Christmas 2023

 We'd been meaning to buy oysters for ages but always got a bit scared because we hadn't shucked them before.  There are stacks and stacks of boxes of oysters here at this time of year.  They set up a whole separate area in the supermarket for them.  

Anyway this year we bought a box and a shucker.  Andy shucked them (it's pretty easy) and we had them with champagne on Christmas eve.  It was fun and they were delicious.  We'll get more for New Years.

For Christmas dinner we bought a prime rib or côte de boeuf.  I did what I always do with cuts of meat.  I salted it for a few days to season it and dry it out so that the moisture content reduces and the crust is delicious when cooked.

I found a blog: https://www.seriouseats.com/perfect-prime-rib-beef-recipe which made a lot of sense.  Most people really make no sense whatsoever when they have their own techniques with cooking, including most chefs in my opinion.

This blog was really along the same thinking as mine including the salting technique beforehand.  Something I've been doing for years whether it's sea bream, salmon, chicken, pork or beef.  I don't do it with duck as duck fat needs to be nicely rendered and it's easier if it's not too dry.

Anyway the theory behind this was to cook the côte de boeuf to a perfect medium so that the fat is nicely melted but the meat still very tender.  Not too rare where the fat can be still quite uncooked and unpleasant to eat in my opinion and the meat can be quite chewy.  Not too overcooked where it starts to dry out.  Just medium.  So this means cooking it to an internal temperature of 55deg before resting and giving it a final blast to crisp before serving.

The way this is done is to cook it long and slow in the oven at 65 degrees C for about 5 hours on a rack over a deep baking tray.  Letting it rest for 30 mins then turning up the oven to 250 degrees C and giving it a final 10 minute blast.  It was an amazing way of cooking for a couple of reasons.  1. The result was absolutely incredible.  The beef was so tender, the fat beautifully melted and it really was the best cote de boeuf we've ever had.  2. It meant there were no spatters all over the kitchen which suits me.  

We served it with roasted Jerusalem artichokes from the garden, celeriac dauphinois (from the garden), roasted potatoes and onions, caramelised onion puree and a foie gras  green peppercorn sauce.

Delicious.  This is definitely a technique worth doing again and again for a cut of beef like this.  It would not work on a tenderloin or similar.  Anyway we had a fab 2023 Christmas.  Excuse the rather crap photos!

The beef after being salted for a few days, all nice and dry and a little dehydrated

After coming out of the oven, resting ready for a final blast on high heat

All crispy and delicious on the outside

Perfectly evenly pink inside and melty fat

Giles, his dog and the little tractor that could (but only just)....

Giles has this really cute tractor.  His dog always leads the way and his little tractor trucks on behind.  This is him coming by our place from the house below.  He's rubbing his tummy giving me the thumbs up from a frittata I made in exchange for his eggs.  Very cute.  

 

Giles and the Nudgicles...

Giles is a bit of an eccentric guy who is the caretaker of the château is a complete animal whisperer.  

His little dog follows him everywhere as do a couple of the cats. 

We know Nudge goes over to visit quite regularly. What we didn’t know until last night is that Giles takes off Nudge's collar when he’s visiting to give him a break from his bell, then pits it back on again before he comes home. How do we know this? Cause last night when Nudge was already a bit late, Giles popped over with a dozen eggs (he likes cake in the weekends and he knows I always bake a cake when he gives me eggs and as an aside he calls out "Natalie" when he comes over.  He knows how to say my name because it's very popular in France).  His dog was with him as usual but who had also followed him from the château and was sitting in the driveway (waiting but looking a little bit guilty)? Our little Nudge. Sans collar. Then Giles left with Nudge and the dog following him back to the bloody château!!

Nudge returned a couple of hours later (hungry, luckily Giles knows better than to feed him) with his tinker bell collar back on. It was so funny.  It's nice that Nudge has friends, but seriously little guy???

This week I baked a lemon cake and filled it with lemon curd and cherry compote.  A easy exchange for those gorgeous free range eggs.

Cake getting packed, I pop them on a piece of foil lined cardboard and label it "Giles" now, in case he's not there.  Andy leaves them on the letter box and texts him.  A couple of times the cheeky people who were staying in the chateau over summer nicked it.

55th Birthday

 We had such a lovely day and dinner.  We've been playing around with coral tulles.  They're fun to make, taste DELICIOUS and look pretty.

The ratio is around 50gms oil, 50 gms water and 8 gms flour.  With whatever flavour, sugar and whatever for sweet ones, salt and whatever for savoury.  These were with a little smoked paprika.  They're quite addictive because they are sooooo crispy and yum.  Next time I'll play around with salt and vinegar ones to serve with seafood.

We started off with champagne.

For dinner, we had calamari for entree.  The calamari we get here is thick, so we cut some into cubes, scored it and cooked the cubes like scallops.  It was soooo meltingly creamy and seriously made us wonder why spend that huge price tag for scallops when you can buy calamari like that.  Honestly, just unbelievably yum.  We served it with a puree of celeriac, beurre noisette with capers and the tuile.  Delicious of the scales.

Main was sea bream, cooked to perfection.  The way I cook it the skin is so crispy it shatters and the flesh is pearly and lush.  We served the bream with a spiced tomato sauce, spiced rice with toasted sesame seeds (a delicious recipe which defies it's description) and roasted tomatoes.  Basil and fennel pollen from the garden.  

Dessert was lemon plum cake with plum compote and whipped vanilla yoghurt.  

It was a super cold day, the coldest northern hemisphere birthday I've had so we lit a fire outside.  It was awesome.

Entree: calamari, celeriac and beurre noisette

Fennel pollen

Sea bream 

Sea bream, fennel pollen and quail

 Bream (Dorade here) is absolutely a favourite of mine.  I fillet it, lightly salt it and pop it in the fridge overnight uncovered and cook it for the most crispy glassy skin imaginable still keeping the flesh pearly and succulent.  I cook it skin side only, with just a kiss of heat on the flesh before resting it on foil on the bench flesh side down.  Perfect results every time.  We served this with a tomato fennel sauce, roasted tomatoes, basil and fennel pollen.  The basil and fennel pollen were from the garden.  

Fennel pollen is something else.  It's so rich in anise flavour.  It's absolutely delicious for a fennel lover.  It's worth growing fennel for the pollen alone.  

The previous night we did tandoori quail on the bbq.  All smokey and absolutely delicious.  A subtle tandoori marinade which made that those sweet little birds shine.  

Bream, despite appearances the skin is as crisp as it gets.  

Fennel pollen, little gems of flavour

Quails, looking like a couple of headless women having a bake

Nudge

 A very rainy day here.  Really strange for August.  What does Nudge do? Take to the laundry cupboard.   

Our neighbour

I bake cakes, he leaves me fresh eggs,  I'm happy as a lark to bake cake and lemon curd for these gorgeous fresh eggs in return.  He leaves them on our outside sill (which subsequently Andy's re painted) if we aren't home. 

 

Mackerel

 We went to Chaumont, bought lots of lovely things including 2 fresh mackerel (one of our favourite fish).  I filleted and pin boned them, leaving nothing on the skeleton.  I hate waste but I don't use the mackerel bones and head for stock, it just doesn't work for stock.  Andy made an Indian tomato ginger sauce, I made made spiced potato, roasted tomatoes and beetroot.  Used the beetroot leaves and stalks in the spiced potato.  I pickled some beetroot.  It looks like a dogs breakfast (a fancy dogs breakfast) but tasted so so so scrum.  Luckily you don't eat with your eyes despite popular belief (the dumbest saying ever).  The best best best way to cook mackerel is to blowtorch it.  Firstly lightly brush with a little seasoned oil then give it a good blowtorch on both sides.  It cooks to perfection and gives the beautiful natural oils of the fish a chance to shine.

 

We had salmon

 It was absolutely delicious.  

A coco bean (tiny white beans) puree with a few coco beans for texture.  A tomato chutney from a Jun Tanaka recipe.  It's rich and sweet and sour.  And that crispy crispy salmon, cooked until the skin is like glass but the flesh stays moist.  Yum. Yum Yum.

And the sunflowers are out just under our section.  

Dad's date scones

Dad's date scones are famous in our family.  He takes them very VERY seriously.  He uses self rising flour so they are a bit tricky to make in France because they don't do self rising flour here and the flour and butter are different.  He is very careful to use a fairy light touch.  Very little handling.  The butter (lots of it) is carefully rubbed in and mixed only JUST until they come together.  Honestly, a fresh dad made date scone with butter jam and sometimes cream is pretty much heaven.  He was making them yesterday in Whitianga.  The hint of lemon zest he adds is very delicious. He's a real sweetie is my dad.  

And the final clean up.  Very cute.

Calamari on the BBQ

 Andy's sorted out a great way to cook over charcoal, not using too much charcoal and keeping all the flavours in.  He puts a small pan of charcoal in our fire pit, puts a grill bar over it and uses an old pot to cover it so all the lovely smokey flavour stays in while whatever is cooking cooks.  He was using an old set of oven gloves to check the cooking of whatever but decided to make a lifting device so he can easily pull it on or off.  He was out tinkering in the old house, I didn't know (or care) what he was up to and about 15 mins later he came out with this nifty thing.  He only uses stuff we have leftover.  

Anyway last night was calamari.  We get these really thick calamari pieces here and we slice them finely almost to the bottom so that when you eat it, you cut it just a bit and it's almost like pappardelle.  It's such a lovely way to cook (and to eat) these thick calamari steaks.  And on the bbq, they take on that gorgeous caramelised flavour you only get from charcoal.  Calamari, when cooked properly, tastes like scallop.  It's really really delicious.  

Calamari, cooked this way tastes really really SCRUM!!

The cool device Andy made to lift the pot on and off the bbq

We served it simply with a white bean, roasted tomato, fresh tomato, basil  salad with a little vinaigrette, 

 lemon juice and zest.  It was very very delicious.

  

My lemon curd recipe

OK.  So if you look up a lemon curd recipe it has multiple steps.  Mine is so so so easy.  I don't even use lemon juice or zest I just use citric acid.  

For one Dijon mustard jar size (maybe a normal to small jam jar in NZ (?).

4 whole eggs in a stab blender with around 140gms sugar, around 1.5 tsps of salt, around a dessert spoon of citric acid and blend.

Pop it in a small saucepan and stir with a spatula (never a whisk as recipes might say, the whisk creates air bubbles so you cannot see what is going on and you can't get into the corners).  In fact this is the same as making custard or ice cream.  Never ever use a whisk.  The only one time I've split a custard is the first time I made ice cream and I followed the instructions of using a whisk.  Big mistake.

Stir with the spatula until thickened.  No need to use a water bath.  As soon as it's thickened pop in 50gms of soft butter and stir until it's melted.  Moderate the temperature by taking it off the heat.  Every single time this simple recipe turns into a glossy smooth super tangy lemon curd, no lumps, no straining, no mucking about.  Salt is a key ingredient though.  Don't forget salt when baking sweet. Give it a taste.  If it needs more of anything put it in (of course!).

My cake recipe

A common sight, eggs on the window sill when we come home

 I think my little Nana would be proud of me for this one.  It's such a super easy recipe and to feed the neighbour giving me his eggs.....  yep, I just know Nana would love this one.

3 eggs and 150gms of sugar.

Whisk until thick and milky in colour. To this, add one 125ml pottle of greek yoghurt then the same amount (pottle) of colza (rapeseed) oil or another plain vegetable oil and whisk. BTW, don't use sunflower oil, it has a strange flavour when baked.   

Separately mix 250 gms of flour, one sachet of backing powder, a tablespoon of citric acid (my fav) and a good teaspoon of salt.  Mix that together, then fold though these dry ingredients into the the wet.

Shove it into a pre lined cake tin and job done.  It works every time.

I pop some cherries on the top sometimes, or I do a chocolate variation (210 gms of flour, 50 gms of cocoa (never EVER forget salt when baking).  

I can literally knock this cake up in 15 minutes.  Including lining the cake tin.  And it is always moist and delicious.  And it's cheap because it uses no butter and no flaffing around with lemon rind, juice etc.....

I think citric acid is a completely underrated and under used ingredient.  I do a very mean lemon curd using just citric acid, no lemons.  And again, super duper simple.  A separate blog.  When I can, I cut corners when cooking.

St Galmier

 It's a beautiful town in the Auvergne Rhone Alpes.  Quite different to other places in France.  It has an almost Italian look about it.  

          The road where our air bnb was located was full of very large semi Italian styled homes.

       If you ever get the opportunity to try hay syrup, jump at it.  It is DELICIOUS.  Indescribably so in 

       fact.  This was served with thick yoghurt as part of a tasting dessert at the charming little restaurant

       Carre Buffet, in Saint Galmier.  It is made with hay, sugar and lemon juice.  That's all.  Yum.

              The gorgeous very very VERY good wee young dog (American Shepherd Juanitz thinks) 

               at our bnb.  He was just a youngster and still puppyish but oh so good.  This is taken while 

               we are eating and he never came near but he just looked at us with his big hungry eyes.  

                             I bought a whole heap of tomatoes, they were so fresh and cheap.

                           And made a very very delicious pasta dish with some of them and basil 

                           from the air bnb garden which I served with a green bean (again from 

                           their garden) tomato and basil salad.  I brought some aged mimolette 

                           which is one of the tastiest cheeses on the planet (it HAS to be aged).