Reims Cathedral, much prettier than the Notre Dame Paris :)
Moving to Europe was definitely one of the best things I've ever done. We've been here for a year already but the novelty of traveling around Europe still hasn't worn off. When we first arrived we decided to buy a General Abonnement travel card, which allowed us unlimited travel around Switzerland for a whole year on any form of transport and discounts on trains in France, Germany, and Italy. It was definitely a good purchase!
Like last week, after three project deadlines in a week I decided it was definitely time for a Paris break to visit my best friend and cousin who are living there. Last minute TGV tickets don't really come cheap (you have to book in advance to get the 30CHF tickets). So I looked into carpooling and found so many people offering rides from Switzerland to Paris for the weekend. I was a bit sceptical at first (horror hitchhiking stories came to mind), but anyway decided to contact one guy who was heading off after work on Friday from Geneva to Paris. So we trained down to Geneva on Friday morning, spent half a day being touristy (the Jet d'Eau wasn't turned on since it was too windy) and met our driver in the afternoon. Turns out that the carpool guy works for Citroen and he got loaned a brand new C4 for the weekend to drive to Paris :)
The next day we decided to venture out of Paris to Reims in the Champagne region. After spending the morning watching Les Bleus beat Wales in the semi final of Rugby World Cup in a local Irish pub (unfortunately it was a much sadder predicament for the Wallabies/All Blacks game the next day), we decided to do a Champagne Maison tour.
There are a number of big champagne houses in the Reims region which all offer similar tours. Basically it costs about 10-15€ and you get an educational tour of how champagne is made then you get to sample a glass of their non-vintage champagne, and exit through the champagne gift shop of course. We had our mind set on the Veuve Cliquot house, but unfortunately they had a pre-booked event for the weekend. So we set off to Taittinger instead, about 2km away from the Reims main station.
The Taittinger champagne house is not currently used for the main production facility, but since it was the original 'factory' it was still pretty fascinating. The cellars are located in underground 'tunnels' at 30-40m below ground and it was an absolute maze. They are a product of ancient chalk mining, and the chalk is useful for keeping the right temperature for champagne production (11 degrees).
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| Tattinger Champagne Maison tour, Reims, France (Photos by Dhanadi Sukamdani) Happiness: wall of champagne bottles (L); champagne testing (M); Taittinger Champagne (R) |
The bottles then get stored horizontally in the chalk cellar, to collect the sediment of the yeast. After some time, they start storing them upside down on a champagne rack to force the sediment towards the bottle mouth. Then using some fancy pressurising technique they suck out these sediment and reseal the bottle. And voila you have your champagne ready in about... 7 years, depending on whether it's vintage or non-vintage wines. Apparently Mr. Taittinger (the 3rd generation which now heads the company) has a stash of 40-50 year old champagnes in that cellar, so he and his oenologist team can understand how the taste develops over the years.
So back in Zurich, while imagining what life would be like if I belonged to one of the Champagne families, I thought about cooking up lavish dish. This is a bit hard when you're on a student budget, especially in Switzerland! So I came up with this idea of a luxury version of Quiche Lorraine, my favourite French breakfast (after pain au chocolat of course). The recipe is pretty basic, but I added a dash of truffle oil for that tiny bit of opulence.
Truffle oil is basically a olive oil infused with bits of truffle. It's so tasty but also VERY VERY rich, so make sure to only use literally a dash! Surprisingly I found a pretty decent bottle in Migros (the Swiss supermarket chain) for only CHF11, and was pretty happy to use that! OK, when you start living in Switzerland your perception of what is 'cheap' gets distorted pretty fast... Anyway, I made this quiche for dinner, but I think it'd be perfect on a champagne breakfast menu!
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| Luxurious Quiche Lorraine with Truffle Oil |
Luxurious Quiche Lorraine with Truffle Oil
(for 3-4 people)
Ingredients:
1x 270g shortcrust pastry
4 eggs (2 whole eggs, 2 egg yolk)
250ml cream (I used half-fat cream since all this is going to be already pretty rich!)
2 tablespoon of chopped chives
2 shallots
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
100g Gruyere cheese, grated
3-4 slices of bacon (or if you don't eat bacon like me, use dried beef chopped up into little squares)
1 tsp truffle oil
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 160C. Line your baking tin with the shortcrust pastry, gently push the sides so they stick to the walls of the tin.
- Blind bake the pastry: place a layer of baking paper over the pastry and pour in rice or dried beans over the baking paper. Bake for about 10 minutes, removing the baking paper and rice/beans in the last few minutes. Tip: store the used beans / rice in an airtight container and re-use it next time you need to blind bake.
- Pour yourself a glass of champagne, baking is hard work.
- While you wait for the pastry, start with the filling.
- If you're using bacon, fry them up, drain on paper towel and crumble into tiny pieces.
- Heat olive oil on a small frying pan, brown the onions and garlic until they are soft. Set aside
- In a big bowl mix in your eggs, cream, cheese, chives, bacon/dried beef pieces, paprika, and cooked onion/garlic mix. Add the truffle oil and mix well. Season with salt and paper.
- Pour the filling into the blind-baked pastry. Cook for 30 minutes or until the filling set.
- Cool for a few minutes before slicing. Serve hot.
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