What can you cook for $20 in Paris, France?

whenever i come to a new country i always wonder where do the local people buy their food to cook what type of foods are available and how much does food cost here anyway today's video is simple what can i cook for 20 in paris france [Music] new country same taste test let's get into this thing [Music] now i do have a couple of rules first i've got to make enough food for two people second i've got to buy as many local ingredients as possible and the full amount is going to count but third i can use pantry staples you know like salt or oil that i already do have and then lastly it's got to be a weeknight meal that all of you guys can replicate and let's say less than one hour total prep cooking and clean up included so let's go take a walk [Music] to start my 20 is actually worth 18 euro and 33 here and before i just walk into the first place that has food i wanted to actually figure out where did the locals buy their food and in paris it seems that you have three main choices [Music] so now we're at our first category the grocery store behind me and i've shopped at a bunch here but the main ones are g20 the monoprix the fran pre and the care for which is right behind me now and someone from france let me know how you would rank these i'm kind of confused on like the tiers i feel like in the u.s we have clear like you know premium that kind of mid-tier and then budget tier these ones i'm all a little confused about but anyway i've just got to go inside and get two quick things and then we'll head to our next spot okay so the two items we came for were some confit onions which these are really good and some kom tea which is a french cheese i spent a little bit more than i wanted to this ended up being uh five euros and 36 i don't know how they say cents here um but so we're gonna have i don't know how much money left uh i guess 13-ish euros so let's go to our next spot i think it's time to pick up a baguette today we're primarily in the 11th and 12th it's kind of just nice to walk around the different era disciplines each one definitely has their own vibe and to date i've kind of definitely been exploring kind of the 5th 6th 11th 12th and in that area but then we'll get to the the other areas in the next couple of months [Music] so right behind me here is category number two and these are the specialty stores what's really cool about paris is the number of stores selling a single category of food you take a walk on any main street and you'll be sure to see countless belongery or bakeries a fromage or cheese shop a meat shop or a produce shop with a wide assortment of fruits and vegetables since france is surrounded by a variety of countries with different climates they get access to a lot of great produce for example i've been loving the citrus from spain and portugal so some of these specialty stores may be cheaper than a grocery store but some can be much higher quality and more expensive it just kind of depends on which one you're going to but let me pop back in here for a quick baguette so this beauty right here is actually only one euro and 30. baguettes here are pretty much price regulated and they're actually out of the traditional ones but this is called sensacion which i don't actually know what it means but to me it looks like there's just some cornmeal on the exterior and that's pretty much the only difference but we have a baguette from the specialty store so now it is time for the last category and my personal favorite the parisian open markets [Music] so now we're coming up on marche de ligre so this is one of the coolest open markets and it's actually open six days per week which is unlike a lot of the other open markets very similar to farmers markets in the u.s tons of variety tons of fresh produce i've got to get some meat too i think we have 12 euros left so we'll see if we make it because i'm trying to get a steak [Music] all right everybody so forgot to update after marche de ligre uh social anxiety was a little through the roof that's a very uncomfortable trying to film out in public um i forgot how difficult it is but anyway we have all of our ingredients and i can safely say that we just came in under the 20 limit i actually almost went over by buying these greens but luckily the steak wasn't too expensive potatoes were super cheap we've got the kum tea we've got our confide onions and we have our beautiful baguette and if you guys didn't guess we will be making a steak frites sandwich um i can't wait to get this thing started so here's the full list of the ingredients and the amounts we purchased for our 20 and i'm also gonna make use of a couple of these pantry items like i mentioned earlier first let's get the steak salted then we'll prep everything else so this was called hump at the butcher shop which i recognize as a skirt steak and basically just asked for one long strip that was cut into two portions one thing i've noticed in france is that most the steaks tend to have less visible marbling than those in the u.s i'm sure it has something to do with the type of diet and how the cows are bred but i can still confirm that they are very very delicious so after salting set the steak aside and fill a pot with water before adding a big pinch of salt to that and setting it on to boil and meanwhile i'm going to wash and cut the potatoes to cut these into a fry shape first cut off a flat piece to make a base then cut each potato into thin sheets and then across the sheets into our french fry shape and this is basically just a waxy potato similar to a yukon gold that i've found pretty common here in france so far once the potatoes are cut and the water has boiled just slide those potatoes in and we're going to let these cook for about six minutes this process is going to wash off excess sugars and it's also going to burst starch granules to help us get a better crust while we fry them while those are boiling i prep the sauce with the confit onions a bit of mayo and some spicy mustard that i've really been enjoying so these onions are basically caramelized onions with sugar added so they're extra sweet and that mustard is really gonna help balance it out perfectly the sauce also kind of looks gross but trust me it's exactly the sauce this sandwich is gonna need i also sliced up the kum tea which is an aged cow's milk that's super popular in france it's fairly mild and a bit sweet but it can be aged anywhere from 4 to 36 months eating a wide range of flavor intensities i've found it can be used in almost any circumstance like today's sandwich after the 6 minutes are up strain off the potatoes now wash and dry this pan because we're going to use the same one for shallow frying the potatoes now this is a technique that i normally would not do but it saves on using a lot of oil normally i'd use the wok filled with a bunch of peanut oil but today i'm actually using extra virgin olive oil which works decently well and the flavor of the oil does work with the garlic and rosemary that i add at the end of frying just like normal deep frying bring the oil temperature to 325 to 350 fahrenheit and then drop in those potatoes and this cooking process is basically the same idea behind kettle cooked chips the oil temperature is going to drop way down and then work its way back up into that 300 to 350 range eventually crisping up the fries now this technique does have some limitations the frying time is going to be a bit longer it's best for small or single batches of fries and it does require more hands-on activity to keep everything moving to make sure the fries don't scorch or burn on the bottom i will say though if you want to make a small single batch on a weeknight this is probably one of the best ways to do it i mean you get crispy golden french fries that are oh so delicious like i said keep a close eye on these because these can go from golden to basically very brown in just a minute or two now let's bump up the flavor so when these are golden and getting very close to done i like to toss in a garlic clove and a sprig of rosemary which will infuse into the flavor of the oil for the last minute of cooking just stirring everything together and that's really all there is to it you just want to drain those off hit him with a sprinkle of salt and mix everything together and you have these beautifully flavored garlicky rosemary salty and crispy french fries dude i kind of like this way of doing fries i don't know why with all of our sandwich components ready though it's steak time [Music] so set a pan over medium heat along with a drizzle of oil and before cooking i like to dab off any moisture to help get a better sear in the pan what's great about skirt steak is that they're fairly thin and cook up in just a couple of minutes i'm looking for roughly a medium or a medium rare but not too particular since this is going on a sandwich with a number of other ingredients and we're gonna slice it super thin now while the steaks are cooking slice up that baguette into sandwich pieces and gather all the other sandwich components i've got the cheese those greens we've got our baguette obviously and our sauce which is gonna go perfectly on this sandwich so this is what the steak's looking like after about five minutes you can see we've got some nice browning and this should be about medium or medium rare in the center now one big key with skirt steak is that you definitely want to slice against the grain of those thick muscle fibers unless i mean you like chewy pieces then go ahead so first what i do is slice these pieces in half actually with the grain then i cut it across the grain which is going to give me the right size to add those pieces to the sandwich the skirt steak is really a great budget cut it's juicy it's fatty and when cooked and sliced right quite tender too so now my friends let's cue some assembly music and give this thing a taste test [Music] all right everybody new country same taste test let's get into this thing that my friends is just a pure successful sandwich the steak is nicely cooked the sauce and the sweetness from those confit onions is so nice and then you pair it with some of the bitterness from the arugula i love calm tea the cheese and then of course put it on a baguette i think we're averaging about a baguette a day since we've been in france um literally can't get enough of them so proper way to uh to start off these videos but hopefully you guys have enjoyed um hopefully you kind of liked the exploratory travel aspect in the beginning learning about you know kind of the different places that you can buy food in paris which i think is pretty interesting let me know down in the comments what surprised you um or like you know maybe you want to come visit and start going to those parisian markets they're so much fun but hopefully you guys have enjoyed again the recipe for this will actually be up on my website um i'll make it nice and printed out for you guys like this is just to kill a recipe i know the video was kind of a challenge it was a lot of fun to kind of go in with a set budget and then be like all right what can i get what can i not get what can i splurge on what can i not splurge on so happily we came out with something very delicious and the end and hit the budget so hopefully you guys have enjoyed it's going to wrap it up for me in this one i'll catch you on the next one peace y'all you

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 900,120

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, paris france, cooking in paris, paris on a budget, how to cook french food, paris vlog, france vlog, paris france travel, travel ideas, paris, traveling in paris, american in paris, france

Id: Uxn9DSy71uc

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 18 2022