There are many wonderful things about living in Paris but one of the major downsides is how difficult it is to do the kind of cooking and baking that I love. I realise that to some it may sound crazy to say that in Paris, the culinary capital of the world, I struggle to cook, but it’s true.
For a start, a real oven is considered an optional item in many household kitchens, especially the famously tiny kitchens of Parisian apartments. There was no real oven in any one of the 4 flats we’ve lived in during my 9 years (and counting) in Paris. There was one pathetic excuse for a cooker that fitted into a cupboard and was designed to roast a chicken or bake a quiche but was hopeless at sponge cakes, biscuits or anything more exciting. So we relegated it to the cellar and bought a proper oven which is still going strong. Unfortunately most flats, in addition to not being equipped with a real oven, also don’t have space where an oven could fit. In our wonderful apartment on the Ile Saint Louis, it coexisted with the washing machine in the hallway between the living room, bathroom and bedroom. In Batignolles the only place for it was in the living room, much to my husband’s horror. This did nothing to counter the stereotype of eccentric English people in the eyes of the French.
Once the oven or lack there-of has been addressed, the next major barrier is the dearth of key ingredients. For two countries as close to each other as Great Britain and France, the difference in cooking ingredients available in the supermarket is startling. Despite much research, I still have never been confident in finding equivalent flour, for example. The French do not do self-raising flour. That’s fine, we can start with plain flour and ‘make’ self-raising flour with raising agents. The problem is that there are so many variations that it’s impossible to know what the equivalent to British ‘plain’ flour is either. There’s ‘all purpose’, ‘patisserie’, ‘brioche’, ‘rustic bread’, ‘supreme’ flour as well as dry mixes. Once you’ve sorted out your Type 45, Type 55 and Type 65 flour, you then realise that there’s no baking powder or bicarbonate of soda, just ‘levure chimique’, literally translated meaning ‘chemical raising agent’ – yummy. In the early days I battled to make the locally-available flour and raising agent work but after many dispiriting experiences, I have come to accept that I need to stick to what I know, even if that means paying over the odds for import goods (at the few specialist ingredient shops and now, thankfully, M&S) or stuffing my suitcase full of cooking ingredients whenever I’m back in the UK.
Nowhere is this challenge more evident than in trying to rustle up some mince pies, my all-time-favourite Christmas treat.
I follow in my mother’s footsteps in mince pie making, with homemade shortcrust pastry but shop-bought mincemeat. And so I began trying to track down lard, yes lard, for the pastry. Mince pies are nothing if not traditional, and this is one old-school recipe that has never yet been bettered, even by Nigella. Eventually I found some lard at, ironically, given what a cheap byproduct lard is, the most expensive butchers in town, on rue Poncelet. I realise that it’s not exactly a popular ingredient even on the other side of the channel, although I can almost always find it at the ordinary supermarket down the road from my parents’ house. However, it’s one ingredient I don’t feel good about travelling with, keeping it festering in my suitcase for hours.
But what of the mincemeat? My first mince pies of the year used some mincemeat that had been in my fridge for a very long time and was well past its sell-by date. It was already ‘matured’ mincemeat when I bought it and the resulting flavour was rather intense. I took a trip to the little M&S near our house, confident of finding some there but there was none to be had. So I popped next door to the speciality food store but there was none there either. And the result of this was my asking Don whether he could get some from the big M&S near his work. To say he was uncomfortable with this request was an understatement. « But what is it called in French? » he asked. « There is no word in French for it – it’s completely British », I replied. « I can’t ask for it if I don’t know what to ask for » « Well, the best I can do is that you can say ‘the stuff that goes in the middle of mince pies’. But there’s no French for ‘mince pies’ ». Eventually he managed to make himself understood and 2 jars of mincemeat were produced from the store room.
At last, we can get on with making and eating the mince pies!
Magical starry mini mince pie morsels
You’ll need a food processor to make the pastry the way I do, although any food processor will do – no need for a fancy, powerful one. Failing that, you can do this all manually by rubbing the fat into the flour and then stirring in the water, although you may need a bit more water this way.
I use a mini-muffin tray but you could also use a standard fairy cake tin, a rolling pin and pastry cutters – a circle (big enough to create bases the size of your baking tray holes) and a star (or any other suitably-festive shape) for the tops.
Half of the pastry mix (as you chill it in 2 discs) will make 24-36 mini mince pies, depending on how thinly you roll your pastry
Ingredients
Pastry
- 380g plain flour, and more for flouring
- 110g unsalted butter, fridge-cold and cubed
- 130g lard (or vegetable shortening), fridge-cold and cubed
Filling
- jar of mincemeat
- optional additions of (homemade) cranberry jam, lemon/orange/clementine zest and juice or marmalade, stewed apple, candied peel, glace cherries or chopped nuts
Weigh out the flour and pop it in a food processor.
Measure out the butter and lard and cut into cubes.
Add the fat to the food processor and whizz until well-combined with the flour and the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Then, with the motor running, add some ice cold water down the funnel in a very fine trickle, just until the mixture starts to clump together. Stop the food processor as soon as it does and tip the mixture out onto a floured surface.
Bring it together with your hands, divide into 2 lumps and shape them into rough discs.
Wrap each disc in clingfilm and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.
When the pastry has rested, preheat your oven to 200°C, flour your work surface and your rolling pin, unwrap one of the pastry discs and roll out as thinly as you can manage.
Cut out 12 circles and 12 stars. Line the holes of the tin with the pastry circles, add a small spoonful of mincemeat to each case (you only want it to be about 1/2 full as it bubbles up when it cooks) and pop a star on top of each one.
Bake the mince pies in the oven until lightly golden, allowing for a little more browning when heating before eating.
Always dust liberally with icing sugar just before serving.