Category: Mushrooms
18th June 2022
Bresse chicken, morels, and yellow wine
The Doubs area is in the east of France, between the Jura and Switzerland, and is blessed with good products such as the Bresse chicken. These birds with red combs, white feathers and dark blue feet symbolise the French flag. Their special treatment makes them a reference in gastronomy. The yellow wine is a strong kid of wine with a taste close to sherry and […]
17th January 2022
Poire de boeuf, foie gras et cèpes
The poire de boeuf is a rare and succulent cut of beef, that does not need a complicated preparation.
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.
30th June 2018
A light soup of clam and langoustines
Now that it is getting rather hot here in France, it is time to turn to light meals. I used to make Japanese-style soups with miso and seaweed, sometimes also dashi, and while the taste is great, it adds up to a rather salty combination. So, I improvised. I bought some clams and raw langoustines at the fishmonger and some shiitake mushrooms at the greengrocer. […]
11th April 2016
Veal kidney with ceps and pasta
There was an offer on veal kidney on the market and I bought some. Two went straight into the freezer and one was for a weekend meal. I had been reading several recipes, and discussed it with my hairdresser as one does in France. What had caught my eye is that in several Italian recipes (for rognoni) the kidneys are first put in a bowl […]
18th January 2015
Veal kidneys with pasta and cauliflower
I must confess that this dish came together because what I had left in the refrigerator when we wanted to have veal kidney. There was still half a cooked cauliflower waiting for use. The rognons are popular in France. In the Netherlands, most people would not think about eating it. In England, the kidneys of the adult cows enter in the steak and kidney pie. […]
13th October 2014
Autumn spaghetti dish with scallops and ceps
Sometimes a dish creates itself when you walk around the market. The fishing season for scallops had opened and I wanted to do a simple spaghetti dish with it. The greengrocer’s had some of the last ceps – small brown button mushrooms from the Millevaches plateau in Corrèze, between Limoges and Ussel. I cooked the ceps and scallops separately in butter. Then I brought a […]
10th June 2014
Milan-style Ossobuco and ceps risotto
The other day I made a grilled chicken with lemon and did not feel like throwing the remains away so I turned it into a chicken stock. Then my wife suggested I made risotto and then I saw nice veal shank at the butcher’s. The ossobuco, “bone with a hole” can be made in advance and is even nicer when reheated. It also takes several […]
3rd March 2014
Slow snail fry
For a while I had been keeping a jar of snail in the larder. I had bought them at a food fair from the Bonvalot snail farm in the Jura. They “raise” snail in a natural surrounding and cook them in a herb stock without any added chemicals. I also had a large string of Lautrec garlic bought on the market of Lalbenque when we […]