I know , I know, savoury Tarte Tatin is all the rage these days and not wishing to be outdone, I made my Bubble and Squeak version a couple of weeks ago.

We were heading to North London for our family Christmas Dinner. The North Finchley Crew, after defying President Macrons sudden rule that Les Britanniques were not welcome in France after midnight on the 17 December, dashed across the Channel in the middle of the night to spend Christmas in France, are decamping to Devon with the other side of their family. So Willowy Blond had us all there. Willowy Brunette took on the dessert along with her 12 year old adorable niece and Myself the starters.

I could have made life simple by, doing smoked salmon, with its trimmings but decided to be more adventurous and make individual Shallot Tatin. Actually very easy, just a lot of shallots and lots of paper tissues or perhaps, onion defying glasses might have been better.

• For 9/12 individual tarts
• Allow at least 3 shallots per person and even then I needed some more
• At least 4 oz butter, but add more if needed.
• Some dried herbs, rosemary/ thyme or fresh parsley
• A good splodge of Balsamic vinegar ( maybe 1/2 a cup)
• About a teaspoon of black pepper
• A reasonable pinch of salt.

• How to do it !
• Peel the shallots and keep one whole per person , the rest slice.
• Melt the butter in a heavy pan, or if making a lot a wok or large sauce pan, and add the whole shallots and gently fry them so that they cook more or less through and caramelise nicely. Set to one side
• Add the sliced shallots to the pan add more butter if needed and sauté, stirring from time to time so that they are again more or less cooked and are caramelised.
• Put one whole shallot into each ramekin and fill up with the cooked slices. Put to one side and make the pastry. Of course you can always use bought pastry! No one will know !

To make my quick and easy pastry, using a food processor you will need

• 260 grms plain flour
• 140 grms cold unsalted butter cut into chunks
• Pinch or two of salt
• 1 egg, beaten with 60 mls cold water.
• What to do
• Put the flour, butter, salt into a food processor and process, the butter will go clunk, clunk for a few seconds and when it stops clunking, switch off, the mixture will look like bread crumbs. Switch on and pour in the water/ egg, and again it will clunk and the mixture will form roughly into a ball. Tip out onto a floured surface and knead gently until it is fully combined and get ready to roll it out.
• The beauty of a tart Tatin, is that on serving it is tipped upside down and the juices will soak into the pastry. So roll the pastry out to about 1 centimetre ( and no you do not need a tape measure), and using a pastry cutter, cut out rounds marginally larger than your ramekins. Simply put on top of the ramekins, press down slightly and bake at 180 C for about 20 minutes long enough for pastry to brown. Obviously these can be made ahead of time, put to one side and baked just before serving, giving you a enough time to sip a few cocktails with your guests.
• To serve, simply, put a plate of the top of the ramekin and invert. Be careful as the juices will be hot.

Willowy Brunette however was too busy working or swimming in minus temperatures outdoors so Himself took on a desert, ( more of that later) and Miss Tess made the most wonderful cheesecake ( she loves to bake and I need her recipe)!

Who doesn’t LOVE a Tarte TATIN? I don’t often make desserts but Tarte Tatin has to be up there with the best. Rustic, non refined, forget the deconstructed ones, go for the real McCoy, the full bodied, full blooded, the whole kit and caboodle. The thick rich short pastry, oozing with caramel that has seeped into the pastry , the apples likewise oozing with caramel. What’s not to like? Well it really has to be served with Ice Cream ( or even more decadent thick whipped double cream, or even even better Cornish cream, rich thick and yellow) my mouth is watering just thinking about it! ( just remember it freezes well, cut into slices and a quick zapp in the microwave to reheat).

But today I’m talking about alternative Tart Tatin, in reality not Tart Tatin at all but why not ring the changes. Yes you can. Currently an “In” version is shallot Tatin. And so thinking about that and scrolling through magazines and books, I came across Cabbage Tatin, and why not I asked myself. I had in my refrigerator a lovely sweet heart cabbage, some mushrooms and onions along with garlic, of course.

I made my standard food processor rich short pastry, but there is no shame in using shop bought. I sliced the mushrooms, the onions and the cabbage, the garlic and sautéed them in butter. Actually, this could be called BUBBLE and SQUEEK Tart Tatin.

• Ingredients
• 1small cabbage ( I used Hispi)
• 2 Oz unsalted butter
• 60 grams tomato purée
• 4 crushed cloves of garlic
• 2 large onions sliced
• 100 grams button mushrooms sliced
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2tsp Harissa paste or powder
• I also used some Nduja for a little extra spicy tang
• A quantity of readymade pastry

Method, Heat the oven to 190 C

Slice the cabbage and onions and sauté them in a large pan until slightly charred.

Remove from pan, add the tomato paste along with the Harissa. Stir and add about 1/4 litre water. Place the cabbage mix back into the pan and simmer gently for about 20 minutes until the liquid has evaporated

• Cut the pastry to marginally bigger than your pan, and place on top of the cabbage mix, tuck in the edges and prick the top several times.
• Bake in the middle shelf for about 20 minutes until the pastry is golden and cooked through .
• Cool slightly
• Then to serve place a plate over the top of the pan and carefully flip over onto the plate.
• Serve with salad ,crème fraiche and a sprinkling of Zatar.

I like, many at this time of year bought a pumpkin. My little granddaughters had pumpkins and I helped to carve them. But mine sat there and looked glum. The neighbourhood kids were not coming round this year ( too much building work going on) and big grandkids, had been swanning around with their mother in Louisiana. And so my pumpkin just sat, reminding me every morning that I needed to do something with it and not just let it rot!

My original thought was pumpkin and ginger soup. However flicking through my multitude of cookbooks and magazines a brainwave came to me. Near us is a restaurant which goes by the name of WULF AND LAMB. We have only been there once, when #1 daughter offered to take us and her kids out to lunch for my birthday. The sun shone and we sat outside and watched the world go by. There were two issues, one was that the restaurant was vegetarian and the other was that daughter forgot her credit card ! Ah well, the vegetarian meal was really very good, and the company of daughter and grandkids, made up for Himself having to pay !

Therefore my new thought, for my needy pumpkin was a casserole. I stole the idea, but altered it substantially, using the ingredients I had to hand.

• To make a casserole for 6-8
• A medium sized pumpkin
• Some oil to sauté
• Several cloves of garlic smushed
• 2-3 onions peeled and sliced lengthwise
• 200 grms soft apricots
• 100 grams mixed pitted olives
• 1tabsp capers
• 100 grms mixed candied fruit ( I used papaya, and pineapple)
• 50 mls of red wine vinegar or I used Vinaigre d’Orléans whihc is red wine vinegar made in a traditional method.
• 100 mls of white port or sherry, ( if not use extra vinegar)
• 1 tabsp dark brown sugar
• 200 grms crumbled feta cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

• Peel and slice the pumpkin and cut into wedges.
• Heat some oil in a pan and sauté the pumpkin so that it gets a caramel colour, remove from the pan
• Stir fry the onion and when soft add all the other ingredients except the cheese.
• Put in the pumpkin and stir to mix. Taste, season.
• Put into a casserole dish
• Pringle with the feta cheese and bake at 175C for about 45 mins, until pumpkin is soft and cheese melted.

Obviously this can be made ahead and left to one side until needed. Can be made a day ahead, but then refrigerate. Can be eaten just as a vegetarian dinner, along with crusty bread or served as a side.

One could be forgiven in thinking that Folly Towers has been a little quiet in the kitchen of late, but you would be wrong! I have been playing with all things Chicken, but have not finished as yet so will report my findings in the very near future.

Meanwhile, I had decided to make a tart. I started put by making my oat meal pastry , but then decided I would make it chocolate oatmeal pastry. But the next question was, What kind of tart, well, it became obvious , with chocolate pastry it had to be chocolate. And who doesn’t like chocolate , eldest grandson for one. When they lived in Mexico City, he tried oh so hard to like chocolate cake, he was at an age, when little kids went to lots of birthday parties. In Mexico City they were completely over the top, with the crowning glory being an extravagant Cake, and Chocolate of course. So he tried very hard to like chocolate, so that he wouldn’t miss out on cake, and he does have a sweet tooth, especially super nice doughnuts, but all to no avail.

However, my tart of choice yesterday, had to be chocolate. Actually it became chocolate and chilli tart. Other flavours that go really well with chocolate are, Orange, Mint, Lavender, peanut butter and salted caramel.

• 140 grams coarse toasted oats
• 140 grams plain flour
• 60 grams fine caster sugar
• Pinch salt
• 150 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 cup dark cocoa

Heat oven to 170 C.

Using a food processor, place the oats, flour, salt, sugar, butter and cocoa into the bowl, switch on and give it a quick wiz and then with the motor running pour in the egg and mixture will go Bonk Bonk and form into a rough ball. Turn onto a cocoa surface and knead for a couple of minutes to form a smooth ball. Roll out carefully into a round about 2” larger than your dish. ( I used a 23 cm non stick tart tin with a loose base). Carefully hang the pastry over the rolling pin and drap it over the dish and mould into the sides using your knuckles. Line the tin with greaseproof paper and fill the time with beans or rice to bake blind for only about 10 minutes. Remove the beans and paper and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove from oven and trim the pastry that might be overhanging the tin. Reduce the oven temperature to 150C.

For the filling

• 600 mls double cream
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes or 1/2 tsp of chipotle paste ( or more if a stronger chilli taste is wanted.
• 400 grams of 70% dark chocolate
• 3 beaten eggs
• To serve some lime or lemon zest, vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche

To make the filling heat a small amount of the cream and add the chilli and leave it to infuse for 15 minutes or so. pour the cream into either a saucepan or microwave bowl add the chocolate broken into bits along with the chilli infused cream. Bring to the boil, stir until the chocolate is well incorporated, cool slightly and add the beaten eggs, whisking all the while. Pour into the pastry case, pop bake into the cooler oven and bake for another 20-30 minutes until just set ( gently press the top with your fingers). Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Sprinkle the top with zest of lime, or according to you filling, bits of lavender, zest of an orange, chopped peanuts etc.

Serve at room temperature and in small slices. Himself served, huge chunks ! Beware! Extremely Rich!

I have often written that Himself really likes mackerel, whereas I am not so keen. Coming from the south coast in the UK, I surprisingly did not eat much fish to loving all ( almost) things fish but not mackerel ( not so keen on Shark either). My first encounter with mackerel was in Berlin, many many years ago, but best forgotten, it was certainly not memorable, except I didn’t like it !

Therefore, I buy mackerel for Himself and Shrimp for me, these I love. But what I needed was a recipe of sorts that will be good for both of us. This was planned for a Saturday night, however having three little people to stay, soon put paid to that idea. Likewise for the Sunday night. Having been on a picnic, with said little ones (2 1/2, 5 & 7) to the Wonderful Kew Gardens , Himself queuing for 25 minutes to get coffees and ice creams ( wrong they don’t serve Ice Cream but Hot Chocolate brownies with ice cream ). Then a round trip of about 60 miles to deposit little ones back to their appropriate parents, it was then just too late, so Sunday dinner was a “ make do” …… Smushed avocado with poached eggs! Actually not bad at all.

Fast forward to fish or shrimp with charred corn and spicy tomato salsa. 2-3 fillets per person, 6-8 large shrimp per person

• 2-3 mackerel fillets and / or 6-8 Shrimp
• A spring onion ( scallion) cut into thin rounds
• Olive oil and sea salt
• A cob of corn per person with kernels removed or 1/2 tin corn, patted dry, or a handful of frozen corn defrosted.
• 2 large tomatoes
• 2 finely chopped red chillies
• 2 teaspoons Nduja or Rose Harissa for a less spicy salsa
• 1-2 crushed/ chopped cloves of garlic. A squeeze from a tube, will also work
• 2 tablespoons of good olive oil
• Juice of a lime
• 1 lime cut into wedges to serve
• Salt to taste

Method

• Prick the tomatoes, put into a bowl or jug and pour over some boiling water. Leave for a few minutes, and with a sharp knife, peel off the skin. Chop finely.
• Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil and add the tomatoes, garlic, Nduja/Harissa, lime juice and a pinch of salt, sauté gently until the ingredients are well married.
• Heat a griddle pan or cast iron pan until hot, lightly grease and add the corn, stir occasionally until the corn is charred. Remove from the pan and put in the tomato mixture.
• Reheat the griddle pan, lightly grease and when Hot , place the mackerel on the pan, skin side down. Keep an eye on the fish, and the flesh will change colour when it is cooked through and only maybe 5 minutes max. Cook the shrimp in the same way.
• Spoon the salsa onto the plates, garnish with the spring onions and top with the fish. Serve with some bread to mop the salsa or with some new potatoes.

This week saw us wandering down the road to a restaurant near by. Himself had a birthday and as such we went to Le Gavroche, owned by Michel Roux Junior. He is probably best known for being one of the leading lights of Master Chef, the professionals, but also he is the son of Albert, who along with his brother Michel had the very famous Waterside Inn.

Le Gavroche which means The Paperboy or Urchin and the Logo is just that, a Parisian ragamuffin, just think of Les Miserables. Le Gavroche was started by the Roux brothers and today is run by Michel Jr. ( although he has now dropped the Jr. title.)

The restaurant is on a small Mayfair street, next to the Old USA Embassy, one almost misses it walking down the street, a small glass fronted door, a door bell and a smart young doorman opens it and meets and greets before escorting down the stairs to a discreet dining room which is deceptively large but one’s table gives everyone the feeling that they are in a relatively small dining room. The most I could see at any one time were a mere 17!

The menu is relatively small, a tasting menu which can be served with a wine flight or not and a small à La carte, which basically repeated parts of the tasting menu though with larger portions. We chose the À La Carte. Himself chose the Fagottini aux Champignons, Ragoût de Morilles, Fèves et Madère, Ail des Ours and myself the Seared scallops, with sea vegetables and a smoked eel sauce.

For our main, he had Longe de Veau, Petits Pois, Oignons et Salade Sucrine whilst I took the Côtelettes d’Agneau Rôties, Courgette et sa Fleur Farcie, Ail Noir.

For dessert, he insisted that I take the cheese ( just so he could sample some of mine, and he got a mini birthday cake. The bottom line:- the service impeccable, the ambiance really nice as the room felt small and intimate and the food great. Also a wonderful place to people watch and we will go again I am sure!

Back to more mundane things, cooking at home. I had a fish delivery this time from Sykes. What I had forgotten very simply, the fish comes already frozen. This normally does not pose a problem, fish frozen at sea is far better than buying it fresh and then freezing at home. However, I ordered 2 kilos of mussels for which I didn’t really have room for in the freezer and so it was to be mussels for dinner.

As a family, we all eat mussels. Having spent 13 years living in Belgium, where Moules Frites are a national dish how could we not. Our favourite Moules restaurant was Au Vieux Bruxelles. A Hole in the Wall kind of place. Not huge but always busy. In our day it was impossible to book so arriving early was de rigour, or be prepared to wait, and often in the rain. Although they do serve other Belgian specialities, they are renowned for their Moules Frites.as you can see they served them in 11 different ways, ranging from plain to the exotic.

At home we have cooked Moules in a variety of ways but mostly Marinères ( cooked in white wine with tomatoes, garlic and onions. This time round we more or less made Thai mussels with garlic, lemon grass, chillies and lots of coconut milk. As the mussels had been frozen, they were already clean and de-bearding them not necessary.

• For two hungry people
• 2 kilos of mussels
• 4 tablespoons oil ( we used sesame oil)
• 1 large-Ish white onion finely chopped
• 4-8 cloves garlic crushed
• Two or more stems of Lemon grass chopped
• Spoonful of chillies in oil or some chopped chillies according to taste. You don’t like spicy ? Add some paprika instead.
• 1can chopped tomatoes
• 2cans full fat coconut milk
• 2 lemons squeezed
• A squirt (1”) tomato paste
• Some salt to taste
• Very simply
• Sauté the onion, lemon grass and garlic in the oil until soft but not brown, add the tomatoes, tomato paste and the coconut milk.
• Bring to the boil, add the mussels, turn to simmer, put on the lid and simmer for about 5 minutes, giving a good shake a couple of times.
• Remove the lid, check that the mussels have all opens, discard those that have not and serve by squeezing over the lemon juice. Traditionally served with Frites, but we had them with sourdough bread!

Yummy indeed.

There has been a lot of hype recently over the cost of living crisis. And it is not just in the UK, but it is where I live and as such it should concern me.

First off, cooking, which is the best / cheapest way to cook, and then food waste.

I have a spanking new Miele Oven and Microwave, but the one I am likely to use on a very regular basis is the microwave. I have had a microwave since 1979. I lugged it home from Sears Roebucks ( we lived in Texas at the time) and fell in love with it. Every weekend, I would play with it, that along with my newly acquired food processor. On moving back to Belgium I had my own cookery school, 60 ladies a month for 7 months of the year, over a period of 10 years! As it was based on “ How to give a dinner party“ lunch was always eaten and wine drank. Himself thought I should have my own recycling bottle bank!

But I digress. Firstly, which appliance is the cheapest to run? Well it is the microwave oven. Not only is it cheap to run, it is cheap to buy and with cooking vegetables for example, quick, and nutritionally very good indeed. More nutrients are preserved than by, say boiling. Boiling vegetables is time consuming, energy consuming and nutrients thrown away down the sink.

Well not surprisingly, Microwave ovens are the cheapest to run costing as little as 7 p a day, whereas a traditional electric oven is nearer £1.00 a day. Dual fuel come in at about 75 p per day and Gas at 33 p. Air fryers at 14 p. Induction hobs are more efficient and therefore cheaper to run, as they heat the pan only and not the entire room, but of course they can be expensive to buy and come with the possibility of needing new pans.

I always cook my vegetables in the microwave and for two of us, I use my microwave rice cooker, which cooks rice very quickly. Popcorn is the easiest thing to do in the Microwave as are sauces, ranging from a simple white sauce to Hollandaise, to Crème Anglaise ( custard) to Bolognaise to Hot Fudge Sauce and Chocolate sauce. Lemon curd is very easy as are Meringues, especially if you want to make Eton Mess. I have to admit that I don’t bake ( but then I don’t bake that often either these days) in the microwave, although a purist will, but I would recommend buying a good microwave instruction book and play with the machine.

And then there is Food Waste. I was raised in the school of Waste Not Want Not. Food was never thrown away and we certainly never got sick from food poisoning and yet nowadays it is a throwaway society. I feel that this partly brought in by stores and governments introducing, Use by and best before dates. What happened to the Smell test, even one of my daughters will throw food away, it if has reached its Best Before date. Dry goods such as rice and pasta last for ages as do tinned goods and then items such as Worcestershire sauce, which get better with age have to have a use by date! Crazy!

If you buy Avocados that are under ripe, then leave one out to ripen and refrigerate the others, as they will ripen slowly in the refrigerator.Don’t ever throw out potatoes, don’t keep in a plastic bag but in a cool dark place, cut off any sprouts and green bits and use, perfectly safe. British people throw away 24 million slices of bread EVERY DAY! Hundreds of uses for stale bread, but bread freezes well and what is even better it can be RE-FROZEN once defrosted! Use stale bread to make breadcrumbs, bread and butter pudding, bread pudding, pain perdu, and pangrattato are just a few of the everyday uses. AND what about Bananas, over 900,000 thrown away daily along with milk ( nearly 500million pints each year) ! Do you buy ready meals and throw some away, well you are in good company as £3.5 billion worth are chucked away each year! Honestly !

So here are a couple of ideas to make the most of goodies you might find lurking in your refrigerator!

My Go To recipe , or not recipe is REFRIGERATOR SOUP.! This made particularly when we are about to leave on a longish trip. A few days beforehand, I raid the refrigerator, put the large saucepan on the stove, peel and chop whatever is there. Usually vegetables but also lettuce. Always ads garlic, onions, maybe ginger and of course stock. In this case I might use a stock cube or two, but if I have real stock ( don’t throw away chicken bones, fish carcass etc, make stock, it freezes well) then I use that. Quantities do not matter. I let everything cook until soft, then when the mixture has cooled somewhat, either chunky pureé with a hand blender or smoother in a liquidiser. I often add cream or milk or yoghurt, really whatever takes my fancy and whatever I have that I need to use. TASTE AND SEASON! Very important. Leave to cool and bag. Zip lock bags are perfect, one bag makes a good lunch time bowl of soup. FREEZE FLAT, saves a lot of room in you freezer.

The other Go To, use everything up option is to make a vegetable curry. Recipes abound, but again one can be creative, using whatever there is, but always sauté some onions along with some Garlic to begin with. Peel and chop all the vegetables, and to make things go faster,these can all be pre-cooked in the microwave. Add curry powder , some Garam Masala, salt and pepper, maybe some chilli to the onions and mix well, and cook for a few minutes in either Ghee or oil, it really doesn’t matter. Then I usually add some creamed coconut and some coconut milk, along with the vegetables. Serve on rice and garnish with coriander, if there is any left! Again, flat pack and freeze, ready for dinner when you need it!

.

Well apparently not in the supermarkets in France. At the start of our annual sejour en France, the first thing we do is an enormous grocery shop, especially as some of our kids, and their kids are about to arrive.

We both grab a trolley ( chariot) for which of course you need an Euro coin ( but better still a Jeton which they give you for free! This is France after all!) We set out on our mission, Himself to find, Beer, Wine, Long Life Milk, Orange Juice, Apple Juice, Toilet Rolls, Kitchen Rolls, dishwasher tablets, salt and finish. His mission to find all the things which we need that are particularly Bulky/ Heavy, whereas mine is to source fresh fruit, vegetables, salad, meat, fish, eggs, dairy products , biscuits for snacks, bread ( remember how to use the slicing machine) and anything else that I have forgotten to put on my list. And I forgot mustard, but I got the mayonnaise and the mustard mixed with mayonnaise, the olive oil, the balsamic but how did I forget the mustard ?

Enroute home back up all of the hairpins we stopped to get petrol and I ran into another store…… no mustard ! I joked that there seemed to be a shortage of mustard. The following day, into my local store ( not my favourite) the only mustard that was on the shelf was from POLAND! Zut alors que s’est-il passé avec la moutarde française? Well there is a shortage and people are Stock Piling!

Dijon mustard has been around since the 13 C, made in the town of Dijon, in Burgundy. Blizarrely , unlike Champagne, Brie, Puy lentils, Dijon mustard does not have a regional designation ( AOP or AOC) and therefore can come from anywhere. Amora Maille was one of the biggest Dijon mustard producers, but the factory closed in 2008. Although Maille and Amora are still made, but are owned by Unilever.

Today, Edmund Fallot ( founded in 1840j remains in Dijon and is perhaps the only true Dijonbais mustard makers left. Eldest daughter ( @globetotting.com) recently went on a press trip to Dijon with her three kids, where they went to Edmund Fallot and even had a mustard making class. There they were able to grind the seeds, add the vinegar and choose the flavour, ranging from blackcurrant, honey and balsamic, grains, honey and smoked paprika, tarragon, green pepper and even gingerbread. They brought the samples with them and so we were able to sample them all.

So why is there a shortage? The French consume about a kilo of mustard per person a year. But that is not the reason. War and Climate change is the answer. Drought in Canada last year meant that the Brown mustard ( Dijon mustard is made with brown seed) seed harvest was very poor, and the war in Ukraine has meant that there has not been an alternative source! Quell Horreur!

Enough of mustard. The little ones ( not so little) have each cooked dinner this last week. Tess (12) made Spring Rolls and Pad Thai, whilst Alfie ( almost 15) made Teriyaki Chicken and an Asian Cucumber Salad, and young Sam, helped with making and cooking hamburgers!

Making the Spring Rolls was a bit of a challenge. Finding the bean sprouts was just the start and eventually found them in tins! Then onto the wonton/ pastry skins. What we found worked but ended up making long spring rolls, which worked well and were very tasty.

Alfie’s rendition of the Asian cucumber salad was indeed impressive. Apparently he had seen it on TikTok!

• 6 mini cucumbers or 2 large cut into 3
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp chilli flakes
• 2tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1-2 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 cloves
• 2 cloves garlic grated or squeezed
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1-2 tsp seasame seeds
• Method
• Cut off the ends of the cucumbers
• Place 2 chop sticks along the sides of the cucumbers as a guide fro cutting
• Make thin diagonal cuts until the knife touches the chop sticks,
• Turn the cucumbers around and cut again but not all the way to the chop sticks
• Put the cucumbers into a box or bowl and sprinkle with salt to draw out the moisture and leave for about 30-45 minutes
• Rinse well and pat dry with paper towel
• Add the remaining ingredients and mix well, refrigerate until ready to serve
• NB. This can be as spicy or mild as you like. Personally I would use some chilli flakes in oil
• NB. I have seen a similar recipe but with cooked courgettes.

We had Herrings today, I have always eaten herrings cooked by dipping them in flour and gently frying them. This is how my mother cooked them and at the time the local wet fish shop, always had herrings locally caught, ( odd name don’t you think, Wet Fish? Of course they are Wet, ) I have just read that the Scottish way of cooking fresh herrings is to dip them in fine oat meal and then fry ( make note to self to try this next time ……. If there is a next time, but maybe I’ll just go to Billingsgate……. The UK’s large fish market in London).

I’m not sure how often one sees herrings in fish shop these days, in fact, where are the fish shops? Living in central London probably doesn’t help, I could go to the lovely Selfridges ( now owned by a Thai/Austrian group). However, if they did have herrings …. Most unlikely, more like Monkfish or Dover Sole, they would cost an arm and a leg. However, one of my online fish sellers, not only had Rock Salmon ( Huss, or Gurnet, again hard to find) but HERRINGS ! So I ordered some, both the Gurnet and the Herrings. However, they not only came frozen but the herrings had not been cleaned! Didn’t really pose a problem, but brought to mind CHICKENS. Chickens don’t have anything to do with Herrings, but to me they do! Many years ago living in very much rural Normandy, the highlight of my week was to go to the market. The poultry man had fresh chickens and at a good price. I simply asked “c’est qu’ils sont déjà vides?” ( are they already emptied? The reply was also a simple one “Ils sont à vider”( they are to be emptied! But I missed in his thick Norman accent the one little word À ! Needless to say, when I got home I discovered I had to gut the chickens!

Also a long time ago whilst living in the USA, I found that I had an issue with Yoghurts. If I drove 20 miles or so to a health food shop I would have been able to find yoghurts not full of colourants and other additives, but locally it was impossible and so I had one of the first home yoghurt makers. Therefore, I made for my kids, for many years, homemade yogurts, usually plain but sometimes, we called them Jammy Yoghurt , which is when we added a small teaspoon of homemade jam to the bottom of the mixture for a treat.

And so here we are in the French Alpes and I despair, each time we come. The supermarket shelves are full of yoghurt, 692 types to be precise, BUT and it is a But finding just plain old Yoghurt, preferably Greek, preferably Not nonfat ( they have stiffners added ) not with a multitude of flavourings, not with sugar, and most certainly not with chocolate chips. Lidl, the discount supermarket, does a good 1 kilo pot, but Lidl is a 35 minute drive away and so once again I’m making yoghurt.

Weirdly, all those years ago, making yoghurt at home was so simple, so I was surprised upon reading the instructions for my newly acquired British Yogurt maker.

• Turn the machine on and set at a temperature 42C
• Boil 1,125 ml milk and whisk
• Let the milk get cool, to a temperature of 32-43 C ( obviously you will need a thermometer for this as this is the correct temperature)
• Add125 mls of plain yoghurt and whisk to blend

Well what a PFAFF ! I didn’t do any of this all those years ago and so I experimented.

• Mix 1 jar ( the jars that come with the machine) of plain Greek / plain yoghurt with 1 jar of dried milk powder.
• Slowly pour onto this stirring all the while 3 pints ( UK) (7 jars) of Long Life Milk.
• Pour into the jars and place them without lids into the machine and switch on to 42C and set time to 8 hours!
• At the end of the time, the machine Beeps . Remove the jars, put lids on and refrigerate!
• HOW EASY IS THAT !
• Maybe using Long Life Milk is the answer, certainly here, daughter and granddaughter and even Himself ( he who never eats yoghurt) all declared it a success!