Don't be patronising Barbara. You're just overcooking your fumet.
Just spotted the comment regarding chicken stock....BEING ODD when
used for fish.
it may well sound odd but I will explain to you why I find fish stock harsh....
the calcium when it breaks down in a the making of a stock creates a chalky flavour.
Not so pleasant. Have you ever, anyone bought a bottle of fish soup in a shop....WELL
if you like it....
Using a chicken or duck stock [ devoid of fat, of course] creates the base to compliment the
intensity of the sauce which takes on the richness of the prawns or crab which makes the sauce .It
is a lot of work but when we cook for people we do not mind. As dear Heston says "Cooking is science"
and he is right. But it is a marriage of understanding flavours and textures. For me there are
bounderies which I do not cross because they are unpalatable.
There are many things in cooking which appear odd but work like a dream. The use of bitter
chocolate in a sauce for game.
The flavour of rose [ A HINT] with fresh raspberries when you make a mousse.
Just a few juniper berries in a braised lamb dish.
Cardomon seeds .....only a few in a creamy rice pud.
And j and I both cook....I took up chefing first and did all the usual stuff
like getting into foodie guides and a spot of TV because I was a female chef
with a cooking accolade....rare in those days. j took over as head chef and
has a natural instinct for perfection. When he cooks for people it has to be
a composition of good ingredient, cooked properly and presented well.
It can be said that I showed him how to prepare many things in the kitchen but he has
developed a style of his own.
One day,maybe David I might prove the prawn/crab bisque dish works.
You live nearby....
But this would be a gesture of kindness as I have nothing to prove....
Oh my Gawd, Viêt. The restaurant in Bergerac is sad. Having not worked in Viet Nam for seven years I miss the real McCoy, including big bowls of cà cuống (roasted water beetles), maw, ikan bilis, nước mắm... Anything other than restaurants who cook for European tastes.
Our standby is kedgeree, or the Gujarati version Khichdi which is lentils instead of fish. Our daughters will walk over hot coals if I make a shepherd's pie in the winter and herself will be licking her lips when I get home with the ingredients if I make beef, stilton and stout pie in a rich butter crust pastry, with cream mashed potatoes, but that is usually once a year. Certainly that one gets courses, perhaps Cullen skink to start, the pie, salad, some excellent hard cheeses from the market, and some kind of highly hedonistic dessert. One I shall not mention because I may make it when Véro and Co. come, the others include a treacle and date roly-poly with vanilla and cinnamon custard. Nothing but ingredients is bought and I can even get the Stilton fairly easily, Guinness is easy to find but Beamish makes a better sauce, which I can usually get locally on draught!
I usually have to diet a week when I do a belly buster! When OH does an Italian one, much the same. We also mix, Indian starter followed by I-Thai main, Spanish type salad, French cheese and a good German pud. That usually sends me to bed early on top of two weeks dieting!
Ah food, luvverly stuff.
For guest with pleasure. We have a tendency to eat different things a bit. This evening I was alone so had fruit and cheese plus a bit of roquette salad. No staple at all. If we have guests either of us is likely to set up three or four courses, one of us but rarely together because we are both kitchen prima donnas. Oh swoon, my cream has just curdled...
Yep, another of my favourites. Having lots of chooks we use a fair few eggs. I make a tortilla with a bit of Chorizo, onions, spuds & any old veg I have to hand. It's great with baked beans when you can't be arsed to cook anything else :-)
Couldn't you have done a simple fish fumet to cook your mélange? Chicken stock and fish do not go. One of the reasons we don't cook much fish in a stock. laziness on our part because we could make loads of fish stock and freeze it.
Tonight we're being Spanish-ish so gazpacho, then an enormo-tortilla de calabacin patatas y cebolla, salad + cheese & then watermelon for pudding. Things that pretty much cook themselves as it's too hot for messing about doing anything else ;-)
Most French families around us eat at least 3 courses for lunch, some 4 if they add the cheese. What amazes me are the more active people who will have had a "casse croute" around 8-8.30 of charcuterie, bread and a glass or 2 of white/rosé.
If I'm entertaing just French people, then I will do 3 or 4 courses, on my own it's just the main dish and cheese.
We have a Viet takeaway in our near town. Actually, apart from kebab shop it's the only takeaway ! The French Vietnamese owner is a sweety & cooks the lot on her own which is then sold cold by weight. Not cheap but excellent to push the boat out every now & then. Cold is good as we can buy it any time of day & bung it in the microwave later. Toad in the hole is one of our favourites served with cauliflower cheese. Sounds like great granny got it right :-)
I wish Vic! Forgot to say my children's favourite thing in winter is... Toad in the Hole (exotic)! I suspect the name is the reason ;-) I cook quite a lot of Viêt food too because my great-granny was Vietnamese & said "you're gourmande so you'd better learn to cook these things".
Always entrée (a salad, sometimes a bit of ham or pâté), main course and dessert at lunchtime. We eat more lightly in the evening, either a salad or home-made soup (in the winter) followed by cheese and dessert (usually fruit or yoghurt). My wife is also French and, like Vero, cooks up a storm and this regime will go the way of all things next week when son and grandson come to stay. They do like grandma's cooking!
One restaurant we go to regularly sticks to a style I remember from when I first came to France more than 50 years ago. There's the usual entrée and main course but that is followed by a green salad which is never served as the entrée. Then cheese, dessert and coffee and, because we know the patrons, un petit digestif pour finir, n'est-ce pas.
I still remember back then that the vegetables of the main course in friends' houses were regularly served separately ahead of the meat. So you filled yourself up with the veg and ate less of the more expensive meat. A hang-over from the war and immediate post-war period no doubt.
Vero, I'm even more impressed. Knows a lot of stuff, great sense of humour & now :- cooks great food. Is there no end to this woman's talents? :-)
We always do the three - at least, but all in moderation
We tend to eat very seasonally so eg if it is asparagus time we will stuff ourselves with asparagus & hollandaise until it is over, same for whatever is in season. I also like making soufflés & things like that so they can be savoury or sweet for entrée or for pudding. I shop & cook every evening after work & make everything from scratch because I don't like packet things - an exception will be a party cake or a roast chicken from the van.
Entrée: oysters or gambas or charcuterie and or melon or crudités or a mixed salad or soup or a tarte à l'oignon or something like that.
Plat: fish/shellfish/duck/lamb/ beef/veal/chicken etc with a vegetable & a carbohydrate (ratatouille, courgettes, gratin or pasta or rice, haricots verts, peas, fennel etc etc etc)
Plain green salad & 2 or 3 cheeses
Pudding: could be strawberries or other fruit or sorbet or ice-cream or a tarte aux fruits or crème aux oeufs or île flottantes or something ribsticking eg tiramisu or pavlova or choc mousse or riz au lait etc. I make everything from scratch.
I cook every evening because we all eat at school at lunchtime. The only essential things are crudités & salad & cheese. We have breakfast, lunch & supper & nothing between meals. Children might have a tartine or a bit of cake or fruit for goûter. I have noticed that our helpings (except for crudités & green salad) are much smaller than the UK people's I know.
My first introduction to the French working man's lunch was yonks ago when I helped a mate trim his daughters hedge. The morning was spent trimming then off to the resto for the 3 course job with wine. Returning 2 hours later I tried to bend down to pick up the cuttings & nearly threw up. How do they do it ? My only 3 course lunch now is our weekly visit to the local Auberge for the 3 course workers lunch but it's always a serious kip afterwards :-) Our normal day is a light breakfast & lunch with a one course evening meal of the veggies which are in the garden/freezer plus whatever meat Eric le Sausage has in stock. Pasta & rice also features as does fish but in reality we don't seem to eat an enormous amount these days. The only problem we have in meal selection is when our French mates come to dinner & spices are out as they don't seem to suit the Breton palate. You're right about the vegetables Peter. we often remark about who eats all the stuff produced around here 'cos they sure don't serve much of it in the restos.
Every day, Peter, OH insists on it and when we go to her parents you can double the number of courses - and that's still the case when it's just them and the farm labourers (oh yes - they get lunch provided, that's just the way it is à la campagne here!)
Plenty of French seem to still dine as they used to but, believe it or not, apparently they are the biggest eater of McDonalds after the USA! (that's a sobering thought)
Eating as we always have done (main meal in the evening) is one routine we have never been able to change. It's sometimes a bind when we ask French friends round for a meal and have to ask them not to pig out at lunch time.
For us it is a simple something during the day....lunch is at any time we feel hungry and is
not exciting. It is not an event and does not comply to a time table.
In the evening we have a main course with vegies....and follow with some fruit...sometimes
something like ice cream. When we entertain we present a starter...sometimes amuse bouche too.
Main course, cheese and dessert.The dessert will be made by us.
A few nights ago we cooked a melange of fish...salmon, red mullet and prawns in a bisque made
with home prepared chicken stock and prawns.
The main course was duck, pack choy, mashed potato encased in Chinese leaf, green beans
ratatouille.
Dessert was a lemon tart and a pavlova of strawberries, passion fruit and banana.
Cheeses...
To drink at the beginning Pimms, then Bubbly for the fish and then a Fronsac.
This was for guests.
Peter, I am a bit like Carol in being in my mid-70's and having a French OH (don't like that expression but it helps sometimes).
Yes, we only have the one main meal of the day and that is lunch. We are largely vegetarian, so tend to load up on salads and pulses etc. Lunch is usually crudités (entrée) then main course, and my wife is an amazing vegetarian cook who has changed my views from being a major carnivore at one time* which is usually also heavy on veges. and pulses - lentils and the like, then the dessert - unlike Carol we don't have cheeses AND a dessert, but keeping the old cholesterol down makes this an either/or choice on different days.
I know on our family visits - only French as there is nothing on my side, this generally applies. Evening meals are a bit light on as we both prefer a good lunch, which may also explain the two-hour lunches that still function in the country areas at least. Breakfast is fruit and fromage blanc and toast - although I often sneak in a couple of croissants.
So I tend to think that many French houses still enjoy the three-phases, but I am not sure if City people working still indulge.
Restaurants, well I have to agree that finding a seriously good one with reasonable prices is gettng harder although we do have one or two near here that qualify, but as pensioners we don't go to restaurants that much anyway.
*Have tried to persuade her to produce a Vegetarian Cooking Book and even got her started under the title of 'Feeding the Brute - Vegetarian Cooking for Carnivores' even designed the cover and the layout, but not really her thing which I feel is a shame, but there you go.
