Tag: Blogging

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Blog Mains

Baked Mackerel Al Fresco

This weekend we spent a few days down in the New Forest in our motorhome. A short cycle ride down to the beach, and along the coast, brought us to Mudeford Quay, a local sea fishing centre and home of a fresh fish stall.

Being a working quay, there is always lots going on to watch and do. Think you can catch a crab with a line and some bait? This is a good place to have a try (see below). Just make sure you don’t fall off that wall into the Solent!

There are views over to the Needles on the Isle of Wight, and a little ferry traversing the strong currents between here and Hengistbury Head.

The sea fish stall is as unpretentious as the rest of this delightfully busy area. Here it is tucked away behind the nets and lobster baskets, its roof heavily weathered by the sea air.

Inside, local catch of the day is sea bass, mackerel and bream. We chose a couple of mackerel, which this helpful lady cleaned and filleted for us, before biking them back to the camp site.

That evening, I wrapped them in foil parcels and cooked them on my Cadac Safari Chef. This is a portable and versatile grill that plugs directly into the gas tank of the motorhome. It makes al fresco cooking a breeze.

As you can see from my photo, it is obligatory at this stage of the process for the chef to have a chilled craft beer alongside 🙂 . Today’s choice is Neck Oil by Beavertown Brewery.

12 minutes later and the foil parcels are opened carefully, revealing the tender flakes of the baked fillets.

Cooked, freshly caught mackerel tastes great, so needs little added – just some lemon and a few twists of black pepper. We ate them with steamed new potatoes and broccoli as the sun was setting. Oh, and with a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio, of course.

From sea to plate in under 24 hours!

So what musical track can I pair with this post? There is such a choice: Hooked on a Feeling? Under the Sea? Maybe Rose Royce with Fishing on a Star? Anything by Fleetwood Mackerel?

I’ve settled on this one: Kayleigh by Marillion. The name of their lead singer? Fish, of course 🙂

Categories
Mains Recipes

Summer Veg with Bacon on Chard

Today’s challenge was to cook up a consignment of summer veg, freshly picked at our local community farm, into a meal for 2. The veg selection included leaves of chard, tomatoes, a courgette, and mange tout. I combined it with a few ADK kitchen stand-bys – chopped mushroom, onion, bacon and crushed garlic into the meal shown above.

Servings

Light lunch for 2.

Timings

15 mins to prepare.

You Will Need

  • 6 leaves of chard
  • 3 slices streaky bacon
  • half an onion
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 2 mushrooms
  • 1 courgette
  • 3 – 4 tomatoes
  • 12 – 15 mange tout

Method

  1. Chop the bacon and fry until crisped. Remove to a plate to stay warm.
  2. Crush the garlic clove and add to the warm frying pan. Chop the mushroom, onion and courgette, then add to the pan. Add in the tomatoes and let them reduce to form a squishy sauce.
  3. Wash the chard and place in a steamer for 5 – 10 minutes. Add the mange tout for the last 3 – 4 minutes.
  4. Remove the chard and mange tout, and pat dry with kitchen roll.
  5. Arrange a bed of chard on each of 2 plates. Top with the tomatoey mix, then place the mange tout and bacon on top. Serve.

Customise It!

You can add or swap in any veg that is seasonal or which you have to hand. Chopped peppers would be fine. I also had green beans to hand so could easily have swapped those for the mange tout. Leave out the bacon and sprinkle with roasted nuts for a vegetarian/vegan option.

Here’s a track I came across recently on my ear buds while out and about in the sunshine. I found myself pacing my walk in time with the beat. Great fun – try it out! This is Overseer with Pump Action.

Categories
Desserts Recipes

Gooseberry & Redcurrant Compote

They could be described as the forgotten fruits, so rarely do we see gooseberries and redcurrants on the shelves of our local supermarkets and market stalls.

However, this tasty compote cooked up by my wife, Lesley, serves as a timely reminder that both fruits have everything going for them: delicious, nutritious and packed with Vitamin C.

In this guest post, I will let Lesley explain….

When I was little, we had green gooseberry bushes in our garden. I didn’t like picking them as a child, as they had thorns! I also thought they looked like green marbles. However, I loved having them cooked up for tea along with custard. My job was to cut the little shrivelled flower off the fruit with scissors. 

This year, they ripened at the same time as redcurrants at the local community farm I belong to. I brought them home and washed them, as you can see from the main photo at the top of this post.

It seemed natural to cook them up together, so I made the compote shown in my photo below. It is a beautiful rich, red colour, so summery and light. I had made elderflower cordial a few weeks ago so used that as a sweetener, meaning I didn’t need to add in any extra sugar. This helps in appreciating the natural, slightly tart taste of the fruit.

Servings

This will give 4 adult servings.

Timings

15 mins to make.

You Will Need:

  • 200g redcurrants
  • 100g gooseberries
  • 2 tablespoons elderflower cordial

Method

  1. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and heat it up until the fruit is soft, and the  juice reduces to make a jammy compote. This takes about 10 mins. Alternatively, you can cook it in a microwave on full power until the fruit is soft. 
  2. Leave to cool, then transfer to the fridge to chill.

Once chilled, I served the compote with yoghurt. It looks amazing when swirled in with a spoon (see below), but you can also have it with ice cream or custard.

As a guest poster on A Different Kitchen, I get to choose the latest track for Kevin’s Spotify Playlist. I have gone for a light and fun track to go with my summery compote. This is Chic with disco hit, Le Freak.

Categories
Breakfast Recipes

Summer Fruit & Nut Acai Bowl

I’m home from my trip to France, to find that a spell of warm sunny weather may have finally arrived in the UK.

Reminded of the climate we enjoyed on our trip to Australia in the spring, I decided it was time to bring out the Acai powder I brought back in my suitcase, to make an Aussie-style smoothie bowl. Here it is, shown in my photo above, glinting in the British breakfast time summer sun.

We found Acai Bowls to be a popular choice in cafes and takeaway joints wherever we went in Australia. The Acai is usually served with combinations of cereal, fresh fruit and nuts (check out my earlier post on the crazy, yet delicious, peanut butter-infused option I enjoyed in Melbourne).

Acai (pronounced ah – sa – ee) is a dark purple berry grown in Brazil. It is rich in antioxidants, fibre and healthy fats, and believed to support heart health and cognitive function, while being low in sugar and calories. It tastes great, with a flavour reminiscent of dark chocolate, berries and red wine. It is suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

The berries do not travel well, so outside of Brazil they are sold in pulp form or as powder. I bought a pack of powder from Coles Supermarket in Melbourne, where it was available on the shelf, in several varieties. I have seen it in specialist health food shops here in the UK, but it is nowhere near as mainstream as it is Down Under.

For my Acai Bowl, I blended a tablespoon of Acai powder with two bananas and 3 tablespoons of Greek natural yoghurt. After a minute or so in the blitzer, it forms a thick purple cream that can then be poured on to cereal and topped with fresh fruit. This made enough for 2 Acai Bowls.

I poured it on to muesli and added some fresh strawberry that is grown locally. Just like Cristiano Ronaldo, the blueberries and kiwi are from Portugal. The crowning touch is some toasted brazil nuts, with a sprinkling of pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

It is the time of year to relax outside in the sun listening to good music on my ear buds. This week I’ve been revisiting an old playlist featuring The White Stripes, having forgotten how good they sound. Here they are with The Hardest Button to Button.

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Blog Snacks

Au Revoir, Bergerac

The time has come to leave the Dordogne after a lovely holiday, and head back to the UK.

We have certainly dined well during our stay, as should be clear from my last few posts. My favourite meal in France remains a very simple one, however – a summer spread of cheese, paté, hams and salad that we have enjoyed outside in the sun most evenings, as shown in my photos above and below.

We’ve enjoyed baguettes from the local boulangerie, baked fresh and collected every morning, and best eaten the same day. They have a crisp exterior, and soft, buttery textured inner that carries a real taste.

A visit to the fromagerie is always fun, as there are so many French cheeses to try. We’ve usually opted for a cheeseboard comprising a soft, a hard and a blue: in the one below the soft is a Vieux Pané, the hard cheese a Tomme de Montagne, and the blue a Basque Bleue.

Paté de fois gras goes well spread on a hunk of baguette, and local cured hams from the charcuterie have been tastily paired with chunks of ripe, golden melon from that marché in Bergerac.

Enjoyed with a glass of Bergerac Rouge, of course. While watching the sun set.

Time to say au revoir.

I’ve downloaded my listening for the journey back from Bergerac Airport. I’ve chosen a 2023 digital remaster of New Order’s Substance album, which is sounding even greater than ever. Here’s a track to show what I mean: Confusion ’87.

Categories
Blog Desserts

Baba au Rhum

Of all the pastries we have enjoyed on our current holiday in France (and there have been a few 🙂 ), the one consistently rated the highest in our party has been the Baba au Rhum, or Rum Baba.

This eastern European delicacy was reinvented in Paris in the early 19th Century. The story goes that a cake that had become a little dry was enlivened by a little soaking in some rum.

Since then patisseries all over France have never looked back. Fast forward 200 years and this is the scene in our local boulangerie here in the Dordogne. Amidst a range of to-die-for pastries sits a line of Baba au Rhum.

As you can see, the Baba is served with its own pipette already inserted into the cake. The pipette is filled with rum, which is injected into the sponge before eating, by carefully squeezing the pipette with one’s fingers. It makes a dessert that is light, moist and boozy, topped off with a swirl of whipped cream. Mmm!

The Rum Baba has had some stiff competition from the patisseries we have frequented this week, see below.

Or maybe check out this selection..

Every one a piece of culinary artwork that it is very difficult to fault. In such company, it is saying a lot that the Baba au Rhum has been rated so highly by our group.

Formidable!

I can’t say whether the cake inspired LCD Soundsystem to record this track, but it’s a song I really like, so here it is: New Body Rhumba.

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Blog

Déjeuner à Mélange

On holiday in France, and keen to experience some top regional cuisine, we book a table for 4 at Melange, a restaurant in our nearest village, Saussignac.

Like many rural villages we have seen in the Dordogne, it is small and sleepy. There is a lovely old church, a war memorial dressed for the D-Day commemorations, and a cobbled square. There is little traffic and few people to be seen out.

That changes, though, when the churchbells chime to say that midi – 12 noon – has struck, and this charming old building opens its doors.

Soon cars were arriving and all the tables on the terrace were filling up. Aren’t I glad that we booked!

Our 3 course menu du jour was delicious, and beautifully presented. The restaurant’s chef clearly has an artistic streak, judging by the stylish way the dressings and sauces are swept around the plate to get the mouth watering. Well, this country has quite some pedigree when it comes to art: Cezanne, Matisse, and Monet to name a few. Why shouldn’t that extend to culinary creation?

For my Entree, I chose the cod and yuzu croquette, which was served with baby gem lettuce and a sweetcorn and avocado salsa. That is red pepper aioli you can see in the photo below, swept across the dish in broad brush strokes, with carefully positioned blobs of yuzu dressing.

Yuzu is something I hadn’t come across before, and I do not even recall seeing it in any of our shops. Of Asian origin, and now grown in France, it is a citrus fruit that is kind of a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. It’s a natural for pairing with the fish in the croquette, therefore.

My Plat, or main course, was a fillet of sardine, served with rocket pesto, roasted cherry tomato, and chive and lemon gremolata. The fennel came en deux facons: firstly as a roasted bulb, and secondly as a puree that looks like it has been extravagantly combed across the plate with traditional Gallic flourish – see below.

The gremolata I hadn’t come across before, and I will definitely have a go at making this back in the ADK Kitchen. It is a garnish comprising seasonal European ingredients all minutely chopped: red onion, garlic, chives, citrus zest and herbs, blended with olive oil.

Dessert, shown below, was Tarte a l’abricot – apricot on a biscuit crumb base – with olive caramel wafers and a scoop of yoghurt ice cream.

The apricot had a real zing, and the yoghurt slightly less sweet than more traditional ice cream. The olive caramel wafers are made from pureed black olives and sugar, giving a sweet yet slightly bitter taste that I think goes well in a fruity sweet.

I rounded things off with a cappuccino that was served with a Canelé de Bordeaux, a small caramel pastry that is traditional in this region of France.

A thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours with great food, much inspiration for future cooking, and the company of family and friends. The price was reasonable also – my 3 course menu du jour was €24 (£20 or $25), which I considered fair value.

A glimpse into the unrushed life of a quiet village in the Dordogne that enjoys its food. As Dublin’s B*Witched put it, C’est La Vie !

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Blog Mains

Au Marché

One of the great joys of being a foodie on holiday in France is making a visit to the local market, or ‘marché’. So, while here in the Dordogne Valley, we set out for the local town of Bergerac on market day. Some of the fresh produce we bought inspired our evening meal back at the farmhouse. More of that in a moment.

It was a beautiful warm and sunny morning as we arrived. The market was already well under way, this array of soft fruit was glinting in the sun, and business was brisk.

The market isn’t just about stocking up with provisions for the week, however – there’s a real sense of market day being an opportunity for local people and traders to meet and catch up. In between happily chatting with customers, this chap sold us a bag of his healthy crop of radishes. Simply washed, topped and tailed, they made a light, peppery and crunchy snack alongside cold beers.

A long queue of discerning French shoppers waiting patiently to buy their food is usually a reliable sign of a good market stall. So it was with this charcuterie stand, where beef carpaccio was the ready prepared Plat du Jour. The charcuterie included local merguez sausages, which are long and thin with the texture of chorizo, and which went well later on our barbecue.

All the fruit and veg was seasonal, fresh and presented attractively. The range of tomatoes was something else, and they all looked luscious in the mid-morning sunshine.

Garlic is a staple in French cooking, and I treated myself to one of these wonderful looking purple bulbs to take home. Presentation-wise, I liked the juxtaposition of vivid colours alongside these wedges of butternut squash.

And so to that evening meal. I hadn’t come across white asparagus before, being more used to the green variety we have in the shops in the UK. It is popular in central Europe however, so I decided to try some.

It is essentially the same plant, but is grown underground, which stops it turning green. It has a slightly more intense taste, and requires a little more prep by peeling from the end of the spear tip to the base of the stalk. Like all asparagus, the woody bit at the base needs trimming off also.

I steamed the spears for 20 mins, then wrapped them in local prosciutto, and warmed them on a plate in the oven for 10 mins. They were then served with a knob of melting butter, a squeeze of fresh lemon and a few twists of black pepper.

The dish was enjoyed by our group, with a glass of chilled Bergerac Blanc on our terrace in the evening sun.

Voilà!

Time for some more French-inspired rock. This is The Stranglers with Goodbye Toulouse.

Categories
Blog Drink

Chateau de Monbazillac

Vive la France!

This week I am off on my travels again. We are holidaying with our very good friends in the Dordogne Valley in south-west France. Expect to be hearing over the next few posts, therefore, about some of the lovely food and drink that this region has to offer.

The base for our stay is a delightful, restored stone farmhouse in the countryside, just west of Bergerac. Built in the 19th century, it retains all its character and, I am pleased to say, now has some 21st century luxuries (like wifi, ensuites and a dishwasher) incorporated.

Discovering that we are situated along the Route des Vins, we set out to find our bearings on a tour that takes in one vineyard after another. The climate and soil conditions here are near-perfect for growing grape vines, making the Dordogne Valley one of France’s prolific wine-producing regions.

To learn a little more, we stop at one of the major vineyards along the route for a tour and some wine tasting. Chateau de Monbazillac is a microcosm of modern French history – a splendid, ornate chateau and estate that flourished in the 16th Century, before being brought down to earth by the revolting local peasants in the revolution of 1789. After some period of flux, it eventually found its feet again, being taken over by a wine producers’ co-operative that now markets its wine collectively under the Monbazillac name.

The Chateau is beautifully restored and maintained, with exhibitions on modern wine production, and glorious views out across the Dordogne Valley towards the town of Bergerac, taking in row after row of vines.

The choice of wines for our tasting took in a Bergerac blanc, a rosé, a fresh and fruity red and a deep red with the scent of oak barrels and a hint of saline on the throat. After some deliberation, our group opted to buy a bottle each of the two reds.

I can assure you these are being fully savoured on our terrace in the evening with a few platters of cheese, ham, pate and locally baked bread (I will go into further details in coming posts about that cheeseboard 🙂 )

After a relatively wet spring here, the weather is warming up, and we are looking forward to a relaxing few days of good food and wine with sunshine. Check back this weekend for a further report.

In the meantime, I shall leave you with a track that has a distinct French connection via the bassist, Jean Jacques Burnel. Here are The Stranglers with La Folie.

À bientôt!

Categories
Mains Recipes

Sticky Sesame Roast Veg

This dish serves chunky roast veg on a bed of brown rice, coated in a thick sweet, sour and spicy sauce. The finishing touch is a fresh crunchy topping of chopped scallions (spring onions) and sesame seeds.

Servings

An adult meal for 2.

Timings

25 mins to make.

You Will Need

  • 1 aubergine
  • 1 courgette
  • 1 red or yellow pepper
  • 100g brown rice
  • 2tbsp each of Worcester sauce, fish sauce, cider vinegar, honey and olive oil
  • 1 tbsp oil for frying
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 1 red chilli
  • 2 – 3cm piece of root ginger
  • 500g carton of tomato passata
  • 2 scallions, chopped
  • sesame seeds to sprinkle

Method

  1. Cut the aubergine, courgette and pepper into large chunks and roast on a metal dish in the oven for 25 mins at 180C.
  2. While the veg is roasting, tip the brown rice into a saucepan of boiling water. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 25 mins.
  3. Combine the Worcester sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, honey and oil in a screw top jar. Shake to mix.
  4. Crush the garlic and put in a saucepan with some oil over a medium heat. Finely chop the chilli and ginger and add in. Let cook for a few mins, then pour in the sauce from the screw top jar. Add in the passata and give it a good stir. Leave to simmer – it will slowly reduce to give a thick, sticky sauce.
  5. When the rice is cooked, drain it and spread out to form a bed on each of two plates. Place the roast veg on top, and then pour over the sauce. Top with pieces of chopped scallion and a sprinkling of sesame seeds (see photo).

Customise it!

Lots of scope here. My choice of veg reflects what’s in season in the shops at the moment, but you can swap in any other veg that roasts well, such as sweet potato, butternut squash or parsnip. For the sauce, keep the vinegar and honey, which give it a sweet and sour base, but wine vinegar will be fine. Soy sauce can replace the Worcester or fish sauce if that’s what you happen to have in the cupboard.

This week I’ve been to a party at my Bowling Club, where everyone nominated a track for a jukebox-style playlist. The tracks were then played on shuffle, while everyone ate and drank. It was a fun evening in good company, with some great choices of music. Here’s the track I nominated: The Clash with London Calling.