The Fragrant Metro and Rude Baguettes

Ah, Paris.

There's little I can say about it that hasn't been said before (although it did strike me that the title for this post could easily double as some french hipster grrl band). It's a city of consumption. A buffet for the senses - smells, sights, tastes and sounds lurk around every corner, inside every curtained window. The last time I had been to Paris was as a teenager, spinning through the city like a dope-fuelled slinky and staying with my friend's aunt, who just happened to be Jane Birkin. The whole trip was like an acid flashback (metaphorically and literally), and never really left me with any clear impression of the place. So it felt overdue to go and spend some quality time with this most mysterious and continental gem. The wonder of the Eurostar means that a nice weekend break is only two hours and twice as many mouseclicks away.

When I think of Paris, I think of food. I'll be honest, I pretty much think of that wherever I am, whether it's Austin or Glasgow. In Paris you can eat like you've walked through a timewarp and been transported to a simpler time, where people munch on warm baguettes in the street and dine at bistro's until 1am. Italy conjures a very similar vibe, but without being so snooty about it. But the French made food what it is today - there isn't a chef in the world who doesn't appreciate what the French did, and continue to do, for cooking, and so it is a hell of a place to grab a bite if you're that way inclined. And much like many other great food nations, the tastes and smells that fill the lexicon of their cuisine are timeless in their quality. What tasted great a hundred years ago still tastes great today, so long as it's built on the right ingredients. And boy, do they have those in spades.

Before I take you on a little tour of the wonderful establishments we discovered, there was one thing I did want to mention, and that is the Paris Metro. Many people will remark to you that it's a slightly sketchy place, where pickpockets abound and tourists stumble about in bewilderment. From our experience, neither of these was true, but what left a far more lasting impression was the enormous variety of smells we came across. The smell of gently heated wood, like a sauna, on one of the trains. The heady aroma of burning rubber and engine oil on others. The smells of merde on one particular line that hopefully owed more to the poor sewage system than the legions of homeless people sleeping on the benches. It was a fascinating nose-tour through the steamy underbelly of the city, and one that I certainly didn't expect to be quite so curious. It also made clear to me just how small Paris is as a city - the metro is surprisingly swift, and we were able to traverse from one side of the city to the other in no time at all, a nice change if you've ever tried to get to Hackney from Wimbledon. Paris is a city that demands you get out and explore it, so the Metro is your friend. Buy yourself a carnet of 10 billets and go on an adventure.

Our first stop of note was a highly-recommended joint by the name of Le Bistrot Paul Bert. Quite a few people we mentioned it to had heard of it, and claimed it was widely recognised as a purveyor of great meals. It was clearly not an easy place to get into either, as we discovered on our first night when we wandered into the restaurant and were immediately turned away due to the lack of a reservation. Utterly undeterred, we immediately booked a table for the following night, at 10pm, which was the first free slot. Parisians eat pretty late, and even as we left the restaurant after midnight, the place was still full of diners. My starter was a wonderfully simple St. Jacques with Chanterelles (scallops with wild mushrooms to the rest of us). The scallops were perfectly cooked and juicy, tucked under a blanket of delicately creamed mushrooms. Becky's main then arrived and put every thing around it to shame. It was quite simply the largest pork chop I have ever seen, a solid two and half inch thick monstrosity in a luxurious mustard sauce. I had a perfectly cooked Onglet with onions (all red meat is cooked blue, as standard), but even that paled in comparison to Becky's superchop. The food was just as good as we had come to expect, and the service was shockingly polite and friendly. What really struck me however was the fantastic atmosphere of the place. It felt a bit like a portal into the 1920's, a glimmering pre-war beacon of activity on a street where all the lights had gone out. When we finally dragged ourselves away from the table, stuffed full of good food and merriment, the tables were still crammed with people, the staff were all sat at the bar drinking, and good cheer was still ringing around the rooms. It has the kind of atmopshere that you always hope to find in Paris, but assume doesn't exist anymore because all French people are horrible and hate humanity. Well if you can find the place, I cannot give it any higher compliment than to say that it will grant you what you seek. If you could bottle the vibe in that restaurant and sell it, you'd be a billionaire.

The next day, we headed over to Gare de Lyon, to meet a close family friend who lives just outside of Paris. She had told us to bring our appetites, because we were going to Le Train Bleu for lunch - a famous brasserie tucked inside the station itself, overlooking the platforms as trains come and go like so many tetris bricks. It is one of the most ornately decorated places I have ever visited, and hidden behind such an unassuming entrance it's a bit like wandering through a wardrobe into Versailles. The walls and ceilings are covered in huge paintings and frescos, slathered in gold and brass at every turn. Our friend explained that the restaurant was built when the station was first constructed as a waiting room for the wealthy upper class. Since travel was such a ludicrously exclusive luxury, the decor and cuisine had to match the decadence expected by its patrons. Thankfully for all of us, the place hasn't changed a jot since then, and has featured throughout pop culture history in Paris. Coco Chanel used to be a regular, and the famous restaurant scene in Luc Besson's "La Femme Nikita" was filmed there. We were treated to a thoroughly classic menu, served by no less than six different waiters all of whom could have run a typical restaurant with one hand. Skipping straight to the mains, I had the most wonderfully unctuous braised ox cheek and Becky had a perfectly pink roast lamb. On any given day either of these would take pride of place in a review, but they were utterly obliterated by the masterpiece that arrived for dessert. I present to you, the most epic chocolate eclair ever:

The following evening, we wandered through the rain to Notre Dame. The church itself is situated on an island in the middle of the Seine, with another small island directly behind it. It was on this second island that we found another gem, a recommendation from a friend of mine at work. Le Relais de L'isle, a literal shoebox of a restaurant, was our destination. It is the tiniest of restaurants, with six small tables as you come in, and one larger table on the mezzanine above. The entire place is looked after by the chef's wife, a wiry, energetic woman with piercing bright eyes and the pace of a hummingbird. We immediately ensconced ourselves at our little table, surrounded by happy diners, and eyeballed the fantastic menu. To start, I had smoked duck breast with mango and foie gras, which was an absolute 5-star success. The presentation wasn't too shabby either:

To follow, I had mignons de veau with field mushrooms. The veal was sublimely tender, and perfectly balanced with the mushrooms. The potato fondant, often done so poorly, was a perfectly soft, buttery pillow for the meat. As we tucked into our mains, the chef's wife hurled herself around the room to the tunes of the lurching jazz pianist tucked under the stairs to the mezzanine.

After all this eating, there really wasn't a lot left in our collective appetite to sate. However, mindful that we would be on the Eurostar in the evening, the next day I decided to try and track down a decent sandwich for the trip. My investigations led us rather surprisingly to the luxurious streets of Opera, near the Music Academy. Down these streets, laden with luxury boutiques and maisons, we nipped around an unassuming corner and ended up at Le Petit Vendome. It had come widely recommended as the best baguette sandwich you can find in Paris. What everyone failed to mention, however, was how raucous the place was and how staggeringly rude the waitress turned out to be. As we stepped inside, we were greeted by the sight of no less than 15 utterly sloshed Frenchmen, all draped in a variety of red hats & scarves, singing at the top of their voices and chugging wine like kool-aid. We sat down and tried to take it all in, scanning around for some sign of a menu. Within seconds, a woman with a face like a thunderstorm marched to the table, chucked some menus on the table and glared at us. Realising that we had literally no idea what was going on, she stomped away in a huff. We decided to try the simplest, most basic baguette to see if the fuss was justified, and sure enough, we weren't disappointed. A plain baguette from the local baker, swathes of creamy french butter and a fistful of country cured ham. Perfection in sandwich form. And to be honest, it all comes down to the bread. Baguettes in France are nothing like the stodgy, fatty baguettes you get in the UK. In France they are crispy, chewy, and much lighter - almost like a sourdough roll with the lightest of crusts. No sign of the usual jagged, mouth-traumatising bread-truncheon to be found here.

I was also glad to see on the menu that like the Italians, they take a "less is more" approach, with not a single sandwich entertaining more than two ingredients. My personal recommendation would be the classic jambon-beurre or the jambon-cantal. The food and the atmosphere was lovely and jovial, it's just a shame that we got the single rudest waitress I have ever encountered, anywhere. We'd had a good run up to that point, but I guess Parisian stereotypes remain because they're true. If you do find yourself jonesing for a sandwich in Paris, absolutely seek this place out, but be prepared to stare down a total helldemon for the pleasure of it.

As you can probably gather from this little writeup, we pretty much ate non-stop, and I still feel like we only scratched the surface. We have only gently skimmed the terrine of gastronomy that is Paris, and we will be back for more. If you've never been, or haven't been back in a while, like myself, do yourself a favour and plan a little weekend away - it's not far, it's not that expensive, and it remains one of the greatest foodie cities you can find.

Oh and one last thing: Croissants are supposed to be crispy. Remember this.

Winter Sausage Ragu

Wherever in the world you might be reading this from, at this point in the year there's a fairly good chance it's getting colder (unless you're one of those dastardly Aussies). If you happen to be in the UK like myself, then it's getting dark, cold and wet - none of which make you want to go outside much, and it certainly doesn't inspire you to eat lots of salad. So with that in mind, a few nights ago I decided to improvise a nice, warming pasta ragu for a quiet night in with the missus. It may not sound like rock n'roll, but sometimes that's not what you're looking for.

One thing that I have learned over the past couple of years of cooking regularly is that I like my recipes to have a decent margin of error. It's pretty rare that I get something absolutely spot-on the first time, so I'm always relieved if I can screw a few things up and still get a decent meal out of it. Over time you then learn the nuances of a dish, you stop measuring things exactly, and you know what to look out for in terms of success or failure. What this has done, in turn, is give me the experience and the confidence to try different approaches to a single recipe (within reason), and feel entirely content to grab an armful of stuff from the fridge and figure things out on the fly. Some people seem to think that there's some dark art to cooking, that it's an ancient skill taught by ninja monks to gifted children. While that would be awesome, it's really nothing more than practice, attention to detail, and a passion for food. There's no enigma code behind it. In fact, sometimes all you need is one great ingredient, and the rest of the pieces will just fall into place around it.

In the case of this winter ragu, that particular ingredient is italian salsiccia. I first came across these little beauties probably around ten years ago, when my family first visited Umbria, in southern Italy. Umbria is southeast of Tuscany, and a bit more rustic but with a fraction of the English people. According to my Italian friends, Umbrians are also a much friendlier and nicer breed than Tuscans, although if you saw Tony Blair and David Cameron in your neighbourhood every summer you'd have every right to be a bit miffed. It is a sun-drenched oasis in the heart of Italy, sat right inbetween Rome and Florence, and an absolute goldmine of great ingredients. I'm sure this is widely applicable to most of southern Italy - they may not have an economy or functioning infrastructure, but my god the food is good. So after my last visit, I brought a pack of these beauties back from Italy and kept them in the freezer for a rainy day. This recipe is precisely the sort of rainy day opportunity that this kind of ingredient lives for.

Putting the world's wrongs to right.

Now obviously I'm using sausages from Italy here. Thankfully the abundance of good butchers in London now means that you can find great sausages without too much trouble, italian or otherwise. The key is to get a really meaty, strongly seasoned sausage, preferably with italian flavours. Avoid supermarket sausages like the plague, they are far too watery and bready for this type of sauce and lack any real depth of flavour. If you're in London, then you really can't go wrong with sausages from The Ginger Pig in Marylebone or Borough Market. The rest of the ingredients are easy to get anywhere, but the sausages are absolutely key. The peppers are an extra little touch that I find adds a really subtle sweetness to the sauce, and they basically liquefy by the time the whole thing's done. Personally, I choose fusilli because its swirly ridges are perfect for scooping up all the lovely ragu, but you can use anything you prefer.

Hearty Winter Sausage Ragu
Serves 4

Ingredients:
6 Italian sausages (preferably from a butchers)
70g pancetta or guanciale
2 Romano peppers
750ml Passata
500ml Chicken stock
1 glass red wine
1 pint of milk
1 red onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of diced chilli/chilli flakes
A pinch of ground nutmeg
500g fusilli pasta
One big saucepot
One decent pan/skillet

Start off by removing the skins of the sausages, cut the peppers into small slices, and finely dice the red onion.

Put a heavy pan on medium heat, add a little bit of olive oil and let it get pretty hot. Chuck in the sausage meat and break it up with a wooden spoon, keeping it moving. You want the meat to sizzle, so keep the heat high and do not overcrowd the pan. If the sizzling noises stop, adjust the heat to stop the meat stewing. Once the meat is nicely browned, remove with a spatula/slotted spoon and put into the big empty pot you'll use for the sauce. Now in the first pan, throw in the pancetta and cook until the fat has started to render and the pancetta is crisping up. Remove the pancetta and throw into the saucepot with the sausage. The pan should now have a whole load of lovely oil and fat in there, so heat it again and now add the garlic, red onion and chilli flakes. Saute them until the onions are nice and soft. You can throw the peppers in here as well if you wish, or cook them separately.

Once everything's properly sauteed, chuck it in with the meat. Now add a cup or so of milk, so that it covers the meat. Bring the pot to a simmer, and reduce the milk until nearly all of the liquid has evaporated. Add a pinch of nutmeg, and then the red wine. Again, simmer until the red wine has nearly all evaporated.

Pour in the chicken stock and the passata. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce to the lowest heat possible and leave uncovered for 3 hours. The sauce should be very lightly bubbling, and not spitting sauce everywhere (if it does then it's too hot). It's worth checking on it every 30-45 minutes, as the oil will start to separate at the top so just mix it back together. Absolutely avoid seasoning it until it's finished, as the reduction will amplify any seasoning dramatically. After a couple of hours the sauce will be thicker, and take on a really lustrous golden red colour. Check the sauce, and adjust seasoning accordingly - salt and pepper if it's a bit lacking, or sugar if it's a bit too sour.

At this stage you can either portion off some sauce to keep in the freezer, or go to town and use the whole thing. If you're eating now (and you certainly should), get your pasta cooked according to the instructions - I always cook pasta for a minute or so less than instructed, you'll see why below. Once it's cooked, always keep a cup of the cooking water just in case, this can be very handy.

Take a couple of ladles of ragu per person and heat in a separate saucepot (unless the pot you cooked the sauce in is particularly large). Throw the pasta into the pot and mix it in with the sauce until everything is properly coated. If it gets too thick, use some of the reserved cooking water to loosen things up a bit. Pop the pasta into bowls and generously cover with shaved parmesan. Eat immediately!