-
Yuzu roast chicken with garlic and herbs and all sorts of disobedience
Yuzu roast chicken with garlic and herbs While I was last in London 10 days ago, Luc was forced to stage an intervention when a procession of seven armoured vehicles, containing AK 47-toting soldiers got lost and ended up in the garden. If I’d been alone in the house, I think I might have been intimidated by the sight of a battalion rocking up in front of the house. Luc, not so much; he went outside, scantily clad, and escorted them off the property in reverse, to avoid damaging the lawn. He then sent them on their way, gently mocking the fact that they’d managed to get lost, despite their state of the art navigation systems. It takes some nerve to take the piss out of a bunch of soldiers with loaded machine guns, doesn’t it?
Escorting the army off the property While Luc handles a battalion with ease, I struggle with a single naughty puppy. The puppy in question belongs to our neighbours and I have been taking him, their other dog and Java out during the day while they are at work. I thought, proudly, that I had everything in hand, and even convinced myself that I could easily manage a couple more dogs, when the little minx leapt up and grabbed the trailing cord my keys were on from my pocket. A frenetic, zigzagging chase through the pine trees ensued, culminating in me having to throw myself over the over-excited wriggler, rugby tackle-style. Dignified it was not, but I did regain possession of my mud-covered, dribble-splattered door keys.
Unbridled black and white mischief 
Pine-scented chaos Recipe for yuzu roast chicken with garlic and herbs (serves 4)
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 5 garlic cloves, 1 of which should be crushed
- 1/2 teaspoon chopped rosemary, plus 2 rosemary sprigs
- 1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme, plus 2 thyme sprigs
- 1/2 teaspoon finely grated yuzu zest (or lemon zest)
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 chicken, gutted
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 1 yuzu, cut into wedges (you can use a lemon instead)
- 1 cup chicken stock
Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a bowl, mix the butter with the crushed garlic, chopped herbs, and the yuzu zest, then season with salt and pepper. Rub the herb butter all over the chicken, piercing the chicken skin with a fork to allow the butter to seep in, then place in a roasting tin. Add the sliced onion, remaining garlic cloves and the yuzu to the top of the chicken, as well as the remaining sprigs of herbs. Pour the chicken stock over the top and roast in the oven for an hour.
Delicious served with butternut purée and green beans.
Yuzu health benefits
Yuzu is a citrus plant and fruit that belongs to the the Rutaceae family. It is often described as a cross between a grapefruit, lime and mandarin orange. It has a distinctly sour flavour, which is much more intensely fragrant than lemon. Its oil is extracted and revered for its therapeutic effect.
The yuzu is highly nutritious, particularly high is vitamin C, B vitamins, vitamin A and copper. It also contains powerful plant compounds such as carotenoids, flavonoids, and limonoids, which act as antioxidants in the body. In addition, hesperidin and naringin act as anticoagulants and antioxidants which protect the brain.
The scent of yuzu oil is particularly soothing, potentially helping reduce tension and anxiety. In one study it was shown to decrease stress markers, such as mood disturbance, tension, depression, anger, and confusion.
-
English custard tarts and up in arms in London
English custard tarts I was in a queue on a London bus last week, behind a woman asking the bus driver for complicated directions to an obscure destination. All-in-all, she seemed very needy direction-wise, and was determined to contradict everything the patient driver said in his perfect, charmingly accented English.
She finally huffed and puffed her way to a seat, muttering that she still didn’t know where she was going. She grabbed me as I looked for a seat and asked if I could help. She said ‘why don’t they employ English people? I’m not from around here (meaning she was from Brexitland) and I couldn’t understand a word he said because of his accent’.
A red rag to a bull
I told her that I had understood every word he’d said, despite being behind her, and when she insisted that he hadn’t been speaking English properly and that I should help her, I said: ‘No I can’t help you. I have a strict ‘I don’t help racists’ policy.’
The irony was, the person to finally take her in hand, and show her where to get off the bus was a Polish lady (with an accent).
Another thing that made hiss and spit (I’m really selling myself here) was the number of people I saw carrying their dogs in baby wrap slings. I mean WTAF? They weren’t carrying handicapped or injured dogs, or even unvaccinated puppies; these were fully-functioning canines equipped with the requisite four legs and a tail.
My brain and my mouth often have separate agendas: while it was very challenging to prevent my mouth from snarling sarcasm and abuse, my brain has been feeling guilty ever since for never having carried Java around in a scarf…
Despite the various sources of irritation, I rediscovered these English custard tarts during my trip. I used to love them as a child, and the ones I ate last week didn’t disappoint!
Recipe for English Custard Tart (serves 6)
For the shortcrust pastry:
- 110g flour
- Pinch of salt
- 50g butter, cut into squares
- Cold water
For the custard filling:
- 400ml single cream
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 3 large eggs
- 40g sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Whole nutmeg, grated
To make the shortcrust pastry:
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Next add the butter to the bowl and, with a knife, cut into smaller pieces into the flour. Then rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle roughly a tablespoon of water into the mixture and gradually start to form a dough ball, first of all using a spoon, then your fingers. If the mixture is too dry and isn’t forming a ball, add a drop more water. Place the pastry in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
When you’re ready to roll out the pastry, prepare a tart tin and then line with the pastry. I used separate tins to make mini tarts, but you could also use a larger one. Cover the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with dry beans and bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, remove the beans and greaseproof paper and cook for a further 10 minutes.
To make the custard filling:
Place the cream and butter in a saucepan and bring it up to a gentle simmer, then whisk the eggs and sugar together. Pour the hot creamy liquid over the beaten eggs, add the vanilla extract and half the freshly grated nutmeg and whisk briefly again. Pour the filling into the tart case and grate the rest of the nutmeg all over. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes, or until the filling is just set in the centre.
-
Courgette and parmesan pancakes, and post office shenanigans
Courgette and parmesan pancakes I was greeted at ‘La Poste’ yesterday by an armed security guard, a bouncer almost. He gave me a very thorough visual frisk, concluded, I assume, that I was unarmed, and let me in. I was then ushered to a smiling receptionist who offered ‘a mini bar of chocolate while I waited’. This was beginning to sound ominous. I hadn’t come to La Poste to dance, eat chocolate or to wait; I had come for a stamp. It turns out the mini bar of chocolate would have needed to be laced with premium skunk to take away the pain of the wait and general confusion.
Show respect and kindness towards the vending machines
Once settled in a surprisingly orderly queue (as a rule the French don’t queue; they entangle themselves together anarchically, whining loudly), I looked around and realised that I had never seen so many postal employees in one room. And then it dawned on me that I had never seen so many automats either. There was an employee for every automat. Was I missing something? Aren’t automats meant to steal jobs, not dole them out? There were notices above the automats asking customers to be ‘kind and respectful towards the machines’. No foul temperedness directed towards automats would be tolerated.
In the end it took 47 minutes to buy a single stamp. I was helped by three different people who patiently coached me on how to coax a stamp from a vending machine. To no avail. In the end, a stamp was ripped from a book, old style. And I never got my change because the automatic change drawer refused to open, and by this time I was losing the will to live. I left stuffed full of chocolate, a few centimes poorer, my head reeling.
Recipe for courgette and parmesan pancakes (serves 2)
- 1 egg
- 85g flour (I used spelt flour but any flour will work)
- 100ml milk
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon curry powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 200g courgettes, grated
- 30g parmesan, grated
- 10ml olive oil
Combine the egg and flour in a mixing bowl, gradually adding the milk. Add the bicarbonate of soda and seasoning, continuing to mix. Lastly incorporate the garlic, grated courgettes and parmesan. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and spoon the mixture and fry over a medium heat until the pancakes are golden brown on each side.
May be eaten alone with a green salad, or topped with smoked ham and a poached egg.
-
Fig and raspberry jam and erratic horses and weather part 568
Fig and raspberry jam 
We have a friend with five dogs that he comes to exercise on our grounds several times a week. It’s been very hot, so he brings water in a backpack, to transfer into a bucket for the dogs to drink from. The other day, he placed the bucket next to the horses’ fence. Big Mistake. Bijou, with his beady eye for a prank, spotted the bucket, emptied the water, and ran off with both the bucket and attendant back pack in his teeth to show the others how clever he was.
It’s not just our horses that are unpredictable; our weather can be pretty eccentric as well. Last night, to make the most of the warm, late summer evening, we invited friends to dinner on the terrace. (To sit on the terrace at this time of year, you need to be armed with very heavy duty mosquito repellent. One of our friends said that Luc ‘smelled like a horse’, not because he actually smells like a horse, but because he was absolutely slathered in an insect repellent we usually use on the horses.)
In just a couple of minutes, the weather went from balmy to barmy. We were surprised by a sudden drop in temperature and a gust of wind so intensely powerful that it took out three trees, caused a horse stampede, and cleared the table of its contents. We saw in the news later on, that our area had been hit by an arcus, which is a bit like a sideways tornado. Trust us to organise a dinner party outside when there’s going to be a rare weather phenomenon!
Recipe for fig and raspberry jam (makes 2 jars)
- 220g fresh figs
- 220g fresh raspberries
- 220g sugar
- 1/2 lemon, juiced
Place the figs, raspberries and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer. Continue to simmer for 10 minutes, then add the lemon juice and blend. Pour into two sterilised jam jars.
-
Black cherry Basque cake, and proliferate turtle doves invade the wisteria
Black cherry Basque cake Once upon a time, in a charming corner of rural South West France, lived a pair of turtle doves, Jean-Pierre and Emilie, nestled above a sun-kissed terrace. Their home, a disheveled and rather tangled nest made from branches, hay and horsehair, was woven into the wisteria that covered the terrace in summer, protecting from the sun’s powerful rays.
Jean-Pierre, a romantic in true French tradition, wooed Emilie day and night with sweet coos and gifts of twigs and worms. Emilie, charmed, and then seduced by his devotion, soon laid a clutch of eggs, and then another, and another! Very soon, the wisteria above the terrace was bustling with the flutter of tiny wings and the chorus of hungry, impatient chirps.
The human owners of the terrace, Fiona and Luc, were delighted by the growing turtle dove family, or to be precise Fiona was delighted, while Luc was rather concerned with the mess they made on his pristine terrace. Nonetheless, they both watched in amusement as Jean-Pierre and Emilie worked tirelessly, feeding their ever-expanding brood. It was quite an undertaking: As soon as they’d fed one little beak, another tweeted hungrily to claim his ration. Jean-Pierre and Emilie sometimes rested on the terrace furniture to regain their strength before flying off again to get more food supplies.
One morning, as Luc sipped his coffee, he counted no fewer than twelve fluffy chicks happily perched along the wisteria. ‘We may need a bigger terrace’, he chuckled to Fiona. Emilie cooed in agreement, while Jean-Pierre puffed up his chest with pride; the terrace had become a lively bird sanctuary, branches bursting with the joy of new life.
Baby turtle doves in their nest in the wisteria 
Resting on the patio chair Basque cake, Gâteau Basque in French, or Etxeko bixkotxa in Basque, is a traditional dessert from the Basque region of France. It is usually filled with black cherry jam or pastry cream (crème pâtissière). Legend has it that a Basque woman named Marianne Hirigoyen is to thank for the modern version of this cake. Originally from a thermal village called Cambo-les-Bains, Marianne began to make and sell her cake in the market of Bayonne around the 1830s.
Recipe for black cherry Basque cake (serves 8)
- 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
- 100g sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 125g butter, softened
- 200g flour
- 1 jar black cherry jam
- 1 egg yolk
Beat the egg, egg yolk, sugar and salt until the mixture lightens in color. Then incorporate the softened butter, little by little. Gradually add the flour and finish mixing the pastry dough by hand. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 210°C. Prepare and butter a cake tin. Divide the dough into two balls, one ball should be slightly larger than the other. Roll them into rounds, to fit your cake tin. One of the rounds should be slightly larger than the cake tin. Line the tin with the larger of the rounds, then cover with a generous layer of black cherry jam. Cover with the smaller of the dough disks and seal the edges of the bottom and top layers with damp fingers. Striate the top of the with a knife and brush with the remaining egg yolk. Bake for 40 minutes.
-
Adrenal cocktail, electrolytes, and an abundance of visitors
Adrenal cocktail ingredients I was woken up very early this morning — it was barely light — to the horses galloping back and forth like savages on crack cocaine. They’re usually fairly calm at night, so I knew something was up. I looked out of the window to see what was causing the commotion, to discover this little minx, no bigger than a large dog, staring into the bedroom window:
The night visitor at sunrise He was not easy to catch, despite the halter and trailing lead rope, but I eventually managed with a bucket of oats and my fluent pony chat. After a couple of early morning phone calls, I managed to track down the owner who said that he must have broken out of his field overnight, and that it would have been quite an adventure for him, as he’d never seen ‘big horses’ before!
Barn owls and turtle doves
The baby barn owls are enormous and flying around the attic of our grange as if they owned the place, which I suppose they do now. The parents seem to have done a runner, or flyer, because they appear to be being fed by our four pigeons. Unfortunately they’re not easy to photograph because they get agitated and buzz the camera.
There are also two baby turtle doves nesting in the wisteria on our terrace. Ten years ago, Léo found an abandoned turtle dove under one of our oak trees. He took great care of her until she grew strong enough to fly away. When she left, I was so sad that I imagined her coming back to see us every year. Maybe this is her? Maybe she has happy memories of eating couscous, and drinking almond milk on our terrace, under the wisteria, which is why she decided to entrust us with her babies? I’m sure that’s it.
Baby turtle doves in their nest I drink a big glass of electrolytes every morning before eating to set me up for the day. This morning, after all the running around and pony coercion, I took a double measure.
Essential electrolytes
Electrolytes are minerals that carry an electric charge when dissolved in liquid. The main electrolytes, found in blood, lymph, urine and sweat, are: potassium, magnesium, calcium, sodium, phosphate, chloride and bicarbonates.
The electric charge electrolytes provide is vital for proper functions in the body. These include nerve and muscle function, cardiac rate and rhythm, moving nutrients and waste as well as regulating blood pressure. Electrolytes also maintain optimal fluid balance in the body and proper pH levels in the tissues and bodily fluids. Our bodies are about 60% water, so this is of utmost importance.
Symptoms of an electrolyte imbalance include fatigue, headache, nausea, muscle cramps or spasms, heart arrythmia, changing blood pressure, numbness or tingling in the fingers or toes, irritability and confusion.
There are many variations of this ‘cocktail’. For example you could use fresh orange juice instead of lemon juice and maybe add some magnesium powder. It is great taken first thing in the morning, but also as a pick-me-up in the late afternoon.
Recipe for adrenal cocktail (serves 1)
- 1/2 lemon, freshly squeezed
- Glass of Coconut water
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or Himalyan salt)
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartare
Combine the ingredients and drink!
-
Beef Stroganoff, hanging baskets and electric scooters
Beef Stroganoff At the end of April, just after my last post, my mother suffered a small stroke, so I immediately jumped on a plane to go to see her in hospital. The trip was impromptu and stressful, and I was definitely giving off ‘madwoman dragged through a hedge’ vibes. Although not enough apparently to stop a lady in gardening gloves from nabbing me on my way to the hospital. She said: ‘you look like a good basket hanger’, which for some reason computed in my exhausted brain to ‘you look like a basket case’.
She then dragged me, dazed and confused, into her front garden to introduce me to the hanging baskets she wasn’t tall enough to hang herself. Once the job was done, she started looking around for other things to occupy me, to keep me off the streets no doubt, so I explained that I had to dash off to visit my mother in the nearby hospital. She seemed a bit put out and said: ‘oh well, at least she won’t be going anywhere then’.
I returned to London a couple of weeks later with Léo. During the previous trip I had locked myself out of the house in bare feet, and then fainted at the airport, so I was deemed ‘high risk for general stupidity and danger to self’ by both my husband and son. To my delight, we discovered a fun new way to get around: E-scooters! The first time we tried, Léo sorted out the logistics and off we scooted. A little way down the road, I yelled ahead to Léo that my scooter didn’t seem to be going as fast as his. He drew to the side of the road, signaling for me to stop, and said: ‘You seem to be managing OK, so I’ll take the child speed lock off!’ He takes his duties very seriously.
Back home on the ranch
Back at home, things were no better; a couple of barn owls chased the pigeons from their loft, amidst much noisy commotion and feather flying, and we discovered their babies this week. The pigeons are currently homeless.
Barn owlets Just a day after my return, all four horses escaped into the setting sun through a gate that Luc had left open. Luc went after them on his tractor; I marshaled the surrounding neighbours by screeching down the phone. In the end, Luc rounded up the monsters single-handed, and then wondered why I wasn’t more forthcoming in my praise. It seemed irrelevant to him that if he hadn’t left the gate open, they wouldn’t have buggered off in the first place.
Equine color sorting And now for the ‘cerise sur le gateau‘ (the icing on the cake): We, The French, have apparently voted en masse for a 12-year-old school-dodging white supremacist called Jordan. W.T.A.F?
I first made this recipe when I worked in a ski resort as a student, forty years ago. It’s as delicious now and it was then.
Recipe for Beef Stroganoff (serves 4)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 250g mushrooms, sliced
- 500g fillet steak, sliced
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 50ml white wine
- Splash of cognac/armagnac
- 150g crème fraîche
- Handful of parsley, chopped
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the sliced onion and garlic, cooking on a medium heat until softened. Add the butter, then the sliced mushrooms and continue to cook for another five minutes, then set aside. Place the steak slices in the frying pan and fry for three minutes, until slightly browned, but not overcooked. Return the onions and mushroom to the pan, add the seasoning, mustard, tomato paste, white wine and splash of cognac, stirring well. Lastly, add the crème fraîche and cook for another five minutes. Add the chopped parsley and serve over rice or pasta and green salad.
-
Raspberry tiramisu and a very pheasant ménage à trois
Raspberry tiramisu I had to make the same journey every morning for a couple of weeks recently, and part of my route went through pheasant-rich countryside. Nearly every day I saw the same pheasant couple, and with each passing day, the boy pheasant looked increasingly bemused, broken even. He just stood by watching the female while she scuttled and screeched like a hyperactive basket case running on crack cocaine. After about 10 days of this daily hysteria, the couple disappeared for a few days, and then the male reappeared with what seemed to be a new mate; another male. After the hyperactive addict he obviously wasn’t taking any chances!
I don’t have much jewellery, but the pieces I do have are in a terrible state of disrepair, for various reasons. I was recently motivated to take everything to the jeweller to be sorted out, because I crushed my wedding ring between two terracotta flower pots. Actually in hindsight, I realise my wedding ring saved me a visit to Accident and Emergency. As the jewellers was closer and the wait less long and tedious, all was well. The jeweller, seeing all my damaged pieces, exclaimed ‘what on earth do you do to them?’. His expression was as bemused as the male pheasant when I detailed the various jewellery-related accidents, involving horses’ hooves, plant pots, walls and car doors.
I have been meaning to post this recipe for a while, but every time I make these tiramisu, they disappear before I’m able to take a photo!
Recipe for raspberry tiramisu (serves 4)
- 3 egg yolks
- Cane sugar, 70g
- Crème fraiche, 150g
- Marscapone, 250g
- Vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamon
- 12 sponge fingers
- Raspberries, 125g
- Amaretto, 50ml
- Very strong coffee, 50ml
- Dark chocolate, 70g, grated
Place the egg yolks and sugar in a ‘bain marie’ over simmering water and whisk until the mixture is creamy and doubled in volume. Remove from the heat and whisk for another minute until cooled. In another bowl beat the cream, mascarpone and vanilla until thick and creamy. Gently combine with the egg mixture and set aside. Break the sponge finger with the back of a spoon and arrange in the bottom of the serving glasses, then distribute the raspberries on top of the sponge. Combine the black coffee and amaretto and pour over the raspberries and sponge fingers. Spoon or pour the cream/egg mixture into the glasses and finally top with the grated dark chocolate. Chill for at least four hours before serving.
-
Salmon and leek pie and soul-searching for horses
Salmon and leek pie There is no doubt in my mind that horses chat amongst themselves. I’ve noticed a distinct pattern: horses usually arrive here quite well-disciplined, but their behaviour becomes more and more erratic the longer they stay. When Jazz arrived in September, I had rarely encountered a more angelic horse. He came when called, didn’t push and shove, lowered his head to accommodate his head collar or bridle, respected the fences, didn’t nip… Seven months on, he’s obviously been chatting with the others and picking up naughty tips because he now: takes off at full speed when I approach with the head collar, opens the field gate with his teeth, stamps his feet when his breakfast or dinner are served late, plays football with his feed bucket, and takes off to visit the neighbours’ horses without so much as a by your leave.
Thinking about the horses’ various foibles and the expressions of their ‘états d’âme’, I realised that ‘état d’âme’ is something that is almost impossible to translate correctly into English. The dictionary translation is ‘state of mind’, or perhaps ‘mood’ or ‘vein of feeling’, but it’s not that; it’s much more. It literally means ‘state of the soul’, or internal climate; it’s a unique mixture of emotion and transient thoughts. Who knew horses could be so intense!
Leeks: a multitude of benefits
Leeks, like all of the alliums are high in sulphur-based compounds such as allicin, that can help to reduce blood clotting and has prevent viruses. Alliums have also been linked to a decreased risk of certain cancers. Leeks are rich in flavonoids, which have impressive antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also a good source of vitamin K, which may reduce the risk of, amongst other things, osteoporosis. Leeks contain lutein and zeaxanthin, two substances that reduce the risk of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.
Recipe for salmon and leek pie (serves 4-6)
- 400g puff pastry (here is my recipe)
- 50g butter
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 500g leeks, cleaned and cut into rounds
- 200ml crème fraîche
- Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper
- 500g salmon filet, cut into strips
- Fresh parsley
- 1 egg yolk
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a 25cm non-stick tart tin with the pastry, setting aside enough pastry to make a top. Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the shallots and leeks. Cover and leave to cook for about 15 minutes, or until the leeks have softened, then add the crème fraîche and seasoning and set aside. Meanwhile, distribute the salmon on the pastry in the lined tart tin, then add the leek mixture, and garnish with the fresh parsley. Finally cover the tart with the pastry top and brush with egg yolk. Cook for 25 minutes.
-
Tagliatelle carbonara, broken toes, and equine revolt
Tagliatelle carbonara A few weeks ago, I broke a toe on a cast iron dog bowl stand. I had been rushing outside in a panic in response to a hunter friend’s urgent gesticulations outside. (It turned out he just had a few bullets left, and wanted our permission to shoot down a hornet’s nest from one of our oak trees.) I hobbled back into the house, grabbed the crutches (they are never far from reach), then skidded across the newly-varnished floor and landed up in a another heap. The second of the day.
My toe was healing quite nicely, when I somehow got it stuck down a hole and re-broke it. As if that wasn’t silly enough, later on, at a doctor’s appointment to see if he had any good tips on reoffending broken toes, I got one-sided lockjaw from a propolis gum sweet I had taken for my sore throat. While I was trying desperately to free my teeth from the persecutory gummy, my bemused-looking doctor worried I was having a stroke. Anyway, to sum up, his advice was: ‘go home and stop moving’. I think he was referring to the healing of my poor toe, but I’m now wondering if the advice wasn’t a more general ‘go home and stop being such a pain in the arse’…
We put a coat on Bijou (of drumming-in-the-night fame) the other night, as it was going to be very cold. He was quite compliant while we kitted him out, and didn’t seem to be bothered by the extra layer. This obviously wasn’t the case, however, as the next morning he was ‘sans couverture’, and not altogether displeased with himself. He had left the blanket in a heap at the end of the field and covered it with sand.
Bijou kitted out for the cold 
Houdini the next morning This is not a truly authentic carbonara recipe; true carbonara has no cream (or mushrooms etc.). I think the golden rule is to be careful not to overheat and scramble the eggs when you add them to the pasta.
Parsley: a natural antihistamine
I’m allergic to tree pollen, so always try to include lots of parsley at this time of year. Parsley is a natural antihistamine, as it prevents histamine from being released from mast cells in your body. It’s a rich source of anti-inflammatory nutrients, such as apigenin and carotenoids, and also increases antioxidant levels in the blood.
Recipe for tagliatelle carbonara (serves 4)
- 400g tagliatelle
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 200g streaky bacon or pancetta, cut into strips
- 4 mushrooms, sliced
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 3 egg yolks
- 8 tablespoons crème fraîche
- Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper
- Handful of chopped parsley
- 60g Parmesan cheese, grated
Put the tagliatelle to cook in salted boiling water. Add the olive oil to a frying pain, then add the strips of bacon, mushrooms and garlic. Cook until the bacon is crispy. Place the egg yolks in a bowl, then add the crème fraîche, seasoning and parsley. Once the pasta is cooked, drain, saving a little of the water for the sauce. Add the pasta to the bacon and mushroom mixture the frying, then the egg/cream mixture, turning the heat right down. Top with the grated Parmesan and serve.