One French word: chaud, a French recipe: salade de chèvre chaud

Chaud, adjective (chaud (m.), chaude (f.), chauds (m.pl.), chaudes (f.pl)) = hot (pronounced show (for the masculine singular and plural), showed (for the feminine singular and plural).

Du chocolat chaud = hot chocolate; une journée chaude = a hot day; des marrons chauds = hot (roasted) chestnuts; des braises chaudes = hot coals.

The film Some Like it Hot = Certains l’aiment chaud; but the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof = Chat sur un toit brûlant (literally burning).

The verb chauffer = to heat (je chauffe, tu chauffes, il/elle chauffe, nous chauffons, vous chauffez, ils/elles chauffent = I heat, you heat etc.)

My recipe is for a salade de chèvre chaud = salad with toasted goat’s cheese. Very much a standard starter in French restaurants, or sometimes as a cheese course on longer menus, I have made it a main course by adding this and that.

Salade de chèvre chaud

Crottin de chèvre, about 4cm across

About 3cm thick. This is a whole cheese, not a slice, fairly hard. If too fresh it will melt.

For two people you will need:

• 2 crottins de chèvre (little round fairly hard goat’s cheeses – see photos)
• 2 slices of wholemeal bread
• some nice, firm lettuce, good and green, not iceberg, or other salad greens of your choice
• a ripe avocado
• a ripe pear
• 10 little slices of smoked duck breast (or petals of parma ham)
• 1 lemon or lime
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Prepare the lettuce leaves (or other salad leaves of your choice) and place them on a plate to form a bed for the cheese.
2. Peel the avocado and cut it into slices, place half on each plate, squeeze a little lemon juice so that it keeps its colour.
3. Peel the pear, cut into chunks, place half on each plate, squeeze a little lemon juice so that it doesn’t go brown.
4. Cut the crusts off the bread so that you have two pieces about 7cm square, and toast them. Allow to cool and place on top of the lettuce.
5. Place 5 slices of smoked duck breast on each plate in a fan shape (vegetarians just leave out this step).
6. Squeeze a little lemon on the lettuce, and drizzle olive oil over the salad ingredients on the plate.
7. Season with a little salt and pepper.
8. In a small frying pan, put a little olive oil (a teaspoonful, no more) to help the cheese not to stick. Cut each crottin in half horizontally and place in the hot pan, outside skin downwards to begin with. Cook for a minute, and turn with a spatula, very gently. There will be a skin trying to stick to the pan, slip the spatula under this skin so that it is on top when the cheese is turned; cook for a minute on the other side. Again very carefully lift the half crottin, with the skin that will be trying to stick to the pan, and place two halves on top of the bread on each plate. The cheese is not meant to melt all over the place. It should almost keep its shape, just go brown and soften a little.

Salade de chèvre chaud as a main course

Bon appétit!

One French word: four, a French recipe: butternut au four

Four, masculine noun (un four, le four, des fours) = oven (pronounced foor). Au four = (literally “in the oven”) baked.

Four à pain = bread oven, four à pizza = pizza oven, four à micro-ondes = microwave, une fournée = (literally “an ovenful”) a batch, un fournil = a baker’s oven

Expression: être au four et au moulin = to do two things at once (literally “to be at the oven and at the mill”)

My recipe for today is for butternut au four = baked butternut. It is the season when we should be finishing up all stored squashes. This recipe is delicious and quick and easy to do.

Butternut au four

I’m not going to tell you what you need today. It’s so easy, but it depends on the size of butternut you need to feed the number of people you are going to be. I did half a very small one, about 8 inches long, with 3/4 of a ball of mozzarella, since I was eating alone.

My little butternut which has just been baked

Preparation:

1. Bake half a butternut for as long as it takes to get soft (mine took about 25 minutes on 180° but it was very small). Just bake it as it is, with the seeds. You can remove them and any unwanted filaments once it is cooked.
2. Fill the hole with buffalo milk (in other words real) mozzarella, torn into pieces. Sprinkle with dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, thyme), salt and freshly ground pepper. Put back in the oven for 10 minutes, until the mozzarella has melted.
3. Serve with a tablespoon of your favourite tomato sauce – I used tomato, olive and basil – and a green salad.
4. Put the seeds back into the oven sprinkled with salt, even with the oven off, they will continue roasting and you can have them with drinks later.

With mozzarella (di bufala campana)

This is real “dashing in at the end of a day’s work and wondering what we are going to eat” food. Simple, healthy stuff, if you use proper and not industrial mozzarella, organic butternut (which costs nothing), and home-made or organic pasta sauce.

Rebaked, with the herbs on top

Do you spot the error in two of the photos above? (No, not that they are a bit blurred, I’m afraid they often are.) I’m drinking water, and at Sunday lunchtime too! Well, miracles happen…

Bon appétit.

One French word : coquille St Jacques, a French recipe: coquilles St Jacques au thé vert

Coquille St Jacques, feminine noun (une coquille, la coquille, des coquilles) (pronounced ko-ki-y) (no particular stress).

Une coquille = a shell. Une coquille St Jacques = a scallop shell, or a scallop, but the meat of the scallop alone is called une noix de St Jacques. Un coquillage is a smaller shell, the type you find on a beach.

The scallop shell, the coquille St Jacques is so called because it has been the symbol used since the 12th century by pilgrims walking to St Jacques de Compostèle. A carved scallop shell is to be found on the front of houses used by pilgrims at stopover points. The history is too long to set out here, look it up, it’s very interesting.

Widely used in French cuisine, very seasonal, coquilles St Jacques can be cooked in such a variety of ways and are so delicious that they are a real gift to the cook.

Coquilles St Jacques au thé vert

My recipe today is for St Jacques au thé vert = scallops in green tea, which is based loosely on a recipe I found in my frozen food store’s magazine; it just gave me the idea.

In France, the coral of coquilles St Jacques is highly prized. I know that in some other countries it is not. Whatever the reason, the coral certainly makes for a better and more exciting presentation.

Be careful what type of scallops you are buying; there are several types which call themselves scallops but which are not as big or as flavoursome (particularly the very tiny ones). I have used large French pecten maximus. They are the very best when you need whole molluscs for presentation, big and fabulously tasty. Chlamys opercularis are smaller but still sweet tasting. These are better used when making sauces or vol au vent (puff pastry cases). Zygochlamys patagonica come from Argentina and are similar to opercularis. The ones you are most likely to find in North America are Placopecten magellicanus from Canada. These are large and have good flavour when fried, poached or steamed. Don’t overcook scallops. They should be seared or steamed, coated in sauce and served rapidly.

Raw coquilles st jacques (apologies for the blurred photo)

For two people you will need:

• 6 large coquilles St Jacques
• 1tbs Japanese Sencha or Gyokuro green tea, or another variety of your choice, but they must be high quality leaves
• a mixture of snow peas, broad beans, soy beans and water chestnuts (I can buy the mixture already done and frozen (at Picard Surgelés for readers in France), you may probably have to mix your own), about 200gr per person in all. Don’t miss out the water chestnuts, they give a good crunch.
• 1tbs Kikkoman soy sauce (do not use just any old soy sauce, you’ll ruin your recipe)
• 1tbs olive or peanut oil
• 1 large tsp honey
• salt, pepper

Preparation:

1. If they are frozen, soak the coquilles St Jacques in the fridge overnight in a mixture of milk and water. If you have fresh ones, use them as they are.
2. Make an infusion of green tea: 1tbs in 20cl of water not quite at boiling point (boil a kettle, wait two minutes, then pour). Filter the tea after 3 minutes, keep the leaves.
3. Prepare your vegetables, whether fresh (steam for 15 minutes)  or frozen (a couple of minutes in the microwave). Divide between two bowls, add a little salt and pepper, and keep warm.
4. Pat the scallops dry. In a hot, non stick pan, sear the coquilles with no oil or butter, for about 1 minute on either side. Take them out of the pan and put them to keep warm with the vegetables.
5. To the pan add the oil, soy sauce, honey and tea, and cook briskly to reduce to a syrup.
6. Replace the coquilles St Jacques in the pan and cook briefly, not more than a minute altogether, turning to coat in the syrup.
7. Transfer them back on top of the vegetables, add any juice left in the frying pan, sprinkle with a few of the tea leaves you kept on the side. These are actually quite good, and you may find you want to add a few more.

Seared scallops

Cooking the scallops briefly in the syrup discolours them because of the soy sauce. If you prefer not to have them discoloured, sear them for a shade longer, and do not put them in the syrup. Just place them on top of the vegetables and pour a little syrup on top.

This is an unusual and delicate dish, suitable as a starter for a classy dinner party, or as a main dish (if I were doing it as a main dish, I’d add some cooked udon noodles in the bowl under the vegetables).

Coquilles St Jacques and lovely green vegetables

Drink green tea to accompany, of course.

Bon appétit!

One French word : boulette, a French recipe: lentilles corail aux boulettes

Boulette, feminine noun (une boulette, la boulette, des boulettes) = a little ball, as in meatball (pronounced boo-let, slight stress on the first syllable).

Expression: faire une boulette = to make a mistake.

Une boule = a ball, the shape of a ball, not a sports ball, which is une balle – une balle de tennis, une balle de golf, or if it’s bigger un ballon – un ballon de rugby, un ballon de foot). But you do say une boule de bowling. Not a ball of wool either, that is une pelote.

Une boule de crystal = a crystal ball, une boule puante = a stink bomb. Un boulet = a cannon ball, or the ball on the end of a ball and chain (expression être un boulet = to be a burden, something someone drags behind them like a ball and chain!).

Expressions: ça me fout les boules = it scares me, but one often just says les boules! = scary!   Mettre un coup de boule = to butt someone with your head. Bouboule is an affectionate nickname (not always so very affectionate in fact) for someone who is “chubby”. All of these expressions are somewhat slang.

Lentilles corail aux boulettes

My recipe for today is for lentilles corail aux boulettes = orange lentils with little lamb meatballs.

For 4 people you will need:

• 250gr of orange lentils (lentilles corail) (any leftovers can be used in a salad)
• a couple of  handfuls of raisins (sultanas are best)
• 400gr raw shoulder or leg of lamb
• 2 finely chopped medium sized onions
• 3 finely chopped garlic cloves
• a little olive oil
• a little flour
• salt and pepper
• 2tbs fresh parsley or coriander (or both)
• a little fresh chopped mint
• 1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or a little tabasco

The chopped ingredients ready to make into boulettes

Preparation:

1. Rinse the lentils, put them in a saucepan with twice their volume of water, no salt, and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.
2. Add the raisins to the lentils and continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Drain and keep warm. These lentils cook very quickly. Don’t let them go to a complete mush.
3. While they are cooking, chop the onion and the garlic and fry in olive oil until transparent. Add two tbs of the mixture to the lentils.  Transfer  the rest to a large bowl.
4. Stir the onion gently into the lentils, add a little salt, and put them back to keep warm.
5. Cube and mince the lamb in the blender, it should be fairly finely minced, but not to a paste. It doesn’t matter much if there are a few slightly larger pieces in there.
6. Put the lamb in the bowl with the onion.
7. Add all the spices and herbs (except the mint and one tbs parley or coriander) to the mixture plus some salt and pepper and stir to combine.
8. Wet your hands and form into balls the size of a large marble (about 2cm across). Place on a floured plate and roll quickly to coat lightly with flour.
9. In a little more olive oil, fry the boulettes briskly, turning frequently,  for 5 minutes. When you turn them, try to roll them and not pick them up with tongs. They tend to disintegrate a bit (which is not a problem really, they are just as delicious), but hold up better if you roll them. Get them crispy on all sides and cooked through.
10. Serve on a bed of lentils, garnished with the remaining chopped mint and parsley or coriander.

Boulettes ready for frying

Lentils with sultanas and fried onion

The whole preparation process takes about half an hour, but it only needs five minutes for the dish to be eaten all up and plates wiped clean. Any leftover boulettes can be kept in the fridge, covered, for not more than a day and warmed up with pasta for instance. They also freeze very well. It is worth making a huge batch and freezing them raw (or cooked, that’s ok too).

Boulettes and lentils, ready to eat

Bon appétit!

One French word: moutarde, a French recipe: filet de boeuf, sauce moutarde

Moutarde, feminine noun (de la moutarde, une moutarde, des moutardes) = mustard (pronounced moo-tard, no particular stress).

Mustard was used as a condiment in very ancient times, by the Egyptians and the Chinese notably. It was used by the Greeks and the Romans in cooking and for medicinal purposes (antiseptic and digestive).  It is made by macerating the seeds of the mustard plant in vinegar, wine, must or water and then crushing them to a pulp.

Mustard in France is used a lot in cooking and not simply as a condiment; it is always quite strong and hardly ever sweet. It is made mainly in the Dijon area in Burgundy in east central France, where wine and vinegar are obviously in plentiful supply. But there are other regional mustards (Meaux, Bordeaux) where the main difference is in the wine or vinegar used.

The expression “la moutarde me monte au nez” (which is also the title of a French film) (literally that sort of feeling in your nose when you eat mustard (wasabi often!), a sort of burning, almost wanting to sneeze) means that you are getting more and more impatient or angry.

Filet de boeuf sauce moutarde

My recipe for today is filet de bœuf, sauce moutarde (pan fried filet of beef with mustard sauce).

Per person you will need:

• 150gr to 200gr filet of beef
• a small piece of butter
• 1tsp strong French mustard (moutarde de Dijon) 
• 1 tbs liquid cream
• 30gr blue cheese (St Agur, Roquefort…)
• 1tbs cognac, armagnac or Calvados

Filet de boeuf sauce moutarde – main ingredients

Preparation:

Preparing the sauce

1. Before cooking your steak, prepare a green salad with lettuce and tomato. Heat the oven to very low and put a plate per person to warm.
2. Prepare the basis of your sauce: mix together the mustard, cream and blue cheese into a paste.
3. Put a heavy frying pan to heat, add a little butter and fry your steak on both sides to suit your taste (I like my steak rare, my slice was about 1.5cm thick (almost 2cm), I cooked it for 3mns on the first side, and about 2mns on the second). The butter makes a nice brown crust.
4. Remove the steak to your heated plate and keep it warm in the oven.
5. Wipe the pan to remove the butter, which will have burnt a little. But do not wipe so thoroughly that you remove any bits of steak and juices that may have stuck to the pan. Off the heat (the pan will still be very hot), pour in the alcohol of your choice and stir, scratching up pan juices. Most of the alcohol will evaporate immediately.
6. Add the sauce mixture and put the pan back on very low heat. Stir to melt the cheese and heat the sauce, but leave a few lumps of cheese, it looks more rustic on the plate that way.
7. Pour the sauce over your steak, add the garnish of salad leaves and tomato, add pepper if you wish, but little or no salt, the cheese is often salty enough. Chips (French fries) are good too of course, but I’m off chips at the moment.

Filet de boeuf sauce moutarde with lettuce and tomato

Bon appétit!

One French word: mouillettes, a little chat about boiled eggs (hardly a recipe)

Mouillettes, feminine noun (une mouillette, la mouillette, but more often des mouillettes – you don’t usually just have one) = soldiers (the little fingers of bread that you dunk in a soft-boiled egg) (pronounced moo-yet, no particular stress).

Back to childhood, comforting, fun food. Perfect soft-boiled eggs and trying to dunk to just the right degree, so that the bread is coated in egg yolk without causing the latter to overflow the egg shell and dribble down the side. Remember?

Mouillettes

Mouillettes are literally “little things that get wet”. Mouiller = to wet (mouillé = wet (adj.m.), mouillée (f.), mouillés, mouillées (pl.). Expressions include une poule mouillée = a coward (literally wet chicken). Une mouille = a pool in a river; or wet ground around a spring.

A soldier, a real one with camouflage and a machine gun, is un soldat.

When we were children, we called mouillettes “dip-dips”; don’t know where that came from. We still call them that.

A close-up of a mouillette

I did boiled eggs for an American visitor some time ago, and he said it was years since he had had them. It seems we in Europe fear contamination from raw or undercooked eggs less than our transatlantic cousins. Yet there are few things nicer, quicker, simpler. When there is nothing else to eat, one can often find eggs in the fridge, and some bread to dunk with.

Maran eggs I brought back from England last week from my Mother’s hens

You can turn a boiled egg into an art form: choose a real, fresh, free range, farm egg – from a Maran hen for instance, deep brown, almost chocolate; a Maran hen who has been fed a good proportion of maize so that the yolk is deep orange. One can use nice fresh wholemeal bread, ever so lightly toasted so that the little finger holds up better under the strain of dripping yolk (nothing worse that it breaking and falling all over the place). Buttered cold, not hot (the toast), so that the butter is still there, between the yolk and the bread. And a pretty egg cup, to set the whole thing off nicely. An egg becomes a feast…

Hand made pottery from the south of France, available from Trenchermans.com

I like my boiled eggs very soft, with the white just hardening. I just cover them in cold water and bring them to the boil. Then I start timing. 2½ minutes. You may prefer longer. Very personal thing, boiled eggs. They must be eaten immediately they are ready of course. If you are doing several, bash the tops as soon as they are removed from the saucepan, to let steam escape and stop the cooking, then take all the tops off. Mouillettes should be prepared before you put the eggs on, or at least the toast should be toasted (if you are toasting). I toast just lightly, barely a minute. Let the toast cool, butter and cut fingers on a wooden chopping board. If you do it on a plate, they very often break. While the eggs are boiling, prepare a plate for your eggs, with egg cups, spoon and salt, another for the mouillettes. Get a large spoon ready to remove the eggs quickly from the boiling water, and a knife to top them with. I can’t be bothered with those machines to take the tops off eggs.

Look at the colour of that yolk!

And there you are, return to the nursery, dip away, savour one of nature’s miracles.

Bon appétit!

One French word: coriandre, a French recipe, saumon au four, pesto de coriandre

Coriandre, masculine noun (le coriandre, du coriandre – one never says un coriandre or des coriandres) = coriander (UK Eng.), cilantro (US Eng.), (pronounced korrie-aan-dr, both rs in the back of your throat, slight stress on the first syllable).

A lot of French people (including me at one time, I have to say) put coriandre in the feminine, which it is not. I once lost a bet on this.

Coriandrum sativum (picture from Wikipedia)

Coriandrum sativum is widely cultivated for its culinary and medicinal properties but it also grows wild all around the Mediterranean. The leaves, the root and the dried seeds are all used. It is good for the digestion.

My recipe for today is for saumon au four, pesto de coriandre = baked salmon with coriander (cilantro) sauce.

Saumon au four, pesto de coriandre

For 2 people you will need:

• 1 tbs slices spring onion greens
• 1 very small clove of garlic (don’t put too much or it completely masks the other flavours)
• 4 tbs roughly chopped coriander (cilantro) (stems and leaves)
• salt, pepper
• 4 tbs olive oil
• a large handful of pine nuts

Some of the ingredients

Le saumon

La papillotte

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C
2. Peel and boil the potatoes. This will take 20 minutes from boiling point.
3. Place a portion of salmon on each sheet of paper, salt very slightly, grind a little black pepper, and close the parcel. Add no butter or oil.
4. Cook  for 12 minutes in the hot oven.
5. In the meantime, put the coriander, garlic, pine nuts, spring onion and olive oil, with a ¼tsp salt and 4 turns of the pepper mill, into a mini mixer and grind, pushing down the ingredients which stick to the sides, but leaving some texture. Not too pulpy in other words.
6. Drain the potatoes, open the salmon packets, and run a knife between the fish and the skin (often the skin sticks to the paper a little and it is easy enough to leave the skin behind). With a fish slice or a spatula, transfer the salmon without its skin to individual serving plates.
7. Cut the potatoes into chunks, spoon a little pesto over them and the fish, and garnish with sprouted seeds.

I cook a lot in little packets (papillottes), it is quick, clean and easy.

Pesto de coriandre

This pesto is also good on cold beef, pasta or rice, and as a basis for vinaigrette for salads (just thin it with a little vinegar). It will keep in a jar in the fridge for a couple of days.

Saumon et pesto

Bon appétit.

I have to go away for a week or so, and I shall not be connected to internet. So try as I might to pre-publish posts, I have not been able to accomplish a week’s worth. My challenge is broken, too bad, I’m not too worried about that really. I’ll get going again in March when I’m back.

Guest appearance – How Sweet it Is

Note this address : www.HowSweetEats.com. You won’t regret it.

This lady has a quality food blog and a huge following. Her photographs are mouthwatering and very professional. Her recipes work. You want to cook almost every one of them. And she is so funny, she makes you laugh from one end of a post to the other.

Today, look at her post on Grilled Lime Tilapia Tacos with Kiwi Salsa Dressing. I can’t copy it, so go and get your mouth watering with her photos. And then come back here and say thank you nicely!

One French word: veau, a French recipe: blanquette de veau

Veau, masculine noun (un veau, du veau, des veaux) = calf or veal (pronounced vo, you never hear the x in the plural).

This is one of the rare “meat” words in French that is the same for the animal and what one finds in the kitchen. In English, calf is the animal, veal is what we eat; pig is the animal, pork is what what we eat, and so on.

Expressions: pleurer comme un veau = to weep copiously; tuer le veau gras = to kill the fatted calf; c’est un veau = someone who is soft, a dummy, useless, or a bad racehorse, or a bad car… not very complimentary to calves all that.

When I buy veal, that is to say rarely, I always buy organic veal which has been raised sous la mère (under its mother). I personally think this is important for the animal, quite apart from the fact that the meat tastes better.

Blanquette de veau

My recipe for today is blanquette de veau, a creamy, winter, country dish with veal and vegetables, usually served either with boiled potatoes or rice, so that you have plenty to pump up the juice with. But the original, old-fashioned recipe is complicated and needs small quantities of lots of ingredients. I have come up with a version which, although not entirely orthodox, is very good and much easier to do (don’t be put off by all the steps in the instructions).

Cuts of veal. Taken from wikipedia (the calf looks distinctly unhappy…)

For 4 people you will need:

• 1kg of veal from the belly and chest (see diagram above, flanchet, tendron, poitrine on its underside). It is a good thing to mix pieces with and without cartilage and bone, for more flavour.
• a large onion, peeled and stuck with 4 cloves
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 2 large carrots, sliced
• 2 stock cubes
• a bouquet garni (see picture below)
• 300gr small firm mushrooms
• 3 egg yolks
• 100ml liquid cream
• the juice of a lemon
• 1tbs plain flour
• butter
• salt, pepper

Bouquet garni: celery, bay leaf, thyme

Some of the ingredients

Preparation:

1. Cut the meat into very large cubes (3-4cm).
2. Place in a heavy pan, just covered with plain water, no salt, and bring to the boil. Simmer for one minute, and drain.
3. Put the meat back into the same heavy pan, with the onion and cloves, bouquet garni, sliced carrots and stock cubes. Cover well with water (1½-2 litres) and bring to the boil. Simmer for 50 minutes.
4. In a large bowl, put the three egg yolks, saving the whites for another preparation. Add the cream and whisk. Set aside.
5. 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time, in a frying pan, put a couple of tbs butter, slice the mushrooms thickly on top (or quarter them), sprinkle with a little salt and fry gently for three or four minutes. Squeeze the juice of one lemon on to the mushrooms, stir, and take them out onto a plate with a slotted spoon.
6. Add a tbs flour to the mushroom pan and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon, scraping all the pan juices. Change to a whisk, remove any flour lumps, add one at a time about five ladles of stock from the veal pan, whisk, and simmer for a minute to cook the flour.
7. When the veal is cooked, take a ladleful of stock and pour into the cream mixture, whisking briskly so that the hot liquid does not cook the egg.
8. Pour the contents of the frying pan into the veal pan, stirring, and bring to the boil to thicken the sauce.
9. Add the mushrooms to the veal pan.
10. Off the heat, pour the contents of the cream bowl slowly into the veal pan, stirring.
11. Taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper if necessary.
12. Serve in deep plates, with boiled potatoes or rice, and lots of the creamy juice.

Blanquette cooking

Blanquette de veau ready to eat

Bon appétit.

One French word: araignée, a French recipe: crabe mayonnaise

Araignée, feminine noun (une araignée, l’araignée, des araignées) = spider (pronounced array-ñay, no particular stress).

Une toile d’araignée = a spider’s web

A French saying: Araignée du soir, espoir; araignée du matin, chagrin. = Spider seen in the evening brings hope, spider seen in the morning brings unhappiness.

But most important for my purposes here, araignée de mer (literally sea spider) = a spider crab.

Live spider crabs

It is the season for spider crabs here in Brittany at the moment. I bought one yesterday evening from a fisherman’s wife for 3€15 (about 4US$ or £2.75). Not even the price of a steak. And so much more pleasure. It weighed 790gr, most of which is shell of course. It was one-person portion size, and I have to say that for the very first time I really appreciated  why people say that spider crabs are so much better than ordinary crabs. The meat was really sweet. (The two pictured above were given to me by my neighbour last Spring.)

Now I know I’m going to lose a few friends here. I bought it alive, and cooked it in a very large pan of boiling sea-salted water (15 minutes from the time the water came back to the boil). I can hear a lot of you saying “How could she?”  Well, very easily is the answer.

And now it’s my turn to sound off – I think it hypocritical (unless you are a very strict vegetarian or vegan) to squirm and go pale when someone talks of actually killing something to eat it. It’s too easy to go and buy two plastic wrapped chicken breasts at your local supermarket; they were alive once you know, someone else killed them. If everyone had to kill, pluck and prepare their own dinner, we’d eat a sight less meat.

So, back to the spider crab, I have no qualms about cooking seafood. I prefer to do it myself and be sure exactly when it was cooked and how fresh it was. Crab should be cooked at least two hours before it is due to be eaten so that it can cool if you are eating it with mayonnaise.  In France it is difficult to find picked crab meat, we always sit down with a whole beast in front of us and eat in a very basic and almost prehistoric fashion, get very messy and make lots of noise.

Cooked spider crabs

As far as home made mayonnaise (pronounced maa-yon-nez) is concerned, it’s really very easy, especially since the invention of the hand held mixer! Before it was much more strenuous. Home-made mayonnaise does not keep since it contains raw egg (one day in the fridge is the limit), so only make the quantity you think you will use immediately. All the ingredients and the bowl should be at room temperature.

You will need :

• one very fresh egg yolk
• ¾ tsp French mustard
• a couple of pinches of table salt
• ½ tsp wine vinegar
• about 175ml of olive oil, or corn or peanut oil, or a mixture of the two

The oil is really a question of personal taste. Olive oil makes a strong, dark coloured mayonnaise, suitable for eating with an aïoli (cold vegetables and fish) for example. Corn oil makes a more neutral tasting mayonnaise.

Preparation:

1. Choose an appropriate bowl, fairly deep so that the oil does not spatter all over the place when you mix. Place a wet dishcloth on the kitchen counter under the bowl, it will prevent it from migrating from the vibration of the mixer.
2. Break the egg and put the yolk into the bowl, saving the white for another preparation.
3. Add the mustard, salt and vinegar and stir. Leave for a minute or so for the mustard to “cook” the yolk.
4. With the mixer in one hand and the oil in a pouring jug in the other, start mixing at high speed, but only let a tiny trickle of oil run into the bowl. Stop pouring often to make sure the oil is being well incorporated into the egg.
5. Continue in this fashion until all the oil has been used up and the mayonnaise is very thick.
6. Should it not be thick enough, put it in the fridge for half an hour, remove it and mix again (but add no more oil). It should thicken.
7. Should it turn or separate, stop what you are doing, put another egg yolk into another bowl, and incorporate slowly the “turned” mayonnaise into the new egg yolk, as if you were starting over again. Well you are starting over again. When this is done, continue with any oil that is left.
8. Taste and if necessary rectify the seasoning.

Here is a video in French which shows you how to make mayonnaise. Have a look even if your French isn’t good: a) it’s easy enough to understand and b) your French might improve. But two things I would say about the video: I think she puts too much mustard, and you can see from her bowl sliding all over the place how useful it is to put a wet dishcloth underneath it.

Home made mayonnaise is so much nicer than shop bought; and you can mix chopped herbs with it once it is completed, to make green mayonnaise, or crushed garlic, or paprika, or chopped gherkins and capers to make tartare sauce, your imagination is the limit.

Last night’s crabe mayonnaise

Spider crab and mayonnaise, heaven. But hard boiled eggs are good too, or left over white fish or shrimp.

Bon appétit.