Getting That Cherry Ripe Vibe in France

Cherry season means cherry desserts. I had some blush yellow cherries from our local organic orchard Fruits Ô Kalm and the fruit flies in the kitchen were in plague proportions. So I stewed the cherries. Then I had the idea of serving them with whipped coconut cream. And just before serving I had the brainwave of grating a little dark chocolate on the combo. A total winner. Super easy, super delicious.

 

Ingredients

400 g sweet cherries

6 tbsp sugar

300 g coconut cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 squares of dark chocolate

 

Method

1. Break out your cherry stoning tool from the back of whichever inconvenient cupboard you've shoved it in. Set it up, then rinse your cherries and pluck their stalks off.
2. Run the cherries through the stoning tool, then put them in a saucepan with a dash of water and 4 tablespoons of sugar.
3. Gently simmer the cherries for 5 minutes, keeping an eye on them because they'll have a tendency to boil over.
4. Put the cherries aside to cool.
5. Put the coconut cream, vanilla and remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar in a high sided bowl.
6. Rummage out your electric hand beater and whip the coconut cream. This will take a while, longer than dairy cream.
7. Serve the cherries in bowls, topped with a dollop of coconut cream. Shave some chocolate onto the coconut cream using a fine grater.
   

Australians will understand the reference to Cherry Ripe. Everyone else is probably mystified.

ANZAC Biscuits

Since we are coming up to ANZAC Day, when Australians remember their war dead, on 25 April, I thought I would post a recipe for ANZAC biscuits today. These are delicious.

I copied the recipe from the back of a bag of flour, and it comes from the Country Women's Association, so it is the 'official' recipe. (In the UK the equivalent of the CWA is the Women's Institute, but I have no idea what the North American or French equivalents are.)

ANZAC Biscuits

Makes 50

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dessicated coconut
125g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and lightly grease oven trays.
2. Combine flour, sugar, rolled oats and coconut.
3. Melt butter and golden syrup.
4. Add bicarb to boiling water and mix into butter mixture.
5. Stir into the dry ingredients.
6. Form the dough into large marble sized balls and drop onto trays, allowing generous room for spreading.
7. Bake for 10 minutes until light golden brown.
8. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
   

PS. ANZAC Day usually more or less coincides with la journée de Souvenir des Déportés in France, which commemorates the French men and women who were deported as forced labour, interned or sent to concentration camps during the Second World War.

Jelly Cakes

Jelly Cakes are, as far as I know, an old fashioned Australian speciality. A sort of pink raspberry flavoured alternative to the lamington (invented by a French chef in Australia -- see my previous blog post on the subject https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2020/12/lamingtons.html).

 

Jelly Cake recipes are to be found in old Australian Women's Weekly or Country Women's Association (CWA) publications. Here is the one I used https://www.thecookingcollective.com.au/jelly-cakes/.

Jelly is not something French people understand or get on with in the way Australians do. Aussie jelly comes in packets of flavoured and sweetened crystals to be made up by adding water, so it mystifies British people too, who are used to a sort of gelled concentrate.

Anyway, a kind friend sent several packets of proper Aeroplane brand jelly crystals, so I made a trifle with one packet, and some jelly cakes with another. 

I filled my jelly cakes with whipped coconut cream, adding vanilla, sugar, whole raspberries and raspberry coulis. Coconut and raspberries is a nicer combination than dairy cream and raspberries in my opinion.

Further Reading: The story of Aeroplane Jelly on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplane_Jelly.

Aussie Style Pickled Beetroot

Today is Australia Day, a controversial national holiday, unknown outside of Australia, and even Australians can't decide what it is they are celebrating on this day or whether it should even be on this date. So I thought I'd write about something less controversial. Beetroot. Which in my opinion is Australia's national dish. Or at least, the very sweet pickled sliced version. It is an essential ingredient of any Aussie hamburger or mixed salad, both of which are served by humble cafés, restaurants and pubs up and down the land. Here is how I do it in France, so this recipe might not be authentic, but a hybrid introduced by me to many of my French friends, who, by the way, love it.

 

Cooked organic beetroot in the farm shop at les Jardins Vergers de la Petite Renaudière, our local market garden and orchard.

 

Ingredients

2-6 cooked beetroots (I buy mine pre-cooked from my local organic market garden. They are boiled or pressure cooked whole and in their skins in big batches on the farm. If you need to cook your own, boil them in water for about 30 minutes, until you can slip a knife all the way through them easily.)

Pickling liquor:

200 g white sugar (note that French white sugar is more like castor sugar, but any cheap sugar will do)

450 ml vinegar (I use red wine vinegar in France, but distilled white or malt vinegar would be traditional)

125 ml water (optional, for if you need to extend the quantity a bit, or you want to cut the acidity a bit)

1 tbsp sea salt

½ tsp mustard seeds

½ tsp black peppercorns

½ tsp coriander seeds (optional)

½ tsp chilli flakes (optional)

2 sprigs of thyme (optional)

2 bay leaves (optional)

Method

1. Peel the beetroot by cutting the tops and bottoms off and slipping the skins off.
2. Cut the beetroot into slices, dice or wedges.
3. Pack the beetroot into jars.
4. Combine all the pickling liquor in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
5. Stir the mixture on the heat until the sugar dissolves.
6. Pour over the beetroot and seal the jars.
7. Leave to mature for 2 weeks before eating.

 

Fresh organic beetroot in the farm shop at les Jardins Vergers de la Petite Renaudière, our local market garden and orchard.

Homemade pickled beetroot.

Homemade pickled beetroot.

Beetroot with other salad items on the side of a lamb and red wine pie, in a café in Tenterfield, Australia.

A typical Aussie burger, with a slice of beetroot above the tomato and below the beef patty, at a café in Talbingo, Australia.

Laurent, who adopted the role of beetroot wrangler at a party we held.

Egg Shortage in France

I must admit I hadn't noticed. Someone on Facebook pointed out to me that there had been a flurry of news reports about egg shortages in France, and the supermarket shelves were looking a bit bare. So next time I was in the supermarket I checked, and sure enough, there were obvious gaps. So what is it all about? France is Europe's biggest egg producer, and French people eat a lot of eggs (more than 4 each per week, and that figure has been increasing over the past few years)*. So that's one reason -- supply is not keeping up with demand, especially while we have bird flu doing the rounds (which has reduced production by about 4%).

Apparently, since the beginning of the year, demand has outstripped supply by 13%. Last year France produced more than 15 billion eggs, and the normal level of supply is about 2% less than demand. These days eggs are seen as an economical and ecologically sustainable alternative to meat or fish. But also influencing the market are changing ideas on cholesterol (it's OK to eat eggs again), the fashion for high protein diets (promoted particularly by sports nutritionists and scientist influencers such as Jessie Inchauspé the Glucose Goddess advocating savoury breakfasts), and how eggs lend themselves to quick and simple preparation.

 

How to decode your egg stamp: the top line is the best by date (dd/mm), 28 days after laying; the bottom line indicates how the hens live, with a number 0-3 (this one is 1, so this is a free range egg), then the country code (FR for France), then the département (county) code (02 is Aisne).

In order to meet this increased demand we will need a million more hens, and 300 more egg farms. French egg farms have on average flocks of 16 000 hens, but nobody wants to live next door to an egg farm, so permission to establish new farms takes time. French consumers want French produced eggs, preferably organic, Label Rouge and/or free range (Fr. élevée en plein air) ie the stamps on the eggs should include codes 0 or 1, not 2 (barn) or 3 (caged). For the moment France is making do with importing 4% of eggs in the market from Spain, Poland and the Netherlands, where much bigger egg farms are permitted, and French consumers are dubious about traceability.

 

Eggs at one of my local supermarkets on Tuesday.

 

*Australians eat even more eggs per capita than the French, but consumption is declining slightly. Average annual consumption in Australia is 259 eggs per person, in France it is 226 eggs per person.

Movember in France

On Wednesday I was at a clinic to have a small cyst removed. I was a bit early, so I had time to photograph the Movember campaign information. Movember has been a big thing in Australia for 20 years, but it only started in France in 2012. My impression is that it is a much smaller movement still in France, more low key, and not nearly as prominent as October Rose the breast cancer and female specific health awareness campaign in France nor Movember in Australia. 

"Make the right choice of moustache for Movember."

The blurb on the blue sheet explains that the movement is about raising awareness of male specific cancers and gives some background to how the campaign started. It says that Movember started in Australia as a joke that turned into a great success across the anglophone world. It also explains the origin of the term Movember for French speakers, who may not have heard 'mo' as an abbreviation for moustache. The sheet also makes sure to point out that Movember is serious about its aims and men's cancer is no joke.

 

Movember poster.

Curiously the information at the clinic makes no mention of men's mental health issues, which these days is an equal focus for Movember, including in France.

 

Movember poster at the radiotherapy clinic Simon had treatment in for prostate cancer.

Simon contemplated shaving and regrowing his moustache for Movember this year, but abandoned the idea because he was afraid, with his current hormone treatment, it wouldn't grow back!

Further reading: the French Movember website, in both French and English  https://fr.movember.com/.