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Yvette’s choux fritters and the French ‘paradox’
Yvette is our nearest neighbour; a traditional Landaise farmer’s wife and testament to the so-called French ‘paradox’* (the Gascons consume more fat than anywhere else in the world, but have one of the longest life expectancies). Almost everything she eats she has either grown or nutured herself and she has no qualms about cutting off a chicken’s head to make her Sunday roast (unlike yours truly wimply here 😉 ) What’s even more amazing is that she’s still speaking to us, despite being woken up on a fairly regular basis by the thundering of our escaped horses’ hooves, churning up her land.
These little delicacies are light, airy, crisp and moreish – or so I’m told – this version contains wheat flour so I can’t eat them, but I shall be trying out a wheat-free version soon.
Ingredients (makes about 20 fritters)
125 ml cold water
50g butter, cut into small cubes
100g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of rum
1 litre of vegetable oil (grapeseed)
Sugar for decoration
Put the cold water in a medium-sized saucepan together with the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt. Place the saucepan over a moderate heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter has melted and the mixture comes up to the boil. Remove from the heat immediately and throw in the flour, whisking well until you obtain a smooth ball of paste that leaves the sides of the saucepan clean (this will probably take about a minute).
Next beat the eggs well, then add them into the mixture, little by little, mixing well. Beat until you have a smooth glossy paste, which you should then leave to cool for about 30 minutes.
Just before cooking, add the rum to the paste and heat a litre of grapeseed oil to 180°C. Cook tablespoon-size balls of paste until they flip themselves in the oil and are golden-brown all over. Toss in the sugar and serve hot or cold.
* I put the word paradox in inverted commas because I don’t believe it to be a paradox at all. It became known as such simply because it went against the grain when trying to prove a link between high-fat consumption, cholesterol and heart disease. See here.
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Porcini and salmon risotto and Mae West ideology
Mae West said : ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful’.
Yeah whatever, Mae. Personally I’m starting to struggle with my husband’s on-going obcepsion. The freezer’s bursting at the seams and I’m wondering if we couldn’t dry them and smoke them instead 😉
Petulant scoffing aside, this risotto was pretty luxurious and I know that in a few weeks I’ll be glad of  all the ceps in the freezer. I love cooking risotto because it’s so relaxing; you absolutely have to stay and stir because you can be sure that if you so much as answer the ‘phone,  it will be at that moment that it sticks. For someone who is usually doing about six different things at once, this is a good excuse to just chill.
Ingredients (serves four)
4 tablespoons of wild rice
1 tablespoon of olive oil
4 medium-sized ceps, sliced
2 cloves of garlic
1 chilli pepper
8 tablespoons of whole basmati rice
1 glass of white wine
250ml of vegetable stock
2 tablespoons of green peas
2 filets of fresh salmon
Seasoning: sea salt, black pepper, saffron
Fresh parsley
Start by pre-cooking the wild rice in salted boiling water for ten minutes. Pour the olive oil into a medium-sized frying pan and gently brown the garlic, chilli pepper and ceps. Add the pre-cooked wild rice and the uncooked whole basmati and continue to fry for a couple of minutes. Pour the glass of white wine into the frying pan, stirring well. Let it sizzle for a moment or two, then add the saffron, stock and seasoning and bring to a simmer. Stir regularly, checking that there is enough fluid (there should always be enough to see gentle bubbling).
Meanwhile, Â poach the salmon for about ten minutes and set aside. Add the peas to the rice, stirring well. Finally, add the salmon and parsley a few minutes before the rice is cooked (whole basmati usually needs 30 – 35 minutes). -
Endives and ham ‘au gratin’ and cantankerous journalists
I keep reading articles in the English-speaking press about how miserable the French are at the moment and that morale has never been lower. I can’t help feeling that this is no more than a bit of misguided wishful-thinking on the part of ill-humoured hacks (I’m talking about you, Toby Young), but let me nonetheless reassure everyone that however down-at-mouth the French are, they still know how to eat…
This is a deliciously light and good-humoured dish to serve with a side salad and a wide grin 🙂
Ingredients (serves 4)
8 endives
8 slices ham
200g of grated hard cheese (I use Comté, but you could use Cheddar or Gruyère…)
For the gluten-free béchamel sauce :
30g chickpea flour
15g butter
2 tablespoons’ olive oil
250ml milk
200ml vegetable stock
1 tablespoon mustard
Seasoning to taste: sea salt, black pepper, nutmeg
Boil or steam the endives until cooked (about 15 minutes in salted boiling water or 8 minutes in a steamer). Preheat the oven to 220°C. Once cooked, drain well and try to press out any remaining water. Wrap each endive in a slice of ham and lay in a baking dish.
To make the b̩chamel sauce, melt the butter and heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the flour to the butter/oil mixture and stir rapidly with a whisk until you obtain a mousse-like mixture. Add the liquid (stock and milk) little by little, whisking vigourously to avoid lumpiness. Keep whisking and adding liquid over a gentle heat until there is none left and the sauce thickens slightly Рyou are aiming for a smooth, glossy, creamy pouring sauce. Add the mustard and the seasoning and leave to heat for a further five minutes over a very low heat, whisking from time-to-time.
Pour the sauce over the ham-wrapped endives and add the grated cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes until bubbling and golden-brown. -
Thai carrot and cumin soup
I love everything about this soup – the taste, the colour, the texture, its warm spicyness… It’s also extremely nourishing and with its combination of healing vitamins (A and C, amongst other things,  in the carrots), coconut oil, garlic and ginger, it can be guaranteed to knock a cold on the head in no time. And if you eat enough of it you’ll even end up with a healthy glow 😉
Ingredients (serves 8)
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 large onion, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 leek, sliced
600g carrots, peeled and sliced
2 litres of vegetable or chicken stock
150g coral lentils
1 teaspoon of fresh, grated ginger
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1 teaspoon chilli powder
Rock salt and ground black pepper to taste
100ml coconut milk
Start by browning the onions, leeks and garlic in the coconut oil. Add the carrots and continue to brown gently for a couple of minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil, then add the lentils, ginger, cumin, chilli and salt and pepper. Cook until the carrots and lentils are soft Рroughly half and hour. Pur̩e, add the coconut milk and serve. -
Ceps in the country (and unhinged Frenchmen)
When it comes to mushrooms, the French become homicidal maniacs. Though only when it comes to mushrooms, of course 😉  My husband is a case in point. Last year, before he’d got ‘into’ mushrooms and ceps (also called king bolete or porcini) in particular, he announced that anyone mushrooming on our land was more than welcome to keep whatever they found. Our land was there for  everyone – for the greater good, blah, blah, blah. Well not anymore. No siree.
The greater good pitch vanished the moment we discovered how best to cook and savour them. We now have tacky signs up everywhere saying, roughly translated, ‘Cep bugulars get out!’, ‘Steal our ceps at your own peril!’, ‘Beware! ferocious cep-guarding dog’… During The Season, he gets up at the crack ofmushroomdawn and skulks out into the half-light, a rifle over his shoulder. OK, I’m making the rifle bit up, but he definitely would if he owned one.
Mocking aside, ceps really are worth it; they have a deep, earthy, woody taste and are rich in vitamins A and C, iron, potassium and selenium. They can mostly be found in the early Autumn under mature trees such as spruce, pine, hemlock, birch and oak. Just don’t come looking for them on our land 😉
Ceps fried with garlic and parsley
Ingredients :
Fresh ceps
Olive oil
Butter
Garlic, chopped
Rock salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh parsley, chopped
Any earth or sand clinging to the ceps should be brushed off gently with soft-bristle brush. Â Avoid rincing in water if possible. They should then be cut with a very sharp knife (to avoid bruising) into half centimetre slices. Heat the olive oil and butter in a frying pan – there should be enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan easily. Once the oil is hot (but not smoking), add the ceps. Cook for seven minutes on each side – the white flesh should become golden brown. Add the chopped garlic and parsley two minutes before the end of cooking.
In my opinion, the best way to eat ceps prepared in this way is on their own or perhaps with a plain omelette. They go nicely with green salad and some crusty French bread. -
Chilli con carne and itinerant horses
This is the sort of dish that is even better a day or two after it’s made, which is just as well really as I had no time to prepare lunch, having spent all morning chasing our Houdini horses. They escape more regularly than I like to admit – let’s just say that they are well-known by everyone within a 5 km radius and by the town ‘Mairie’.
Ingredients (serves 4)
250g dried red kidney beans (soaked overnight and boiled for 10 minutes)
500g minced beef
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
6 tomatoes, blanched and skinned
1 red bell pepper (cut into strips)
4 chilli peppers (sliced)
6 mushrooms, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons of tomato purée
2 glasses of red wine
250ml beef stock
1 sprig of rosemary and 2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon Worcester sauce
1 square of 80% dark chocolate
Seasoning to taste : sea salt, black pepper, chilli powder
Preheat the oven to 150°C. Pour the olive oil into a medium-sized casserole dish and heat. Add the onions, garlic, mushrooms and mince and brown well, stirring around a bit. Once browned, add the bell pepper, the chilli peppers and the tomatoes and continue to cook until gently simmering. Add the tomato purée, the kidney beans, Worcester sauce, seasoning, stock, red wine and herbs and bring back to a simmer. Cook in the oven for about two hours, checking from time-to-time that there is enough liquid. Add the dark chocolate, stirring well to melt, just before serving.
May be served as a standalone dish, like soup, or with coleslaw and green salad. -
Cassoulet and mouthfuls of sand
My annual flirtation with vegetarianism will have lasted almost a month. Hugo, our labrador, is having a whale of a time ‘playing’ with pheasants at the moment. He waits until I’m in the saddle, then goes out in front to lift a pheasant as close to the horse’s nose as possible. This makes my horse spook flamboyantly (Iberian horses are total show-offs and exceedingly supple to boot) and I end up, more often than not, with my nose in the sand. Which brings me back to why I’ve surmised that hunting isn’t all bad; I’m anxious for them to hurry up and butcher a few of the pheasants near us, to give myself a fighting chance at staying in the saddle 😉
This cassoulet is, perhaps for some people, slightly unorthodox in that it has no breadcrumbs on top. In any case, it’s well worthy of a break from half-hearted vegetarianism and is the epitome of ‘real’ food.
Ingredients (serves 8)
1 large onion, sliced
1 red pepper
4 chilli peppers
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 mushrooms
4 medium-sized carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
8 Toulouse sausages
300g salted pork breast
4 pieces of duck confit
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 glasses of dry white wine
5 medium tomatoes, blanched and skinned
500g white haricot beans (these should be soaked overnight if dry)
Seasoning to taste (seasalt, black pepper, Espelette pepper or paprika)
1 teaspoon juniper berries
Start by de-fatting the duck confit in a pan, heating and removing the fat gradually. Put the onions, garlic and olive oil into a large casserole dish and gently brown. Add the mushrooms, carrots, red pepper, chilli peppers and tomatoes and continue to brown on a low heat. Add the sausages, duck and pork and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Add the white wine, juniper berries and rosemary and bring back to a simmer. Lastly, add the white beans and season well. You will need to add some water – probably about 500ml – enough to come about half the way up the casserole dish. Cook on a lowish heat (140°C) for about two and a half hours, checking from time-to-time that there is sufficient liquid.
This is a very rich dish and should just be served with a crisp green salad. -
Green beans with pesto and flashbacks to the ’70s
Apologies to those not familiar with the hysterical British comedy series ‘Fawlty Towers’, but everytime I make something with basil I think of Sybil Fawlty’s dulcit tones shouting; ‘BASIL! BASIL!’ and his comeback, which was more often than not something along the lines : ‘Coming my little piranha fish’.
Basil is high in vitamins and minerals in general and vitamins A and K and iron in particular. It also has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties.
Ingredients
Two handfuls of fresh basil
1 handful of pinenuts
1 handful of cashew nuts
8 cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of freshly-grated parmesan cheese
Sea salt, pepper and paprika to taste
Blend all of the ingredients in a food processor to form a paste. Serve with either green beans or pasta. -
Fig and honey mousse (for when you’re so over fig jam)
We’re savouring the last of our figs in this delicate, fragrant mousse. Â My husband decided that 346 pots of jam was probably jam enough to last until next year ;-). Not a moment too soon if you ask me – I’ve been able to reclaim my kitchen.
Ingredients (serves 8)
1 cup greek yoghurt
3 cups pureed peeled figs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon of grated ginger (optional)
1 tablespoon rum
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup chilled cream
Combine the yoghurt, figs, lemon zest, ginger, honey and rum and leave to chill.
Whip cream to until stiff and gently fold in with the chilled fig mixture.
Serve immediately for mousse OR spoon into a mold and freeze for frozen mousse. -
Chestnut celeriac soup and how to put your foot in it
I’m a train wreck; my hands of full of spikes from over-zealously collecting sweet chestnuts without gloves and my foot is elevated, soaking in vinegar and at least twice its normal size from ‘antagonising’ a family of hornets that had taken up residence in my riding boot. If anyone has some good advice on treating the pain of wasp/bee/hornet stings please let me know 🙂
The chestnuts were worth the pain, as this soup will testify. The hornet sting brought nothing good, just some ardent cursing that surprised even me.
This soup is a lot of work if you use fresh chestnuts, so if you don’t relish the idea of being totally incapacitated, you could always use tinned. If you do use freshly-picked chestnuts, I recommend cooking them in their shells for about 45 minutes in salted boiling water with a couple of fig leaves (if you happen to have some to hand!). They will then need to be shelled, so try to nab someone nifty with a knife. I think if I’d tried to shell them myself today, I’d have ended up in emergency!
Ingredients (serves 10)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
400g of pre-cooked chestnuts
1 celeriac
1 carrot
1 apple
2 litres of chicken stock
Sprig of rosemary
Seasoning (sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, curry powder…)
1/2 cup of cream
Fry the onions and garlic in the olive oil and melted butter until golden brown. Add the celeriac (peeled and cut into rougly 1cm cubes) and apple (also peeled and chopped) and continue to lightly brown. Add the drained chestnuts, the sprig of rosemary and the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Add the seasoning to taste and cook for about 30 minutes. Add the cream and purée until smooth.
