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        Life in rural France - Food - Friends - Wine - Cheese - Comments

   Welcome to French Food Focus. The name describes the intent of this blog. I'll focus on food and because I live in rural   
   France the stress will be upon French food.  There are numerous posts concerning life in France and, certainly, opinions
   about anything that strikes my fancy.
   If you have some good recipes  or if you want to rave about any great French restaurants this  is the place to do it.

 I hope you enjoy my ramblings about rural France! 

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This is our village. Our house is the white one at the top right.                      

Tortilla' & Salsa & Things Mexican

Well my most unflavored blogger does it again. This lady who purports to be a super cook was recently going on about how you can't make Mexican food in France.  She's back in the states now and, according to her, loving the fact that she can eat Mexican again. This is typical of her, stupid statements that just aren't true. Of course you can make Mexican food in France. Admittedly, you will probably not find any Mexican restaurants outside of Paris, Lyon or other large cities, but with a little looking and some ingenuity you can find the ingredients needed to make a wide variety of Mexican dishes.

I make guacamole pretty regularly. Avocados are  both good and inexpensive here, finding limes is easy and in the summer season finding hot chili peppers is a doddle. (the rest of the year you can buy both red & green ancho chilies , bottled in most supermarkets). Likewise, refried beans are easy. Either starting from scratch or starting with canned red beans (these are incredibly cheap) if you're a purest you can buy lard or if you're not so pure you can use duck fat as I do. Tortilla chips are easy to find. One is limited for choice in terms of variety of chilies, tomatillos are impossible to find, corn flour is easy and so on. Thus, you can get pretty much everything needed to make most Mexican dishes. Maybe my blogging fried should take off her French Letter and look around her.

As it happens I made a sort of Mexican dish the other night. (before I'd read the blog above. Promise!) I called it an omelet ranchero because like the famous heuvos  rancheros it has ingredients that one associates with Mexican cooking. I this case there was a bit of Spain as well since there is a famous omelet made in Spain called a tortilla. So this was a sort of combination. Here are the ingredients:

• Lardons (or thick cut smoked bacon cut into 1/4 inch strips)
• Chorizo (chopped up)
• Potatoes
• green bell pepper (chopped)
• Onion (chopped)
• Eggs

Use a large non-stick frying pan. Size dependent upon how large your omelet is to be. Keep the heat at a medium level.

1. Peel the potatoes, boil them then cut them into bite sized pieces.
2. Start frying the lardons then after a minute or so add the chorizo.
3. Add the chopped (roughly) green pepper then the chopped onions.
4. Add the potatoes.
5. Let all this cook stirring frequently until the onions & peppers are limp.
6. Beat the eggs thoroughly then add them to the pan. Tilt the pan around to distribute the eggs evenly.
7. Let cook for 3-4 minutes or until a bottom crust has formed.
8. Move the frying pan under a hot grill in your oven. (careful!!) and cook until the top is set & browned.
9. Shake the pan to be sure the omelet is set. If needed put it back on the stove to finish off the bottom.
10. Let the omelet cool for a minute or so then turn it out (upside down) onto a large plate.

I did this for a 60's party where you were supposed to bring a dish so it was served cold. Its equally good hot off the stove.

To go with it I made a simple red salsa. Finely chopped tomatoes and onion. Lime juice and tomato puree. Salt & pepper. Chopped fresh green chilies (the type is not relevant since the names vary so much from place to place. Here they're called Piment Vert fort.  But hot green chilies doesn't help a lot.) The ones here are moderately hot. Add water to get the right consistency. If the salsa isn't hot enough for your taste you can add either  cayenne pepper or chopped very hot chilies from a bottle or, if you're in the right place some ancho or jalapeņo. Play around until you get the taste & hotness that you like.

The combination of the cold tortilla and the salsa is a great one. Both certainly disappeared quickly at the party.

Nothing difficult at all. We do like Mexican food so we go to the little bit of extra trouble to make it every so often.

As for the lady blogger  maybe she'll just stay in the states & quit spreading misinformation about France. Probably too much to hope for, but what can you expect from someone who does a blog whose very name is an insult to her host nation.