As Strong As Soup

I've featured recipes from Normandy a number of times in this blog over the years, but I make no excuses for including another. Some of my previous recipes have probably been on the lighter side of Normandy cooking. This one isn't. This sauce doesn't use any stock or onions, it's just classic, Normandy ingredients, including rather a lot of crème fraîche.  It's really important to use a sweet or medium-sweet cider for this recipe. Dry ciders may be nice to drink but they're bit too austere and somehow less flavourful in this sauce. In the same way, choose an apple that has a good flavour but is sweet rather than sharp.   On this occasion, I've served this sauce with simply fried pork medallions, but it will also work with duck, guinea fowl or some well-flavoured chicken. If it suits what you're cooking, then you might fancy adding a little Dijon mustard before you liquidise the sauce.  This should be plenty for 2 people, even in Normandy.  500ml sweet or...

The recipe for this autumnal soup is based on something that I ate in a restaurant around 20 years ago, but it reminded me of a time long ago and of the music of Leonard Cohen. Early in the 1970s, there lived in South London a man who saw it as his mission in life to cook food for the waifs, strays, bad poets, questionable musicians and general hangers-on of the area. I'll call him Henry because, after all this time, I have to slightly misquote Dylan and admit that the only thing I can remember for sure about Henry is that his name wasn't Henry. The meals he made were often soups and always vegetarian. I'm fairly sure that they were made from the dodgy-looking veg they couldn't sell to normal people in Balham market. The meals were invariably accompanied by the sound of one of the first two Leonard Cohen albums. I assume he had some other records, but I don't remember him ever playing them. Although I've eaten a vast number of vegetarian dishes since then, inclu...

This recipe produces a rich sauce with some very tender, intensely-flavoured, shredded lamb. It takes a while to cook, but doesn't demand much effort.  The crucial aspect of the sauce is the sweet and sour balance that comes mostly from the combination of Marsala and vinegar. My ideal combination of vinegars in this dish is balsamic (unless you're rich, a cheap version will do in this case), sherry vinegar and a soft style of white wine vinegar, such as one made from Riesling wine. But I'm being annoyingly fussy, so just use what you have that's interesting but not excessively acidic. As for the Marsala, I use a dry style but they can vary quite a bit in just how dry they turn out to be. So, in short, be prepared to taste and adjust the flavours to your liking if they don't seem perfectly balanced. Although this doesn't produce a large amount of sauce, it's intense enough to serve 2 or even 3 people. Of course, you don't have to serve it with pasta, that...

I'm not usually a big fan of chilled soup but this is an intriguing little appetiser that's a little bit different. The inspiration for this soup came from an Indian restaurant back in the 1980s, but I've changed it a fair bit since the days when Frankie went to Hollywood with a Filofax under his arm. Since then we've had an ocean of smoothies coming and going in popularity, so you could think of this as a slightly odd, savoury smoothie served in a soup bowl, if you prefer. Mangoes can vary a lot in size and sweetness, so taste and adjust the flavour of the soup as you see fit. Although this is a very simple little recipe, it can be made even simpler if you replace the coconut milk and yoghurt with a supermarket coconut yoghurt and the fresh mango with a tin of mango pulp. I don't think this even simpler version tastes quite as good but, if you're pushed for time, it can still be pretty satisfying. You may well find that canned mango is a bit too sweet, so add a...

It's that happy time of year again when courgettes are growing in the garden and appearing in the shops faster than a politician thinking up excuses. Here are two simple recipes to make use of the bounty that are just a little bit different. ( Slow-cooked courgettes are also well worth trying, if you haven't already). Courgette, Olive and Basil Sauce If you take a look at the ingredients, I'm sure it won't come as a surprise when I say that this is a Southern French sauce, or, at least, my interpretation of one. It's a way of producing a creamy sauce with no cream (or anything like it) and plenty of flavour. Admittedly, the colour of the sauce isn't quite as exciting as the taste, but it will seriously liven up simply-cooked chicken, roasted veg (squash, for instance) or, as I fancied eating this time, flash-fried prawns. If you want to vary the amount of basil or olives, or add a little chilli, then I'm confident that the sauce will still come up smiling. ...

Duck with orange sauce is a great classic and can be truly delicious. But it became a bit of a joke when less-than-great restaurants began to turn out overcooked, dry duck in something resembling marmalade with a dollop of Grand Marnier in it. I haven't come across many restaurants in recent years that still serve this dish. (Although I do know of one establishment that seems unchanged since the 1970s and not only serves the classic duck à l’orange but also has a sweet trolley). This recipe is not the classic sauce, but it's a relatively simple dish that doesn't need the whole duck or too much time to prepare and it shows why the duck and orange sauce was a really good idea in the first place.  This recipe has the great advantage that the sauce is largely made in advance, although it's best to add the finishing touches immediately before serving. Blood oranges aren't essential but, if they're in season, they do have a lovely flavour without being too sweet and ...

Zézettes are biscuits from Sète in the south of France that have a sweet, crisp exterior and a satisfying, softer interior. They work really well with coffee or tea and, I think, are also lovely alongside gooey desserts and ice creams. Even better, they're simple and quick to make. Although based on a much older, Algerian biscuit, zézettes were actually created and named by Gaston Bentata somewhere around the time it was impossible to avoid disco. Strictly speaking, you should use the excellent, sweet wine local to Sète, Muscat de Frontignan, in this recipe, but other sweet wines will work just fine too. In fact, you could use any white wine you happen to have and still get a decent result. Just don't tell anybody in Sète that I said that. I use a mixture of two sugars, but I'm probably being a bit fussy there, so use just one if it's easier. The combination of orange flower water and vanilla is crucial to the character of the biscuit (well, that's what I think), bu...

There are thousands of soda bread recipes on the net and this one isn't so very different, but I wanted to record my basic, perfect-for-soup (and other things) soda bread recipe. Forgive me if you've heard it all before.  Apart from the buttermilk, this recipe uses ingredients that I normally have to hand in my kitchen cupboards and fridge and so this is a bread that can be put together quickly with minimal effort. To that end, I use the packaged crispy onions that you can buy at pretty much any supermarket but don't let me stop you frying your own crispy onions, if you're so inclined.  Like other soda breads, this does not store well and should either be eaten quickly or frozen. Happily, it does freeze very well. The amount of buttermilk specified here might seem strange but buttermilk is most commonly sold in ½ pint measures in the UK. Let's just say that the reason for this is historic. 160g self-raising flour 160g wholegrain flour  1 tsp bicarbonate of soda  40g...

Venison shanks are a flavourful, reasonably-priced (usually) cut of meat. They need lengthy cooking and are ideal for letting a slow cooker do all the hard work. This looks like quite a long recipe but it's actually a pretty straightforward and relaxed way to get beautifully tender meat which tastes a little different to the usual ways of flavouring venison.  I've owned a number of slow cookers over the years and I wish I could say that they all behave in exactly the same way. But I can't. So the cooking time here should be treated as a reasonable, but in no way foolproof, recommendation. I've used a five spice paste to give extra depth and make things easy, but a little five spice powder could be added instead, if that's what you have. I think the gochujang works particularly well with the venison, but you could substitute a different chilli paste (maybe a smoky one) if you prefer. This should be enough for 4 people and, since it delivers some punchy flavour, is pr...

Marmalade is a joyous thing but I think it's worth making much wider use of Seville oranges.  They're sharp enough to be used in dressings in the place of lemons, for instance, and that dressing will work very well with roasted veg. They also work in sauces. Duck is a traditional choice but, for a change, try cooking pork fillet in an orange sauce. Apart from the oranges, this sauce is made up of ingredients that I tend to have to have knocking around in the kitchen, but it's possible to make substitutions with your chosen favourites. The important thing is to get the sweet and sour balance just the way you like it. If you want to use other types of orange, then they'll probably be (significantly) sweeter, so reduce the amount of maple syrup you use and, maybe, add a little lemon juice. This will serve 2. 1 pork fillet (tenderloin) Juice of 5 or 6 Seville oranges - about 150ml will be ideal 3 or 4 tsp maple syrup (add more or less to taste) 1 tsp dark soy sauce 1 tsp sw...

This is a simple, cheap (or cheapish), low-effort dish that's also very comforting and warming on cold, January days. I admit that many French sausages taste very strange to me but, some years ago, I came across some particularly fine sausages in the Cotentin and this is one of the ways they were being cooked. The original version of the dish contained some excellent Normandy black pudding but, if you don't fancy that or can't lay your hands on any, then do what I did here and use a little chorizo. There are some very fine beers in the north of France but the Cotentin is probably better known for cider and you could certainly replace the beer with cider in this recipe. I do think the beer adds a good contrast to the apples, though. If you can't find wheat beer, then you can substitute a light style of beer such as one of multitude of trendy pale ales that seem to be popping up everywhere lately.  You could use any sausages you fancy but I think larger sausages with a hi...