Lately I've been loving Rachel Khoo and her Little Paris Kitchen (shown on BBC Two at 8.30pm on Monday)
If you haven't seen it you've been missing out! The show follows Rachel as she ambles around Paris on her bicycle, buying baguettes, visiting patisseries and drinking teeny cups of coffee...oh and she cooks sometimes too!
Six years, Croyden-born Miss Khoo moved to Paris to study patisserie at the famous Cordon Bleu cookery school and she never left! Now she runs the tiniest restaurant in Paris from her tres tres tres compact et bijou apartment in the trendy Belleville district! You can barely swing a cat in the kitchen but that doesn't stop Rachel producing some unbelievably yummy food...well it looks good anyway!
Lets be clear - Rachel's food won't win any Michelin Stars...but then again neither will Nigella's and it hasn't hurt her! Rachel and Ms Lawson actually have a lot in common - they're both about simple but sumptuous food! Rachel's Little Paris Kitchen is all about demystifying French food - using lovely fresh ingredients from the markets that seem to be around every corner to produced simple, gorgeous food. French cooking as the Parisian's apparently do it! Which all makes me want to move to Paris, don one of Rachel's numerous polka-dot dresses and buy a bike!
Rachel doesn't stop at demystify French classics, she also puts a lil British twist on them too. So Coq au Vin becomes chicken and vegetable kebabs with a Red Wine Sauce, Croque Madame turn in to little ham and egg muffins and Cassoulet becomes a duck meatball and haricot bean soup (above).
In between all the cooking, swanning about in markets and generally living an idyllic life, Rachel learns how to make the perfect baguette from Parisian master bakers, buys special stinky cheese from top fromageries and makes her very own choccy bar in one of Paris' top chocolateries. Wonder if she'll swap lives with me?
Just in case the lovely Miss Khoo doesn't feel like moving to Northern England and writing my Master's dissertation for me - I'm going to continue my quest for domestic goddess status and attempt her super chocolatey Mousse au Chocolat for Easter Sunday dessert. If I'm feeling really brave I might even try her choux pastry Chouquettes...watch this space :)
Xx
