Today was French cooking day, and Melina invited us to her place. At our first meeting, I mentioned my interest in French bakeries and how I wanted to make pain(bread) myself. Fortunately, she remembered and planned for us to make French cuisine with tartiflette and pain.
Since bread takes time, we started by kneading the dough for the pain. The process was simple, though I noticed that the yeast has a peculiar smell. While waiting for the dough to ferment, we began preparing the main dish, tartiflette. We chopped onions and potatoes, caramelized the onions with pork, and layered potatoes, onions, pork, and cheese in ovenproof dishes, finishing with another layer of potatoes and cheese. Since Emese is a vegetarian, we made one dish with pork and another without it.
We used two types of cheese: raclette and a creamy white cheese. We also added white wine to the dish, which surprised me, as this isn’t common in Korea cuisine. But we also use alcohol in Korean cooking, mainly to remove the odor from certain ingredients. Our pain didn’t bake properly because it hadn’t had enough time to rise, but I enjoyed the process of making bread. Melina explained that tartiflette is usually enjoyed in winter. Since the weather was so cold, it felt like the perfect dish for the day.
Yang recently traveled to Paris, and I plan to visit to France and Germany after this semester, so we talked about tourist spots. There’s a light festival happening in Tampere right now, and Melina mentioned that France also has large-scale light festivals. In Korea, we have light festivals too, but they’re smaller and more like street decorations.
Comments