The best way to cook meals full of flavor is to use ingredients that are in season where you live. The winter months do not give loads of possibilities in the Lake Geneva region, so we sometimes get the impression we’re eating the same old things over and over. Potatoes, and then more potatoes.

Photo courtesy of Five Prime.

Fennel is a good way to add a bit of spice, while awaiting the wider variety of choice that comes with spring.

Fennel flavor combinations and recipe ideas

There are so many ways to cook fennel I can’t name them. It can be chopped finely and added to an ordinary Bolognese or other sauce, along with a few fennel seeds, to give the flavor an original edge.

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Creative ways to use vinegar in cooking, in place of fats

I’m a vinegar collector. I have orange vinegar, walnut vinegar, grapefruit vinegar, a long list of Balsamic vinegars of various origins and ages, and lots of other more common ones.

In Switzerland and France, there is such an impressive variety of artisanal vinegars (a well as oils) that it is easy to build up quite a collection and use it in creative ways to liven up winter vegetables, bland grilled meats, or salads. The beauty of it is that you can often use vinegar to add flavor, and thereby avoid the more traditional use of butter or meat bases, which contain fat. It is a good way to reduce fat in your general cooking habits.

Photo courtesy of FivePrime.

A tasty, good quality vinegar is an easy way to add flavor to an otherwise unappetizing vegetable or meat. After cooking meat or fish, I often deglaze the frying pan  with a nice vinegar, then pour the glaze over the beast in question, along with a drizzle of good quality olive oil. It makes for a much healthier sauce than cream or butter and adds flare to the dish.

With magret de canard, or duck breast, which can have quite a fatty taste, I pour off most of the fat, and then deglaze the drippings with Balsamic or sherry vinegar. Raspberry also works well with duck, and you can add a few crushed raspberries to the sauce as well. The vinegar helps cut the fatty film you often feel in your mouth after eating. Raspberry vinegar is also a perfect compliment to calves’ liver.

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Make your own Valentine’s chocolate, Ticino style

Here is a great double-chocolate walnut biscotti recipe by Patricia Turo, born into an Italian family in the US, but now living in the Klosters ski resort in Switzerland. This recipe is therefore more in the spirit of Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland.

Be careful about the quality of chocolate you use: Avoid buying the American chocolate chips in a bag. You’d be better off buying a bar of dark chocolate from your favorite local (Swiss) chocolate maker and crumbling it up into bits. The same goes for the cocoa powder. Make sure it is good quality, preferably from a good chocolate maker.

To convert the measurements, refer to How to convert measurements for American recipes.

This week’s foodie overview

I spend a lot of time reading, researching and tweeting about food and restaurants these days, so I thought I’d jot down my tweets from the last few days. These are from both The Rambling Epicure and Swiss Foodies and should give you an overview of what’s going on in the foodie world this week.

These tweets are often focused on Switzerland, but also include a lot of links to Swiss, French, German, British, American, Canadian and other research on food.

This week was the countdown to Valentine’s Day, so I listed oodles of Valentine’s dinners, weekend packages at hotels and chocolate shops. You can find the Valentine’s venues I tweeted last week in the 20 Valentine venues, posted earlier this week.

Sometimes I couldn’t resist writing about the snow and skiing conditions, because that determines how a lot of us in Switzerland plan our weekends, and therefore what restaurants we go to or what recipes we cook up. And of course occasionally, watches and Alinghi . . .

Remember, these are just tweets

Remember these are just tweets, so they are short and sweet. They are not particularly orderly; I just tweeted the information as I found it.

I suggest you skim over the headings, and if you’re interested, just click on any of the links that interest you in order to read the detailed article.

Who knows, this might even tempt you to start tweeting yourself!

This week’s tweet list

Valentine’s

20 Valentine venues: restaurants, chocolate and hotel packages for the “big day”!

Valentine’s events in La Gruyère.

Valentine’s package at Bernard Ravet, CHF500, hotel, champagne, 9-course dinner, breakfast for two, Relais & Châteaux.

Restaurants in French-speaking Switzerland w/ Valentine’s specials; just click on your canton! NOT TESTED BY THE RAMBLING EPICURE.

GenevaLunch: Lake Geneva Valentine’s cruise.

Ramada Geneva offering Valentine’s Day brunch as well as candelit dinner.

Hôtel des Armures in Geneva: special Valentine’s package, rooms, champagne, breakfast and chocolate.

Valentine’s package at Hotel Royal Geneva. Le Duo, chic delish restaurant & brasserie, chef trained by Bernard Loiseau.

Jamie Oliver’s Valentine’s Day menu, along with recipes and tips for a romantic feast.

GenevaLunch: Valentine’s for the “older” crowd.

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Final countdown to Valentine’s Day: take your pick!

For the last week or so, I’ve had Valentine’s on the brain. I’ve been posting restaurants offering special Valentine’s meals, chocolate shops making all sorts of beautiful Valentine’s chocolates, as well as hotels offering Valentine’s packages on the Swiss Foodies Twitter account.

Photo courtesy of Salvatore Vuono.

I’ve been trying to get you in the spirit, but now it’s time for the final countdown, because time is running short. To make things easier, I’ve gathered all the Valentine tweets here so you can start making plans for the weekend!

This list is by no means exhaustive and I may well add to it during the week, so keep in touch either here on The Rambling Epicure, or by following the Swiss Foodies tweets. Every time I stumble on something interesting, I’ll make sure and tweet it.

Valentine’s specials: something to suit everyone’s budget and schedule

1. On Sunday, 14 February 2010, the CGN is sponsoring Valentine’s lunch cruises on all their major routes.
2. List of restaurants all over Switzerland with Valentine’s specials; just click on your canton!  Please note that I haven’t tested these restaurants, but they should include something appropriate for everyone’s taste, location and budget.
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Vineet Bhatia, the Bombay-born chef who first got a Michelin star at his Chelsea restaurant Rasoi, and another one a few months ago at his Geneva restaurant Rasoi By Vineet in the Mandarin Oriental, is now off to Abu Dhabi, reports Perpetual Traveller Overseas.

Bhatia changed the face of the Indian culinary scene in London, where practically every restaurant served the same old same old, by breaking out of these boring boundaries and changing it into something modern, innovative and competitive. The number of modern Indian and Indian fusion restaurants in London, from budget price to upscale, has increased significantly as a result.

The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority is sponsoring its annual 15-day culinary get-together of starred chefs from around the world, starting on February 5. The meals will take place in Abu Dhabi’s most prestigious restaurants, with the guest chefs, who have twenty-two Michelin stars in all, working with the resident chefs. It is a real meeting of East and West.

Bhatia will be working with the chefs at Yas Island Rotana, a restaurant serving both North and South Indian cuisine, from 16 to 19 February 2010.

For more information, contact Gourmet Abu Dhabi.

Tiny history of the parsnip

In the Middle Ages, Geneva was running over with parsnips, which they referred to as “white carrots”. It was almost always included in their “eternal pots” of soup, which consisted of seasonal vegetables that they just kept adding more vegetables to as needed, and a piece of meat once a week.

After World War II, many root vegetables went out of fashion in Europe, because people had had to survive on them and nothing else during the war, so farmers eventually stopped growing them. The same went for pumpkin. People in the north of France who had lived through the war and eaten pumpkin every day couldn’t bear the thought of eating pumpkin ever again.

In recent years, these old-fashioned vegetables, including parsnips, have once again become available, and chefs are going crazy with new ideas on how to use them.

Parsnips are plentiful at the moment and there’s nothing better than soup to warm you up on a cold winter’s day. Eric Burkel, former financial analyst, entrepreneur and now president of his local food coop in Paris, got this recipe from one of the farmers who supplies vegetables to the coop.

Parsnip soup recipe

Ingredients

Instructions

Finely chop shallots. Melt butter in a saucepan. Slowly cook shallots until clear.

Cut parsnips into cubes. Thinly slice celery. Mix, then add to saucepan.

Pour chicken broth over vegetables. Salt and pepper to taste. Let cook on low heat for about 25 minutes.

While soup is cooking, use a vegetable peeler to cut the Mimolette into extra-fine slices. Set aside.

When soup is cooked, turn down heat and add cream. It is ready to serve as soon as the cream has melted into the soup and is warm.

Pour soup in bowls. Sprinkle with slices of Mimolette.

Soup photo courtesy of Five Prime.

The Rambling Epicure’s chocolate notes: countdown to Valentine’s Day

Comprehensive list of chocolate shops and visits to chocolate makers in Geneva area. Each chocolate maker makes its own special chocolate creations for Valentine’s Day, so check out the chocolate works of art at your favorite local chocolate maker.

A chocolate heart from Chocolatier Durig in Lausanne.

Organic, fair-trade chocolate at Chocolatier Durig in Lausanne. Online ordering.

From chocolate lollipop to cup of organic dark hot chocolate. Just dip lollipop into hot milk and stir for few moments et voilà, a delicious cup of hot Swiss chocolate! List of sales outlets at La Cuillère Suisse.

How did chocolate get to Switzerland anyway? They don’t grow chocolate in the Alps! Read about it here.

How to make a chocolate heart for your sweetie, but please substitute Swiss chocolate! Buy the chocolate at your favorite local chocolate maker.

Fine dining, Rudolf Steiner style

The Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner was the inventor of the spiritual movement anthroposophy, a kind of intuitive ethics which has thrived in Switzerland, chiefly through the Waldorf schools and through foundations and communities inspired by his teachings. This seventeenth-century castle, Le Castel, was bought by the Lausanne branch of the Rudolf Steiner Foundation in 1989.

The current community living on the grounds of Le Castel practices biodynamic farming, quite in line with Steiner’s view of humans’ relationship to the world. These products are used in the restaurant.

Restaurant de Bois Genoud “Le Castel”: gourmet, and it’s organic!

The Restaurant de Bois Genoud is organic, but don’t think that means boring. The dishes use daring combinations of ingredients and variations on classic themes, such as duck breast with Sechuan pepper and orange sauce, or a warm goat cheese pastry served with apply chutney, pear caramelized with honey, and orange- and ginger-flavored carrot sauce. Does that not get your taste buds going?

Read more…

Photo courtesy of Once Upon A Time.

History, ecological tourism and regional food products all in one

The Lausanne tourist bureau is supporting the efforts of three wine estates around Lausanne to provide rooms on a B & B basis, meals, receptions, cocktail parties, and wine tastings. These include the Château de Rochefort, the Abbaye de Mont and the Domaine de Burignon.

Each estate offers different amenities, but all have shops selling local food products.

Rooms go for CHF 50 at the Château de Rochefort, including breakfast.

The Abbaye de Mont has reception rooms, including one that can welcome groups of 8 to 20 people for meals or buffet teas. Cocktail parties for up to one hundred people can be organized in the wine press room or the courtyard. The cellar can hold up to fifty people for catered meals. It is located in Mont-sur-Rolle, between Lausanne and Geneva.

In addition to its spectacular view over Lake Geneva and the Alps, the Domaine de Burignon, located in Lavaux between Vevey and Lausanne, uses local Vaud ingredients to prepare meals, which are served with wines made on the estate. They have a capacity of 8 to 20 for meals, while they can handle up to 40 people for stand-up receptions.

They have two apartments with bathrooms, going for CHF 60 for one person or CHF 100 for two people, including breakfast. The rate is cheaper for children and according to the length of the stay.

This effort is made in the context of encouraging sustainable eco-tourism.

Rooms are fitted out simply, with an emphasis on natural materials. Furniture is made from wood coming from FSC-certified forests, much of it from the Lausanne Forestry, Estates and Vineyard Service.

Related link: Lausanne tourist bureau