Another Food Blog

The dish of the day at Le Bistro was pave of rumpsteak in a gorgonzola sauce.  It sounded good, but filling.  I decided against the ‘menu’ which offered a choice of starter as well, and went for just the plat du jour.  I ordered it medium, wanting it pretty rare but not raw, and that’s how it came – on the rare side of medium rare, and nice and chewy.  It was gorgeous, as were the gratin potatoes and the sauce, though I couldn’t manage the whole plateful.  A pichet of the house red wine produced a most acceptable and mellow red.

The Trattoria restaurant on Nice’s Rue de France has an eye-catching way of enticing customers.  There’s a street display of fresh seafood outside, with an elderly gentleman on a stool quite happy to sell passers-by oysters and other delicacies.  But of course many people are so captivated that they look at the menu, as I did, and decide to dine there.

I chose from the set menu du jour, choosing the warm goat’s cheese first, then the mixed fried seafood (which I already wrote about)..

I made it to Nice, and was able to get on line with my little Eee-pc, and even to enter this site.  So there may be some posts from here after all.  But no promises.  I am learning how to load photos (more later).  Tonight I ate at Trattoria on Rue de France and ate their set menu.  The warm goat’s cheese starter was good, but the friture mixte (aka fritto misto) was magnifiecent.  Whitebait galore, plus squid, plus huge langoustines, etc (and all wonderfully fresh).  Included was the mousse au chocolat.  The rose wine was the perfect way to accompany it all.

I think an agrodolce pizza means something like “sour-sweet.”  An agrodolce sauce is made by reducing sweet and sour tastes, such as sugar and balsamic vinegar.  It was the special of the day at Prezzo, so I ordered if after sampling the rather pleasant calamari fritti to begin with.  The pizza was indeed sweet, thanks largely to the onions, but there was a lot of other stuff going on, including tomatoes, goat’s cheese, and black olives.  I added chilli oil to spice it up.  It was a nice pizza, with an authentic homemade base.  Just what I needed, as was the cabernet sauvignon I drank with it.

I’m heading for Nice in the Mediterranean, and don’t know how easy it will be to go on line.  Obviously there’ll be great seafood, and I might be able to report it, but things could be difficult until I return on Saturday.

Meanwhile, today I met a friend for lunch at the Mediterranean Kitchen on London’s St Martin’s Lane.  I had leek and potato soup followed by eggs Benedict, done superbly, as they always do….

I had one rasher of bacon left, so I cut the fat off, cut it into pieces (scissors are easier than a knife), and microwaved them spread across a small bowl for 25 seconds.  I had one large field mushroom left, so I chopped it and sautéed it in butter, finally adding the bacon pieces.  I toasted wholemeal slices while I scrambled three eggs with butter and milk, resting it for a minute in the middle.

End of story, and lunch for two – scrambled egg with mushrooms and bacon alongside.  Obviously salt and pepper were needed.

Hey, what did you expect?  I actually wrapped up most of the leftover goose in pieces of foil for the freezer.  I find it freezes beautifully, without noticeable loss of taste or texture.  But I saved some for wholemeal sandwiches with apple sauce, and some for a final goose salad.  I find cold goose desperately needs salt, but I use it sparingly.

The salad had lettuce, spring onion, raw onion, vine tomato, raw peppers, anchovies, plus a little Caesar dressing, and the apple sauce was made from Bramleys.

I had about half left of some apple and apricot crumble, though it was somewhat dry by now.  One way to use it would have been to add some hot water, cover the top, and microwave it for just over a minute, and serve with fresh custard.  It tends to leave the crumble somewhat soggy.  I used plan B, cooking my remaining 4 apricots in a little hot water with a spoon of caster sugar.  I placed these is an oven-safe dish, and carefully placed the leftover crumble on top.  I put foil over the top and gave it 30 minutes at 180, before opening the top for 5 minutes.

It was effectively fresh apricot crumble, since any apple was now residual, with apricots dominant.  I served it with crème fraiche and poured a little of the apricot syrup left over from the cooking round the sides to make it even moister.  It was quite delicious.

I used prime sirloin steak, too, cutting it up and discarding every vestige of white fat.  It went into a pan with oil to sear the surfaces.  Then I put in the chopped field mushroom.  After a few minutes it went into the pie base, and I put a couple of spoons of gravy in as well it before sealing on the top and brushing with egg and milk.

The potatoes were yesterday’s roast ones, oven heated under foil for 20 minutes.  With the peas it made a good dish, and gravy was added just as I served it.

In M&S ‘Classics for Christmas’ range is a top-iced Christmas cake.  I tried it last year for the first time, and was surprised how good it was.  The question is, can it be as good as Aunt Milla’s Christmas cake, which I make every year to a recipe she left behind.  The surprise is that the two taste very similar to each other.  The M&S cake, like Aunt Milla’s, is rich, moist, and laden with fruit.  In view of the close match, this year I bought the M&S cake and didn’t make Aunt Milla’s cake for the first time in ages.  However, someone else made one, so the tradition is maintained.  The M&S cake is excellent, and available in a sensible size.

I think next year I’ll make Aunt Milla’s again, not for any superiority of taste or texture, but because it’s fun making it.