My Saturday didn’t go to plan. I was going to make a couple of masks and then cook from One Knife, One Pot, One Dish by Stephane Reynaud, a cookbook I bought with reward and recognition money from my workplace. The idea of being able to easily cook a couple of dishes, not make too much of a mess, and enjoy some tasty food appealed when I bought it, and appealed when I decided to get the cookbook. The masks and my sewing machine had completely different ideas. They decided that cooking wasn’t as important as themselves, and as I almost broke down in tears because I couldn’t put my sewing machine back together, I realised that I was only a spectator in cooking food that evening.
Thankfully Scott was to the rescue and because the dishes were straightforward and in one pot, he could do the entire Coq au Vin without any drama, and I managed to help with the kale dish because by that time I’d managed to do everything I could do with the masks (including tidying up). Both the dishes were tasty (I ran out of energy to cook the dessert, but the sweets in this book all look good). It was hard to select which dishes to cook out of this cookbook because so many of them look amazing. Overall we rate this book 4 out of 5 so far. We want to try some other dishes (so this might change).
Coq au Vin (serves 4)
Ingredients:
- 150g mushrooms
- 4 garlic cloves
- 4 French shallots
- 2 carrots
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 chicken cut into pieces (or 1.5kgs chicken thighs/drumsticks)
- 100g thick-cut smoked bacon, sliced into strips
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 50ml cognac
- 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence (mixed dried herbs)
- 500ml red wine
- 400ml beef stock
- salt and pepper
Method:
- Quarter the mushrooms
- Peel and crush the garlic. Cat the shallots in half without peeling (we peeled ours). Peel and slice the carrots into rounds.
- Heat the oil in a flameproof casserole dish and brown the chicken pieces and bacon (we did the chicken and bacon separately because space). Add the shallots and garlic, then the flour and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the cognac and flambe (or if you can’t, like we couldn’t, just cook the alcohol out of the cognac for about 3 – 5 minutes)
- Add the vegetables and herbs, pour in the red wine and beef stock, and cook over a low heat for 1 hour 30 minutes (a medium to high simmer).
- Season with salt and pepper. Serve
Notes on this recipe:
- It’s not a pretty dish, but it is definitely a tasty dish, and when made like this, significantly easier than how it’s made traditionally (marinated overnight, repeatedly cooked, strained, chicken patted dry at various points, other stuff cooked and put in the casserole, etc).
- We served ours with mashed potato, which was a good way to soak up all the sauce. The chicken was so tender it fell apart as I was serving it, and we had enough left over for the next day, which we ate for lunch.
Kale with goat’s cheese (serves 4)
Ingredients:
- 400g kale
- 2 sweet onions (we used white onions)
- 100g goat’s cheese (recommended Saint-Maure goat’s cheese if you can find it)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 100ml white port (we substituted sherry)
- 200ml vegetable stock
- salt and pepper
- 50g hazelnuts
Method:
- Coarsely chop the kale (we discarded the stems, but you do you)
- Peel and cut the onions into wedges
- Cut the goat’s cheese into large pieces
- Saute the kale in olive oil in a large flame-proof casserole dish over a low heat (or a heavy based saucepan that you have a lid for), for about 5 minutes maximum – you want the kale to start wilting
- Pour in the port and vegetable stock. Add the onions, season, cover and cook over a low heat for 15 minutes.
- Add the pieces of goat’s cheese and whole hazelnuts and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Serve
Notes on this recipe:
- I don’t like kale so I wasn’t planning on eating this dish, which was selected by Nigel. I did, however, try some to see what it was like, and it wasn’t bad. I’d probably add some freshly grated nutmeg, because that stuff is magic.
- This was also served with mashed potatoes, in order for the liquid to be soaked up.
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