l'année de beurre: mish mosh

As you may or may not have noticed, I changed my blog. I decided it needed a little color... kind of like Paris right now. Maybe I'll inspire the sun to come out here. Or not.

Last week was very busy with a lot of class. We made the following:

Blanquette de Veau a L'ancienne avec Riz Pilaf

(Traditional Veal Stew with Rice Pilaf)

Tournedos Grillés sauce Béarnaise, Pommes Pont-Neuf

(Grilled Tournedos with Béarnaise sauce, potatoes "Pont Neuf")

Côtes de Veau Grand-Mére

(Sautéed Veal Chops, "Grand-Mére"-style Garnish (Glazed onions, mushrooms and lardons)

Canette Rôtie aux Navets

(Roast Duckling with Turnips)

I kept forgetting my camera so I don't have any pictures. Sorry! I promise this week I'll take a lot.

This weekend was really fun. Adam had a going away party Friday night for his work friend, Amina. We were suppose to bring Vin and Tapas so I used the Roast Duckling we made at school and turned it into lettuce wraps. It was a big hit and really easy to do so I'm going to share it with you.

Roast Duckling Lettuce Wraps with 'Special Sauce'

Principal Ingredients

1 Roasted Duck, taken off the bone and Shredded

Vegetables/Filling

1 head of butter lettuce, leafs separated

1 red bell pepper, sliced thinly into strips

1 cucumber, sliced thinly into strips

1 bunch of scallions, sliced

1 carrot, sliced thinly into strips

1 package of rice noodles, lightly fried in vegetable oil

Special Sauce

2 cups of water

4 tbl of sugar

2 tbl soy sauce

2 tbl ketchup

1/2 lemon, juiced

1 tbl hot mustard

1 tbl red chili paste

1 clove garlic, diced

You can substitute chicken or really any kind of meat for the duck or omit it entirely if you wish. Also, I found the sauce recipe online and it had about 5 other ingredients in it that I couldn't find at the store here in Paris but I loved how it turned out anyway so I'm giving you my version. Mix all the ingredients together in a sauce pan and slowly bring to a simmer to let all the flavors infuse. The measurements are mostly to taste so if you like it more spicy, obviously add more hot mustard and chili paste or vise versa for less. At the end if your sauce seems too spicy, salty or sugary feel free to add a little more water to mellow it out.

To assemble the duck wraps take a piece of lettuce, layer it with one of each vegetable, a few pieces of duck and fold, then dip in the sauce and stuff in your mouth! It's as easy as that.

What I love about these is you can serve them already wrapped up or lay everything out on a tray and let people do it themselves.

I wanna give you an idea of what they are suppose to look like in the end so here's some pictures I found on the internet. Hope this helps!

Saturday I met up with Ali and her two friends who were in town; Alex and Nina. We had coffee and a early dinner in the 14th e. It was pouring down rain and pretty cold but kind of beautiful. And we sat outside at this café that had blankets for us which was precious. Then we went next door and got crepes. As we were waiting for the man to finish our crepes, Ali struck up a conversation with the man at the bar. He just happened to be a huge foodie who sells innovative kitchen equipment to famous Chef's and restaurants all over the world. He was having dinner with Thomas Keller that night. We tried to get the invite.. we were unsuccessful. But, we did get his phone number, a list of his favorite restaurants in Paris, and an invite to the Omnivore Food Festival in Normandy that is taking place Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. We are going tomorrow and I am so excited. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.