Cheap in Paris

[Happygoin]

Good idea, Annette. I hadn't thought of that. Like Jody, I always reduce canned broth to make a pan sauce.

[GitteK]

Happy, trust me ! If you fry some "steak hâchés" (ground beef patties), season with salt/pepper - set them aside. Then fry lots of sliced onions in the fat/drippings, until really brown and soft and yummy ! Take half of them up and spread on top of patties.

Add to the remaining half of the onions in the pan: 1-2 good beef bouillon cube and some boiling water from your potatoes (yup, marvellous for sauces !) - a dash of HP Sauce, a dash of Worchestershire Sauce, a dash of Heinz ketchup + 1 teaspoon sugar. Boil and then add fresh fat cream until it makes you embarrassed............. season with salt and pepper.

Serve sauce with Steak Hâchés covered with soft, brown onions, boiled potatoes, pickled cucumbers or beetroots - and for the brave: 2 fried eggs per person !

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm............... to die for !! Or rather: to die from........ LOL !

[Shoesy]

Gitte - That looks soooooo delicious.

[Anne]

I only use bouillon cubes to add flavour to soups or else for dishes with abundant sauce like boeuf bourguignon.
For the kind of sauce that Gitte and Annette describe or to thicken and add flavour to the juice of rôtis, I use fond de veau Maggi : it's powder in a small, round tin box. One uses approximately 1 teaspoon per 100 milliliters of liquid. It's made specifically for sauces and has a nice and rich taste.
Maggi also has fond de volaille and fumet de poisson (makes a nice sauce for fish, diluted in water, wine, cream and a bit of lemon juice).

www.maggi.fr/nos-produits-vos-reductions/catalogue-produit.aspx?CurrentCategoryId=3&CurrentSubCategoryId=11

[Happygoin]

~scribbling madly on the growing grocery list~

(Thanks Anne, sounds great!

[holger]

Anne,

Do you know whether the Maggi products contain MSG which is in many things here and to which many people have sensitivities?

Thanks.

[Anne]

Holger, what does MSG mean ??

EDIT : after a research on the web, it seems that MSG is glutamate de sodium, right ?
I've looked at the products in my kitchen : yes, fond de veau Maggi and also the Knorr pot-au-feu bouillon cubes have glutamate de sodium (one of the taste enhancers that I mentionned previously). But the Bjorg organic volaille or beef bouillon cubes don't.

[holger]

Yes that is what MSG is. I will just stay with Bjorg Organics. Thank you for the Information.

[sunshine817]

We have to use cubes here in France - there's no such thing as tinned broth! It's either that, or make your own and freeze it -- which I do when I have time.

[gertie]

Wow, thanks for the hint on the brand Bjorg cubes, I'll look for them in France. We do have Maggi products here, usually I see them in the Asian groceries.

I wouldn't really go shopping at Macy's at home for groceries, but I did do La Grande Epicerie at the Bon Marché both times I was there just to see all the things and to buy a couple of gifts. I also picked up a fancy item or two to make a picnic in Paris special because hey...not every day you get to picnic in Paris. I wandered through a regular grocery in Paris, did the same in London. Even if I didn't buy anything (though I usually find some interesting new food to try), I find it interesting to see the places people visit as an everyday thing, see what they have on the shelves.

I really would never consider buying bread in Paris outside of a boulangerie. I walk past in the morning, smell that smell, and I gotta have a baguette. I really love the little shops in Paris, I think they are what keeps the food in Paris so amazing. The restaurants and brasseries have to keep on their toes otherwise people would just eat at home more with all that great cheese, bread, and meat they have in the small shops. Another rather odd thing we picked up in our Paris travels were the eggs. We found a market stall selling fresh free range chicken eggs, and they were just heavenly.

Gitte, that "steak hâchés" looks heavenly, thanks so much for the recipe. I love HP Sauce, discovered it on my trip to London, so can't wait to try that recipe.

I should really learn patience to proof read all the way through before I post, then maybe I could stop all these edit modifies.

[Anne]

I just discovered in the supermarket that the Knorr brand now also has a bio (organic) range of bouillons cubes : chicken, beef or vegetables. No glutamate de sodium in them either, Holger.

[joan1]

gertie,, thanks for posting link,, the video of the Gregorian chant at ND was such a nice 3 minutes of my day,,, took me back hundreds of years( so to speak, LOL )

Gitte,, I plan on making that dish tonight!

[denise]

:)Why have I missed this thread till now?

Thanks Gertie for all the budget tips, they are always useful. The Gregorian chants also brightened my Saturday morning.

As to stock cubes, I am so pleased to see this discussion, because I didn't like to admit I always used them, as it seemed that everyone only talked about home made chicken stock.

I can't believe that French women, like me and most of my peers, have either the time or storage space to make their own chicken stock.

I use Kallo, organic, very low salt, chicken,stock cubes, no MSG. They are excellent.They also make beef and lamb cubes but I rarely eat red meat so I tend not to use them.

They sell them here at ASDA, a major British supermarket,which is part of the Walmart group so maybe they sell them there in the US.

I must say I don't like Knorr stock cubes at all, here they taste too much of preservatives.

Denise
love from England

[Anne]

Apr 10, 2010 2:17:17 GMT -5 denise said:

As to stock cubes, I am so pleased to see this discussion, because I didn't like to admit I always used them, as it seemed that everyone only talked about home made chicken stock.

I can't believe that French women, like me and most of my peers, have either the time or storage space to make their own chicken stock.

Don't worry Denise, I've NEVER made chicken stock, and yet I am quite much into cooking and have both the time and storage space. I don't think that anyone in my friends or family do either. I know from her blog that Anneparis does, but then she is a really serious cook. Maybe we Europeans have been perverted by the availability of bouillon-cubes which are too good substitutes. I too was surprised to see so many people here who make their own stock.

[Jody]

The only time I make stock is if I'm making chicken or vegetable beef soup!

[geordy]

I'm making yellow split pea soup later with the ham bone from Easter!

Didn't like pea soup...though my Mother's was legendary...until I discovered the yellow variety in Amsterdam!!!

Just something about the green color....though I love most green food! ....and the residue it left in the bowl....

Now I love it ....more beige..odd

PS: I think we've have a discussion of this before but a search of pea soup was unsuccessful as "pea" has too few characters and as one word.."peasoup" yielded nada!) So I put it here with the discussion of stock, cubes, etc. No cube needed when you've got a big ole bone legged back from NJ! ;D

[sunshine817]

I made split pea soup a couple of months ago -- I had a good ham hock from the Portuguese grocery, and some split peas grown right here in the department. It was absolutely scrumptious -- and a perfect choice for that day, as it was grey and icy that day. I'd kept the cooking broth from when I'd made petit sale the prior week, so I just happened to have ham stock on hand (I wouldn't have made ham stock specially!)

I make lots and lots of soups and stews here in the winter time -- it's just so much more warming when it's chilly and damp, it seems.

And I made litres and litres of stock when we first got here -- but now that I'm working, I am using more and more cubes, because there are weeks that finding time to breathe is enough of a challenge...Knorr just came out with organic bouillon cubes, and they're very "clean" tasting.

[btrflyrfree]

Geordy, I only like the yellow pea soup too, This is an heirloom Canadian recipe for yellow pea soup I think was originally published by Chatelaine magazine, this is how my mother made it, www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Canadian-Habitant-Yellow-Pea-Soup-256890

[Jody]

Yellow pea is my favorite too, though I will eat green if that's all that is available!

[gertie]

I prefer the yellow as well, perhaps we are on to something?