Hugo Desnoyer

Few weeks ago, I've discovered the Janissaire restaurant, in the Bercy area in Paris.
First idea was "ho... a Turkish "restaurant" ..."
Yes, Turkish sounds like Kebab usually in my head, but in that case, hell no !
So, i get to the restaurant, and, good surprise, This place is recommended by the Michelin guide.
Just that sign, already made me hungry !! And, I  haven't been disappointed :

Starting with a plate of "caviar d'aubergine", home made "Tarama", with a, also home made Turkish bread, great.
But the best, has to be the main course... and it was.
I ordered the "HÜNKAR BEGENDI", It's lamb with eggplant "purée". Even if I don't use to be a lamb fan, it was absolutely delicious (and I rarely use this word !)

So here start my challenge now : reproduce what I ate, without recipe, and obviously it need to be (at least) as good.

I had first to imagine how they made the dish. Since the "purée" was soft and creamy, and not too watery, I guess i can use "crème fraiche" and mashed potato to stick everything and get this thickness. we'll see...

For the lamb itself, I chose a "carré d'agneau", easier to serve by plate.
So I though "That's finally the perfect occasion to go to Desnoyer butcher !". I wanted to try their meat since such a long time, with no occasion for that, so, it made me so exited to finally have, that I was almost impressed to get in the store lol.
So i went for shopping :

For 2 persons:

1 carré d'agneau 6 pieces.
2 eggplant
1 potato
1 carrot
1/2 onion
Garlic
Bouquet garni

  

Confit garlic : Put the garlic cloves in a pot with oil to cover them. Add thyme, or any herbs you want (i'm not responsible for your herbs choice :)), then let it boil, and remove from fire until it get cold.

I started by cooking the eggplants in the oven, while the potatoes were cooking too.

Once everything was done, I pealed, and mashed everything is the blinder. Add a little bit of crème fraiche, confit garlic, salt, pepper... blinded again. That's it !


The butcher did prepared the meat for me(removed the fat...). But still, I cleaned the ends to make it more beautiful.
Salt, pepper again, oil, bouquet garni, fried it a little bit in a Pan to colored it, then, let it cook in the oven.
For me, 20 min made it perfectly cooked, not too much, not too little. A nice light pink that I pick  :)




Trying was the best part... I haven't ate anything as good since a willlllle !!
Seriously, that was excellent. It's also a lot thanks to the meat itself which was amazing. so soft and melting in my mouth. really, my knife was so unsharped that it seemed like a butter knife, and I still managed to cut it !
Desnoyer definitely deserve the best butcher title.

And for you, vegetarian people that fight for animals right... I agree with that. But what make the Desnoyer's meat so special is that they actually pick each animal they will buy, before to be killed.
They get a special treatment with classical music, because less the animal is stressed, better is the meat, the store knows that very well, and respect each animal (free range, quality label...)
So now, if you want to try... you're welcome !!

Carots

 I've been pretty inspired by carrot lately. And by inspired I mean, I wanted to eat carrot's puré very bad !
I had this idea of a dish (I'll show you next post), and I wanted to put some carrot in it absolutely, but at the end, it would not had turned out very pretty (colors didn't fit together ), so, to make this up, I just decoded to make a carrot puré as a little starter (as I told you I REALLY wanted this puré !)

I made the recipe while I was cooking it, and it turned out D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S. so let me share it with you, because this is the easiest thing ever.


For 6 Persons, you'll need :

12 big carrots
1/5 cut of butter
1 pinch of Cumin powder

Fresh carrot from the market

Peal them and cut the green, but not totally. You'll keep the top for décoration, like that :

Cook the décoration's carrot, only with the orange part in the water, that way the green stay green and fresh :

While it's cooking, cut the carrots in small pieces, boil them until they get really soft. Pour them in a bowl (without the cooking water), and blind them (you can actually pour everything in a blinder. That would be easier, but, I don't have one...).

Once it start to be smooth, add butter, and keep blinding it until it turn welllllllll smoothed.

Add a pinch of Cumin spice to finish.

And TaDAaaa, the final result.

In a little bowl, put 2 table spoon of the puré, and place the little decoration's carrot that I rolled in origan, and a line of Cumin powder.

Enjoy ;)

Cigar ?

In France, everybody smoke a lot.
But something keep being rare, and so, stay fancy and classy in my mind; That is "Cigar" !

Cigar smells good, cigar makes you look like you're at the top of the world, when cigarette just stink and dirty the wall of your house.

But I won't gonna talk about cigar you can smoke on this post, that was just my personal opinion about a  kind of random subject.

Actually, here, when I talk about cigar I talk about the shape of the goat cheese bricks I made.

This might be the easiest dish ever (again :))
I used to make some to the couch-surfeurs I hosted before (it is delicious and make me look like a food master, when it is actually only 3 steps to make it).

This is how you make a fake 3 stars dish.

For 6 persons :

1 goat cheese (I usually take those "buchette", because they are easier to cut in 3 and has the perfect size)
6 "brick sheet"
1 yellow peach
Balsamic vinaigre
1 cup thickened cream 
Rosemary

Before everything : 

Cut some slices of peach, pour the balsamic vinaigre on it, and let it marinating the whole day.

Then, place the rosemary in the thickened cream, and let it rest the whole day too.

Cut the goat cheese in long slices

Place it in the center of the brick sheet, and start rolling it by the bottom, then fold the sides part to make sure it won't gonna leak while cooking, and keep rolling it to the top. Like I did on the pictures : 

Get every things ready before you start cooking them.

Step 2, get the rosemary whipped cream ready.

Get the cup of whipped cream in which you have made the rosemary marinating for 2 hours at least.

Remove the rosemary... And now, 2 options : 

You ou have a Kitchenaid robot to whipped the cream, and so, you're awesome ! Or, option 2, you don't have one (like me !), so just get a whisk, and shake it, shake it !! Until it turn....

Like that : 

Once come the moment to serve the dish, frie the brick cigar in a large amont of hot oil. 

It need to have a lot of oil, and never get dry, if not, that will burn. And the brick sheet suck a looooot of oil !

Once it turn a nice golden color, flip if to make all sides colored, then remove it on some towel paper before you serve in the plate.

Place the peach slices that you marinated early, on the plate.

Place the brick cigar on them.

Make two little quenelles with the rosemary whipped cream on the side (I decorated with some cress).

To finish, I made a line of chili powder on the side for decoration.

Enjoy, and give me your opinion ;)

Paris Hippy/ Hip Hop

The Hippy style, is the last one I made for Modress.com.
The Hip Hop style, is mine !! Hell yeah.
This is a skirt from the new collection of my line "Lili-Anne de Rochoart".

Personally, I feel wayyyyyy more confortable with my sneakers, more than with any sexy high heels in the world !! That is why my blog is named "white-t-shirt" :)

Shirt Lili-Anne De Rochoart
Bag Modress

Skirt Lili-Anne De Rochoart

Ceviche

When my coworkers come home for dinner, the night turn out like a "chef-dinner-party". Expect a "masterpiece".
Everybody bring something to eat. So, a simple pasta salad turn out as an fucking hella good pasta salad, or a Tatin tart, as a "Conticini's way" tart.
For my part, I made a ceviche, and a little recipe for you.

For 5 persons :

2 Sea bream fish
1 white onion
1 red onion
Coriandre
Cherry tomatoes
Avocado
Radish
6 Lemons
1 Plantin banana

You will have to get the fish ready at least 12h before serving the dish :

If you don't know how to cut a fish, I'll give you the trick right now, and just follow the picture above.

1/ Cut the flesh after the head, BUT don't cut the whole head

2/ Put your hand palm, gently on the fish, and use a SHARP knife to cut the fish all along the back, until the tale.

3/ With your knife, at the lower part of the fish, cross the flesh from the back to the belly of the fish.

4/ Then cut the lower part to be able to pull it.


5/ Gently (again), pull up the flesh and slide the knife along the bones. keep the knife on a flat position to avoid mess up the flesh or bones.

6/ Until you have removed everything.

7/ You can now make little dice of fish. Press 6 lemons, add salt and pour the juice on the fish, onion and I also added persley.
You'll need to let it rest at least 12h to get a very flavored dish.

Then, everything is just a puzzle.
Slice all your garnish the way you like them, and keep them ready in the fridge until the moment to serve them.



I also added some fried plantin bananas for decoration but also taste. That was the first time I tried to cook some and it wasn't my best idea. But I'll give you a little trick anyway about frying stuff :

Place the banana in very hot oil (180 degrees ). They need to fry (so make bubbles) instantly (if not, the fruit will just suck the oil, what you don't want to happen).
You will know the banana is well fried when the oil stop making bubbles around it (not totally, but at least wayyy less bubbles).

Budapest is a Hipster

 As you can tell as soon as you get in the city center with the quantity of bicycle and guys with mustache !

Budapest is a young city... Sure old by the architecture but young people make it a new generation city.

Even if it's not such a huge city, we can find a lot of different kind of places, going from the traditional bath to the bike hipster tour and market.

Same thing with the food, which goes from traditional heavy food to vegan lasagna, or new style sandwiches, in some little restaurant, very "New York's style", where waiter's arms are full of tattoos, and the chef, come from Fine dinning cuisine, but made a reconversion in high quality fast food.
It's cheap, easy, and delicious, that's what I like !!

Some places I picked :
Kolor : For the hipster style, and vegetarian lasagna
Gasztrobàr : For the gastronomic sandwiches and soups. The chef used to work in fine dinning, and you can tell !
Szimpla Kert : The most crazy and awesome decoration bar, it goes inside, outside, old redbull mini cooper car décoration, room full of computer screen...

Ho, and the traditional summer drink : Rosé with sparkling water. That could be a nice light fresh beverage for the summer, but with the daily 40°C we had when I was there, even this low alcohol drink got me drunk. Sun + Rose Spitzer = definitely not my thing !

Beef steak budapest style(bélszín budapest módra) : Beek + liver

Goulash with noodles( pörkölt nokedlivel), even is goulash is literally a soup, this is stew.

Pork cutlets ("cigánypecsenye"- gypsy=cigány style) : Pork rib cooked in bacon fat, with a slice of bacon on the top. No need to say it taste awesomly bacony !!