Rouelle de porc braisée au vinaigre balsamique (Balsamico soft pork roast)

An old fashioned cast-iron slow cooked roast, with its sauce and season steamed veggies. The balsamico vinegar brings the char color and some sourness that lights it up.

That’s a meal that takes 5 minutes to throw… and 2 days to cook, but you don’t care as you have nothing to do.
The cut is called sune in Japanese, I think it corresponds to rouelle in French, a round cut in the pork leg. It’s just ideal for this type of recipes.
A grated carrot, a grated onion, 2 chunks of garlic, a handful of oregano, 1/2 of balsamico vinegar, some water.
2 hours low heat. The next day, again, 2 hours.

The meat is easy to cut, with a pleasant soft texture.

The sauce : everything in the pot except the meat, passed in the mixer. I’ve added, paprika powder for the color, salt, pepper, reheated.

Steamed romanesco.

Steamed new potatoes.

And a little plate of stalks of spinach and mustard leaves, stir-fried with spices.

A la recherche du baba de Stohrer…

Maybe it looked like that…
I am not an historian, just playing the costumed dessert game. And I have really love this retro version that I made not very sweet. It’s much lighter and fresher than the average baba.

For recipes to bake the baba/kouglof : click here.

The oldest pastry shop in Paris

In the year of grace 1725, Louis XV married Marie Leszczynska,
daughter of King Stanislas of Poland.His pastry chef Stohrer follows her in Versailles.
…
Five years later, in 1730, NICOLAS STOHRER opened his bakery
at 51 rue Montorgueil in the second arrondissement of Paris.
…
In its kitchen, where desserts were invented for the Great Court,king’s delights are still prepared.

Thanks to a dry Polish brioche, the King Stanislas had brought back from a trip, Nicolas STOHRER invented the BABA.

Un baba. Un kouglof.

The inside. It’s good fresh, but yes very soon, it’s stale.

He enhanced the dry brioche by basting Malaga wine, flavored by saffron

The amber syrup : white wine, brown sugar, orange peel and saffron. A little Brandy to punch it up.

Did they serve crème anglaise (vanilla custard) as a side ? That was very popular. And the orange, if they could afford the precious exotic fruit.

Matelotte de truite ayu

A matelotte is a French river fish stew, with a creamy wine sauce. It’s out of fashion now, which is a shame. It’s really delicious. Well you need good river fish. When I was a kid, we often had neighbors that were emptying their fish pond, and we had some more often that we wished. Now it’s a rarity.

Ayu is a type of small river trout. They are farmed, at least partially. It’s rarely if ever prepared this way.

Japanese ayu dish

I got a few that were a bit too large for Japanese style, but perfect for my purpose.

Garniture aromatique. Fresh veggies and herbs in butter. The sauce is based on white wine.

With lots of mushrooms.

You can have reasonably healthy side dishes. Pink sauerkraut.

Salade trévise (radicchio).

A good Sunday meal.

Le Nancy. Grandma’s so soft chocolate cake.

Gâteau au chocolat de Nancy

Nancy, the city.
Lorraine has two capital cities. The real one and the fake one that pretends. Well, I know which is real but that’s not the topic.
The situation has advantages. The region has two iconic traditional chocolate cakes. One for Metz, one for Nancy.

Gâteau de Metz