A theme instead of a book or author this time, it was lovely to savour the luxurious French cuisine. And there was the odd beret to get us in the mood too.

Starters

Karen – French onion soup

A Raymond Blanc recipe, this involved caramelising lovely sweet Spanish onions for a long time, and adding plenty of white wine!

Tracey – Pissaladiere

Tracey – Pissaladiere

Tracey very thoughtfully provided a third of the dish sans anchovies. A straw poll determined that half the group enjoy their intense saltiness, the others, not so much…. The recipe was a combo of BBC good food and the work of a handsome YouTuber. The caramelised onions (again) were cooked for two hours, and their intense sweetness against the anchovy was delicious.

Mains

Janet – Tartiflette

A meal designed for apres ski, we agreed this was also perfectly appropriate for a Tuesday in Bucks. Delicious new potatoes layered with Reblochon and lardons, together with (yes more) caramelised onions. An Olive recipe, it was a hit.

https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/tartiflette/

Jane – Chicken legs stuffed with mushrooms and Comte

This involved learning a lot of new knife skills, boning 8 chicken legs and then tying up the stuffed gaps took a lot of time. But the results were good, a moist tasty dish.

Sides

Justine – Ratatouille

This was from Raymond Blanc Cooking for Friends. Justine was surprised that the recipe used so little tomato, and felt that it didn’t have the ratatouille feel that she was expecting.

Debrah – Tian

This was a recommendation and recipe from Debrah’s sister in law Melanie, who lives in France. She uses this as a standard side dish. It felt like a vertical ratatouille, with similar ingredients but presented in a very different and most attractive way to normal.

Puddings

Julie – Tarte Tatin

A Raymond Blanc recipe, this caused Julie a few technical difficulties, finding it hard to choose an appropriate receptacle, and then burning her hands twice trying to remove it from the frying pan that she eventually used. It was worth the blisters though, very tasty and a nicely tart tart.

Sue – Clafoutis

Another Raymond Blanc recipe. It called for cherries in Kirsch, but Sue didn’t have any, so swapped it for Amaretto instead. That gave a lovely nutty warmth to the pudding. It was served with a white chocolate and cream sauce. There was an inadvertent ingredient swap at this point, with Oreo chocolate swapped for plain white chocolate. It was genius.