Category: Fruit

30th November 2021

My father’s favourite dessert with pears, ginger and dough

If there is one thing that my father cherishes from the Amsterdam-Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side, then it is this dessert that he often makes himself.
It’s called “Peren & Kuchel” in Dutch/Yiddish and that means ‘pears and cake’ but that does not really describe it well as the ‘cake’ is a ball of dough that slowly cooks in the pear-liquid.

Beans Fruit Poultry

5th June 2017

Oven-roasted pigeon with broad beans and cherries

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. […]

Fruit

7th July 2015

Lemon and lime jam

I was in a jam mood, I nearly bought a real copper confiture basin but it would not have worked on my induction stove. Most jams are sweet, but this one is more sweet and sour, and very refreshing. Of course I made a huge mistake. While it is the high season for jams made from red fruits, it is not the season for lemon […]

Fruit Main dish Veal

5th July 2015

Veal roast with apples and cider

I am lucky to have a good, well-provided and reasonably priced butcher’s. Sometimes, however, I run into something even better when I have the possibility to buy directly from the producer. In France you can go and visit a farm, you can order online or you can find them on producers’ markets and that is how I got to know the people of the Ferme du […]

Fruit Main dish Poultry

5th May 2015

Canard à l’Orange (Duck with oranges)

This is one of those French classical recipes that have many variations and of which the roots are not clear. Chef René Lasserre made it famous in his Paris restaurant in 1945, but the dish can have been brought to France by the cooks of Catherine de Medicis , who brought several refinements to the French court of Henry II, not least the usage of […]

eggs Fruit

11th March 2015

A verrine recipe of grapefruit, wasabi egg white and prawns

At lunch parties, certainly in France, there is an expectation that there will be a starter, a main course and dessert, perhaps even with cheese before the dessert. So how do you keep all that light? And how do you make it look interesting and taste surprising?

Cabbage Fruit Main dish Poultry Vegetables

30th April 2014

Guinea fowl on a bed of vegetables and fruit

Guinea fowl is widely available in France and I find slightly more tasty than chicken and also belief their production is less intensive. I could be wrong of course as the one I bought for this recipe came from a leading supermarket poultry brand (Loué). But it is supposed to be less fat than a chicken and have more vitamins and minerals.

Fruit Uncategorized

27th March 2014

Lemon jam (marmalade)

The other day we walked around on the Saturday market in Dieppe and there was a stall with great-looking lemons. They were from Menton, which is at the Mediterranean while Dieppe lies at the English Channel. Nevertheless, Menton lemons are known for their quality and for being non-treated (that means they have not been sprayed with chemicals to make them look nice and resist insects) […]

Fruit

17th November 2013

Pears in sugar and spice syrup

On our Sunday market there is a vegetable stall run by four ladies and one man. They are a family, the youngest is in her fifties and the eldest, well, she could be well in her eighties. They come to the market to sell produce of their own grounds in the area, and other assorted fruits and vegetables from wholesalers. This Sunday they had crates […]

Dessert Fruit

2nd September 2013

Apricot soup with rosemary

The apricot season is drawing to a close and that is a good reason to try out some recipes before it is too late. At a recent visit to Granville, a great coastal town in Normandy and the Manche department, a restaurant suggested apricot soup with rosemary as dessert. I was intrigued by the combination and conquered by the result. Back home, I wanted to […]