bread and top with dandelions, then add tomatoes, and egg. Add vinaigrette on top.

I have had some poached eggs lately at a new little place that used to be a French restaurant called Couleur Café run by French people. It closed down, and opened again under another name, Pizza Nostra run by the same people and now it’s an Italian restaurant, well the menu is more Italian than French. I liked it before when they were serving French cuisine and I like it now serving Italian cuisine. One of my favorite brunch menu item is the poached eggs on asparagus artichokes and eggplants with a side of frisée.

The best poached egg salad I had was in Lyon. Of course, if you ever go to Lyon, you need to order a Salade Lyonnaise at L’Est one of Paul Bocuse‘s four brasseries (one of the most famous French chefs of this century). The four brasseries are comprised of Le Nord, Le Sud, L’Est and L’Ouest (North, South, East and West). That salad is really a masterpiece. Unlike other French cities, where you tend to get very tiny portions on your plate, Lyon is very different in that respect. That salad was enough for four people and so rich that it had probably the amount of calories I consume in three days…but a real delight. Actually, Lyon is my favorite city in France, I prefer Lyon than Paris, it reminds me of San Francisco, a very livable size city, a clean metro, and nicer climate.

So going back to our egg, what do you do when you get a poached egg? Do you break the egg right away or eat the rest of the dish and break the egg at the end? I think I never really changed from when I was 8 years old. I just hate to break the egg and see the yolk dripping by, sometimes I just feel like sticking the whole egg in my mouth, just not to break it.

Ingredients for 2

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup snap peas
• 1 cup fava beans, skin removed
• 4 asparagus, cut in 1 inch pieces
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tsp mixed herbs, chopped (parsley, chives, etc…)
• 4 slices pancetta, diced (optional)
• balsamic vinegar for drizzling
• parmesan or pecorino, shaved
• 1 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a pan. Add shallots, brown them, then add pancetta, let it cook for a couple of minutes until it gets a little crunchy, then add garlic. Stir for a couple of minutes, then add snap peas and asparagus, salt and pepper. Cover and let it cook at slow heat.

Remove fava beans from the pod. Bring water to a boil in a small pot, then add fava beans. Cook for one minute depending on the size of the beans. Drain, let it cool and remove the skin from the beans.

Add to the snap peas and asparagus mixture.

To poach the eggs: In a medium size pot, bring water to a boil with salt and vinegar. When it started to boil, reduce heat so that it boils very slowly. Break egg in a bowl and slowly bring the bowl on top of the boiling water and pour it very slowly and carefully in the water. Make sure the egg whites don’t get spread out in the water, and bring the white close to the yolk. You can use two spoons to try to “glue” the egg whites all together on top of the yolk. remove the egg carefully and place in cold water to rinse the vinegar and stop the cooking process.

When the vegetables are cooked but not overcooked, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, shave some parmesan on top. Spoon vegetables in serving plates, place one poached egg on top, Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.