A few Saturdays ago,
Rachel Khoo came to town. The quirky chef took the time to demonstrate a few of her recipes in front of a live audience at
Paradigm. As much as this would interest me, I had sadly missed it. To make up for the missed opportunity, I went to the bookstore instead to pick up her old cookbook
The Little Paris Kitchen. I confess to having the biggest girl crush on her at the moment. These days, her exciting
Kitchen Notebook show has been a staple on our idiot box next to anything with Gordon Ramsay. I admire her simple ways of demystifying French cuisine, making them accessible to amateur cooks like me. Her fashion sense is downright charming too and every time I see her whipping up a dish in her vintage dress, my heart swells. She is the kind of woman who I aspire to be.
Rachel’s story (yes, we’re on first name basis because she feels like a friend), in fact, is nothing short of charming. The Croydon-bred lass moved to Paris on her own after a few unsatisfying years working in fashion PR and cooked her way through Cordon Bleu. She took up a small apartment in the hip area of Belleville with the tiniest kitchen and concocted her recipes on a gas ring stove and petite oven. Soon, she charmed her way to television after the success of her supper club
La Petite Cuisine à Paris and satisfying a whole lot of Parisian diners. Don’t you think her life sounds like a British version of
Amélie? For any girl who’s been enchanted by the ways of the French or dreaming of an ‘accidental’ career, Rachel is a definite inspiration.
While I have a collection of recipe books that I inherited from my mom, I had never once bought one for my own use. Having Little Paris Kitchen as my first book of recipes feels very grown-up and dare I say it? Life-changing. The thing that we both have in common is the tiny kitchen (as well as our Malaysian roots to boot) and to cook in one, I must say, takes a lot of courage and creativity. Rachel shows you how to cook fearlessly in a small space and creates delicious French-inspired meals with her own spin. Her take on the food is out-and-out unpretentious, approachable and effortless. I bookmarked a few of the classic dishes like the coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon (hers includes some baguette dumplings) and gratin dauphinois to make for future dinners or get-togethers.
The first meal I made out of the cookbook is the chicken and white mushrooms recipe. Having cooked and eaten this, N and I discovered how partial we are to white wine sauce. While the dish was delicious, we unfortunately experienced burning sensation down our throat after dinner and spent the next couple of hours sleeping off our allergy! The following day, I tried my hand at the pistou soup— a simple recipe from the countryside of Provence— and this time we enjoyed it without harm. The pesto’s made entirely out of fresh, homegrown basil and garlic while the soup featured cannellini beans and dried pasta. What could be more comforting than curling up at night with this warm bowl of hearty soup? It’s the easiest to make and finding the ingredients is not as hard as one might think.
I still have my eyes on French cooking classes but till then, I figure Rachel’s cookbook will do the trick. Reading this gets me excited about having a kitchen in the first place and spending time sourcing out fresh ingredients in the wet market during weekends. The cookbook also has many photographs of Rachel making her way through colorful Parisian markets and they’re always a joy to look at. It’s definitely one of those cookbooks that double as coffee table ones. There are just so many new recipes to try every single day from this one that’ll make you think twice about spending a dime eating out. Bon appétit!
PS Learn a
thing or
two about cooking from Chef Rachel.
