dinner – Page 13 – Myfrenchkitchen

After buying some local saffron…from here in Touraine, I had to make something fishy with a saffron sauce. I love saffron and with fish it is really special…in taste as well as in appearance. Sometimes a white fish can look fairly …bland, but a sauce can lift it to a different level. I used skate wing in this recipe, a fish that I love for its delicate taste and ease with which you can enjoy it without fishing out bones in your mouth.

J’ai acheté un peu de safran de Touraine au marché bio à Tours.j’adore le safran au départ j’ai eu envie de préparer un poisson au safran. Parfois un poisson blanc semble très triste sur notre assiette et le gout n’est rien que fade. Une sauce au safran relève ce poisson banal à une expérience gastronomique, facile à manger, sans péniblement pêcher les arrêts dans sa bouche!

NB: It is a fish that is being overfished and quickly disappearing from certain waters. Measurements have now been put in place to control the fishing and protect the skate. Please make sure that you buy your skate from a reputable fishmonger. Definitely don’t buy it at the supermarket!

NB: Faites attention a ce poisson qui est en train de disparaître très vite, a cause de la pêche négligente. Ne l’achetez surtout pas au supermarché, mais plutôt dans une poissonnerie réputable.

I served the skate wing with a spaghetti of courgette on the side, quickly plunged in boiling water and rinsed under cold water, dried and lightly seasoned.

Suggestions:

This recipe can work well with any white fish. I used skate wing.
Serve on a big platter and serve individual portions from the wings by lifting small filets off the bone onto each plate.
The courgettes can be peeled into long ribbons, using a potato peeler if you don’t have the special spaghetti tool. Cut the ribbons into thin paghetti or leave as ribbons(tagliatelle).
Don’t boil the courgette spaghettie or else they will lose their color, break up and become mushy, without any crunch.
Dry the courgettes well after rinsing to prevent them from being soggy in the plate.

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

The organic market day in Tours took off early in the morning, with everybody setting up their stalls and readying themselves for a day of sunshine and hungry, eager visitors. Indeed a successful day for Touraine on the banks of the Loire.

Le bio marché à Tours était une grande réussite. Chacun installé ses stands et se préparé pour une journée estivale, remplie de visiteurs affamés. Encore un succès pour la Touraine aux bords de la Loire.

…je veille sur le parc…

…journée de la patrimoine et pont wilson…

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

…safran de touraine…

..au marché bio…

…les rôtisseries…

————————————————————————————————————————————————

…on achète, on goute, on mange, on s’amuse…

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

…les poissons de la loire…

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

…on mange pas sans du vin de la région…

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

…à l’année prochaine…

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

…à demain!…

Ronelle

Rosemary and lamb. A perfect combination.

Suggestions:

Other/or mixture of herbs can be used along with rosemary. Rinse them and use them wet to line your oven pan.
Chicken and pork can be used the same way, cut off excess from pork.
It is worth it to invest in a meat thermometer. It gives you your desired stage of cooking and keeps the guessing and disappointment out of oven roasted pieces.
A piece of meat does shrink alot when roasted at high temperature. But it is still tender and juicy. If you want less shrinkage, bake for longer at 150-160 °C.
Temperatures for lamb: (taken from “La grand Larousse gatronomique)

rare: from 60-62 °C (very pink with pink juices still running)
medium: from 62-64°C (pink with clear juices running)
well done: >64°C (slightly pink to completely cooked/gray)

“You smell like rosemary“, said our daughter when she hugged me at the train station. I bloomed. I liked the thought of smelling like rosemary. It says…mother. Care . Childhood. Home. Remembrance.

Later that night, after our dinner of rosemary lamb and catching up on her life as a young working woman, I lay in bed dwelling on her words and my thoughts drifted off. I dreamed how wonderful it would be if our daughters would talk about us one day along the lines of something like this:

“My mother was cook in the kitchen. My father was cook at the barbecue. And between them grew a rosemary bush. I have my own rosemary bush now and when I walk past it and feel my legs brushing the leaves, a heady fragrance envelops me making me feel lightheaded with memories. I smell my mother after her fiddling in the garden among her roses and herbs and I see my father bending over the rosemary bush, cutting and snipping leaves for his lamb cutlets. Our mealtimes were festively spent around a table in the garden, or in the summer kitchen by die barbecue or under the walnut tree overlooking hills or elegantly candle lit in the dining room or simple and homey around the kitchen table. I recall hours of inventing new recipes, cooking and preparing, tasting wines, all the while eating at pretty set tables around laughter and jokes, teasing and chatting and many a times heart-to-heart talks.

I have no doubt, that there where they are now, they still reign as queen of the kitchen and king of the barbecue. And between them, a rosemary bush grows high and lush”.

…Hartman’s handmade rosemary brush- a piece of copper piping, a string pulled through to the other side with a loop…

…snip some rosemary branches and tie the one end of the string around…

…pull at the other end of the string, fix the stems inside the copper pipe and cut the tips to form a firm brush – baste your meat with melted butter, marinade…