Putting 'Possibly the Best Chicken Recipe' to the test: Tarragon Chicken

Oooh lala!

Having woken from my second snooze on the 15 minute train journey home, I opened my Metro to the foody bit (the only bit I like after 'Guilty Pleasures') and was faced with a recipe claiming to be 'possibly the best chicken recipe in the world'. Wow, what a claim. Call me fickle but I was sold. I also liked the fancy French name: Poulet A L'Estragon. The fact that I cook tarragon chicken all the time didn't matter. This was different. French. Posher. And more importantly it was simple, looked delicious and I had chicken legs, tarragon, creme fraiche and white wine at home. No post-work trip to the supermarket for me. Smug. I changed the method a bit just for ease.

Feeds 4. Pre-heat the oven to 180c. In a big oven proof proof casserole dish, brown 4 chicken legs really well in some olive oil, get them nice and golden. Throw in a very large glass of white wine, and treat yourself to a slurp, Floyd stylee. Add 5 sprigs of tarragon. Stir well to mix the wine with the juices and move to the oven for half an hour, uncovered. Now remove the chicken to a plate and keep warm (I find that if you cover with foil the skin can lose it's crispness, so just put it in the oven which is now turned off). Get the pan on the hob and bubble up the juices, stir in 3tbsp creme fraiche and stir to melt it all in, along with another 5 sprigs of tarragon. Serve the chicken with the sauce on top. If entertaining, you can make it pretty by getting a big shallow platter, throw in some boiled new potatoes, arrange the chicken legs on top and pour the sauce over everything. It drips down over the potatoes, covering them in delicious creamy winey goodness.

Enjoy with friends, plenty of wine, and make the most of the final few weeks of not having neighbours. A little Edith Piath might have suited the dinner, but instead we had Cyprus Hill and Aphex Twin. Tres bien.

McMoules with Fries

Cauldron of moules anyone?

Moules, mussels, whatever you call them, these juicy little bi-valves never fail to provide a treat at the dinner table. The key to great mussels is the prep, do this properly and you'll have great success. As with oysters, they say only buy them when there is an R  in the month. I personally think you cannot beat classic moules mariniere, I'm not all that interested in mussels doused in green thai curry sauce, and I much prefer a garlicky white wine sauce to a tomatoey one, but that's just me. The French really know how to do it, and I have fond memories of gorging myself on moules, fresh from the car, after an argumentative, bickery ferry crossing to Saint Marlo with my sisters and long suffering parents. Moules Frites. Pure heaven, crusty bread works too, to suck up the garlic laced liquor, but you can't beat thin crispy chips. And who does thin crispy chips best? MacDonald's. Yes. This Christmas eve, Dad and I made true our mouley dreams, I whipped up the moules while he raced to Macca's to get the chips. I think it might be a new tradition.*

Feeds 2. Take approx 1 kilo of mussels and put them in the sink and cover with cold water. Given them a good swirl around, then one by one, pick them up, pull out their beards (the weird stringy bits hanging out) and place in a colander. Discard any that don't close. Rinse the sink out, put the mussels back in and again, cover in cold water to make sure they are nice and clean, no-one likes gritty mussels, make sure you are thorough. Mussels prepared, in a large saucepan, gently soften one finely chopped onion in a bit of butter for a few minutes. Then add two fat sliced garlic cloves and cook until the onion is soft. Throw the mussels in the pan, add a couple of glasses of white wine, season, stir really well and put the lid on. Let this bubble away for about 5 minutes, as soon as the mussels are open they are done, then stir in approx 150ml single cream and a handful of chopped parsley. Discard any that haven't opened. Serve with MacDonald's fries and munch and slurp away to your heart's content.

*Mum, this in no way is meant to put down your amazing Christmas Eve fish pie, we love it.

Never Too Much Meat - Steak Tartare

So much more than an un-cooked burger, I promise.

A thousand years ago, on holiday with friends in France, the four of us sat down in a little restaurant and had a look at the menu. When the garcon came to take our orders, my friend Jess confidently announced that she would like to order steak tartare, s'il vous plait. Risking patronising her, I asked her if she knew what it was, she nodded away, and we sat back to sip on our wine and nibble bread until the dishes were served. When a plate of what is essentially raw beef mince was presented to her, her face first paled, then her jaw dropped. She hadn't in fact known what it was, and it turned out she liked her meat cooked.

I however adore steak tartare, and so does my Dad so we made it on Saturday, as a starter for a BBQ. Just in case we didn't have a high enough meat content in the meal. This feeds four as a starter, do taste as you go because it's one of those dishes that doesn't require exact measurements. In a bowl, put 400g finely chopped fillet beef, a couple of finely chopped shallots, a tbsp each of chopped capers, cornichons, a tsp Dijon mustard, parsley and salt and pepper, and combine well. Make sure you taste for seasoning. Now assemble a little patty on each plate, using a mug as a cutter works quite well, and nestle in a raw quail's egg, who's shell you have delicately halved, not throwing any ruined ones in the bin.

Some people love it, some people can't get their heads round a plate of raw meat. I think its the business. However, on that day so many years ago in France, with Jess's poor little face in despair, the joke was on me, because I had ordered andouillette, without really knowing what it was either, and I nearly threw up all over the table. Bon appetite.

Tartiflette is not a Tart



Very precise layering going on here...



Very occasionally I want a little break from cooking, it's probably more the washing up and mess that I have enough of, but sometimes it's very nice to be cooked for. The Boyfriend cooks for me about twice a year, not enough, considering when he does cook, it's always annoyingly fabulous. The destruction found in the kitchen after said event is enough for me to ban him completely, but the other day he said he wanted to cook dinner. Then he said he wanted to make Tartiflette. TARTIFLETTE!!!! Let me explain to those perhaps perplexed by my enthusiasm; tartiflette is one of those dishes, probably in my top 5, that cannot fail to warm you up, cheer you up, make you smile, and make anyone eating it groan in unnadulterated delicious pleasure, so much so that anyone nearby, not involved in eating it would wonder what the hell was going on. All hopes of a healthy remedy to an over-indulgent week were dashed, but who cared? It is July, it was cold and rainy, but nothing mattered because there was Reblochon cheese and pancetta in the fridge and that meant only one thing...

I want you now baby...

Feeds 6 normal people and 4 fattie bum bums. Pre-heat the oven to 180. Fry approx 275g smoked bacon (or use those brilliant packets of pancetta cubes) and one large thinly sliced onion in olive oil until soft and browned. Chop a small bunch of fresh thyme, reserving a bit for the garnish. Place the thyme, 284ml pot of double cream, 300ml milk and a crushed clove of garlic in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add a kilo of thinly sliced waxy potatoes to the pan, cover, and cook for about five minutes. Add the bacon and onions to the mixture and season with lots of pepper. Put half into a greased 1.5ltr oven proof dish, and slice up 250g Reblochon cheese. Layer half the cheese over the potatoes, pour the rest of the potatoes on top and then put the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and all that lovely cheese has gone golden brown. Artfully (!) sprinkle with the rest of the thyme.

This should probably be eaten with salad, because it equals out all that gorgeous cream and cheese, no?

Skiing Fodder

Many of us like to ski. Some of us prefer, as my boyfriend does, to tear up the pistes like a hooligan on a snowboard (which did turn out to be extremely useful as a make-shift picnic table).What we all have in common is a mutual love of throwing ourselves down snow filled mountains in a search of thrills and possible broken bones.

Probably over about 50% of my excitement about the anticipation of this annual event is the food I know I will consume.  Quelle surprise.

For several years now we have travelled to the French Pyraneen resort of La Mongie  We have stayed in several places close to the resort, the most memorable by a million years of amazingness would be ‘Le Grange’. A property once owned by my Dad’s best mate Charlie. Le Grange was an interesting place, one needed a 4x4 (or a catcat as I thought it was called) to negotiate the rock and boulder infested climb up to the divine house. It had no electricity but a generator, which provided a very welcome hot showers after a day’s skiing. The best meal Charlie ever cooked us here was the magret de canard cooked over the fire, rare as you dare, followed by a nip of almangnac, accompanied by a ‘deep’ (for a 17 year old) heart to heart with Charlie about the future of one’s relationship. It’s all about crossroads apparently. I’m still with the boy a million years later so something he said must have been right.

In a kind of pilgramatic quest to re-enact that dinner, each time we go back to the area I cook duck breasts with a load of green beans and garlicky-oniony potatoes. Be it on a two ring elecric hob or comparatively luxurious 4 ring gas hob, it always somehow works. Big fat duck breasts (alarm bells ringing, they shouldn’t really be that big should they? The ones in my freezer on the duck my Dad shot last month are miniscule in comparison) pan fried for a surprisingly long time, no need for oil, rather a few mugs to pour the excess fat into (not forgetting a big splash for the potatoes). What else could you ask for?

Mention the name Eric in La Mongie, or perhaps further surrounding areas, and every local will know he is The Man. He oozes Frenchness, the most handsome beret wearer that ever there was and his wink will reduce any woman to a giggling wreck. Or me at least. Each year I return to his restaurant at the top of the mountain, petrified he won’t remember me (English are kind of frowned upon in this resort but for some reason they like us, probably because we embrace the eating and drinking piste-side like the locals). It took Eric a few minutes this year, but once I reminded him of my name it was all shouty roudy Frenchy welcomes. I felt like a mountain celebrity.

Eric. He doesn't have/need a surname.

I am getting at something here. Eric is a shepherd during the summer. The Shepherd. And during the winter we eat the fruits of his labour. His menu consists of steak frites, saucisse frites, garbure (one of my favourite French words) Agneau de Campan (Campan being the local area) and a few other things including plats of the glorious jambon noir and the mysterious garbure royal. I knew there was no point in asking what this was, I wouldn’t understand. It was the most expensive thing on the menu so I know its something life changing. Eric doesn’t mess about.

Eric does Piggies too.

So during our glorious and precious week in La Mongie this year, or last year (we went over New Year), Eric did us proud, we had dangerously rare steak (a friend asked me to request it well-done, WHATEVER!!!!) the finest sausage money could buy, lamb chops so good one literally gnawed every last morsel off the bone as if it was your last meal, and finally on new year’s day, a leg of lamb (two actually, there were 8 of us) accompanied by this gorgeous haricot blanc casserole thing with bits of lamb fat floating around in it for added carnivorous flavour (my sister actually ate a bit of said fat, and started to pretend it was on purpose, you’re not supposed to eat the fat hahahahhaa!). Plus salad and chips. And wine. Obviously. The best bit was when Eric gave us a bottle of 2007 Bordeaux. Bisous all round!

We keep saying ‘next year we’ll go somewhere else, we need to ski somewhere new, push ourselves.’ Then Eric and his crew say ‘L’annee prochaine?’. We say ‘Oui’.