Holiday eating in the Riviera Part 2: The French Kitchen

Of all the recipe books I use frequently my absolute favourites are of course 'Ottolenghi' and 'Plenty' (by now everyone knows about my obsession here), the La Duree 'Sucree' book (a beautiful birthday present from my friend), and maybe more unusually the author Joanne Harris' cook books 'The French Kitchen' and 'The French Market'. It seems that not only is Joanne Harris an excellent writer (my holiday read being her latest book 'Peaches for Monsieur le Curé') but she knows her food too; following her on twitter I know she is a woman after my own heart (she loves cake, wine and France). Naturally she's right up there in the list of people I admire (particularly after seeing her speak at Ilkley Literature festival a few years ago) and her cook books have some excellent recipes.

Following my previous post about the holiday cooking on my family holidays I will talk about what my boyfriend and I made. As we were in France it seemed only right to make some of the recipes from a French cook book and the apartment we stay in conveniently has its own copy of The French Market'. Of course my other all time favourite had to appear, so a well-loved recipe from Ottolenghi's 'Plenty' was also used.
So our menu went something like this;

The starter of Ottolenghi Sweet Potato Patties (served with Lemon and Coriander Yoghurt Dip) which can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/feb/10/foodanddrink.recipes and the main course of Lemon Mustard Chicken with Gratin Dauphinois from 'The French Market' and 'The French Kitchen' respectively and served with a giant salad. The sweet potatoes in the supermarker Carreefour were literally the biggest I have ever seen (see below);

We didn't make a pudding this year (last time we made Tarte Poire Belle Helene also from 'The French Market' which was a big hit) because we felt there would be more than enough to eat (there were even leftovers). I love the mustard chicken recipe as it is so simple to make and tastes amazing, hence why I made it whenever my boyfriend would visit me at university. 


Recipes from 'The French Kitchen' and 'The French Market' both by Joanne Harris and Fran Warde

Dijon Mustard Chicken (or Poulet à la moutarde de Dijon)   
Serves 6 (we doubled the recipe)

6tbsp Dijon Mustard
zest and juice of 2 lemons (unwaxed)
3 cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed)
2tsp paprika
6 chicken breasts
Olive oil for baking sheet (I found it doesn't need much)

Mix together all the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl and add the chicken. Mix together so the chicken is well coated. Marinate for 1 hour minimum. Heat the oven to 180 C/gas mark 4 and lightly grease a baking tray with olive oil. Place the chicken on the baking tray and cover generously with the marinate. Roast for 25 minutes, ensuring the chicken is cooked through. 


Gratin Dauphinois
Serves 6 (again doubled)

1kg potatoes (King Edwards/Maris Piper/Idaho/Desirée - we found 'gratin' potatoes in the supermarket but not sure what kind they were)
1 clove of garlic, crushed and peeled
100g butter
600ml single cream
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
100g gruyere cheese (we used grated parmesan instead as it is less heavy)

Heat oven to 150 C/gas mark 2. Peel and finely slice potatoes (the recipe says with a food processor but we had to use our own fair hands and victorinox knives - see picture of Jeff below). Place potato slices in a bowl of cold water to remove excess starch then drain well. Use a salad spinner to dry thoroughly (luckily the apartment had a giant one).  Rub a large shallow ovenproof dish wiyh the garlic clove and a little butter. Heat the remaining butter with the cream in a large pan, bringing it to the boil. Crush and add the leftover garlic and season with salt and pepper. The recipe then says to add the potato slices and cook together, simmering for 8 minutes, however we just heated the sauce and layered it with the potatoes in the ovenproof dish. The result was equally as good. Finally add the gruyere on top (or parmesan as we used) and season again with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for 1 1/2 hours and serve hot (I secretly quite like it cold too).

Jeff (manically) slicing potatoes for the Gratin Dauphinois

(Naturally) Heart-Shaped potato 

Finally here are some pictures of the dinner table with the main course (the pattie making process was too hectic for photos). We started with some very nice prosecco and rose cava and then had lots of red and white wine with the main course (there were no sober evenings). 

Mustard Chicken and Gratin Dauphinois

The giant salad

Holiday eating in the Riviera Part 1: descriptions

So another summer has come and gone (if you can ever call it that in England) and with it the Family holiday. After last year in Majorca, this time it was back to Nice, France to an apartment we love 2 minutes from the sea. Along with my parents and two sisters we also had everyone's boyfriends which mean cooking was now a feast-like affair.  With my sister as head chef for the week, we all had a night of doing our cooking; with my dad's classic spaghetti bolognaise (a particularly good one this year), my eldest sisters kitchen wizardry, my boyfriend and I's French kitchen style meal and my middle sisters asian stir fry. The culmination of all this was a giant feast on the last night where we ate everything left in the fridge and had the most elaborate tapas meal of my life; from the classic homemade patatas bravas, onion, potato and vegetable tortilla (resourcefully made in a cake tin and put in the oven), spicy chorizo fried with red peppers, to the giant plate of stirfry noodles left over from the night before, chicken wings, poached salmon (?), fried calamari, avocado, salad and all the other additions such as cous cous, carrot salad, olives and tzatziki. It was the craziest mix of food but somehow it just worked as you can see by the pictures below of both my plate (first serving so not everything is on there) and of the table laden with the contents of the fridge. Definitely a good idea for the end of a self catering holiday and we ate better than going out to any restaurant nearby.

My plate with tortilla and patatas bravas and the table about to collapse under all the food.

Dessert came from my favourite patisserie in Nice 'Patisserie Lac' http://www.patisseries-lac.com/, these people make the most amazing desserts and macarons (this time I tried the passion fruit and caramel one which had the most beautiful flavour). We chose the tarte tatin, raspberry and passion fruit mousse (a favourite on this holiday and I am dying to find a recipe!), un délice (square chocolately/praline heaven), the extremely rich chocolate mousse 'dome' coated in bitter dark chocolate, the nutty pistachio crispy wafer thing and the amazingly light white mousse with raspberry (see right) and a wavy shaped white cake which had the most delicate creamy flavour of all of them (with hints of lime). I wish I could remember all the names/could find them on their website. A place everyone has to go if they visit Nice. We were lucky this year as they have open a new one on Rue Giofreddo round the corner from where we stay. It was meant to be...

Clockwise from top; tarte tatin,chocolate mousse 'dome' (just underneath), raspberry and chocolate mousse, nutty pistachio wafery thing, raspberry and passion fruit mousse, le délice and the wavy lime mousse cake. I wish I'd written down the names!!

So this blog post doesn't give you a recipe but allows me to share some of my recent favourite food moments. In the next post I will talk about some actual recipes.

Miscellaneous 10 second photo blog

Looking through the photos on my phone, I came across a few pictures that at some point or another I have meant to blog about or that I just like. So here we go with a brief description for each; 

Amazing Celeriac soup recipe  http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/celeriac-soup/ 

April 2012: Ottolenghi Cauliflower and Cumin fritters cooking

April 2012: The finished product with leaf salad and lemon and coriander yoghurt dip

April 2012 birthday present: Simón Coll chocolate chicken http://www.simoncoll.com/

May 2012 Borough market: Juliet with hot chorizo and roasted pepper sandwich

June 2012 return to Toulouse: View from the Pont des Catalans next to where I lived last year 

July 2012 trip to Burnley: My sister's eye-pecking chicken 'Ian'

July 2012 job hunting procrastination: Welsh rarebit (using Old Peculiar beer) http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/perfectwelshrarebit_13772 

Drawsomething marathon June 2012: One of my better (though still terrible) drawsomething pictures

Halloumi green salad with apple, carrot and walnuts

Again I have had a little gap in my blogging, I always have so many ideas about what to write but then there is the small matter of actually doing it. After a week centred around the 2012 Olympics and reading the Hunger Games trilogy (which I loved) it's time to finally get back to doing what I like best; talking about food. Recently I have been making a lot of salads for lunch, particularly with Halloumi. My current favourite is one I actually came up with whilst still at university (in the throws of revision/dissertation procrastination): Halloumi with watercress, granny smith apples, grated carrot and walnuts with a mustard, lightly honeyed dressing. The dressing is something I alter depending on what is in the cupboard but my best version has been olive oil and hazelnut oil (3:1 ratio) with 1/3 of the dressing being cider vinegar (really works with the apples as you can probably imagine), 3/4 a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a tiny amount of honey (so it takes away the acidity but doesn't taste like honey and mustard dressing) and then salt and pepper.  I tend to be quite vague with the details because to me cooking can't always be planned to the last detail and needs to allow for improvisation depending on what's available.

Ok so enough rambling and on to the Halloumi green salad;

Ingredients (two people)


Salad

• 6 x 5mm (approx) slices of Halloumi (I use whatever brand but do really like Tesco's own)
• 2 big handfuls of watercress or rocket (I can't even imagine trying to weigh that out - have as much or as little as you feel necessary) 
• 2 granny smith apples (works so well with halloumi), cut into small chunks
• 2 carrots, grated (I usually use a julienne peeler)
• small handful of walnuts, crushed (sometimes I also throw in some pumpkin seeds with the walnuts)

Dressing

• 90ml olive oil mixed with 30ml hazelnut oil
• 30ml Apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp clear honey (I often use orange blossom or acacia)
• Salt and pepper

Heat a griddle pan and place on the halloumi slices, browning both sides (takes a few minutes).
Meanwhile arrange watercress/rocket in a bowl, scatter over apple chunks and then the grated carrot (in a fine layer). Scatter the crushed walnuts and finally place the halloumi slices on top once griddled. Spoon the dressing all over the salad or if you prefer mix all the ingredients in the dressing before adding the halloumi.
I can't stop eating this salad it's just so tasty.

New favourite breakfasts; avocado and marmite bagel and greek yoghurt variations

After a long gap of writing nothing (I blame final year dissertation/exams) I am now free from the constraints  of University and can go back to rambling about food. My latest thing is trying to have exciting but healthy breakfasts with two new favourites. First of all there is the avocado and marmite bagel; when this was first proposed to me (on toast) I thought it sounded horrible however I gave it a go using a sesame seed bagel, putting on a generous layer of marmite and then topping off with half an avocado (I usually buy Hass). I seasoned the avocado pieces beforehand with lemon juice, salt and black pepper. The result was amazing and acceptably healthy considering the taste!

My other new favourite breakfasts revolve around 'Total 0% Greek Yoghurt'; I can never really get over how this contains no fat but tastes so ridiculously creamy. In the final stages of university, my housemate and I would try to eat a healthy breakfast with our favourite being greek yoghurt, half a ripe mango (cubed), half a banana (thinly sliced) and crushed pecan nuts. We would top this with a little bit of honey. Further variations involved adding blueberries, strawberries and raspberries (banana, raspberry and pecan was another favourite of mine).

More breakfast related posts to follow this week with pictures.

Ottolenghi vs Heston

So the other day when I was at home for the weekend we started to discuss who would be the best chef to work for. Personally I am completely obsessed with any food that Ottolenghi makes, it's even starting to get a little embarrassing how much I talk about his recipes and every time I go to London, no matter how little money I have (credit card...), I always try to go to Ottolenghi in Islington.  Every time I see a picture of the food in the recipe books (Ottolenghi or Plenty) I go into some sort of food reverie and wish I could work for one of the restaurants. The food is so ridiculously pretty and better still tastes even more beautiful than it looks. Last night for instance I made two recipes out of the self-titled 'Ottolenghi' book; Cauliflour fritters and the sweet potato, pecan and maple salad. After later looking up the sweet potato recipe to see if it was online, I came across it on their website http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/recipes/roasted-sweet-potato-with-pecan-maple HOWEVER the photo on here does not do it justice!

The picture surprisingly makes it look quite dull relative to how amazingly colourful it looked in real life! This warm salad has to be one of the most fragrant side dishes I've eaten in a long time, with the dressing of maple, orange + lemon juice, sherry vinegar (I improvised with a mixture of raspberry vinegar and rice vinegar) and oil suprisingly complimenting the potatoes, pecans, sultanas, coriander and parsley. I was initially worried that it would be too sweet but somehow by some sort of magic it isn't. I wonder how this recipe was thought out?
Furthermore the cauliflour fritters with their delicately spiced flavour were surprisingly filling (recipe not online!) and went perfectly with the accompanying sauce (300g greek yoghurt, zest of 1 lime, 2tbsp lime juice, 2 tbsp coriander, 2 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper). I served this to my family with a side salad of mixed leaves with cubed cucumber and plenty of chopped mint mixed in (making it a very fresh accompaniment). I wish I could eat like this every day and experience the joys of being home and having more expensive ingredients.
I could not recommend Ottolenghi cooking books more to people, they have the most beautiful pictures in them that even people who don't like cooking could appreciate. I really have found these recipes to be the most inspiring I've come across in the past few years. Although enough of my outpouring (it's getting a little much I know) I will now talk about my views on Heston Blumenthal.

Now everybody knows Heston to be a wacky food scientist, and it was for this reason my mum suggested that in our fictional 'who would I like to work for conversation' maybe I would be on his wavelength (I love food, I study science etc.) and I definitely admire his creativity. However after watching 'Heston's Roman Feast' last night I came to realise my outlook was rather different.  Whilst preparing an intriguing array of cleverly crafted food, I still don't think I can get to grips with being comfortable eating calf brain (BSE/prion diseases anyone?) and I wasn't so sure of his cooking of a pig in a jacuzzi (seems a bit twisted) although still novel/innovative. I definitely respect his ability to challenge the norm but this poor pig had probably gone through enough that cooking it in a glittering pool of light was a bit macabre. Also restuffing the pig with fake intestines to create a reaction (though of course it was a Roman feast) did make me feel a little ill. Perhaps I'm becoming too sensitive.
One thing I did love though (apart from the name) was the ejaculating pudding; after watching the chefs blow up a cake tower Heston then managed to create a reaction between the custard and the inside of the cake to create a frothing bubbling dessert. I definitely loved this and given how much I've always enjoyed Chemistry it is definitely my sort of thing (who doesn't secretly like experiments that blow things up?). The question is what would it be like to work for Heston? Overall I think it would definitely be intriguing and maybe even enlightening but would I want to eat my scientific creations? If anyone would care to take me to the Fat Duck however I would be more than willing.
I would love to work for both Ottolenghi and Heston just to see how different their approaches are, but day-to-day I'll take the sweet potatoes over the brains....

Elaborate Valentine's Day Goat's cheese vegetarian lasagne

As most people are aware, this week contained Valentine's Day. Aside from many hilarious facebook statuses, my Valentine's day was spent without my boyfriend (Tuesday night - just not practical). This naturally called for a compensatory food frenzy with some friends;  home-made lasagne with rocket salad, garlic ciabatta and belgian chocolate brownie pudding (Sainsbury's) with Haagen Dazs 'Pralines and cream'. Oh and some Marlborough Savignon Blanc. The lasagne turned out amazingly with the indulgent combination of goat's cheese, sour cream, pesto, mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes. It was too good not to talk about...

Lasagne
The lasagne we made consisted of 4 layers between pasta sheets (it gets quite complicated) but the results were well worth it (see picture). The idea was to re-create a legendary lasagne created by my flatmate whilst she was living in Australia which involved mushrooms and feta. Our goat's cheese version however is as follows;

Ingredients (a lengthy list), Serves 4.

• Pack of fresh lasagne sheets

Layer 1

• 1 x 400g Tin of chopped tomatoes
• Fresh baby spinach (several handfuls)
• 1-2 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 2 tsp olive oil

Layer 2

• 300ml sour cream
• 250g soft goat's cheese

Layer 3

• 250g Chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 1 x Red onion, diced
• 1 x clove garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Layer 4 - Pesto 

• 60g Fresh basil
• 45g Pine nuts
• 150ml olive oil
• 1 x tsp salt
• Pepper to season

NB: this layer can also include parmesan cheese (around 20g) but was omitted for vegetarian reasons, alternatively replace this step with decent shop bought fresh pesto (Sainsbury's/Tesco etc.) 

Method 
Layer 1 
Add the chopped tomatoes to a pan and heat on a medium heat for several minutes until simmering. Next add the handfuls of baby spinach (I used around 3 handfuls) stir, and place a lid on the pan. After 2-3 mins the spinach should be wilted and can be mixed in fully to the tomatoes. Take off the heat and set aside.

Layer 2
Pour sour cream into a bowl and crumble in half of the goat's cheese (125g). Mix together well although small lumps of cheese remaining are fine. Set aside.

Layer 3
Gently heat the onions in the olive oil on a low-medium heat for 5mins/until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and gently cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the mushrooms to the onions and cook on a medium heat until the mushrooms are lightly cooked (approx 3 mins). Set mix aside.

Layer 4
Roughly chop all the basil and place in a plastic measuring jug. Add the salt and olive oil and blend (we used a handheld blender) until a rough mixture. Add the pine nuts and re-blend briefly (only lightly breaking up the nuts). Season with pepper and set aside.

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180 degrees. Prepare lasagne sheets as according to the packet instructions and place the first sheet in an oven dish of around the same size. Place the layers from 1-4 on top of the first sheet and place a second sheet on top of the final layer (layer 4). Repeat this layering on the second pasta sheet and again cover with a third sheet. Ensure there is some remaining layer 2 mixture (sour cream/goat's cheese) for the top of sheet 3 and spread evenly. Crumble the other 125g of goat's cheese on top of the mix and season with pepper.

Put in the oven for 20 mins, checking the cheese on top browns but does not burn. Serve with undressed rocket (unless you want a dressing but with all that cheese it didn't seem necessary).

Result - Amazingly tasty and rich lasagne that probably accounted for all our calories for the week. This recipe seems complicated but it is definitely worth it if you are feeling extravagant (which I usually am with food).  Also try substituting the goat's cheese for another cheese like feta.

Evening computer food

So after two weeks of pretty intense lab work (final year project) I have been coming home tired and craving bad food. I made an amazing discovery in Sainsburys local the other day: Mini Stroopwafels. If you are unfamiliar with these they are the minature version of the traditionally dutch caramel wafer waffle. I remember eating these as a child at a friends house (she had a dutch mother) and have noticed them appearing more and more in shops lately. Daelmans Mini Stroopwafels are ridiculously addictive (the most amazing texture) and come in a pretty packet (it shouldn't matter but it does...). I can't get enough of these, though must stop before I end up bed-bound from obesity. Crispy, chewy, caramel wafers. How could you not love them?

Chocolate cupcakes

Just a quick post to show some pictures for once of something I have made. Monday night my friend Rachael and I spent the evening baking and decorating cupcakes (whilst getting icing everywhere...). Rachael is a bit of a cupcake master and always makes amazing looking cakes (she made gingerbread ones for Christmas Eve - yum). We followed a simple cupcake recipe from Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Godess' and then Rachael put in a load of cocoa powder (we didn't measure it...) and I made a really nice cream cheese, butter and icing sugar icing. We put equal quantities of philadelphia (around 250g I think) and butter and then double the amout of icing sugar plus a bit of vanilla extract. It tasted really good, was really easy to mould on the cupcakes and set really well.

NB: The daisy flower decorations were bought from Harvey Nichols food section

Sweet potato obsessions

It's been quite a while since I wrote on this and after a hellish month of exams (filled with much cooking procrastination) I thought it was time to write something new.  In the past few weeks I have rediscovered sweet potatoes; I am not really that into normal potatoes because of their dryness (roast potatoes the obvious exception) so I decided to try out a sweet potato recipe from my new Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook ('Plenty'). The recipe was 'Sweet potato cakes', which when being made look like a weird orange mush but then turn into these amazing crispy fritter things.  The recipe is for 4 (though I ate them all myself over a few days) with the ingredients as follows;

• 1kg sweet potatoes
• 2tspsoy sauce (I added 3)
• 100g plain flour
• tsp salt (a pinch was fine)
• 1/2 tsp caster sugar
• 3 tbsp chopped spring onion 
• 1/2 tsp chopped red chilli (I had to use flakes but it still worked well)
• Butter to fry (might do olive oil next time)

After that there is the sauce which I though was amazing (Ottolenghi says it's optional but it's really not)

• 50g Greek yoghurt (I used plain natural yoghurt which was fine, though maybe a little thin)
• 50g soured cream (I used creme fraiche)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice 
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander 
• Season with salt and pepper 

As for the method it's pretty simple; the recipe says to first steam the chopped sweet potatoes (which I did) then leave them to drain for an hour (which I didn't). As there really didn't appear to be much liquid in them, and I was trying to minimise my revision procrastination, I just ignored that step. Whilst draining (or not) the sauce can be made by just mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl. 

The potatoes are then mixed with all the ingredients except the butter. The mix should be smooth though not over-mixed and if too sticky more flour should be added. 

When it comes to frying them, put a tablespoon of mix and flatten it down to approx 1cm thick, and 5cm diameter (I just made them however). The cakes should be cooked for 6 mins each side on a medium heat (until browned) then put in kitchen roll to soak off some of the butter. I just then ate mine with undressed rocket and the sauce. I would definitely recommend making these! For the mix I had left over I ate the patties in a tortilla wrap with the sauce, some tomatoes and a bit of feta crumbled on top. This is the reason I have no money...

I also used sweet potatoes when making fajitas with my flatmates last weekend; again we steamed the potatoes (chopped quite small) and added them to our onion and pepper fajita mix (we have a vegetarian housemate so the potatoes bulked it out well in the absence of chicken). This was eaten with a lot of homemade guacamole, home made tzatziki and home made mexican-style salsa (recipes to follow) and of course cheese (Cathedral cheddar, pretty standard). 

Finally (this has been such a long post) last night I made a sweet potato gratin from a recipe I found online http://mypantryshelf.com/2011/11/21/sweet-potato-and-bacon-gratin/ which was very nice. I did improvise a bit (as usual) but pretty much followed this recipe exactly. I underestimated the quantity of bechamel sauce so had to top the gratin mostly with creme fraiche but this worked out well. The only thing I would maybe change next time would be to reduce the amount of bacon (to maybe half the amount) or even remove it completely. That however is just me probably being weaned off meat by having a vegetarian housemate. 

Right time to get on with my final year project work...