My French food journey :)

My French Food journey 

After coming back from France, I have tried time and again to recreate these dishes -sauf the cotton candy. And today I will be sharing my secret recipes. 

1. French version mac-and-cheese

I had this while in a family-run restaurant in Lyon. And at first I was like ... huh am I really paying for mac-and-cheese in a restaurant? But funnily, this turned out to be my favourite dish of the day. 

This was REAL cheese and non of that synthetic pasty-yellow crap you see in Astons or some random cafes in Singapore.

In France, they would normally use Gruyere, Emmental and whatever other cheeses you would like and then mix them into boiling creme fraiche. But in Singapore, if I were indeed to recreate this, my cheese-cost would be at least 20 sing-dollars and the cream would be another 5 dollars.

Thus, I went on a journey of supermarket hunting and found the following alternative ingredients:

1. Cheddar (not the sliced type, but the real block of cheese type :)) 

2. Emmental rapé (RAH-PEI) not RAPE 

3. Nestle canned cream (cheaper than the fresh cooking cream :))

The way to go about cooking mac-and-cheese is to simply pour the cheese-cream mixture onto cooked pasta and then cooking the entire concoction in the oven. Et Voila <3 nbsp="" p="">

Lovely, but impossible to recreate.
Though I really love how the French call cotton candy "Le Barbe au Papa" (Daddy's beard)

2. Peishan's original Cream Roasted Chicken :)

This is what I would call convenience-food in France. 2 dollar chicken and 80 cents cream = two portions of creamy chicken.

What I did was to put the chicken into a oiled pan; brown both sides; add in cream and let it broil for a while.

It's ok for the cream to brown a little because I actually liked the nutty flavour of browned cream >.<

3. French-style ribeye 

The difference between the French and the American steak lies very much in the sauce. The French go for a more layered flavour; a bit of vinegar, a bit of wine, a bit of pepper and some fruity sweetness or some mustard if you're in Dijon. The thing is I can't really recreate this steak at home for two reasons: 

the first is that the price of ribeye is WAY TOO HIGH in Singapore! I guess such a huge juicy piece would cost me like 16? 

The second is that I don't have a grill. I have tried really with a normal gas cooker or an oven but because the heat is not high enough, there is NO way I can caramelise the sides and lock in the juices. 

Argh... I guess I can only dream of eating this steak again. Btw, this steak with free flow bread in France costs only 14 euros nett. 

4. Bouillabaisse (BOOO-EEE-AHHH-BASE) 

I had the world''s greatest fish soup in Marseille. Bouillabaisse is made of a tomato soup base, and with saffron (for the more expensive ones) AND tons of freaking fresh fish caught off the Marseille coast