So week 4 of 2021 has been a tricky book, to say the least. The book is La Cuisine De Référence which we bought in the beautiful cookshop at Restaurant La Côte d’Or – Le Relais Bernard Loiseau. We’d had a truly remarkable meal the night before and had met Bernard’s truly inspirational wife, Dominique. The book is a textbook of techniques in the first half of the book and the second half is recipes. Our son picked Macarons aux Chocolat, which were filled with Crème Mousseline. The recipe for both worked well, but given this was our first attempt, our son’s first go at piping, it turned out pretty well. Our daughters choice was the less complex Poulets Rôtis! I thought I would not learn much doing that as I’ve been roasting chickens for years. How wrong I was. The technique was entirely as I usually roast chicken. However, whilst the chicken is resting, this recipe adds a fine mirepoix of onion and carrots to the pan juices with some stock. This introduction of fresh vegetables was a revelation to the flavour of the sauce/gravy at the end. I will be applying this technique to every chicken gravy evermore. Next time things go decidedly to the East.

Update 2022

Just this last weekend we tried a new recipe for roast chicken from Jo Pratt’s Madhouse cookbook – we’ll be writing about that book at some point in the future. Jo’s gravy was brilliant, she added a touch of cornflower to thicken things up and then a little double cream. I have to say the addition of the cream really enhanced the gravy to the kind of gravy I imagine when I think of chicken gravy. I guess that sounds a little silly but hopefully you know what I mean.