Taste - Exposed blog post

UPDATE - NOTE THAT THIS RESTAURANT HAS NOW CLOSED.

Following on from my recent review of 1855, you will all be glad to hear that I have since found the perfect carbonara!  For those of you who don’t quite understand my obsession with carbonara you should check out my Roman Feast blog post here. 

I found my carbonara whilst on a stroll with the husband.  It was sunny and we were in search for a decent lunch. 

As we got towards Hunters Bar roundabout I spotted Zerboni Taste and on remembering good things about it and being in dire need of a decent pasta dish we decided it was the one for us.

On entry we were greeted by the chef who poked his head through the serving hatch. Quickly a waitress appeared and, on hearing that we were after lunch, she suggested that we sit upstairs as they offer table service. 

The décor is nothing special. Furniture is bog standard and there are a few prints of popular Italian sights on the walls along with blackboard menus. I quickly flicked through the menu, spot the carbonara (£7.50), along with the statement ‘a classic done the right way’, and went for it. 

Read more here...

A Cracking Omelette - My Way

Today I got a good email. It was from one of the partners at work offering half a dozen eggs, from her own chickens, for £1. There were only two packs to be had so I raced to her office to make sure I had half a chance of getting hold of one. I was in the nick of time, as another followed shortly behind me.

Chatting chickens I am told that there are four chickens; Eggy, Roxy, Penny Henny and Meg. They are kept in the garden; in a pen. They escaped the other day and Eggy refused to answer to the calls of her name. She had to be chased round the garden. 

The chickens are kept for about 18 months until they stop laying. They are then taken to the farm down the road. We don't talk about what will happen to Eggy, Roxy, Penny Henny and Meg when they take their trip to the farm, but I'm guessing that their story will end there.

On getting home I decide to make an omelette. Well, I say omelette, it's more of a tortilla without the potatoes. It's probably wrong in so many ways, but it's my kind of omelette. It's a meal, not a snack, or a lunch. It's a whole meal.

There is no fixed recipe for omelettes, as far as I am concerned, hence no list of ingredients. The method is the important bit. I set my little (name that cannot be mentioned) frying pan on a medium heat and drizzled in some olive oil. I then chopped up half an onion, a quarter of a yellow pepper and a quarter of a green pepper and started frying them gently. Next up were two chestnut mushrooms, which I sliced, and half a chilli, which I also sliced. They went into the pan and I cooked everything away until soft.

I then took 3 of my eggs and whisked. I grated about 100g of cheese and added most of this to the egg, reserving a little for sprinkling later. I poured the eggy mix into the pan and smoothed it out to ensure everything was covered.

Then I turned the heat down to the lowest setting and left it to cook for 20 minutes. About 3 minutes before the 20 minutes were up I switched the grill on high. I sliced a tomato and placed the slices on top of the omelette and sprinkled the remaining cheese on top.

20 minutes up - I took the pan off the heat and shoved it under the grill for about 5 minutes.

I served it with rocket salad.

Of course you can use pretty much anything in an omelette. Chorizo or bacon is a favourite, or Stilton. What's your favourite omelette combination? Or are you a traditional egg only omelette lover?

Gourmet Mushrooms on Toast

On a recent trip to Nether Edge Market I picked up a gourmet mix box of mushrooms from Autumn Harvest Mushrooms. I’ve tried these before after meeting the mushroom ladies at a recent Farmers Market in town when writing a review for Exposed. They’re a mix of the more unusual varieties of mushrooms and definitely a change from the norm. Unfortunately Autumn Harvest Mushrooms don’t have a website, but if you do want to pick up some of their gourmet mushrooms, they’re at the Sheffield Farmers Markets on the fourth Thursday of every month. Or you could call them on 07837 630145.

Although these mushrooms would work perfectly with pasta or in an omelette my favourite dish at the moment is mushrooms on toast. It’s incredibly simple, but with the addition of a poached egg, it’s a luxurious meal. It’s also fast becoming a favourite in my house and I’m thinking that a smaller version, say with a quail's egg, would make a fab starter.

I use Delia’s method for the poached eggs and, on reading, you may not think it will work, but it does.  You have to trust Delia!

Ingredients - serves 2

Selection of mushroom – about 450g will do it

Butter

4 slices of good white bread

Rocket

2 eggs

First of all, clean your mushrooms and then halve and/or quarter them.

Put the grill on high. Set a large pan of water on to boil on a high heat. As soon as small bubbles start to form at the bottom of the pan, crack two eggs into the water. Set a timer for 60 seconds and turn the heat down to medium.

Heat some butter in a frying pan. As soon as the 60 seconds are up take the egg pan off the heat and re-set the timer for 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms to the frying pan. Put the toast on to grill. Once the toast is done, butter it and spread some rocket leaves onto the toast.

When there’s about 30 seconds left on the timer, tip the mushrooms out on top of the rocket and toast. As soon as the eggs are done, use a slotted spoon to take them out of the water. Let them drip for a couple of seconds and then place on top of the mushrooms.

Season and serve. That’s it! 11 minutes of cooking and the end result is amazing (well amazing considering how simple the dish is). The mushrooms smell gorgeous as they cook away and the runny egg yolk just oozes goodness into the dish. Rocket adds a touch of freshness and is nicely peppery. It’s great for a quick light dinner and it makes good hangover food too.

What’s your favourite mushroom dish?  Any recipes to share?

Better late than never – my Mexican meal

Firstly I must apologise for the humongous delay in this post. Can you believe that it was over a month ago that I declared Mexican the winner of the recent poll? A month.  That’s just bad. I have been busy, but blah blah, taking a month to get on with posting something requested by you guys is bang out of order.

So I apologise. I’m sorry. On with the post….

Mexican isn’t my top cuisine, so I was surprised when it won the poll. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but I did think Japanese or Indian would win. However, Mexican seems to be on the up in Sheffield. Both Amigos Mexican Kitchen and Street Food Chef have relatively recently come to town and both seem to be doing well. 

I only have one Mexican cook book. It’s ‘Mexican – healthy ways with a favourite cuisine’ by Jane Milton. I have the 2001 edition and it’s done me well over the years so it was my port of call for this feast. All recipes used serve 6 very comfortably. Also note that all chillies used, bar the chipotles in the main, were just bog-standard mixed chillies from the supermarket.

Pre-dinner nibbles - Pepitas

First up were pepitas. These are a fantastic pumpkin seed snack; perfect with drinks. Everyone I know who has tried these loved them so they had to be included on this menu. 

They need to be cooked just before serving, which is fine as they are quick and easy to prepare.

Pepitas

Ingredients;

130g pumpkin seeds

4 garlic cloves finely chopped

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp crushed dried chillies

1 tsp caster sugar

half a lime

I heated up a frying pan and dry fried the pumpkin seeds, stirring continuously so they didn’t burn. Once they had all swollen, which will take less than 5 minutes if the pan is hot enough, I added the garlic and cooked for a couple of minutes, stirring again. Then I mixed in the salt and the chilli flakes. I turned off the heat and stirred in the sugar. Once the sugar was mixed in, I squeezed the juice of half a lime over the seeds and served.

Mmmmmm! The pumpkin seeds are nice and crunchy and the chilli and garlic comes through well. Just make sure you have plenty of drinks on hand for your guests as they can be a bit spicy for some!

Starter – nachos and dips

Wanting to get a variety of Mexican flavourings in one go, I decided to serve nachos and dips for the starter. Of course I could have made my own nachos, but that really does sound like too much hard work. So shop bought nachos sufficed and I served them up with guacamole, salsa and chillies in cheese sauce.

Nachos and Dips

Guacamole

Guacamole

  

Ingredients:

4 tomatoes

4 ripe avocados

1 lime

½ small onion

2 garlic cloves

small bunch of fresh coriander

3 fresh red chillies

I used a slightly different method to that in the book as I used the food processor to chop and mix everything. I also didn’t bother with peeling the tomatoes – life is far too short for peeling tomatoes! So first up I removed the seeds from the chillies, although you could leave them in if you prefer, and added them to the food processor. Next in was the peeled half onion, the garlic cloves, the avocado flesh (keep the stones) and the coriander (leaves and stalks). I blitzed until well mixed, but still a bit chunky and not sloppy. I then halved the tomatoes, scooped the seeds out and added the flesh to the processor, squeezed in the juice of a lime and blitzed again.  

To serve I placed a couple of the avocado stones in a bowl and then spooned the guacamole on top. Keeping the stones in with the mix is supposed to help prevent it from browning. I’m not sure how well this works, but mine did stay nice and green. Just remember to remove them before serving. I didn’t and one guest shot a stone flying from the table. Embarrassed, she was keen to get scrubbing the avocado from the carpet! 

The guacamole itself was good, nice and creamy and flavoured with the coriander and chillies. It’s very fresh tasting and also really healthy. I was a bit unsure of how well some of my guests would cope with chillies which is why I only used 3, but I think it could have done with a couple more.

Salsa

Salsa

Ingredients:

3 fresh green chillies (you could use more!)

1 large white onion

juice of 2 limes

8 tomatoes

large bunch of fresh coriander

¼ tsp caster sugar

This recipe calls for the blistering and peeling of the skin from the chillies and also the peeling of tomatoes. I didn’t do either; never have and never will. The food processor also came in handy again and I blitzed all the ingredients bar the lime juice, sugar and tomatoes in the processor. The mixture was pretty wet at this stage so I left it draining in a sieve for about half an hour. I then tipped it into a bowl and added the lime juice and stirred in. It was then ready to serve.

This is another light, fresh and healthy dish. Again you can adjust the heat levels with the number of chillies you use.  y book also suggests the use of chipotle chillies for a smoky flavour which I may well try in the future.

Chillies in Cheese Sauce

Chillies in cheese sauce

Ingredients:

4 fresh green chillies

½ red onion

500g grated Monterey Jack cheese

2 tbsp crème fraiche

150 mls double cream

2 tomatoes, halved and de-seeded

The recipe in the book also calls for tequila, but I didn’t have any. If you do want to use it, you’ll need 1 tbsp to stir in right at the end. Once again, the recipe also calls for peeling tomatoes and chillies, which was not done! I also used a slightly different method from that in the book.

I chopped up the onion and fried it in a bit of olive oil. As I wasn’t peeling the chillies I wanted to soften these too, so after de-seeding and slicing into strips, I added them to the pan. Once the onion and chillies had softened I removed the chillies and added the cheese, the crème fraiche and the cream. I stirred until it formed a sauce consistency. At this point I removed the sauce from the heat and poured it into a bowl to be re-heated later. This was a bit of a mistake as it took AGES to re-heat again and I had to add more cream to encourage the sauce like consistency. Once warmed through I chopped the tomato flesh roughly and stirred it into the sauce along with the softened strips of chilli.

This went down a treat! Cheese is always a winner in my house and it was gently flavoured with the chillies. It was heavy and rich but perfect along side the fresh guacamole and salsa.

Main – Chicken with Chipotle Sauce

Chicken in chipotle sauce

Ingredients:

6 chipotle chillies

about 200 mls chicken stock

3 white onions, sliced

6 skinless chicken breast

salt and pepper for seasoning

180C

To make the chipotle sauce I soaked the chillies in hot water for half an hour. I then chopped the stalks off the chillies and de-seeded them. You must then keep the water used for soaking and add enough chicken stock to it to make it up to 400 mls. Pour this liquid into a food processor, add the chillies and blitz until smooth. You could then refrigerate this to be used later, as I did.

Time to start cooking and I fried the onions with a little olive oil in a casserole dish. Once softened, I seasoned the onions, added the chicken and poured over the sauce. It then sat happily in the oven for an hour, at which point I turned the oven down to about 100C to keep warm whilst we ate our starters.

This was gorgeous. I’d never cooked with chipotles before, but I’m sure that I will do more with them now!  They smell lovely, all smoky and warming. The dish was hotter than I thought it would be too; not too hot, but there’s a nice bit of heat there. I served it up with some bread and a salad of watercress, rocket, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and sweet corn. The bread was needed for the juices and the salad was light and refreshing against the smoky sauce. After the starter, I wanted to keep the main relatively light hence just serving the chicken with bread, but rice would work really well too.

Dessert – Tres Leches cake

For dessert I strayed away from the book and choose to do tre leches. I’d never even heard of it before, never mind tasted it, so it seemed like a good challenge and one to share on the blog. The recipe is from the All Recipes website.

Tres leches

Tres leches

Ingredients:

200g caster sugar

5 egg yolks

5 egg whites

80 mls milk

1tsp vanilla extract

125g white flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 14oz can of condensed milk

1 12 oz can of evaporated milk

475 mls whipping cream

175C

Firstly I buttered and floured a 9 inch cake tin, well I say tin, I’ve invested in those magical silicone ‘tins’ which are fab. I then beat the egg yolks with 150g sugar until they doubled in volume. I added the milk, vanilla, flour and baking powder and stirred until well mixed. Next up, using the food processor again, I whisked the egg whites. When soft peaks were forming I added the remaining sugar and continued to whisk until the mixture was firm.

This was then folded into the yolk mixture and everything went into the cake tin. I then baked it for 45 minutes. On taking it out of the oven it was enormous! Kinda like a soufflé, it had risen well. I wish I’d taken a picture as it soon sunk a bit as it sat cooling. 

Once cool I placed the cake on a plate and used a skewer to poke many holes into the surface of the cake.  I then mixed together the condensed milk, the evaporated milk and 60mls of the whipping cream. This is where the recipe falls down as you then need to discard 225 mls of the liquid mixture.  Of course, the quantities of the ingredients just need altering, but I’m not a lover of numbers so didn’t fancy that task!

The rest of the liquid was slowly poured over the cake. I did this in stages, allowing the milk mixture to soak into the cake before adding more. I was sceptical that the cake would soak up all the milk, but it did. The trick is to do it slowly and to give yourself, and the cake, enough time to soak it all up before serving.

Once the liquid had soaked up I whisked up the whipping cream, again in the food processor, and used this to ‘decorate’ the cake. I used the term decorate loosely as it looked an absolute mess. It really did.

However, it was delicious. It must be terribly calorific and I did nick-name it the ‘heart attack’, but it went down well with my guests and some had seconds. The sponge was moist but not soggy and it was rich with creamy goodness. It's something I will definitely do again. A word of warning though – this cake will not feed 8 as the recipe suggests – it will serve 12-16 as it is HUGE!

***

So that was my Mexican feast. I was pleased to have the chance to try a few new things and everything came out as I wanted. My guests enjoyed too and left feeling quite stuffed!

So, what’s your favourite Mexican food?  Any good recipes to share?  Are you going to give any of these a go?

What are your kitchen secrets?

We all have out own little ways in the kitchen, don't we? Our own time-saving, economising, gastro-producing tricks. They're things we picked up from all the cook books we've read over time, or things passed down from our mums. Some are simply our own, and we're all quite proud of those, aren't we?

Wouldn't it be great if we could share them all? Just think how fab we would be in the kitchen with all that knowledge! So.... I'm looking to you guys for your input here.

• I'll start with one kitchen secret. 
• As soon as anyone comments with another kitchen secret, I'll post another one.
• So the more kitchen secrets posted in the comments by you guys, the more I will post.

By the end of it we should have quite an array of kitchen secrets!

TIP NUMBER ONE
Using Parmesan? Keep the rind. Bag it up and stick it in the freezer. Then next time you're cooking a soup, casserole or stew that would benefit from the rich salty flavour of Parmesan, stick the rind in. Just remember to dig it out before serving! I'd recommend you try this mainly with tomato based dishes such as a pasta sauce or my sausage stew, but also with soups such as leek and potato.

So, come on then, what's your kitchen secret?

Moss Valley Fine Meats - an Exposed blog post

As a young teenager I went through a phase of collecting pigs. Not the real ones, obviously, but ceramic pigs and the like. I’ve grown out of that now, but I still have a soft spot for pigs. 

So after getting in touch with Stephen Thompson of Moss Valley Fine Meats and discovering he was a pig farmer, I was keen to visit his farm and meet some of his little piggies!

The farm is just on the outskirts of Sheffield, in S8 and it’s bizarre to know that a farm of that size (240 acres) is situated so close to town. My husband was also intrigued so he came along too and sure enough, after turning off the Bochum Parkway and driving down a country lane we arrive. We feel that we’re in the middle of nowhere, when we’re only about a 10 minutes drive from Woodseats.

Stephen cheerfully welcomes us and we have a chat with him and his wife, Karen, before going on a tour. Having already met Stephen at a recent Farmers' Market, and followed him on Twitter for a couple of months I already knew that he has a strong interest in keeping the British pig industry alive. 

Read more here... 

Best Meal in The World? Steak and chips.

Remember the BSE scare? I do. My mum banned beef from the household for about 15 years. In fact I had my first steak when I was about 25. I had it at Harvey Nicks in Leeds and I quickly realised that I had missed out steak wise over the years. Since then I’ve enjoyed many steaks. I’ve enjoyed it raw and thinly sliced in Harry’s bar, Venice, where I had the infamous carpaccio. I’ve also enjoyed it raw and minced for steak tartar in Paris. White Peak Fillet Steak at Losehill House Hotel, Hope was damn fine and even standard supermarket stuff char-grilled at home has been pretty good.

I have enjoyed each one served before me…. Well, almost. I’ve had the odd badly cooked steak in restaurants and this infuriates me. There is no excuse for a badly cooked steak, especially when I have it rare (or rather I prefer it medium rare, but ask for it rare on the basis that it CAN’T then come back well done). Worst still is the chewy steak, totally empty of flavour, regardless as to how it’s cooked.

So after much trial and error I have discovered that my favourite has to be the rib-eye steak. I have long since given up with the temperamental fillet and I disagree than the Sirloin deserved to be knighted. I have learnt that I can depend on the rib-eye steak for flavour and, believe it or not, I have even been known to have a good rib-eye steak in my local Wetherspoons! As for whether the restaurant can cook it properly, there isn’t much I can do about this, apart from continuing to send it back until it comes out right.

With such a love for steak a real treat for me at home is the good old rib-eye, char-grilled and served with chips, rocket and tomatoes. Mmmmmm! On a recent trip to Castle Market I couldn’t resist the rib-eye from my favourite butchers, W Bunting & Son. They have a few great big chunks of steak on display and simply slice them off according to your requirements. I think my two steaks, which were pretty big, were about £6-£7. 

About an hour before cooking I took them out of the fridge, to get to room temperature. I kind of marinated them in olive oil and a decent sprinkling of pepper.   

Then, when the chips were nearly done, and the salad was prepared and sat on the plates, I heated up the frying pan (I decided to fry rather than char-grill this time) until it was very hot, added a little olive oil and then cooked the steaks for two minutes each side. This time I also added a cleaned field mushroom to pan.

Super quick, super easy and super tasty!

So what’s your favourite meal?  Do you appreciate a good steak?  Rare and bloody?

Oh and don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the Mexican… I’ll do it next week.  I Promise!

Moo La La - Sheffield's newest restaurant

Update - this restaurant has now closed.

Sheffield Foodies will be pleased to see the arrival of Moo La La on the restaurant scene as it promises to be ‘your local restaurant’ featuring ingredients from the Sheffield area.  It’s only been open a week and already I’ve heard quite a lot about it on both Twitter and Facebook.  So, having had a few busy weekends away from home, I thought a visit there would be a nice way to catch up with the husband, whilst also giving me something to blog about.

We arrive at 8pm to a bright and cheery restaurant.  Those who remember Dosanj (a short lived Indian restaurant serving bland and overpriced food) will be astounded by the new layout and décor of Moo La La.  Walls are freshened up in white and green, the floor is wooden and the tables are dark wood, with chairs upholstered in colourful pinks and greens.  It looks good; professionally finished and inviting. 

We sit and peruse the menu which boasts Sheffield suppliers including John Crawshaw’s the Butchers of Stocksbridge, Lower Hurst Farm of Birley Carr, Daisy Hill Farm of Hazlehead, Brochall Farm of Langsett, Cross Farm of Lower Bradfield, All Seasons Fruit and Vegetable Suppliers of Castle Market, Bakewell Pudding Company (Bread Suppliers) of Bakewell, Bradfield Brewery of Bradfield and Kelham Island of Sheffield.  Ice cream lovers will also be pleased to see that Our Cow Molly features on the menu. 

Read more here...

I’M BACK (and not just from Paris).

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past week or so…. But there is good news. Things are on the up as I have, finally, found a job! It’s at a firm based in Huddersfield and all seems well so far. Everyone’s been really friendly and the systems used are the same, or at least similar, to those used in my last job, so hopefully I’ll settle in quite easily.

I have quite enjoyed my time off and I’ve done well at keeping myself busy, but it’s great being back at work. At last, I am contributing to the household again! So woo woo for work, for only being on the dole for a month and for staying sane throughout redundancy. Welcome back my suit wearing, arse kicking, employed self. You have been missed.

A welcome back to my physical self is also appropriate as I have just returned from a long weekend in Pareeeee (Paris).  The most romantic city in the world?  Mmmm, not so sure, but then I did go with a friend, not the husband! One thing I can say is that Paris is excellent for the gourmet foodie. I’ve never really been one for French food, but having said that I’d never really tried it, unless you count Café Rouge that is! 

After just one hour flight I felt a million miles away from the manky sausage breakfast sandwich I’d had at the airport.  On arrival our fantastic hosts (relatives of my friend, who I shall call Y & E) served us a luxurious lunch of foie gras pate, fresh bread, white wine and fresh éclairs. Needless to say, it was all very good and it was a sure sign of things to come!

Chez Grenouille

Our first foodie outing was to Chez Grenouille (frog). It’s a cute little restaurant serving up traditional French food. On sitting and perusing the menu, I was delighted to hear the translation of some of the dishes. We’re talking offal and unusual cuts and those of you who have been following this blog will know that is right up my street!

We spotted a St Emilion on the wine list and it being my friend’s favourite wine, and one I certainly would never turn down, we went for it. Delicious. However the wine was not the star of the show; that prize was reserved for the food.

Starters

I went for carpaccio de rognons blancs au basilic et copeaux de parmesan which was a carpaccio (thin slices) of testicals (either lamb or veal). It, unsurprisingly (and thankfully), was loads tastier than it sounded. The slices were mostly white, with the odd pinkish fleck. On its own, a slice was a bit offaly, but still pleasant. With the garnish, which included spring onions, it was delicious.  

Balls!

Another diner had presse de mamelles au jambon cru, or a terrine of pressed nipples and ham. Delightful yeah?  Actually, it was! I had a little and it was as tasty as any other terrine I have tried and the fact it was made out of pressed nipples made it the most exciting terrine I have tried!

Nipples!

Others had brouillade d'oeufs a la truffe noire, or scrambled eggs with truffles. Oh my! This is heavenly; very rich and very creamy. Mmmmmmm! I kind of wished I had gone with this, but how could I ever pass up on sliced balls?!

Mains

For main I had tete de veau avec cervelle ravigote, or calf’s head with brains. The brain was deliciously creamy, the head meat succulent and tasty. The only down side was the amount of fat in the dish; the head meat was surrounded by a decent layer of fat, but that was easily removed.  

Head & Brains

I was in heaven, I was actually in heaven!

David Downie

You may have noticed that I have banged on about David Downie a bit on this blog. Food Wine Rome is simply the best foodie guide book I have ever come across and David's Cooking the Roman Way allows me to replicate some fantastic Roman dishes at home. So, after making contact with David via his blog, I was honoured to have the chance to meet with him, and his wife Alison Harris (a photographer who also does the photography for David's books) in Paris. We met for coffee and chatted about food (what else?) and life in general. David has a real passion for proper food cooked properly; traditionally. Fancy, farcical food isn’t his cup of tea… take a look at his recent article here on this point. 

It was a surreal experience meeting David and his wife, who were both friendly and chatty. I even managed to pass on some foodie info as he had not heard of Chez Grenouille before. I only hope that, if he does go, he enjoys it as much as I did!

A Typical Parisian Dinner Party

On the Sunday night Y &E threw a dinner party and we were treated to a more homely gastronomic affair. The day was spent in preparation for the evening with the purchase of ingredients from various specialist shops across Paris. Food shopping is always a pleasure for me and shopping in Paris was very pleasurable; especially the Cheese shop which stocked cheese from all over France and even had some good old British Stilton too.

Friends arrived at about 8 and we sipped champagne in the lounge where nibbles of olives and nuts were served. Starters of breads and homemade guacamole were also served in the lounge as I sat and tried to recall phrases from my GCSE French class. Bearing in mind that I studied French about 15 years ago, there were not many French phrases to recall. Anyhoo, the language of food is one I know well and the guacamole was good with a nice amount of heat. 

Dinner was to be served in the dinning room and we all took our places at the table. Rack of lamb coated with a pistachio and rosemary pesto type sauce and wrapped in bacon was the main event. Given that lamb is one of my favourite meats and it was cooked perfectly (nice and pink, but not oozing blood) I was happy. 

However, the highlight of the meal, for me, had to be the cheese board. As it came to the table we were immediately engulfed in the stench of stinky, sweaty cheese! There were about 5 on there including a yummy runny goats’ cheese, brie stuffed with truffles (!) and a very, very smelly one. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the stench! It was great to try so many different varieties; all were very different and enjoyable in their own way. Of course, the French eat their cheese before dessert, not after (each to their own I suppose!) and although I had gorged myself on the smelly stuff, I did have some room for a slice of chestnut cake.

I guess Parisian dinner parties are not that different to those we have in the UK… lots of chatting, lots of laughter, lots of food and lots of wine. You can’t go wrong really, can you?

La Fourmi

The next day we took a trip to Sacre Coeur. Well, I say that, but we actually decided to admire it from afar and then go and drink some wine! La Fourmi was in my Time Out guide and looked as though it was worth a punt. It’s a bar serving informal meals and what I call a studenty bar. Think young and arty. My friend had croque madame or monsieur (I can't remember which), I had steak tartar. It was deconstructed so chopped capers, gherkins, onion, parsley and a raw egg surrounded the mound of raw steak mince, ready for me to mix. I love steak tartar and had only had it once before (at the Witchery, Edinburgh) so it was on my ‘To Do’ list for Paris. It was as expected – delicious!

Steak Tartar

Les Diables au Thyme

That evening was Les Diables au Thyme. Another nice little place, more polished than Chez Grenouille but still serving interesting food. Quite helpfully they had a menu in English as well as French and more than a few dishes caught my eye. Of course, I couldn’t have them all so I chose Os à moelle, tartine de queue de bœuf or Marrow bone & toast with oxtail. It looked fabulous, but I was immediately concerned as to how I was supposed to eat it! Thankfully E showed me how to use the blunt end of the knife to push the goodness out. It was nice, but very fatty… good with bread.  The oxtail on the toast was tender and tasty after, presumably, being stewed away for hours.

There was also Raviolis farcis de petits gris et de ricotta, a l'huile de noisette, or Ravioli with small grey snail and ricotta with hazelnut oil on the menu. My friend really enjoyed this one and was pleased to have the opportunity to try well cooked snails!

For main I had Cochon de lait cuit de la tête aux pieds, compotte de dattes or braised suckling pig with stewed dates. I think the pig is a rather marvellous animal, for eating at least! We seem to be able to eat just about everything on the pig, from its curly tail to its trotters and from its crispy ears to its snout. In fact the French name of this dish declares that it is the suckling pig cooked from head to foot and I’m not entirely sure, but I think I was served a section from around the spine. I had an extremely ample piece of meat, on the bone along with some stewed dates and some mashed sweet potato. I'm not too sure what the pineapple was doing there as it seemed an unnecessary garnish and a bit too 80's for me, however, the meat was tender and moist and I was glad when it was suggested that I eat with my hands when the cutlery wasn’t up to the job any longer.

Others had Suprême de pintade truffé au foie gras, fricassée de salsifis et de poire au bouillon de poivre cubébe or Filleted guinea fowl, truffled foie grad, fricassee of salsify and pear with a pepper broth.....

....and Tarte Tatin aux endives, quenelle de fromage de brousse which was essentially an endive tarte tatin.

After gnawing away at my main, I didn’t have room for dessert. In any case, I’m not much of a dessert fan.  However E ordered a cheese board and knowing my love of cheese, he was eager to share that with me…. And how can I pass up the offer of cheese? So, once again I enjoyed some stinky cheeses.

Overall it was a rather foodie trip and one I’m sure I will repeat with the husband.  

So, what's the strangest thing you have eaten?  Nipples, balls, snails?  Have you been to Paris?  Any foodie tips to pass on?