La Bodega

Great restaurant finding in Melun. Amazing made-to-order paella for two, no words to describe it. A good paella is like risotto, a marriage between rice and stock. I was very pleased to find that it did not rely heavily on saffron. Could this be a Frech take on a Spanish dish? I need to go to a good paella place in Spain to get a benchmark. And we will, for sure, visit La Bodega soon.

Pork Belly, Failed Attempt

We tried to make pork belly with nice crackling. Simple recipe, just place some bay leaves and crushed garlic underneath the pork belly, pour some water on the baking tray and let it roast for about 2 hours. Several recipes say that you should start at lower temperatures, and then rise it. Others the other way around. I just went for 150C and hoped for the best. 

After a couple of hours, it was looking good. I wanted to get good crackling and turned up the heat a bit. The horror. The skin was burnt.

It tasted ok, but it was overdone and some of the fatty parts were dry. The verdict, we need to cook it more slowly and have faith that the upper skin will become nice and crispy.