2018 Christmas Day in Signeville

2018 Christmas in Signeville

Joey and dad woke us up at 0715!  I mean we rarely sleep that late.  But it was black out there.  So, after collecting our thoughts and sorting out the cat, Andy lit the fire then made our morning cocoa.  We do love our morning cocoa do me and Andy, along with a piece of biscotti.  This week it was an awesome chocolate and coffee variety which was scrum.  I change my biscotti depending on what I have available.  I doubled up on the chocolate this week cause I felt like it with fresh ground coffee.. Its scrumm!!!!! 

We had a neat chat with ma & pa after I called them back. It was so cool to chat with them cause they’d had their Chrissy day already and we are only just waking up.  

I went for my run. It was COLD.  Very difficult to motivate But pretty I’ll give it that. Without a shadow of a doubt.  Beautiful.   Very white and frosty. No cars at all.  An extremely quiet cold Christmas morning with everyone sleeping in by the looks of things.  I didn’t even hear any kids playing.  It gets light late so hopefully all parents get a big fat sleep in in these parts at this time of year on Christmas day.  

Andy cooked Kaisershmarrn for brekkie (plain scrum). Double cooked in butter.  Served with a huge amount of astringent berries.  And vanilla yoghurt.  He pops some pain d’espice in the mix, along with vanilla sugar.  By god these things are a treat and made my Christmas morning run in the freezing cold all the more worth while.  Especially since the fire had been lit since 7am and wee Nudge was happy and fed.

I cannot describe how awesome it is coming back from a freezing run to a beautifully fire lit house, a sleepy Nudgies and pancakes on the go. 

Anyhooooooo

We sort of skipped lunch cause we ate Kaisershmarrn at 11. So we had a tiny bit of truffle cheese and bread but it was teeny cause we had dinner coming.

At 3.30 we opened the Champagne.   

Then at 5 once it became dark (love these early nights) began with our pork belly entrée with dashi broth  along with the extraction of bonito, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaf with a shaved fennel salad and lumpfish roe (cavier is out of the question, we had it last year and not up to the euro IOHO).  YUM.

Main was with a Margaux wine from the cave.

Duck breast.  Spiced on the skin side, fully rendered then full marinade on the flesh side with fomage blanc mixed with the spice for the flesh side. Served with spice dusted foie gras, quickly seared.  Along with a beautiful spiced panna cotta and coconut beans, with spiced apricot chutney and steamed basmati rice.  We together did different components of this dish.  The whole thing was an UTTER delight.  The best modern Indian we’ve EVER eaten.  It was utterly sublime.  Every single mouthful.  

We finished off outside by the fire.  It was a very very cold night but still and clear.  Andy make an awesome fire in our outside fire pit.  

Little Nudge slept because we gave him a big bowl of dry stuff at midday as an experiment to see if he'd stop eating.  He didn't so I ended out taking it away from him.  It's now midnight and he still has not asked for more food.  Not a peep.  Apart from him going a little nuts at 7pm when he's usually asleep

So there you go, our Christmas day.  Yum scrum.  Typing this right now I  want to eat it all over again. 

We finished the night off pretending to smoke spliffs.  In the cold.  Blowing the air.  Christ it was funny.  What an awesome Christmas we had.  Seriously.  Unreal.  

Pork belly, lumpfish roe, fennel salad, dashi broth etc...

   

A Very Pretty Snowy Night

It's so early in the winter for snow so I can't resist taking photos.  But they are a bit dire, it's pitch black.  The shots are grainy.  The essence is there!  

Our First Proper Snowy Night for 2018/9 Winter

It looks beautiful. This place is awesome when it is snowing.  Nudge is happy, he's asleep, has no idea what goes on outside.  We are happy because Andy cooked Tandoori chicken which was unreal and now it's SNOWING!!!!!

Tandoori Chicken Andy Style Perfected.

Andy has perfected (AND I MEAN PERFECTED) his tandoori chicken this winter.

It is utterly SUBLIME.  The combination of spices so perfectly balanced.  Using cardamom, black cardamom, ginger, garlic, Kashmiri chili, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, turmeric, the spices are dry toasted off before it’s all ground down adding a touch of smoked paprika, salt, a squeeze of tomato kechup, a dollop of fromage blanc. 

Smeared on chicken legs, baked then finished under the grill. 

We serve this usually pretty simply, with salad, raita, chutney and we make a crispy flat bread because we like the texture. Lately Andy’s been doing a spiced potato pea salad which works a treat.  Sometimes we flash it up and do an Indian spiced cabbage or fennel dish or some such.  Possibly cauliflower.  Sometimes Andy does his amazing dahl.

However it is served it’s always utterly completely compellingly scrummy.

Andy's Apple Strudel

 Andy made this apple strudel from scratch as usual. Caramalising the sourdough  bread with pain d’espice, sugar, butter and a touch of salt until the sourdough is crunchy and the whole thing tastes like a caramel sugary buttery spice delight.  I could eat a bag of that alone.

He made the pastry which is like a filo dough but better, lets it rest, stretches it on a table cloth, adds chopped apples and that sourdough caramel mix, rolls it up, bakes it and viola.  Dessert heaven which we try to do most weeks.

Frosty Winter Mornings in Signeville

Winter has firmly set in here in Signeville.  We have frost so heavy that they last all day. The ground is crunchy underfoot. Andy lights the fire first thing in the morning.

The running’s been chilly and I’ve gotta be careful with the ice.  With windchill factors taken into account it’s close to -10.  Ouch!  

I love these beautiful clear days though, even if it brings sub zero conditions for the whole day they’re pretty and it’s very cosy inside.

I always bring a load of wood in from the barn on my way in from a run.

Speaking of barns, our little Nudge hasn’t popped a paw outside since mid October when he got ‘fixed’ and had to stay inside for a week.  He is very content being an indoor cat in the winter.  Very cute.

Our nudgie popsicle

From living life as a stray to the life of a homed kitty cat, in the blink of an eye.  

Nudge

My little Nudgicles is my wee cutie pie.  He was born in our barn along with his sister. His mum was feeding them and we were fine with that, but then she died in a trap set by the mayor’s office to cull the wild cats in our street.  So we had 2 new born kittens in our barn.  What were we to do?? Well we fed them, kept them at arms length.  Just until they were able to fend for themselves. I did some study and discovered wild cats rarely fend for themselves properly. Poor wee things.  But these 2 were wild.  Ferril.. They would not let us near them.  There’s no way we could de flee or anything and a visit to the vet would have been fraught with god knows what.  They were starving crazy kittens and we had no clue what to do.  But we named them.  Smudge and Nudge and fed them in our barn where they were born and were sleeping in our woodpile.

But then one day Andy was backing out the car and their game of chasey meant wee smudge was under his tires.  She died.  Wee Nudge was out of his mind.  In fact we thought he’d died or was severely injured because we didn’t see or hear him for 36 hrs after Smudgy’s death.   He didn’t eat, he didn’t meow.   Finally, he popped up.  There he was in the barn, traumatised.  So we fed him but he didn’t play like he had been with Smudgy, he stayed in the barn, only ate when we were looking over him rather than fighting for food with his sister. It was sad.

Very sad.  

Because he meowed and meowed and meowed.  He sniffed and sniffed where she’d died.  Heart breaking actually (and I’m NOT a cat person).

Then one day he changed.  He demanded our attention.  He was the most incredibly affectionate cat.  So we were touching him and playing with him, but he stayed in the barn.  He was happy there sleeping in the woodpile.  One week on there were wild cats in our barn eating his damn food!!  Mangy looking things.  Gross.   and we thought we needed to do something to protect him so we made the huge step of moving wee Nudgy inside.  With the help of Andy, and the NZ fam I moved him in. Big huge step for one that’s never had a pet.  Ever.

That was the day before yesterday.  These are photos from tonight.  He’s settled into life inside rather too easily!!!  Not a peep out of him at night, he just is so so so happy.  Which makes us happy.  

Mexican chicken

We are so into Mexican cooking at the mo.  We have sourced a supplier of really amazing smoked chipotle chillie and are trying to adapt our knowledge of spice to recreate those smoky heady sharp deep but essentially fresh and zingy Mexican flavours.   

Tonight’s was chicken with spice and smoke fresh and very very yum.  In the cave. On a hot summers night.  Very very awesome.

 

Duck breast "Thai style" with foie gras sauce

This is an Indian inspired but Thai style duck marinade.  With a foie gras sauce again Indian inspired. Served with coconut spiced veg. An utter dream to eat.  Not spicy, just incredibly perfect in every single way and I cannot describe it better than utter deliciousness.  Hence me writing down the recipe.  

For 4 serves

2 small or 1 large lemon grass stalk

3 kaffir lime leaves

3 cardommon pods, ground, husks removed

1 desertspoon of fennel seeds, ground

salt

1 heaped tsp miso paste

1 heaped tsp apricot compote

1 tsp Kashmiri chilli paste

A knob of ginger

2 big cloves of garlic

2 tbsp coconut cream

Smash the whole lot toghether in a pestle and morter. 

Smear it on the duck flesh (and skin if it’s a summer duck, but if it’s a winter duck leave the skin to render as usual and smear the whole lot on the flesh side)

The veg:

One courgette cut into large strips or a couple of handfuls of fresh green beans or same amount of finely chopped cabbage or fennel

1-2 tsp black mustard seed

A handful of curry leaf

A knob of ginger

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp desiccated coconut 

salt

1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

the juice of half a lime or lemon

A touch of turmeric powder

Heat some oil.  Cook the mustard seed off (until they start to cackle) add the  curry leaf, . Add the veg, high heat then the ginger garlic salt and chilli Finally after 2 minutes add the coconut and limon/lime juice and turmeric.  Give it a good stir and it’s ready.  

The sauce:

Foie gras or whatever is on hand (pate, terrine etc) blitzed down.  With water to create a sauce.

The chutney:

Apricot compote with lime juice

To serve:

A portion of veg, a portion of sauce, duck breast and serve extra sauce and chutney on the side.  

With crispy garlic flat bread.  

Petanque

Our beautiful property does my head in with it's glorious beauty!