France

How to bake French-style brioche bread

April 12, 2013
French brioche bread

Baking bread. It sneaks up on you. It starts slowly, just a little experiment, maybe a curious attempt at a simple loaf. Nothing out of the ordinary, just flour, salt, yeast, water and time. You find that it works. It works better than you could ever dare believe it’d work. Your bread tastes real, substantial, [...]

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Rabbit with mustard

November 25, 2012
Rabbit with mustard, or lapin a la moutarde

Rabbit is vastly under-rated. It’s cheap, tasty, plentiful and versatile, but not very widely eaten. This should change. Rabbit is a superb meat, and it deserves a wider audience because it fits well with the needs of the modern cook – it’s lean and healthy, it cooks quickly and doesn’t take a lot of preparation, [...]

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How to catch, clean and cook garden snails

July 14, 2012
How to cook garden snails

The first thing to say about my very small attempt to farm garden snails for culinary purposes is that its been controversial. “It’s worse than the live crabs in the sink incident“, Jenny said, “but not as bad as the pig’s head in the fridge.” Personally, I think it’s far worse than the pig head [...]

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How to make croissants

May 5, 2012
how to make croissants

They look so complicated, with their elegant crescent shape and proudly airy layers of rich pastry, tightly curled up and falling over one another. Breaking one open sends a shower of buttery flakes everywhere and leaves your fingers satisfyingly greasy. Surely, this type of baking is the preserve of the professional? Or the French? But, [...]

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How to make boudin noir

November 16, 2011
How to make French Boudin Noir, or black pudding

You either love blood puddings and sausages, or you hate them. I’ve yet to find anybody who’s simply ambivalent. Sitting on the fence just doesn’t seem to apply here. There are many different versions of blood sausage – the traditional British black pudding contains oats to thicken it, the Spanish Morcella has rice, and this French [...]

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Les Millésimes, Noyers-sur-Surein, Burgundy, France

September 13, 2011
Les Millésimes, Noyers, Burgundy, France

Noyers-sur-Surein is a place in the heart of Burgundy that’s famed for its mediaeval buildings and the ruined castle high on the hill overlooking the town. It’s a beautiful setting, a town of solid mediaeval architecture sat in the middle of the rolling Burgundy countryside. Seemingly along with all French towns, Noyers has its incredible boulangerie, a [...]

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They eat horses don’t they?

August 24, 2011
Why don't the British eat horse meat?

On holiday in France the other week, we spent a morning wandering round the weekly market in Chablis.  There was a little butcher’s van there, a chevaline boucher, a horse meat specialist. I bought a small piece of faux fillet for a couple of Euros, took it home, seasoned it and cooked it.  The meat [...]

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How to make a French baguette

August 17, 2011
How to make a French stick

There’s little more evocative of France, more French in itself, than the baguette. The sight of people walking quickly home before breakfast, a still-warm baguette tucked firmly under their arm is a common one, such is the baguette’s place in French life. British-style white-sliced bread stands no chance in France. There’s tradition involved – no [...]

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