Tag: poultry

30th May 2013

Chicken with vegetables in a Dutch oven

I have often wondered about the name “Dutch oven”. I first encountered it during my maiden foreign posting in London, where we lived for several years. As a Dutchman, I had never encountered the name in the Netherlands. There we prepared slow-cooking food in either a “stoofpot” casserole or an oven dish. Just as Brussels sprouts are not called that way in Belgium, nobody takes […]

Cheese Main dish Poultry Vegetables

13th February 2013

Duck fillet with orange and chicory

I had a leftover magret de canard in the fridge from our most recent trip to the south west, it is a fillet of duck with the skin attached. Usually you put in on a grill or in a pan and the fat of the skin will drip down. In a skillet you can use that fat to fry the duck. However, I wanted a […]

Main dish Poultry

25th January 2013

Roast chicken with lots of garlic

There is a traditional regional dish called “poulet aux quarante gousses d’ail” – chicken with forty cloves of garlic – which often gets prepared with a sprinkling of dried herbs such as thyme, laurel leaves and a stick of celery. Sometimes the blood of the chicken and/or red wine are added. I prefer it pure with garlic and just a hint of dried herbs. You put […]

Main dish Poultry

10th January 2013

Duck confit

After the end-of-year festivities, the supermarkets offer discounts on certain products like duck. Due to the heavy use of duck liver for Christmas dinners, the remaining parts of the duck are left over. It was a tradition in the south west, where many ducks and geese are kept, to store the meat in a confit. As there was no refrigeration yet, the meat was cured […]

Main dish Poultry

30th December 2012

Capon in a bag

In France, the traditional Christmas roast is a big bird like a turkey, goose or capon. In the days before the festivities the shops are loaded with dozens of varieties with differences in weight and quality. Usually, the birds are stuffed with chestnuts, meat and mushrooms. After Christmas, some of the birds are left over and that is how I bought a 2.5 kilo capon […]

Main dish Poultry

26th December 2012

Roast cockerel with lime

I like chicken for its delicate taste and lean meat. A whole chicken, however, can be too much for two. Instead of buying legs or fillets, you can also opt for a smaller bird. In France you can easily acquire poussins or coquelet, the pullet being a young hen and the cockerel a young rooster. The very small poussins, still with duvet instead of feathers, […]

Main dish Mushrooms Poultry Vegetables

13th December 2012

Guinea fowl with ceps

A slightly complicated dish where a stuffing of ceps is put beneath the skin of the bird and then served with seasonal Brussels sprouts and chestnuts. There are various reasons to stuff a bird. The main reason is to add substance and flavours. Substance so that a family of six can dine on one chicken and flavour to enhance the often bland, and sometimes dry, […]

Main dish Pasta Poultry

10th December 2012

Turkey ‘oysters’, truffles and bucatini

At first view that title reads like an expensive dish because of the words oysters and truffles, but fear not. It is not what it seems. Turkey oyster, or chicken oyster, is the English denomination for what the French call “Le sot l’y laisse” (The fool leaves it), which is a small bit of meat that is often left on the carcass when carving. Originally, […]

Cabbage Main dish Poultry Vegetables

6th December 2012

Quail and red cabbage

There was some left-over cabbage and there were two quail in the freezer as I had bought six in one go one day in a sale. With a strip of smoked ham I turned it into a nice meal which we ate just as the television news had an item about the large quantities of food people throw away as they buy more than they […]

Poultry Vegetables

3rd December 2012

Partridge, cress and chestnut

Partridge has a longer name than its size. They have about the size of a grouse, between a quail and a pheasant. In French cuisine, young hen birds called perdreau are used. They are hunted but also farmed. I bought a perdreau on the market and was told to watch out for small lead bullets. When I prepared the bird, there were no bullets and […]