Ingredients & Fine Foods

Patte de loup — literally, wolf’s paw — is the name of an heirloom variety of apple that is chiefly grown in the Northwest of France, and is mentioned in horticultural documents as early as the Middle Age.

Small and oddly shapen, with a rugged, brownish yellow skin that often cracks and scars as if a wolf had clawed it, it is typically the kind of apple that did not stand a chance in the modern battle for glossy and perfectly calibrated specimens.

And yet the patte de loup is very close to apple perfection in my book: sweet and tart, with a firm flesh that is juicy but not too crisp, it does equally well eaten au couteau, i.e. sliced with a knife and munched on out of hand, or baked into a tarte tatin or an apple cake.

Continue reading »

Meet one of my favorite greens, the crystalline iceplant, known as Mesembryanthemum cristallinum in Latin and ficoïde glaciale in French.

It’s a succulent, leafy plant that originated in South Africa and belongs to the same family as tetragon, another unusual green I’m very fond of.

The leaves of the iceplant are thick and fleshy, with a frosted look, as if they were covered with tiny dew droplets. Depending on the variety, they may be flat and large, about the size of a hand (as shown above), or smaller and sold attached to the stem. Full-size leaves I will slice into short ribbons; small ones I’ll keep whole, trimming the thicker parts of the stem.

Continue reading »

When Maxence and I went to Japan last year, one of the items I was determined to hunt down and bring back was a bag of shiso seeds to grow my own.

Shiso (pronounced “she-so”) is the Japanese name for an annual herb called Perilla, which belongs to the mint family. Other aliases include beefsteak plant (which makes little sense, if you ask me) or Japanese basil. It is used in quite a few Asian cuisines, but the shiso recipes I’ve encountered have mostly been for Japanese dishes.

Shiso comes in green or purple leaves with a slightly prickly texture and pointy, jagged edges, and it has a unique and vibrant taste that I could describe as herbaceous and citrusy. Like most leafy herbs, I find it is best used raw, the leaves whole or chiffonaded.

The green variety produces more tender and more flavorful leaves than the purple variety, but the latter makes up for that with a potent dyeing action: it is what gives umeboshi its color.

We did find shiso seeds in a deserted gardening section on the very top floor of a Tokyo department store, and I planted them in a pot outside my bedroom window as a cure for travel nostalgia when we got back. They sprouted with very little prodding, and soon developed into a bushy plant* from which I excitedly plucked leaves throughout the summer.

I hadn’t used all of the seeds, so I was able to plant a new batch this year, and while I wait for the teeny green leaves to shoot up from under the soil, I wanted to discuss possible uses for this lovely, lovely herb.

The simplified rule of thumb is that you can use shiso pretty much anywhere you would normally use basil or mint, but I thought we could go into a bit more detail.

As I’ve done before with sage and sorrel, I called out for suggestions on Twitter, and because you’re such an inspired bunch, you came through with great shiso recipes, which I’m listing below along with my own. Thanks to all of you who chimed in, and the comment section is wide open if you want to add more!

See also:
– 45 Things To Do With Fresh Sage,
– 50 Things To Do With Fresh Sorrel.

* I’m an enthusiastic but inexperienced gardener and I put in too many seeds, so some of the smaller seedlings never matured in the shade created by the bigger ones. Live and learn.

Continue reading »

After weeks of skipping my Saturday morning market run for various reasons, I was finally able to go back to the marché des Batignolles this weekend.

It was the perfect morning for a comeback. I’d awoken early, it was mild and sunny, and as I rode my bicycle down the boulevard in my shower-wet hair, I was seized by that swelling feeling of expectation and accomplishment that makes Saturday morning market runs so addictive: you can’t wait to see what glowing things the market stalls will hold, but whatever you end up buying, you know your weekend is bound to be a fine one after you’ve filled the produce drawer, the star-shaped fruit bowl, and the baby green flower vase.

I got half a dozen fresh-laid and mucky eggs and just as many white peaches, a hefty bundle of rhubarb stalks, a bouquet of orange and crimson dahlias, some ripe-tender tomatoes, and, most excitedly, from my favorite grower, a bunch of small, gleaming, taut-skinned eggplants — my first this year.

The eggplant and I have a bit of a complicated relationship*: I adore it when it’s well cooked, but I’m always suspicious of the oil content when it is. And I’ve long found it tricky to cook right myself — too often it turned out a spongy, bitter mess — so I didn’t eat it nearly as often as I would have liked.

But with time and experience, I have found that a) I have better success cooking small eggplants, no more than 200 grams or 7 ounces each, and b) whether grilled, roasted, or sautéed, these guys need to cook a good long while in order to become the best silky self that they can be.

Tomato salad with roasted eggplant.

Continue reading »