Apero Time!

My favourite way to entertain- and be entertained- especially in the summer, is to host an apéro dinatoire. (Posh drinks and nibbles- or tapas or canapés- call it what you like). Essentially, it is gorgeous little nibbly things to go with drinks which can last ( or be replenished as the evening goes on.)

The great thing about these evenings is that they are often spur of the moment invites- which means you have to raid your cupboards and fridge and rustle up some nifty nibbles from nothing. No planning. No fuss. Just whatever you've got.

So here are my speedy suggestions:

Toasts/ Croques

If you have a loaf of bread ( or ready made toasts) then you can make a start. Just slice, toast,  rub with a cut clove of garlic and top with whatever is handy- sardine, tuna or liver paté, grated fresh tomato, or a caviare d'aubergines if you have a bit more time.

Prick 2 aubergines all over and rub with some olive oil then roast whole in the oven for 25 minutes or so until soft and wrinkly.

Aubergines looking tired and emotional

Scoop out the flesh and mix it with 1-2 crushed cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp honey, some lemon or lime juice, salt and pepper. Spread onto garlicky toasts.

Aubergine Toasts with Gazpacho Verrines

I also like to make mini croques-messieurs, toasting little bits of bread with cheese, ham and mustard. (Or make full-sized ones and cut into bite-sized pieces.)

Mini Croques-Messieurs

Verrines

Cold soups in little glasses go down well and are quite fashionable. Gazpacho ( as shown above ) is always popular      http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.com/search?q=gazpacho or try a Courgette and Coconut Velouté

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.com/search?q=courgette+and+coconut+

Courgette and Coconut Verrine

Dips and Chips

If you have a bottle of mayonnaise, a natural yoghurt or some crème fraiche then you have the makings of a dip.

My favourites are mayo mixed with mustard ( great for dipping mini frankfurters), crème fraiche with chilli sauce and chopped coriander or chives for dipping veg  or yoghurt with chopped gherkins and olives for a tartare sauce dip.

Or try this hummus-y style dip - made from leftover baked beans!

Blitz 2 tbsp beans with 2 cloves of garlic, juice of a lemon, 1 tsp chilli paste and 2 tbsp olive oil

Baked Bean 'Hummus'

Lovely for dipping baby potatoes, courgettes, radishes or tortilla chips

Dips and Chips

Incidentally the chips are made from sliced tortillas ( straight from the freezer), tossed in olive oil and seasoning and baked for 5-10 minutes in a hot oven:

Baked Tortilla Chips

Pastry Bits

It's always worth having a roll of puff pastry in the fridge or freezer for making impromptu titbits. You can make savoury croissants, straws or puffs in a matter of minutes.

For croissants- use a circle of pastry, cut into 16 triangles and each triangle spread with a topping of your choice- sundried tomato paste, pesto, tapenade, curry paste, even Marmite (although Marmite croissants might be a step too far for French guests!)

Croissants spread and ready for rolling

Roll up into croissant shapes from the outside of the triangle into the centre. Brush with egg or milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds or parmesan. Bake at 200 degrees until risen and golden.

Mini croissants and cheese straws

Or use a rectangular sheet of pastry, cut into smaller rectangles for Ham and Cheese Puffs:

Lay a slice of ham and some grated cheese on top

Fold in the edges and seal, bake until golden brown and puffy:

Ham and Cheese Puffs

Cheese Tuiles

I make these with St.Nectaire but it would work with Manchego, Comte, Cantal or Port Salut too.

Just slice some cheese into small cubes:

Dice the cheese

Lay little piles of the cubes on some baking paper:

Make little piles of cheese

Put in a hot oven to melt and meanwhile crush a tablespoon of hazelnuts:

Crush hazelnuts for sprinkling

As the cheese melts, sprinkle on the nuts to toast in the oven.

Sprinkle on the nuts as the cheese melts

When the cheese is bubbling, take out the tray, allow to cool slightly then loosen the tuiles and place on a rack to cool.

Tuiles au Saint-Nectaire

Phew! That's enough for now I reckon. Time for a drink.

What- no nibbles?

Stone Fruit

That is, fruit with a stone in the middle- as opposed to stoned fruit which is how I often seem to serve it- macerated in creme de cassis or poached in red wine!
We are now getting well into the stone fruit season- apricots, cherries, then peaches and nectarines as the summer goes on and plums as the season reaches its peak. Time to look at some ways of using up these fruits whilst they are plentiful and getting cheaper- before they spoil in the fruit bowl.

I'm starting with an Apricot Pavé.

A pavé is French for a cobblestone and is used in menus to describe something which is that sort of shape eg. pavé de saumon or pavé de rumsteack- but hopefully a little lighter in texture!
This cake is a basic sponge, but made delicious with the addition of some chopped apricot, orange and coconut.
It doesn't need any icing or drizzle- it is quite soft and moist as it is.

Ingredients:

5-6 apricots, sliced
200g of softened butter
juice of 1 orange
200g sugar
100g dessicated coconut
300g flour
2 tsp baking powder
120 ml milk
3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Cream the butter, orange juice and sugar and gradually beat in the eggs.
Add the flour, baking powder and coconut and mix in the milk to make a batter.
Mix in the chopped apricots, pour into a greased and lined square cake tin (if you have one) and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden and firm.

Once cool, cut into squares (to be proper pavés) or slices if you prefer.

Apricot Pavé

Another good way to use up apricots is in a clafoutis- which I have featured on the blog before, but here it is again if you missed it.

Halve the apricots and place in a greased pie dish

Make a sweet batter with eggs, milk, sugar and plain flour

Pour over the apricots and bake at 180 degrees until set

Likewise for my Cherry Soup ( which- OK -does require poaching in wine etc etc)

Poach cherries, grapes and other fruit in red wine and sugar until syrupy

 (You can look these recipes up using the panel to your right and clicking on the link).

If you have any cherries left over - use them to decorate a refrigerator cake . This is my Fluffy Ruffle Pie- so named because that is what we used to call this mousse-like confection when my two brothers and I were little. It is definitely a blast from the past- but easy and tasty, so I urge you to try it.

Ingredients:

250g digestive biscuits, blitzed to crumbs
100g butter
1 fruit jelly (lime, lemon, cherry, strawberry whatever you like)
1 small tin evaporated milk

Make up the jelly to 300ml with boiling water and leave to cool. (After about an hour it will begin to set slightly- this is perfect).
Grease and line a 23 cm cake tin. (If you use a loose bottomed one - make sure you do line it, or you will have a lemon jelly/evaporated milk catastrophe in your fridge as I did!)
Melt the butter in a saucepan and mix in the biscuit crumbs
Press the mixture into the tin, lining the base and sides to make a shell
Place in the fridge or freezer to cool.
Mix the evaporated milk into the jelly mixture and whisk with an electric whisk until good and frothy.

Whisk up your jelly and evaporated milk

Pour into the flan tin and leave in the fridge to set  (overnight is best).

Serve decorated with fruit or whipped cream.

Fluffy Ruffle Pie

If you prefer a more grown up version, you can make a Key Lime pie- which uses condensed milk and fresh limes rather than jelly and evaporated milk. The biscuit base is the same - but the filling uses 450g sweetened condensed milk, the juice and zest of 5 limes or lemons and 300 ml of lightly whipped double cream. Whisk the lime juice, zest and milk together - watch it start to thicken- and then fold in the whipped cream.

Finally- and you might think this is a bit of a cheat- I have a savoury recipe for you- using olives (which I think do still count as a stone fruit).
I made these Olive Cookies Sablés for our annual garden party and they went down well with the apéritifs - so I thought I'd share the recipe with you as it is such a good one.

Ingredients:
(Makes 24 cookies)
180g flour
80 g soft butter or marge
1 egg
24 pitted black olives
80 g grated strong cheese eg. Parmesan or mature cheddar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp fresh herbs- finely chopped (eg. rosemary, thyme, oregano)
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven  to 160 degrees.
Put the butter, egg, 16 of the olives and the oil into a food processor. Pulse in the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, and the grated cheese and keep going until the mixture forms a ball of soft dough.
Line two baking trays with baking paper, then, using wet hands form 24 balls of dough - each one about the size of a walnut. Lay them on the trays, spaced apart.

Cookies spaced apart

Flatten them slightly with a fork.
Cut the remaining 8 olives into 3 rings each- and put an olive ring on top of each cookie.
Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.

Baked and decorated

Cool on a wire rack- and enjoy with your apéros !

Olive Cookies Sablés

Fresh Ideas

I'd like to say that life is getting back to normal here, after our French adventure, but what with one thing and another, it just hasn't.
However, it's definitely time to restock with some fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Even reading last month's blog back to myself leaves me with a feeling of Vitamin C deficiency!


So, this time I'm giving you some soup recipes, some starters, vegetable sides and a meat and fish dish with the aim of offering you a more balanced diet than last time.

To start, I've made an Asparagus Charlotte. This is a pretty little starter, featuring a smoked mackerel mousse surrounded by a guard of honour of new season asparagus tips. Very cheffy-looking- but simple to achieve.

Asparagus Charlotte

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus (you will use the tips and save the stalks for soup)

3 smoked mackerel fillets

1 tub of cream cheese with chives

Juice of half a lemon

2 tbsp creme fraiche

4-5 spring onions ( chopped)

Salt and pepper

Chives for decoration.

1. Steam the asparagus over a pan of simmering water until just tender but not floppy. Plunge into iced water to keep green colour vivid.

Chilly asparagus!

Reserve the cooking water for soup.

2. Trim the tips. Again reserve the stalks for soup.

3. Slice the tips lengthways in half

4. Blitz the mackerel, creme fraiche, cream cheese and lemon juice in a food processor .

5. Add the finely chopped spring onion and season well

6. Spoon or pipe mixture into chef's rings or scone cutters and chill until firm

7. When ready to serve, unmould and arrange the asparagus cut side out in a guard of honour around the mousse.

8. Tie a chive around each one to hold it all in place.

Asparagus and Smoked Mackerel Charlotte

Hopefully, you now have some leftover asparagus stalks and poaching water to make soup. The next recipe makes a creamy asparagus veloute- made delicious with coconut cream:

Asparagus and Coconut Veloute

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus (whole or just the stalks)

1 bunch of spring onions (chopped)

1 small pack of frozen peas

1 litre of vegetable stock (including the water used to steam the asparagus)

1 small tin of coconut cream

1 tbsp chopped dill

Salt and pepper

Oil for frying

1. Steam the asparagus until tender over a pan of simmering water.

2. Reserve the cooking water and add it to the vegetable stock to make up to 1 litre

3. Chop the asparagus and put it with the spring onions and peas in a little oil in a saucepan. Sweat gently for a few minutes.

4. Add the dill, stock and coconut cream and simmer gently for 15 minutes to let the flavours mingle

5.Blitz with a blender, adjust seasoning and serve.

Asparagus and Coconut Veloute

Next, I've made a vegetarian starter using halloumi cheese, aubergines, mushrooms and tomatoes.

Halloumi and Vegetable Tian

A tian is a layered vegetable dish named after the Provencal earthenware vessel in which it is baked. Originally, these were conical in shape but nowadays those sold in kitchen shops tend to be more like gratin dishes. I've recreated the 'stacked' look with roasted vegetables interleaved with halloumi, using a skewer to hold them all in place in the oven.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 portobello mushrooms

4 slicing tomatoes

1 large aubergine

250g halloumi cheese, sliced into 8 pieces

2 crushed cloves of garlic

salt and pepper

fresh thyme sprigs

olive oil for marinading and roasting

1. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, slice the tomatoes thinly into 4 slices per fruit, slice the aubergine thinly (you are aiming for 12 slices if possible)

2. Mix the crushed garlic and thyme sprigs with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil

3. Put the mushrooms, tomatoes and aubergine slices into the oil to marinade. Coat well with your hands, adding plenty of salt and pepper. Add more olive oil as you need it.

4. Leave for 1 hour or so.

Marinade the vegetables

5. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees.

6. Pan fry the halloumi briefly until you have a golden crust on both sides.

7. In the marinading dish, assemble your tians: mushroom cup first, then alternating layers of aubergine, tomato and halloumi, finishing with a tomato cap.

8. Secure in place with a bamboo skewer (or use chef's rings if you have them)

Hold the tians in place

9. Roast for 15 minutes until all the vegetables are soft and beginning to caramelize.

Halloumi and Vegetable Tian

I also used up any remaining aubergines in one of my favourite soups:

Aubergine and Butter Bean Soup

Anyone would think this smooth and delicate soup is rich with butter and cream- but in fact it is completely dairy-free and owes its silky texture to the butter beans which both thicken and enrich. The aubergines? Well, they lend a delicious, fragrant flavour to the ensemble!

Ingredients:

(Makes a litre and a half of soup)

2 medium aubergines

4 cloves of garlic

2 tsp honey

olive oil

juice of half a lemon

1 onion

1 litre of hot chicken or vegetable stock

1 400g tin of butter beans

salt and pepper to taste

1. Prick the aubergines all over, slice in half lengthways and lay cut side down in a baking dish lightly oiled with olive oil. Put the garlic cloves in too, in their skins.

2. Bake at 200 degrees for 15 minutes, then add the honey to the hot pan and swirl around. Continue baking for another 10 minutes or until the aubergines are soft and wrinkly. ( It happens to us all!)

3. Allow to cool enough to be handled, peel off the skin and chop roughly. Squeeze the garlic from its skin and do the same.

4. Soften the onion in some more olive oil in a saucepan, add the aubergine, garlic and drained butter beans and fry gently.

5. Loosen the sticky honey and aubergine juice from the pan with 2 cups of hot water. Add to the vegetables in the pan.

6. Pour on the chicken stock and simmer for another 10 minutes to amalgamate the flavours.

7. Blitz with a hand blender, adjust seasoning and serve with croutons.

Aubergine and Butter Bean Soup

Now for some main dishes- starting off with rabbit:

Rabbit in Cider

This is a version of the French classic 'Lapin Au Cidre'. Fresh rabbit is widely available in all supermarkets in France (including my local Lidl)- but I have found that this is not the case in the UK. If you can source it at your butchers, it is well worth the effort as the combination of rabbit, cider, cream and tarragon is such a good one. If not, the dish works well with chicken or pork too.

Traditionally, it is made the day before so the flavours mingle well and then the sauce if finished off just before serving- which makes it an ideal dish if you are serving to guests.

(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

1.8 kg of fresh rabbit, jointed

100g of smoked bacon lardons

200g of button mushrooms

2 carrots

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

70 cl of chicken stock

15 cl of dry cider

40g flour

10 cl of creme fraiche

90g butter

2 cloves

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp fresh tarragon

salt and pepper

1. Peel the carrots and onion and puncture it with the cloves

2. Season the rabbit and brown the pieces in 20g of butter, along with the lardons

3. Place in a casserole dish or slow cooker with the crushed garlic, carrots, bay leaf and onion

4. Deglaze the frying pan by boiling the cider in it and scraping with a spatula

5. Pour this over the rabbit, along with the chicken stock and cook for 1 hour in a casserole in the oven at 170 degrees or 3-4 hours in the slow cooker.

6. To finish the dish, add the button mushrooms either half an hour before the end of cooking, or as you reheat the next day. Remove the bay leaf and onion.

7. Make a roux with the flour and the remaining butter and strain in the hot cooking liquor. Heat, stirring constantly as it thickens. Adjust the seasoning. Add the cream and tarragon- and the rabbit pieces- and serve.

Rabbit in Cider

Next I braised some fennel to go with a fish dish. Usually I cook this recipe (Slow Braised Fennel) with olives and orange juice- but this time I left out the olives as I was serving it with Tapenade Crusted Fish.

Slow Braised Fennel

1  large bulb of fennel

250 ml orange juice

splash of white wine

salt and pepper

1 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Slice the fennel bulb thinly, reserving the feathery fronds as garnishes.

2. Place it in a slow cooker, or heavy bottomed saucepan along with the orange juice, wine, parsley and seasoning. Cover with a lid and braise until tender- about 20 minutes in a saucepan or 2-3 hours in the slow cooker.

Slow Braised Fennel

As I mentioned, I intended serving this fennel with fish. I chose firm white fish fillets (cod or hake) and placed them on baking parchment with a splash of white wine and some chopped parsley. I then sealed the parcels up like Cornish pasties, twisting the paper together to form a seal.

Wrapping up the fish parcels

Bake in a hot oven (180 degrees) for 20-25 minutes. Then lift out the fish pieces and spread each one with some olive tapenade. Top that with some breadcrumbs and finely chopped chive or spring onion and flash under a hot grill until crisp.

Serve with the fennel and other veg of your choice. (I usually bake some tomatoes on the vine along with the fish)

Tapenade Crusted Fish

Finally, with the leftover fennel I made another soup: 1 onion and 1 clove of garlic softened, 3 small potatoes (chopped), fennel slices, orange juice, chicken stock and parsley- simmered and then blitzed.

I usually sieve the finished soup to remove any fibrous bits of fennel or potato skin, add a little milk or cream and serve garnished with the fennel fronds which were saved as a garnish.

Cream of Fennel Soup

So, all in all I feel a bit healthier now. Lots of nice spring veg and fresh meat and fish working their magic.

I thought coming back to the UK, I'd find myself fresh out of ideas for the blog- but it seems the opposite is true!

Hope this week's blog has refreshed the parts that other blogs didn't reach..

Comfort Food

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It has been a sad and shocking start to our French adventure. For two days, as we travelled across France, we listened closely to the radio broadcasts- first the terrible events at Charlie Hebdo, then the manhunt, Francois Hollande's grave speech and finally the awful hostage taking and denouement in Paris.

But the solidarity shown everywhere- and at the marches on Sunday- the call to the French people to respect the values of liberte, egalite, fraternite brought home to me how in times of stress we turn to the old comforts and reaffirm what is important to us. Whether that is tradition, religion or family rituals.

So, how can I show my solidarity with these sentiments? Well, as the intention of this blog for the next few months is to bring you a flavour of France, I have decided to look backwards- at old fashioned comfort food French-style.

Pencils are powerful here in France..

I am beginning with a dish of braised endives with ham.

Endives are becoming more readily available in the UK- but are often unpopular because of their bitter taste. This can easily be rectified with the addition of a little sugar to the cooking liquor and by braising the endives in vegetable stock rather than plain water.

Allow one medium endive per person.Slice the endives in half lengthways, heat a little oil in a frying pan and place the endives in the pan cut-side down. Brown a little, then add a teaspoon of sugar, a crumbled vegetable stock cube and a cup of water. Cover and braise for 20 minutes until the endives are tender.
Meanwhile, make the sauce by melting a tablespoon of butter and mixing in a tablespoon of plain flour. Add 400 ml of milk and bring to the boil, stirring frequently to thicken. Take off the heat and whisk in plenty of salt, pepper and a teaspoon of mustard, along with a grating of nutmeg. Then shoot in 100g of grated emmental or strong cheddar. Allow to cool and then add 1 egg yolk to the sauce. ( Keep the egg white for making either of the dessert recipes on this page.)

Uncover the endives and boil off any remaining liquid.

Next wrap the two endive halves in a piece of good ham. (Rubber gloves can help at this stage if the veg are too hot to handle.) Lay in a buttered gratin dish and cover with the cheese sauce.

Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs (something I will never be short of in France as there is always a piece of stale baguette left after a meal, begging to be blitzed into crumbs and frozen for later use.)

Breadcrumbs in plentiful supply already in the freezer

A final dusting of cheese (Parmesan would be good) and nutmeg if you like it, and the dish is ready for the oven at 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes until golden.

Braised Endives with Ham

If you have leftover cheese sauce, make tartines with slices of French bread, spread with butter and topped with ham, tomatoes or whatever you have in the fridge, then spread with the cheese sauce and grilled until bubbling and golden.

Tartines ready for the grill

Tartines for the table

For pudding, use up the egg white either in macaroons for a sweet ice cream sandwich- or make a chocolate moelleux and serve with custard or creme anglaise.

For the macaroons- beat 2 egg whites until at the soft peak stage. Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence, 100g of caster sugar and 200g of dessicated coconut. Mix together until it all binds.
Grease two baking sheets and line with baking paper. Place spoonfuls of the mixture into biscuit rings and press down firmly with a spoon to make round shapes. Bake at 170 degrees for 10 minutes or so. Watch carefully and remove from the heat as soon as they are golden.Allow to cool.




For the pudding- sandwich a scoop of your favourite ice cream (I used salted caramel) between two macaroons, drizzle over some caramel sauce, maple syrup, chocolate sauce, cream- whatever you fancy et voila!

Sweet Macaroon Sandwich

A chocolate moelleux is a soft, gooey cake not unlike a brownie. It is not to be confused with the ubiquitous chocolate fondant- which has a runny centre.

You need
 200g of dark chocolate
150 g soft butter
100g sugar
50 g self raising flour
2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites

Beat the egg whites until just forming soft peaks, beat the butter with the sugar and then add the whole eggs one by one. Melt the chocolate in the microwave with a splash of water for 1 minute. Mix it into the eggs and butter, then add the flour. Carefully slide in the egg whites, folding them into the mixture rather than stirring them in. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake at 150 degrees for 25-30 minutes- crucially, until the top is firm but a cocktail stick inserted into the very centre still comes out with some gooey mixture on it. That way you have a chocolate cake with a squidgy centre which is the key to it success.

Just out of the oven

Things don't get more comforting than that.

If you want to jazz up the presentation, make a puddle of creme anglaise and chocolate sauce artistically arrranged:

Chocolate moelleux

For everyone everywhere, who enjoys writing- whether it's a witty rejoinder on Facebook, articles for magazines, blogs or stories- and for anyone anywhere who needs some comfort at the moment- I hope this blog entry shows you a bit of solidarity.

For Charlie