Is it time to eat?
This week, I start to experiment with a new way of eating. There’s also a recipe for oeufs en meurette (poached eggs in red wine) – trust me, it’s delicious - and a mini market haul.
When we lived in London, our days followed a pattern. Séan and I would have a quick toast and coffee together in the morning before he went to work and I walked the dogs. If I wasn’t going out somewhere, I’d have some sort of fridge forage lunch at home – cheese, pickles, tomatoes, a quick omelette, cold sausages left over from last night’s dinner with lots of mustard. Dinner would be our biggest meal, a couple of courses, a sauce, something I’d read about in a magazine or online I couldn’t wait to try, something I was recipe testing for work, the main event.
Since we moved to France, I follow a similar pattern, slowly working up to the big finish of dinner, but I feel a change coming on. Our village is at its busiest in the morning: people taking walks along the port, stopping for coffee or a breakfast wine in the Marine Bar, Le Relax or the new café, Entremets & Chocolats, running errands, chatting, buying groceries. Summer and winter, mornings have a bustle about them. In summer, it’s so hot everyone tries to get their busy-ness out of the way before the church bells chime at noon and that early-in-the-day habit sticks all year round, even when the temperature dips.
‘…the very idea of eating a damp little sandwich at your desk is seen as a squalid abandonment of the Enlightenment, humanity and joy.’
After the exertions of morning coffee, scrutinising the butcher’s counter and perhaps stopping off to buy a cabbage, most will go home to lunch or out to a restaurant for what remains for many the main meal of the day. This is made possible because many have a civilised hour and a half – sometimes more – for lunch.  We also live in a country where the very idea of eating a damp little sandwich at your desk is seen as a squalid abandonment of the Enlightenment, humanity and joy.
In the evening, dinner might be a bowl of soup, some cheese, perhaps fruit. There might be a yoghurt, because God knows the French love a yoghurt – they eat more of it per person than any other country, at around 20kg each a year. That’s a lot of good bacteria.
I’m starting to think this way of eating is a good idea. A decent lunch chivvies the day along nicely and a light dinner eases sleep. I feel about nine hundred years old just writing this, but those days of sitting down to three courses at nine o’clock feel far behind me. I look to the South and my friends in Spain who cheerfully step out for dinner at eleven with a rising sense of horror and incomprehension. Just the thought of getting out my reading glasses and turning on the torch on my phone to read a menu when really where I’d rather be in bed makes me feel incredibly tired. Sorry Kate Moss, but nothing tastes as good as sleep feels.
This year, I’m going to try this big-lunch-small-dinner life and see how I get on. What do you do? Lunch like a queen, dine like a mouse? Are you just starting to think about what to eat after the credits roll on the nine o’clock news? Has it changed as you’ve got older? I’d love to know.
Coming up this weekend…
I’m going to share with you a recipe for garbure. It’s the opposite of a light, dinnertime soup – it’s a soup that’s a whole meal. Garbure is filled with vegetables and there are as many different recipes as there are regions, almost as there are households, but in this part of France it’s often made with duck confit, and that is how I make it too. Stand by, soup fans.
Oeufs en meurette
This is one of those classic dishes that feels quite sophisticated, but for which I almost always have the ingredients hanging about. It makes a very good light lunch or dinner, or an elegant starter.
I apologise for using two sauté pans here, one for the sauce and another for the mushrooms – I’m very much a one-pan kind of gal – but it just work better this way. The mushrooms need a higher temperature than the onions to drive out the liquid and concentrate their flavour.
Serves 4
80g unsalted butter
150g lardons or bacon, cut into small batons. I used unsmoked for this, but you can use smoked if you prefer, or that’s what you have to hand
1 medium onion, about 180g, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, halved, any green germ removed, minced
500ml red wine
½ tsp sugar
1 bay leaf
350g chestnut mushrooms, stems removed, caps finely sliced
4 eggs, as fresh as you can get
Some finely-chopped chives, to finish
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
To serve
Croutons (see TIP, below), toast or bread for dipping into the yolk
Warm half the butter in a large sauté pan or heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Sauté the lardons or bacon until just beginning to become golden, turn down the heat and add the onion. Sauté gently, stirring from time to time, until softened, but don’t let them take on any colour. Add the garlic and continue to sauté, stirring, for a minute, then pour in the wine, add the sugar and a few grinds of black pepper. Raise the heat and simmer until the wine sauce is thickened and glossy – you want to reduce it by a third to a half, depending on how soupy you like it.
While the sauce is simmering, prepare the mushrooms. Warm the remaining butter in a large sauté pan or frying pan over a medium-high heat along with the bay leaf. Add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt and sauté, stirring from time to time, until they have driven off a lot of their moisture and have just begun to take on the smallest amount of colour.
Tip the mushrooms into the wine sauce with the bay leaf (remember to fish it out before serving) and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Keep warm while you poach the eggs.
Bring a shallow pan of water to a simmer and line a plate with some sheets of kitchen paper. You can add a small splash of vinegar to the water if you want to encourage the egg to hold together, though I don’t – just don’t add salt, which will break down the white. The most important thing in achieving good poached eggs is the freshness of the eggs. Break an egg into a saucer and gently tip it into the water. Repeat with the rest of the eggs, then let them cook just until the white has set. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and let them drain briefly on the kitchen paper.
Spoon the wine sauce into shallow bowls and add an egg to each one. Sprinkle some chives over the top and serve with the croûtons, toast or bread.
How to make croûtons
Tip: This is a great way to use up stale baguettes, of which I have a plentiful supply. I like to slice them quit thinly, on an angle so I get a nice, elegant, elongated shape. Then I brush them with olive oil and season them lightly with salt and pepper. If I’m making lots for a party or something, I bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes at 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 until lightly golden. If I’m making just a few, I do them in my airfryer at 190C for about 5 minutes. They keep really well for a few weeks in an airtight container.
Market haul, 16 January 2024
A small market haul this week, as we are out and about a lot: a slab of Cantal, a piece of semi-blue cheese, a little present from the cheesemonger, 13 eggs, as is traditional, some onions, brussels sprouts, a parsnip and a celeriac, olive oil, tangerines, a leek.
I noticed the 13 eggs a couple of times, is there a story as to why? 🥚
I love this changing pattern thinking - if nothing else, it gets us out of just plodding along with old (however excellent) habits. And yeah, move over Kate Moss