Brick pastry parcel with runny egg, smoked chicken and caramelised onion

Brick pastry again, I know, BORING.  But it's just so utterly yummy.  The oven needs to be at a high temperature, preheat the baking tray, to get the pastry cooked, the inside hot but keep the egg runny.  A very very easy dinner but one that is so absolutely scrum I'd eat them until I felt sick.  

This brick parcel is with smoked chicken, caramelised onion (which I add white miso paste to give it an extra bump of umami), a little sour cream and that aforementioned egg.  

The puree is pea and stock from the smoked chicken bones (yum).  And a little finely chopped charred brussel sprouts on the side (also yum).  

Plenty of salt and pepper, a touch of tarragon and viola.  

Pork fillet with lardon of sorts

Lardon, pancetta, whatever you like to call it.  Pressed (and smoked occasionally) pork belly.  It's bacon but sold in the square form rather than the rasher slices I grew up with.  Well, give me a square of 'bacon' anytime. Dry cured please.

It's bizarely difficult to find a good quality slab of pork belly properly dry cured outside of Europe.  So I bring it back with me.  Always vac packed and there's no piggy smell going on.  I haven't had a problem with customs (to date).

There's nothing like beautiful pork fillet cooked medium rare.  I know that is rather unconventional for my home country however it's the way it comes in Spain and France.  And what a beautiful thing it is too.  Soft and sweet.  And exceptional value given quality of these prime cuts (and it's so blah...I'm not a free range type.  However when it comes to pork it has to be free range.  Like chicken,  those over fattened over hormoned massive pieces of whatever are utterly repulsive to me).

So I served a square of dry cured 'bacon' cooked again to get the skin crisp chewy, the pork fillet was perfection in protein, I made a little apple disk dusted in star anise and wrapped in brick pastry, with celeriac puree.   Very seriously delicious.

Our plans for France

We have had various ideas about what to do with our little house.  We thought initially we might build a small extension to create a doorway into the cave ... see the mock up below.

 We ultimately decided against this idea.  Too much work/money for too little gain.  We instead are going for a new cave door done in the traditional way.

Over to the barn and very old house.....it currently looks like this with no windows

We have been contemplating the driveway area and tidying that up.  Currently we are getting a devis (quote) for the work to flatten and gravel.  Create some planted areas and tidy up the old house by putting windows and shutters .... see mock up below

Here is another idea for the shutters on the old house.  This is a very old building dating back to the 17th century.  We do not think it is worth renovating but we do love the look of it and if we put shutters and glass in the windows along with a proper door we will get the benefit of a finished looking very old place from the outside at least!  The verandah awning is rather prized too as it is so very old.  It's in good nick and the whole area (we hope) will end out looking smart and part of the property and landscaping without spending extraordinary amounts of euro.

Our little house has a south facing terrace which is a wonderful area.  But we are looking into changing it slightly.  The image below is as it appears now from the dining room.  The bottom image is what we are looking at doing.  By opening it out and creating a staircase we'd be able to see down our flat section to the field below.  We can also then pave an area at the bottom and create a landscaped space.  It would serve a few purposes.

The image below is just a photo from the dining room to the outside terrace....

This image below is a mock up of what we are thinking of doing.   We'll see what the price comes to but it's fun thinking of our various options.

We are of course mindful not to overspend.  It's a balancing act and it'll be neat looking back to these plans in the future and see where we end out!

Brick pastry with egg, mushrooms, celeriac, lardon and apple

We are on a brick pastry roll.  It’s the most incredible stuff.  Far more delicious than the ubiquitous filo and easier to handle. 

It is called feuilles de brick in French, Tunisian in origin and the French have adopted it with resounding aplomb.  So having French supermarkets ever present in Dubai we are able to buy said brick and ….

We thought about a gorgeous combination with this amazing pastry that you can actually tie off without it breaking.  The result ?   Sauted mushrooms, crème fraîche and an egg.  Served it with a cube of cooked lardon sitting on a little bed of celeriac puree with dried apple pieces.

Oh my gosh, how the heck yummy was this???  My tummy is rumbling even thinking of it because I want to eat it again right now. It is fun cooking together.  When the results are this delicious? Even more so!

Damn good idea Andy.

Yummy yummy egg yolk chicken dinner

Andy had this idea.  Egg yolk ravioli, caramalised onion with white miso paste for umami, pea puree, smoked chicken plus stock from the bones.  We cooked crispy chicken skin bits from the smoked chicken, we drizzled the (dreaded ?? - shame on you Ray McVinnie – it has it’s place) truffle oil.  Yumety scrum. 

Future note:

Saute mushrooms, cook them with plenty of butter until there’s no moisture left and use that in place of the pea. 

By gosh what a divine dish and the fact the pasta dough made by Andy was highly salted was a sensation in itself,  it resulted in the most sublime balance.  The pasta alone stood out.  I know it sounds gross but I could have eaten that pasta dough raw.  Yum!!!

Our Petite Maison in France

We had been scratching our heads, it's so hard thinking of what to buy.  Not spend a fortune.  Get a decent mix of old and new.  Maintain the integrity ..the age of the property but not allowing it to look too English French. We are of course not English and not French.  A bit of a head spin for us because we aren't used to furnishing old places like this one that's for sure (for sure for sure for sure...)...

We stumbled upon a little furniture shop just below the Langres limestone promontory.  We were on our way to THE DREADED IKEA.   OK so of course IKEA is great for 'stuff' and pretty good for that 'stuff' too but we were clutching at straws thinking we could find actual furniture there.  The desperation of the English speaker in rural France We were DREADING having going to IKEA.  The whole maze thing doesn't work for us.   We are get in get out sorts when it comes to those shops and IKEA has that maze thing going on... 

So being cheap skates and a preference to driving rurally,  we took the non toll road to Dijon IKEA.  Our wonderful area of France has no toll roads unless you head south of us towards Dijon and then they start in their merciless veracity.  We had the time up our sleeves.  We thought... well we didn't think, we punched into the GPS 'avoid tolls' as we do. 

Heading into Langres, still 55 minutes north of Dijon and we spied this little furniture shop directly under the old town of Langres. 

What a delight it was.  Oh my gosh.  I could live there.  And at the end of an hour we had to shove ourselves out because I could have spent an absolute fortune.  Part of the delight as well were the owners.  They were just lovely.  Welcoming, amicable, lovely people and so completely OK with our terrible French.  They were apologetic of their English (which is more common than anything in France) and their English was good.  It is us that should be apologetic but we don't speak enough French to properly convey it.  Anyway .. moving on we were able to scramble together a look for our little house using one major furniture item from their shop (i.e. the dresser), several art works from their shop, the glorious lamp, the little teeny table and 2 chairs.  All by local artisans.  

Oh, as a beside.  The owners came to deliver our goodies on Sunday (their day off).  They came with their unbelievably beautiful little girl who was so very humble.  What a lovely family and what a warm shopping feeling we came away with.  IKEA you serve your duty but by god I'm so glad we didn't make it to your store that day in the Haute Marne.  

Our sweet little boudoir

Rapeseed flowers of spring.  They are EVERYWHERE.  It makes the drive to the supermarket pretty OK!!

OK so check this out....Andy made the coffee table from a little sleigh the previous owners had left along with some huge chunks of wood we had in the barn.  One has these things when one owns a barn it seems!

We'd planned to leave the little table and chair set for outside but it looks too good inside.  It's our corner cafe.  

The lady in the ball gown is a stunning piece of art we bought in the shop below Langres. 

The lamp is my pre birthday pressies.  Months ahead but I did insist. 

And our belle vue.  

Beef fillet with red wine sauce

Eye fillet of South African beef (sorry NZ … the SA stuff is far better IMO) with a sauce of … well lets just say I did the basics of a beef bourguignon (ie good quality lardon, onion, garlic, mushrooms-I use dried cepes- red wine.  I also add star anise to my beef bourguignon). 

Served with roasted baby carrots and roasted celeriac along with celeriac puree.  D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S!!!