pears in red wine

This is October work, when the pear tree is over-productive. The worse the pears, the better, as the temptation simply to eat them is less.

In our case the pears are ideal - tasteless, small conferences with a nasty, hard skin, suitable only for squirrels, the bin - or PIRW (the abbreviation under which Government Regulation No 80 million lays down that they must be safely peeled, boiled, registered and packed in sealed containers, approved by the Department of Interfering, Ignorant Busybodies, DIIB).

1. Peel 12 fairly hard pears - leaving on the stalks, which are essential to enable eaters to chew off the last bits.

2. Place in saucepan and pour on one bottle of cheap red. (A certain person says "Less wine, more water, as the sauce is too strong." That person's opinion should - on this matter only - be ignored. Wine a-plenty compensates for lousy pears).

3. Add sugar to taste - one tablespoon or so per four pears.

4. Add flavouring. I use lemon juice plus anything that's in the cupboard/fridge and seems appropriate, e.g. almond essence or fresh mint, whatever takes your fancy.

5. Boil slowly. The hardness of the pears when you start determines how long they need to boil. The essential requirement are...

6. ....(a) they must cook long enough for the wine colour to have got into the pears and...

7. ....(b) they must not begin to disintegrate. So

8. After they have boiled for a few minutes, test several pears with a fork. If the fork goes into them (and the wine colour is established), turn off the heat and let them stand.

9. Put pears, covered in wine juice, in plastic containers and place in deep freeze.

10. Do another dozen, and another, and another.....

A's skinny omelettes

These omelette's are very thin and as Liam said are 'a new way of making eggs!'.

They are almost like an egg pancake.

To make 6 omelette's use 12 eggs.

Get the pan very hot, add a bit of butter and when it's melted put in just enough egg mix to cover the bottom of the pan. As the egg sets use a spatula to push the mix in from the edges slightly and slosh the wet egg out to cover the gaps you've created.

As soon as it's set slide out onto a plate rolling as you go so the end result is a folded skinny omelette! The whole process should take 40 seconds per omelette.

These are ideal as a leaving breakast for family about to catch a plane from Marseille airport.

Garlic BBQ chicken

This recipe is so easy that it doesn't really count as a recipe but I'm posting it because A wanted it and it's a bribe for her to start using this blog!

Marinade:

Olive oil
Minced garlic
Minced fresh chilli
Salt & Pepper

I marinated the chicken in the fridge for half a day squidging it around in the marinade ingredients thoroughly.

Having heated the BBQ up really hot I then turned it right down before adding the chicken. I put some extra salt on the skin side of the chicken before putting it down on the grill. I cooked it on a very low heat for about 20 mins turning it once on the skin side to make a nice grill pattern then flipping it onto the flesh side for 5-7 mins.

When the chicken was cooked I put it on a plate in a low oven until ready to serve and it produced a really nice gravy juice.

A - I hope you will now see the value in this blog and post!!!! x

Apple, almond & lavender honey tart

Flap bought some apple juice at Petit Palais market near Menerbes and was given some free Cardinale apples so H decided to make an apple tart.

She made some patee sucre and asked me to make some frangipani to put under the apples. I mixed up some butter, sugar, vanilla essence, egg yolks and ground almonds with a bit of creme fraiche.

Then Liam, Flap and me did an apple peeling, coring and slicing production line while H baked the pastry case blind. When the case was cooked H added the frangipani and layered the thin slices of apple on top.

We glazed it with Lavender honey that I heated gently in a saucepan and sprinkled flaked almonds on top. It was the best apple tart in any of our living memories.

A's Ice Cream Pie

Sunday 8th March, 2009 will go down in history as the day that Lapping culinary innovation reached new heights. This was the day that Ice Cream Pie was invented. The concept behind the dish is not altogether dissimilar to the principle of A's spaghetti pie. (Recipe to be published shortly.)

Ingredients:

- A few different kinds of ice cream that have been sitting open in the freezer
- Chocolate
- Chopped roast hazelnuts

Spoon the different kinds of ice cream into a large dish. The ice cream should be melty enough to spoon easily but not so liquid that all the flavours become one super flavour. As Claude suggested, let the idea of marble cake be your guide when mixing it all together.

Once all the icecream is arranged flat in the dish, melt the chocolate and pour over the ice cream. Sprinkle chopped roast hazelnuts over the top and put into the freezer.

Liam/Nigel Slater's chocolate espresso cake

Liam/Nigel Slater's chocolate espresso cake

When it comes out of the oven this cake will be moist or even sticky in the center but the top will go crispy after time. I have, in the past- when feeling most chocolaty- tripled this recipe and made a chocolate fridge-cake base for it, meaning that technically it could feed an army of 50. However my family was determined to prove Slater's statistics wrong and it was all eaten within the week!

serves 8

180g dark chocolate

3 teaspoons of very strong coffee

140g butter

5 eggs separated

200g golden caster sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

90g of plain flour

1. Preheat oven to 180*c or gas 4



2. Line your tin/s.



3. Melt chocolate.



4. Then add coffee and melted butter to the chocolate.



5. Stir well.



6. In an other dish beat egg whites until stiff then fold the sugar into them.



7. Now, in yet another dish, mix together the rest of the dry stuff.



8. Mix egg yokes with chocolate.



9. Fold chocolate into egg whites.



10. Sift the rest of the dry stuff into what you have made.



11. Stir the mixture tenderly with a large metal spoon and don't knock out the air!



12. Put into your tin and bake for 35 minutes.

I like to cover the cake in fruit and other tasty things but it still tastes good on its own.

hi

Flap's Leeks Vinaigrette

As many people who know him can confirm, leeks are one of Flap's favourite foods to cook. The list also includes Quinces, Pears (especially from the tree in the garden) Swedes and any clear soup that involves boiling leftovers or using 'vegetable juice' (see point 4. below). Leeks vinaigrette is delicious and unusually for one of Flap's dishes, is actually quite elegant.

Leeks vinaigrette is possible only with young, slim leeks. Older, fat ones, when cooked, are too hard to cut with a normal knife and can therefore cause awkward moments - even anger - at the dining table.

Once the skinny baby leeks have been bought, the cooking and serving processes are easy:

1. Remove any outer leaves that are damaged and the loose dark green growths at the top;

2. Snip off the roots end and make all leeks the same length;

3. Boil in salted water - young leeks can take as little as five minutes;

4. Drain thoroughly by standing the leeks upside down in a collander; (I save the water they've been cooked in, as leek juice makes a fine contribution to a soup);

5. Make a vinaigrette of your choice to serve with the leeks when cool;

6. If you're feeling extravagant, cook asparagus sticks separately and serve with the leeks.