Franci

Love the bottarga. Prawncrackers you just remind me I need to get some. Kayb, you confit looks very good C. Sapidus, your picture is so inviting! Tonight we had a simple "red cooked" pork belly with white rice.

Here, calf's heart again. We love the taste and texture. This was the nose to tail marinate but my favourite so far is the anticuchos from Odd bits

Today I went back to tradition. Fresh orecchiette with ragu (mixed of pork jowl, lamb neck and chuck roast)

Thanks! Good to know, I'll definitely try it.

I saved a recipe from Food52, you remind me I want to try it! Looks delicious. Tonight we had some mussels alla marinara and spaghetti with "cauri" Apulian for crabs

Love all these meat dishes. They look fantastic. Once I move I need to get into sous vide. So I can have short ribs like these Today we have been to the market on the italian side, in Ventimiglia. So much better. We were so loaded. I got some borage and made the frisceu, the traditional fritters from Liguria. I used a whole flour and they look a little darker than normal. We had some fried local anchovies and a mix salad with raw artichockes

Tonight we had stuffed veal breast and some grilled endive plus, some rice pilaf and chards

Yesterday I picked up some calf's bone marrow at the butcher and asked to cut lenghtwise. I soaked them almost 18 hours in salted water and changed 2-3 times but still didn't get rid of all the blood. I had a very tiny green cauliflower in the fridge with abundant long leaves which I didn't want to get waisted. So, I discarted only the hard stalks. I saute some of the leftover onion and fennel from yesterday side dish, added morsels of sausage, blanched cauliflower leaves, outer uglier leaves from little gems and swiss chards. Husband declared he was still hungry and we opened a jar of foie gras we had in the fridge. I can never say no to that. It was so so. But I'll sacrifice myself and try to eat in the next few days

Need to check that. I also have the Red Lantern and only made a few recipes so far. Thanks Thanks, Kayb To me arencini/e and risotto al salto have in common the rice and the saffron, although in the east part of sicily the arancini are without saffron. Risotto al salto is made with leftover risotto alla milanese, usually cooked in a lyonnaise pan with butter. When nicely brown on one side, it is flipped on the other side (salto in Italian), can be dusted with parmigiano at the end. It can be stuffed (mushroom, snails). Arancine/i should be made with a rice pilaf, the filling can be different depending from the area, breaded and deep fried. But this is a subject were people will argue and argue about the name, what kind of rice, cooking methods, eggs/no eggs etc. Tonight we had lamb chops with roasted onions, fennel and zucchini. I had a small piece of goat cheese as dessert, hopefully I can start to enjoy it again.

Lovely. Something that also my son would request for Birthday

Franci, are risotta al salto the "pancakes" in your photo? They look delicious. Are they just refried risotto? Yes. I make pancakes rather than a big cake becauce we like to have more crust. Traditionally the starch in risotto and the cheese are more than enough to bind it but my risotto was not properly done (no cheese in there, no butter, no marrow) so I cheated and added egg. Agreed. It reminds me of someone else I meet on the net, not because the food is alike but it is just a general sense of beauty.

I precooked in the pressure cooker for 2 minutes. Battered and pan-fried just to get a nice color and finished it in a moderate oven on a grill.

You're welcome, Ambra. Thanks Threestars I didn't do on purpose to start with but then I thought why not...lately I've been thinking I should keep more often meat as a condiment as at my grandmothers times. I had to google to check what is meant with it. Expanding my vocabulary. Is it a regular flour/egg/breadcrumbs? Tonight we had risotto al salto. I always make more "risotto giallo" for the purpose and minestrone

Ribs, lamb chops... I'm a big meat eater. Both look wonderful to me. Tonight I made cauliflower "steaks" with saute' sweetbreads with a garlic, anchovies, olives, parsley, lemon sauce. I would have preferred a more simple capers beurre noisette but I'm off dairy and the husbands doesn't like capers. I did really liked the cauliflower. Making for sure again.

It was a very nice blog, that I missed, thanks Heidih. Chufi is so charming, so bad that I haven't seen her posting for a while. Dakki, I could never get sick of meat on the grill. Very nice. I think I need to go back to easy dinners. Children need more time with mommy, so I'll see what can I do with a 15 minute prep at most. Tonight we had a pasta dish that I've not made in a while. It's very tasty, a chickpeas ragu with usual soffritto (onion, celery, carrot) plus some jamon fat and jamon cubes, lardons, chickpeas, some tinned tomatoes and bay leaves. Son number one didn't almost touch it but the little one- 11 months- really enjoyed it

I heard about this dish but never tried it, so, the other day, when I was at Carrefour and I saw "pieds et paquets" I could restrain myself I love offals in general but I don't eat tripe. I said to myself, maybe it's the way my mom cooks it that I don't like, I need to give to it another chance. The pieds and paquets cooked in the oven for 6 hours with lardons fume, onion, garlic, tomatoes, carrots, bay leaf, quattre epice and a whole bottle of white wine I'm glad I had a plan B: calf's liver! Maybe if I ordered from my butcher the quality would have been much better. The lambs trotter where actually very tender and delicious but everything got spoiled by the paquets, even the sauce that I was planning to eat with steamed potatoes. My husband declared he likes the Chinese way, no smell, no taste pure textural experience. Oh, well, we cannot like everything. Good that I have sweetbreads soaking

Monaco is really a village and might be boring or not depending on your lifestyle. At this time of my life I would really prefer the convenience of London. Yes, indeed, today we had 17 C. Nice job. I went the Szechanese route with the duck because I don't have a compressor nor a big enough oven. I used dark soy sauce in the final basting before deep frying. But I used a grill to dry the duck (didn't have a neck or enough skin for hanging ) , so I got those anaesthetic marks, then dusted with flour (as for recipe) which evolved in patches of dark color (in the picture looks worse than it was in reality). Taste still was very good. I'll attempt again soon or later or will go to have duck in NY or China anatra fritta di Francesca Spalluto, su Flickr Not sure. If husband stays with his current job maybe back to London. Or in the States, somewhere we feel comfortable (NY, SF or Philly Franci – Thanks! Re secrets: 1) Start with foods that they like, slowly expand their comfort zone, and steer clear of power struggles; 2) If they don’t like something, try to figure out why (texture, a particular ingredient, etc.); 3) Children become much less picky when they are hungry; and 4) When all else fails, add bacon! thanks for the advice. Hopefully they would turn ok. My son for now could dip everything in ketchup (not homemade) or eat carbs. Tonight we had Veal heart with dates and preserved lemons very, very nice and to go along, not pictured,a pilaf of rice and chickpeas.

dcarch, how did you get that beautiful skin on the duck? Last year I made Szechuanese duck three times at least, deep fried, taste was wonderful but I could never achieve a perfect coloration on the skin. C. sapidus, I wish my children will turn out as adventurous eaters as yours. So far I cannot even have them eat zhou, jook, and they are half Chinese. Is there a secret? Here there is a HUGE Filipino population but only a couple Asian (in the British sense) shops which carry some ingredients which "cover" all asian cuisines. Nikkib, yes, I'm on the Riviera, right in Monaco. I'm going to miss some stuff when we leave (my assiette de fruit de mer, foie gras as emergency food in the fridge, my offals, the weather) but this has been the most boring place for me.

Need a plate of these in front of me NOW. I wish I could offer you some. We had for lunch today what I didn't fry yesterday night and they were even better because after the resting they hold up better. Ambra, I can tell you I made these. Then I'm also interested in Prawncrackers version for next time. 1/2 kg of floury potatoes steamed and riced, slightly less of shredded desalted cod (blanched for two minutes in boiling water), chopped coriander and parsley, one egg, a minced shallot and garlic clove gently saute' in oil, some paprika and nutmeg, salt and pepper. Made quenelles and rested in the fridge.

Oh, sometimes I miss that beautiful american beef. Porterhouse...haven't had that in a while. Here I eat more offals. As I said I defrosted some desalted baccala', or better bacalhau, since I went portuguese. Got inspired by Prawncrackers and made pasteis de bacalhau and a salad my good friend from Lisbon used to make often when we both lived in NH The bacalhau was bought at a local portuguese store and was pretty good. .

I'm off dairy so I'm using duck and goose fat, tallow, lard, coconut oil, marrow butter, foie fat and evo but I miss some good butter. My non-negotiable food is homemade stock. I'd rather use water if I don't have it. But usually I always have some in the freezer.

Prawncrackers, beautiful spanish meal! Your photos a gorgeous. I'm left with no camera, so taking very bad pictures with the Ipad. I think I'll suggest a camera as a present to my FIL for next visit After seeing your picture I went to defrost the pieces of desalted baccala' I had in the freezer. I'll see what we can make tomorrow with that. Rarerollingobject, I also like very much your food, hope you'll find time and strenght to post again. SobaAddict70, need to come and check your recipe! Since I had some extra quinces, I decided to make again lamb necks and quinces from Obb bits. It's a delicious recipe! Today I hit my head on the wall, when my mom tossed the leftover sauce

I'd like to organize in a better way everything I might find useful including different techniques for devening or cooking... For now I discovered that a quick terrine can be made with saute' slices of foie. It is better to assemble it while the foie and other ingredients are still warm. Of course, it tastes different then a terrine mi cuit that has been poached. You can clearly taste that the foie has been saute' and I do prefer the foie cooked in the water bath but it was not bad. For this mini terrine I used the tiny bits of foie that came off from slicing the lobe. Some cooked quince in between

Almost embarassed to post after mm84321 dishes but my little one was not very happy around dinner time. We had saute' foie gras with quinces and a reduction of the quinces juice plus sherry, orange juice, ginger, honey and vanilla. Nice but I still love much more mi cuit foie gras. More pata negra because I was still hungry.

That is a thing of beauty! Franci, I have purchased slices of pata negra bellota in the US. Not sure if it is exactly the same as what you get in Europe, but tasted pretty close. Ah, Percyn. I'm sure we are going to buy some, just because we love it so much. But definitely it's not going to be the same. We got it from this guys, it's been already the 3rd year and the prices are going to be very different. P.S.: Never had the opportunity to say it before. I love you egg dishes.