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| Oysters – or seaside food porn, as it might be known |
As
the struggle to deal with a kitchen that includes a fancy juicer gadget but no
knife sharpener continues, it’s not really felt as though there have been a
huge number of culinary successes to report.
There
have been one or two simple meals – not least a boudin Catalan, sliced in half
lengthways and grilled briefly – and the inevitable magret de canard.
This
was, after all, where we really learned last year that, to be a proper magret
de canard,
the meat must be from a duck reared in the south west of France for foie.
There’s
a reason they have a fabulously thick layer of fat on them – all of which can
be saved for potatoes.
A
little fish has been cooked – not easy to prepare, though, when you don’t have
a thin, flexible, sharp knife to fillet, and the only knife that’s worthy
of the name is a cook’s knife, which is fine for many things. But not filleting
or skinning fish.
Little
soles thankfully required no prep, but an attempt to roast some white fish (I
haven’t a clue what it was) in a fresh tomato sauce rather turned into
something akin to a stew as the fish, finally skinned, fell apart rather a lot.
The
Other Half was complimentary, but I felt far from thrilled.
I
tried a very small chicken too – just like last year – but that was
disappointingly flawed. Stuffed with garlic and lemon and basil, and with
paprika and pepper generously applied to the skin, it had been placed on a
trivet of lovely red onion chunks, in the roasting dish. A little liquid was
added, the pot was lidded and went into a fan oven at around 160˚C. Less than
an hour later, the onion was pretty much cremated.
As
The Other Half observed when washing up, the pot itself may not have helped,
being almost impossibly lightweight for a casserole. Did that make a
difference? I don’t know.
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| Meatballs |
However,
the most noteworthy success thus far was meatballs.
The
local boucherie sold me approximately 340g of a mix of pork and beef mince
– perfect – and this had paprika, pepper and some bread that had been soaked in
milk worked into it, before being shaped into balls the size of a large plum.
Inevitably, there was an odd number. C’est la vie.
I
skinned some of the local tomatoes – the ‘ugly’ ones that taste of the sun –
and browned the meatballs in olive oil before setting them on one side.
Some
sliced onion and garlic was then softened in the frying pan, before the
tomatoes (drained and chopped roughly) were added, together with a little more
paprika and black pepper.
After
simmering gently for a minute or two, the meatballs were returned to the pan
and a ‘lid’ was created with foil, since there was no proper one.
It
was cooked for approximately 30 minutes, and garnished with tiny basil leaves on the plate. And the result was good – really good.
We
have, in the last week, had one evening meal out, returning to nearby L’Amphitryon for the third time.
It had, we’d heard, a new manager. So there were questions about
whether anything had changed and, if so, what?
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| A lovely view for dining |
We booked (sensible, since it was a Friday evening) and found
ourselves in a delightful corner on the terrace with a lovely view of the
chateau as the sun descended.
Last
year, when we dined there on our last night, we had been presented with very
fancy amuse bouche. One was a tiny quiche each, with parmesan in, which – and regular
readers may need to make sure they’re sitting down – The Other Half ate,
knowingly, and didn’t object to.
Anyway,
this year, the amuse bouche had been simplified to small croutons with Serrano
and cheese on one, and a swirl of aïoli and a curled anchovy on the other.
And
damned fine they were too, relying not on fancy culinary skills, but on the
quality of the ingredients.
My
starter, I admit, was as simple as it comes: six oysters.
Now
it was late last year that I tried my first oysters, with no problems. These
were rather different – being Mediterranean oysters and rather larger.
Not
only are they larger, the taste is different: these really zinged with a sense
of tasting the sea itself – just as Elizabeth David described the experience of eating utterly fresh sea urchins in Italy. What an absolute joy. There was some shallot vinegar
with them, but I didn’t bother and stuck simply with the lemon. I’m too much of
an oyster baby to want anything extra.
It
was also a new experience in that they had not been cut free from the shell, so
I had to do a new kind of work for my kick.
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| Cod, chorizo sauce and very nice vegetables |
That
may have been the cause of the problem I had some hours later, when a single
dash to the bathroom was required. Not enough – thankfully – to make me believe
that I’m allergic to oysters per se.
For
my main course, I opted for cabillaud – cod – with a chorizo sauce. And very nice it was too, with a selection of
vegetables that were also superbly cooked.
I know it’s boring, but I finished with ice cream, because I was
just far too full for anything else – and the portions sizes were generous, to
say the least.
We enjoyed a nice bottle of local rosé to wash it all down.
One of the few other differences we could see was the presence
of chips – hand cut – where we don’t recall seeing them before.
But I’m delighted to report that the food at L’Amphitryon
remains of excellent quality, and helps it stands out far from the ‘tourist
trap’ restaurants to do exist in the village. And the service too is charming
and unrushed.
All in all, it was an excellent evening.
