Grilled salmon, cauliflower and saffron puree, grilled cauliflower, crispy leek, burre noisette and red wine reduction

Highly seasoned, a gorgeous balance of sweet, sour, salt.  With the crispy leek and salmon skin and lovely creamy salmon flesh.  A knockout.  And easy.  That's a bonus!

Sea bream with open lasagne and fish reduction sauce

 I took the recipe from my Jun Tanaka cookbook.  He's one of those chefs whose recipes are full of flavour and using classic French techniques he really brings out the best in whatever he cooks it would appear to me.  I've done several of his recipes now and they are all flavour driven and absolutely scrum.

This recipe was actually for mussels and clams instead of fish but I had fresh sea bream and used the same techniques, making the stock with the fish bones instead of shellfish liquor.  Topped with crispy leaks, the fish grilled with crispy skin.  Texturally perfect, flavour perfect (I added some pernod  and butter instead of cream at the end but otherwise stuck with the recipe, reducing to a gorgeous sauce).

It's always a pain making pasta with seafood.  There's so much last minute-ness about it all.  Definitely not something I'd do for a dinner party and something we do together because it's easy and fun with 2 people, a pain with one person.

Yum.  I would have paid a big sum of money to eat this in a restaurant.  For me, food perfection.  Yum.  Did I say yum?  YUM!!

Apple strudel or Apfelstrudel,,,, Whatever, seriously scrum.

This is hands down my favourite desert.  I roped Andy into helping me make one from scratch.  It's summer.  He's awesome.  It's good to have a project inside when it's so hot outside.

My benchmark for apple strudel is from Triest.  We were staying opposite one of the original bakeries who did everything by the traditional method and their strudel was amazing.  I got a piece everyday we were there.

I had always wanted to make one but I thought the pastry would be far too difficult.  They are simply not the same with filo.  To have proper strudel you need the proper pastry and it needs to be very thin.  But knowing what i do about bread making now I can tell when a dough is at that stage of elasticity and strudel dough is no different, however you sort of take it even further so that it is very very stretchy, then rest it for an hour at room temperature.

It's a good thing to make with 2 people because it helps when rolling out, then stretching the dough with knuckles then rolling the whole thing up on a floured cloth.  It's a bit delicate but easy if you're set up.  We then rolled it on to a piece of baking paper to bake.

It's a very light desert.  A small amount of flour and sugar and a little butter, not much.  The point of a strudel is that the pastry is very fine, crispy and it's jammed full of apple.

We used pain d'espice spice mix, that lovely spice blend from the Alsace.  We used plenty of it too because we like to taste spice.  And some lemon rind.  Salted butter in my opinion is essential or add a little salt to the apples.  I used this recipe and would so again.  Absolutely utterly scrumptious.  It is up there with the best I have had ever (and I have gone to great effort to do some serious study on this matter in Europe).  

With filling in tact.  Rolling it in this paper thin dough we'd stretched ourselves....

Cooked, gorgeously perfect apfelstrudel

Black risotto, scallops, prawns, cauliflower and fennel

Doing a bit of a squid ink theme at the moment because I bought some last time in France (from an Italian place we went to in Dijon for lunch with mum and dad.  They don't really use it in French cooking).  I made a stock with the prawn heads and a hefty amount of saffron and pastis.  The fennel was braised in pastis until soft.  Cauliflower grilled.  The risotto was made with black Italian rice, adding the prawn stock and squid ink resulted in a glossy immensely gorgeous risotto.  The prawn bodies were cooked last minute, scallops were perfectly caramelised care of Andy and a little burnt butter was poured over the top at the end to finish.  The only thing I would change next time is just use prawns not scallops because the scallops, whilst delicious of course were a little lost with the rest of the flavours and they are expensive so it's better to serve them simply.  This was a gorgeous risotto.  Glossy, rich with prawn and anise flavours and as black as it gets.   

Cured venison, parsley pea spinach dressing and jerusalem artichoke and parmesan

The venison is reindeer, from Norway.  Cured and smoked.  Sliced as thin as possible and served with a little jerusalem artichoke puree, crisp jerusalem artichoke, a herby green dressing with parsley and the sweetness of pea plus a parmesan crisp.  A delicious, light and elegant entree.

And finally - Trier and Thalfang, Germany

Trier is the oldest city in Germany , so we popped in to wander and have lunch on the way to Thalfang, a small village in Rhineland-Palatinate.  The bed and breakfast in Thalfang was lovely and we had champagne on arrival with the owner.  He packed us breakfast as we hit the road early for Frankfurt to get our flight.  I'd have been happy to drive back to Sig but work calls for Andy, flights back to NZ for Joey and dad.  It was a blast, that's all I can say really.  A complete experience in the most perfect of ways. 

All above photos at Trier

The dog at our BnB.  Very cute

Thalfang

Mine was tom yum goong (closest to the photo).  Dunno if you're familiar with it but I am and this ain't tom yum goong!!! But the others ordered better and it was a simple (if confused) Asian place run by very sweet Chinese people (who should stick with Chinese cooking).  Gorgeous Riesling.

Wissembourg

Wissembourg is a French village on the German boarder.  Northern Alsace.  Cute place, well preserved ramparts, great bnb with an exceptional breakfast.  Little Dave is still hanging out there because I left him behind!  The owner will post him to me in France.  Bonn chance little Dave.

Check out the roof on this old place!

We had an exceptional breakfast.  Canele fresh out of the oven FFS!  If there's ever a time for a cake only brekkie this was my time.  Yum.

Baden Baden

Baden Baden is a very wealthy town in the black forest.  Yet again a STUNNING day.  We were on our way to Wisembourg in France taking two nights to get from Sig to Frankfurt airport and Baden Baden was only a little detour.  It’s a wonderful place.  Regal history, beautiful arcitecture and during this time of year very very few tourists just the rather well to do locals.

Andy and I have fond memories of time spent in the past, walking in the hills above.  It’s an incredible place for walking, the beauty of it really is to walk properly and enjoy the beautiful region and amazing houses high above the town.

Goodbye little Siggie

You are all shuttered up, safe and strong until we see you again.  Clean as a whistle, garden weeded and planted, trees chopped, holes dug for new plants next time, all ship shape even in the old house!

So farewell to you wee Sig.  It was amazing.  An experience like Andy nor I have ever had before.  A time forever in our hearts.  We worked, we walked, we laughed, we shopped, we ate, we drank, we ate some more.  But most of all we appreciated the beautiful simplicity of a rural village lost in time, just the four of us.  Enjoying that thing called life. 

All shutters closed, ready for departure

Just leaving, dark due to the shut shutters.

Final photo call