Kitchen matters

The first thing to do when you arrive at a new holiday home is to check the kitchen. And I mean really check.

What utensils are there? Are the knives halfway decent? What is the oven like? Does the fridge have a freezer that'll hold more than a few ice cubes?

This year we were in a new house in more ways than one. After two years staying at the same place, that was no longer available. And this one, which we very much picked with the outside terrance in mind, had only been renovated in 2010.

So it wasn't too big a revelation to discover a modern kitchen, pretty well outfitted.

But this trip, another question had been preying on my mind ages before we arrived: would there be a whisk?

'Why,' you ask, 'would anyone be so concerned about a whisk?'

Well the answer is really quite simple. When in Pays catalan, do as the Catalans do - and I wanted to make aïoli while within sight (well, almost) of Canigou.

In the course of our journey to Collioure, that plan had crystallised from the sort of aïoli I've been making for a few years now, with yolk, to the traditional one without, that we'd first come across in Villefranche de Conflent.

So at least I didn't need to get eggs in. There was already a bottle of basic virgin oil here too, and a selection of salts - basic table salt (the stuff I now avoid after discovering that aluminium is added to help it run), a little course stuff in a mill and, in a drawer, three pots of Roussillon salt: one natural, one with herbs added and one with "muscat rubi".

And there was a whisk. Okay, it's a fairly feeble one that looks as though it has seen better days, but it was there, in the drawer, waiting for me.

All that was needed was garlic.

So I bought a stinking big bulb that was gloriously fresh - none of those green bits in the middle (Michel Roux Snr says to remove those as they're indigestible).

Come the hour, I was left with minor quandaries. The woman who owns the house has something like half a dozen chopping boards, but it's not clear what is for what. I didn't really feel I could take the flat of a knife to a load of garlic and salt on one of her boards, since it might leave something of an aroma.

And there was no mortar and pestle, so I couldn't work the garlic and salt that way either.

The solution was in the draw, keeping company with the whisk - or possibly trying to avoid being seen with it: a spankingly big, heavy duty metal garlic press with a brushed steel look.

It did a job, mincing four large cloves into a small bowl.

From there, I added a little of the natural Roussillon salt and used the back of a spoon to get the best emulsion I could. It wasn't bad. And then just a little oil to loosen it.

It was another of our simple suppers. This time, there was a bowl of aïoli to spread on the bread.

It was a little too salty - the Roussillon salt was far stronger than I realised - and it would be smoother if I'd had either board that I could be assured nobody would mind being used for blending garlic and salt, or a mortar and pestle.

But for a first attempt at the regally traditional form of this regional mayonnaise, it wasn't bad - and it did have a real garlicky kick.

History seeping through the walls

When we'd been putting together our itinerary, the part of our trip that had imposed itself least on my mind was the final overnight stop in Villefrance de Conflent.

Paying rather less attention than to our other stopovers, I had a hazy picture in my mind of a Vauban fort on a hill, with a tiny village enclosed within it.

Thus, when we arrived, my thoughts were entirely on how we could visit the fort. That there was a village at ground level and that there would be anything interesting about it had not occurred to me.

In fact, what I'd mentally done was to conflate two things: Fort Liberia, which is indeed high up the mountain side, and was built as part of a strategy to defend the Têt Valley, and the tiny Cité of Villefranche de Conflent, which lies below.

After that welcoming and refreshing beer at the B&B, we headed toward the village, taking the scenic route described by our hostess. At first, it wasn't very scenic at all, being through a large car park that ran alongside the railway station.

But after climbing rough steps to a small bridge and then following a path around the side of the mountain, we caught sight of a bridge leading directly into the village. I say 'directly', but you had to walk through a gatehouse first, which stood opposite a door in the rock.

That was locked at such an hour, but we knew it contained the 1,000 steps that offered one route up to the fort itself - an 'improvement' added by Napoleon III and one that, even given the time, I would have foresworn for the rather older hairpin path that wound its way up the mountain side - and, Vauban being Vauban, would have allowed plenty of opportunities to take out unwanted visitors.

We passed through the gatehouse and then, via gates, over the narrow gauge railway we'd arrived on just a short while earlier; then over the bridge, with its high walls and firing holes on each side.

Now we were within the fortified walls of the Cité itself, and a narrow, ancient street took us to one of the two main streets in this tiny village.

It was, quite simply, astonishing. If Carcassonne is a miracle, then this is even more so - not least because it doesn't attract the numbers of travellers each day, so you don't feel overwhelmed by a crush of humanity waving plastic swords, but have the chance to take it all in.

That night, we ate at a local grill that our hostess had recommended. I had a truly delightful salad, of a local goat's cheese from the nearby commune of Conat, which was wrapped delicately, together with a small piece of ham, in a filo parcel that had been crisped beautifully, just warming the contents, and was dressed with Balsamico.

It came on slices of apple, which in turn sat on a pile of crisp, tasty lettuce.

To follow, I opted for pintade - or guinea fowl - with a thick, marmalady sauce of figs and Banyuls. Lovely stuff.

Ice cream was, as so often, the perfect conclusion.

We ambled back by the shorter route, along an unlit road, over the river Têt, and slept easily in a charming room that, in daylight, offered an excellent view of the fort.

The next day, with plenty of time until our 2.26pm train, we headed straight back to the village, again taking the scenic route. With nobody else around, it was a delight of a photographic expedition.

Those who say that time travel is impossible have never been to Villefranche de Conflent. And yet it is also a living, breathing place, not simply a museum or an amusement park for history buffs.

Not that there isn't plenty of history.

Vauban was the military architect to the Sun King, Louis XIV, and is even celebrated with a statue in Versailles. His influence was not confined to France or even Europe - or even his own century.

I first became aware of him when we started visiting Collioure, as he was involved in a number of the forts that dot the town and the wider area, from a period when there was still plenty of scrapping going on in the region, including incursions from nearby Spain.

We paid the small fee necessary to walk around inside the ramparts - again, unhindered by crowds. It was a fascinating experience, with The Other Half's greater military history knowledge proving an additional guide.

Not that Vauban built the place: its origins go back far further. Indeed, the church is evidence of that, with its simple, Roman lines that pre-date the Gothic. No, Vauban merely reinforced the town, with lines of fire that covered every angle, and the little sentry posts that we recognised from various buildings in Collioure.

We lunched very simply at a local bar cafè that seemed to double as the headquarters of the local firemen. In my case, feeling like little, I opted for a portion of chips, while The Other Half ordered ham and chips. It came with a slice of baguette, toasted lightly and spread with a creamy, almost gel-like substance on, which the cheese-hating Other Half instantly identified as that and handed to me.

Fool that I was, I reported instantly that it was not cheese, but garlic. He grabbed it back. In fact, as I realised a day or so later, it was the most traditional form of aïoli, made from garlic, salt and oil, but no egg yolk.

We popped into a cavernous and quite wonderful local pottery, where I picked up two tiny bowls and little wooden spoons for all the salt I'd bought in Carcassonne, and from which I nearly had to be physically removed before buying loads more pots and bowls and vinegar dispensers.

Our little kitchen in Hackney looks ever more like it's been transposed directly from France.

We enjoyed a drink in the tiny square next to the church and bought the usual pieces of tourist kitsch that I cannot resist (the fridge door at home is a tale of our travels), and then we had to head back to pick up our bags and journey on.

In many ways, unexpected as it was to me, Villefranche de Conflent was all I'd hoped for in Carcassonne and somehow felt was just missing. It was an unexpected treat.

I'd loved to have had a longer stay: there were two nearby grottos with stalactites and stalagmites to be seen, plus the fort itself and even 4x4 trips to nearby Canigou, the Catalans' sacred mountain.

It had been a stunning, all-too-short break. But somehow, I don't think it's the last time I'll visit.

Godless, but unafraid of the vampires

On a glorious evening, I let myself into the flat last night to find that usual junk mail included an eight-page leaflet that told me, in no uncertain terms, that this could not be a happy home.

A ‘happy home’, apparently, requires the hand of God in bringing a couple together in the first place (not lust or transitory pleasure: shucks); marriage is de rigueur, together with commitment to God (and actually being Christians), submission by the woman to the man, submission by the children to the parents …

Those who do not fulfil these criteria are, I’m afraid, doomed to the misery of the ‘unhappy home’.

You get the gist. This delightful little item had no return address on it, although it had been produced by some group in the US.

I think the very anonymity of whomsoever had paid to have it delivered (it can’t have been part of a mail drop paid for from the US, surely?) was what made me feel infintely more offended by it than I usually am by religious tracts, which simply go straight into the recycling crate, unread, along with the glossy fliers for pizza deliveries.

Someone wants to condemn others for what they perceive as immoral behaviour, leading – they conclude with utter certainty – to an unhappy condition, yet they lack the courage of their own convictions and do not say who they are.

So in a spirit of obvious misery, I donned my chef’s apron, put some music on and set about preparing a meal to lay before my non-spousal Other Half, in the hope that it might win me the odd brownie point with the Flying Spaghetti Monster (that’s the one dancing around on the other side of the sun with a giant chocolate teapot – not The Other Half).

After he had arrived back on Wednesday evening from a working sojourn in Liverpool, I’d come up with a dinner of pan-fried pigeon breasts, a mix of sautéed diced potato and croutons, some cannellini beans, artichoke hearts and a sort of jus of the meat juices and some raspberry vinegar.

Now it was tasty enough and, thinking about it, there was a reasonably decent variety of textures. But something about it left me dissatisfied.

Only yesterday did it dawn on me what the source of that was. The dark meat aside, everything was actually pretty colourless to look at, while it all looked a bit messy on the plate.

Now since I had guessed (correctly) that The Other Half would not have eaten fish while away – much less some oily fish – salmon was on yesterday's menu.

But what to do with it?

Last weekend, I’d seen some fresh garlic for sale on Broadway Market and, in a fit of excitement, bough two bulbs. Never having actually used the stuff before, they went into the fridge to wait until I had a clue.

Browsing around the food section of the Guardian’s website, I’d come across a recipe for ‘wet and wild garlic risotto’.

Now, I didn’t follow this exactly, but used my own usual method, simply starting off with a couple of chopped shallots, two cloves of dried garlic (the stuff we’re primarily familiar with) and most of a bulb of the fresh variety.

Then, with less rice than usual for a main course, it was routine. After about 20 minutes, I lidded the pan, turned down the heat and left it, while the fish part poached-part steamed.

But while I was doing my original preparation, I had peeled another four cloves of garlic. Two were chopped finely and went into a gremolata, together with a good handful of chopped parsley and some lemon zest.

The other two went through the crusher, to be mixed into a paste with a little salt and then whisked with an egg yolk before virgin oil was drizzled in to make aïoli. I have to confess that quite a lot of this was eaten straight after being mixed – such a fabulous taste.

I made both of these up before I started on the risotto, and since all the basic ingredients for that had been prepped at the same time and were in a dish, waiting, it suggested a rare level of kitchen organisation.

As the fish neared readiness, it was the matter of a moment to add a spoon of crème fraîche to the rice and let that warm back up.

But so to the presentation bit. Now that I’ve got chef’s rings, it makes doing rice really easy. You can, however, quite easily use a buttered cup: pack the rice in and then carefully turn it onto the plate and tap the bottom of the cup.

I made a thick line of gremolata on each plate, put the fish at an angle across that and then drizzled the beautiful, yellowy-green aïoli over that.

Now it’s easy when you do something like this to start to realise just what an art form in its own right is plating up – it wasn't perfect, but it looked so much better than the previous night’s dish.

And the taste was up there too. The garlic risotto was beautifully delicate and fragrant. The fish was quite mild (it was farmed), but the sauces gave fabulous bursts of very different flavours to the whole, and with garlic as a theme running throughout.

God might not be impressed to realise that I don’t think I’m unhappy – indeed, that cooking and eating that meal gave me real pleasure – but I suspect I need not fear any vampires for a couple of days at least.

A messy day in London town

It's been a messy, messy day in the kitchen. After a busy week that saw my food desires hit the stage of a cup of Bovril and a cucumber sandwich for dinner on Thursday night, this has been the opportunity to get down and dirty on the culinary front.

It has been, indeed, an utterly gorgeous day, with the sun beaming down from early morning, bringing real warmth in its rays.

As blossom fluttered down like confetti, I sat in my usual halfway-through-the-shopping place, just off Broadway Market itself, and mused over the sheer pleasure that good weather can bring.

And then it was back and to work.

First things first: the new challenge of a sabayon, a mix of egg yolk, sugar, dessert wine and lemon juice, cooked incredibly gently in a bowl over simmering water so that you don't scramble the egg, and then with whipped cream folded in.

Trying to whisk the mix as it warmed through, with a thermometer on the side of the bowl, was number one messy moment, as blobs of the mix went everywhere when the electric whisk hit the aforementioned thermometer. After it's been whisked for around eight minutes like that, you continue whisking it over a bowl of iced water.

Then cold and very concentrated coffee is gently stirred through it, before it's decanted into a terrine (or ramekins) and popped in the freezer until tomorrow. And thus was made Raymond Blanc's iced coffee parfait. It might not be as light as it could be (this was my first effort at a sabayon, after all), but since cook's perogative allows wiping out bowls with a finger, I can say already that it certainly tastes good.

Messy episode No2 of the day came with the soup for lunch.

The weather has lightened so much that I wanted something a little lighter and fresher for lunch. So I decided to make a watercress soup.

Start with an onion, finely diced and softened in a little butter, in a lidded pan. After that, add a diced potato and some chicken stock, and cook for around 12-15 minutes until the potato is cooked through. Then add a bunch or two of watercress that you've trimmed and roughly chopped, and cook for a minute.

Let the soup cool a little and then blitz it.

I decided to use the mini processor and do it in stages, decanting each load of blitzed liquid into a clean pan. Unfortunately, this illustrated that the the Cusinart is not actually liquid proof – as soup spurted out from under the lid, over me, the work surface and the mixer itself.

Eventually, I got it all done and then popped back on the hob – although I was beginning to look a little like a particularly non-figurative piece of modern art by this time.

Season to taste with salt, pepper and a little grated nutmeg and give it a moment or two more. Then add a little cream and warm through. When serving, garnish with some chopped chives – which really do add to the finished soup.

Mess aside, it's a subtle taste and the fresh, flecked green is perfect for the changing season.

Fortunately, after quite some clearing up, that was the worst of the day's messiness over and done with.

A rhubarb syllabub served for dessert in the evening, preceeded by sautéd potatoes, pan-roasted cod and courgettes, done in a lidded pan with a small amount of butter – all of which was accompanied by homemade aïoli, as the handheld electric whisk put in a lot of overtime.

There is something about aïoli – it's like a taste of the sun. When I've made it, I could almost eat a bowl of it without anything else. No wonder it's such an iconic sauce in the south of France – it's food to life the soul.

Actually, not I come to think of it, there's a little of the watercress soup left over that I'll have for lunch tomorrow – perhaps a whirl of the aïoli will compliment that? We'll have to see.

Getting in the swing of summer

It feels – finally – as though summer is really here. Glorious sunshine, headily azure skies and heat to warm the marrow of the bones – there's no mistaking it any longer.

With the signs set for a hot weekend, The Other Half and I forewent the pleasures of an evening in the staff bar on Friday and pottered down to John Lewis for a bit of seasonal retail therapy. Specifically, a pair of metal-framed 'deckchairs' and a new braai, since the previous one had started to collapse. still, it had only cost around £20 from a local Turkish shop and had lasted us some years.

All that meant some work in our garden. I suppose it's roughly 15' by about 12' – can't be much more than that – but it's such a precious space. The Other Half spent Saturday de-cluttering it. First, the old braai – a tin box on legs – went out. Then he finally got around to bashing a garden bench into pieces so that we could carry it out and decant it into the communal bins.

We've had that bench for years, having bought it from a small shop on Hackney Road and, when we got it home and mostly errected, found out that it was missing two struts. It was one of those affairs with cast iron ends and wooden slats. For whatever reason, we never got around to going back to the shop and either demanding the struts or our money back.

So it has occupied space against once fence for years: always wobbly and getting wobblier with every passing season. It was long past our being able to sit on it. We talked of getting rid of it some years ago, but Trickie, one of our cats at the time (and as neurotic a cat as we've had) loved it, so we left it there.

But Trickie is long gone. And in the last week, one of the wooden slats fell off. It was a rallying call.

We'd also had a little table and two folding chairs in our tiny space, but both chairs had finally given up the ghost. So we have now simply shoved the table out of the way, leaving the patio clear for the new 'deckchairs'.

And once that was sorted, the plan for the rest of the weekend was really rather obvious. Sitting in the sun with plenty of chilled water and a book.

And then there was food. Obviously a braai was arranged – that was for Sunday.

But for Saturday, I picked up salmon fillets to poach, plus good new potatoes (still Jerseys), fresh garden peas and fine beans.

And then I made the first aioli of the season to serve with it.

This Catalan version of mayo is an utter delight. When I'd made it, I had a struggle to stop myself scoffing the stuff by the spoonful as it set off an orgy of flavour in my mouth.

Don't believe all the stories about emulsions being difficult – all you need to do is take your time.

So, take one – or more – garlic cloves. Peel and crush, then blend with some coarse salt until you get a paste.

Pop that into a large jug and add the yolk of a very fresh egg. Then whisk until you've got a lovely, stiff mixture.

Now, here's the only real trick: as you keep whisking, start adding some good virgin oil – very, VERY slowly: you really need to just drip it in at first. If anything, your mix should stiffen even further. Okay, it takes a few minutes, but keep going – slowly. When you've eventually got something that looks like a really good, stiff, golden mayo, you can add the oil a little faster until you get the consistency that you want.

Decant it into a pot and stick in the fridge – it'll keep for up to a week, although that's only if you can resist the temptation to use it much much quicker!