723. Quiche Lorraine

Little story for you. When I was in high school, one day we had to make a quiche. It wasn’t a quiche lorraine, it was a vegetable quiche of some sort. I got all the bits ready, put all the ingredients in the pastry case and put it in the oven. Some time later I realised I had forgotten to add the cheese and my quiche was just a bland eggy, vegetably mess. Long story short it tasted like crap and I haven’t made a quiche since. I probably should though, as ditzy as I can be I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make the same stupid mistake again. I think.

Anyway, this quiche was therefore bought from the store. I got the ‘finest’ type range as standard supermarket brand quiche is usually rubbish. This was not rubbish; it was tasty and crispy, and they had not forgotten the cheese.

723 down, 1073 to go

700. Poulet en Papillotte

En papilotte is a really simple, healthy and yummy way of cooking chicken. You get chicken breasts, put them on a big sheet of greaseproof oven paper (or you can use foil too), add whatever veggies you want, pour over a splash of white wine, and then season it with salt, pepper and herbs. Then you scrunch the paper up into a parcel so that it traps all the steam in, and put it in the oven for around 25 minutes. Keeping all the steam inside the package means that the chicken is insanely moist, and also keeps in all the flavour. You can do the same thing with fish, or just vegetables too.

Also, woohoo, 700!

700 down, 1096 to go

694. Soupe au Pistou

I was on a bit of a soup kick lately. Well, ok, let’s be honest here, I’m on a bit of a soup kick always. I’m the weirdo that orders soup in middle of summer. Soupe au pistou is one of the many awesome Mediterranean soups packed with lots of chunky veggies and beans, and this is topped off with a big scoop of pesto. Pesto is great. I could eat pesto all the time.

694 down, 1102 to go

688. Tuilles

For my birthday this year, I went to Woodies Brasserie with my parents. I had a nice starter and main but the dessert was definitely my favourite course by far. This has generous lumps of toasted squishy marshmallow, passionfruit ice cream and creme anglaise all topped off with some fresh fruit and a crunchy almond tuille. I also had a few bites of my mum’s dessert which was this super rich chocolate mousse with hazelnut parfait and praline. It was all amazing. I’m pretty sure that if I go back there again I will see if I can just have two desserts instead!

688 down, 1108 to go

686. Black Perigord Truffle

Truffles can be extremely expensive, so I was very lucky to be able to get a very small jar from work and save myself a whole lot of money in the process! I wanted to use them in a luxurious dinner to make sure to bring out the best in them, so I cooked some authentic Italian spaghetti and made a sauce with chicken, mushrooms, white wine and cream, then folded in the chopped truffle at the last minute. The truffle flavour is lovely - it is both strong and subtle and adds an earthiness to the dish. I doubt I will be having them again any time soon though!

686 down, 1110 to go

640. Shortbread

Since starting this blog, I have lost count of the number of times I have eaten shortbread and not posted it because either I forgot to take a picture, or I did take a picture but the quality was terrible, or I took a picture which then got lost in the great iPhone Lion upgrade tragedy of 2011. Anyway, this has now resulted in me posting a photo of shortbread which is both poor quality, and of bad shortbread. I didn’t really want to post this one but frankly, with the luck I’ve had so far I didn’t want to risk it!

I’m a firm believer that shortbread needs to be made with all butter. Shortbread containing any margarine or oil at all is heinous and needs to be binned immediately. All you want to taste in shortbread is butter, and sugar. That’s it. Those two things are delicious and need to be left pure and untampered with, and so when you do have good shortbread it is melt-in-your-mouth amazing.

640 down, 1156 to go

638. Sole a la Meuniere

Sole a la Meuniere is a really simple fish dish which involves a pan-fried sole fillet topped with a white wine, butter and parsley sauce which you very quickly whip up in the pan you cook the fish in. This meal didn’t get off to the greatest of starts as I opened up the fish which I’d bought the day before only to find it smelled really bad. I had to take it back to the store and get some new fish, by which time I was over-hungry and hated fish and didn’t even want to eat it any more. As a result, I ended up thinking it was just ok. I think if I’d cooked it without all the drama it would have tasted much better though!

638 down, 1158 to go

614. Confit Duck with Puy Lentils featuring 615. Confit

Last Christmas (as in Christmas 2010), we were allowed to choose some foods from work to take home as a Christmas gift. For part of mine I got a can of French confit duck legs, which I then promptly put in the cupboard and totally forgot about for nearly a year. It meant for a nice surprise when I found them though, and for a really rich and luxurious Sunday dinner. The duck comes canned in a lot of duck fat, so I drained all of that off (and kept it to make future roast potatoes with), and roasted the confit legs in the oven to warm them through and crisp the skin.

I served it with puy lentils. Personally, I love lentils. I think they’re tasty, not only in themselves but also because they are so willing to soak up any other flavours that you put with them. For these, I sauteed a little onion and celery with a couple of rashers of finely chopped bacon. I then added a pouch of pre-cooked lentils with a splash of chicken stock and left them to cook for about 10 minutes until they were all soft and full of bacony goodness. I maybe could have done without the bacon as I think the lentils are supposed to be a light, refreshing companion to the fatty, salty duck, but everything is always better with bacon.

615 down, 1181 to go

610. Marrons Glaces

Marrons glaces are candied chestnuts - basically chestnuts that are just soaked in a sugar syrup until they are just these soft but hard, sticky but crunchy balls of super sweet nuttiness. I was kind of dubious as I’m used to having chestnuts savoury - either in a stuffing or with brussel sprouts, or my favourite way where they are just roasted and then covered in a metric ton of salt. They’re supposed to be a delicacy, and can be pretty expensive though so I guessed that there had to be something good about them. It turned out that they were actually really nice, something similar to a praline but with a much softer texture and a hint of that unique chestnutty flavour. They are very sweet though so you would not want more than one at a time.

610 down, 1186 to go

586. Herbes de Provence

For our starter on Christmas day I usually make a soup. This year I made a tomato soup with herbs, rice and sherry. The sherry plus a little cream made it rich enough so that it was a special starter the day, but overall it was light enough that you still had plenty of room left for the big plate of turkey to come. I chose herbes de provence as they have that lovely Mediterranean flavour that pairs perfectly with tomato.

586 down, 1210 to go