How British cook Rachel Khoo got a taste for life in Paris Food provided her with a way of connecting with the city, especially, she says, when trying to strike up a conversation with her new neighbours: "The way I discovered Paris was through food - visiting my local butcher or grocer, building a relationship with them, being passed on their knowledge. It's a great way of discovering France, because everyone has a point of view on food. Before long, she had developed her own signature style of French cuisine: "classic French recipes with a fresh and fun approach," as the Paris Kitchen book cover proclaims. Are the French ever snobbish, I ask, about a rosbif trying to spruce up their culinary heritage? "No, I think they like the idea of a petite anglais cooking French classics," she says. Parisians actually aren't particularly fussed by what kind of food they eat, as long as it's good, and they like the idea of someone breathing a bit of fresh air into their food. Some people do go, 'How can you call that a cassoulet?' but the point is that it's my style of French cooking. I'm not a French grandma. I'm not about following rules. At just 21 metres square - about the size of a decent double bedroom - Khoo's flat is so small that when running her restaurant, she could fit just two customers into it (and that was only if she rolled away the futon on which she slept). The kitchen, where the only oven is of the toaster variety and there are just two hobs, poses its own challenges; especially when a TV crew is crammed into its corners. But she's worked out ways around the room's restrictions. I make the kitchen work for me. I have to be very organised, very tidy. Everything has its place, and you always clear and wash straight away. Space dictates the menu too. When I was cooking three courses, I knew I couldn't have all three dishes in the oven: I'd have to do one on the hob, or have a cold starter. Although the flat might seem a less than ideal environment for a cook, the relentlessly chirpy Khoo counts herself very lucky to have found it. In Paris's overcrowded property market, decent rentals can be hard to nab, especially for freelancers who can't prove a steady income. The difficulty of securing a place to live was, she says, one of the more challenging aspects of life in Paris she had to get used to. The other was France's infamous bureaucracy. I'm very proactive and I like to get things done, but it just doesn't work like that in France. You can't go and knock on someone's door; you have to go by someone who knows someone else, and be prepared to wait. You have to learn to live with that, or your blood pressure goes through the roof. I mean, what capital city in the world closes down for the summer? That says it all about Paris, really. Right now we're in April; people are already talking about holidays, and next month, they'll start slowing down. Then you can just write off June, July, and August. Khoo's whimsical, girl-in the-big-city image certainly isn't everyone's cup of thé, and it's been suggested that her growing popularity is less to do with her cooking, and more to do with the sugar-dipped bohemian lifestyle she seems to represent. Her enthusiasm for food is, however, infectious. She relishes Paris's "dynamic young food scene," spending her weekends hunting out restaurants where she can enjoy a set menu for 30 euros or less, and waxes as lyrical about the simple pleasures of a picnic on the canal bank as she does about a coq au vin. Plus, while still being rather dainty, she manages, unlike some female TV chefs (ahem, Sophie Dahl), to actually look like she enjoys a decent meal. So synonymous has Khoo become with her tiny flat and kitchen that it's now hard to imagine her anywhere else. Yet even though she knows her home is a large part of the TV show's charm, she confesses the time might be coming to move her pots and pans elsewhere. "A bit more space would be nice," she says dreamily. And I'd love to be able to fit a full-size chicken in my oven. 'The Little Paris Kitchen' is on BBC Two tonight, 8:30pm. The book is available from Penguin/Michael Joseph, £20. Provence had Pissaladière, while in Alsace they have tarte flambée, a pizza-style base topped with crème fraîche, lardoons and onions - popular ingredients in Alsatian cuisine. Gluten-free is a concept that hasn't quite caught on in the land of baguettes, and it can be frustrating for anyone on a gluten-free diet who wants to try delicious French pastries and bread, so here I've replaced the regular wheat base with chestnut flour and tapioca starch. This means no kneading is required - just mix the ingredients together to form a ball. For a sweet topping, replace the onions and lardoons with thinly sliced apples and a sprinkle of ground cinnamon and brown sugar. Ingredients: 160g chestnut flour* 140g tapioca starch 1 teaspoon guar gum** 1 ½ teaspoons baking poweder ½ teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon light soft brown sugar 5g dried yeast ½ teaspoon sugar 190ml warm water For the topping: 4 tablespoons crème fraîche 2 red onions, thinly sliced 100g lardoons or cubes of smoked bacon 4 sprigs of thyme, leaves only Make the base. Mix together the flour, tapioca starch, guar gum, baking powder, salt and sugar in the warm water. When the yeast begins to foam, pour it into the well and mix everything together to form a ball. Roll out the dough between two pieces of baking powder until it is 5mm thick, then place it into a baking tin that is large enough for the pastry to sit flat. The shape doesn't really matter, it's the 5mm thickness that's important. Remove the top layer of paper and trim off any excess paper from around the edges of the bottom piece. Preheat the oven to 200C and place a large baking tray in the oven to get hot. Spread the crème fraîche over the dough, then sprinkle the onions, lardoons and thyme leaves on top. Slide the baking tin onto the hot baking tray and bake for 20-30 minutes or until the edges are crisp. The tart is traditionally eaten warm, but it's great cold too. Chestnut flour can be bought in health shops and online. For tapioca starch, try your supermarket or a Chinese grocery store. Guar gum is a very powerful thickening agent made from guar beans. You can find it in powdered form online and in health food shops.