Category: Main dish

25th June 2021

Foie gras omelet

Fresh eggs from a friend in the village and leftover duck liver – an omelet from heaven.

14th March 2021

I had been reading a book that involved a police woman from the Basque country and I wanted to prepare something of the local cuisine. Axoa is a dish of simmered shoulder of veal with peppers, chili and Espelette chili powder. I first cut a red and yellow bell pepper into small squares and chopped up a large onion. Then I sliced the veal in […]

Main dish Poultry

1st June 2020

Spatchcocked cockerel on the grill

Spatchcock, or butterflying, is a method in which one cuts the backbone away from the bird and flattens the carcass.

Fish Main dish

1st April 2020

A simple aïoli

For many people aïoli is a garlic sauce that goes over fries, kebab or shawarma. But in the Provence, aïoli is more than that and can be an entire festive meal with fish, snail, squid, artichokes and other vegetables with a dollop of the creamy garlic sauce.

Main dish

22nd December 2019

Pancakes!

In France, people eat a lot of pancakes. They are flat and called “crèpes” and can be sweet of savoury. In Breton pancake eateries they have savoury “sarazin” crèpes that could rival with pizzas. The “crèpes Suzette” is an alcohol soaked sweet desert. In the Netherlands where I grew up, the pancakes are thicker and can be baked with slices of lard or apples. I […]

Beef Main dish Mushrooms Pastry

18th November 2019

Beef pear with trumpet of the death mushrooms

My butcher usually keeps two special cuts aside when he gets a new carcass — the poire and the merlan — and I have the right of first refusal. I hardy ever refuse.

These are very fine cuts, one is oblong and looks like a fish (merlan being a whiting) and the poire looks like a big pear. They come from near the topside, in English butchery terms. For French butchers, they are near the tranche. It is lean and delicate meat and not so well known because there is just about a pound of it on an entire cow.

Main dish Pasta Seafood

18th November 2019

Pasta with clams, Saint Jacob scallops and squid

This weekend was the “Foire aux harengs et à la coquille de St Jacques” in the coastal town of Dieppe but we could not go to the Normandy port.

To mark this weekend of herring and scallops and encourage the hard-working small-boat fishermen there, I made a dish with scallops from my local fishmonger.