Hello, Bliss readers! We are so excited to be back on Bliss blog and to share with you a little bit of Spring from our side of the pond.
You know it’s spring with the arrival of the first strawberries at the market. We love to make strawberry jam using the Gariguette variety. Gariguette strawberries are a French favorite. They are bright red and so fragrant that they perfume the market with the most heavenly scent. We’ve dubbed them “angel kisses” for that very reason. The atelier kitchen smells like heaven! We make our jam in a vintage copper preserving pan that we picked up at a local brocante. The strawberries are even sweeter when they are picked by little hands straight from our very own garden.
If you are interested in having your very own vintage French copper confiture pot, please visit our online shop, The French Larder at The Cook’s Atelier. (www.thecooksatelier.com)
Gariguette Strawberry Confiture
Makes about 8 cups
2 1/2 pounds Gariguette strawberries, or 2 1/4 pounds net
2 cups granulated sugar
juice of 1 small lemon
Rinse the strawberries in cold water. Dry them in a towel and remove their stems. Place the strawberries in a ceramic bowl and cover with the sugar and the juice of one lemon. Let the strawberries macerate overnight in the refrigerator, covered with a sheet of parchment paper.
Next day, bring this preparation to a simmer in a preserving pan. Pour it into a ceramic bowl.
Cover with a sheet of parchment paper and refrigerate overnight.
On the third day, pour this preparation into a sieve. Bring the collected syrup to a boil in a preserving pan, skim, and continue cooking on high heat. The syrup will be sufficiently concentrated at 221 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Add the partially cooked strawberries and return to a boil over high heat. Skim and return to a boil for 5 minutes, stirring gently. Check the set. The strawberries will be translucent, like preserves. Put the jam into jars immediately and seal.
We look forward to seeing you all again in two weeks. Happy jam making!
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.
SPRING CONTEST/GIVEAWAY at The Cook’s Atelier!
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.
We thought today would be the perfect day to share a tradition rather than a recipe to celebrate the New Year. We hope you all enjoyed your holiday festivities and are gearing up for a fun and exciting 2015! We are getting ready for our winter break but are fast and furious planning our upcoming season of market tours, cooking classes and workshops, as well as seasonal suppers at our atelier in Beaune, France. Visit our website and social media links for more information and specific dates.
Here at The Cook’s Atelier, one of our favorite courses of our “long French lunch” is the cheese course. There is really something special about enjoying the conversation around the table after dinner with a bite of cheese and a lovely glass of wine. We like to serve our cheese course in a vintage glass cheese dome or sometimes we just like to serve it on a rustic vintage board. When preparing a cheese board, we look for an assortment of textures and offer three to five French cheeses including a selection of cow, goat and sheep. Be sure the cheese is at room temperature before you serve it as this brings out the true flavor of the cheese. Here in France, the majority of cheese is still unpasteurized and we think it’s the best. Be sure to source your cheese from a local farmer or specialty cheese shop in your area to create a classic French cheese board. We are particularly fond of our artisan cheese producers in Burgundy and we wanted to share our film of Yan, one of our favorite producers. This film was created in collaboration with our good friends, Matt and Julie of Tiger in a Jar. Our Producers are a big part of the experience at The Cook’s Atelier and we hope you enjoy this little glimpse of our life in France.
You can visit our online shop, The French Larder at The Cook’s Atelier, here for our selection of vintage cheese domes, boards, and cheese knives.
Mrs. French is a blogger, stylist, photographer, and completely obsessive when it comes to interior and fashion design. Mrs. French is the sole editor of the popular lifestyle/design blog Bliss.
