a particularly delicious chicken parmentier and (slightly overdone) glazed carrots i made late Sunday afternoon.



cahiers de doléances
a particularly delicious chicken parmentier and (slightly overdone) glazed carrots i made late Sunday afternoon.





living no sort of quality of intellectual life at the moment but food doesn’t care about that. as more than one person has said boiled beef and carrots is about the closest you get to something pot-au-feu in food from this archipelago. as long as you take care over the broth and skim during its cooking.
this isn’t quite as clear as i’d like but the flavour is a+. the brisket, the sweetness of the carrots and the dijon with it, the most simple basic elements tied together by the broth.
it is of course asparagus season and i will *definitely* do a hollandaise. next time. for the moment butter and lemon and salt

Courgette sauce with basil and beaten egg yolk, from Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
An old favourite this. The flavour of the courgette is right at the front, as although it tastes creamy, it hasn’t got any cream in it.
The trick is to ensure the flour and milk binding doesn’t split in the butter, which means it really is a matter of turning the heat right down under the butter and pouring it in bit by bit and stirring constantly.


..but leftover stufatino and homemade tagliatelle with anchovy butter, plus the last of the barolo i cooked the stew with… it’s a hell of a combo

I’m pleased to say I’ve been doing more cooking again recently. Maybe it’s the bank holidays, maybe it’s the lengthening evenings.
First up, hake and salsa verde from Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain. It’s supposed to be with asparagus, but it hadn’t quite made its appearance in my grocers by this point, so I did it with peas and the water the peas in which the peas had been cooked. By moving the hake slowly around in the pan, the hake releases gelatin, which further thickens and binds the salsa verde. Will be doing this with asparagus this week I think. It’s very simple and fresh tasting.

Some easter cooking. Fish pie for a friend last Wednesday. Very difficult to get good fish pie out in restaurants so it’s a good one to do yerself, and this was exceptional A+ no further questions. No ard boiled hegg because they don’t like it.

Mainly because I haven’t been cooking that much, or cooking particularly interesting things when I do. Still, the extensive audience for this blog expects more and so here is an update.