On the farmer’s market here in Mirepoix, I found fresh kale just had to take it home. Kale, chou frisé, is called boerenkool and the Dutch eat it as a healthy and cheap vegetable in winter.
From time to time, I go to a Japanese shop in the area around the rue Sainte Anne in Paris, where there are many Japanese restaurants and travel agents. I stock up on some instant soups, seaweed, sesame, yuzu and dashi – a yellow soy paste. On the outdoor market in our village, the fishmonger had cockles, live prawns and cheek of cod. I combined […]
Cauliflower is a very healthy vegetable with anti-cancer and detox properties. However, it stinks when cooking and has a very bland taste. Basically, it is boring and needs something to liven it up. Often it is combined with cheese, as in the British cauliflower cheese dish or the Dutch cauliflower with cheese sauce dish. In France, cauliflower is often prepared with a white sauce of […]
This is a very pleasant and nutritious soup for when you are trying to lose weight after spending some nice holidays. I found some interesting beef shank at the supermarket – my butcher’s is closed for a few weeks – and started by making a beef broth. The next day I removed the (little) fat from the stock and added vegetables, chervil and pasta. The […]
Fresh peas are in season and I like to use them as a vegetable side-dish. It is a bit of work to get them out of the pods. I usually leave the peas like they come but in gastronomic restaurants they remove the outer skin and use the two inner halves. At least that is what I learned at the cooking school of Alain Ducasse. […]
At the moment you can buy fresh garlic in France. They look a bit like spring onions. The bulb has not developed much yet and there is a long green stem. Over the next few months the bulbs will grow and the stems will dry out and lather either be cut off or be used to string the bulbs together.
Here we have a culinary and national identity conundrum. Let’s start by saying that oxtail soup is a hearty winter dish using relatively cheap ingredients. Personally, I always associate oxtail soup with England, so my French version replaced the porto with a Banyuls and added some root vegetables that do not enter in the original recipe. But what is the original recipe?
This soup is delicious in itself but it is also a very good remedy against hangovers. Perhaps it is an idea to have some ready that you can simply warm up the morning after the evening in the festive season… There are several versions of garlic soup, especially from the southwest of France where they have the tourin – with onions and eggs – or, […]
A hearty soup is a great dish for Autumn. This is a variation on a recipe for a clear beef soup with kale, principally because there was no kale available on the market. After making the broth, I was supposed to dispose of the beef. Instead, I used it for another preparation.
The last of my three recipes with one lobster. Okay, I had a relatively large lobster but this also works with smaller ones. After you have eaten, or presented, a lobster, you are left with a lot of broken shells as well as the soft parts in the head that not many people like to eat. You could throw it away, or use it for […]