Chicken with Tarragon and Juniper Berries

My favourite herb is tarragon. It goes in egg dishes, salmon and of course, chicken. I use it dried for the intensity of the flavour and sometimes fresh, as in this dish. I’m growing it in pots now, but if you want to do the same be sure to buy French Tarragon, not Russian. The Russian one is more widely available but the taste is very mild. The pot needs to be brought in during the winter months as it is quite tender.

I’ve been cooking this dish for years, originally as a dinner party dish as it always looks pretty with carrots and mangetout. It might be a little retro now but it is still impressive and tastes luxurious. Best of all, it takes very little effort.

Here’s what you need for 4 people:

• 4 chicken breasts
• 8 juniper berries, lightly crushed
• 1 glass dry white wine ( I used Muscadet but a Pinot Grigio would work)
• 1 glass chicken stock ( I used half a cube)
• 2 heaped tbsp of low fat creme fraiche.
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon (or 1 heaped tsp dried)

Here’s what I did:

• Cut each chicken breast into 3 equal strips.
• In a casserole dish heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil and add the chicken and brown for a few minutes.
• Add the stock, wine and juniper berries, reduce the heat to a simmer and cover for 5-10 minutes until just tender.
• Season and add the tarragon and creme fraiche for a minute.
• Serve with boiled new potatoes and seasonal vegetables.

So here is a quick and tasty dish you can do midweek or dress it up for posh nosh too.  In winter serve it with small roast potatoes and roasted root vegetables. No need for gravy with all the yummy sauce. The best thing is that it is lower in fat than using double cream but  will not curdle when you add it to the wine. Give it a go and see how easy it is….I’d love to know how you get on.

Easy Spring Rolls

Who doesn’t love a spring roll? I have to say they were never really one of my favourite take-away foods as more often than not they were always oozing, and I mean ‘ooozzingg’ with grease! Luckily, the lovely French people seem to love the old ‘printemps’ and sell them everywhere in all flavours, including crab, prawn, pork and chicken, but still they are desperately greasy. So yes, chez le rêve, we are trying to be healthy, and the poor deep fat fryer has been cleaned and consigned to the cellar for a while, (sob..) but I still have urges! I now feel quietly smug that I may have found a solution to this using a few cheats along the way.

Here’s what you need for 8 rather large spring rolls!

• 8 sheets Brique pastry or 16 of filo.
• 50g (1 nest) mung bean vermicelli noodles (any glass noodle type thingy will do).
• 1 small jar Chinese veg drained (usually beansprouts and carrots etc).
• tin of cheapo crab.
• finely chopped red chilli (optional) .
• I finely chopped spring onion.

Here’s what I did:

• Cook your noodles. Normally shove them in boiled water and wait about 3 minutes.
• Drain noodles and combine with other ingredients.
• Take a sheet of brique (or 2 sheets filo, lightly oiled between) and dollop an 1/8th of the mixture as shown on the picture.
• Roll up and bring in the sides carefully and stick on a baking tray.
•  Lightly brush the top with oil and bake about 10 mins gas 6, or 200 degrees.

Serve it with a bit of shop bought or homemade chilli sauce and enjoy the delicious crunch of pastry and veggies without piling on the pounds! Perfect as a starter or side in a Chinese banquet or when you are just feeling naughty. Give ’em a go and tell me how easy it was – I promise it will be!

Top tips:

• If you have cooked shredded meat like pork, chicken or duck you could use this instead.
• Use defrosted budget prawns or chopped squid lightly cooked. Be sure not to freeze if you have used defrosted ingredients.
• If you  can’t get hold of Chinese veggies in a jar – hard luck! Some supermarkets sell fresh mung beans but I’ve not seen them in France. I would suggest finely sliced spring onion, grated carrot, peppers and mangetout. In fact, add what you like!
• We ate 4 and froze the rest in an old takeaway plastic container. They are best cooked from frozen or will go soggy. If you are doing this add a few minutes more.

So please have a go. It looks difficult but it’s really easy. Your family will think you are marvelous and you will know it’s as healthy as you can make it at a fraction of the price. Another Virtuous dish.

Tuscan Roast Pork

We are still in the grip of some seriously hot weather here. Yesterday it was 36 degrees! Now, I love the sun but it’s not ‘doing’ weather is it? My poor doggies only get up when they need a drink or to find a different cold spot on the tiles, so I really can’t be bothered with cooking much. The thing is, despite moving to France, I still think of Sunday lunch as a  a special occasion, and more importantly, my family expect it! So this dish is a bit of a compromise, especially if you’ve already peaked on barbecue food too. I first did this dish many years ago and did it spit-roast on the barbecue but this is the lazy version for all you cheaters out there.

This is a Decadent dish. What I mean is that this dish has a fair bit of fat in it. More importantly it’s easy, so if you need to sneak outside with a glass of wine there’s no guilt because dinner is doing itself.

Here’s what you need for 4 people:    

• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 tsp dried oregano or 1 tbsp chopped fresh
• 1 tsp chilli flakes
• 1 heaped tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• Piece of pork shoulder about 1kg with the skin removed
• Potatoes for 4 cut roughly in 1 inch chunks
• 2 Onions/Shallots cut in wedges
• 2 apples, cored and wedged

Here’s what I did:

• Mix all the oil and spices together and slather onto the pork.
• Cover loosely with foil and stick it in the oven at Gas 3/4  or 170 degrees for a good 3 hours.
• Add the potatoes and onions and leave for an hour.
• Finally add the apples, making sure to turn everything in the juices.
• Keep the foil off for the last 20 minutes and wack the heat up to Gas 6 or 200.
• Let it rest for 15 minutes before attempting to carve.

Et voilà!  The meat will be falling apart so just slice thickly and pile on the veg in the delicious juices.  Serve this with a mixed salad and enjoy a day off! Great for a posh barbecue or when you fancy a change. I would love to know what you think about this recipe, especially as it is definitely a cheap dinner!

Top tips:

• Don’t ditch the skin, score it, pour loads of table salt on it, wait 30 minutes and wash off. Dry with kitchen towel, and add vegetable oil to coat. Sprinkle with salt and place on a tray. Stick in the oven until crisp (probably the last 2 hours).
• You can use leg or loin cuts but reduce the cooking time and only remove foil at the end.
• Do this on the barbecue spit roast for about 1 and 1/2 hours.
• Add wedged fennel to the pan with the apples.

Spicy Stuffed Squid

This is another Virtuous dish. Can you guess that I am on a diet yet? It’s been hot for weeks here, regularly in the 30’s, so the good thing is that we haven’t wanted to eat much.  I absolutely love squid and have seen similar recipes on the television but they looked a bit complicated so I just thought about what I already had in the house .  This is what I came up with.

Here’s what you need for 4 people:

• 12 small squid bodies (they were frozen)
• 1  160g tin cheapo crab, well drained
• 1 chopped birds-eye chilli or a few flakes
• 1 finely chopped spring onion
• 1 shallot, finely chopped or half an onion
• 1 clove of crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander or 1 tsp dried
• 1 tsp fish sauce optional

What I did:

• Mix crab, fish sauce, chilli, coriander and spring onion in a bowl.
• Heat about 1 tsp vegetable oil in a small pan and add the shallot to soften.
• Add the garlic and ginger for 1 minute stirring constantly.
• Combine the crab and garlic mixture and use a teaspoon to stuff the squid, leaving enough room to secure with a cocktail stick.
• Heat a griddle pan or bbq and cook for about a minute each side to get some sear marks but take care not to overcook.

We had this as a starter on our weekly curry night. Serve them with a little chilli sauce or just a squeeze of lemon. I put a little salad garnish of cucumber and sliced radish, cucumber and spring onion. It tasted amazing! Great for a dinner party or romantic dinner for two. Give it a go – I’d love to know what you think.

Top tips: 

• If you don’t want to shell out for crab chop up some budget prawns or use a mixture of the two.
• To save time make a garlic and ginger mix.  Peel 3 whole bulbs of garlic and 1/3  their weight in ginger. Roughly chop ginger then add to a food processor piece by piece then garlic. Add some vegetable oil until a paste is made. You might need to scrape the sides a few times. Stick it in a container and pour over extra oil to seal, cover and store in fridge. It save grating your fingers if you like a lot of curry dishes. I got this  tip from having a day cooking with Reza Mohammad who has a home in the Charente. Of course, you could buy a little jar of crushed ginger!

  

Quick Raisukaree

This is one of my  Virtuous dishes!

It’s been a year since we moved to France and this year is the first season of the vegetable plot. I’ve tried to focus on the produce that costs the most so one of the ‘must haves’ was mangetout. It always seems to be imported and lasts a day or so in the fridge before going rather manky. Now I’m no gardener but I like to have a go so I got the seeds and  now I have nearly six feet of pea plants! It must be a combination of the ‘canicule’ or heatwave, and the brown water we use to water them, but through no effort we have hundreds of peas.

I don’t know what it is but eating mangetout always makes me feel virtuous, and as I’m trying to be good and it’s too hot to cook much this is a quick and easy recipe. Already I have been picking and chucking them in boiling water for one minute then into ice water for a minute. Then just chuck a handful in a bag and pop onto the freezer. Then when you have a curry, stir-fry, or fish dish it’s easy to add it frozen to the pan. In fact you can substitute much of this recipe so it can be whipped up in 10 minutes. You could also use prawns or squid straight from the freezer. It also works well with a piece of salmon. Let me know what you think!

The inspiration for this dish is the fact that living in rural France you just can’t pop out to  a favourite Asian restaurant but you can make a low fat dinner which is pretty close to the restaurant version, tasty and quick. It’s perfect after a hard  days work and is great for a dinner ‘do’ as it looks impressive if you put the rice in individual pudding basins to serve.

Here’s what you need for 4 people.

• 4 chicken breast or thigh meat, about 600g sliced thinly
• 1 red onion/a few shallots/spring onions/any old onion you have – wedged/sliced
• 1 red pepper sliced/frozen sliced peppers
• Handful mangetout/frozen green beans/ asparagus/ peas/baby sweetcorn/mushrooms
• I can coconut milk light (I buy bulk Maggi Powder as cheaper)
• Handful fresh coriander/frozen/dried
• 1 or 2 red chillies sliced/ birds eyes or flakes
• 1 lime quartered
• Glug of fish sauce (optional)
• 2 cloves garlic crushed (or cheat from paste)
• 10g or size 2 stock cubes grated ginger (or cheat)

How to do it  :

• Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok/large frying pan and add the chicken stirring constantly then add the curry powder, garlic and ginger for 1 minute.
• Add the onion/peppers for 2/3 minutes.
• Chuck in coconut milk then rest of veg, chillies and fish sauce and simmer until chicken is cooked.
• Chop the coriander stalks and stir through and scatter the leaves on the top.
• Serve with 200g basmati rice with black sesame seeds stirred through or noodles in the middle of a large bowl garnished with the lime.