Frijoles

A man’s got to eat.

Floats

This battered old cookbook is a good friend used so much the pages are coming loose. I just ordered a backup copy from Amazon for 1p. Lucky friends got a bang-up birthday meal from it this weekend. I did Accra de Morue for starters and Sue did a heavenly Boeuf Creole for the main course […]

Shepherd’s Pie – for Jeremy

Well, Jeremy’s always posting pictures of very chefie food on the Stir the Pots blog. So here’s some peasant food for him: A humble shepherd’s pie. But it was made with the remains of yesterdays Pierna de Carnero Adobada – lamb stuffed with raisins and almonds in a sauce with ancho and mulato chiles. I […]

French Onion Soup

Never thought I would make French Onion Soup in France. The sun is shining here but it’s unbelievably cold. We made chicken stock earlier in the week, had some onions and a bottle of white wine. What more could you want? – a little grated emmental or gruyiere and some croutons, that’s what. This is […]

Hot Whisky

As a lover of alcoholic beverages I have to say that I hate gluvine which should be kept, quarantined, within the confines of German Christmas Markets. Hot whisky is yer man to save you from the winter. Put the kettle on to boil. Stud a slice from a lemon with four cloves and drop into […]

Gallette de Pommes de Terre (et son Omelette)

In the Patatas Pobres recipe below the idea is to turn the potatoes occasionally to stop them forming a cake and so that they brown unevenly. It produces fairly inelegant (but delicious) clumps. In this recipe, from one of Elizabeth David’s French books, the object is to form a cake which is evenly browned on […]

Pollo al Ajillo & Patatas Pobres

Reader, I survived peeling 5lb of potatoes at a time as a child and lived to love cooking. One of my all time favourite cookery books is Penelope Casas’ The Foods and Wines of Spain which, unlike a lot of other titles in the Penguin Cookery Library range, has not been reissued. There ain’t no […]