The other day I had a moment of inspiration when studying a restaurant menu (one of my favourite kinds of reads btw), the thing is called velouté Dubarry and is made of cauliflower. Do you know who Madame Dubarry was? I wonder what she’d say if she knew that someone named a cauliflower dish after her. Madame Dubarry, in fact, was the favourite of Louis XV (the one who lost his head to her, not the guillotine), and a walking scandal. Her mother a seamstress, her father quite unknown, and besides having been the probably prettiest maitresse of all times at French court, she surely was the cheekiest of them all. A dish with such a fabulous name needs to be taken on my cooking repertoire, I said to myself.
So the velouté Dubarry, and I like eggs a lot and Easter is approaching, so I thought I’d throw in some eggs too and baptise the thing Madame Dubarry en Cocotte, which translates to Mrs Dubarry in the pot, and let me tell you, she’s incredibly tasty. The secret is, as usual in French cuisine, liberal amounts of butter and creme fraiche.
On another note, we’ve had a very uneventful fortnight, with lots of housekeeping and building stuff and some alfresco lunches and some alfresco aperos, a little bit of brocant’eing, a little bit of daydreaming, and cooking in between all this. I love these quiet days, especially now with the season opening approaching, as things will get bonkers busy come May!
I’ve had a steady stream of bookings so far with two retreats now fully booked. BUT the Mini Retreat on Saturday 28 June 2025 has become available again due to rescheduling a private event, hence for now it’s still possible to take this one private with a group of friends and family. Spots are limited to six participants if willing to share the three rooms. Minimum group size is three.
Then I have one last spot left in the Mini Retreat on Saturday 23 August 2025, and that’s it for the one day retreats.
I also have availability later this year in both the Starry Nights and Glowing Cheeks (Thursday 14 August to Sunday 17 August 2025) and the Baron’s Pantry (Thursday 2 October to Sunday 5 October 2025).
B&B bookings in June and July are pretty much full now with one weekend availability for 14/15 June and another one on 12/13 July. August and September are looking good with still lots of opportunities for you to book.
Looking forward to hearing from you, here’s the Dubarry en Cocotte:
What you’ll need
- A nice sized fresh cauliflower
- A medium sized onion, chopped
- A dash of cold pressed sunflower seed oil
- Ground white pepper and nutmeg
- Half a litre homemade chicken stock (I’ll write a separate piece on this someday but basically its just a very good chicken with everything including head and feet, herbs, salt and a looong way of cooking. Oh and wine of course.)
- 120g crème fraiche
- Sea salt
- Fresh farm butter
- One egg per person
How you cook it
One cauliflower yields a cartload of cauliflower soup, so either cook this for a large group of friends and family, or be prepared to freeze some of it for later.
Pair the cauliflower by breaking off the little tree like stems and keep the prettiest ones separate to decorate the ramekins with. Peel the thick big stem and chop into little pieces. Glaze the onion for a couple of minutes in the oil at low to medium temperature, be careful not to brown it. Then add the cauliflowers and sauté for seven minutes, season with pepper and nutmeg. Deglaze with the chicken stock. Add the cauliflowers you’ve kept separate, you may put them in a tea bag to later fish them out more conveniently. Cook for a quarter of an hour until soft, add a couple of minutes cooking time if they’re still too al dente. Take out the cauliflowers for decoration and set aside. Blend the soup with a hand blender and add the creme fraiche. Season with sea salt as required.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Prepare the ramekins by placing a little spoon of butter in each one. Add a ladle of cauliflower soup and crack an egg per ramekin into it. Bake for five to ten minutes, depending on how cooked you like the eggs.
Decorate with one cooked cauliflower per ramekin and serve with some fresh homemade bread.
How you eat it
Probably in a 18th century fancy dress, though I get that this would not in any case be possible, so you may just as well take up some attitude and pretend you’re eating with a golden spoon. Also a glass of bubbly white will go along quite well, real one or cremant doesn’t matter in this particular case, as with Madame Dubarry – who cares where you’re from, all that counts is that you’ve got that certain fizz.
Les Poissonchats 