The Ethnic Paris Cookbook

263 Pages·2007·51.87 MB·English

by  Charlotte Puckette

Cooking is the easiest way of crossing the
threshold into another culture. Paris has
become as important on the ethnic cuisine
circuit as London or New York. The regions
included in this book are the Maghreb:
Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria; Southeast Asia
and China: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
China; Japan; Lebanon; and the former French Paris is a great food city. Its unrivalled
West Africa and French Congo: Senegal, Mali, reputation spans the globe. The city’s
Mauritania, and Congo. At-home cooks will fi nd exceptional and delicious culinary scene has
it easy to bring the multicultural fl avors of the been slowly evolving so that today, eating in
French melting pot into their own kitchens. Paris is no longer limited to traditional French
cuisine. Mouth-watering ethnic cuisine, cooked
With the added bonus of travel tips in Paris more often than not by immigrants from former
to four-star ethnic restaurants as well as French colonies, has turned Paris into a delight
corner shops in ethnic markets and beautiful, for Epicureans who not only relish a traditional
original four-color line drawings by Paris-based French confi t de canard, but who also want to
Lebanese illustrator Dinah Diwan, The Ethnic savor tastes of a Moroccan prune tangine or a
Paris Cookbook enables cooks to travel via savory Vietnamese Pho.
their palate—ethnic Parisian cuisine will come
to your kitchen. The fi rst book on the market to focus on the
CHARLOTTE PUCKETTE, chef and owner of Cuisines et Traditions du Monde, her catering company
ethnic infl uences on Paris’s haute cuisine, the
based in Paris, France, was born in North Carolina. Charlotte developed her passion for cooking while
more than 100 recipes—including starters,
she was traveling and working in East Africa. Currently Charlotte is actively introducing people to ethnic
BRINGING THE FRENCH MELTING POT INTO YOUR KITCHEN
All illustrations by Dinah Diwan. cuisine through her catering. She teaches cooking classes and guides tours through Paris food markets. main courses, and desserts—are selected and
Author photo courtesy of the authors. adapted from internationally renowned chefs
OLIVIA KIANG-SNAIJE was born in Egypt of Chinese and American parents. She grew up in Rome
such as Faterna Hal of the Mansouria restaurant
and Paris and later caught the travel bug, in particular spending time in North Africa and the Middle East
and Robert Vifi an of Tan Dinh restaurant, as well
where she fell in love with the food. As editor-in-chief of World Media in Paris, Olivia published a magazine
as from food lovers transplanted from places as
circulated by 26 newspapers worldwide. She is a reporter for The Daily Star, the largest English-language
vast as Cambodia, Tunisia, or the Ivory Coast,
newspaper in the Middle East, and writes for Tango magazine in New York. She lives in London.
who are now established Parisians but retain
their culture through their cuisine. However,
complex fl avors don’t necessarily mean
complicated recipes. These will be easy-to-
follow recipes with step-by-step instructions.
7¼ x 9¼” • 256 pages
100 full-color illustrations throughout
$30.00 USA • $35.00 Canada
Publication date: April 2007
Discover more at
www.dk.com Author tour
CHARLOTTE PUCKETTE AND OLIVIA KIANG-SNAIJE
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the ethnic
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the ethnic
paris cookbook
by
charlotte puckette
and olivia kiang-snaije
dk publishing
Titles: Ethnic Paris Cook Book-TD309
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LONDON, NEW YORK, MUNICH,
MELBOURNE, AND DELHI
senior editor anja schmidt
designer jessica park
managing art editor michelle baxter
art director dirk kaufman
dtp coordinator kathy farias
production manager ivor parker
executive managing editor sharon lucas
publisher carl raymond
Published by DK Publishing
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
07 08 09 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
© 2007 by Dorling Kindersley Ltd.
Text and illustrations © 2007 by Charlotte Puckette and Olivia Snaije
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the copyright owner.
DK Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions,
premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. For details contact DK Publishing Special
Markets, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 or [email protected].
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-7566-2645-7
Color reproduction by Colourscan, Singapore
Printed and bound in Singapore by Star Standard (Pte.) Ltd.
Discover more at www.dk.com
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contents
introduction 6

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
a culinary journey
couscous in the cafeteria 10

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The Maghreb: Morocco, algeria, and Tunisia
bo bun business 64

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VieTnaM, caMbodia, laos, and china
Waiting for Wagashi 118

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japan
africa sur seine 162

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caMeroon, senegal, The WesT indies, and The caribbean
the best mezze West of beirut 206

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lebanon and syria
glossary • index • acknoWlegments 250

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(WiTh source suggesTions and subsTiTuTe recoMMendaTions)
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 THE ETHNIC PARIS COOKBOOK
A CULINARY JOURNEY
Tahar Ben Jelloun, the renowned Moroccan book that paid tribute to these diverse and
writer and Paris resident of 37 years, once sumptuous cuisines was long overdue.
wrote, “We cannot take our house, our olive When we arrived in Paris years ago,
tree, our well water with us. Cooking has an cilantro, star anise, orange blossom water,
almost therapeutic effect on our nostalgia.” or preserved lemons were hard to come
Like Tahar Ben Jelloun, a multitude of by. Nowadays it is likely that most Paris
immigrants from French ex-colonies and residents have a Tunisian greengrocer
protectorates live in Paris. They have arrived around the corner who carries most of the
in successive waves over the last 60 years: necessary ingredients for making a tangy
Senegalese, Cameroonians, Algerians, North African carrot and cumin appetizer, or
Tunisians, Moroccans, Vietnamese, a Lebanese mezzé.
Cambodians, Laotians, and Lebanese, to Both transplanted from elsewhere, but
name a few. Most of them go to extraordinary long-time residents of Paris, we met while
lengths to reproduce the food from their dropping off our children at school. The
countries, retaining their culture through their idea for writing this book came about after
cuisine. As a result, eating in Paris no longer we realized our conversations consistently
means just French food. turned to ethnic cuisine in Paris and which
These days in Paris, it’s easy to new place we had discovered in what
make a culinary journey through the neighborhood. Charlotte is a graduate of
city, experiencing the best dishes from the Cordon Bleu cooking school and has
France’s former colonies. We felt that a been running a catering company for several
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INTRODUCTION 
years. She had drifted away from traditional and even healing ritual. It was a poetic way
French cuisine, following the lead from of remembering the good things about
her clients who didn’t want shrimp hors their countries.
d’oeuvres with a French sauce anymore. We realized we had many resources
They wanted peanut, ginger, and lime at our fingertips: from the Japanese
dressing. They weren’t interested in pâté hairdresser who had been speaking
en croûte; they wanted an assortment of passionately and almost exclusively about
Moroccan salads. food upon each visit, to an anesthesiologist
Olivia is a journalist, freelancing for a friend with family from Hong Kong—his
variety of newspapers and magazines, grandmother’s Chinese restaurant turned
mainly covering the foreign communities out to be the first of its kind in the now
in Paris. In interviews with exiled writers, famously Asian 13th arrondissement.
filmmakers, and artists, her subjects often Thérèse, the Cameroonian woman who
talked about food. Discussing, preparing, opened the fair trade shop we loved to go
and eating food from the countries they had to, impressed us by being a first-class cook.
left behind was essential—it was a soothing Everyone had suggestions and connections.
“The mere smell of cooking can evoke

a whole civilizaTion.” —Fernand Braudel
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 THE ETHNIC PARIS COOKBOOK
Our book includes recipes we sought from a Vietnamese or Moroccan meal. (We made
chefs, ranging from internationally renowned one exception and included Japan in the
Fatema Hal, of the Mansouria restaurant book, because of the privileged relationship
(whose line of Moroccan food products are the French and Japanese have in terms of
sold around the world), to chefs from tiny an intense and mutual admiration for each
neighborhood restaurants. The recipes come other’s cuisines.)
from people from former French colonies and Most of the people we met were
protectorates, because the largest ethnic incredibly warm and generous, showing us
groups in Paris are from these countries. their kitchens, cooking with us, and patiently
With London right next door, we can’t claim answering questions about sahlab or African
Paris is the best place for an Indian dinner, djansan seeds. Sometimes people were
but we can say with confidence that it is for so enthusiastic about feeding us that they
forgot about giving
us recipes. We kept
returning to Feyrouz, a
Lebanese restaurant,
where the owner Adel
Raad had promised
to give us some
recipes. He clucked
over us and had us
eating copious meals
on an almost regular
basis until we finally
extracted the recipes
from him.
Other people
had heartwarming
success stories to tell,
such as Ouendeno
Moriba, a tall, elegant
Malian, who now
owns a company
that produces natural
African fruit juices,
teas, spices, and
vacuum-packed
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INTRODUCTION 
“The sorT of meal one can have in Paris is a
cosmoPoliTan ToTaliTy wiTh every ParT of The world
rePresenTed by iTs ProducTs.” —Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
prepared African dishes. As one of the only In the end, we don’t claim in any way to
African students in his field of study in a be experts on any particular type of cuisine.
university in northeastern France, he vowed We simply wanted to show this vibrant side
one day to introduce the French to African of Paris that we felt needed to be celebrated.
cooking. Moriba, Les Saveurs d’Afrique now Our task was to go out and get people from
sells all over Europe and to Fairway in the a broad ethnic swath to give us delicious
United States. recipes that they cooked here in Paris, even
As we went along, we asked another if they had invented them or if they weren’t
mother from school, long-time Paris resident exactly traditional. We adapted their recipes
and Lebanese illustrator, Dinah Diwan, to join to Western kitchens, and when there was a
in on the enterprise. We felt that her evocative good story to go along with the recipe, we
and colorful work would perfectly complement included it as well.
the flavors of our cookbook. Needless to say,
Dinah is also an excellent cook. —Paris, August 2006
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