Turning French - cake salé

No, not Japanese for a change! Ever since I finally got a copy of Linda Majzlik's A vegan taste of France (I tried for years in vain to get it through Amazon Germany), I've been forcing lots of quiche on everybody around me. Furthermore, I heard of this wonderful invention called cake salé. Now that's not something you might have heard among the croissants, vichysoisses, cassoulets, ratatouilles and other famous French foods. Cake salé is a proper home style French food, and cannot be bought in shops usually.

What it essentially is is a moist, wonderful, savoury snack that's very easy to bake, even when you're me and cannot really bake. You can use everything you like - olives, peppers, herbs, cubes of (vegan) cheese, tiny bits of seitan or tempeh, sundried tomatoes, grated courgettes or carrots...
It's wonderful on its own, with a spread, or along a soup or salad.

I love doing a simple olive and courgette version. This is for a small loaf tin.

Cake Salé type Backyard N19

• 1.5 cups of flour
• 0.5 cup soy yoghurt
• 1 courgette, grated
• 100g olives, chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• about 1 tablespoon dried/ 2 tbsp fresh chopped herbs (I used a mix of rosemary, sage and water where necessary (might depend on the size of your courgette)

Mix everything - the batter should be like muffin dough, not overmixed, and not too moist. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 30 mins at 180°C. Eat hot, cold, toasted, whatever way really!

Speaking of France, I went to Paris for the first time in ages this weekend. It was wonderful, the city wasn't busy and I got to see many things that I haven't seen before, including L'Orangerie with Monet's waterlilies (not sea roses as I awkwardly translated literally from German :) ). It also was the first time that nobody attempted to speak in any language other than French to me, which means my French must have improved quite a bit in the last few months!

Sunday afternoon when I had some time left before my train, I went to Musée de Carnavalet in Le Marais, which is touted as "the Paris history museum", but actually it was much more than this. It's a beautiful old town villa with a wonderful (herb) garden and a collection of paintings, everyday things and exhibits of actual historical value. And the best: admission is free, a rare thing in Paris! I'll be back!