Today was the day of our market tour and cooking class with La Cuisine. We had to be at the market at 9:30, so we left the apt at 8:45. There were 9 of us in total for this French cuisine class. One of the fun parts of this tour, was Eric, the chef.

There wasn’t a set menu for the day, but Eric asked our likes and dislikes, and then was also inspired by the items in the market. We were each given a grocery bag, and we walked together as he explained what we saw a ha we were purchasing.we were going originally going to make quiche lorraine, however, the man at the fish market offered a Eric a deal on scallops that he couldn’t pass up. One euro a piece, in the shell. So they became our starter. We bought cabbage, celery root, leeks, smoked shallots, bacon, cheese, figs, cerfuil tubers, apples, and two rabbits. Yes we were going to have rabbit for our main dish. Then we walked down the street to a boulagerie for baguettes.

The market was just pure fun. I bought a few things along the way as we walked. I found this dried fruit we found in Cyprus called pompelmo. It’s sweeter than a grapefruit, and green when dried.  I also bought tarragon mustard and these small almond candies called calisson – a traditional French candy consisting of a smooth, pale yellow, paste of candied fruit and ground almonds topped with a thin layer of royal icing.

We took the Metro two stops to the La Cuisine location, not far from Notre-Dame and the Hotel d’Ville. With Eric’s instructions we began prepping the food. I was quite pleased that the butcher cut up the rabbit. But we still had to open, remove, and clean the scallops, chop vegetables, make pastry dough for an apple tart. We did a decent amount of work. Mom was funny, she had this strong desire to stir everything. For example we made caramel sauce, and just added water to sugar, let it come to boil, and waited for it to turn brown. No stirring needed. She struggle not stirring it even once.

While we kindof got a recipe for what we made, it was different than what we actually did. For example for the scallops, we seared them in oil and butter, but we but them on puréed celery root and leeks with fried shallots.

With the celery root, we removed the outside, and cut the pieces into small cubes. There was enough to fill a saucepan, then we added equal amounts of milk and heavy cream to fill the pot just below the top and let it come to a boil. Ultimately we added salt and pepper, and put the celery root in a food processor with some of the liquid. It looked like mashed potatoes. We also sliced the leeks into thin pieces, and sweated them out in butter and olive oil. We added white wine, then places a parchment circle on it to let some of the liquids evaporate. We eventually added cream to it. We cleaned and used the scallop,shells, places a dollop of the celery root then the leeks, and then the scallop on top. We placed them in the oven for s few minutes before plating. We each got three scallops and OMG delicious.

The rabbit was also amazing. After searing it, we added it into the stock we had cooking. We let it cook for 45 minutes. The meat was so tender. Eric made the sauce out of the liquid it had cooked in by adding some cream. I rich made us an amazing  sauce to put on top.

After a few people cut up the apples, I rolled out the pastry dough, and arranged the apples on the dough. We added sugar to the top and placed it in the oven. When ready, we took it out, flipped it over, and put it back in to cook more. It was then flipped back over and Eric drizzled caramel sauce on top of it, and yes, OMG delicious. We didn’t even add cinnamon, but still yummy.

The other thing we are after our meal was warmed Camembert cheese with bread and figs. It was like cheese fondue.

Everything we ate was delicious. It was fun, it was the right number of people, and we had a good time.