When is a Sponge cake a Sponge and when is a Custard a Custard?

We encountered some delightful cakes on our trip to France this year but I confused myself with what some of them were. I'll explain.

On visiting Bordeaux I Googled "local specialities" and came across Caneles'. pron canelays. These appeared to be small individual cakes of perfect construction and exact dimensions. We purchased a 'set' of these cakes and hungrily opened the packet to indulge in the delicacy within.

 !!??!! eh?!

Is it a cake or is it a custard? The outside is caramelised and spongey whereas the centre is smooth and consists of custard. Wow! Nice, Nasty, I didn't know. My mind had told me it was a small sponge cake whereas my mouth was screaming CUSTARD!

They are made using a custard batter and a mold to get the desired shape.
Love them or hate them, they look impressive all neatly in rows in a delicatessens' window.

Was it a sponge or a custard? I call them Spustards!

Another delicacy of Bordeaux are the Macarons, not to be confused with the english Macaroon. Now these are impressive in many ways.
Not only are they a wonder to look at with their varying colours and flavours, but they are so, so delicate.
We were ordering twelve, (yes, dear reader, I said twelve) and the assistant would not let us order certain ones as they are too light! ........eh?........ what transcribed after careful translation was that we could order the ones we wanted but only after we had ordered heavier ones first as the heavy ones will break the lighter ones in the bag if not packaged correctly. What rubbish!!

It wasn't rubbish. Even though the bag had been meticulously packed, in order of weight, we still had a broken Pampelmousse and my Ananas was completely destroyed! That's Grapefruit and Pineapple to me and you!

Walnuts and Clams

Well, the French escape is over and it's back to work. Au Revoir Charente and Good morning Shropshire.

We were driving back with our bellies full of bread, ham and cheese and musing over where to go next year. "Anywhere that has a beach!" said our five year old. "Anywhere that has great food!" I said, and "Just anywhere" was my wifes' response.

The exchange rate made food expensive so we had resulted in nights of barbeques followed by ice cream or walnuts from the owners of our Gite. A drizzle of honey made them more wonderful than they already were.

Lunches consisted of salamis, hams, artisan bread, an array of squidgy uncious cheese and a tipple or two of local wine. (We were near Bordeaux!!) The sun beat down and the hot afternoons turned in to cool evenings.

The barbeques we had were lovely. Sausages, poulet , steak onglet, and beaucoup de pain d'ail (Garlic bread). After a few days we realised that we hadn't eaten a vegetable yet. I decided to make my tried and tested tomato salsa.

Rub the bowl with fresh garlic.
Chop enough tomatoes to feed the five thousand.
Chop a couple of shallots from the market. I use red onions in England.
Mix olive oil with red wine vinegar at the ratio 4:1 (Usually 3:1 but the tomatoes are quite acidic back at home)
Chop an array of herbs from your garden and throw them in and stir. I use parsley and/or marjoram, thyme, chives.
Throw in a good pinch of salt and ground pepper and leave for a few hours for the salt to draw the moisture out of the tomatoes and the flavours to mix.
Serve with and barbequed meat of your liking. The residual liquor in the base of the salsa bowl is great for dipping your leftover bread in to.

 We visited a local market in Jonzac where we got some wonderful clams and our vegetables and cheese. It was noisey and husteled and busteled with locals all out to get their produce. It was great to see a market thriving in a small village.

Clams with pasta and white wine sauce

Only 50 weeks until next years holiday, wherever we go........

"Fancy a Quickie?"

Well, we got to Le Mans, in France, at the start of our family holiday a few days ago. It was our stop off on the way to the Charente in South West France. Wow, what a place, what history. The mecca of 24hr motor racing.

We got to our hotel for the night and unloaded our bags to our room. Nothing special about the room, but it was clean (ish) and had a nice hot shower. We're now hungry. As Anthony Bourdain says, "When you get to your hotel and you want dinner, get the hell away from the hotel buffet!". You tend to get over priced touristy food that you wouldn't feed to your dog. This place looked alright, but was over priced! I know the pound is week against the Euro but £9 for a starter, £18 for a main and then another £9 for dessert. We will have overspent on our budget by day 1 if this is the norm.

"Let's explore!" Yes, we have had a 10 hour journey setting off at 2am from Blighty, and, we are all frightfully
tired and on the edge of our first bust up of the holiday. "Let's explore anyway!"

We headed off in search of our first meal.

Our hotel was in the middle of a less than celubrious area and I didn't fancy a long trip out in the car after the journey we had had. We dutifuly set off though and no sooner had we passed the first bend than my daughter saw the dreaded Golden Arches. Aaagh, my worst nightmare. Personally I don't mind a Maccy D's once in a while but not for my 5 year old. I want her to eat healthily. I also don't like paying my hard earned ££ to a major conglomerate like MD's for a limp burger, especially when we are in a major foodie country like France. I hate to see parents on a Sunday having lunch at the local Burger joint. Whatever happened to the family sitting around the table eating a nice roast. I was brought up doing it and so was my wife. How hard is it to cook a roast? Easy.

Back to the story. I persuaded my daughter that we are not going to go to MD's. Tears. God, we are tired. After a trawl around we realised that it was early and none of the local restaurants had opened. My wife saw a place called "Quick". The lights were on and people were home! As we approached we noticed a familiar picture on the window of the restaurant, a burger!! Sod it. We are tired, but at least it's not MD's!!

"Table for three please!" Just joking. We walked up to the counter, me dragging my feet. We all had the "Giant" burger with fries and a coke. Milk for the little lady.

MMMmmmmmm! I'm in France!! What a taste sensation!

The burger had mayonnaise on it. Jules from Pulp Fiction would have been proud. This was "One tasty burger." It had fresh, crunchy lettuce and a thick slice of juicy tomato. The bun was fluffy and light and the burger looked like it was made from meat of all things. The fries had skin on so must have come from a potato!! The best of all was the little sachet of mayo. It had flavours of dijon mustard and an astringency of what must have been real vinegar. My wife frowned when I sucked at the sachet to get the last remnants of mayo out of it.

The foie gras and truffles can wait (for now), we are having BURGER for tea!!

A little something for your viewing pleasure.....

I love Cookery shows. There. I've said it. It's out there.
Of course you all knew this but I like to shout about it every once in a while.

It all started back in the eighties when I caught an episode of "Food and Drink". The show wasn't very cool and the fact that I watched it was probably even less cool but who cares. Soon after I came across a show called "Floyd on France". Now this was cool. Here was a guy who travelled around and got stuck in. He cooked what he wanted to cook and drank copious amounts of wine whilst he was at it. Now this was a bit more cool. Ingredients weren't measured out as they are now but you knew the final dish would have been yummy if you could have reached inside the tv and scooped a fork full. It's a shame he has left us. RIP Floyd.

There were a few more different shows through the nineties then there was an explosion when Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey paved the way for the new runs of travel/cookery shows in the Noughties.

Currently I am watching Rick Stein travel through Spain in the search of true Spanish Peasant food on BBC HD on Thursday evenings. Another couple of great shows are "Ken Hom Travels With a Hot Wok" on Good Food HD and "Luke Nguyen's Vietnam" on the same channel. We all know who Ken Hom is, but who is Luke Nguyen? He was born in Singapore to Vietnamese parents and is currently a Chef/Restauranteur in Sydney, Australia. His show is a feast not only for your belly but also for your eyes. The viewer is taken down alleys and watreways to find local food from street vendors and river boats. The photography is vibrant and the final dishes make my mouth water.
http://uktv.co.uk/food/chef/aid/645627

One of the best and most entertaining shows is "Anthony Bourdains' No Reservations". This can be found on Good Food Channel as well as a couple of those other satellite channels that we have heard of but never watched. Anthony Bourdain is a New Yorker who has spent nearly thirty years in the kitchens of various New York establishments. He has suffered from drug addiction for a lot of those years but is now back on top form and travelling around the world exploring the culinary delights that different cultures have. He has written a cookery book for his old establishment "Les Hailles" as well as travel/food books, memoirs and a great behind the scenes book from his series that is mainly a collection of photographs from filming his shows. Look him up on your Computer and series link his show on your TV. You won't be disappointed!
www.anthonybourdain.net/

Cooking shows have come a long way since the early days now incorporating "travel" and "good causes" but at the heart of them there is always great food. 


Read, watch, cook and enjoy yourselves.


A few recommendations for you.


Anthony Bourdain Omnibus, Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Hugh Fearlessly Eats it All
Keith Floyd, Stirred But Not Shaken
Stephane Reynaud, Ripailles
Jamie Oliver, Jamies' America


Look these up on Amazon if you get the chance.
www.amazon.co.uk

Chilli Bath Madness??

Have you ever had a bath with chilies in it?

No, of course not. That would make you stupid. Think of the burning!

I have had a bath with Chilies in it. That would make me....  ...er stupid. Yes, but not for the reasons you’re thinking of.

The experience was actually a bit of a rotten tomato. Let me explain.

I was wandering the aisles of my local Sainsburys looking for two for ones and general bargains that I could buy, that I didn’t need, and that I could indulge in when I got home. There was nothing that jumped out at me aside from the usual chocolatey delights and alcoholic beverages.

I perused a few more aisles and found myself in the showery bath section. Mmmm, shall I treat my gorgeous, hard working, deserves-a-rest, wife? The lady who is there for me whenever I need her, the lady who....   ...oo, what’s that over there..... a, a, a bubble bath with Chilies in it. No way, I love Chilies. Me Me ME!! I want it. I must have a bath in that nectar.

The Bubble Bath in question is made by Original Source, a well known, and pretty darn good manufacturer of shower gels, bubble baths etc. My family use them all the time, I trust them. There is a mint shower gel made from 500 or so fresh Moroccan mint leaves that after you use it and step out of the shower any small breeze of any description feels like an arctic gale.

The bubble bath states, "We have mixed black pepper with with little Habanero Chillis which score between 100,000-350,000 on the Scoville Scale." So, I was hoping for a raging firey inferno of a bath. I wanted the bath to creak as the firey burning chilli death syrup ate away at the enamel of my bath. I wanted a bubbling cauldren of liquid lava to bathe in that would take a few layers of skin off and make me look young again! Hey, I would even have settled for a slight tingly sensation, but all I got was red water and the smell of 1980’s Gobstoppers. Yes, that’s right, It smells of Fireball Gobstoppers that I used to buy as a kid! Does that mean that the chemically manufactured taste of the gobstoppers were actually bang on the money? I guess they were.

I lay in the bath and felt a little deflated. Waste of money. I actually fell asleep for a few minutes and woke up in a bath of now cold water. Even less heat than before! I was slipping quickly down the Scoville scale, off the end and in to a very localised Ice Age. 

I love chilies but I have learned that I should not always purchase goods just because I like one ingredient, all be it a major ingredient in this case. I think i'll stick to my usual morning shower in the future.

Capsicum is the botanical name for the plants bearing the fruit peppers. Belonging to the same family as the tomato and aubergine, they were discovered by Christopher Columbus in America and described by botanists at the beginning of the 16th century. They soon spread through europe and the rest of the world. My favourite is the Scotch Bonnet Chilli. It is named for its resemblance to the Tam O'Shanter hat and used throughout the Caribbean and West Indies.

For a hit of Chilli try this for size next time you rent a movie.

Chilli & Lime Popcorn.

Splash of vegetable oil

200g Popcorn kernels

1 to 2 tsp chilli powder, the hotter the better.

Juice of 1 to 2 limes

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the popcorn. Put a lid on and turn the heat up. Shake the pan to stop the corns from burning every once in a while. 

When most of the corns have stopped popping, turn off the heat and put to one side. Allow to cool a bit.Add the chilli powder to the pan and shake to disperse. 

Tip the popcorn in to a large bowl and sprinkle with the lime juice immediately prior to eating.


Stay tuned for the next blog entry. "Brains in Ibiza"

Rice Quicksand

Hello and Welcome to my new Blog.

This is where I will be musing about all things food related, whether it be a trip to my local Chinese Takeaway or a story from my past exploits in culinary experimentation. The end goal is to find my perfect meal. It may be a complete eight course Gastronomic feast or it could be that I find the tastiest variety of tomato and it blows my mind!

It's simple really, we have to eat to survive. If we don't, we'll be dead! It's not rocket science. 

My thoughts are, if we have to eat then why not enjoy it. Learn to cook, learn to appreciate food, learn to like the things your mum tried to get you to eat as a kid and you detested. You'll probably like them now. I do. Rice Pudding!!! As a seven year old I would rather have used it for quicksand and rescued my Six Million Dollar Man action figure from its clutches, but now, it's a revelation. Here's what I do:

1 Mango

60g Pudding Rice

Knob of Butter

1 pint of Milk (full Fat!)

1 tbs Caster Sugar

A pinch of Saffron

A low table to rest your feet on

Warm 50ml of your milk and steep the saffron in it. Put to one side.

Put the rice and milk in to an oven proof dish and plop in the knob of butter. 

Stir in the sugar.

Bake for a couple of hours at 150 C. Check if it needs and extra 15 mins or so and cook as required.

Chop up the mango in to small chunks and put in the bottom of your bowls.

Spoon the cooked rice pudding over the top and drizzle with the infused Saffron milk.

Stick your feet up and enjoy. 

Did You Know? Rice was known about and cultivated in China more than 3000 years ago but the plant (Oryza Sativa) may have originated in southern India then spread north and in to China.

Rice was introduced in England to housewives to be used in yucky Rice Quicksand as recently as the 1970's.....   ......the rest is history. (This may or may not be true. If you were born in the 70's like me then you know the truth.)

So there it is, Blog number 1 DONE!

Coming Soon....    .....Chilli Bath Madness!