Eating at home – II (and in your rental apartment as well)

Last week, I told you where I go for take-out that one can eat in one’s hotel room or on a picnic in the park or whatever. This week, I’ll reveal my secrets of the quick and dirty meals that visiting tourists think are just like the real thing but which constitute the moral equivalent of the French “I Hate to Cookbook.” If you’ve rented an apartment and want not to cook but bluff cooking, here’s how. Instant couscous: I once used Allo Couscous but once I discovered this trick, I stopped all such foolish delivery services. Take a big soup bowl of water, throw it in a pot with a chicken bouillon cube and heat with a sliced tomato, sliced zucchini, some pepper and squirts of tomato paste and harissa (no salt) and at the last minute add a ¼ rotisseried chicken from your or my street guy. If you must, make some 5 minute instant couscous. Quick cassoulet: Fry up some fatty pork bits in goose or duck fat, throw in a jar of Monoprix white beans, a sliced tomato and some Toulouse sausages and confit de canard from Bon Marche or the Galeries Lafayette and heat for a while. Make sure not to open windows or doors so guests are properly impressed with the smell. Short-timers stirfry: In your wok (You don’t have a wok? Well, not to worry, the guy at Shan Gout cooks with a heavy sauce pan too) cook chicken tenders and broccoli flowerets from Monoprix with a really hot pepper from an Asian/African shop, add some soy and no one’s taste buds will recover for days. Tasty Cote de boeuf: Go to Hugo Desnoyer, pay a week’s salary for his best cut. Bring home, sear on your plancha (You don’t have one? well, neither did Julia, so use a fry pan) as long as it takes you to pour the wine; eat rawish. Brief Bresse chicken: Order from your street rotisserie guy; get him to hack it up; serve with some steamed asparagus. Crusty Choucroute: Buy some uncooked cabbage/choucroute at Bon Marché and cook with goose fat, juniper berries and white wine. Heat up a frankfort or two from Schmidt or Bon Marché and put on top and serve with a ton of mustard. For more than 1-2 folks add a jarré de porc from anywhere. Where I get my ingredients: Maistre Mathieu (my street rotisserie guy) 10, Rue du Poteau in the 18th Monoprix All over La Grande Epicerie at Bon Marche 38, rue de Sèvres in the 7th. Galeries Lafayette Food Hall 40, blvd Haussmann in the 9th Boutique Tropique 111, rue Ordener in the 18th Hugo Desnoyer 45, Rue Boulard in the 14th Schmid 76, bd de Strasbourg in the 10th Blog: John Talbott’s Paris ©by John Talbott 2009