Tuesday 11 January 2011

Tarragon and shallots

Things I have learnt, shallots and tarragon taste really nice.  I have probably only used shallots before whole in stews and would normally just use an onion, but in delicate dishes the shallot wins hands down.  Tarragon too is a herb I'm not sure I have ever used but its pungent aniseed flavour adds wonders to simple dishes.  Will definitely be adding to my herb garden this year.
Lesson learnt, do not try to bribe husband.  Attempted bribe, if you walk the dog I will make you an omelette for breakfast.  Quickly apparent husband not going to walk the dog, so I thought I'll make him "omelette fine herbs" anyway. Once again I am proud to show off my newly found omelette making skills, lightly beaten with tarragon and parsley added folded in three.  His comments are, "oh unusual do you separate the eggs to make this" followed by "I need ketchup", and not even my homemade, but Heinz.
For dinner I made ratatouille nicoise and scallops in white wine.  He then asks "does she recommend putting these together, fair point but Williams had sold out of mullet.  The ratatouille involved cutting things small, another cookery shortcut I don't usually take.  I even salted the aubergines, does it make a difference???
The ratatouille was 4 onions, 3 aubergines, 3 courgettes, 3 peppers, 4 skinned tomatoes, garlic and basil, simple, yummy.  Looking forward to eating the leftovers with steak tomorrow, I suspect that will be an improvement on the scallops.  The scallops were delicious, cut up(what?), sauteed with shallots and bacon then the pan deglazed with white wine and parsley.  Really good, but both dishes were good enough in their own right to not be eaten together.

1 comment:

  1. the trouble with reading your blog, is that it always makes me hungry!!

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