Recent culinary adventures

Cooking is what we do in December here in the Saint-Aignan area. Here are some recent dishes we've cooked and enjoyed eating. As I've always said, one of the main reasons we decided to move to France 20 years ago was that we both enjoyed French foods and cooking, after having lived in Paris for a while and then having spent many vacations in France between 1988 and 2002.

This a "butterflied" or "spatchcocked" chicken. To make it this way, I used kitchen shears to cut out the bird's backbone. Then I flattened it after cutting a small incision in the breast bone to make it sit flat in the pan. I roasted it in the oven with onions, apples, and apple cider. It was hard, dry cider from Normandy. Delicious. I'll have to make it again soon.

Yesterday I posted a set of pictures of various coquillages (shellfish). One of them was the cockle (coque) which we cook the way you would cook linguine in white clam sauce. Sweat some chopped onion and then put the cockles, shells and all, in the pan with them. Pour on some dry white wine. Cover the pan and when the clams open up, put the pasta in the pan, stir it all up, and then sprinkle in some black pepper and some fresh herbs. This was our lunch a few days ago and would be excellent made with Manila clams.

This is a dessert. I made it with prunes. It's a clafoutis or flognarde, which is a custard cake made with fruit like cherries, plums, apricots, prunes, bananas, or diced apples or pears. The custard is cream and/or milk, flour, eggs, and sugar. Arrange the fruit in a baking pan and pour the custard over it. Bake it for about 45 minutes. It will rise and then sink back down as it cools. Serve it cold or at room temperature. Here's a link to a post describing how you make it.

Finally, last week I was doing some grocery shopping at our local Intermarché. Looking around in the store, I noticed two beautiful veal chops at the meat counter. I almost never buy veal chops, because they are so expensive. These were not (just seven euros each), and they were sliced fairly thick. I had some fresh Italian green beans (haricots plats) in the refrigerator at home that I thought would be good with the veal. I just steamed the beans and then pan-fried the chops. As a second side dish we had some cooked couscous grain seasoned with salt, pepper, and melted butter. Memorable...