Vegan in Paris

French food is generally famous for being stinky, fatty, meaty, cheesy and glorious, but it doesn’t really come to mind when thinking of vegan options.

So, what can a vegan, who speaks no French* and can’t afford the restaurants, eat in Paris?

Baguette!
Baguette is probably the best bread in the world. It is nothing like the nasty, dry, “french” stick bread you get at home. Instead it is soft, chewy, flavoursome and fantastic-smelling, and the perfect base for a yummy vegan sanger on the go. We had ours with some vegan cheese, salad, and either tofu, Tartex or vegan sliced “meat”, and sometimes snacked on baguette with jam or peanut butter. I was basically in bread heaven the entire time we were there, and at 90 cents for a loaf nearly as long as my arm, they make for a perfect staple for gluten-tolerant vegans.

Baguette at the Louvre

Little travel tip: we have carried one plastic container with us throughout the whole trip, and use it to store pre-chopped sandwich fillings, such as tomato and vegan cheese, and tofu, ready to pile onto whatever vegan sandwich base we find. It makes things much simpler, and saves us buying loads of single serve things and expensive, crappy lunch options. Its also useful for carrying of storing leftovers in hostels and bnbs, and carrying sugar so it doesn’t get all through your stuff when you switch locations

Crepes!
Okay, so clearly you can’t just tip your vegan hat at any old crepe, eggy things that they are, but there are some crepes that fit the bill – made of buckwheat and water only, and available in most supermarkets and mini markets, and, I’m told, some stalls.

Crepe filling

 

Crepe and Le Torre Eiffel

We had ours with chocolate sauce and fruit, but you could also eat them with a cheese sauce, veg or vegan mince, which brings me to what you can find to eat in a supermarket in Paris…

Shopping for Vegans in Paris

There are two places we did most of our shopping in Paris, disregarding the fruit shops and boulangeries (bakeries)- ordinary supermarkets, and Namo Bio. In ordinary supermarkets we found a number of vegan staples, including vegan margarine, (BioSoft I think?), peanut butter, mixed nuts (although nuts are very expensive if you haven’t brought your nut cracker with you),  several brands of soy milk, wheetabix, raw sugar, Alpro soy desserts, and the like, but no tofu, and be warned, the tinned beans and lentils generally have chicken fat, lard, bacon or other pork products in them.

Namo Bio hoard - vegan deli slices, bread, champagne and truffle flavour Tartetx (I know, right?), choc-hazelnut spread, fairtrade tea, and Cheezly

We were very lucky to also be situated close enough to a vegan-friendly grocery store, Namo Bio, which served us well with lots of tofu, vegan burgers, vegan choc-hazelnut spread, organic fruit and veg, vegan cooking cream, even more Tartex, soy yoghurt, and the very best vegan cheese I have ever tasted. It was called Cheezly, but didn’t bear the Redwood logo, so I don’t know what’s going on there. It was a hard cheese, and tasted completely divine, creamy and full and perfect with no weird soy after taste. When I get home I intend to do a “best vegan products in the world” post, and this stuff will definitely be on it.

Namo Bio looks like this

With our stash of vegan stuff we had some good lunches and dinners, including some of my favourite soup, Creme Du Barry, and a decadent lunch of fruit, bread, cheeze, “meats” and chocolate, yum.

 

Decadent lunch part 1 - fried bread, Tartex, tomatoes, vegan deli slices and Cheezly

Decadent Lunch part 2 - apple and choc-hazelnut spread

Maoz again, with not so great results

Maoz on the river Siene

Hmmm...

Paris boasts another of the Maoz vegetarian felafel chain, which we liked so much in the US. Unfortunately I can report that the one in Paris kinda sucks. The felafel were edible enough, but the salad options were mainly just the creepy kind of pickled, overcooked carrot, watery olives and sad lettuce – none of the roasted cauliflower and broccoli or chickpea salad we found in New York. That was disappointing enough, but when we were left with upset tummies (which we suspect is a result of Maoz, but there’s no telling when you’re travelling) the thumbs down was solidified. Very unfun, and annoying because there are so few vegan options, I hate to have to diss one.

For those who visit Paris soon, Mr says it was good last time he was there, so it might still be wrth a look, despite my crappy experience.

Out for lunch at Saveurs Veget’ Halles
Website: http://saveursvegethalles.fr/

The one proper meal we had out (like, at a table and stuff), was at Saveurs Veget’halles, near Notre Dame. We ordered two set lunches, one with a starter and one with a dessert, for the best of both worlds, cheapo style.

We got an asparagus salad, which turned out to be a few pieces of asparagus with a little bit of salad. It looked bright but a little forlorn, but the asparagus was well cooked and lovely and the salad came with ingenious spray bottles of oil and vinegar, and of course, yummy French bread, so we weren’t complying.

Asparagus Salad

For mains we had the mushroom something with blackberry and ginger sauce, and a plate of what turned out to be seemed veg with a creamy chive sauce. (I read chive sauce and pointed, not stopping to think what “vapor” meant).

Mushroom loaf thing

Steamed veg with great chive sauce

Both meals came out with a scoop of perfect mashed potato and a scoop of quinoa. The mushroom and blackberry-ginger sauce was the definite favourite. It was sort of a loaf, which tasted great on its own, but even better with the sauce, a flavour combination I’m looking forward to trying at home. The steamed veg were, unsurprisingly, a little bland for a main meal, but tasty enough with the sauce.

For dessert I tried to order a chocolate cake, but ended up being served a carrot cake muffin. I didn’t say anything about it, because there is no knowing whether I ordered the wrong thing, or they sent out the wrong thing. It tasted pretty good, was nice and warm, and came with vegan cream on the side, but Mr thought it wasn’t sweet enough, so I got the whole thing to myself. (No complaints there).

All in all it was a really nice meal, and if I had the chance to go again I would, but I’d probably order something a little more decadent.

Link love

This post was really helpful – http://www.hungryhungryhippie.com/vegan-in-paris/

Also, this one (and the whole blog) – http://veganparis.com/2009/01/13/vegan-paris-on-a-budget/

As per usual, I suggest vegans avoid all the posts floating around about being a vegetarian in Paris, cos they seem to be mostly about how great cheese is and the few vegan options they noticed.

*This is where I learned all the French I know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXdhow3uqQ. Well, this, Eurovision, and two years of chef training (no, I am not a chef, it was a high school thing, and I never really got past how to make a proper club sandwich, a clear soup, clarified butter, pastry and pesto). So I can read a menu, an point out the shape of the chopped veggies, and then award points (as long as it is 8, 10 or 12) but not much else.

 

Quesadillas

Tasty, easy Quesadillas with guacamole and salsa fresca made up our first meal from Mexico.

Quesadillas are popular in Mexico and in the United States, but there are some differences. Mexican Quesadillas use corn tortillas, not flour, tend to have only one or two fillings, and are made by folding one tortilla in half, not putting one on top of the other.

The word Quesadilla just means “cheese in a tortilla”, and that’s what I went with in ours. I used Cheezly vegan cheese, which tasted great, but didn’t stick the tortilla halves together like dairy cheese does. We don’t possess a press of any sort either (tortilla, sandwich, other), which may have contributed to this problem, as I just slid them under the grill attached to my oven.

Despite the lack of sticking, the meal was delicious. I am a bit of a fake-cheese fanatic, and will eat any variety in any way, so I was bound to be impressed.

Quesdailla, a difficult photo for my little camera to get.

The tortilla and cheeze went well with the salsa fresca and guacamole, mixing spicy, creamy and tangy. Recipes, if you can call them that, for such easy fare, are below.

Salsa Fresca

• 3 tomatoes, diced (use ripe red ones)
• 2 spring onions, chopped finely
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 a Jalepeño chilli (the short, fat, green ones)
• a small bunch (technical, I know) of corriander, chopped
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 2 tsp oil (I used flax to up our Omega 3, but you could use any oil)
• pinch salt

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl immediately before serving.

Spicy salsa fresca

Guacamole

• 2 Avocados
• 2 spring onions, chopped finely
• 1 small tomato, diced finely
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• small dash of Tabasco Sauce (yeah, i cheated)
• pinch of sea salt

Mash all ingredients together in a small bowl immediately before serving.

Creamy Guacamole

New-York Pizza and waldorf salad

I love making pizza. I have this pizza base recipe I was given in a high-school hospitality class, and I’ve used it ever since. In an odd piece of coincidence, my recipe for Waldorf Salad is also something I picked up in that same class. Seems like something from high-school stuck after all.

I haven’t been to New York, but I have seen movies, and even I know that New York pizza is thin, large, bid on cheese and sauce, scant on other toppings, and so greasy that is drips oil.

To emulate, I used my general pizza base recipe of 2 tsp dried yeast in some lukewarm water to prove, then added to as much flour as is necessary to make a non-sticky dough, kneaded for 10-15 minutes, rested for 30 then stretched. Just play with the amounts of water and flour for more or less dough. To make one medium sized, medium crust pizza, its about 200 ml water,  to 2 cups flour.

I usually like to make a fluffy, crusty base of medium thickness for my pizza, but this time we went with thin… we were making New York pizza, after all.

The topping was tomato sauce (semi-home made with tomato paste and chopped tomato simmered with water, salt, and oregano), Cheezly, thinly sliced hot dog (the left over one from the night before), and mushrooms.

It went in the oven, and came out as an enormous, not-quite-round-but-otherwise-perfet-looking pizza.

Pizza

We sliced it and tucked in. I tried to fold it like they do on the Ninja Turtles, but either it wasn’t thin enough, or it was over cooked. It did bend/flop when you picked up a slice though, and that was satisfyingly movie-like enough for me.

A slice of melty wonderfulness

We had it with Waldorf salad, which is a simple salad of celery, apple, grapes and walnuts, dressed with mayonnaise, which was created at the Waldorf Hotel, in New York. I left out the grapes and used Plamil Egg Free Mayonnaise instead. It was pretty good, although next time I’ll use less dressing. It was my first taste of vegan mayo, and I have to say, I was impressed- I didn’t even like mayo before I went vegan, but this stuff was pretty good.

Waldorf Salad

A very tasty New York-ish night, it turned out to be.

Tex-mex night

***Oddly, I published this yesterday, but it isn’t there. ??? anyway, if it comes up twice, that’s why.***

Tex-mex food is a sort of knock-off of actual Mexican food, eaten and created in Texas (and all over the States). I can’t find reliable info on who created these dishes, but it was either Mexican people working in Texas, or white people with a penchant for Mexican food.

For tex-mex night we had nachos and fajitas, both of which, as it turns out, were created in the US. I also made Key Lime pie because our limes were starting to look a bit un-limey and couldn’t wait to use them (they lose their colour as they get too old).

Nachos are one of my favourite junk foods. I love their mixture of crunch and smoosh, spicy and cooling, and of course the always tasty combination of cheese and tomato.  I wasn’t dissapointed this time- the nachos were a pile of warm, gooey, cheesy wonderfulness.

Nachos yay!

I used plain corn chips, mozzarella cheezly, tofutti sour cream and easy guacamole (just mash avocado with lime juice, salt, tobasco and some chopped onion). For the chili I used SusanV’s recipe from FatFreeVegan. I halved the beans and added a packet of vegan mince. The chilli tasted so good, deep, not too spicy, and we had the left overs for lunch with bread. It felt like a real treat, as usually I just use bought salsa.

I didn’t use a recipe to make the fajitas. After finding out what a fajita is supposed to be, I fried up some tofu strips, green and red capsicum and garlic with some cumin and chicken flavoured stock powder. I put the mixture in some tortillas, with some coriander and Jack Daniels BBQ sauce (accidentally vegan, very smoky and flavourful).

Fajitas and Smoky BBQ Sauce

Key lime pie was for dessert. It is named after Key Limes, which grow in Florida. Usually it is made similarly to lemon meringue pie, which is more familiar to us here in Aus. Before you read on, please know that I don’t have access to key limes, don’t know how to make a meringue without eggs, and didn’t realise it was supposed to be yellow.

I used a recipe for Keylimish Pie, in Lickin’ The Beaters, a vegan sweets cookbook given to me by a friend, who knows the author, Siue Moffat. The book is full of low fat vegan sweets, and while some recipes may be tricky to make outside of Canada and US, the vast majority are simple and yum. You can find out more about Siue here.

The recipe called for a crust made of crackers and apple sauce. I used Nice biscuits, margarine, soy milk and golden syrup instead. I followed the rest of the recipe, and added a little food colouring to make it green.

Keylimish Pie with wildberry ice-cream

It turned out to be a very tangy, but delicious lime dessert. If I make it again, I might add a bit more sugar, and make sure I use limes that aren’t just about off! We had it with a little ice cream, to cut through the tartness.

In all I was impressed with our tex-mex night. I’ll be making the chili again, and I might have another crack at the Keylimish Pie, too. I’m loving having a good excuse to eat junky food.

Next stop, mac and cheese!