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Category: Europe

05
Nov
2022

Petits Pois à la Française- Murder in The Mews

categories: Dining With The Dame, France, Poirot

Greetings crime readers and food lovers! Today we are reading and eating our way through the titular novella in the Murder in the Mews collection. Murder in The Mews begins on Guy Fawkes Night, which is today (if you are reading on the day I posted it)! To go with this most English of nights, we are eating a very French dish of petits pois à la française. Now, I’ll be absolutely honest here. I am not a great lover of peas. But, there is not a lot of food mentioned in Murder in The Mews. Indeed, I was thinking this might be the day I share the recipe for Golf Pie, when, in the very last paragraph, a meal is mentioned containing the aforementioned little peas!

Murder in The Mews- The Plot

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

We open with a street urchin (think Oliver – please sir, can I have some more?) asking Japp and Poirot if they will give him a penny for the guy. Japp sends him off and the two resume their walk. In an act of foreshadowing, Japp muses that it would be a good night for a murder. The fireworks would mask sound of a gun shot. In an even greater act of foreshadowing, they then move on to the topic of Poirot committing a murder. We’ll get to that one in time!

More immediately though, the following morning Poirot learns that woman has been found dead in the very same mews they walked through the previous evening. Poirot wonders why Japp, a high ranking police officer, would be called to a suicide but agrees to meet him at the home of the deceased.

We have

The gun found in Barbara Allen’s hand held in such a way that she could not have possibly shot herself with it
No suicide note
Jane Plenderleith, Mrs Allen’s flatmate behaving suspiciously
Poirot fascinated by a series of seemingly disparate objects – a watch, a writing set, a fireplace and the contents of a locked cupboard and the smell of a room
A shady Major

Poirot and Japp (but mostly Poirot) need to figure out – was it suicide? Or murder?

My favorite part of the story has nothing to do with the plot. It is the moment when Poirot answers the call from Japp with “Allo, Allo“. Now if, only Poirot had been in a certain café in Nouvion during the war, he might have been able to help Rene in solving the mystery of the painting of the Fallen Madonna. I would pay money to see that mash up!

Murder in The Mews- The Covers

Yesssss!!!! After a slew of short stories, we can finally get back to looking at the cover art on books. And Murder In The Mews does not disappoint.

I love the cover with the green mirror image woman looking alarmed. It is so brilliantly menacing! If like me, you are a little bit confused Anubis on one of the covers, I believe it is because he was the God who took care of the dead. Bottom left is a Portuguese edition which translates literally to Murder in the Alley.

The Recipe – Petit Pois À La Française

I used the recipe for Petit Pois À La Française from Manu Feildel’s book Manu’s French Kitchen.

Japp looked at his friend for some moments in silence. Then he rose, clapped him on the shoulder, and burst out laughing.

“Not so bad for an old dog. Upon my word, you take the cake! Come out and have a spot of lunch?”

“With pleasure my friend, but we will not have the cake. Indeed, an omelette aux champignons, blanquette de veau, petits pois à la française, and to follow a baba au rhum.”

– Agatha Christie, Murder in The Mews

Other Food Mentioned in Murder In The Mews

December’s read will be Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. Because who hasn’t wanted to murder an annoying family member at Christmas?

Happy reading!

23
Oct
2022

October 2002 – My Big Fat Greek Feast – 20 Years Ago Today

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Greece, Movies

Greetings from 2002! This month I am cooking from the October 2002 issue of Australian Table. Instead of cherry picking recipes from all over the mag, like I did with September 2002, this time I have cooked three Greek inspired dishes from an article called Acropolis Now. Nice pun Australian Table. At least they didn’t run with “It’s all Greek to Me”. So, what is on the menu?

Broad Beans with Grilled Haloumi Cheese

OMG…these were AMAZING!!!!

I love a broad bean. And you know who doesn’t love haloumi? With all due respect to vegans and the lactose intolerant, people who are dead inside. If you cannot find some sense of joy in the very prospect of grilled cheese? We can’t be friends. And you probably need to sign up for years of therapy.

I totally botched the gorgeous grill marks you are meant to get on the haloumi but I didn’t do too bad a job of recreating the recipe as it appeared in the mag. I wonder though, if this recipe appeared in a magazine today, would we need to have the word “”cheese appended to the haloumi? I think not. Apart from that though, this is a delicious dish that could appear on any table today without it feeling like a recipe that was 20 years old.

Here’s the recipe. And…can I just say…I don’t think I did too bad a job at recreating the look of the magazine picture in my version!

Keftethes and Greek Salad

I love how 2002 has to explain these as being Greek “Rissoles” . Not even meatballs. Rissoles. The word rissole reminds me so much of this scene in the utterly brilliant Australian film The Castle.

These were great! The mint was really nice and it made a very tasty yet simple weeknight dish! I was a bit worried about coating the keftethes with flour before cooking but it kept the meat from drying out and gave it a really nice crust!

The keftethes paired really well with a Classic Greek Salad!

The recipe for the Greek Salad per Australian Table had no lettuce. My local Greek restaurant, The Paradise of Lindos, always includes lettuce in their Greek Salad so I added some to mine without even realising it was not in the recipe. Go your own way on this! None of these dishes are breaking the mould when it comes to flavours or techniques. But they were all flavourful and easy to make. They would be a perfect weeknight dinner!

Here are the recipes:

For those of you with a sweet tooth, the article also contained a recipe for those lovely crescent shaped Greek shortbreads which I am very keen to try making! If you would also like to try, here is a recipe for Kourabiethes.

The Film Event of October 2002

So, you know what else happened in October 2002?

If I told you that the film that Wikipedia reliably informs me was “the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time” was released would you have any idea what I was talking about? Take a guess. Then take another because you were probably wrong. Then, look at the title of this blog post and take another because who knew that?

My Big Fat Greek Wedding was released (in Australia) on 24 October 2002. Starring Nia Vardalos and John Corbett (who was riding high on his role as Aiden in Sex and The City) it was a rom com about the cultural confusion that occurs when a Greek girl falls for an all American boy.

I remember being delighted by this film when it came out. It was so funny and John Corbett was so handsome! My clearest memory though is this one:

I fear that My Big Fat Greek Wedding might not stand up well to the test of time. I was tempted to rewatch it for this but did not want my memories of a film I really enjoyed back in the day to be spoiled. Was has stood up to the test of time are the recipes in the article on Greek cooking. Acropolis Now? I say Acropolis Wow!

I’ll show myself the door on that one!

Have a great week everyone!

25
Apr
2022

Vogueing A Ham and Cheese Croissant

categories: 1980's Food, 1980's recipes, Bread, France, Magazines

Now you might be wondering why on earth am I featuring a recipe for a ham and cheese croissant? Surely that’s not even a recipe? Well, we are cooking from the Vogue Entertaining Guide from Autumn 1986 which means we are making easy food complicated because that’s what posh people wanted back then.

You or I or most normal people would make a ham and cheese croissant by placing ham and cheese inside a croissant and toasting it. If I was feeling a bit fancy I might grate the cheese. I always add a bit of mustard because I love the ham, cheese, and mustard combo. That’s as fancy as I normally get.

But Vogue in 1986 would have us melting the cheese with some cream and pouring it over the top of the croissant. And if that’s what Vogue wanted me to do, that’s exactly what I did! I feel that someone at Vogue HQ back in 1986 thought making a sauce, somewhat akin to the bechamel used in a traditional Croque Monsieur would make this more…French? Sophisticated? Elegant?

Or, none of the above.

It was messy and made the croissant soggy. And no one likes a soggy croissant!

But there was something here I didn’t want to let go of. And I’d bought a multipack of croissants

I also had some of that cheese sauce left.

So why not give it a little twist?

Ham and Cheese Croissant Day 2 – Better In Than Out

The problems with Day One (apart from having to make a cheese sauce) were the sogginess and the mess. I want to be able to eat my ham and cheese croissant without utensils. However, pouring sauce over the top of the croissant made this impossible.

But….instead of over the croissant, what if I put the sauce in the croissant?

This was a lot less messy. I could pick it up and eat it without having to use a knife and fork which was a bonus and it also meant that the outside of the croissant stayed crispy and flaky. But it was a bit messy, the sauce leaked out onto my hands a bit so it was still not ideal.

Ham and Cheese Croissant Day 3 – The Bruléed Croissant

So the issue with making this with cheese sauce instead of plain cheese is the sauce. For day 3 I thought about how to make the sauce less, well, saucy. Which is how I got to the idea of the bruleed croissant. Same as Day 2 but instead of serving the croissant as soon as I added the cheese, I popped it back into the oven and under the grill for a few minutes.

This was the best so far. The croissant was crispy and flaky. The sauce was not too runny and it took on that lovely flavour of grilled cheese.

Day Four – A Break Day Bagel

Day Four I went into the office and bought a bagel for breakfast from my favourite place. I was getting a little bit sick of ham and cheese croissants. However….

It. Was. Terrible.

Possibly the worst bagel I have ever eaten.

I’m not naming and shaming them because pre-covid they were superb. But I also will not be buying a bagel from them for a while. I have sourced a new bagel place not too far from home which I will try out during the week. As well to the traditional salmon and lox, they also have some combos like a chicken katsu, a miso mushroom and a labneh and za’atar bagel. All of which I cannot wait to try!

Day 5 – The Classic Ham and Cheese Croissant

Sometimes you just have to go back to basics and tell Vogue to take a hike.

Swap out the sauce for a slice of cheese and place your croissant under the grill for a few minutes until the cheese melts. I used a slice of Jarlsberg but feel free to to use whatever melting cheese you have.

Oozy cheese, flaky croissant, no cutlery required to eat. Perfection!

Here’s the recipe from Vogue October 1986. Why you might want it is another question entirely!

For slightly more successful dishes from Vogue October 1986 you could check out the following:

Have a wonderful week my friends!

27
Feb
2022

Death in the Clouds: Chicken Chaud-Froid

categories: Chicken, Chicken & Poultry, Dining With The Dame, France, Poirot

Welcome aboard crime readers and food lovers! Today on Dining with the Dame we are reading 1935’s Death in The Clouds. Our menu option includes a rather fancy-sounding French dish called Chicken Chaud-Froid. James Beard describes it as follows:

“Chaid-froid is a thickened sauce of butter, flour, broth and cream which may be mixed with geliatin and is used to cover poultry…use this sauce to dip the bird…Decorate with truffles, tarragon, blanched almonds, mushroom caps, sliced olives or vegetables”

Well, my budget doesn’t run to truffles but I have made you a Chicken Chaud-Froid inspired by Death in The Clouds!

Death in The Clouds – The Plot

The stewards on a plane from London to Calais are shocked to find one of the passengers, Madame Giselle, dead in her seat. Some marks on her neck indicate that she may have had a reaction to a wasp sting. A dead wasp is also found on the plane. However. Hercule Poirot who is also a passenger on the plane discovers an African blow dart on the floor and deduces that Madame Giselle, a moneylender to the rich and famous, has been murdered. But who on the plane wanted her dead?

We have:

Lady Horbury, formerly an actress, who is addicted to both gambling and cocaine
Venetia Kerr, a member of the aristocracy and childhood friend of Lord Horbury
Jane Grey, a hairdresser’s assistant coming home from a holiday funded by a large win on a horse
Norman Gale, dentist and admirer of Jane Grey
Armand Dupont and his son Jean, French archaeologists
Doctor Bryant of Harley Street
James Ryder, a businessman who has failed to make a deal that could keep his company afloat
Mystery writer Daniel Clancy

Eleven passengers in the cabin including Poirot plus two stewards (no spoilers here but none of them did it). The twelfth passenger was murdered by a blowdart. And no one saw a thing.

This is a classic closed circle mystery. We know one of the passengers did Madame Giselle in. But who? Poirot figures out who by page 70 in my edition. He just doesn’t understand why! I also figured out who on my first read BUT it was more about me disliking the character and WANTING them to the murderer rather than any true detecting. However, I read this book again last week to refresh my memory of it and the clues are there in plain sight so a careful reading could get you there!

Death in The Clouds – The Covers

I would like to call out the pulpy looking cover on the bottom row second from the right. Madame Giselle’s ugliness is mentioned several times in Death in The Clouds. If that lovely blonde lady is someone’s idea of hideously ugly (Christie’s words, not mine) then that person’s standards are ridiculously high!!!

The Recipe – Chicken Chaud Froid

I’ll be very honest here. The chicken Chaud froid was not to my taste at all. I ended up scraping all the cold jellied velouté off the chicken and making a sandwich with the chicken breast. If cold creamy gelatine chicken is your thing…go for it! For the rest of us….let’s all have a little giggle at my ridiculous attempts to make a wasp out of olives and tomatoes and a plane out of carrot and olives and forget this recipe ever exists.

The recipe I used which is from the 60th Anniversary edition of the James Beard Fireside Cookbook doesn’t actually tell you how to cook the chicken. So, let’s start you off with a basic recipe for poached chicken. And take it from there.

Here’s Jame’s Beard’s take:

And here is his veloute recipe:

From Mr Clancy’s house they took a taxi to The Monseigneur, where they found Norman Gale waiting for them. Poirot ordered some consommé and a chaud-froid of chicken.

-Agatha Christie – Death in the Clouds

The Monseigneur was actually a restaurant in Jermyn Street London in the 1930’s. Here is a picture of the interior.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Death In The Clouds

Cold Tongue
Soda Water and Thin Captain Biscuits
Coffee (several mentions)
Cheese and Biscuits
The meal served on the plane included soup, meat and vegetables, salad, dessert, tea and coffee. (All on a journey from Calais to London which is all of 151 km. These days on a trip from Melbourne to Sydney which is 713 km you’d be lucky to get a pack of peanuts!)
Soup
Tea
A “frenchified” meal at Poirot’s apartment. I would LOVE to know what this was!
Irish Stew
Omelette aux champignons
Sole a la Normand
Port Salut Cheese
Kidneys at breakfast
Orange Juice
Tea and Muffins
Bananas and Beer
Consommé
Sausages and Mash
Sherry / Aperitifs

There is a lot more to say about Death in The Clouds but they would be out of place in a regular Dining With The Dame post like this. This is why next week, we are going to have a Death in The Clouds recap. With a cocktail of course.

Our March Read will be The ABC Mystery which is another Poirot mystery but a lot darker than Death in The Clouds.

Happy reading and eating!

19
Jan
2022

Last of the Cheese Platter Quiche

categories: 365 Good Reasons To Sit Down and Eat, Book Club, Cheese, France

Hello friends, this weeks recipe takes the leftovers at the end of a cheese platter – the scraps of cheese, leftover nuts, maybe a bit of Proscuitto and turns them all into a delicious quiche. In theory that is. I, for one, think that leftover cheese belongs to the realms of unicorns and heffalumps. I personally have never known such a phenomenon. However, tomorrow, January 20, the world is celebrating Cheese Lover’s Day so there should be cheese platters aplenty. If ever there was a time to see that elusive creature, the leftover piece of cheese it will be then!

The quiche is very simple so you could jazz it up by adding some of the herbs or vegetables you may have languishing in your fridge! I used some parsley and some spring onions in my cheese as well as 4 types of cheese, some walnuts and some bacon.

Last year (for a few months), I implemented my Fridge, Freezer Pantry week which is my attempt to reduce kitchen waste. The last week of each month, we will not visit the supermarket but will eat only what is currently in our fridge, freezer and pantry. The practice kind of fell by the wayside during the year but I have brought it back for 2022 and recipes like this will help to ensure that I keep it going!

Last of The Cheese Platter Quiche – The Recipe

The recipe comes from 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down and Eat, the same book that brought us Detox Soup earlier this month.

The strange thing about this quiche was the walnuts. It was not that they tasted bad, they were a lovely addition. However, I think I am so used to having the contents of a quiche be fairly soft that finding a chunk of something hard in my quiche was disconcerting for me. Next time I shall cut my walnuts into smaller pieces so it is not as startling! It would be super if instead of buying pastry you made your own and added the chopped walnuts into that!

Just to be a little extra cheesy, here’s a very cute cheese pun.

Have a great Cheese Lover’s Day!