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Sunday 23 October 2016

Series Three: Part Eleven: Trout Geneve







Holidays are great .. and this labour weekend had the additional bonus of an additional day off for Hawke's Bay Anniversary. Leading into the long weekend I was fortunate to be gifted a rainbow trout, gutted, scaled and ready for the cooking. This fish had been caught at Turangi -a small town beside the Tongariro river. It is well known for its trout fishing and is aptly named "the trout fishing capital of the world".


Of course this had to be my dish for the week. I had seen recipes for trout in a number of the cordon bleu series. Series 46  had "Advanced fish dishes" including 7 specific to trout. They all called for 4 -5 even sized fish. 4-5 fish!!!  I must say even though I have only thrown my line into the water on a couple of occasions I do have some idea of undersized fish, and the trout displayed in the photos either in the "cutting of the head" photo or the beautifully displayed "stuffed trout with decorative cooked orange slices" balanced symmetrically on top, certainly would have got the Conservation ranges in a state. However different era and different country.
I chose the Trout Geneve - a dish taking its namesake from Lake Geneve, a large glacial lake located between Switzerland and France. Funnily enough the lake is the shape of a croissant with the north end and the two ends are Swiss and the south shore is French. The lake is famous for its fishing boasting fish species such as perch, fera (type of white fish), trout, char and pike.


For Trout Geneve the first step is to poach the trout in a court bouillon. I had the perfect little cotton infuser bag purchased at an expensive cookery shop in Auckland (one of the cheapest things you could buy). I proudly snipped at my potted herbs taking the opportunity to pluck out a weed or two, stuffed it all in the bag (excluding weeds) and along with the wine, carrots and onions let the fish bathe in the tepid concoction. The sauce included butter, shallots, mushrooms, lemon juice  and breadcrumbs. This was drizzed over the fish just before serving. The fish was delicate and tasty with all family members getting stuck in.


Now we are at the end of the weekend and I did believe that I would have completed at least another CB dish to share with you... I need to learn from my fellow anglers and learn that actually its OK to just do one thing... relax and enjoy ... I need to take the Labour out of labour weekend!





Trout Geneve


Infuser bag






Saturday 15 October 2016

Series Three: Part Ten - Veloute: Creme St.Germain





I had taken the advantage of being in Auckland recently to visit the Mercy Hospice shop in Ponsonby. Being an employee of Mercy Hospital back in the 90's, it was nice to revisit and support this great cause. I was delighted to purchase a soup tureen, and with a cold southerly change in the weather this weekend, a soup was called for. Cordon Bleu series 41, included a section on Veloute, iced and bisque soups. I went for the warmth of a veloute soup. As CB explains the consistency of veloute soups is described by their name meaning velvety (from the French for velvet - velours). They are made by pouring a well flavoured stock on to a blond ronx. This is blended, returned to the heat and stirred until boiling. The finishing touch is the addition of a liaison made of egg yolks and cream. I chose the St. Germain soup, which used spring onions, lettuce and peas (old and rather floury peas were called for but not something I have readily available, so Pams frozen little numbers had to do the trick).
I needed to do a main and came to CB series 62 section referred to as "Career Girl Entertaining". The name in itself was enough to fire up the feminist inside me to start a rave and lecture to my daughters of tales of female suppression and harmful limiting stereotypes. The necessity of the statement as per page11   "... we will give ideas for husbands temporarily coping with the family cooking in a future lesson" was hopefully now of an age and stage, which like Trumps campaign "is over"! Looking beyond this historic context I cooked up the "Fish crumble". This involved cooked white fish (I choose Lemon Fish), hard boiled egg, prawns, a crumble mixture to go on top and a béchamel sauce. I was pleasantly surprised that all members of the family enjoyed this.


In relation to Crème St Germain this was more to the adults taste. St. Germain is an area in Paris renown post war as being synonymous with intellectual life centred around bars and cafes. As a family we were fortunate to visit this particular area of the Left Bank. With Jamie doing a visit to an agent in the area, the girls and I took advantage of visiting a café. This became a memorable experience for two main reasons. Firstly it would have to be the most expensive hot chocolate I have ever brought, even Imke at the great age of 8 with advanced fiscal appreciation, was horrified. Second reason was in the enthusiasm of drinking this liquid gold we managed to create a Willy Wonka chocolate waterfall with the chocolate jug tipping over and spilling over the edge of the table pooling onto the carpet below. In a very calm manner we left to clean ourselves up in the refined toilet facilities, then to make payment at the desk. Leaving the café and avoiding eye contact with our waiter I couldn't help but wonder if the man who now occupied our table was aware of how dangerously close his feet were to a rather soggy chocolate patch!
St Germain... not only memorable for its soup...




Caroline age 11 enjoying a St Germain hot chocolate

Imke age 8 not enjoying the bill

"Career Girl" Fish crumble

Saturday 8 October 2016

Series Three: Part Nine: Eggs Jacqueline





This post is dedicated to Jacqueline - my sister. My recent visit with the girls seeing their Aunty Jac and family in Auckland was my excuse for not blogging last weekend. But it was not a weekend without its French culinary experiences. My brother in-law had sussed out a French Market in Parnell to visit. Mouth watering pastries, coffee and the purchase of a French loaf bag set the morning off beautifully. Even the canine's were catered for with decorative doggie treats for purchase.

A night market in an underground Warehouse car-park served us all very well for dinner, so there was no need to cook. However my sister had to prepare stuffed eggs for a 70 year old birthday party. In preparation I had brought up my Cordon Bleu - 40 ways with eggs, thinking surely there would be an appropriate recipe in that lot ... but alas there was not...  google to the rescue.
We both could claim that egg stuffing was not one skill we had much experience with, however Jacqueline whipped them up like she was an old hand  - and to boot they went down a treat at the party.

I only discovered from returning from that visit that there was actually a stuffed egg dish named "Eggs Jacqueline"- Cordon Bleu series 41. It just seemed to be appropriate to make it. I used the last of the duck eggs and made this the entrée course for Saturday nights dinner.
For the main I chose the "Chicken casserole with peaches" (series 43) for two reasons. One is that eldest daughter is the peach queen and secondly my mother had provided a jar of beautifully preserved peacharines for the eating. I accompanied the chicken with a pilaf - long grain rice, butter, turmeric (which is a magnet to any white clothes - including the top I had on!) chicken stock, which is cooked in the oven until the rice is tender.

The highlight had to be the Eggs Jacqueline though. First you line the ovenproof dish with a bed of asparagus. Then you place the  cooked 1/2 egg whites on top, which are filled with an egg yolk, butter and prawn mixture. Additional prawns are scattered on top and then all is coated with a béchamel sauce and a sprinkle of parmesan. After 20 odd minutes in the oven the dish is ready to eat. I must say it was delicious with the asparagus being a winning combination with the eggs. 
 I  need to go back to Auckland and repay my sisters hospitality and cook this tasty dish. What do you reckon sis - Eggs, Jacqueline?







sister's


Eggs Jacqueline



Peacharines


Saturday 24 September 2016

Series Three: Part Eight: Books, duck eggs and a convent





There is a saying in that it is not the destination but the journey of how you get there, which is the most important. This also applies to this weeks Cordon Bleu dish. OK the final dish is pretty simplistic -I am going to be up front now... but more of that later. What made this week's journey invigorating and exciting was because of two unrelated events - a visit to a bookshop and a gift of eggs.

The best second hand bookshop in the country can be found in Kennedy road in Napier - "The Little Bookshop". It is packed full of books with great prices to boot. Eldest daughter and I took the opportunity for a visit to tank up the book supply for the school holidays. I gravitated to the cooking section and "yeeha" I found this bloggers equivalent of a goldmine. There on the shelf was "My life in France" a book by Julia Child that includes a number of linked autobiographical stories, including a chapter dedicated to Le Cordon Bleu. I can't wait to sink my literacy teeth into it. Nestled close by there was "Recipes form the French Kitchen Garden" a steal at $7 and then not one  but two books of "Julie and Julia" the book that became the motion picture of which became an inspiration for many (including moi). Problem - there was the slightly worn copy which had the movie pic of Meryl Streep and Amy Adams and then the "looks like new" copy ... I couldn't decide so I brought both!

The second part of this journey was the gift of 6 duck eggs. I was excited as I had never cooked duck eggs before. I searched through the Cordon Bleu cookery course and found series 28. This provided "40 ways of cooking eggs for all occasions". I was spoilt for choice - there was coddled, deep fat fried, French poached, stuffed hard boiled, cold soft boiled, shirred and soufflé. One problem - I had limited time and with work commitments over the weekend  I resorted to where one goes when under pressure and of need of a higher order - the convent. Convent eggs are baked eggs. Eggs are simply put into a buttered cocette (is that what you call them!), seasoned, with cream spooned over the top. They are cooked in the oven for about 8 minutes. With a little additional salt just before consuming the result was magnificent! Although I am not sure about the Spanish saying that the editor of the Cordon Bleu quotes "an egg without salt is like a kiss without a moustache" - lost in translation perhaps! Now with a little time on my hands ... where is that book...

Caroline in "The Little Bookshop"

THE BEST second hand bookshop


The convent egg


























Sunday 18 September 2016

Series Three: Part Seven : Restful Ravioli









Have you ever done a relaxation session? There comes a part where the instructor informs you to start coming out of your relax mode by starting to wiggle your toes and fingers and a part of you just doesn't want to. It's the equivalent to a near death experience where you have the choice to follow that light at the end of the tunnel or wake up from your coma, but not so extreme! This Saturday afternoon after a 10km run (with challenging hills might I add) and post shower all I wanted to do was sleep. However I had a dinner to cook - ravioli in fact - Cordon Bleu series 30 (not French!). Imke reminded me of the fact 1 1/2 hours into my sleep. My body protested at the thought of moving (I took it as a sign that I should remain where I was). However not all was lost... Imke to the rescue!
I had complete confidence as when it comes to pasta making Imke is a star. This was demonstrated back in 2013 when Imke was part of the Pukehou school team who starred in the Maggi Kitchen Showdown on the Erin Simpson show - this is big when you are at primary school - hey I was excited taking the team down to the Wellington TV studios.

So I take no credit for this week's cordon bleu dish. Imke had it all in hand. She even got to use for the first time the ravioli tray - another purchase at sale. Imke followed the recipe but found the "paste" concept rather strange - this is what toothpaste is but pasta? The paste was sticky and therefore difficult to handle. So when rolling it out it stuck to everything - fingers, board, rolling pin. A little flour was added (against the rules) and this made it slightly manageable.  Imke choose the spinach and curd cheese filling and made those little parcels of delight. My contribution was rounding up a tomato sauce in my post haze "had too much sleep" state. The end result was perfect, and even better I had enough for work on Monday! Thanks Imke :-)





Saturday 3 September 2016

Series Three: Part Six - Le Poirat & Dubble Zout Drop









Of course catering for a Father's Day luncheon this Sunday called for a least one Cordon Bleu dish.
I went for two (I am soooo committed). For the meal I choose:
- Sweetbreads Tante Marie (CB series 49)
- Salmon Croquettes (not CB)
- Le poirat (Pear tart) (CB series 5)


Sweetbreads do require a bit of prep with soaking, simmering and boiling in stock. This recipe called for making croutes as the bed to rest the sweetbreads, mushrooms and sauce. Croutes versus croutons... what is the difference? I consultanted Julia, who informed me that croutes are hard toasted bread whilst the term croutons is applied when the bread is a triangle shape and used to garnish an entrée.
The salmon croquettes was just something I wanted to cook. I had made them years ago and really enjoyed them. They are deep fried (and anything deep fried is normally a winner with my father!).
The only problem was we didn't have a deep fryer. Hmmm... father's day.... "Jamie how would you like a deep fryer for father's day?" I asked strategically the day before. This was totally unfair as I was taking advantage of showering him with treats, this day being his birthday. We were out looking at what he could spend his birthday vouches on, however in the family flurry of getting into the car we left them on the dinning room table by mistake. So our trip to town became the hunt for the best deal for a deep fryer. Just by chance there was a sale at Briscoes (sic) and we managed to purchase one for less than $60. The salmon croquettes crisped up a treat and went down well with a simple green salad.
Le poirat is a speciality of the French province of Normandy, which is famed for its excellent fruit and cream.  I knew at the early stage of the process that this dessert was going to be a winner. The indicator was one daughter having constant study breaks to claim a morsel of the pastry. The pastry is made as for pate sucree (sweet pastry) but what makes this pastry special is the addition of ground cinnamon and walnuts. William pears were called for however not knowing any difference I chose a pear that I thought looked similar from the supermarket shelves. The pears are peeled and quartered and placed in the pastry case with the pointed ends in the centre. Pasty for the top is rolled out with a cut round about 2 1/2 inches in diameter out of the centre... this is to be filled with whipped cream just before serving. It takes about 40 minutes to cook in a moderate oven.
I ticked off my mental check list of foods my father likes to ensure that I had covered all bases:
- some sort of offal (kidney etc) : done
- something fried : done
- dessert not too sweet (done)
However being from Dutch heritage a Father's day meal could not be complete with a gift of Dubble Zout Drop (salty liquorice). This is a highly salted Dutch licorice which only my sister and my Father enjoy in our family. I feel my arteries hardening just at the sight of it. No problems for my father as he joyfully threw in 4 pieces in one go following dessert! I bet I don't find those instructions in any of my Cordon Bleu magazines!




Pop's



Sweetbreads Tante Marie







Saturday 27 August 2016

Series Three: Part Five - Cordon Bleu - Course #11






One of my fond childhood memories involves flicking through my mother's collection of the Cordon Bleu weekly magazines. Glancing over the recipes, my delight was with the photo's. Here I could admire the fashions of the day, the presentation of the food and I always looked out for those few shots which included the cordon bleu instructors hands shaping up some culinary delight .  One of my favourite photo's would have to be the front cover of course #11. The combination of human interest with a young happy woman preparing food dressed in a crisp white shirt wearing a gingham apron may have been the selling point. But the arrangement of fresh vegetables at the front and that blue wall at the back that so nicely matches the apron could have been the tipping point of making this THE most favourite photo.
#11 was themed around the "cold table". My children reacted in disgust at the scenes for pressing a tongue and the description of jellied game read aloud to them truly did traumatise them. The combination of pigeon, rabbit, wings of a hare, and pheasant seemed more fitting for a witches brew! However they did believe that the 3 course dinner party choice for that week sounded more appealing. This included "potage bonne femme" with croutons, sauté of beef with port and mushrooms, creamed potatoes and for dessert, Tangerine mousse.
Highlights of this meal included the beef cooked in the port, which gave it quite a different taste to the likes of a boeuf a la bourguignonne or a herb infused casserole.
The Tangerine mousse became an Orange mousse as I couldn't source a tangerine. The mousse used gelatine ... a product I have not had much experience with. I had brought a new packet of gelatine but I found an old one in the pantry. Reading the package which stated that this product would remain imperishable if stored in an air tight container I took reassurance that despite being over 10 years of age it would be fine... however my confidence dropped when I was mixing the gelatine into the rest of the ingredients. Supposedly the mixture would start to thicken... it wasn't. I had a flashback... the old packet of gelatine had not been in an air tight container and even worse the packet have been open to the air - had it perished? Luckily my husband who had played with gelatine whilst making tellytubbies marshmallow for the girls when they were little, came to my rescue. I proceed to make the gelatine mix again with the freshly purchased product and indeed everything went to plan.


It was a good hearty family meal. Comparing notes at the table we extended the entertainment to attempting to recreate the photo of the plated main. I had even brought over priced gourmet carrots to attempt to match.  And in relation to  recreating my favourite photo scene... I was a long way off, with dirty pots, pans and cooking equipment everywhere and no matching blue wall or gingham apron!




Caroline assisting with potato prep

Potage Bonne Femme - with croutons

Saute of Beef


recreating the scene #1

recreating the scene #2 (by someone who doesn't like mushrooms or sauce)

recreating the scene #3

Tangerine (!) Mousse
 

Sunday 21 August 2016

Series Three: Part Four "A Cordon Bleu meal for all seasons "









Sometimes you are just spoilt by choice... and with 72 Cordon Bleu magazines to look through I had that exact predicament.   What to choose???  To resolve the problem I decided to take the whole 3 course prescribed meal from course number four. This consisted of:
 - Melon Salad with Hot Herb Loaf
- Carbonade of Beef with Creamed Potatoes and Braised Red Cabbage
- Austrian Coffee Cake


I had all the ingredients at the ready. Albeit the honeydew melon... not thinking that this would be a sufficient reason to trip over to a trophical island, I braved a replacement of kiwi fruit. This did turn out to be a refreshing start to the dinner with the combination of tomatoes, cucumber and the kiwi. I did start to peel the tomatoes as instructed but abandoned the idea pretty quickly not thinking my skinning skills would allow hardly any tomatoe left by the end of it.
I prepared the French dressing which is added to the prepared fruit / veges, along with a final sprinkle of mint and parsley.


One of the fantastic additions to the 3-course meal section of the Cordon Bleu magazines is it timetable section. This was a great help and kept me organised (for the start of the day anyway). I peeled the potatoes, made and baked the cake, prepared the herb loaf and sweeten the coffee with sugar and added the rum. For a 8pm dinner I needed to return to the kitchen at 5pm. For a Sunday evening with lunches to make, a week's neglected washing to do 8pm was far too late. However my plans to return earlier were stymied by the enthusiasm of clearing out a front section of our garden. The family was in full flight with chain saws, weed eaters, filling the trailer with rubbish and even fitting in a trip to the local native plant nursery. Of course there was scope creep and we kept on being distracted with another area to clear.. and so the time went flying past. At 4:30pm I was in a right mess and in desperate need for a wash.... so much for my timetable!
Needless to say dinner was on the table a little later than planned. I am not sure if it was because we were all starving hungry after our strenuous afternoon but the 3 course meal went down a treat. Even Caroline ate the Austrian coffee cake (with the rum!). With the combination of the timetable and the decision of what to cook made, I even surprised myself with the smoothness of getting the 3 dishes on the table. This theme of choice was reflected in my short shopping spree in the afternoon when purchasing plants where (with no prompt from me) the nursery owner observed that he found customers seemed more content with a reduced choice... I must say all I could do was agree!




Tui added to the Carbonade of Beef


Adding the browned almonds


Melon / Kiwi salad



Hot herb loaf

Carbonade of Beef



Imke finishing the decoration of the Austrain Coffee Cake






Saturday 13 August 2016

Series Three: Part Three - Brioche




Back to basics with bread and water (fresh) is the theme this week after a local district water supply is under investigation for contamination. The local populace of Havelock North is suffering in high proportions from gastroenteritis and the region is high alert with local council, health agencies and the like running around trying to control this little nasty. Lucky for us living in the country we have our own supply of water. Although that in itself can be a problem, youngest daughter had insisted we had a filter jug to give our rain water catchment another layer of cleansing. So with a family stay at home weekend, clean water and everyone all in good health I decided to try out a traditional Brioche - the king of breads for our Sunday lunch.
According to Wikipedia, Brioche  is considered a Viennoiserie, in that it is made in the same basic way as bread, but has the richer aspect of a pastry because of the extra addition of eggs, butter, liquid (milk, water, cream, and, sometimes, brandy) and occasionally a bit of sugar. Cordon Bleu Cookery Course 51 provides the recipe for brioches, brioche loaf and brioche buns. The loaf and buns are traditionally cooked in fluted tins. In an overzealous shopping spree at a kitchen shop I had purchased a loaf brioche tin and it had been patiently waiting for me in the cupboard for over a year. Almost as bad as Sonny Bill William's lack of commitment to one code of sport, I too was guilty and moved my allegiance from CB to Will Torrent's "Patisserie at home" cookery book. And I suffered the cooking world's equivalent to an Achilles heel rupture!
I had that uneasy "this doesn't feel right" at the start. I followed the instructions of sprinkling the dried yeast into the flour mix (with no attempt to activate first in sugar and warm water). Second alert was when the expectation is that the dough should "feel very wet and messy to start with but this is good" and mine was dry and crumby (this is bad!). Third warning sign was that after leaving the brioche to rise overnight it looked no different in the morning as it did the night before. Nor did it raise when left uncovered for an additional 2 hours (although by this stage my level of expectation of success was as that of the NZ male 7's Olympic team after the game against Japan).
The skewer came out of the brioche with a glue like substance around it after the recommended baking time. After doubling the cooking time and my patience slipping away I retrieved it out of the oven and plopped it in front of the family. I had made a giant scone!
Luckily we like scones, so we carved out the best bits and spread some jam on. The rest went to the sheep! Like the local water supply it may take some investigation of what went wrong... and word to self ... don't take the basics for granted!


Our water tanks

Brioche a la scone

Bread fit for a sheep






Saturday 6 August 2016

Series Three: Part Two: Cordon Bleu - Brazilian Bananas





In an attempt to encapsulate some of the spirit of the Rio Olympics, page 15, course 55 of the Cordon Bleu Cookery Course series provided the recipe for Brazilian bananas. It was rather challenging to recreate any feel of Rio as Hawke's Bay was in the middle of a weather warning with severe rain downfalls, dropping temperatures, snow to 200 metres and intermittent power outages. However being a simple recipe and having all the ingredients, a fire pumping out the heat I bear with!
You just need to slice the bananas thickly into coupe glasses and sprinkle over some rum. Make some coffee cream, cover the bananas and finally scatter a few browned flaked almonds on top. Serve chilled.


I was convinced that I had sufficient food stuffs, that I should be able to make something for the main without having to leave the house. All the answers were in this particular course 55. For some strange reason I had purchased a cabbage. No one in the family has a particular bent for cabbage, apart from the old coleslaw in summer, I wouldn't use cabbage in any recipe I could think of. I must have been influenced by the seasonal cheapness of this vegetable and tossed it into shopping trolley having a belief that I would be creative and not leave to rot only to turn into expensive sheep tucker. Well on page 4 voilà there was Cabbage Lorraine. I enjoyed throwing the whole cabbage into a big pot of boiling water for a few minutes then cutting into quarters and packing into a ovenproof dish. I then poured over the prescribed concoction of onion and stock and baked until the cabbage was tender.
In ready supply in the freezer was our home killed sheep (has featured in a past blog as the run away sheep often seen in the garden). On page 13 there was a recipe for "Lamb Goulash". Keeping with the traditions learnt by Julia the meat is patted dry first before browning. The lamb was cooked within a blend of onion, garlic, paprika, tomato puree, stock, bayleaf and s&p. This was a tasty hearty number with the Cabbage Lorraine and accompanying new potatoes which did a fine job of soaking up the juices.
Being confident that the power would last to enable me to cook the dinner, we did an impromptu dinner date with our neighbours next door. On eating the Brazilian bananas we all could appreciate that in a hot tropical environment bananas cold would be suitable and yes indeed a banana themed dessert would be appropriate for those athelets in Rio. However after just witnessing the rerun of the French gymnast who broke his leg doing the vault I could not help but compare the devastating symmetry between the shape of his swinging leg and with the shape of a banana! He too may feel a need to be doused in rum!






Lamb Goulash


Cabbage Lorraine


Enjoying the company of our Neighbours


Saturday 30 July 2016

Series Three: Part One - Cordon Bleu - where it all started







Reinvigorated and refreshed - this third series of notacooksblog retraces Julia's footsteps from when Julia Child entered and studied at the Paris Cordon Bleu cookery course. As Julia bravely entered the rather intimidating doors to this famous cookery course in 1950 and then brought French cookery to America a parallel process had occurred for England (albeit earlier).


Rosemary Hume studied at the Cordon Bleu school in Paris and did so well that she was personally granted the right to carry on the Cordon Bleu teaching tradition in London, which she proceeded to do in the early 1930's under the name "Au Petit Cordon Bleu". Joined by Muriel Downe post war these two women created a special Cookery Course publication which became available to the populace of New Zealand. Both my mother and Grandma collected these weekly magazines which begun their publication in 1968. I had a few copies from my Grandma and felt that with 18 magazines this could be the start of my focus for my next blog. Ready to start the cordon bleu phase and after  being subjected to 70's fashion I felt the compulsion to enter into second hand shops and look for 70s cookware. I was overwhelmed with excitement and joy when to my utmost delight I found the complete collection - 72 magazines of the Cordon Bleu cookery course (thanks to Habitat to Humanity). I had been given a sign... I only needed one - I hadn't received an overwhelming response of grief when I failed to post on my blog ... and not wanting to revert to Pokémon tactics or a Kardashin sex sells post coital shot I will happily plod on secure in the fact that many people of great talent never face fame nor fortune!


The first issue of the publication focus was on grilling however it was the Chocolate mousse basque and Cigarettes russes biscuits on the first couple of pages that caught my eye. It was a rather rich mousse with 6oz of chocolate in the mix. To accompany this I attempted the sweet biscuits which were to be shaped as cigarettes by rolling each freshly baked oblong around a wooden spoon handle. I reckon that if roll your own was as challenging as shaping these little numbers we would have secured own nation goal of Smokefree by 2025 by now. These were fun to attempt however I totally did not achieve a uniform tight rolled shape - they tasted OK.
There were over 20 recipes too choose from in one magazine. To go beyond the sweet  I picked out the orange butter to accompany the piper fish I had purchased (only because I have never seen it for sale before). I basted the fish which was grilled (this first volume was titled as "grilling") which provided a subtle hint of flavour to the fish.


Being a Smokefree advocate I was rather taken back on reflection of the meal where I realised after a prompt from the family that I had served them a pipe and cigarettes for dinner!
Auahi kore!!!


A good purchase for a great cause




Cordon Blue Cookery Course

Chocolate mousse basque and Cigarrettes russes biscuits

Piper