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| Ten Dinner Parties for Two |
Book Info Every day that she is at home with her husband Tom, Frances Bissell gives a dinner party, a dinner party for two. There will be a tablecloth, linen napkins, appropriate wine, flowers, a candle in winter, an open window in summer and a thoughtfully prepared meal made from the freshest ingredients. Creating a treat for a treasured companion, spouse or friend is what she likes doing best, and in this book her pleasure has been distilled into a set of menus and recipes for anyone who enjoys the intimacy of a shared meal with good wine and food.
There are some dates in the calendar, such as Christmas and St Valentine’s Day, that demand a special effort and Frances Bissell has accordingly suggested menus that add to the sense of occasion; but in her view every dinner is special, whether it be a carefully planned treat or a quick and easy meal to restore the equilibrium after a stressful day. Frances Bissell has retained the sound common sense towards food that prevails in her native county of Yorkshire while drawing inspiration from the cuisine of the countries in which she has travelled, notably France, Italy, America and Hong Kong. Since she came in to the public eye in 1983 after winning The Observer’' Mouton Cadet award, she has built a reputation for providing accessible, unpretentious recipes that are nonetheless graced with a rare quality of subtlety and originality. ContentsIntroduction Some Notes on My Store Cupboard and Kitchen Basic Recipes CHAPTER 1: SPRING FLAVOURS Quails’ Eggs Baked in New Potatoes Snails Baked in New Potatoes Asparagus and White Wine Risotto Cod Fillets with Beetroot Sauce Hedgerow Salad with Walnut and Nettle Dressing Light Lemon and Hazelnut Sponge CHAPTER 2: ST VALENTINE’S DAY Mousseline of Scallop Roe Scallops with Julienne of Vegetables Stuffed Poussin with Vegetables Wild Rice, Rosé Champagne Granita Almond Biscuits Rose Hearts, Rhubarb Sauce Demi-Sec Champagnes CHAPTER 3: GARDEN DAYS Carrot and Rosemary Flower Soup Broccoli, Pear and Tarragon Soup Tomato and Redcurrant Soup Tomato and Garlic Soup Tomato Basil and Cardamom Salad Note on Salad Dressings Tarragon Pot-Roasted Quail Warm Potato Salad Apricots in Muscat Wine Melon in Honey Ginger Syrup CHAPTER 4: SUMMER BY THE SEA Crab and Vegetable Tart Samphire with Lemon Butter Turbot with Laver Sauce Strawberries with Honey and Balsamic Vinegar Muscat Jelly CHAPTER 5: TASTES OF SUMMER Almond Soup Gazpacho Andaluz Calf’s Liver with Sage and Balsamic Vinegar Lamb Fillet with Basil and Sauvignon Sauce Broccoli with Tomato and Soy Butter Stir-Fried Green Vegetables Cherry Kissel Clafoutis CHAPTER 6: HARVEST FESTIVAL Bean and Vegetable Soup Bean and Pasta Soup Medallions of Venison Marinated in Pomegranate Celeriac and Potato Cake Fennel Salad Pears and Fresh Ginger in Spiced Red Wine Syrup Caramel Pears Quince Jelly Rosemary Jelly CHAPTER 7: WINTER WARMER Brill with Celery Leeks and Tomatoes Oxtail Terrine Chilled Rhubarb Soup Oxtail Stew Thimble Dumplings Lemon Rice Pudding Green Fruit Salad CHAPTER 8: CHRISTMAS DINNER FOR TWO Smoked Salmon Shapes Oysters in Spinach Overcoats Sicilian Orange Sorbet Roast Fillet of Beef Roast Barbary Duck Pot Roast Partridges Rice Stuffing Baked Jerusalem Artichokes Chicken or Turkey Filo Pastry Pie Grilled Radicchio and Goat’s Cheese Chilled Persimmon Creams Mincemeat Soufflé CHAPTER 9: MOVING DAY Vegetable Fondue Salmon Fillets in Red Wine Sauce Prawns with Garlic Chicken with Walnuts Grilled Tomatoes and Cheese on Toast Hot Fruit Salad Zabaglione CHAPTER 10: PLANNED ECONOMY Duck Liver and Roquefort Salad Home-Made Ravioli Stuffed with Duck Duck Rillettes Note on Potted Meats Duck Breasts in Chinon Duck and Green Olive Casserole Cassoulet Stir-Fried Mixed Cabbage Mango Mousse Mango Sorbet with Jasmine Tea Sauce Author Frances Bissell made a dramatic entrance into the world of cookery when, in 1983, she entered and won an Observer competition for the best dinner party menu to accompany Mouton Cadet wines. The contest brought her immediate recognition and, at the suggestion of Jane Grigson, she used the personal food diaries she had kept for over a decade as material for A Cook's Calendar, published by Chatto & Windus. A further book, The Pleasures of Cookery, epitomizes the approach to food that has made Frances Bissell such a popular author. Winner of the Glenfiddich Award for Cookery Writer of the Year and the first woman chef to become a member of the Académie Culinaire de France, she is now the author of nine books including Frances Bissell’s West Country Kitchen, The A-Z of Food and Wine, Modern Classics and Entertaining.Preview INTRODUCTIONCooking food according to its season has always been very important to me, both for practical reasons as well as more intangible ones. Food cooked and eaten during its growing and harvesting season reaches us in a much fresher condition and is better in texture, smell and flavour than if it has been stored. You have only to think of the delightful aroma of the first English apples as they appear in August and September to know what I mean. Although it is unlikely to be so, they actually smell as if they had been picked a moment ago. Summer and early autumn tomatoes sometimes still have that freshly picked ‘green’ smell by the time they reach the shops. TASTES OF SUMMER From all our travels we bring back mementos. Sometimes it is photographs we look at to remind us of a particular place. More often, it will be recipes that have been given to me by the people who have cooked the dishes for us, or that I have re-created as closely as possible to the original. Then, of course, I begin to add my own touches and it is no longer possible to say that that is the original shellfish dish from Brittany or that the original pasta dish from Emilia Romagna. The Almond Soup here is, however, still very closely related to the bowl of Gazpacho Blanco we tasted during a visit to southern Spain some years ago. Before that visit I had thought there was only one gazpacho, the tomato and olive-based Gazpacho Andaluz. In fact there are three, the third made of beans. |
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Cottage with Rooms to Hire
‘They had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window... In the morning hens were roosting on their toes.’ – Wild Ireland by Brendan Lehane
‘They had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window... In the morning hens were roosting on their toes.’ – Wild Ireland by Brendan Lehane
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