Serves 4 450g/1lb French beans 15ml/1 tbsp olive oil 25g/1 0z butter ½ garlic clove, crushed 50g/2oz fresh white breadcrumbs 15ml/1 tbsp chopped parsley 1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped For the dressing 30ml/2 tbsp olive oil 30ml/2 tbsp sunflower oil 10ml/2tsp white wine vinegar ½ garlic clove, crushed 1.5ml/1/4 tsp Dijon mustard pinch of salt pinch of sugar 1. Cook the French beans in boiling salted water for 5-6 minutes, until tender. Drain, refresh under cold running water and place in a serving bowl. We boiled the egg in the same saucepan to reduce washing up. 2. To make the dressing, mix all the ingredients thoroughly together. Pour...
The Holy Quail
A chef and his fiancee go in search of the perfect meal.
Latest Food Blogs from The Holy Quail
The Holy Quail does Dinner Parties
It?s been 7 hours and 56 days since we put the van away and I am genuinely beginning to feel a flicker of longing for a campsite and communal showers. Particularly for the last leg of our trip through Slovenia and Austria, which is strange because it was raining- so I think it must be a longing for some cavemen style feasting. Since being home I?ve had a ligament in my knee reconstructed and Si has been honing his fine dining cooking. We?ve also...
Healthy and budget friendly: Chickpea and Chilli Soup
When I was making this soup, I thought it was lacking in a bit of flavour so I simmered it for 20 minutes, served it up and was bowled over by how just fragrant and flavoursome it had become after a bit of time spent allowing it to simmer so the flavours had a chance to develop. I based it on a recipe by Delia Smith but adjusted the garlic measurement as it didn?t feel right to use 6 cloves of garlic and added chicken stock to add a bit more...
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We want to know how you feel about cooking, recipes and cookbooks- in the hope that we will one day be able to create our own ‘perfect’ cookbook to answer all your culinary needs. Eternal gratefulness will be bestowed upon you if you wouldn’t mind taking a few moments to answer 10 cooking related questions so that we may be better prepared in achieving that…. Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the...
Europe in Pictures
5 days, 7 countries,15 meals. From Croatia to Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Holland, France and home to England…
Is the ?perfect? meal, the ?perfect? cook?
I’ve been home for a week now and we’ve just packed a bag to head back out to Croatia to get the van. It would be fair to say that spending a month on a boat with no internet, no access to land and an extremely limited choice of dining experiences when anchoring next to a deserted island made it quite difficult to keep on track as far as our food mission was concerned. The only way we ate well was to make it ourselves- with...
The ?underbelly? of Croatia
All it took was one storm for everything to change. The winds were Northern and sweeped through at 45 knots. It was the largest storm I?d ever been in on a boat and we?d gone from swimming costumes to professional storm gear in the time it took to finish dinner. The next day the water was so clear you could count the stones on the bottom. But it was also so cold it left you breathless and the screams of unprepared swimmers jumping off boats that...
The Island of Vis, Croatia
Once a former military base that denied access to the public up until 1989, Vis has unwittingly been protected from the hunger of tourism and inhabitants. But it is unlikely to last long. Vis is cited as the top three destinations in the Lonely Planet ?Vis has the allure of the forbidden?, and locals recommend it as the place to see. We dingied up to the town quay and left the Meri Balletti at anchor. There was little about the town quay that...
The Island of Hvar, Croatia
Hvar is one of those that you imagine WAGS to frequent. It is coined as the ‘new St Tropez’ and it feels unlike any other place we’ve visited in Croatia. Deliberate, glorified and gleaming. As soon as we stepped ashore I felt suddenly self conscious of my mismatched clothes, salt washed hair and make up free face- the duck tape round a broken arm of my sunglasses didn?t help much either. A bit like Coldplay, it is one of those...
Simon?s slow cooked lamb
1 lamb shoulder or leg of lamb 5 heaped teaspoons of Moroccan spices 2 Spanish onions 3 tablespoons of Harissa paste 2 tablespoons of honey 6 cloves of garlic 5 chopped deseeded tomatoes 1 cup of veal stock (or lamb) Seasoning -Slash the fat of the lamb all over in a crisscrossed pattern that is ½ an inch thick to allow the fat and meat to absorb the flavours. -Rub the spices and the Harrissa paste into the lamb. -Thickly slice the onions and...
John?s French Bean Salad
Serves 4 450g/1lb French beans 15ml/1 tbsp olive oil 25g/1 0z butter ½ garlic clove, crushed 50g/2oz fresh white breadcrumbs 15ml/1 tbsp chopped parsley 1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped For the dressing 30ml/2 tbsp olive oil 30ml/2 tbsp sunflower oil 10ml/2tsp white wine vinegar ½ garlic clove, crushed 1.5ml/1/4 tsp Dijon mustard pinch of salt pinch of sugar 1. Cook the French beans in boiling salted water for 5-6 minutes, until tender....
