French Fridays with Dorie - Matafan

So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living.

~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I returned home from my foot massage session to this. Fluffy. Mashed potatoes. Pancakes. Don't these four words sound really good to you? Put them consecutively together in one sentence and you've got the perfect thing to start off or complement your meal, or simply to patch up those pesky hunger pangs. Matafan, that's what they're called in France and this is our French Fridays with Dorie recipe this week. 

You would make these savory pancakes not by way of a regular pancake batter. The potatoes need to be roasted with salt for just over an hour and passed through a sieve or potato ricer. I admit I did neither, instead I boiled little slices of potatoes and mashed them with my old-fashioned potato masher. In fact, preparing the matafan batter only took me a mere 20 minutes or so to do. The photoshoot session might have taken longer to orchestrate.... :).

As I bit into the first matafan, I was expecting a pancake-y texture but it wasn't like that at all. In fact, it tasted a lot like mashed potatoes contained within a pancake! Or perhaps more accurately, a mashed potato fritter. I made mine as blini-sized appetizers, topped with creme fraiche and basil-roasted chicken strips. According to my food-obsessed brain, they were totally delicious and matafan definitely needs to be on our regular rotation from now on.

I bet the other Doristas had their own revelations about matafan, and if you'd like to be in on what they are, have a look here.

Foot massage was great... but these fluffy potato pancakes were even better!

Have a fab weekend, everyone!

Eating Goooood!

“Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you who you are.”
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), French lawyer & gastronome

How much are we influenced by what we eat? While the health of our body depends in large measure on what we eat, can we honestly say the same regarding our souls? If there's even an ounce of truth in this adage, then I'm a tinge nervous about what I'm going to show you. Stuff I ate today, for breakfast and lunch. A bit of carbo-loading once in a while isn't exactly a sin. But does all this carb in one day make me an unhealthy, inexcusable sloth? Maybe, but my exit clause is it's only for one day - this week.

Breakfast: Mini-Pancakes with Fresh Fruit

What better to start off a day than with fluffy, homemade mini-pancakes?

I had mine topped with golden syrup and cubed rock melon.

These melon bits just rocked! I mean, come on, just look at how fresh they are...

Lunch: Bolognese with Chilli Spaghetti 

Have you ever felt soothed simply by watching the gushing bubbles and steam coming out of something being cooked? Well, I HAVE, all the time. The sights and sounds of pasta and sauce bubbling on the stove oftentimes make me go into a trance, imagining myself in meditation by the side of a hot, steamy geyser (is that even possible without being scalded and landing oneself in Emergency?).

I felt soothed today preparing our simple lunch of spaghetti bolognese.

Boiling pasta

Spicing it up with Chilli-flavoured spaghetti! It's hot red too, my favourite colour.

Bolognese sauce bubbling happily. Don't even get me started on the smell of cooking, awwright?

I decided to mix the Chilli spaghetti with Calamari pasta in celebration of Paul the Octopus, Nostradamus Wonderamous of the World Cup 2010. Well done on the spot-on predictions, Paul!

(My theory is that the octopus' handlers just put yummier food in the box representing the football team they'd placed their higher bets on. And that Paul was a connoisseur of good food, it just takes one to know one. *winks*)

I settled down to a very happy Carbolicious lunch, indeed.

So now, tell me, who do you think I am?