Tartiflette

Serves 4

This dish can be made ahead of time and just heated when required. As this is a rich dish, it goes well with a simple fresh green salad.


Ingredients:
2kg potatoes
4 small onions – chopped
2 fat cloves of garlic – crushed
½ a Reblouchon cheese (cut half your cheese cut into a small dice & the rest cut into slices)
200g lardons or streaky bacon cut into approx 1cm strips
10cl white wine
30cl crème fraîche
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt & pepper to season

Method:
Peel the potatoes and cook whole for approx 2O mins. Drain & leave to cool. Once cool, cut into approx 2cm chunks (or any size to suit).

Fry the lardons, then remove from the pan leaving the lardon juices. Add the onion & garlic to the pan and fry in the lardon juices until soft.

Mix together the white wine, crème fraîche & Dijon mustard.

Add the lardons, potatoes and wine, crème fraîche & mustard mixture to the pan with the onions & garlic. Season to taste (watch out if you are adding more salt as the lardons will be quite salty). Heat for a couple of minutes to thicken the sauce slightly.

Pour ½ the mixture into an oven proof dish & dot with the diced cheese. Then pour the other half on top & finish by layering the cheese slices over the mixture.
Bake at 200°C for approx 30mins, or until golden on top, bubbling & hot all the way through.

Serve at once with a fresh green salad.

Christmas 2008

The festive season will be upon us sooner than we think. We all look forward to the celebrations, spending time with family and / or friends, the eating, the drinking and so on. But with all this comes a downside – well, for some anyway. There’s the traditional panic of what to serve, the last minute Christmas gift buying, the dash to the supermarket to buy that forgotten item and the groan from the fridge and larder under the weight of all that food – a largish proportion of which won’t get eaten and will end up in the bin. Then there’s all the preparation of the mountain of food, the clearing up, the feeling that Christmas Day has been a bit of a chore because you feel you have to do it all.

Well, how about if you could have all the good bits Then after the big day are the days of turkey in one form or another. We’ve all been there. without the bad? Spend Christmas with us and let us take away all the stresses, so you can just relax and enjoy the season of goodwill. Use it as an excuse to stock up on wine, an extended booze cruise!

Imagine waking up when you are ready, coming down for a celebratory breakfast, the joys of opening presents left by Santa under the tree. Then taking the most difficult decision of the day – do you stay in, in front of an open fire or the log burner, or do you take a walk around our beautiful medieval town. After a light lunch continue to relax. There’s even the Queen’s speech for those that like the tradition. With our 3 reception rooms there’s plenty of space to be with other people or on your own.

Christmas Dinner will start in the early evening after a pre-dinner drink. This being France nothing is rushed. The 7 courses, designed in conjunction with our Consultant Chef Cristeana, will be served over several hours so that you get the chance to enjoy every mouthful and that at the end of the meal you feel replete – not stuffed like the turkey! To complement each course will also be a carefully selected different wine.

Our idea is that you can visit for a couple of days, rather than the 3 or 4 days that some establishments insist on, and that you can add on extra days at our normal rate should you wish to stay longer. The 2 days included in the package can be either Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, or Christmas Day & Boxing Day. Christmas Day is all inclusive, and included in the price on the other day, over above bed and breakfast, will be a full 4 course evening meal including drinks.

Prices:
2 Persons sharing a room for 2 nights 360€
1 Person for 2 nights 260€
For child prices please contact us
Included – All food and drink on Christmas Day
Breakfast and evening meal on other day


Christmas Day Menu 2008

Langoustine Cocotte
~~~
Foie Gras with Fresh Onion Marmalade and Toasted Brioche
Or
Wild Mushroom Tart with Fresh Onion Marmalade
~~~
Filet of Poached Wild Salmon with a Light Lemon Velouté and served with a winter salad
~~~
Champagne Sorbet
~~
Roast Goose with Traditional Trimmings
Ille de Noirmoutier Potatoes Roasted in Goose Fat
Seasonal Vegetables
~~~
Selection of French Cheeses
~~~
Individual Bûche de Noël
~~~
Coffee and Petits Fours

In the unlikely event that we are unable to source some of the ingredients, elements of this menu may be subject to slight change

Wine Tasting

We recently received an unexpected invitation to a private wine tasting, and never being ones to turn down an opportunity to try new wines – with the excuse of adding them to the dinner menu at our Bed & Breakfast – we went along to sample what was on offer.

We were greeted with a firm hand shake, given wine tasting sheets (just how seriously wine tasting is taken) along with a tasting glass and pointed in the direction of the many wine producers and merchants. Faced with a range of wines from all over France, ranging in price to suit all budgets, and a great buffet to help soak up the large samples being offered it was looking like being a great evening! And so it proved to be…………………………… after a lot of tasting we eventually left with a healthy selection of clanking bottles and lighter pockets!

As we are so close to the Loire Valley, with Saumur being less than 60km away, these are some of our most local wines along with those of the lesser known Haut Poitou. There are so many Loire and Saumur wines available that it would be impossible to try them all - so to have a selection, some guidance and the chance to taste means we found some great new wines to add to our in house dining menu.

An unusual and lovely sweet Southern Loire white to be drunk either as an aperitif, as a dessert wine or, as we sampled, with blue cheese and also a gold medal winning fruity dry white Haut Poitou (Sauvignon Blanc) which is great to accompany a starter, fish or spicy food. With these and various others we are now pretty much there with the wine choices for our Christmas Day and New Years Eve menus. Watch this space!

Happy wine drinking……………………………………………….

Wine Harvest

As we drive around the Loire Valley & the Anjou wine producing regions, we see that the vineyards are starting this years’ harvest, and as such the wine fairs have begun - promoting last years’ wines & previous vintages. They offer the chance to buy some wines to lay down & savour once fully matured in a few years time & of course there’s always plenty on offer that is ready to drink now! Prices seem to be reasonable once again, so a trip to France is always a good excuse to stock up on wine.

As we’re now into October, the updated monthly recipe on our website is for a yummy chicken dish, tried out and enjoyed by our bed & breakfast guests who have partaken of an evening meal. So take a look. However, as this means the September recipe is no longer there we have attached it below for those who missed it.

The Packages for Christmas or New Year in France with us are nearly finalized, and we are just sourcing the wines from the fairs to match the food before we publish them. Talking of Christmas, all invitations for the first weekend in December will have to be turned down as this is when the local Christmas market takes place in St Loup. Described by the locals as fantastic it has to be visited this year as we unfortunately missed it last year.


Chick pea, artichoke & sweetcorn fritters with dip

Starter for 6 or light supper/lunch for 4

1 tin (400g) chick peas
1 tin (400g) artichoke hearts
1 tin (300g) sweetcorn
1 small onion
2 eggs
Flour to bind
Salt & pepper

Drain all tins and rinse contents, the remove as much moisture as possible.
Finely chop the onion and add the sweetcorn.
Chop the artichokes (into pieces twice the size of a piece of sweetcorn) and add to onion & sweetcorn mixture.
Puree the chick peas and add to mixture above.
Beat the eggs & add to the mixture. Stir well. Season. Add flour to bind and mix to a wet dough consistency (dropping consistency).
To cook, either deep or shallow fry in teaspoon size balls – or fry in small patty shapes – until golden.

Dip – Mix together 3 tblsp crème fraiche, 1 tbsp tomato ketchup, 1 teasp lime juice & 1 teasp soy sauce, a small finely chopped chilli & ½ teasp Chinese five spice powder. Measures are approx – adjust to individual taste.
Also works well with a sweet chilli dipping sauce, a tomato salsa, blue cheese & cream dip, barbecue sauce . . . . anything goes!

Welcome

After a couple of suggestions that we write an online diary, here we go…………………………..

To start, just a quick summary! We’ve had a good summer. Lots of very nice guests (one of whom has kindly written a fantastic review on TripAdvisor and described us as a ‘boutique bed & breakfast’ with ‘understated chic rooms’ – so we think we must have achieved our aim) of varying ages and nationalities, pretty good weather and a plethora of festivals and seasonal markets. The local Charentaise melons have been as fantastic as last year, as have the delicately flavoured white peaches. Next comes mushroom season, bringing a wide array or mushrooms which, although can be purchased locally, we are going to try and find ourselves on mushroom foraging trips. We’ve bought the book, so hopefully will be able to distinguish between those that are edible and those that range from mildly poisonous all the way through to lethal!

We’ve added a monthly recipe section to our website, the first recipe being of popular demand. So we hope you enjoy!

Summer seems to have come to an end though and Autumn is kicking in, even here, just south of the Loire Valley. Whilst the weather is dry and bright there is a slight chill in the air, so our thoughts are beginning to turn towards Christmas and New Year celebrations.

We think we have chosen our main feast menus, with the help of our lovely consultant Chef – Cristeana - combining traditional French with traditional English cooking and using locally sourced ingredients. Carefully selected French wines will accompany each course, so we should be in for some gastronomic feasts, and plan to have these on our website in the next few weeks. Watch those waistlines! It’s the other details that will also make for an enjoyable and relaxed time over the Christmas and New Year periods. All the traditional Christmas trimmings & maybe even something going off with a bang to bring in the New Year.

Well, that’s probably enough for our first diary entry, but we plan to keep it regularly updated, so watch this space.