Rhubarb martinis and gougeres

I'm a big fan of the breakfast martini (gin and marmalade, possibly with some extra Cointreau or Grand Marnier) and last night a couple of friends came over to try a new variation on the theme - breakfast martinis made with rhubarb jam!

Beforehand, I was wondering if the whole project would be scuppered by the difficulty of finding rhubarb jam, so imagine my delight when at Marylebone Farmers' Market last Sunday I came across a stall selling this - perfect for the job.Three tablespoons of jam, three large slugs of Plymouth gin and some ice cubes combined in a shaker was enough to produce two of these:

I was very pleased at how they turned out, and the jam combined well with the gin to give a smoothie-like texture, whereas often the marmalade in a breakfast martini doesn't mix easily and you end up with a top layer of neat gin and a bottom layer of marmalade and orange peel.

Gougeres fresh from the oven

To accompany the martinis, I made some gougeres which went down a treat. I also made an ipod playlist with some old favourites and some new stuff. I'm not sure if the neighbours appreciated the occasional belting-out of a Belinda Carlisle chorus, but given that next door's toddler woke me up at 5 a.m. playing the recorder, the occasional revenge karaoke session seems only fair. This kiki is marvellous!

Beaune 1er cru Les Coucherias, 2008, J Claude Rateau

This was another bottle that G brought back from Paris, and I'm informed that it cost 25 euros in Monoprix. Neither of us had heard of this producer but we do like our white Beaunes so I was looking forward to trying it.

It was a pale gold colour and we decanted it just before drinking. It had been in the fridge all day so was on the cold side and I had trouble getting much on the nose, although I detected a certain florality and G got citrus. On the palate, it brought an immediate big smile to my face and was declared a 10 right away. It was precise, poised and singing - beautiful and perfectly balanced.

If we had looked it up in Coates beforehand, we might have had higher expectations as Rateau merits a star and the domaine is biodynamic. That makes sense. The Aux Coucherias vineyard is slightly higher up the slope from Aux Cras and Teurons so it's in a great location.

Sadly, Rateau doesn't seem to have any UK representation, but if I find myself in a Monoprix any time in the future I'll be looking out for it. Further confirmation that of the informal rule that producers beginning with R tend to be excellent (Roulot, Ramonet, Raveneau...) Lovely.

Mercurey 1er cru Clos des Myglands 2003, Domaine de la Framboisiere

It has been indicated to me that I haven't been writing enough about wine on here. I'm not going to apologise for writing about cheese and other nice things as I'm hardly to blame for the fact that G has failed to set up his companion blog. We came up with the name Odyssey du Chevre the other night which is hard to beat in the pretentiousness stakes, so really now there is no excuse. 

Anyway, back to wine. G brought back this half of Mercurey from his recent trip to Paris. I'm not sure which wine merchant or supermarket it came from but believe it cost around 8 euros or so. It's a premier cru we haven't had before and is a monopole so an especially good find. I'd never heard of Domaine de la Framboisiere but the label design looked familiar and the back label indicated that this is an offshoot of Domaine Faiveley - it's the name they're giving to their Cote Chalonnaise wines. I'm not sure I like the name as it's difficult not to think of raspberries when you see that on the label, and I don't want to have preconceptions like that. 

2003 is a controversial year as it was unusually hot, and many of the wines have a baked character and are big, sweet and jammy. I didn't like the vintage initially, but changed my mind later, or perhaps with age the wines improved. But this Mercurey was not what we were expecting at all. It looked nice, dark and glossy, but on the nose we got black fruits (no sign of raspberries!) and on the palate it was surprisingly restrained and could only be described as austere, with savoury flavours such as cocoa. If it was like this in '03, we wondered what on earth it would be like in a normal year. But it was perfectly enjoyable, rated a high 7, and was given the accolade from my student days: "good with burgers".

This is the fifth Mercurey we've tasted during the Premier Cru Project. We've given three a score of 7 and two a score of 8; I suspect that Mercurey will probably never rank higher than this, although I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.

Trou Calling

While in New York a few years ago I was thrilled to get a chance to watch Tru Calling, a TV show starring Eliza Dushku who had become a firm favourite playing the edgy Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Tru Calling, she played a character called Tru. I'm not making this up. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was terrible and I think I gave up on it after about 5 minutes.

Tru Calling immediately sprang to mind when at Beaune market a couple of years ago I discovered Trou du Cru, which is a mini Epoisses. For a short glorious period you could also find it in Waitrose although only at about five times the price of Beaune market.

G was in Paris last weekend and visited Pascal Beillevaire, a famous cheese shop, where he got these goodies - a Selles sur Cher, a Clacbitou, some Tomme de Chevre and lastly, a gorgeous ripe little Trou. The latter was the best example of its type I've ever had and as G has not yet set up his companion blog (Amateur du Fromage) I felt a photo was in order to commemorate the occasion.

Now that's what I call a cheeseboard!

The good news is that Pascal Beillevaire now has a London outpost, between Knightsbridge and South Kensington, so a pilgrimage will shortly be in order.

While researching this, I came across a blog of interest: Good Food Shops. I enjoyed their piece on the Covered Market in Oxford and it's good to know that many of the shops I used to visit during my student days are still going strong. It also brought the Gazzano's to my attention, an Italian deli on the Farringdon Road which I didn't know about but apparently sells a good range of Italian booze. I hope this doesn't just mean 20 different types of Limoncello. And it has added further ammunition to the case for paying a visit to Maltby Street market which I gather is the "new Borough Market". I gave up on the old Borough Market a few years ago so an equivalent which isn't full of tourists getting in the way - cue Kylie - and people using double-buggies as battering rams would be welcome.

Over the Jubilee weekend, while G was in Paris, I ventured to Middle England to visit my parents, the big stripy cat and the small deaf cat. When I got back on Monday I made some meringues which I took along to a friend's house on Tuesday where we ate Eton Mess while watching highlights of the Jubilee concert and making bitchy comments about how well various people had aged (or not). Here it is before we got stuffing our faces. Everything looks lovely on A's beautiful blue-green plates, especially the macaroons that C brought along, an inspired touch!

The taste of an English summer - meringues, white chocolate chunks, strawberries, macaroons, raspberries and whipped cream. Mmm!