Tag Archives: veal

Birthday Veal and Booze

Fortunately, we only have birthdays once a year, otherwise I’d be even older than I am… and that’s quite old! Last weekend saw me hit another of those awful ‘big birthdays’ with a zero at the end. Though I would have been happy to have let the day pass quietly, my wife, Marie-Danielle, decided otherwise. Unknown to me, she had invited the whole tribe to celebrate. In the end, one son couldn’t make it, and my other son’s wife and little boy were ill, so he had to come on his own. But M-D’s daughter, Muriel, and her family drove up from Orleans, so there were still seven of us sat round the table

Veal MarengoNormally, it is me who does the cooking, both on a daily basis and for special events. This time, because I was getting even older, Muriel had prepeared a Veal Marengo which she brought with her in a large Le Creuset and served along with fresh tagliatelle (that’s after the foie gras and before the home-made Black Forest Gateau). We made sure to wsh it all down wth copious amounts of a rather welcome 1989 Chass Spleen.

The Norfolk SelectionHowever, I must be getting some sort of reputation for boozing (or have I had that for a while?) because my birthday gifts included three bottles of excellent ‘liquid refreshment’. My son, Ian, brought an exquisite bottle of mixed spirits from English Whisky Co Ltd – the only English distillery of whisky. And what a great distillery it is. It’s situated at Harling Road, Roudham, about 7 or 8 miles north-east of Thetford in Norfolk. If you get a chance to visit – don’t hesitate (they’ve recently opened a café/restaurant which has already gained an enviable reputation for quality.) The ‘Mixed Spirits’ bottle is a combination of Perdo Ximenez sherry and their own single malt whisky. They use sherry casks to mature some of their whiskys, so I guess they ship the casks over full!

Château Cardinal Villemaurine and Château D'YquemContinuing with the alcohol theme, My other son, Justin, sent over a Magnum (1.5 litres) of 1982 Chateau Cardinal Villemaurine, a rather splendid Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. I suspect I shall end up taking it over the the Isle of Man when we go in May. I know just the neighbours who would help me dispose of that!

And to make my birthday complete, my lovely wife, gave me an excellent bottle of 2007 Château D’Yquem. This wine is the crème de la crème of Sauternes. Wines from Château d’Yquem are characterised by their complexity, concentration and sweetness, which is balanced by relatively high acidity. With proper care, a bottle will keep for a century or more, and the fruity overtones will gradually fade and integrate with more complex secondary and tertiary flavours. In a poor vintage, the entire crop is deemed unworthy of bearing the Château’s name and sold anonymously; this happened nine times in the 20th century! On the other hand, in July 2011, an 1811 bottle of Château d’Yquem sold for £75,000 ($117,000) at the Ritz in London to a private collector, to become the most expensive bottle of white wine ever sold. Looks like we’ll have to choose our moment carefully before we open that one.

Maybe I should have another birthday next year after all!

Headless Larks

Paupiettes de VeauWe often treat ourselves to Paupiettes de Veau Veal Rounds in a Mushroom Cream Sauce which are so easy to make and so very filling and tasty.

Veal paupiettes, refered by many in France as “alouettes sans tête” (headless larks) consists of a mince, packed in a thin slice of veal, and cooked in a sauce that often includes wine.

Paupiettes originated in Italy in the 13th century when the Milan Maestro Martino crossed the country to and fro in search of local specialties. Martino gives the first known recipe of polpette (Per fare polpette di vitello carne o altra bona carne). He cut a thin slice of veal leg on which he spread a mixture of fennel, pine nuts, parsley, marjoram, bacon, spices and salt. He wrapped it all up and roasted it on a spit.

A century later, his polpette had changed to a slice of beef, not veal, stuffed with bacon, ham, cloves, egg yolk, cheese, pepper, cinnamon, parsley, mint and thyme. Everything was rolled, spit-roasted and braised in broth, verjus and currants.

Now, in the 21st century, we enjoy Paupiettes de Veau as often as we wish because they are simple to make and very tasty! The recipe here is the most common version of a paupiette – minced pork wrapped in veal. You can, of course, use minced beef wrapped in veal. And you can add spices to your mince if you want to experiment.

Most of the year, at our local butcher in France, we can find lovely rounded veal paupiettes the size of handballs, stuffed with either dried apricots or with prunes, and tied with sliced bacon. There are no limits to what you can actually put inside one of these headless larks, but a ground meat mixture is the most common filling and the one that we prefer.

The recipe for paupiettes with mushroom sauce is very simple. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t try it just once.

Pre-Christmas activities

We only stayed in France for three months before returning to the Isle of Man. It’s been fifty years since I spent Christmas on the island so it seemed like a good idea to repeat the exercise and see what I’d been missing!

Le ProcopeFirst of all, though, there was some other business to attend to! in early December we enjoyed a really pleasant evening with Penny and Sarah, friends from the Isle of Man who were visiting Paris. We ate at “Le Procope” in Paris. Founded in 1686 and now Paris’ oldest café, there’s a great atmosphere. The food is excellent and reasonably priced (for central Paris). I tried a Tête de Veau (veal’s head) which, for some reason, I’ve always avoided till now. Frankly, I shall carry on avoiding it! Penny, Marie-Danielle and SarahThere was nothing wrong with the food or the way it had been prepared it’s just that some foods suit us and some don’t. Tête de Veau turned out to just not be my thing. The other three hit luckier than me with dishes that suited them and that they enjoyed. But I had the pleasure of the company of three charming ladies, so I’m not complaining! The evening was fun and it was great to meet friends in a different environment.

Christmas in CleryAnd talking of Penny and Sarah, we will have pleasure of their company on December 24th for our Christmas celebration. But more of that when it happens because first we celebrated an early Christmas with M-D’s family near Orléans in north-central France. As our childrens’ families mature, we see less of them than before and, to me, this is quite right. They have built their own lives and we are now only a small part of it. So, since Muriel, Vincent and ‘the girls’ were heading to Corsica for Christmas, we spent an evening with them and had an early festive celebration.

And then came the time to head back to Britain. First, I had to pack the car! Normally, when we drive back from France, the enormous heap of stuff in the garage manages to fit into the limited space available for it in a B Class Mercedes. This time, however, The Tardis failed to expand through the super-galactic space–time continuum where matter becomes anti-matter and requires no extra space and, as a result, several dozen bottles of wine were left behind. However, I think we took the important stuff…
Chocolate Snails – CHECK
Various Liquours (a lot) – CHECK
Cheese Aperitif Cubes – CHECK
Armagnac – CHECK
Duck Breasts (several kilos) – CHECK
Bottles of Wine (enough to float a battleship) – CHECK
Foie Gras – CHECK
Other Alcoholic Stuff (a lot) – CHECK
Strange Frech Sausage Things – CHECK
Calvados – CHECK
Roll of Carpet – CHECK
More Wine – CHECK
Lovely Biscuity Things – CHECK
5 litre Boxes of Wine (enough to sink a submarine) – CHECK
Tasty Cakey Things – CHECK
3 litre Boxes of Wine (almost enough to sink a submarine) – CHECK
Chocolates (weighed by the metric tonne) – CHECK
A Bottle or Three of Wine – CHECK
Selection of excellent Pates and Stuff – CHECK
Some wine – CHECK
Passport, Tickets etc. – CHECK

Now, what did I forget?
A wife, did you say?
No – she was lying on her back in the garage seeing if she could dispose of the excess wine before we left. Apparently it’s an ancient French tradition, so I took her down a plate of snails at dinner time!

Our trip back wasn’t so good either! We left our home, west of Paris, in good heart and with a clear sky. The traffic was gentle and flowed at a steady 80 mph all the way to Calais (200 miles without even a queue of 2 cars). The pretty boat sailed the ocean blue, crossing to Dover in good time. Then it happened!

Landed at Dover at 13:30 – arrived in Crewe where my niece lives (300 miles later) at 19:45. That’s over 6 hours of nose-to-tail traffic jams, closed roads, roadworks, lousy weather and general British road congestion. And, of course, the boat to The Isle of Man was cancelled due to lack of interest and a little bit of rain and wind.

Why is driving in England getting worse and worse every time we pass through? Another few years and it’s going to just grind to a complete standstill.

Anyway, enough of that, you didn’t come here to listen to me muttering away! We finally got back to the island a day late, unloaded the car and got ready for Christmas.

Veal and Duck ….. Mmmmmmm!

Grenadin de Veau GratinéLast week, while M-D’s sister, Christine, was with us, one of the meals we served was Grenadin de Veau Gratiné which comprises medallions of veal about 1″ (2.5cm) thick, served with a sauce of white wine, cream and cheese… and it is truly delicious!

As I have said many times, simplicity is the key to nearly all French cooking and there’s not much that is easier than this. Simply pan-cook the veal then degalze the pan with wine, stir in the cream and grated cheese, and it tastes like heaven. We served it with duchess potatoes and broad beans.

Magre de CanardAt the weekend, we went up to Lille, where Christine lives and she trumped our Grenadin de Veau Gratiné with Magre de Canard (it’s not really a question of trying to outdo each other, because both recipes are drop-dead simple). Magre de Canard is duck breast – nothing more and nothing less. However, Christine roasted it and served it with a green pepper sauce and accompanied by sautée potatoes. It was more than splendid, it was rapture on a plate (and I ate far more than I should!)

Roubaix swimming pool museumWhile we were in Lille, we visited the Roubaix swimming pool museum. This is the most amazing place, and has made use of a beautiful old Art Deco swimming pool that was due for demolition due to safety problems.

Originally built between 1927 and 1932, the swimming pool had served the people of Roubaix for over fifty years and the locals were very fond of their pool. Yet the health and safety issues meant that it could no longer be used for that purpose. Thinking laterally, why not make it in to a museum? So that’s what they did, and the result is truly stunning. If ever you are in the region, you should pay a visit – you’ll not be disappointed. Or, if you can’t get there, at least take a virtual look at this stunning place

Tomorrow night, our “nephew-in-law” is coming for dinner. Steve live in Canada but is sometimes in Europe on business. We tried to get together last time he was over, but it didn’t quite work out. This time we planned ahead! Nothing fancy planned, just good old favourites, Julie’s Salmon & Prawn with Lime followed by Confit de Canard and ending on M-D’s specialty, Citrus Parfait. Looking forward to it!

2011 ends on Oysters, Veal and Christmas Pudding – sounds good to me!

On New Years Eve, M-D (my wife), her sister their two cousins and their partners (and myself) sat down to a typical French evening meal (started at 8pm and finished at 3am!) and, somewhere along the way (after the oysters and smoked salmon) we ate Cubes of Veal with Spicebread Sauce accompanied by Cauliflower Cheese and Purple Majesty potatoes. And it was truly delicious.

The sauce relies on the addition of Pain d’Épice (Spice Bread). You can use my own recipe for the Pain d’Épice (Spice Bread) or, if you don’t want to go to the trouble of making it yourself, you can use ready made Jamaica Ginger Cake or Ginger Loaf Cake. Your own home-made tastes much better but sometimes you must trade convenience for taste!

One of the secrets of cooking to entertain guests is to do as much preparation as possible beforehand. For the oysters, it was no problem, I simply opened them (60 of them!) half an hour before the meal. This works perfectly because they are best left for a little while to produce more water. It adds to their flavour. The smoked salmon and jumbo prawns came from a specialist shop just down the road, where they smoke their own produce, so the quality was truly excellent (good, firm, Scottish salmon). Naturally, cold seafood requires no further preparation… only a nice presentation and a good bottle of dry white wine (like the Bel Air Quincy that we served).

So the main course needed to be something that took very little cooking and that could mostly be prepared in advance. The veal cooked while we ate the oysters and the sauce was prepared before our guests arrived, so Cubes of Veal with Spicebread Sauce is an ideal dish for entertaining.

After half an hour of madness with New Year party poppers and various other lunatic activities, we cleared the rubbish off the table and sat down to fresh salad leaves in a vinagrette and a great selection of French cheeses, including one of my favourites – Langres from the east of France. We continued with the red wine we had served with the main course (a Samur Champigny from Domaine des Roches Neuves)

And then came our “pièce de résistance” … Christmas Pudding flamed in Brandy (well, Cognac, actually!!). A “pièce de résistance” is defined as a creation that defies orthodox or common conventions and practices, thereby making it unique and special. So you may be wondering what gives me the right to refer to a common or garden Christmas Pudding from our local supermarket on The Isle of Man as a “pièce de résistance”. Well, quite simply, we have fun serving our French family and friends with typical British dishes that they have probably never tasted before, just as we have fun serving typically French food to our friends and family on The isle of Man. It’s easy for us since we travel backwards and forwards between the two quite frequently, and can bring food products with us as we travel.

Just as we introduced our French family to Haggis, Neeps and Tatties a few days ago, and then came up with traditional Christmas Cake the following day, so we introduced M-D’s sister and cousins to Christmas Pudding about which they had heard and read a lot of rubbish. In fact, in small portions, Christmas Pud is an excellent dessert, served either with custard or cream. The “problem” in Britain is that, on Christmas Day, folk heap their plates with turkey, chipolatas, stuffing, carrots, spouts, peas, three sorts of potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and gravy, then immediately force down a huge helping of Christmas Pudding – and all in the space of one hour. Following French tradition, we served smaller courses, interspersed with convivial conversation (and some excellent wines) and the Christmas Pudding was served (in smaller portions) at about 1:00a.m. – five hours after we started on our oysters. So the body has plenty of time to digest the food before loading up with more!

And so impressed were M-D’s cousins with the Christmas Pudding that one pair asked if they could take home what was left for the following day! Now that’s what you call ‘seeing the light’! No more talk of crap British food from that quarter! I love it when a plan comes together!

And finally, just a little footnote, having mentioned Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, if you read my post of 25th December, you’ll see that we brought a little sunshine into the lives of my daughter-in-law and her husband by serving this traditional Scottish dish to them… and they loved it. In fact, so much so that we plan going to their home this coming weekend to celebrate a birthday (no, I’m NOT going to tell you how young I am!!). Muriel (my daughter-in-law) has asked me to bring the haggis that she knows is living in our freezer, so she can serve Haggis, Neeps and tatties as a starter too! Again, it’s a St. Paul on the road to Damascus moment!

Have a GREAT 2012!