`L"Auberge Utelloise

Great dinner at the AUBERGE UTELLOISE  in Utelle - Alpes Maritimes - France. 

Excellent Traditional French - Italian food.

After a great dish of Antipasti - Fresh tomatoes with anchovies, Egg plant, Wild mushrooms, artichokes, local smoked ham, mezclun salad...

We had some gnocchi with daube :

The gnocchi (sort of pasta made of potatoes and wheat flour) were home made by the lady of the house who was also waiting on us, the daube was perfect.

And an Italian Salad composed of local greens and tomatoes with some Viande des grisons (Smoked beef meat) and local cheese.

 

All the food was prepared by the Lady of the house - at the time of paying the very reasonable bill, they told us they did not take credit card but we could send them a check later, I went back to the car to bring back a check book. However, we found it very interesting that these people trusted us as they did, it says a lot of their honesty and kindness,

Utelle is a wonderful little town with an amazing church, If you ever visit the Arriere pays Nicois - the mountains North of Nice - please stop there and go eat at the Auberge Utelloise, you won't be disappointed.

Auberge Utelloise - Place de la Republique, 06450 Utelle.  Tel: 04 93 03 17 46 

Cash or Checks

Spaghetti with Pistacchio Sauce

A Recipe inspired by my friend Fred Gaune in Aix en Provence. 



Ingredients:

* 1 lb. spaghetti
* 1 cups of whole, shelled pistachios
*  Some anchovies
* 1  onion
* 3 cloves garlic
* olive oil
*  Some breadcrumbs
* grated parmigiano cheese
* Pastis


Procedure:

1. Boil salted water for your pasta with alittle oil in it.
2. Dice the onion and garlic
3. Heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan
4. Saute your onion until translucent, add your garlic and saute until soft (about 1-2 minutes)
5. Put your sauteed onions and garlic in the food processor with the pistachios, pastis and olive oil to start until it looks like a thin pesto.
6. Add your pasta to the boiling water and cook till al dente
7. Rough chop those extra handful of pistachios
8. Heat up another pan and lightly toast your breadcrumbs – reserve on the side after they are toasted
9. Add your pistachio sauce back to the saute pan and put heat on low-medium. When the sauce is warming, add more anchovies.

9.5 Have a glass of red wine...

10. When your pasta are cooked, drain them and add them pasta with to the warm pistachio sauce. Toss in a laddle or two of the pasta cooking water.
11. Add 4 extra anchovies, black pepper, parmigiano cheese and the toasted breadcrumbs. Stir until well covered with sauce.  
12. Put your pasta in a beautiful dish, sprinkle some chopped pistachios on top. Enjoy your meal in good company...











Cooked at Travis Page's, Auburn, Alabama, on October 3, 2010.

Mango-Green Peppers salad

Good Summer dish, the Sweet Mangoes bring out the flavors of spices. It is up to you to adjust the hotness of the dish. You may add more or less hot peppers. Ginger is never as hot as red peppers. don't hesitate in using it.

The Ingredients

You'll Need

Mangoes

Green Banana Peppers

Poblano Peppers

Red Jalapeno Peppers

Sweet onions

Fresh Mint

Fresh Ginger Root

Fresh Perilla Leaves

Fresh Thai Basil leaves

Olive oil.

Pomegranate Juice.

Orange juice.

Here we go - The Procedure...

Peel the mangoes, dice them in small pieces.

Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds, all of them. Slice the peppers in small slices. DON'T touch your eyes with your hands now, don't go to the bathroom (more about this latter).

Dice the sweet onion.

Shred the herbs leaves.

Mix everything in a big salad bowl.

Add olive oil, pomegranate and orange juice, salt, pepper.

Mix by hand.

WASH your hands with soap, at least twice. If you don't you'll be sorry the next time you wipe your eyes, or go tho the bathroom.

One day I'll tell you the story of my Friend Corse who forgot about that cardinal rule...

Enjoy  - Bon Appetit

July 31st, 2010

Turtle Burger

This recipe was sent to me by a friend, it is an unusual presentation. 

You'll need : 

Ground Deer meat

Ground coriander

Ground Ginger

Ground Cumin

Salt

Pepper

Sweet onion

Olive oil

Bacon

Sausages

The Mighty Baccon Lattice 

Here we go : 

Dice the onion very thinly

In a bowl, mix the ground deer meat with spices, onion, olive oil.

Bred the bacon

Stick the meat upon the bacon

Position the sausage bits

cover the loaf with the bacon

Stick your turtle into a baking dish.

Warm up the oven to 427

Stick the turtle into the oven

Cook until crispy.

Enjoy

With Red Wine...

Nuked Mojito

Classic Mojito Recipe is too complicated - here is one I developed that will give you a great Mojito, quickly, without the headaches.

You will need : 

Rum (White of Brown)

Fresh Limes

Fresh Mint leaves

Sprite or any lemon-lime flavored soda

Here we go : 

In a glass bottle, poor as much rum as you might need. stuff the Mint into the Rum - lots of fresh mint.

Cover the glass bottle with a plastic lid - NO METAL - if you don't have a lid, a small plastic or porcelain plate will do.

Get your bottle in the microwave oven, and nuke on high until the rum starts boiling.

Once it does, stop the Microwave.

Let the Rum and Mint stand for 3 to 5 minutes. The Rum will take all the aroma of the Mint.

It is important to keep the lid on top of the bottle until the mix cools down to room temperature, otherwise the alcohol will evaporate. Which would be a shame.

In a glass, squeeze some fresh lime juice.  Cover with crushed ice.

Add the Minted Rum.

Pour the Sprite.

Decorate with some fresh Mint leaves.

Adjust the amount of Lime, Rum and Sprite to your taste. If you really don't like the sweetness of the Sprite, you can use some seltzer instead.

Enjoy...

Note : you can prepare lots of minted rum this way and store it, you won't even need to mix it the next time...

Almond Cookies of Meme de Lille

These Almond Cookies (Pain d'Amandes) are the best cookies I ever had. My grandmother Marie Noel  would bake them for us, I believe she got the recipe from her own Grandmother Mary Mc Grath, our Irish ancestor.

The real serious secret is to find the right BUTTER. Land'o'Lake stuff won't do the trick, find some organic or farm butter, it is worth it...

Ingredients :

1 lb 5 oz White flour

1 lb Light brown granulated sugar

10 oz unsalted butter

A few tbsp milk (only if the dough is hard to work.).

1tbsp baking soda

Several Almonds with their brow skin slightly broken

Procedure :

Mix all ingredients but the almonds in a big bowl. Work hard to get a very homogeneous dough, then add the almonds

Make sausages approximately 1 ½” in diameter

Put them to cool down and rest in the fridge (not in the freezer)

Let them stand them all night.

The next day preheat the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 Celsius)

Get one sausage out of the fridge and slice it in slices approximately 3/16 to ¼ ” thick.

It is important to leave the sausages in the fridge until right before you are ready to slice them – If you get them too early out, they will soften and become difficult to cleanly slice

At the beginning you must count 7 to 8 minutes of baking time, but then a little less.

The secret is to stay in front of the oven to make sure they do not burn (they burn very easily…)