Chicken liver pate

Tuesday evening we had friends over and served this as a starter. It is a super recipe – very simple to make and with great flavour. Not good if you have a cholesterol problem though! Serve with hot toast, onion relish, gherkins or pickled dill cucumbers.

serves 4 – 6

• 225g chicken livers, rinsed and deveined
• 225g butter
• 2 tbsp brandy
• 2 tsp mustard powder
• 1/4 tsp ground mace
• 1 tsp chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• salt and pepper

Heat 25g butter in a heavy frying pan and when foaming add the chicken livers and fry over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring and turning them so that they cook evenly on all sides. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and place in a blender or the bowl of a food processor. Add the garlic to the pan and stirring all the time cook for just a moment without browning. Add the brandy and stir to pick up any sediment on the bottom of the pan. Pour the brandy/ garlic into the blender/ processor. Add the mustard, mace, thyme and some salt and pepper to the blender/ processor. Melt 150g of butter and add to the other ingredients in the blender. Blend until you have a smooth puree then pour into a suitable container of about 425ml capacity. Decorate with a bay leaf on the top then melt the remaining 50g of butter and pour over. Cover with a lid, foil or cling film and leave in the bottom of the fridge for a day or two for the flavours to mature.

recipe by Delia Smith

Cassoulet lite

Cassoulet is a hearty casserole from the Toulouse and Languedoc region of France. Perhaps the most famous being from Castelnaudary in the Languedoc which we sampled when we stayed there on a trip to France before we came to live here. It was a memorable experience mostly because it was so ‘hearty’ that we had to just go and lie down afterwards! Traditionally it includes pork in several guises including a trotter, shoulder and ham hock, confit of duck or goose and Toulouse sausage and white beans. Delicious as it is it was for an era when people undertook hard physical labour on the land and needed the calories – so it’s not for namby, pamby pen-pushers like us.

But hey, that doesn’t mean we just give in and walk away, no sir – we created our own version which we, rather unimaginatively, call cassoulet lite. The first version we made with chicken and toulouse sausage then subsequently with chicken and duck confit. That is relatively easy for us as we can buy confit duck in tins at the supermarket but if you can’t then the chicken and sausage works just as well. You could also go with a duck and sausage combo. It’s a complete meal in a bowl – just add some crusty bread to mop up the juices.

for 2

• 1 chicken leg per person, divided into thigh and drumstick, skinned
• 1 Toulouse sausage per person or 1 piece of confit duck
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 medium sticks celery, finely chopped
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 3cm chunks
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• finely chopped leaves from a sprig of thyme or 1 tsp dried
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 heaped tsp tomato puree
• glass dry white wine
• 500ml chicken stock
• 450g tin haricot blanc drained and rinsed
• tbsp duck fat or olive oil
• handful of parsley leaves, finely chopped
• salt and pepper

Heat a lidded heavy casserole over medium heat and add the duck fat or oil. When hot add the chicken pieces and brown each side. Remove and brown the sausages if using. Remove them too. Add the onion, celery and carrots and cook gently until the onions are softened but not browned. Add the garlic, thyme and bay leaves and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the wine and let it bubble and reduce down to barely cover the bottom of the pan. Return the chicken to the pan (and sausage) and pour in the stock to barely cover. Stir in the tomato paste and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover with the lid just not quite on and leave to cook gently for about 40 minutes until the chicken is tender. Remove any excess fat from the duck and add the duck to the pan with the drained beans. The duck is already cooked so simmer just until it is heated through. Check the seasoning, stir in the chopped parsley and serve.

Massaman Beef Curry

Saturday brings us more iffy weather, overcast and quite cold so the urge to warm one’s insides with a spicy dish is strong.  Our lunch consisted of a fairly simple poached salmon  and crayfish salad.  Just flake the poached fish in a bowl with the cooked crayfish tails and add the juice and zest of a lemon, a good glug of olive oil and a small handful of chopped dill.  Season well and serve on a bed of dressed salad.  This is a totally classy little number for a dinner party starter and can be made in advance.  If that wasn’t enough, with your leftovers you can mince it up with a knife and stir in a bit of mayonnaise and serve it on toasted baguette as an appetiser. Yum with a chilled glass of chablis.

salmon and crayfish on toast

Now on to the “stick to the ribs” spicy massaman curry.  Thinly slice 300g of tender beef.  Use a bought tub of massaman curry paste, put 2-3 heaped tbsp of the paste into a bowl with the juice of a lime, 2tbsp of sweet chili sauce and about 50ml of coconut milk.  This will thin the paste so you can toss it into the beef and let it marinade for at least 6 hrs or overnight if possible.  We also thinly sliced some onion and a pepper as well as grating an inch of ginger, chopping a green chili and mincing 2 cloves of garlic.  You’ll need a few kaffir lime leaves and a stalk of lemongrass which you’ve split in half.  Have the rest of that tin of coconut milk handy as well as some fish sauce and a heaped tbsp of peanut butter thinned in a splash of hot water.  Is all that ready?  Good, let’s continue…

In a hot wok add a tbsp of oil and stirfry the veg for a minute then add the ginger, chili, garlic, lemongrass and lime leaves.  Give it a stir or two then add the meat and all the marinade sauce left over.  Stir that for about a minute then add the rest of the coconut milk.  Get that up to the simmer then squirt in a tbsp of fish sauce, the peanut butter and the juice of another lime.  Bring it back up to the simmer and it should be ready.  The curry sauce should be completely irresistible with the heat, the citrus and earthy peanut all combining…just waiting to be poured over a steaming bowl of rice or noodles.   Oh and don’t forget your chopped coriander as an added fresh green flavour for your soul warming curry.

eating the fridge, again

We haven’t travelled much since we came to live in France – we haven’t really felt the need to. But, oh boy, are we making up for it this year. Having been to Canada to visit John’s family and just back from England for Derek’s son’s wedding we are leaving today for a 4 week trip to South Africa. Dutch friends who were planning the trip very kindly asked if we would like to join them – well, how could you say no?

So this week we have been trying to get ourselves organized and eating the fridge; Monday lunch an Italian salad of Parma ham and mozzarella, dinner was pasta puttanesca, Tuesday lunch we ate the remains of the goulash for lunch and were invited to friends for dinner. Yesterday for lunch we made a vegetable and lentil soup with the veg we had left in the fridge and  for dinner had chicken kiev which is the perfect panné recipe stuffed with ham and cheese.

There you have it dear friends and readers. We will be back just after the 5 December so au revoir until then.

Dee-Lish Goulash

John’s old head chef Rob taught him a thing or two and one recipe that has stuck is his beef goulash.  We had some inexpensive braising steak and decided to do some kind of casserole last Sunday.  In the end we remembered how good this recipe was and that we haven’t posted it yet.  Please try it, you will go back to it again and again. All you need for 4 is…

• 800g nicely marbled braising steak, chopped into chunks
• 150g lardons
• 200g frozen, skinned baby onions
• chunky diced carrot, mushrooms and celery (optional)
• 3 minced cloves of garlic
• 1/2 bottle of good red wine
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 400ml chicken or beef stock
• 3 bay leaves
• handful of chopped parsley
• 4 tbsp of creme fraiche
• 1 teaspoon of each; mild, smoked and hot paprika (we used a mixture of 3 sorts)
• handful of chopped, rinsed gherkins

Set your oven to 140C.

In a large cast iron casserole brown the beef  and remove.  Next add the lardons and vegetables with the bay leaves and fry gently for about 2 minutes.  Now turn up the heat, adding the garlic, tomato puree and some paprika as well as the browned beef.  Give it a good stir then pour in the wine.  Let it get to simmering and add the hot stock.  It should nicely cover your meat and veg.  Pop the casserole into the oven with the lid slightly off, this will help it reduce as it cooks.  You’ll want to stir and check it once an hour for about 3 hrs.  When the meat is sufficiently tender and the sauce reduced, put it back on the hob and add the creme fraiche, a bit more paprika, the gherkins and parsley.  Don’t forget to check the seasoning.  We had it with buttered tagliatelle (pasta, what a surprise) and felt like we died and went to heaven…soo deeply flavourful.  Two days later our Tuesday lunch featured the leftovers and we sautéed some sliced bell peppers and added it to the goulash to bulk it out and we ate it with big hunks of crusty bread.  It was even more delicious than the first time.

How time flies …

Practically a week gone by and no posts – how bad are we? No excuses to offer; we have been busy but not that busy – life just seems to get in the way of stuff sometimes! So another catchup; Friday was taken up with preparations for the curry evening at the local bar so a quick lunch of pasta and potatoes (see separate post). Saturday we were invited to friends for dinner in the evening so another pasta for lunch of chilli pasta using up the remains of the chilli from earlier in the week.

Sunday we were hosting a ‘curry party’ for 14 – this is something that started a number of years ago with friends who enjoy Indian food which is really not available in this region. Each couple bring a curry (the host organises it so that they are not all the same) and the host provides popadums, rice, pickles etc. Each curry is for 4 people so that you just have a taster of each different one though in combination they amount to more than enough food. Sunday we had; chicken, beef, lamb, prawn, 2 vegetarian and a dhal.

Monday we had a delivery of wood (if that’s not a sign of winter coming what is?) so were shifting and stacking bringing in the remains of earlier years and storing the new. A chefs salad for lunch and pasta with mushrooms for dinner. And Tuesday morning the chimney sweep came – the first time in three years we have had the chimney swept since we moved into the house but we don’t use the fire a lot and we have a very efficient fireplace so not much soot. In the afternoon we had an appointment at the dentist to get the old choppers cleaned. Lunch we ate up the remains of the chilli pasta and mushroom pasta and for dinner we had a pork chop with caremelised apples and calvados with a baked potato and some sautéed Swiss chard from the garden.

Now, perverse as it is having just lugged wood and had the chimney swept, Wednesday was a glorious day of blue skies and sunshine and we went with friends to a restaurant in the Landes and had lunch outside in the garden sitting under umbrellas to shelter from the sun. The evening, needing something only light, we had egg drop soup.

Which brings us to today. John has come down with a cold which is bad timing as we are leaving tomorrow for the UK for the wedding on Saturday of Derek’s youngest son. But speaking to the family last night he isn’t alone – it’s the time of the year for colds too. And the forecast for the weekend is a maximum temperature of 6C – ouch! So he has laid low today and cheered himself up with ginger and lemon tea and sought refuge in comfort food.

Pintade au vin

serves 2 or 3

• A guinea fowl is quite a small bird and so it will normally feed two generously with a bit left over or three less generously.
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1/2 bottle of red wine, something of good quality not too heavy or tannic – we used a Montagne Saint-Emilion
• 400ml chicken stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Take a nice heavy casserole into which the bird will sit comfortably. Heat over moderate flame and add a glug of olive oil. When it is hot brown the guinea fowl on all sides then remove from the pan. Add the chopped onion, garlic, bay leaves and rosemary sprigs and let them sauté a little. Pour in the wine and let the alcohol burn off. Add the stock and let it all come to a simmer. Return the guinea fowl and add some salt and pepper. Put on the lid and either continue to simmer it gently or put it in the oven at 190C/ fan 170C/ gas 5 for one and a half hours. During cooking, turn the bird two or three times so that all sides are cooked in the wine/ stock. Check that the bird is cooked right through and when it is lift from the pan onto a plate, cover with foil and keep warm. Pour the contents of the pan through a sieve and press with the back of a spoon to extract the flavours. Discard the contents of the sieve. Use a spoon to take off the fat that will be floating on the surface of the liquid. Pour the liquid back into the casserole and put it back on the heat to reheat. If there is too much liquid then cook for a while to reduce it. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Stir in the butter. Carve the bird and serve with the sauce.

Weekend eating

When shopping for our friends’ visit we bought some salmon for Thursday evening supper but after eating the sushi all we wanted was some cheese to finish. After they left on Saturday morning we popped the salmon into poach so that we could eat it cold in the evening. We made a sauce tartare of mayonnaise, chopped capers, chopped gerkins (dill pickle), a splash of lemon juice and loosened with some creme fraiche. We ate it with crushed salad potatoes with chives, and lettuce and pea fricassée.

Lettuce and pea fricassée

Melt a knob of butter in a pan and tip in 500g thawed frozen peas along with a splash of water or stock. Braise for 3 – 4 minutes until tender and the pan is almost dry. Shred 3 -4 iceberg lettuce leaves and add to the pan and cook for another minute until the leaves have just wilted. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Sunday we had a breakfast of scrambled eggs and ham on John’s homemade bread spread with avocado and a quick snack of cheese on toast for lunch as John was going rafting on the river with our friends’ children – their daughter won the trip but they were away in Paris at the weekend so John stepped into the breach. The weather lately has been beautiful but Sunday turned out to be wet and windy and 15C which is not the best of conditions for rafting! Of course, the weather today has returned to warm sunshine …

When shopping on Thursday for our friends’ visit we saw a guinea fowl (pintade in french) at a very attractive price we couldn’t resist. The South West of France rears a lot of the finest birds you can hope to eat – duck of coarse but  also chicken and guinea fowl and though they are not cheap the quality is superb. Better an occasional delicious bird which has been raised in the best of conditions than some cheap, poor battery bird raised in appalling conditions that isn’t worth eating. A very french approach – quality over quantity. Speaking of which, our friends, one of whom lives in Brittany, brought us a generous gift of fine produce from the Brittany region.

We debated how to cook the guinea fowl. Whilst some chefs say roasting is the best treatment others point out that, as a game bird, it tends to be rather dry if not cooked carefully. We thought of doing it the way they do in Lombardia, Italy with a stuffing of mascarpone or of braising it with celery which we have tried before. In the end we came up with our own recipe of Pintade aux vin and sneaked in the celery accompaniment with a celeriac gratin. It was, if we may say so, really delicious.

A week of nothing new

Goodness, how the time does fly – a week has nearly gone by without us posting anything and now we do post we don’t have anything very original to offer. But, for the record here is the low-down on our week. We have had visitors this week; the first was our friends’ dog Bulli who we were looking after for a week while they were away and he left Thursday morning to be replaced by two friends Thursday evening who stayed until this morning.       Monday lunch was a salad with tinned mackerel fillets and a horseradish dressing and the evening we had pasta with ricotta and tomato.   Tuesday we were out for most of the day as our friends Bruce & Jacs organized a golfing day at a lovely coarse that runs along the coast in the Landes near Soustons. It was great fun and in no small measure due to the patience and kindness of Bruce and Jacs (we had never played golf until we came here and this was only Derek’s third time). The weather was lovely and we had lunch at a small restaurant overlooking the lake at Soustons and an after-lunch stroll in the afternoon sunshine.

Wednesday john felt in the mood to bake bread and for lunch we made lentil and spinach soup but substituted Swiss chard which is suddenly giving forth in our veg plot having stubbornly produced virtually nothing all summer. Dinner was some really nice lamb steaks which we had spotted in the supermarket which we simply gridled and then deglazed the pan with red wine and added some redcurrant jelly. We ate it with couscous with chickpeas.

One exciting thing this week is the flowering of our very exotic-looking Datura which we have grown from a cutting given by friends whose own plants have flowered and finished while ours had not produced anything. Our friends moved the plant while we were in Canada saying that they were having too much sun and hey presto we now have flowers.

Thursday lunch was an egg salad with anchovies and balsamic dressing and we made sushi for our friends in the evening.

Friday we went with them to a local restaurant for lunch and in the evening made farfalle with artichokes and lemon but this time substituted goats cheese for the parmesan.

Tuesday Night Football Special–Spaghetti and Meatballs

John is a big fan of american football but has to wait till tuesday to see the monday night game.  We invited friends over and had some fun food before the game.  The meatballs and sauce can easily be made the day before and here’s how we did it (for four)…

For the meatballs;

• 500g minced beef (you can use half and half beef and pork or beef and veal)
• 2tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
• 1 small finely chopped onion
• 1 egg
• half a cup of grated parmesan
• half a cup of panko (breadcrums)
• a few shakes of worcester sauce

Season it  and mix it all together with your hands.  You can make the meatballs as big or small as you like.  We did golfball-ish sized.  Pop them on a tray and into the fridge to firm up for about half an hour.

Now to make the sauce; heat some oil in a big saucepan and carefully brown the meatballs, then remove them to a plate.  We also did some sausage pieces because they are so tasty cooked in tomato sauce. In the remaining oil fry one chopped onion and 2 sliced peppers with a couple of bay leaves.  When they are a bit browned add a mixture of several leaves of sage, some stripped thyme leaves and rosemary with a minced clove of garlic all chopped together.  With those aromatics filling the kitchen with their lovely scents, add about half a bottle of good red wine (we used a merlot) and let that bubble and reduce slightly then add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes.  Give it a good seasoning and carefully pop all the meat back into the sauce. Put on the lid so it is mostly covering the pan and turn the heat down to a simmer.  Stir gently from time to time and after about an hour it should be to die for.

If you go to the trouble of making meatballs you should make some garlic bread too. You know it’s the right thing to do.  Just soften about 80g of butter and add a minced clove of garlic, a sprinkle of oregano and a tablespoon of chopped parsley. Once mixed, spread it on both sides of a sliced up baguette and roll it into some foil paper and bake at 190C for 12-15min.  The only disappointment of the evening was that the Dallas Cowboys got trounced…but it is easier to take on a full stomach.