A simple and straightforward Summer dish. We buy fresh green beans (haricots verts) at a grower nearby, and I just blanch them for later use in salads or other.
The farmers where we buy vegetables had returned from a short week off to visit their family and when they re-opened there were a lot of fresh new products among which several kinds of beans. Borlotti beans look nice with their purple etchings on a white background. Hariciot coco Borlotti in French, they can be used in stews and dried for later use in winter. […]
There are a lot of recipes for cassoulet here in the southwest of France. Castelnaudary, Carcassonne or Toulouse fight for the crown of the best recipe or the most original one. Cassoulet is a hearty dish and meant for winter, but restaurants here serve it to tourists in the summer when a lighter diet may be called for. The origin of the dish goes far […]
I recently found a website through which you can order fresh products from selected small producers. It works like a kind of market, you have a deadline by which you have to place your orders, the products get prepared and packaged and delivered at your doorstep. Even when you order at several producers, it arrives in one parcel. The website is called Tauziet and Co. […]
I have a love-hate relationship with offal. I have never eaten brains, testacles or heart and do not intend to either. I did have to change my attitude to duck hearts, though, so who knows. But kidney, liver and sweetbread I do like. Offal is rather perishable so you need to buy it fresh from a reputable shop. On one of my weekly visits to […]
You could make a white bean soup in about 15 minutes with a stock cube, a tin of white beans and some tomato pulp. This recipe takes a lot longer but the time and trouble is worth it as the taste is rich and smooth. You need to cook the dry white beans. I used a local variety here in the south of France, the […]
Green beans are full of vitamins and minerals and are not very expensive. They appear often on menus and at family dinners but usually are soggy and bland. There are not much vitamins left in them. Green beans, like pasta, need lots of boiling water and then a short boiling time. Putting the beans in some water with salt, heating to boiling point and cooking […]
The French eat more offal than many other nationalities. In the Netherlands, I sometimes ate liver or blood sausage but that was about it. In France, I discovered sweetbread, kidney and spleen but I have not yet dared to eat heart or lungs. A French editor once tested my willingness to adapt to France and the French way of life by ordering me a plate […]
In the past I did not like to eat green beans in restaurants and certainly not in canteens as the green vegetable bomb was usually cooked to death with no vitamins left, a darkish colour and as bonus sometimes a string that got caught between you teeth.
Duck is widely used in France, especially in the south-west where they also stuff ducks for the liver. Duck meat is often tough and needs long cooking. On the market in Dieppe, I found a farmer who sold ‘canetton’, ducklings. Not the small birds with a soft down, but larger, almost half-size, birds. This meat is tender and the portion is sufficient for one person. […]