myfrenchtable

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Berry meat and egg pie

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This speciality is made with minced meat and hard-boiled eggs. It is known as as a Pâté Berrichon or as a Pâté de Paques (Easter pie) because it is often eaten as Easter. It gets it’s name from the Berry region, which ceased to exist after the French revolution.. Today the departments of L’Indre et le Cher make up most of what was formally the Berry province.

It can be eaten hot or cold but it really is delicious served cold with a green salad.

Ingredients :

  • 2 sheets of puff pastry
  • 300g sausage meat
  • 200g minced veal
  • 6 eggs (4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 egg for the pâté, 1 egg yolk for the pastry)
  • 50g breadcrumbs
  • Parsley
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 shallot
  • Nutmeg
  • Optional : A tablespoon of cognac or of a sweet wine

 

Method :

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
  2. Hard boil 4 of the eggs, remove shells
  3. Finely chop the shallot and the parsely
  4. Mix the meat with the shallot, parsely, one egg (beaten), the breadcrumbs and the alcohol (if using)
  5. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg
  6. Pace one sheet of puff pastry and a baking tray covered with parchement paper
  7. PLace half of the meat filling down the middle of the pastry
  8. Slice the hard boiled eggs in half and place them on the meat face down
  9. Cover the eggs with the remaining meat filling
  10. Using the remaining puff pastry cover the meat and press down to seal the pastry
  11. Brush the pastry with the yolk of the remaining egg
  12. Make 2 large incisions in the pastry to allow the steam to escape while cooking
  13. Cook in oven at 180°C for 20 minutes and then lower the temp to 150°C and cook for a further 30 minutes

 

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Apricot Cake

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Or cake aux abricots in french! Apricots are plentiful this time of year and this is an easy way to use them to make a cake thats perfect as an afternoon snack.

Ingredients :

  • 6 ripe apricots
  • 3 large eggs
  • 130g softened butter
  • 125g sugar
  • 1 sachet vanilla sugar
  • 250g flour (I replaced half the flour with cornflour as this gives a lighter texture to the cake but just using flour is good too!)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 large pinch of cinnamon

 

Method :

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
  2. Wash and dry the apricots, remove the stone and chop
  3. Sieve the flour and the baking powder together
  4. Use a fork to mash the softened butter until you get a beurre pommade*
  5. Mix in the sugar, the vanilla sugar and the cinammon
  6. Add in each egg separately, mixing well each time
  7. Fold in the flour
  8. Add in the chopped apricots
  9. Bake in oven for 45 minutes (keep an eye on the cake, it might take less time)

 

*A beurre pommade is butter that has been let come to room temperature and then mixed with a fork or spoon until you get a spreadable mixture

 

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Flaugnarde aux Pommes

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Flaugnarde  or flognarde is a baked French dessert with fruit and a  thick flan-like batter hailing from the Limousin and Auvergne region in France. It is similar to a clafoutis, which is made with black cherries whereas a flaugnarde is made with apples, peaches, pears, plums, prunes etc. It can be served either warm or cold.

 

Ingredients :

  • 100g flour
  • 100g sugar
  • 1 table spoon oil
  • 300ml milk
  • 200ml liquid cream (or liquid crème fraîche)
  • 5 eggs
  • 6 apples
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt

 

Method :

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
  2. Peel and core the apples and slice into circles
  3. Mix everything together in a bowl in the following order : flour, sugar, oil, milk, cream, salt
  4. Beat eggs well and add to mixture
  5. Butter a round oven dish and spread the apple slices around evenly
  6. Pour the batter over the apples
  7. Bake in oven for 45 minutes at 180°C
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Chocolate Mousse

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Chocolate mousse – an extremely easy dessert to make with only two ingredients! It’s quick, easy and tastes divine.

It is one of the most popular desserts in France which was made around Renaissance period. There are a lot of variants on this recipe, some recipes include butter or cream and some add a dash of liquor (Cointreau or Grand marnier for example) so it means that you can be creative 🙂

Ingredients :

  • 200g good quality dark chocolate (the better the chocolate the better the mousse obviously!)
  • 6 fresh free-range eggs (they won’t be cooked)

Method :

  1. Melt the chocolate using a bain-marie*
  2. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites
  3. Beat the egg whites (with a pinch of salt until stiff)
  4. Slowly add the melted chocolate to the egg yolks beating all the time
  5. Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate
  6. Pour into a bowl or preferably, individual ramequin dishes and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours

*A bain-marie a sort of double-boiler used to melt ingredients for cooking. Here it means placing the bowl with the chocolate into a second bigger recipient containing water over heat to melt it.

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