It is Mother’s Day – fete de les meres – in France tomorrow so Shri took us out for dinner today to a restaurant in Golfe Juan, overlooking the old port and all the boats docked there.
Thank you, Shri, Indira, Noor, for a very nice evening 🙂 The walk back along the port from the restaurant to the car park was wonderful; it was a full moon night and the sea looked really pretty.
The chef at the restaurant was good enough to give me a fairly detailed recipe for the delicious pasta that Noor had.
We all really liked the sauce and it isn’t one I had tasted before. So I decided to go up to the chef -a very young guy- and ask for the recipe.
Here’s what he told me as he took a short pause from putting the finishing touches on a pizza he was about to put in to the oven; I’ll refine the quantities when I make this sauce myself.
He said “make the usual kind of tomato sauce – some onions softened in olive oil with a bit of laurier, then add some meat (it was little cubes/chunks of ham in the version we had today), cook everything for a little while, then add just a little bit of white wine(he moved his hand in this quick motion which made me imagine him pouring out a tablespoon or 2 from a bottle), let it evaporate, then add tomatoes, and let it all cook for some time (he said an hour but I guess that would depend on the quantity of tomatoes). Finally add a little cream and simmer the sauce for a couple of minutes”.
This should taste good with chicken as well, or diced aubergine for a vegetarian version.
The other interesting thing that happened was that Indira- I think inspired by the neat arrangement of rice, vegetables and salmon on my plate – told us that one of things she might also want to do in university – apart from studying dance (we talked recently about the concept of university and how being a professional of any sort typically requires some years of study in university) – is to learn to be a chef.
I asked if we could eat free at her restaurant once she is a Cordon Bleu chef so she said yes, but only the first time – after that I believe we’ll have to pay on subsequent visits (though she mentioned a generously discounted sum) !
She seems to be taking our Finance 101-type talks seriously.
An Indian Kitchen in France 