Tag Archives: vegetables

Which pie is which?

May 23, 2018 needarecipe Leave a comment

There are four recipes on the ‘NeedARecipe.com’ website which seem to confuse people, so let me try and explain.

Shepherd's Pie Shepherd’s Pie is what most people tend to call any variation, but the original Shepherd’s Pie was made just with onions, lean minced (ground) lamb, and topped with mashed potato. Shepherd’s Pie is an original English recipe that is inexpensive and ideal for a hungry family. Great with a glass of beer or cider.

Shepherd’s Pie is the sort of food that brings a smile to everyone’s face! That saucy, full-of-flavour filling, that creamy potato topping, and that awesome golden potato crust. This is a timeless classic – make this once and you’ll make it over and over again.

Cottage Pie is similar BUT it’s made with beef and not lamb. The Brits have a national fascination with minced meat pies and, when they combined it with mashed potatoes, the Cottage Pie was born. In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat, and the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top.

This classic favourite makes a comforting meal, especially on a cold day. Lean minced beef is a healthy filling that takes minutes to cook, and the topping is quickly browned under the grill. Serve with peas or seasonal greens. Delicious!

Duck Pie (Parmentier de Canard) is similar again BUT it’s made with confit de canard – duck confit. This simple recipe will give you a different take on Shepherd’s Pie or Cottage Pie. It’s a duck version that will delight your family and your guests alike. The only drawback is that you may not find it easy to get hold of Confit de Canard. We’re lucky, living as we do for six months of the year in France. But you can order Confit de Canard online from Godard the best producers in France.

Vegetable Shepherd's Pie Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie meets the needs of an increasingly vegetarian population. The meat is replaced by vegetables and a rich gravy is produced with a combination of wine and vegetable stock. And it’s this last one that had me scratching my head.

To be honest, I do love a my meat. And by meat, I mean beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck, whatever. I’m a damned carnivore! But I also really like vegetables, when they are good quality and properly cooked

And the vegetables in Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie taste good … REALLY good. Served up in a red wine gravy and baked under a layer of creamy mashed potatoes – they are THAT good!

I suggest you add full fat Greek yogurt to your mashed potatoes to get that extra creamy-tangy taste. That red wine, garlic, olive oil, rosemary… it’s my version of aromatherapy.

If you’re using up leftover mashed potatoes, they usually need a little help since they can be a bit dry out of the fridge. Just cover with clingfilm and pop them in the microwave. As they heat up, they will become creamy again. Then spread that magic on top of your silky, veg-packed mushroomy gravy. Yummmmm!

When you pull this out of the oven and the sauce is bubbling up around the sides under the gently-golden potatoes, you’ll be delighted you gave this Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie recipe a try. This is total comfort food and you’re best to attack it when hungry as hell with a big appetite.

Desserts, Fish, Personal Stuff

Poor Man’s Lobster

May 31, 2014 needarecipe Leave a comment

Archeres Apartments Last night we hosted a little dinner with some friends who have eaten with us before. It was actually a bit like an unofficial meeting of the conseil syndical de copropriété (the elected committee that help administer the day-to-day running of the apartment buildings). The conseil syndical ensures that lightbulbs are replaced, graffitti is painted over, cleaning is done properly, lifts work, doors and locks are maintained, and other stuff like that. They are elected each year at an AGM of all the owners and last night we had Yvon, Louis and M-D who are already on this committee, Pascale who is putting herself forward for election this year, Louis’ lovely wife, Monique, and of course, myself. So after a short spell on the balcony looking across the whole résidence (photo above), and then an aperitif in comfy chairs, we settled in for some serious eating!

Starter was nice and simple – foie gras and roulades de Jambon au foie de canard en gelée au sauternes. And if you are wondering what that is, it’s foie gras rolled in ham which we get from Godard, France (they will mail all over the world). In fact, we were cheating a little because our foie gras was maybe not quite enough for six and the “roulades” augmented the plate and seemed like we were also offering more choice (no good getting old if you don’t get sneaky with it!)

Main course was a repeat of something we have done before (for other people), monkfish medallions a l’orange (Monkfish in Orange Sauce). Monkfish is sometimes called “The Poor Man’s Lobster” since it has a nice firm flesh and is so very, very tasty. With it, we served Champ and Braised Fennel. And what a success it was… so much so that both Monique and Pascale asked for a copy of the recipe (a sure sign that something has been appreciated). And for Monique, it seems it was the first time she had even eaten fennel, so another first!

With the foie gras, we served a sauterne – a Barsac called Cyprès de Climens 2004 which, I confess, hit the spot rather nicely. With the fish, we served one of our “easy-going” favourites, Duc de Morny 2012 Picpoul de Pinet. Though, Yvon doesn’t drink white wine so we served him a rather succulent red wine called “Bordeaux Origami”. It’s one of the Grand Vin de Bordeaux from Famille Capdevielle and is almost totally unknown but (quite correctly) scores high in all the good wine guides. It’s a young wine (2011) but has a really deep, rich quality that you normally associate with older, more expensive wines.

After a course of cheese and salad, for dessert, we served another of our old favourites, Raspberry and Caramel Crunch which never fails to please. In fact, Monique (who has a notoriously small appetite) was last seen scraping her dish and looking somewhat sad that there was none left!

I thought I had cooked enough of everything for more than six people, but very little remained at the end of the evening. So, a very pleasant “meeting” of the conseil syndical, full of good food and plenty of good humour. All meetings should be like that!… and guess who had left-over monkfish medallions for lunch today????

So to walk it all off, M-D and I went for an afternoon ‘constitutional’ along the river Seine this afternoon. The massive locks there are for the big barges that use the river (some of them up to 100m long) for moving mostly sand and shingle. It’s fascinating watching them manoeuvre into the locks which have a height difference of about 4 metres at this point. Marie-Danielle While walking, I spotted a brightly-coloured wood nymph! (see left).

And then, this evening just to round it all off, we had a simple, but tasty Tarte flambée (also called Flammekueche) – an Alsatian dish composed of bread dough rolled out very thin, which is covered with fromage blanc or crème fraîche, thinly sliced onions and lardons. It is one of the most famous specialties of the region. So – a very pleasnt 24 hours!

Chicken, Personal Stuff, Salads

Welcome to the cousins!

April 8, 2014 needarecipe Leave a comment

Monday saw us having lunch with M-D’s cousin, Jean-Louis and his partner, France, who live on the east of Paris. Also, M-D’s sister, Christine, came down from Lille in northern France. We had planned eating at about 1 o’clock, but circumstances worked against all of us!

First of all, the chicken that we had planned cooking in its salt crust was decidedly “off”. Though it was a farm-bred, corn-fed beasty that was well in date, there was something going on inside it that shouldn’t have been, and it became very obvious when we removed the packaging! So I dumped it straight in the garbage and drove to the store to get a replacement.

As I was gone, Christine rang from her car. She was stuck in a jam just outside Lille due to an accident. Then we had a call from Jean-Louis… they had been advised of a parcel delivery that still hadn’t arrived, so he was having to wait before they could leave the house.

To cut a long story short, we had a long “apperitif” with Jean-Louis and France while we waited for Christine, and then sat down to eat just before 3pm! Fortunately, the Chicken in Salt Crust is a very tolerant recipe that can stand a lot of messing round. We had started it late, so it sat happily in its little salt ‘oven’ while we enjoyed a Tomato and Mozzarella Salad starter (except that I used Feta, for a change!). This is a great starter because it’s fresh, tasty, easy to make and (apart from adding the vinaigrette dressing) can be prepared in advance and kept in the fridge. Be sure to serve some nice fresh chunky bread with it to mop up the dressing… it’s far too good to waste.

So, at about 3pm, the “bomb” that held the chicken was presented to the table. Of course, it takes a degree in mechanical engineering to open it, so it doesn’t get undressed at the table – it goes back to the kitchen to be exposed and dissected! As it happened, France had never seen one before, so she joined me in the kitchen and attacked the crust with a large, dangerous-looking carving knife.

After a few minutes of cursing and hacking, she succeeded in exposing “the beast” and then left me to carve and present it to the other diners! The joy of this dish is that the chicken is “loaded” with Boursin cheese between skin and flesh and this melts to create a really succulent chicken with rich flavours. It might seem like a waste of coarse sea salt, but I can assure you that the end result is well worth it.

With the chicken, we served a Ratatouille and, for fun, some “curly potatoes”! M-D discovered a little gadget that drills the inside from vegetables, leaving a core like a spiral of vegetable. So I par-boiled the spirals and then sautéed them. Visually they looked great, and they tasted good too! There was very little left of either the chicken or the vegetables when we had all finished.

Since Jean-Louis and France don’t drink alcohol, there were just three of us sharing the excellent bottle of Pinot Noir that hit the spot nicely for all the courses. After the cheeses, we served Gâteau Creusois and a Carpaccio d’Oranges à la Cannelle (Orange slices with cinnamon) – something we’ve done a couple of times recently (we must stop being lazy and falling back on all the simple recipes!), However, it’s a nice simple, refreshing and tasty way to finish a meal – which just left me loading the dishwasher while the others had coffee and chocolates! – Hmmm – and they say a woman’s work is never done!!

Lovely way to spend a Monday amonst friends!

Desserts, Duck, Fish, Isle of Man, Mushrooms, Personal Stuff, Seafood, Vegetables, Wine

Between a rock and a hard place!

February 22, 2014 needarecipe Leave a comment

So this is our final week on “The Rock” before heading back to France. It’s been a short stay this time and the weather has been dreadful with rain most days. Hope it’s not an omen for the summer! Last year we had a thoroughly splendid summer and we went walking almost every day. Unless something changes soon, this summer could be a washout, just like 2012.

By way of marking our return to France, we invited our friends and neighbours, Terry, Julie, Dominic and Kate to dinner last night. We kicked off in normal style with a glass or two of Kir, using a rather nice Chardonny that had travelled back with us in January. When we settled at the table, we started with Monk Fish in Bacon with Parsley Cream which we haven’t done for a little while, but never fails to please. It’s light, tasty and visually pleasing, so it easily meets all the right criteria. We served the same Duc de Morny 2012 Picpoul de Pinet that we have served a couple of times recently. It’s light and fresh and it’s a wine that won the Medaille d’Or in the 2013 Agricultural and Food show in Paris.

After which, we resorted to one of our regular favourites, Confit de Canard and although it may seem that we are “over-relying” on this, having eaten it a few weeks ago, we are conscious that it is simply not available in provincial Britain so, while we may be used to it, our guests always seem pleased to have it placed in front of them. As usual, we served it in traditional French style, simply with a potato/mushroom mix. For this, we prepare Sautée Potatoes but we add cepes and/or porcino mushrooms (same family – Boletus edulis, commonly known as penny bun). The secret is to gently cook the mushrooms on their own first, to remove the water and then mix them into the potatoes at the last moment.

One of the joys of this main course is that just about everything can be prepared beforehand and then quickly warmed just before serving. I leave the stove on very low beneath the potatoes and the confit while we eat our starter. Then, I return to the kitchen turn up the heat, flip the confit so it is skin-side down (important to get that skin nice and crispy!) and it’s ready to serve in just a few minutes. We served it with a Gaillac – a Chateau d’Escabes 2008. This lovely ruby-coloured red wine from just north of Toulouse has an intense ‘nose’ of red fruits, spices and vanilla while remaining silky in the mouth. It worked well both during the main course and the cheese that followed.

Our dessert was a chocolate and nut gateau that M-D had made using walnuts from her daughter’s garden in The Loire region of France. We served this with orange slices sprinked with orange zest that had been cooked in cinnamon sugar and, just to give a contrast, we mixed normal oranges and blood oranges as we arranged them on the plate. Naturally, there being plenty of chocolate in the cake, we served Mas Amiel with its dense and concentrated inky black Grenache grapes and its complex nose of tobacco and garden herbs.

Coffee and chocolates took us into the wee hours until we finally crashed and left the washing up until today – lovely getting up to a mess, isn’t it! What was lovely, however, was spending a few hours in good company. We all know each other well enough now to simply be ourselves and not worry about being politically correct or having to choose our words with care. So an evening of good food, good company and good conversation seems like the ideal way to once again leave The Rock and head back to La Belle France.

We’ll be back!

Desserts, Fish, Personal Stuff, Vegetables, Wine

Welcome to a gastronomic 2014

January 2, 2014 needarecipe Leave a comment

Looking back at 2013, it has been a good year full of new friends, new recipes and old wines. If there was a single highlight (difficult to choose between several that spring to mind) it would be the discovery of Julie’s Salmon & Prawn with Lime, which our neighbours, Terry and Julie, introduced us to just a few months ago but which has now figured several times when we have entertained guests.

Close on its heels was Bruno’s “Double-take” apple flan that just melted into a utopian black hole as we polished off the whole plate in minutes!

One of the recipes we’ve enjoyed introducing other people to was Rich Gravy Lamb Shanks (though I confess that we more normally use a leg of lamb rather than lamb shanks). This is a deeply rich dish that almost cooks itself. The lamb comes out tender and succulent while the gravy has a ‘secret’ ingredient that adds a surprise element to the dish.

December 31st saw us out on our 4th floor balcony at midnight, watching the antics of the local ‘yoof’, who had got hold of the biggest Chinese Crackers I’ve ever seen – some of them lasting well over two minutes. M-D’s sister, Christine (from Lille) is staying with us for a few days so we invited their aunt Susanne who lives near Versailles to come for lunch on New Year’s Day

Now ‘Taty Susanne’ can out-talk anybody I know (in fact, my nickname for her is “the machine gun” because of her continuous rapid fire!), so I was happy to spend my time in the kitchen preparing the meal while the ‘girls’ chatted (or Susanne talked and M-D and Christine listened!). When, eventually, I could squeeze a word in edgeways, to announce that our lunch was on the table, Susanne decided it was time to go to “the little corner” and we all sat looking at each other as the silence rang in our ears for a couple of very peaceful minutes!

monkfish medallions in orange sauce Even eating didn’t stop her talking, though it did slow her down a little as our lunch started with foie gras (as you do!) served with a lovely crisp 2005 Sauternes from Chateau Roumieu. Even M-D’s aunt showed a bit of respectful silence for that one! Following that, we got stuck into the main course of Médaillons de lotte à l’orange (or Monkfish Medallions in Orange Sauce to us Anglophiles!), served with Braised Fennel and a two-tone potato stack! Yep, that’s two different coloured potatoes!

At this time of year, Vitelotte Potatoes (also called Vitelotte noire, Négresse or Truffe de Chine) are available in France. Vitelotte is a gourmet variety of blue-violet potato that has been cultivated in France since the early 19th century. In fact, they come in white, yellow, pink, red and violet, but the violet variety are the most common and, though they taste just the same as ordinary spuds, they are fun to use, offering a great alternative presentation on the plate.

The main course was served with an excellent Menetou-Salon which, though a red wine, is very light and can easily be served with fish. We skipped the cheese (having filled up on succulent monkfish) but Susanne had brought with her a hand-make chocolate cake from a pâtisserie near Versailles so we did some wilful damage to that, served with a glass or three of Mas Amiel Vintage.

Mas Amiel is a lovely ‘vin doux naturel’ sweet wine from Maury in the far south Roussillon region of France. It’s an inky black wine made from 100% Grenache grapes. Rich with a nose of tobacco and garden herbs, it is complex, sumptuous, dense and concentrated – with fruit and spice flavours dominating. It’s perfectly balanced and is probably the only wine that truly works with chocolate. If you like wines that are a bit different (and you’ve got a plate of hand-made chocolate gateau in front of you!) Mas Amiel is probably the only real choice. It also happens to feature in the world’s best Michelin Restaurants!

Tonight, Taty Susanne is back home and we have a beautiful fillet of beef that we can enjoy without the 100mph running commentary! …. Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together!!!

Veal, Vegetables

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

January 2, 2012 needarecipe Leave a comment

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!

Beef, Christmas, Vegetables

What do you eat after Christmas?

December 26, 2011 needarecipe Leave a comment

The age-old question, “What to eat after Christmas” has a somewhat unpredictable answer in our house! If you read my previous post, you’ll see that we have made thorough pigs of ourselves the past few days, so you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s time for us to ease back a bit and let nature sort out the overload. However, nature didn’t take into account the fact that none of us could be bothered to don socks and shoes and go to the shops for something to eat tonight.

Yesterday, my sister-in-law’s sons polished off most of the left-overs before jumping on their trains and heading home, so yesterday evening was a nice simple vegetable soup. Which, today, leaves us with the question of what to eat. Lunch isn’t a problem since we have some nice cooked ham in the fridge, along with a few leaves of lettuce, we’ll be fine. Dinner this evening, however, poses more problematical logistical issues – i.e. no-one wants to go shopping for something to eat!

Obvious answer… the freezer cabinet! And what did I spy, peeping at me from under a pack of Manx kippers? …. Probably one of the most delightful beef recipes ever – Daube Provençale!

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that I have a passion for Daube (it’s pronounced slightly more towards “Dobe” than “Daub”) so the idea of finishing off the old fashioned vegetable mix that I prepared yesterday (Purple Majesty potatoes, parsnips, green Romanesco Cauliflower and carrots), along with a good old-fashioned recipe like Daube appeals to my natural instincts (and to my unapologetic stomach!)

So here we go again… the table is already laid!! Happy Christmas Graham!!

Need A Recipe