Recipe

This is another low-fat, high-fiber meal that fits perfectly in to any weight loss plan. All these ingredients are available in April.

4 to 6 scallops per person

Instructions

Preheat broiler or grill.

Wash, top and slice strawberries. Put into a medium-size saucepan. Cover with Balsamic vinegar, until vinegar is about 2.54 cm / 1 inch above strawberries. Add Szechwan pepper to taste.

Bring strawberries and Balsamic vinegar mixture to a boil, then turn heat down to medium, stirring from time to time. Cook until it forms a sauce of a syrupy consistency, with bits of strawberry in the “syrup”. This usually takes 15 to 20 minutes.

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Lai Thai

Lai Thai is in an elegant setting. The owner went to Swiss hotel school, so you are always greeted like a king or queen and the service is impeccable. A wide range of Northern Thai dishes you don’t ordinarily find in hole-in-the-wall type Thai restaurants, such as the special Thai rice and fish fritters with a delicious dipping sauce, as well as great massamans. Set menus go for CHF 55, 65 and 78 and the servings are generous. Located in what was formerly a Geneva institution, the Café Gothard.

Les 3s

Traditional Italian cuisine in a chic contemporary decor, located in Plainpalais near the Musée Patek Philippe. The bar serves tapas with the cocktails and is a hangout for young people.

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Marmiton’s Recipe for traditional Swiss Easter cake

The Marmiton site for French cooking covers the cuisine of every administrative department in France. Most recipes are in French, but there is an English section which is a great introduction to the techniques of French cooking.

Photo courtesy of Sezgin Ismail.

Marmiton refers to this part of their site as Let’s Cook French. It includes classic French dishes, beginner lessons, and much more. I love their Kids in the Kitchen section, where Monsieur Parmentier, who has a stereotypical French accent, gives easy but intelligent video cooking lessons to children.

The recipe below does not appear in the English section of the site, but they’ve kindly given me permission to translate and adapt it, since I didn’t manage to put my hands on any other recipe for Swiss Easter cake.

Read below for recipe.

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Traditional dish in Lake Geneva region: filet of perch with parsley, chives and butter

Photo courtesy of Ma P'Tite Cuisine.

Ingredients

Preheat oven to 220°C / 425°F.

Butter a baking dish that can also be used on stovetop. Add wine and garlic.

Arrange filets in a baking dish. Salt and pepper.

Bake for about 8 minutes or until fish is cooked but still firm. Carefully remove fish and set it aside.

Use cooking juices in baking dish to make sauce. Add butter, mustard and egg yolk.

Cook over very low heat, stirring constantly with a wire whip. Add parsley. Warning: If you turn the heat too high and quite stirring, you will end up with scrambled eggs instead of sauce!

Arrange perch on serving plates, preferably warm. Pour sauce over fish and serve immediately.

Michelin-star Vertig’O's pastry chef: Emmanuel Lebled

The Vertig’O restaurant in the Hôtel de la Paix in Geneva has a Michelin star and a 16/20 in the respected GaultMillau restaurant guide.

Vertig’O also has a great pastry chef in Emmanuel Lebled.

Every month or so, the restaurant publishes a leaflet which includes a recipe from the restaurant. This recipe for cinnamon pear crumble is adapted from their October 2009 leaflet, but it is still seasonal as we anxiously await the fruits of spring.

I’m sorry not to have converted the quantities this time around, but it became extremely complicated, so I dropped the whole idea. I think it’s high time we all bought a set of metric scales! If all else fails, refer to my post about metric conversions. For equivalents of the weight of specific foods such as butter, almonds, and different kinds of flour, you can also consult Recipes4Us.

The recipe is in three parts. Start by making the crumble topping. Poach and then caramelize the pears. Finish off by arranging all the ingredients in a baking dish and baking. Timing is important, since the crumble is best served warm.

Recipe: Cinnamon pear crumble

1. Make the crumble

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Mix all the above ingredients together. Knead with hands until it forms a crumble.

2. Poach the pears

Ingredients:

Instructions:

Mix water and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and boil slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon, until it forms a syrup.

Add star anise, orange peel and lemon peel to syrup.

Peel pears. Remove core and any hard parts. Over low heat, poach them slowly in the syrup.

When soft (but not falling apart), remove them from heat. Leave pears in the syrup until the they cool off.

3. Sautée and caramelize the pears

Ingredients:

Pour enough pear liqueur over raisins to cover them. Leave to soak.

Remove poached pears from syrup. Dice.

Put sugar in saucepan. Heat over low heat until it forms a caramel, stirring constantly and being careful that it doesn’t burn. Add butter and pears.

Turn heat higher, and caramelize, stirring constantly and making sure pears do not burn.

Add raisins and rum. Flambé.

Remove from heat. Cool at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 150° C.

When pears are cool, put them in a baking dish. Cover with crumble.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Serve warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or yogurt sorbet.

News for real foodies: recent tweets @RamblingEpicure and @SwissFoodies:

Food topics and trends 18 March 2010

SeattleTallPopp Waaa?!? Forget goat or cow milk cheese. NYC Chef Angerer makes breast milk cheese. Milk source? His wife! Recipe.

THE RAMBLING EPICURE How To Never Look Fat Again: Dressing Thinner. Time Magazine.

guardianfood Is molecular gastronomy dead? by @TimHayward

THE RAMBLING EPICURE Time Magazine: study says women who drink tend to be thinner. What’s all that about?

Now on Tablet Talk: Food writer & cultural historian Josh Ozersky lays out his burger purist’s manifesto.

Atlantic_Food Egg-less mayo: A travesty or treasure? Introducing milk mayo — the Portuguese take on the mother of all French sauces.

goodandbadfoods Meryl Streep: A veteran green activist.

Les 5 Portes

French cuisine.

L’Alhambar

American-style Sunday brunch, with mimosas, Bloody Marys. Nice price.

Calm

Saturday and Sunday brunch from 10H00 to 18H00, including scrambled eggs, pancakes, sandwiches, muesli, bread, croissants, brioches, etc. Garden terrace in summer.

Le Cheval Blanc

All-you-can-eat buffet for CHF 22. Buffet includes bread and jam, pastries, birchermuesli, various kinds of eggs, as well as quiches, original mixed salads, cheese and sausage. Also a selection of desserts. Reservation advisable.

Le Cheval Blanc, Place de l’Octroi 15, 1227 Carouge, tel. +41 022 343 61 61 from 11H00 to 15H00 on Sundays.

I’ve been talking a lot about Mindful Eating lately. It’s a term that came to me out of the blue, and only weeks later did I realize that I picked up the word “mindful” in my many years of studying Buddhism and Hinduism. I studied these for so long that the vocabulary has become somewhat incorporated into my way of expressing myself and my subconscious. I am mindful; I live mindfully.

As a result, before publishing my own Mindful Eating Manifesto–a practical approach to my favorite subject of food–I only thought it fair to publish the somewhat more philosophical article by Buddhist thinker and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

Traditional Buddhist and Hindu teachings urge us to be mindful about every act, at every moment, every day of our lives. The word “mindful” is not a trademark. It is a way of being. Mindfulness gives meaning to every action, and creates a sharper awareness and a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of all living things.

What does mindfulness have to do with the way I eat?

This may not seem to have anything to do with how you eat, but indeed it does. It’s the current food trend in the developed world, and I feel confident that it will spread at a rapid pace. Eating is not just about filling your belly.

Mindful Eating is about love and care from A to Z in the eating process, from the ingredients you buy, and how they were grown and processed, and whether you prepare them with TLC, to filling your belly and providing your body with the nutrients they need. To eat mindfully, you have to be aware of every step in the process, which by definition connects you, either directly or indirectly, with everyone involved: the butcher, the baker, the farmer, the fertilizer manufacturer, the seed seller, the cook, the chocolate maker (I do live in Switzerland, after all), etc.

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Recipes using seasonal ingredients found in Switzerland in February

Papet vaudois, a Swiss sausage and leek specialty from canton Vaud.

Worry no more mushroom barley soup with crusty garlic toast at Spirit of Pistoulet.

Easy duck confit recipe at The Rambling Epicure.

Fat-free Swiss carrot cake at Swiss Foodies.

Moroccan-style chicken pie at Epicurious.

Cabbage, collard greens, red onion, and blood orange coleslaw at The Rambling Epicure.

Double-chocolate walnut biscotti at The Rambling Epicure.

Curried squash or pumpkin soup at Swiss Foodies and Simply Recipes.

Fennel recipes and ideas for combinations.

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, in Switzerland and around the world.

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.

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 wine . . . and this week, the Vancouver Winter Olympics and those cute wooly pigs you see in the photo.

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