France

How to make boudin noir

November 16, 2011 Food & drink

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 Eating out

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 Food politics

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 Food & drink

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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Tourte de boeuf parmentier

July 24, 2011 Food & drink

This beef pie has a very British feel to it, despite its French origins. I was asked exactly what makes it French, and I must admit to struggling to find an answer. There’s some garlic in it, I suppose, and it has that general feel of traditional French cooking…simple, practical, thrifty and generous of flavour…but [...]

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French Kitchen, Serge Dansereau

July 20, 2011 Books

It’s easy to forget just how influential French cooking is, how it’s still widely regarded as the ‘mothership’ of cuisines, the place where all the best techniques, the best ideas, the best recipes come from. If I had to choose just one cuisine and eat it for evermore, it’d be French. That might sound treacherous [...]

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Salt cod brandade

August 11, 2010 Food & drink

Remember that salt cod I made the other week? Here’s what became of it. Brandade de morue or brandade de bacaloa, depending on if you’re French or Spanish is a simple emulsion of salt cod and olive oil, most often eaten with bread. It’s common across France and Spain, and versions of it exist in [...]

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The French Paradox

April 14, 2010 Food politics

Last week, I made a dish of confit rabbit, coated in breadcrumbs and then deep fried. A couple of people made comments about the inherent unhealthiness of the meal. True, this was a meal of rabbit cooked in goose fat and then deep fried. It had its fair share of calories, but it tasted unlike [...]

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Keith Floyd’s Beef Bourgignon

September 29, 2009 Food & drink

The passing of Keith Floyd earlier this month caused me to dig out one of his old cookbooks, Floyd on France, a cornerstone of the Floyd canon and packed full of traditional French recipes described and executed with typical flair. Beef Bourgignon, caught my eye. It is, as Floyd puts it ‘a splendid stew (that) [...]

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