We used to collect samphire when I was a boy on holiday in North Norfolk, it’s a kind of seaweed (I think) that grows in the sand when the tide goes out and it has a very special salty taste.

Anyway I came across some at the fishmongers yesterday and cooked it as follows with some fresh shrimps:
– fry an onion (chopped) in a wok
– boil the washed and trimmed samphire in boiling water for 5 minutes
– add some home made curry paste to the fried onions (I ground up some dried coriander seeds, cardomon, chillie pepper and cinammon then addes a garlic clove and some fresh ginger to make a paste)
– add shelled shrimps
– stir fry for a few minutes
– added two diced tomatoes and some sour cream made from fromage blanc, fresh cream and lemon juice
– add the cooked samphire and continue until everything is cooked through (if the wok is as hot as it should be this is just a minute or two)

As promised in a previous post here are some pizzas from our new local take-away. Goats cheese and honey, peppers and anchovies, coppa and cheese. Mmmmmm……..

– steam some broccoli heads for just a few minutes
– fry an onion (chopped) in a wok
– add some very finely chopped fillet steak and brown
– add parboiled broccili
– add some chili pepper, ginger and ground coriander seeds
– add some soy sauce and oyster sauce and continue until everything is cooked through (if the wok is as hot as it should be this is just a minute or two)

Meanwhile it’s hot down here, 5 days of village party starting tomorrow terminating in the middle of next week with a horse race where we can actually place bets, activity which funnily enough is becoming rather a hobby of mine, so far I am ahead of the game financially but how long will it last?

Back on the subject of cooking, the local pizza shop installed a real pizza oven from Italy, they even drove all the way here from Italy to install it. The marinated ostrich meat and foie gras pizza is especially memorable, but more of pizzas in a future post (passionate topic close to my heart).

Having plenty of young tarragon in the herb garden and some chicken I decided to cook tarragon chicken but I was unable to find the traditional recipe in any of my cookbooks except something really complicated in Larousse Gastronomique. So I improvised this:

– Fry some chicken thighs and drumsticks in a little olive oil
– add two chopped tomatoes, honey, lime juice and a little white wine stock
– cover on a low heat until chicken pieces are cooked through
– add some coconut milk and a large bunch of chopped tarragon
– serve with saffron rice

Having recovered from my gratin and rabbit phases, I now seem to be cooking shrimps or prawns almost every day. The explanation is simple: our local fishmonger has started selling real uncooked fresh prawns (sometimes they are huge, almost what we would call gambas, but I have certainly no intention of getting into a polemic about what these beasts are actually called, you all know what I’m talking about).

The problem with the standard “prawn cocktail” which is probably served on every hotel menu in the UK, is the horrible thousand island dressing (the French call it “sauce américaine” which is very apt, methinks). Usually this stuff comes out of a bottle purchased at the cash and carry, sometimes it is mayonnaise (also out of a jar) mixed with some tomato ketchup. My home-made version is light and fluffy

– boil some shrimps for 2-3 minutes (depends on size), drain and plunge into cold water
– peel shrimps
– separate an egg, beat up the white of the egg until stiff
– put the yolk of the egg, fresh lime juice, olive oil (quite a lot) into a little electric mixer and make a mayonnaise (this can be done by hand adding the oil slowly but it’s so much easier using electricity
– add some tomato purée, salt and paprika (mild chilly powder is okay), some chopped basil leaves and a crushed garlic clove, mix a little more
– gently fold pink mayonnaise into the fluffy egg whites
– add the cooked prawns and serve on a bed of shredded lettuce, decorate with basil leaves and a little paprika

Still rushing around. Stayed in very nice Chambres d’Hotes in Grasse near Cannes, the villa Coste d’Or.

Hertz very kindly upgraded my hire car, instead of an Opel Corsa I got a huge BMW assault tank which guzzled fuel faster than I could fill it up.

Japanese birthday dinner included this shrimp dish
– boil some shrimps for 2 minutes, drain and plunge into cold water
– peel shrimps leaving the tail on
– marinate in a mixture of rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil finely chopped ginger and garlic
– add some finely sliced and peeled cucumber to the marinade
– serve sprinkled with sesame seds

Japanese chicken with seaweed
– Marinate small chicken pieces in the above marinade mixture
– Drain and roll in a mixture of cornflour and finely chopped Nori (Japanese seaweed used for making sushi)
– Fry in a little oil in the wok until chicken pieces are nice and crispy.

I’m off on my travels again. Cote d’Azur this time. Spring is most definitely here, we are eating outside most days. I desperately need the time to get the pool filled up and working. Some storms though.

Don’t ask why I am cooking a lot of rabbit these days. Just one of those things, I suppose. This is a more classic rabbit recipe which the kids love.

– fry rabbit pieces in a little oil with some onions
– add some mustard, chopped carrots, white wine stock and a little madeira
– place in an ovenproof dish and cover
– cook in a low oven for 60 minutes
– serve with rice

Very strong winds yesterday, warm and dusty, the poor dog nearly got blown off his feet. Still no winter to speak of.
I found some rabbit breast at the local butcher and this experiment turned out rather well:

– mix together strong dijon mustard, whole grain mustard and mild yellow mustard with some ground coriander seeds, chopped coriander leaves and lemon juice
– generously coat the rabbit breasts in the mustard mixture
– place in an ovenproof dish and pour over some madeira
– cook in a hot oven for 45 minutes
– serve with roast vegetables and roquette salad sprinkled with a little mustard sauce made by adding a little more lemon juice and some olive oil to the remaining mustard marinade

Sorry about the terrible photo, no batteries in the camera so I took it with the mobile phone.

Have been extremely lazy with recent posts, some days there are so many things to do and so many things to say and just nothing materializes.
We’ve all been a little dogged by illness, a mixture of huge temperature differences and doing too many things at the same time. Indeed Winter finally arrived last week, we even had snow for a couple of hours and now we are back to Spring again with glorious sunshine and almost summer temperatures, lunching out on the terrace in January is hitherto unheard of, but we get frost at night so the termerature difference over a 24 hour period is sometimes over 20 degrees Celsius.
The wood stove keeps us warm and does most of the cooking – curries, casseroles and saucy dishes are obviously much easier than Chinese food (to get enough heat for the wok you have to really get the wood blazing).
Here is a basic Indian curry recipe which can be adapted to almost anything:

– fry some onions in ghee or oil
– grind up a spice paste with fenugrec seeds, coriander seeds, cardomom pods, cloves, chilli peppers, cinnamon, turmeric (haldi – important for yellow color, you can also use saffron) and garlic
– add the spice mixture to the pan and stir for a couple of minutes, make sure nothing burns
– add two chopped tomatoes and some coconut milk (if using uncooked prawns or shrimp add these too), heat until sauce thickens, otherwise wait and…
– add peeled (cooked) prawns for a few minutes just to heat through.

This is a great recipe for left-over rice which we often have available: every good household should have several woks and a Chinese Rice Cooker? These wonderful machines are incredibly cheap in any Chinese supermarket (don’t buy one anywhere else, they cost a fortune), you just put in rice, salt and water and it cooks and stays warm all by itself. I still haven’t worked out how they work (well with electricity obviously, you have to plug it in) – they automatically switch from “rice cooking” mode to “keep warm” mode somehow.

– fry some onions and pepper in ghee or oil
– grind up a spice paste with cardomom, cloves, chilli peppers, cinnamon, turmeric (haldi – important for yellow color, you can also use saffron) and garlic
– add cooked rice, a tin of peas and the spice mixture to the pan
– stir and heat throroughly and add peeled (cooked) prawns
– serve with cucumber raita and mango chutney

There are endless alternatives and variations to this recipe, replace the shrimps with cooked chicken pieces, left-over meat, the remains of a curry, fish, or mixed vegetables. Mushrooms are good too but they make the rice turn to a sickly colour of grey so it’s not so presentable. You can also use this dish in large quantities as the centre of a curry tiffin – decorate with chopped coriander, toasted almonds or cashews and chopped white and yolk of hard boiled eggs.