So anyway… the reason I bought that “French Kitchen” book mentioned in the previous Dinnerlog is down to a long-standing tradition here (“here” in the offline sense, I mean). Way back when we were either impoverished students or impoverished just-graduates, I was wondering what we should do for Nicola’s birthday. Going out to a restaurant was out of the question, unless we went to one of our usual cheapo student haunts, which wouldn’t be very special. “No problem”, I said, “I’ll cook you a meal”.
My initial intention was just to make something *nice*, but I was surprised at the range of international cookery books on offer at (pre-fire) Norwich library. Concentrating on one country, I figured, would be fun, so I grabbed a particularly promising book on Mexican cuisine and headed, pen and notebook in hand, for some of the Fine City’s most obscure delicatessens. To cut a long story short, we feasted like Tory peers that evening and learned a lot about Mexican (not Tex-Mex) food in the process. Oh, and started a bi-annual tradition that still continues to this day, part of the fun lying in the birthday celebrant’s task of trying to guess where the food/drink is from.
This year wasn’t the first time we’d done France; we sampled the hearty northern flavours a few years ago. However, browsing the aforementioned book, I noticed quite a few recipes from the rural southern heartland around the Auvergne region and decided to explore that area. Here’s one…
Soupe aux Cerises (Cherry Soup? Not exactly!)
First of all, put 500g of pitted black cherries in a pan with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of kirsch. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 mins. That done, slice a baguette thickly (this amount of cherries should do about 8 slices) and fry in butter until golden. Dust the bread with sugar and ground cinnamon and put at the bottom of a serving dish. Remove the cherries from their juice and pile over the bread. Now, blend half a tablespoon of flour with a little water and whisk this into the cherry juice. Bring this gently to the boil and thicken slightly before pouring it over the cherries and bread. Eat like you’ve never eaten before.