Puy lentils and Montbeliard sausage cassoulet recipe

In the days before Napoleon III and Eugenie's with their trend-setting fancy lifestyle became the role model for the newly affluent French bourgeoisie, daily food for the majority of the French was like this: all-in-one casseroles. Chopping and cooking whatever is available on the day into something between a soup and a main course is the ultimate way to feed a big family at the end of a hard day. In France this type of dish is actually known as cassoulet or (caçolet in Occitan) and can still be found on lunch menus in bistrots and auberges, always an inexpensive entry.

For me, it is a winter comfort food that reminds me of my Mother's cooking so as the astronomical spring starts on the 20th of March, this Puy lentils and Montbeliard sausage cassoulet may be the last one I cooked this winter.

Cooking a cassoulet takes a couple of hours but you don't need to be present all the time, it's really about chopping and letting it all just simmer away as you delve into your Facebook comments.

1. Soak Puy lentils in plenty of cold water. Peel and slice a head of garlic and a few shallots.
   
2. Slowly fry the garlic and the shallots in olive oil until golden brown.
   
3. Add chopped Montbeliard (or Toulouse, or Morteau) sausages, potatoes and any root vegetables or tubers you can get hold of: carrots, parsnips, root celery, salsify, turnips, topinambour. Mix well, cover with a lid and allow to cook until half-ready, stirring occasionally.
   
4. Add the lentils and enough water to cover it all. Add bay leaf, all-spice berries and pepper.
   
5. Turn the heat to low and allow to simmer until the lentils are ready.
   
6. Salt to taste. I also use fish sauce and a smidgen of liquid smoke for the extra oomph. Serve with crunchy baguette and a glass of red.

How to saute mushrooms

Ever wondered how sautéed mushrooms never come out looking as good as they taste or smell? Here is how to beat the cheeky buggers and make them as aesthetically pleasing on the plate as in the moss under an oak tree.

1. Wash mushrooms in cold water, drain and set aside in a colander. Don't believe those who will tell you mushrooms are too tender to wash. Yappety-yap. There is nothing to spoil your plate of lovely sautéed mushrooms as grains of sand on your teeth.
   
   
2. Heat a frying pan on low medium fire. Dip the mushrooms into the pan. Use no oil or butter at this stage. Gently stir from time to time to prevent the mushrooms from burning and remove the juice in a separate bowl.
   
   
3. When the mushrooms stop oozing the juice and have reduced roughly twice in size, remove them in a separate bowl.
   
   
4. Melt some butter in the pan and fry until the froth turns nice golden brown colour. Add some finely sliced garlic and when it turns golden, add a generous amount of finely chopped shallots. Fry until golden brown.
   
   
5. Add salt or even better fish sauce and, perhaps, a couple of bay leaves. Tip the mushrooms and the juice into the pan and allow too simmer on a low fire for a few minutes. Season with pepper and serve as a main with grilled bread, as a side dish or on top of pasta.
   

how to cook black rice recipe

bahrain cuisine dining restaurants food

Sanchae Korean mountain vegetables 산채 - 山菜

Yeepie-ho, my quest is over. I have managed to find sanchae (산채), Korean mountain vegetables, in London. No Korean restaurant here yet serves my all-time favourite sanchae-bibimbap (산채비빔밥 ), so I may be one the first ones to cook it in the Big Smoke.

Madeira food and dining

adeira is not exactly your gastronomic destination. What you mostly get here is what guidebooks politely call "hearty fare": simply cooked peasant grub.Fried chicken or fish with a side of potatoes and veg - centuries of British involvement with the island's economy seem to have taken its toll!
For an island plopped whack in the middle of an ocean, Madeira lets down in the seafood department: there is fish and seafood galore in the markets but in the restaurants they end up cooked in the blandest and most forgettable way, oily and overdone.The fiery looking bunches of dried chillis I saw in the markets never seemed to find their way in any food that I tried. Could they just be used to ward off evil spirits in houses?Funchal's Mercado dos Lavradores may be named Workers' Market but it is mostly busloads of German cruise ship tourists that are unloaded into it with astounding frequency. Heaps of most exotic fruit make you wonder why it was the lowly apple that Eve had to be seduced with in Paradise.



Bacalao, the salted cod, as seamen's staple is probably what ensured Portuguese colonial expansion, but hello, refrigeration has been with us for over a century! I have heard so many times that it can be cooked in 365 ways but in each dish it tasted like bits of PVC soaked in stock from Knorr's fish cubes.The local specialty, espada (scabbard) filet with fried banana is of highly dubious culinary value: very good fish prepared in the most unimaginative way.

On the other hand, lapas grelhadas are a treat. Cooked very much like your escargots à la bourguignonne, grilled with garlic-parsley butter, they come together perfect with a sprinkle of lime juice and a sip of nicely chilled Portuguese white.

Madeira's finest seafood restaurant, Doca de Cavacas is definitely head above shoulders of other comparable establishments on the island, but then again, it's not such a hard feat. A platter of rather oily grilled fish, squid and prawns comes with the sides of boiled potatoes and vegetables. Meh.What is superlative in Madeira is bread and pastry. The local round bolo de caco is good enough to eat plain. With some garlic butter it makes for a scrumptious meal!Madeiran pastry is cheap, abundant and universally perfect, nothing to do with the utterly dull and boring British Madeira cake.Some varieties, particular those involving coconut flakes, apparently have been brought back by emigrant Madeirans workers returning from Venezuela, hence names like bolo Venezuelano.
Pastéis de nata, egg custard cakes that seem to have a universal currency from Macao and Dili to Lusaka and Manaus, are invariably delectable with a shot of punchy fragrant espresso.Bolo de mel, another Madeiran specialty, is a treacle sponge bun with nuts, delish dunked in port.

Roasted pheasant recipe

Judging by the rate the company where I work peddles grouse, partridges and venison to various posh restaurants, London's appetite for game shows no signs of abating. Inspired by observing the fringes of this celebration of ecologically clean gastronomy, I delved into the latest English edition of La Rousse Gastronomique. Here is what wise Frenchmen say.

Truss and bard a young pheasant, brush with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Roast in a preheated oven at 240 degrees for 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of the bird, busting 2 or 3 times. Fry some croutons until golden brown. Untruss the pheasant and remove the barding fat. Place it on top of the croutons and keep warm. Deglaze the roasting pan with a liittle poultry stock and serve this gravy separately. To make it an ultimate treat, the pheasant can be stuffed with truffles before roasting and the croutons can be spread with a small amount of forcemeat with the minced liver of the pheasant. (Source: La Rousse Gastronomique, Hamlyn: London, 2009)

Photos will follow when I get around to implementing this recipe in my kitchen. Please bear with!

Roasted quail recipe (caille rôti)

hese days quails are farmed but in fact they are game. A quick sniff will confirm this: quail meat is heavier and chewier than your chicken or turkey. That is why I treat them as game, that is cook with

1. Crush a handful of juniper berries and add with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to red wine.
   
   
2. Using a sharp knife, make incisions in each quail from the inside without piercing the skin.
   
   
3. Soak the quails in the marinade making sure that it goes into the incisions. Let stay overnight in the fridge.
   
   
4. Take out the quails out of the fridge at least one hour before cooking to get them back to the room temperature and allow the excessive marinade to drip off.
   
   
5. Heat the oven to 220 degrees. Pat the quails dry with paper towels. Warm some butter and mix with a small amount of honey, salt and pepper. Baste the quails with the mixture and place them on the oven grid.
   
   
6. Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 200 degrees. In the meantime sweat some chopped shallots in butter and add the marinade, allow to reduce to half.
   
   
7. Serve with sautéed wild mushrooms and double-cooked potatoes. Use the reduccion as sauce.
   

autumn roots soup recipe

Shrimp stock recipe (fumet de crevettes)

use shrimp stock (fumet de crevettes) as the base for bechamel and so should you, it makes the whole difference, giving the lowly mix of fried flour and cream whole dimensions of flavour and richness.

1. I love pink Greenland shrimp (they taste sweet and are not farmed) and keep all the peelings refrigerated until I am ready to cook this. Put whatever shrimp peelings you have in a large pan of cold water with some roughly chopped celery stalks, carrots, leeks and halved onions.
   
   
2. Bring to a boil and allow to simmer for 40 minutes.
   
   
3. Towards the end season with salt, bay leaf, allspice berries, nutmeg, cloves and black pepper. Allow to simmer a few more minutes.
   
   
4. Set aside to chill and then refrigerate if you plan to use it later.
   
   
5. If you are planning on making some bechamel immediately, keep it hot, as it is the roux that needs to be chilled.

Shrimp stock recipe

Duck magret salad recipe (Salade de magret de canard)

If I have to choose between travelling to Israel and eating a salad made from ducks force-fed on corn, I go for the latter. Defo much less cruelty supported.

1. Pat a magret dry and wallow it in a mix of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
   
   
2. Heat a frying pan on medium high heat
   

Feteer meshaltet egyptian puff pastry

Khao Sarn Thai restaurant@Brixton, London (review)

This year was the year of Brixton's avalanche-like gentrification. The ruNice restaurants and even a barber shop for white peeps have sprouted all over like mushrooms after rain. I reckon we have a few years to relish the bliss of the BoBo (bourgeois-bohemien) limbo before the 'yuppie suits' cotton on this and make this a new Chelsea, Clapham. The once grimy and forlorn Brixton Market is now teeming with 20 and 30-somethings hanging out in organic bakeries, ethnic restaurants and sunlit terraces.

One of such cool hangouts is Khao Sarn. Having lived 6 years in Bangkok, I'm very wary of Thai restaurants outside Thailand. Now this one I can recommend. If this was French outfit, it would be a brasserie: it churns out classic (some may say "same ole") Thai dishes consistent quality at reasonable prices.

We had a correctly cooked and served, with lime and green onions, phad Thai (somewhat on the smallish side) and the Isarn staple: grilled chicken leg with sticky rice and somtam (papaya salad).

Pumpkin soup recipe

or those of you who don't want life to be simple, or just hate pre-processed canned supermarket food, or perhaps your gums have just been operated on here a pumpkin soup recipe.

1. Peel a pumpkin and cut into half-an-inch slices.
2. Sprinkle with olive oil and bake in the oven at 160 degrees until soft.
3. In the meantime, peel, slice and caramelise an onion in a pan with a tad of olive oil. Season with a pinch of curry powder if you feel that way inclined. (You can skip the onion altogether if it's too much trouble!)
   
4. Leave the pumpkin and onion to cool a bit, then purée in a kitchen processor.
5. Move to a pan, add cream, sea salt and bring to a gentle simmer.
6. Remove from fire and add either cinnamon or nutmeg.
   
7. Serve garnished with croutons, freshly ground black pepper, fresh sage and crushed walnuts.
   

Feijão do Luis@Brixton london review

here used to be a permanently empty Nigerian caff a new Brazilian joint is plying a busy trade on top of a Brazilian butcher shop. I bought from them some linguica de porco (pork sausage) quite a while ago and it turned out very flavourful, if a tad salty.

But for the restaurant I was waiting for Floyd to come to London, knowing how much he loves all things Brazilian.

• Coração de Galinha - chicken hearts stewed tender
• Feijoada Completa - smokey and clearly home-made (the menu claims it takes 24 hours to cook, it does taste like that, smooth and silky)
• Picanha Grelhada - the piece of beef cut called "butcher's cut",
  

The interior may be very caffish but what matters is that the food tastes like made just for you.

Feijão do Luis
Brazilian Point
Market Row Brixton
London SW9 8LD

The easiest pasta recipe ever: la ricetta della pasta più facile

his recipe comes from my Milano friend Luisa. Molto grazie, la principessa mia!

1. Boil pasta to your prefered degree of doneness.
2. Toast sliced garlic in olive oil and pour over the pasta.
3. Optional: garnish with chopped parsley, grated hard cheese (parmiggiano or extra mature cheddar), freshly ground black pepper and smoked sprats.

Givry Le Bois Chevaux Grand Cru vs. La Casita: Emperor's new clothes

he two bottles on the picture could not have come to me via more different routes. The left, Givry Le Bois Chevaux Grand Cru - from a bloomingly swell party in the City. No surprise, its estimated market value is around 50 quid.

The right one, the humble Spanish La Casita in a plastic bottle - from bmi's Cairo flight, economy class.

I was planning on quaffing the former for dinner and use the latter to deglaze a steak. In reality, it was the reverse that came to pass. The Givry turned out to taste like a very tannic Beaujolais Nouveau would have (cringe!), while La Casita proved very quaffable, if unpretentious, indeed.

What a case to demonstrate that most of human consumption is symbolic!

Patatas bravas: improved Spanish recipe

antasies can sometimes be better than real life. It happens to me very often that I come up with a better recipe than the original one when trying to recreate dishes I have tried (like my impoved jeyuk bokkeum) and especially those I never have.

I remember skimming through the Eyewitness Spain Guidebook before my first trip to Spain. The colourful page dedicated to "flavours fo Spain" got my attention for a while. Patatas bravas was described as potatoes in a tangy tomato sauce with parlsey and white wine. Wow, that description alone got my creative and stomach juices flowing.

Little knowing that in reality they are miserly French fries drizzled with bottled chili sauce, I got down to figuring out the recipe. Here is the fruit of my imagination that beats the orignal version hands down with a huge spiked stick.

1. Sauté sliced garlic and red onions in olive oil until golden brown.
2. Add chopped tomatoes with juice, one finely chopped chili pepper and a glug of white wine.
3. Mix well and allow to simmer until the smell of alcohol evaporates.
4. In the meantime, slice potatoes Pont-Neuf style (thicker and chunkier than usual) and cook in the microwave (or oven if you got time for that!) until almost ready with just a wee bit of crunch left.
5. Fold the potatoes into the tomatoes and leave to soak in the juices.
6. Serve with chopped parsley, freshly ground black pepper and grated extra mature cheddar or parmiggiano.

P.S. 01/09/2014 I just realised I actually re-invented a recipe for Arab batata kharra absolutely independently. Wow. Kudos to me.

Patatas Bravas: an improved recipe