Here are a set of recipes some of which feature in Ken’s Travel Website, with occasional new dishes added.

Cullen Skink

From Cullen in Moray which is on the North East of Scotland, but a popular dish all over.

500g Smoked Haddock (or other smoked white fish)
Water
One large onion
600ml milk
A cup of mashed potato
25g butter
Salt and pepper

Pour water over the haddock in a saucepan, enough to cover it. Add chopped onion.
Boil for 15 minutes.
Remove fish and flake into pieces (removing any bones)
Return to stock and add milk, bringing to boil then adding mashed potatoes to thicken the soup.

Add butter and season with pepper (and salt if the smoked fish is not already salty enough).

Serve with parsley and hot bread.

Variation:

In Edinburgh, as students, we used to spin out the meal with a can of sweet corn, also substitute fish with streaky smoked bacon. Furthermore, we often thickened the ‘chowder’ (for that was what we called it) with a small hand full of rolled oats or a tablespoon of oatmeal. 

Paella St Jaques

The first time we ate in Villejesus we scoffed a paella made by le Bar Cagouille’s hostess Marise, at Jeanne’s 40th birthday party. There was rabbit and saucisson included in her version.

The special ingredient of my Charentais style paella is ‘Noix de St Jacques’: scallops to an Anglais.
You can find scallop shells used as a decorative motif on churches throughout Charente to mark the Compostelle Pilgrimage Trail.

Serves 4
One large onion
300g Camargue Rice
100g mushrooms
100g green beans
100g peas
2 tomatoes skinned and chopped (or tinned toms)
1 teaspoon of garasalam
A glass and a half of dry white Charantais Wine
8 scallops cut equatorially to make 16 slices.
200g frozen seafood mix (or fresh is you can find it)
2 cloves of garlic
Half a lemon’s juice
Parsley
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
300 ml water

Chop and fry onion in a wok or paella pan, add garasalam, rice and mushrooms.
Add water and bring to boil. Keep stirring.
After 5 mins add, green beans, peas and tomatoes, keep simmering. Boil for a further 5 minutes
Meanwhile fry scallops in very hot oil until both sides are golden, add seafood and fry for a further minute, whilst adding garlic and then lemon juice.
Add contents of frying pan to paella with chopped parsley and season to taste. Turn all pans off and allow to settle for a further 5 minutes before serving.

Serve with more fresh parsley, slices of lemon and give thanks to St Jacques for his lovely nuts!

Tortilla, Spanish Omelette

This is my version of a tortilla. I put onion into the recipe which is thought to be controversial, and, in addition with the onions frying at the start, sliced red peppers can be nice as well, but not in a traditional tortilla.

For two 

Four medium sized potatoes sliced finely
One small onion chopped to small pieces
Olive oil
4 eggs, beaten
One clove garlic smashed and chopped
I x 20cm frying pan

Slice potatoes (I used a mandolin….. mind the finger tips on the blades!), heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan and fry potatoes slowly and turning every minute. After 5 minutes add onions and continue turning for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile beat four eggs in a bowl big enough for the eggs and the potatoes you’ve been frying. 

When potatoes/onion are soft but still a little al dente, pour them into the eggs and mix the two together thoroughly. Season and add garlic at this point.

Heat a little more oil in the frying pan until it’s smoking hot, turn down the gas to minimum and immediately pour egg mixture into pan. It will sizzle for a few seconds then cook slowly for five minutes.
After five minutes, place a 30cm plate upside down on to the frying pan clap them together with adequate skill and strength to flip them both over through 180 degrees. This should result with a turned omlette on a plate and an empty pan.
Heat the pan to smoking again (should need much more oil) turn done and immediately slide omelette off plate so that wet side down is making contact with hot oil.

Cook for a couple of minutes.

The Tortilla is ready. Cut into triangles and serve with a scrunch of black pepper on top.

We ate ours with green beans.

Variations as mentioned in intro:

Leave the onion out, many Spanish omelettes have potatoes toutes seules.

Add a sliced red pepper at frying stage.

Add parsely of other fines herbes.

Courgettes with mint:

In France we get lots of courgettes given as presents as the summer matures. We would call most of these oversize veg ‘marrows’ in England.

This is a simple accompaniment to toulouse sausage, salmon steak (or Spanish omeltte…… we had these yesterday’s recipe left over tortilla today) we were going out.

Courgettes
Oil oil (butter if you’re feeling French, one seems to use dairy products with everything here)
Garlic
Fresh mint
Salt and pepper


Cut as many courettes you want to eat into whatever shape you like (I like batons roughly 10cm x 2cm x 2cm

Fry them in the oil, on a modeate heat, stirring as you cook with a wooden spatula.

After five minutes, when they’re lightly browned add chopped clove of garlic and stir so more for a minute.

Turn off gas and stir in chopped mint, season.


The mint makes a tasty fresh dish as an accompaniment or a starter.

A big favourite in La Cagouille Masquee is …… 

Vegetable Tagine & Cous Cous

My version is influenced by a cookery lesson from friends in Djerba , Tunisia, when Theatre sans Frontieres were filming there for ‘Round the World in 80 minutes’.
The made characteristics of the dish are that the vegetables are in large chunks, with a soupy unthickened sauce to slurp with the couscous.

Chopped onion
Tablespoon of olive oil
Babaganoush
4 whole carrots
2 white turnips halved
Small white cabbage divided into four by two slices criss- cross through stem
Pumpkin or squash in large cubes Tin of chick peas
750 ml stock
2 cloves of garlic
Harissa
Salt / pepper

2 cups couscous / two cups boiling water with seasoning
Mint
Knob of butter

Fry an onion and babaganoush (couscous mixed spice: includes coriander seeds, garamasalam, and cumin).
Keep stirring adding carrots, turnips, cabbage, pumpkin.
Pour in stock (use cubes and water if you have no stock available)
Simmer for 15 minutes adding chick peas and garlic in the latter stages.

Whilst sauce is simmering boil a kettle and mix boiling water, salt and pepper and couscous together in a bowl leave to stand for at least five minutes.
Before serving add some harissa to sauce (it’s chilli based so don’t go too mad if any guests don’t like hot spicy food…. individuals can add their own harissa after) and add a tablespoonful of the sauce to a small bowl of harissa for the fireeaters.
Add a knob of butter and chopped mint to the swollen couscous.

Serve with Aigre Spice-man’s salted lemons and harissa. Or harissa from the supermarket and see Chris’s salted lemon recipe below.

Chris McConway’s Salted Lemons

Chris is Prince Pickler when it comes to lemons for serving as a pickle with tagines and coucous. His recipe is something like this:

6 lemons
Half a cup of salt
10 coriander seeds
5 cloves
Bay leaves
10 peppercorns

I large jar with lid (the lemons look attractive so a posh jar might be good).

Slice the lemons into quarters.
Sprinkle salt on top of cut lemons

Put a tablespoonful of salt in jar. Pack a layer of lemon slices in the bottom. Sprinkle a tablespoon of salt and some of spices on top. Put in a second layer and repeat seasoning.  
Press down to release lemon juice. Add more layers with salt and spices until you’ve used up all your lemons.

Add more lemon juice, if needed, to cover lemons.

Screw lid on top and wait for a fortnight. They’ll keep in a cool place for months as long as the lemons remain covered. 

Mushroom and Tarragon Pasta 

For when you’re in a hurry 12 minute making time.

This is a variant upon one Marion’s favourites, if you’re being showy drop into Charme (8 kms from us in Villejesus) and buy some pleurotes (oyster mushrooms) vente directe.

Four 4 Pasta of your choice, we had penne tonight.

1 onion
Oil
I med aubergine
200g mushrooms
I small can black beans or kidney beans
1 heaped teaspoon of dried tarragon (or a sprig of fresh from our garden)
Seasoning
200ml cream or fromage frais

Put boiling water from kettle, salt and a little olive oil in a large pan on the stove and when back up to boil pour in 200g of pasta (300g if you have hungry teenagers)

Meanwhile

Fry onion.
Chop aubergine into small chunks and add to frying onions, keep stirring.
Add chopped mushrooms and keep stirring.
Fry on low heat for five minutes or so until aubergines are almost translucent and have started to shine.
Add drained can of black beans.
Add tarragon and cream/fromage frais and turn off heat.

Your pasta should now be ready …. check the time it says on the packet.

Drain, put back into pan and add mushroom sauce to same pan, mix and serve straight away.

Farci Charentais aux Legumes

I saw a stall-holder at Nanteuil digging into a huge portion of this traditional dish. It’s good when there’s an excess of vegetables being harvested all at once, a glut of courgettes and haricots verts, say, from the gardens all about us in Villejesus. Often a cabbage stuffed with sausage meat farci, this vegetable version is a bit kinder to the planet, but still uses dairy and eggs.

For 4 

1 kg of green vegetables (e.g. green beans, celery, broad beans, broccoli, cale)
Boiling water
12 leaves of green cabbage

2 leeks
2 big onions
150 g bacon bits (substitute 50g butter / margarine if you’re veggie)
2 cloves of garlic (don’t over fry)

3 eggs
200 ml creme fraiche
A bay leaf, thyme and parsley
salt and pepper
2 big handfuls of spinach

Boil the mixed veg for 10 minutes in salted water, floating cabbage leaves on top of rest.

Meanwhile chop onions and leeks finely and fry gently with lardons.

Drain the boiled veg. Make sure there’s no residual water.

Beat the eggs and creme fresh together. Mix with drained veg., onions and leeks, lardons, herbs, salt and pepper.

Grease a deep lasagne oven proof dish or similar.

Put a layer of cabbage leaves into dish, then some veg./egg mix, then spinach, then cabbage then veg./egg mix, then top with cabbage. i.e. alternate layers of cabbage, spinach and veg./egg.

Cook for 40 minutes in a moderate oven.

Eat cold or warm, but not piping hot.

Pavlova

Mary made Pavola which was had a fine marshmallow texture, but the oven was a bit hot, so the crispy outer layer didn’t have time to develop before browning.
My New Zealander sister in law, Rosie, makes this recipe. There are big debates about whether its origins are in New Zealand or Australia.

4 egg whites
200g caster sugar
1 x teaspoon white vinegar
Half a teaspoon corn four

Baking parchment

Oven 130 degrees, gas mark 3

Whip the egg whites until they are stiff and peaking. Electric robots (as they call them in France) help.

Fold in sugar bit by bit until the mixture is glossy and there’s no grittiness detectable. Fold in the vinegar and corn flour gently.

Scoop spoonfuls on to the baking parchment on a baking sheet to create a ring of meringue and bake for 1 hour fifteen minutes in the centre of the oven at 130 degrees.

Often, at this point, I leave the Pavlova in the oven and switch off the heat, so that it gradually cools and consolidates.

Use summer fruits and whipped cream (250ml) to fill the meringue ring you have baked.

Baked Pears

One pear per person. Peeled and left whole.
Lemon juice
Brown sugar
Grappa
Crème Fraiche

Slice a sliver off the bottom of each pear so that they stand upright on a greased ovenproof dish. Squeeze lemon juice on top of the pears and sprinkle liberal amounts of brown sugar on top of each one.

Bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes until caramelized.

Allow to cool to a civilized temperature so that guests don’t burn their mouths. Serve with a sousing in grappa and crème fraiche.

Evelyn’s Chocolate Walnut and Ginger Pie.

A favourite recipe of my Mum’s, from Woman’s Weekly in 1965 or thereabouts. Heavy on butter, sugar and chocolate for today’s tastes but so rich that a small slice is satisfying.

Four 6

Biscuit base: One pack of ginger snaps, (En France ‘Bastogne’ biscuits sont bons avec gingembre ajoute)
50g butter

Pie Filling: 50g butter
One can condensed milk
2 tablespoons brown sugar
100g chopped walnuts
100g dark chocolate
Yolk of an egg
i tablespoon flour
Whipped white of egg

For a 20cm round baking tin.

Base

Fill stout plastic bag with biscuits, bash them with a rolling pin until they are crumbs.
Heat butter in pan until melted and stir biscuit crumbs into it. 
Press into greased baking dish with palette knife to create an even layer which covers sides and bottom.

Filling

Heat butter, conny onny and sugar over a gentle heat, stirring constantly to avoid burning to bottom of pan. Turn off once it has reached boiling point (be careful with this very hot liquid!). 
Add walnuts and cubes of chocolate. Once chocolate is melted, add yolk of egg and flour stirring vigorously. Then add whipped white of egg folding it gently into mix before immediately pouring on to biscuit base.

Bake in moderate oven for 40 minutes (gas mark 4, 140 degrees Celsius).

It should be shiny, browned and spongy on top, when ready.

Serve luke warm or cold with creme fraiche or cream.

Biere de Gingembre 

50grams grated ginger root
500 grams cane sugar
2 large lemons
I sachet of dried yeast
8 litres of tepid water

Put the ingredients in a suitable clean bucket and stir until sugar has dissolved.

Leave in Charentais sunshine for four hours for the yeast to start working.

Pour through a tea strainer and funnel in to clean screw top plastic bottles that have contained pop, of fizzy water. Leave a gap of air at the top of each bottle and screw cap on.

Save 100mls of g beer and add more sugar to grow further yeast for next time.

Keep in a cool place for two days. 

Drink.

Pisco sour (Peruvian Cocktail)

We had loads of these in Peru and found they hit the spot.

Chile’s Pisco National Day is celebrated on 15th May do you’ve just got time to get the ingredients in for the celebrations.
The national origin of the pisco sour is debated if from Chile or Peru. In both countries, the variety of lemon used has a flavor similar to lime. 
The roots of Pisco itself reach back to the 1500s and stem from Colonial rule. The Spaniards brought the grape to the region from Europe, but the King of Spain banned wine in the 17th Century, forcing locals to concoct a different kind of alcohol from the grape.
Guillermo Toro Lira in his book “Wings of cherubs” discovered that the precedent of the drink is in the Viceroyalty of Peru, which had pisco mixed with lemon around the 18th century near the “Plaza de Toros de Acho” of Lima. It was called a “Punche”

For two glasses: 
2 measures pisco (it’s a S. American white brandy spirit…. grappa is the nearest equivalent in Europe)
1 measure fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon cane syrup (or a 2 teaspoons sugar)
1 egg white 
Crushed ice
Angostura Bitters

Shake up the ingredients in a cocktail shaker or put in a blender and let it do the work.

It should have a frothy head on the top if you’ve got it right. Sprinkle a couple of drops of Angostura Bitters in the froth.

Drink ….