Cookbook Book Club: #dinnerwithRachelKhoo

Yup it’s time for another instalment of the Cookbook Book Club – my once a month “cooking from the same cookbook” meal with Jan from Family Bites and Jenn from Chocolate Shavings. We’ve already enjoyed dinner with Marcella, dinner with Nigella, dinner with Ottolenghi, dinner with Maria Speck, dinner with Naomi Duguid, lunch with Jamie Oliver, a dessert party with Butter Baked Goods, dinner with Jacques Pépin and last month enjoyed dinner with Smitten Kitchen.

This month we travelled to Rachel Khoo‘s tiny kitchen in Paris through recipes from The Little Paris Kitchen (check out all of Rachel’s books here). Rachel’s food background is unconventional and she brings a unique perspective to food and cooking. After graduating with a Bachelors degree in Art & Design from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, she worked for a luxury fashion brand, doing PR and e-marketing but ultimately, her passion for pâtisserie lured her to Paris. Rachel studied at Le Cordon Bleu and obtained a pastry degree and has since gone on to undertake a variety of culinary projects all over the world. You can read more about her projects here.

We started out with some cheese, olives, fig compôte and pistachios and Jenn’s Alaska was VERY interested in taking part in the apéritif portion of the evening

Um, and the appetizer…

That’s a fabulous Cauliflower Gratin with Hazelnut Crunch Crust. Perfect for a chilly fall evening and we all loved the wonderful flavours of hazelnuts and creamy cauliflower. A fancy take on cauliflower cheese, if you will Get the recipe here.

For mains, Jenn strayed from the Paris book to make these fabulous Sticky Cassis Pork Ribs from The Little French Kitchen.

These were incredible – melt in the mouth, fall-off-the-bone tender meat with a gorgeous sticky glaze. Get the recipe here.

Served with a lovely sparkling pomegranate spritzer.

I was in charge of the dessert and opted for Rachel’s madeleines with lemon curd I can never go past a madeleine!

These are baked with raspberries (I used blackberries) and served warm with a squirt of lemon curd in the top. They DO look pretty…

As you can see, they did not achieve the requisite “bump” on top as madeleines are supposed to. Rachel’s method involves baking them for 5 minutes, turning the oven off for one minute and then turning it back on again at a lower temperature and baking them for five more minutes. In the end these took about 15 minutes in total to be baked to a golden brown and the bump never formed. It’s certainly an odd way of cooking them (turning the oven off in the middle of cooking) but if you don’t care about the bump (or know!) they tasted incredible. Loved the burst of fruit and curd!

Get the recipe for Rachel Khoo’s madeleines with lemon curd here.

Again, we were 3 for 3 with our choices. And, sans consultation with each other, our meal was very cohesive

(And no, Alaska wasn’t allowed to have any of the people food, but he was happy to be featured in some photos of the event!)

Buy The Little Paris Kitchen for yourself on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com or for free worldwide shipping, try The Book Depository.

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Please note: The product links from Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!

NEW: Want to experience Paris differently? Join me in March 2015 with AYA Life for a trip to Paris like no other – “like a local”. Details here.

US/Canadian readers: Win a copy of Butter Baked Goods and a box of goodies from the Butter Baked bakery! Closes December 3rd 2014. Details here.