"french" news and stories

Brioche burger buns. Photo: Smitten Kitchen.

Marie Antoinette may not have been the one to say "Let them eat cake!" -- we'll never know for sure -- but one thing is certain: whoever said it first wasn't talking about the sugary stuff, but about bread. The phrase is translated from the French qu'ils mangent de la brioche. If said brioche is baked to a perfect golden brown and topped with sesame seeds, we say, "Oui!"

Just in time for Bastille Day, here is an ideal-looking hamburger bun from across the pond. The American treat was given a French twist by Deb at the Smitten Kitchen, who consulted nearly 100 recipes in search of the ultimate bun. In the end, she went with a technique that ran in the New York Times; the buns turned out "plush and mildly sweet and slightly buttery."

Suffice it to say we're feeling fully fired up for Bastille Day. Bon appetit!

[Via Smitten Kitchen]

I'm loving Chocolate & Zucchini's series on French food idioms. So far blogstress Clotilde has covered "not knowing whether it's lard or pork" (not knowing what to believe), "having bread on the board" (having a lot of tedious work to do), "falling like a hair on soup" (something or someone appearing at a completely incongruous moment), "rolling someone in flour," (duping or tricking someone naive), "pedaling in semolina" (being entangled in a thorny situation - my favorite!), "drinking whey" (basking in flattery), "breaking sugar on someones back" (engaging in backbiting gossip), "cutting the pear in two" (compromising).

What good English-language food idioms call you think of?

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Pâte À Foncer is considered the French version of a basic pie dough, but with an extra fine texture. It translates as "lining dough", and can be used for sweet or savory pies or tarts. Another characteristic is that is made with room temperature butter for a finer and crisper crumb.

12 oz room softened butter
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 egg yolk
3.25 oz milk
15.75 pastry flour (or all purpose)

Soften the butter with the paddle attachment (mix even if it's already room temp). Mix in the salt, sugar, yolk,and milk, then add the flour just until incorporated. Try to get everything mixed in, but stop as soon as everything is gathered into the dough. Refigerate for at least 4 hours.

Pàte sucrée is the definitive French tart dough for sweet desserts. It translates as "sugar dough" because if its higher sugar content. It is generally made with the creaming method and bakes up nice and crisp. Blind baking is advised.

16 oz bread flour
5.5 oz powdered sugar
.5 tsp baking powder
7 oz butter
3.5 oz eggs (about 2)
.5 tsp vanilla extract

Sift the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Place in the bowl of a stand mixer, and blend in the butter to a mealy consistency (looks like course cornmeal). Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix just until everything is gathered into the dough. Refigerate for at least 4 hours.

Piment d'Espelette grown in just a handful of villages in the Basque country of southern France, is as beloved in their region as paprika is in Hungary. The small red peppers can be used fresh, or hung up in bouquets to dry then ground into powder similar to hot paprika. First introduced to France by returning New World missionaries in the 1500s, the Espelette is now an essential feature of Basque cuisine. The village of Espelette holds a Celebration of Peppers each October, with Espelette-infused dishes, banners made from hundreds of red and green peppers, and street performers painted red to resemble the pepper itself.

Espelette goes especially well with seafood, mild cheeses, and hearty vegetable dishes. In Paris, I ate monkfish over white beans in an Espelette cream sauce. It was divine, silky and smoky with just a teeny-tiny kick. You could substitute hot paprika, but it wouldn't be quite the same. You can find ground Espelette in some gourmet markets or online at Amazon.com. There's a trove of Espelette recipes at Epicurien, which is in French but can be translated by Google to decidedly mixed results. I'm especially keen to try the sauteed shrimp with Espelette and Bayonne ham.