I don’t drink alcohol. Not only have I never been able to develop a taste for it I am highly allergic to it. If I drink more than one glass of wine I break out in hives all over my body. Sometimes I feel a little left out drinking a diet soda or glass of water when all the other grown-ups are sipping their cocktails. One of my favorite restaurants in Portland is Pok Pok and they have a long list of “drinking vinegars” available on their beverage menu. I had never heard of such a thing and was intrigued. I ordered a pomegranate drinking vinegar and after my first sip I was hooked. Drinking vinegars are shockingly refreshing and are great palate cleansers, they don’t leave that sugary taste in your mouth like most sodas do. The process does involve planning ahead, the fruit has to macerate for 5 days in the vinegar. I must also warn you that the smell that the mixture makes as you are boiling it can be a bit strong but the end result is totally worth it. Since we are entering peak fruit season I can’t wait to make a blackberry or raspberry version next. For more recipes be sure to visit me at www.scalingbackblog.com.
Peach drinking vinegar
Makes about 1 quart of syrup
Ingredients:
1 pound ripe peaches or any other fruit you desire, pears, apples, plums, blackberries
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 cup fresh herbs such as thyme, basil or tarragon
½ cup sugar or more to taste
soda water
ice
Method:
Rinse the fruit and remove any seeds. Place in a large pot and lightly mash the fruit with a wooden spoon. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the fruit and cover the top with a lid. Let the mixture macerate at room temperature for 5 days, stirring once a day.
After 5 days, stir in the ½ cup sugar bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Add the herbs, let the mixture cool for 20 minutes and then strain.
To serve add 3 to 4 tablespoons of the syrup to a large glass filled with ice and then fill the rest of the glass with soda water. If the mixture is too tart add a little more sugar to the syrup mixture. The syrup will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator.
hello friends, it really has been too long…so happy to welcome back the cook’s atelier. oh, how i have missed them so! take in the beautiful recipe and photographs and take special note of the oh-too-generous contest these gals are offering you, my lovely readers…
xo mrs. french
It’s spring here at The Cook’s Atelier and this is one of our favorite dishes to celebrate the season. It is a beautiful dish and is perfect for breakfast, brunch or even the first course of lunch. This time of year, the Beaune market is filled with tender green asparagus as well as the creamy white variety with the violet tips. We head to the market early in the morning as our favorite vendor gathers them from his garden the morning of the market and if you arrive too late, they’ll be snatched up. The season is short for the white asparagus and if you are lucky, you can find wild asparagus, the thin bright green variety that looks like wheat, in a wooded area just after a spring rain. If we have the good fortune to find some, we always add it to the dish.
In France, it is still possible to find fresh eggs from backyard chickens. Eggs have a season and nothing quite compares to a fresh spring farm egg. The soft yolk in this recipe paired with the warm asparagus and vinaigrette makes for the perfect sauce. You can also add a handful of fava beans if you can find them at your farmers’ market.
We really enjoy plating this up individually as it makes such a pretty presentation. The colors and flavors bring out the best of spring. Be sure to serve this with a crusty loaf of bread and plenty of French butter.
We are working on our social media campaign here at The Cook’s Atelier and we need your help. We’d like to grow our following on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and have you subscribe on our website. So here’s what you can do to help:
Take a minute and follow us on our social media outlets and your name will be entered in the drawing to win this beautiful fry pan from our very own line of Mauviel Copper cookware. It’s a 22 cm fry pan with copper exterior and lined with stainless steel. This fry pan is truly one of our favorites. We love its versatility and functionality on the stove top and in the oven. We use this pan daily for warming blanched vegetables in beurre noisette or frying the best eggs. This pan is essential to any cook’s kitchen and is valued at 180 euros. For more copper cookware, please visit our online shop, The French Larder at The Cook’s Atelier.
Each following or like to our various social media outlets will count as one ticket for the drawing. For instance, if you sign up for one, you get one chance. If you sign up for everything, you will get five chances to win! All you have to do is go to our website and follow the five social media icons on the upper right corner. Remember, to be entered into the contest, it’s necessary to ‘Follow Us’ on our social media outlets, not just ‘like’ the photo. So if you’re already a ‘follower’ on one outlet, be sure to ‘follow us’ on the others to enter the contest. Simple! Feel free to share this contest with others. The Spring Contest at The Cook’s Atelier officially begins today and we’ll choose our winner on Monday, April 6, 2015. Bonne chance!
Asparagus Market Salad with San Daniele, Fava Beans and a Fresh Farm Egg
Serves 4
Ingredients:
For the salad:
Handful of thin, white asparagus, peeled
Handful of thin, green asparagus, peeled
Handful of fresh fava beans
4 pieces of prosciutto di San Daniele, thinly sliced
Handful of garden radishes, sliced in half lengthwise
Fresh chervil leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
To make the salad, hold the asparagus spear and bend it to break off the less tender bottom end. Trim all of the asparagus to the same length and peel the stalks with a vegetable peeler. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Prepare an ice bath. Line a platter with paper towels and set aside. Blanche the asparagus in batches in the boiling water until crisp-tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to the ice water bath to stop cooking, and drain on paper towels.
If adding fava beans, shuck them from their pods. Blanche the beans in salted boiling water for about 2 minutes. Plunge them into a bowl of ice water to cool them and preserve their color. Once cool enough to handle, pop the beans out of their grey-green skin to release the bright green bean.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a simmer. Lower the eggs into the simmering water for about 30 seconds, just to reheat. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and blot the bottoms with paper towels.
In a small bowl, add the vinegar and olive oil and stir gently to form a broken vinaigrette. Add the salt and pepper to taste.
Arrange the asparagus, prosciutto and radishes on the plate. Place the egg on top. Using a spoon, gently separate the egg in two to allow the soft yolk to pool. Drizzle the salad with the vinaigrette and sprinkle with fleur de sel, pepper and chervil.
For the eggs:
2 quarts boiling water
4 eggs with uncracked shells, at room temperature
Lower the eggs into the boiling water and boil slowly for six minutes. As soon as the time is up, drain off the boiling water and run cold water into the pan for a minute to set the white, and to cool the eggs enough to remove the shells. Tap gently on a hard surface to break the shells, peel carefully under a stream of water. Just before serving, warm for a minute in a bowl of hot water.
Hello Bliss readers! We are thrilled to be back this week. It’s been a busy couple weeks for us here at The Cook’s Atelier. We just completed a big project that has been in the works for years, our online shop, The French Larder at The Cook’s Atelier. We actually started this project in our old atelier and we had to put on the back burner once we opened our new atelier, epicurean center and wine shop. We’ve finally sorted out all the last minute details and the shop is live.
The premise of the shop is to source the things we love. We are the purveyors of items that we find worth owning and that represent the lifestyle that we have created in France. Our offerings include cook’s tools, provisions, vintage finds, wine and our own line of Mauviel copper specifically made for The Cook’s Atelier. We look for items that we personally wouldn’t want to live without. We believe life really is in the details. Every item that we source for the shop is something we have in our own kitchens. The shop is a constantly changing collection of simple, useful and beautiful things. Nothing too fussy. The French Larder at The Cook’s Atelier is worth a visit, but if that is not possible, our online shop offers a glimpse of some of our favorite finds. Come visit The French Larder at www.thecooksatelier.com.
Our recipe for today is one of our favorite seasonal salads. We’ve paired endive, tiny leaves of mesclun and winter purslane that we found from one of our local farmers with Roquefort, apples and toasted hazelnuts. It’s so simple and absolutely lovely. Living in Beaune, France, we love to go “all American” to celebrate Thanksgiving. Dinner is served on the long French farm table and expats from all over Burgundy join us in giving thanks. This salad is on our menu for the big day. We hope you enjoy.
Autumn Salad with Endive, Roquefort, Apples and Toasted Hazelnuts
Ingredients:
5 endive, cores removed, separated into spears
1 handful of mesclun
1 handful of winter purslane (Claytone de Cuba)
2 apples, thinly sliced
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted and skins removed
a wedge of Roquefort, crumbled
A grind or two of black pepper and a sprinkling of fleur de sel
Red wine vinaigrette
1 shallot, finely diced
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
In a large bowl, place the shallot, red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt and set aside for 5 minutes. Whisk in the olive oil. Add a few grinds of pepper and taste for seasoning. Add the endive, mesclun, winter purslane (if available), apples, and hazelnuts to the bowl and toss to gently coat in the vinaigrette. Arrange the salad on chilled plates, piling it up in the center. Crumble the Roquefort over the salad and serve immediately.
We’ll be back in two weeks with another autumn inspired recipe. In the meantime, we wish all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.
A “blogger with a pinning problem" or a "pinner with a blogging problem" - This is how Traci French (Mrs. French) would openly describe herself. In 2008, Traci started her little corner of the blogging world, bliss, as a way to share beautiful things and foster inspiration in her day-to-day life.
