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.