Tartine Tuesday: Cucumber, Feta, and Mint Croissant Tartines

The first thing I noticed when we landed in Paris this past July was the roughly 30 degree drop in temperature. I'm not complaining, I would much rather spend my days picnicking outdoors in the nice, breezy, 70-ish (Fahrenheit) degree weather than trapped in an air conditioned room all day to keep from having a heat stroke. What I do miss though, is being able to go outside with my shorts, tank top and flip flops without having to bring a "just in case it gets cold" jacket. I miss feeling the heat of the sun nearly toast me to a crisp as I lay out in my bathing suit (yes, being raised in Florida, you actually like that feeling). I miss being able to wear flip flops all year round (which I couldn't even do in Atlanta), and not even knowing where to buy a parka.

I've had my couple of days in Veulettes where I could tan by the pool and only start to shiver when a cloud passed in front of the sun, but it doesn't compare to the summers in the Sunshine State.

As we get nearer to winter, my long sleeved shirts and jeans seem to be making more frequent trips through the laundry. I'll have to have my dad bring me all my "real" winter clothes when he comes to visit next month. To the back of the closet you go, flip flops... *tear*.

Since fall is right around the corner, I wanted to squeeze every last bit out of summer as I could. We got some sun in Veulettes (especially Daphné... poor girl!) while picnicking on the beach, and today being the official "Last Day of Summer" I wanted to make an especially summery tartine. 

I got the inspiration for this tartine from a new book I bought, Tartinez Gourmand with Éric Kayser. I've been buying french cookbooks in an attempt to help improve my French, but unfortunately, that means I can only hold a conversation if it has to do with food... Ha. I'll learn one day. His recipe was a simple croissant tartine, with cucumber, garlic and feta. I kicked mine up a bit with some lemon juice, red onion and mint. The bright, citrus marinated cucumber cuts nicely through the creamy feta and buttery croissant. The red onion gives it a spicy bite, and the mint finishes with a fresh burst that will make you wish that summer would never end.

So here is my ode to the last day of summer... 

Cucumber, Feta, and Mint Croissant Tartines

Adapted from Tartinez Gourmand with Éric Kayser

3 croissants

1/2 of an english cucumber

1 cup of cubed or crumbled feta

1/2 of a red onion, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

juice of half of a lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

3-4 sprigs of fresh mint

salt and pepper, to taste

In a bowl, whisk together the minced garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Slice the cucumber into thin slices, about 1/8 of an inch thick. You can use a mandoline to slice them if you have one; otherwise, you can slice them by hand with a sharp knife, and don't worry if they are not perfect. Place the sliced cucumber into the garlic, lemon juice and olive oil marinade and mix to coat the cucumber.

Slice the croissants in half, as if you were going to make a sandwich out of them. In a toaster oven, or regular oven, toast the croissants cut side up, until they just start to turn brown (should only take 2-4 minutes).

Cut feta into 1/2 inch cubes, if not already cubed. Alternatively, you can use crumbled feta.

Top the toasted croissants with the cucumber slices and sprinkle some minced red onion over the cucumber. Top that with feta, freshly cracked black pepper and a few leaves of fresh mint. Serves 3.

Flying Kites and Delicious Bites

This weekend we went back to Veulettes for another relaxing weekend at the beach. 

This time, we took a short drive to the nearby seaside town of Dieppe, where they were holding the Festival International de Cerf-Volant (International Kite Festival). It is the world's largest kite festival, and people from all over the world come to see the hundreds of kites being flown along the sea shore. We had a picnic of cheese, paté, hard boiled eggs, fruits and veggies on the pebble-filled beach while we watched the kites soar peacefully in the wind.

Several countries had their own booths to represent their cultural influence on the history of the kite, complete with demonstrations and examples of their kite designs.

It was a great festival, with some of the largest, and *ahem*... most interesting kites I have ever seen.

Squid Ink Pasta with Crawfish and Garlic Ginger Velouté

About three weeks ago I went to this place with Quentin and his Dad called Metro. It's similar to Sam's or Costco in America; a gigantic warehouse-type building with everything you might need... in bulk. I of course, felt right at home, since everything was "American-sized". Big jars of mayonnaise, ketchup... an enormous food section(almost 5 times the size of the one's at Sam's) and of course, laptops for half the price you would pay in the normal electronics store. Quentin was there to find a laptop, so he could use it to look for jobs and apartments since I needed my laptop for work... his dad wanted to take a look at the projectors, and I, of course, wanted to look at the food/kitchen stuff.

It's too bad that this place is only allowed to business owners, because they would make a lot of money off of me. Their kitchen section had a lot of professional kitchen equipment that made me wish I had my own restaurant... sous-vide machines, crêpieres, induction cook-tops... sigh. I spent about 15 minutes daydreaming on my perfect kitchen and then moseyed on over to the food section. 

The food section in this place makes my eyes glaze over. Now, yes, when it comes to "quality vs. quantity" you would think this place would lean more toward the latter, but the only things that stood out to me as being less than worthy were a few batches of barely ripe tomatoes and some packaged frozen foods. They have a great produce section, with just about anything you might need, a meat section that is so cold you may just come out of there with frostbite if you're not wearing the right clothes, and a dry goods area that has some pretty interesting finds.

One of those interesting finds happened to be the squid ink pasta I stumbled upon while looking at the price of quinoa. I had never tried squid ink pasta before, but was always curious about it. Luckily, it wasn't one of those items you had to buy in 50 pound bags, so I picked up a single package and took it home to give it a test run. 

Quentin's dad also picked up a small bucket of crawfish tails, écrevisse, from Metro and I thought they would make a good accompaniment to the pasta.

I've tested this dish two similar ways already... The first dish didn't photograph as well as I thought it would, so I wanted to test another way to see if I could make the dish better tastefully and aesthetically. My inspiration for the second dish came from a cooking lesson I watched on Rouxbe, the world's first-ever online cooking school. I came across this site from a fellow food blogger, and after browsing through a few videos using their 7-day trial, I went ahead and purchased the lifetime membership!

Note: I am a Rouxbe Cooking School affiliate partner. As part of their affiliate program, I have the power to give you a free, full-access, no-videos-barred, 14-day pass to their site. All you have to do is go to the Rouxbe Online Cooking School and redeem the 14-day Gift Membership. After the trial, you can join for as little as $15 per month; however, there is no obligation. This site is unlike any other cooking site I've seen. It gives you clear, step-by-step demonstrations as you would receive in a cooking class. I've already learned so much, and hope to improve my cooking skills via Rouxbe. It's awesome! Check it out!

So as I was browsing through videos I watched their lesson on velouté, one of the 5 mother sauces made from combining stock with a roux. 

Rouxbe Online Cooking School & Video Recipes

After watching it, I adapted it to my recipe.

Squid Ink Pasta with Crawfish and Garlic Ginger Velouté

500g squid ink spaghetti pasta

1 cup of crawfish tails (you can substitute with small shrimp)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup of vegetable stock

1 cup of fish stock

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2-3 shallots, minced

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

white pepper, to taste

salt, to taste

1 bunch of fresh chives

In a large pot of boiling salted water, add the pasta and cook according to the package directions.

To start the velouté, first melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the shallots, garlic and ginger to the butter and sauté until the shallots have softened and become translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Then add the flour and whisk until fully incorporated. Cook the flour/butter mixture (roux) until it just starts to change color.

Slowly add the vegetable/fish stock, a little bit at a time. Whisk and let it come back to a gentle boil each time before adding more stock. Add the stock until you reach a silky-smooth consistency. Strain through a sieve or mesh strainer to remove the garlic, shallots, and ginger pieces and any remaining lumps. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

Note: The sauce may thicken slightly as it cools, so if you’re not planning to use it right away, you may need to loosen it up with a bit more hot stock before using.

If your crawfish tails are cold, you can place them in a strainer and dunk into the hot pasta water for about 15-30 seconds. Just be sure that if they are pre-cooked crawfish tails, that you do not overcook them when re-heating them.

Drain pasta in a colander. In a large bowl, add the pasta, crawfish tails, and sauce, and toss to combine. Top with freshly chopped chives. Alternatively, you can plate these individually as shown in the picture above. Serves 4.