In the steps of Rick Stein’s Secret France

I’ve been avidly watching Rick Stein’s new series Secret France (ABC 8.30pm Thursday) as I, indeed, avidly watch most of his TV series.

He’s my kind of guy:  he loves to travel, particularly loves France, he loves to cook and takes great pleasure in eating, especially seafood and he likes his food to be more rustic than haute cuisine. He likes ‘unfussy’ food and so do I.

He’s a chef and restaurateur as well as being a TV personality, his eponymous restaurant is in Padstow, Cornwall in the UK. 

Since opening that restaurant he’s spread his wings to Australia and has a restaurant in the coastal town of Mollymook on the south coast of New South Wales too (I don’t know if he has others).

In Secret France, Stein tours France, trying to keep off the beaten track looking out for the gems – the unexpected, especially when it comes to food. When he finds them, he goes back to the house he’s rented in haute Provence and reproduces them for the camera.

Stein makes the process seem easy – and it is. Written recipes, by their very nature, need to be precise, but most rustic cooking is not (except for baking).

More or less can be added, ingredients substituted without spoiling the recipe – it’s all down to taste. When you realise this, cooking becomes less fraught and more enjoyable. This is what Stein gives to the viewers – permission to enjoy the process.

Being set in France, the series is a joy to watch and I have relived many memories as Stein filmed at locations familiar to me and ones he has pointed me to that I will find – as soon as bloody Covid disappears! Until then, I will live vicariously.

Le Vieux Logis in the quaint village of Tremolat in the Dordogne Valley where Rick Stein made a stop to eat in their stunning restaurant. It brought back distant memories of walking around the garden with a very distressed baby who was overtired from the long car journey we’d just completed over some very snowy terrain (and it was April too!). The gardens had the desired calming affect.

A very thoughtful Christmas present.

A thoughtful son (the previously crying baby from all those years ago) knowing my addiction to the new Stein series, bought me the Secret France’ recipe book as a Christmas present. So, last weekend, I gave a lunch on my balcony, in the delightful Sydney weather we are experiencing at the moment – using recipes from the cookbook.

It was difficult: there are so many delicious recipes from which to choose. So abandoned was the garlic soup, the lobster risotto and the crème brûlée (another time, perhaps) in favour of this menu:

Luncheon Menu

Appetisers

Flamenkuchen (flatbread pizza/tart of cheese and bacon – from Alsace)

Mussels with snail butter (from – Port Vendres) near the border of France and Spain  

Entrée

Salade de lentilles, betterave et chevre (Salad of lentils, beetroot and goats cheese). Likely to be from the Dordogne region given the addition of walnuts.

Main course

Chicken legs stuffed with mushrooms and Comté (a cheese from the Jura Mountains from where the recipe originates.)

Dessert

Cream puffs (not from the recipes of Rick Stein or my kitchen but an offer I couldn’t refuse – I mean, who says “no” when an extraordinary dessert maker offers to bring choux pastry filled with fresh cream spiked with coffee liqueur? Ah…no one.)

Save for the last picture, these are illustrations from the book ‘Secret France, BBC books, London, 2019.
Photography copyright: James Murphy

Comparisons between his and mine

(Not bad, if I do say so myself!)

A man and his cream puffs

Mixing business and pleasure

While the intention of this luncheon was ultimately this article – it didn’t quite go to plan and taking photographs often took a back seat to the revelry and camaraderie, sorry…but I can’t do everything and when you add a few glasses of prosecco, I can’t do much at all.