Potatocornia.....

Gosh, haven't posted for nearly a year, how remiss of me. Not that I haven't been cooking, of course, just that being lazy I make the same stuff. A lot......

Anyway, this is a bit of an experiment that turned out rather well. Chop an onion and fry it, add some lardons. These are basically bits of bacon that come ready chopped up into small strips here and it makes life very easy.

Another thing that makes life easy are the pre cooked, pre diced potatoes you can get vacuum packed. So open a packet of those and chuck it in the pan. Along with some sweetcorn, tinned or frozen will do nicely. Then all you have to do is stir in some thick cream or crème fraîche and add lots of black pepper, the lardons are usually salty enough so you don't have to add more. And if you're me, you add some dried chilli flakes too.....

Et voilà:

Aliénor came up with the title. It's one of her favourites.......

Trifling Trifle

I've never even attempted to make trifle before as it's one of those desserts that seem to have far too many things in it. However, last month I got roped into helping a friend make 170 of them for an English meal we were doing for the locals, and I realised quite a bit of cheating can be done.

So you need:

Sponge fingers (they call them boudoirs over here for some reason)
Jelly
Carton of Ambrosia ready made custard (to be found in the "Exotic Foreign Food" section of the supermarket over here along with such delights as Marmite and lemon curd)
Tin of mixed fruit cocktail
Tub of thick cream (best substitute over here is Marscapone mixed with single cream, the French just can't do proper cream)
Hundreds & thousands

Break up the sponge fingers, put them in the bottom of the bowl, chuck in the mixed fruit cocktail, make the jelly up (this usually involves pouring over boiling water and stirring, not too arduous), pour it over and leave to set in the fridge. Then pour over the custard, leave in the fridge a bit longer, then add a layer of cream and top off with hundreds and thousands to keep the kids happy. Or if it isn't for the kids, don't forget to chuck sherry over the sponge fingers before you add the rest.

Easy! And the French seem to love the stuff and think it's incredibly difficult to make so you can pretend to them that it was......

Sphagetti a la Carbonara

Just made a recipe for spaghetti a la carbonara sent to me recently. Never actually made this before, I mean, you can get it in jars, right? Still it looked easy enough, although separating an egg comes close to triggering the faffometer. Still, here's the recipe:

"Ingredients:

spaghetti
cream (I use a 20cl carton of semi épaisse)
shredded ham (instead of using bacon bits or having to chop the ham yourself!)
parmesan (ready grated)
salt & pepper to taste
1 egg yolk

Whilst cooking the spaghetti, heat the cream gently in a pan, then add the shredded ham and the parmesan and salt & pepper if needed. Drain the spaghetti and serve on to plates. At the last minute add the egg yolk to the cream mixture, blend in and serve over pasta.

This is for two people.

It's really quick and doesn't involve frying bacon and what not."

Well, it was really quick, didn't have parmesan but used emmental instead, and allumettes de jambon (that's diced ham to you and me). Fed it to the kids for tea and the verdict was "better than the stuff you get in the jar".
 

Reckon it'd be really good with a nice mature cheddar too.... if only it were readily available over here for anything less than an extortionate price *sigh*