Scrambled Egg Curry

This recipe is an old standby. It's perfect because it's fast (I've got it down to 20 minutes from start to stuffing your face), it's made with ingredients you always have on hand, it's spicy, it's filling, it's vegetarian but packs plenty of protein, and it's delicious. What it is NOT is a beauty queen among foods. It's ugly, but you won't care once you start eating.

For a scrambled egg curry, of course, you need eggs; give 2-3 per person. Onions--usually I use regular yellow onions, but I had some shallots available. Rice. Milk. Garlic. Curry powder. Ground ginger. Salt and pepper. A bit of butter. Okay, a lot of butter.
Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add finely diced onion and a pinch of salt, stirring until the onions are soft and limp.
Here is a better focused picture!
Meanwhile take your eggs and put them in a mixing bowl. Add a splash of milk or, if you have it, cream. The cream will make for a slightly more unctuous final product and if you have no objections, I highly encourage the liberal use of it. Just pretend you're making an omlet and add a corresponding amount. It's not rocket science people.
Now mix that up, adding lots of black pepper and some salt as well.
When the onions are soft and melting, add the curry powder, garlic and ginger. Mix thoroughly with the onions.
Pour the eggs on top and proceed to make scrambled eggs. Make sure you agitate the onions well with the eggs so the eggs don't go hard and rubbery and to disperse the spice thoroughly.
Don't scramble them too hard, that's no fun! Keep it soft, but not liquid.
Did I mention you should have made the rice by now? Sorry. Insert that step somewhere above. Pile the egg curry on top of the steaming rice. I told you it isn't a beauty queen. Just eat it up.
Does a perfunctory garnish make it look any better? No? Just eat it.

Food Tourism Souvenirs

I wanted to buy a nice souvenir from France because it is likely that our trip will be the last time we'll ever go there. I was thinking a tarte tatin dish, or a madeleine pan. I couldn't find a tarte tatin pan and I decided I wouldn't really use a madeleine pan so that seemed like an impractical souvenir. (I don't make or eat madeleines and I couldn't figure out what else to use it for--muffins? I couldn't decide. It didn't seem practical.) What I really wanted was something that I would use on a regular basis for the rest of my life and whenever I used it I would remember my trips to France. Since I couldn't find a souvenir that would last forever, I decided to get something that would last no time at all. In short, I decided the best souvenir would be an edible one. So I went to a French supermarket (the infamous Monoprix, yes, sorry!) and walked the aisles picking up things that looked interesting or things that I'd had before and wanted to take and eat over to the UK.

First, I have to mention the produce at various green grocers in France. I had to buy this carton of strawberries. Strawberries in March in the UK are a vile ghost of what they are in summer, when they are fabulous. But these strawberries which were all over Paris when we were there are unbelievable. They are so fragrant and so beautifully formed, so glossy and have such beautiful colour.
Look how beautiful they are! And they tasted so good--soft and juicy, they positively gushed in the mouth. And I bet they never even once saw the inside of a fridge. I would have loved to put these into an Eton Mess, but alas, I had no kitchen.
Okay, here is something that I found at the grocery store, which I am almost frightened to try. This is rabbit pate--yes, I know, scary. But I'm fascinated by potted, preserved meats. And at another time I had a really good pork pate, pate de campagne. So rabbit pate might just be up my alley.
Valhrona is supposed to be the best chocolate available (or to quote Withnail and I, the finest chocolate available to humanity), and having now eaten some, I have to agree. This is the best chocolate I have ever had. Since I only got a small amount, we've been eating it plain in small bites. If you ever have a chance to try it don't miss it. I like it because it is intensely chocolately without any of the acrid hit of most dark chocolate. It's also deliciously smooth when it melts in the mouth. It's fabulous.
Here are a couple of canned pates, pate de campagne, which I had at a restaurant with bread, and terrine aux cepes, a pate of mushrooms, for the vegetarians among us.
This is probably my second favourite pure candy (after American Smarties). They're hard candies with fruit syrup on the inside. There used to be an American candy called Juicefuls, which are pretty much the same, but I haven't seem them in a few years. Do they still exist?
I was also sure to pick up some charcuterie (cold cuts or other cooked meats) with these saucissons secs--dried sausages. I can't wait to try these, but I'm not sure what to have them with. I also got some refrigerated sliced jambon de paris (ham) which I hope to put into a sandwich or eat like proper charcuterie, with bread and some olives or cornichons.
I also got these fabulous packets of vanilla sugar. I've always wanted to make vanilla sugar (by putting some caster sugar in a jar with some whole vanilla pods) but the vanilla pods always seemed so expensive. These sugar packets are fantastic. I put half a packet in my hot chocolate this morning, and saw that not only does it smell and taste beautifully of vanilla, it is also full of tiny vanilla seeds, the true mark of a good vanilla sugar.
I know you can get Bonne Maman jams everywhere now, even at Super Wal-mart, but I've never seen this Fruitee Intense label before. It's still jam but more fruity and less sugary. It's less well-set and feels more like a juicy fruit compote than a jam. I've been spooning it over a butter-spread baguette just about every morning since we got back.
I once had a steak with a fabulous bearnaise butter and I thought this sauce might be an easy way to achieve a similar flavour without having to go to the trouble of making bearnaise myself, although I do hope to try it sometime. (But it sounds like a lot of work and I'm scared of sauces containing eggs!) Bearnaise sauce is made of butter and egg yolks with a white wine and shallot reduction, mixed with fresh tarragon. So complicated! I don't care if this jarred sauce is unsophisticated, I'm giving it a try.
This is a very interesting thing: fleur de sel--flower of salt. It's a type of salt gathered from sea marshes by hand. It's quite a bit more expensive than regular table salt but it's valued because it's quite rare, hand gathered, and because it's unrefined provenance gives it a special flavour and often a slightly pink or grey tinge. I've had a bit and haven't noticed too much of a difference, but I'm going to experiment more with putting it on fresh things like salads and tomatoes.

Last but not least...

The only thing better than an edible souvenir is a quaffable one! The Economist and I went to a wine shop and told the man we had 60 euro, and wanted 4 bottles, 2 red, 2 white; and could he please pick some good wines for us. And he did! And gave us a whole list of what we should drink each wine with. The two best wines I've ever had, I've had in France (and they were both white incidently) so we figured maybe we'd give it another try.

We are going to have an English style Sunday lunch sometime in the next few weeks for our friends and we're very much looking forward to enjoying some of these groceries with them, especially the wine!

C'est tout.

UPDATE:

I also wanted to mention that foods are also really cheap, as well as pleasing, souvenirs. Sometimes they can be a bit of hassle though. The Economist once drove down to Key West with a bunch of his friends for New Years. And he brought back an actual Key Lime Pie, stored, still frozen, in a styrofoam cooler full of dry ice. We're talking about a 28 hour drive split over two days. And a fully intact, delicious, true Key Lime Pie to eat when he got home. How fabulous is that?

Pepper and Halloumi Bake

This is one of my favourite quick recipes. It's adapted from Nigella Express and it's even better than Nigella's--sorry.

Basically it's a hot salad of sweet bell peppers and chopped halloumi with some spices and herbs, eaten picked up with pita bread, tortilla strips or some other bread. It's fast, adaptable between vegetarian and meat-containing, and leftovers warm up well. Once again, most importantly, it's delicious and very satisfying.

Start with bell peppers of course. Three large ones works in good proportion to a 250gm block of halloumi. The seasonings are garlic, salt and pepper, and some chili oil which I've made up, but a couple spoonfuls of olive oil and a couple of teaspoons of dried chili flakes also does the job. Adjust seasonings as you desire. Just remember that the halloumi is really salty and doesn't need too much more salt. Often I don't even bother with salt. I don't know why I put it in the picture. DON'T, however, skimp on the fresh ground black pepper. I love black pepper. I also love a fresh green hit with some fresh basil. My basil plant is thriving like you would not believe so I apply basil liberally, and at the very end. Step one: chop up those red peppers into a dice. You can chop them bigger, just make them convenient to scoop up onto a piece of bread.
Put them into a large zip lock bag. This just makes coating them with oil easier.
Chop up the halloumi into similarly sized chunks. Steal some halloumi to eat plain--it's a bit like cheese curds, squeeky and salty.
Throw that into the bag, along with a bit of fresh chopped garlic (here, my garlic puree--I told you, I put it in everything), the chili oil (or olive oil and dried chili pepper flakes), and tons of black pepper. A more course grind works well here. I like biting down on a sudden hot hit of pepper.
Shake that stuff up to coat in the oil and seasonings.
Tip it out onto a baking sheet. It goes in a 350F oven for 10 minutes. Told you this was fast.
Meanwhile I like to prepare the basil by making a chiffonade. Just lay all the basil leaves in a pile and roll the whole pile up really tight.
Look at my pink fingernails. They look pretty rad next to the green.
Then slice the leaves into a narrow chiffonade. Fluff the chiffonade to separate the little strings.
This time we ate the peppers and halloumi with a fresh baguette, sliced up and spread with some butter.
When it's baked, the peppers will be softened but still a bit crisp. The halloumi will take on a SLIGHTLY brown colour but hopefully will not be burnt because that doesn't taste good.
And finally sprinkle the basil on top. Scoop up a bit onto your bread, or scoop with the bread and pop that goodness into your mouth. It's really good.

Meat adaptation: sometimes when I feel I want the protein or when I have it around, I separate the baking into two sheet pans, and sprinkle some chopped up chorizo into one. It adds a whole other thing, being spicy and garlicky itself, but also delightfully meaty. Alternately, lay some pepperoni on your bread as you scoop up the peppers. Frankly, it's a rare recipe where it's actually equally good both ways.

Paris Redux

Oh my goodness, ya'll, I went to Paris for 5 days and it was fabulous. We spent a lot of our time eating out at restaurants. Much excellent food was eaten by all. To name a few standouts:

--The excellent north african cous cous that we liked so much we went back for more. I have experimented the last few days with making my own vegetarian and meat versions with moderate success. If I make them again I'll post the recipes. It's nowhere near as good but it's still pretty good, and I'll keep experimenting to perfect it.

--A fantastic starter salad of puy lentils cooked in goose fat with caramelised shallots, horseradish (?), and topped with bacon lardons. Fabulous, and I think I can reproduce it. The French are schooled in the art of the judicious application of bacon.

--A chocolate mousse that came out in massive proportion in a large serving bowl. I was given a heaping pile of it and the serving bowl was left on my table, but I don't think they intended for me to eat the rest of it (surely not!). Yet if I was, later in the night, served a half-eaten bowl of mousse, I might raise an eyebrow. This is definitely redo-able but actually I prefer the thick, rich, smooth chocolate pudding to which I'm currently addicted.

--The Economist had an asparagus cream soup with mushrooms that he thinks is the best thing he ate in France. I had a spoonful and it was certainly heavenly smooth and creamy.

--Before one of our meals we partook in an aperitif, a kir, which is white wine mixed with blackcurrant liqueur. It's cool and fruity, goes down really easy and whets the appetite for what's to come.

--For the first time in my life I tried foie gras, served with thinly sliced toast and this weird stock jello stuff. The foie gras was... what can I say?... delicious! It has the smooth, rich texture of butter, but the taste of delicate meat. I know that may not sound appealing, but it was oh so good. I had it twice. The first time I finished it and told the Economist, 'Now that I've had it, I don't feel the need to chase after it ever again.' Two days later I couldn't get it off my mind and the next menu I saw it on, I had to have it. It was just as good. The first time I had it, it was served with that stock jello, just really intense pieces of gelatinous stock--I think. I'm not really sure. The second time it was served with lots of freshly ground pepper and course salt on top. Also delicious. And I'm a salt fiend so salt is always appreciated.

--We filled out meals with visits to an ice cream shop which I'm sure everyone has heard of when mentioning Paris in the same breath--Bertillion. It is without a doubt the best ice cream I have ever had. We always get two flavours in a cone, and they're incredible together but even alone, each ice cream is so intensely flavoured--the vanilla is powerfully vanilla, and the fruit sorbets are so sharp and taste like just frozen crushed fruit. The Economist had a Bertillion lime sorbet which tasted like pure frozen fresh-squeezed lime juice.

Well that's all for now about Paris.

Like a good tourist, I also picked up some souvenirs. However, these souvenirs are all blessedly edible. I went to a french grocery shop and picked up whatever I thought looked interesting and what I decided I would like to eat more of later on. A post on that is forthcoming.

Butternut Squash Risotto

Mmmm, butternut squash risotto! I've been making this for years, adapted from a recipe I saw in the Williams-Sonoma catalogue.

Start with butternut squash of course. I cooked the squash a few days ago, quartering a whole squash and steaming it. Then I scooped out the flesh and saved it in a bowl. You also need some sort of onion--I'm using shallots here (I've read that it's the Rolls-Royce of the onion family), but I've always happily used plain yellow onions. Risotto rice, olive oil, white wine, sage and thyme, vegetable broth, parmesan cheese, butter, salt and pepper.
Take the cooked squash flesh and blitz in a processor until smooth. You can easily dispense with this step or just mash with a fork.
You get this nice smooth puree.
Take the vegetable stock (reconstituted if necessary) and mix in the squash puree.
You get this beautiful, thick stock. Set it on the stove to warm. Bring it just barely under a simmer.
Chop the onion very finely. You can also do this in a processor. What you don't want is big chunks destroying the smoothness of the risotto.
Melt some butter and olive oil in a large saucepan.
Cook the onions gently until they're soft. Then add the sage and thyme.
Next add the risotto rice and stir in the buttery onions for a few minutes. The rice will turn translucent on the edges.
Add about half a cup of white wine and stir into the rice until it's absorbed.
Now add the hot stock, one ladle full at a time, stirring into the rice until absorbed each time. It should take the risotto half an hour to cook, so set your timer now. Keep adding stock and stirring... for about half an hour!
About halfway through--the rice will still be pretty hard.
After half an hour the rice will still have a bit of bite, but the sauce will be creamy and thick.
When the rice is cooked, add a ton of parmesan cheese, a few more tablespoons of butter and a little bit more liquid.
It's done! Sprinkle with parmesan on top.
Yum!