Food, culture and my recipe archive
I have distant memories of being a small child, in a pub garden in Surrey with my parents, when I first discovered the dish that is a plate of tiny little fried fish which you ate whole; whitebait. I became inwardly obsessed with them, always longing to find them on the menu when eating out, waiting for that crunchy little fish that I could souse with vinegar and devour whole. In later life this eating-seafood-whole …
Benjamin Franklin once said “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days”. As well as being very true, it’s also how I feel about posting recipes on this blog. Inspiration for a recipe may come to me at any time, and is often so fleeting that it must be written down immediately, or it may vanish forever. However, if it is retained, then follows the step of developing the idea into a workable, tasty …
To start, I’d like to apologise for the lack of activity on my blog over the last few weeks, I had hoped to avoid such a gaping hole in my posting, but here we are. However, the stark lack of online activity in the world of le petit oeuf is at odds with a frantic and exhausting time offline. A few super-large contracts have rolled in at work, calling for up to 7 day working …
You really can’t go wrong with this recipe. I mean that in two ways as it’s both easy to make, so no scope for going wrong there, and it also holds it’s ground in the fabulous tasting stakes, so no wrongness to be found there either. Originally, I was determined that this receipe was to be made specifically with hot smoked trout, rather than the cold smoked fish that I’ve used. If you’re unsure of …
I can’t help but feel a little bit proud of myself. My Feta, rosemary and hazelnut crunch spread, which I entered into the Guardian Cook supplement’s recipe swap was crowned recipe of the week! As well as being published in the print version of the paper, it was also published online here, at the Guardian Readers’ recipe swap page. “…recipe of the week goes to Lepetitoeuf for their feta, hazelnut and rosemary crunch; it’s sweet, …
Occasionally, I spend some time online reading other food blogs (although I try not to, as it’s an endless task). Quite often, as I work my way through the first few sentences or even paragraphs of a post, I find the introduction is some kind of whimsical, limp wrested observation which has little or no relevance to the subject in hand; food. It reminds me of listening to dreary, insipid sermons at church*, where awful …