Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized
10th August 2017

Wienerschnitzel in the Ariège

Here in the southwest of France, I can buy rather good meat straight from the producer and my recipes tend to remain simple to obtain the most of the natural taste and flavour. But this time I decided to turn two nice veal cutlets into schnitzels in the Vienna fashion. First you flatten the meat with a dough pin or pounder, add some pepper and […]

Uncategorized
25th July 2016

Sambal – A chilli sauce with Indonesian roots

The other day we saw a big bag of fresh red peppers at the greengrocer’s for just one euro because some had a few spots. We did not hesitate to buy them to make homemade sambal. Sambal is a chilli sauce from Indonesia. Perhaps sauce is not the right word, it is more a paste. A thick sauce. There are many varieties and recipes, you […]

Uncategorized
30th August 2015

Artichoke and hake

We spent a week in Brittany, on the coast, where we saw the sea with oysters and lobsters, and close to the sea there were large fields with vegetables. Brittany is a big producer of cauliflower, tomatoes and artichokes, the large variety. However, when I wanted to buy some at a local farm, the farmer said he had none left because of a dry spell. […]

Main dish Mushrooms Rice Uncategorized Veal Vegetables
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 […]

Fish Uncategorized
11th April 2014

Marinated mackerel with herbs

One of the many specialities of restaurant along the Channel in France, as in Dieppe, are marinated mackerel which is eaten cold as a starter. They sometimes use small, young, mackerel called “Lisette” which is caught on lines that contain many hooks. At the local market here, the fishmonger had a few boxes of mackerel at an interesting price and he offered an extra discount […]

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) […]

eggs Main dish Uncategorized
14th January 2014

A Dutch treat – pancakes

I know this blog is about French cuisine, but I remain a Dutchman living in France so sometimes I serve something plain from my home country. Pancakes is one of those dishes. France is well-known for its crêpes, thin pancakes of flour or buckwheat and eaten plain, with sugar or in more complicated combinations. The local crêperie here lists dozens of varieties, in the savoury […]

Main dish Seafood Uncategorized
8th October 2013

Lobster, just as she comes

Normally I do not buy lobster in my village or in Paris and prefer to buy them along the coast where they are fresh and cheaper. But the other day, at the close of the Sunday market, while we were heading to have lunch in a restaurant, a fishmonger caught my attention to his two last lobsters. One was a large blue animal, the other […]

Main dish Uncategorized
22nd March 2013

Rabbit with mustard and prunes

Rabbit meat is very popular in France which is the fourth-largest producer in the world after China, Italy and Spain with 40 million animals consumed per year. Rabbit meat is a lean kind of meat with little cholesterol but with plenty of proteins, minerals and Omega 3 fatty acids. The quality of the meat depends, as always, on the way the animals were kept, fed […]

Uncategorized Vegetables
13th January 2013

Snail stew

It is well-known that people eat snails in France and some other nationalities baulk at the very idea of consuming these slimy, slow-moving, pink-coloured gastropods. It is a matter of taste, but once you go for mussels, raw oysters and sea snails like the winkle or whelk, the step to snails is not that big. Of course, snails are cleaned before consumption – they are […]