Category: 5 ingredients or less
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The Ultimate Pigs in Blankets
France is big on the potted meats, as you are probably aware, and never more so than at Christmas. This time a year ago, I was complaining about the sheer amount of meat I’d been guzzling. I can’t say the same for this year though, and that is because I’ve been trying out an anti-inflammatory…
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The 4 Best Toast Toppings
The easiest snack in the world. It’s a piece of cake, or should I say, toast. If there is a snack that can withstand all weathers, it is toast. From Welsh rarebit dripping with cheese in the winter to summer bruschetta with tomatoes and basil, toast is an ideal vehicle for taking those toppings from…
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The 4 Best Pickles
There is something utterly charming about France beyond the bicycles, baguettes and éclairs, and that’s their love of jars. Chickpeas, crème fraiche, and my precious pâtés and rillettes all come in elegant glass jars, and it’s just so rustic and homely scraping crème fraiche out of a jar, why don’t we do it everywhere? Recycling…
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Milk-roasted chicken with garlic & lemon
I don’t often use the word ‘mouthgasm’ to describe an incredible eating experience, but when I snaffled a wing of this milk-roasted chicken, its skin crisp and golden, interestingly ‘mouthgasm’ was the first word which popped into my mind, quickly followed by the experience itself. Describing a mouthgasm is somewhat obscene, so bear with me…
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Fig and thyme jam
October seems to be the perfect month for me to make jam. Last year I filled some mini jars with bramble jam – mini purely because of the blackberry curse that haunts me – and although that is literally when the tradition started, I would like to it continue. This year it’s time to celebrate…
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Rice pudding pancakes
At the beginning of this little hiccup known as Covid, panic descended on the world’s population and people stormed the supermarkets. A natural instinct, sure, although I still can’t understand the toilet roll wipe-out but that’s for another day. In the general rush of stockpiling, everyone went mad for tinned goods, just in case we…
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Peanut butter fudge sauce
In a week of Valentine’s Day and Pancake Day, here I am offering you peanut butter fudge sauce. It’s a poor replacement, I know. But I hope it counts, dear reader. During these ceaseless months of lockdown, I have become very attached to my food. I’m sure we all have. Instead of kissing the person…
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Blood oranges with spiced caramel
Every season, there is a fickle, flighty fruit or vegetable which, as soon as I get my grubby mitts on it, takes all my energy and forces me to neglect other foods. They are allusive creatures. Here today then they disappear in a wisp of fragrance, leaving us mournful in their wake, wondering what we…
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Hazelnut butter
It’s good and familiar to be near a lovingly-stocked kitchen. The cupboards are full of jars and spices and pastes, all the accoutrements that take time to collect. In our new kitchen in Toulouse, our cupboards don’t even have an order, unless you call ‘wherever you can find space, that’s where it goes’ order. The…
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French cooking: Crêpes
As I predicted, moving abroad has its hurdles. I write this still awaiting my SIM card and with no bank account, not for the lack of trying. Administration in France is not easy at the best of times but add a pandemic and doors start gently closing with a perfunctory, ‘Désolé!’ Unlike French bureaucracy, that…