La Liegeoise, Wimereux, France

Last month I had to conduct a massive booze cruise to the north of France, in particular to bring back over 200 bottles of wine for a big party I was organising.  So me and a mate piled into GrubsterMummy's car and drove to France.  Specifically we were headed to Montreuil, a small town in the Pas de Calais which is home to The Wine Society's French operations - a much reduced list to choose from, but with the added incentive of a guarantee that each case would be at least £20 cheaper than buying from the UK. 

 

Of course, no trip to France would be complete without stopping off to enjoy the country's famous culinary skills.  So, on the advice of my boss, we came off the autoroute at Wimereux and sought out the finest lunch our crispy new €uros could buy us.  We hit La Liégeoise in the Hotel Atlantic.  The name gives it all away – the hotel is perched right on the Atlantic coast and you sit in the dining room looking out at the ocean.  On good days (which, sadly, did not include the day of our trip) you can take coffee on the terrace.

 

Our meal was a set meal – three courses, two glasses of wine per head and coffee for €30.  Nowt bad.

 

Boys being boys, we rejected the fish and vegetarian options and dived straight into the good stuff.  But before we ever got there we were presented with a little trio of appetisers: salmon mousse wrapped up in smoked salmon, a little onion tarte accompanied by a fishy mousse and a third mousse with a distinctly ginger flavour and little picked vegetables.  My friend's comment: "They certainly like their mousses, don’t they?"

 

By the way, if I am vague about the contents of things in this review it is for one reason only: I was not always entirely certain what I was eating.  My French doesn't go that far (last time we did this trip, in a cheap and cheerful little restaurant in Boulogne, I accidentally ordered horse meat for three of us), the waiters' English went less far, and my friend's French is non-existent.  So it was a very much a game of gesticulation and guesswork to figure out some of what we were eating.

We kicked off, however, with a dish of foie gras de canard.  Always a firm favourite.  The restaurant was even happy to substitute one of our glasses of free wine for a sweet wine to keep the starter company, which was nice.

The main course was a perfect example of the language barrier causing problems.  We had thought we were getting grilled venison.  We ended up with poached guinea fowl.  Don’t ask how we got there.  Still, it was nice enough – albeit with yet another mousse that really didn’t go.  I can't tell you what flavour it was, but it was not particularly nice. 

Pudding we substituted for a cheese plate, and were given three different cheeses, served with apricot and prune compotes.  The waited explained what they were but we didn't understand.  Again, nice enough.

Coffee came with little petite fours – guess what, more mousse!  This time a mango mousse on top of a green apple compote.  There were also sweet little passion fruit and white chocolate truffles.

Overall, the term I'd use is 'nice'.  I wasn't blown away by the meal, and there was perhaps an element of trying too hard on display.  But otherwise, it was good and very decently priced.

- GrubsterBoy -

Food Porn #8: Charcuterie

All the charcuterie you can imagine, brought over from France.  Another food feast at the hands of GrubsterMummy.

 - GrubsterBoy -

French Onion Soup

The weather recently has been GRIM.  Today is no exception.

It is a well-known fact that the more miserable the weather, the more you want to bundle yourself up in blankets, loafing on the sofa in front of the TV, with a big bowl of something warming and hearty.  I have a whole list of such comfort foods in my cooking repertoire that positively demand foul weather before they can be supped.  One such dish is French onion soup.

The French know exactly what they're doing with this dish.  It's an Alpine dish, in a way, that's designed for being chowed down at the top of a mountain in the most inhospitable of conditions to warm you up from the inside out. With a blizzard raging outside, what more could you ask for than a pot of this brown nectar with great garlicky chunks of crusty bread and topped with molten cheese?

Ingredients:

1kg yellow onions
Olive oil
75g butter
5 cloves of garlic
1 tsp brown sugar
350ml white wine
2 litres beef stock
75ml cognac / brandy
1 baguette
350g gruyere cheese

It's also remarkably cheap and simple, which is how I came to hone this particular skill whilst at university.  Since then I've graduated and started receiving an annual salary, but this recipe persists.  To keep the costs even lower you can sub in cheddar for gruyere, and omit the cognac.

1. Start by getting the oven on to 200°C and mincing two cloves of garlic into a bowl with 4tbs of olive oil.  Allow this mixture to sit for a bit whilst you get on with the soup.

2. Slice the onions relatively thinly, but not so much so that they'll turn to mush in the pot.  You want to be left with nice, long strands in the soup.

3. Melt the butter in the pan with the oil.  Add the onions and turn the heat up.  Don’t be perturbed that there are absolutely tonnes of the onions in the pan, that's perfectly normal and they'll cook away to about a quarter of that quantity – if not less.  Cook on a high heat until the edges have started to brown.

4. Turn the heat right down and let the onions cook right down.  You want to get the onions to a state where they’ve gone a caramelised, sweet brown, with lots of unctuous sticky goo gently bubbling away in the bottom.  Thomas Keller cooks his until they're properly dark brown and reduced to virtually nothing, but I think that's a bit excessive – I've tried it and it doesn’t seem to add an awful lot, to be honest.

5. Meanwhile, slice your baguette horizontally, so that you have nice rounds about an inch thick.  If you have a slightly stale baguette, then use that – it'll become less sloppy in the soup.  Lay them out onto a large metal baking sheet and brush the both sides of each crouton with the garlicky oil.

Into the oven they go, for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown and toasted.

6. When the onions are ready you'll have a pan that's coated with brown gunk and beginning to look a bit like it will never go back to normal.  Fret not.  Simply add the wine now and use a wooden spatula or spoon to scrape all the gunge off the bottom.  Et voila, a clean pan.  Throw the stock in now and bring the mix up to a gentle simmer.  Give it another hour or so now, tasting it every so often.  Initially there'll be an underlying sharpness which, as the mixture cooks, will gradually fade away.  When it does so, you're good to go.

7.  Whilst it's bubbling away, grate the cheese.  Arrange the croutons across the top of the soup when it's ready and sprinkle the cheese liberally over the bread.  Chuck it in the oven for five minutes (max) or until the cheese has melted – or, better yet, stick it under the grill so that the cheese can toast away quickly.

8. Serve by spooning out the soup into bowls and chucking in a half to a full measure (depending on taste) of cognac and giving it a quick stir.  Add a couple of croutons and you're good to go.

Scoff it all down with French wine.  We opted for a Gamay, served a little cold (frais, or 'fresh', as the French would have it), it's a perfect accompaniment.

- GrubsterBoy -