Archive for the ‘Isigny Sainte-Mère’ category
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Truffle sounds festive high note
Monday, December 27th, 2010
It doesn’t take much truffle to make a difference to all sorts of foods: charcuterie; garnish; timbales; soufflés. Escoffier even cooked them in Champagne for some of his more select diners. For the 2010 festive season, when Isigny Sainte-Mère launched its Camembert with Truffles, regional paper Ouest-France interviewed director general Daniel Delahaye. He remembers truffles [...]
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Cheese that improves with age…
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
The older a cheese gets, the more water it loses. However, a totally dehydrated cheese would not taste of anything. One of the challenges when maturing longlived cheeses like Mimolette is to ensure that it retains enough water to be edible, since the process is irreversible. The cheese grader’s skill is to be able to [...]
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From Isigny to Birmingham and the world
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
From the Normandy coast to the heart of England is a well-trodden path for Isigny Sainte-Mère’s cheesemakers. This time, though, the occasion was shared with cheesemakers from all around the globe at the World Cheese Awards. Birmingham has been an export destination for Normandy dairy products since the days when steam power first started supplying [...]
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Seasonal crème fraîche off the shelf, too
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
For any English shoppers who can still reach a local Waitrose supermarket despite the snow, the Isigny Sainte-Mère Crème Fraîche with Calvados that featured in the previous post is available from the shelf. It may just be quicker than waiting for a home delivery van in the present snowy weather….
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Cream combination to top Xmas pud
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Christmas comes but once a year, so the saying goes, but the memory of a real English Christmas pudding is enough to last a lifetime. This dark, dense and fruity dessert deserves a better fate than to be drowned under a dribbling custard jug. For the adventurous, it should arrive at table swathed in the [...]
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Music to wake the taste buds!
Monday, November 8th, 2010
So what can festivalgoers look forward to when Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier appears at the London Jazz Festival this Saturday afternoon? The menu starts with a capuccino of woodland mushrooms and Isigny camembert cheese, whizzed up in a blender and foamed through a siphon. Horn of plenty fungi start life on the woodland floor [...]
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Cooking up a storm a the London Jazz Festival
Friday, October 29th, 2010
Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier will be appearing in the London Jazz Festival on November 13 to repeat the set he did with Andy Sheppard at Coutances last year. Accompanied by percussionist Michel Rabbia, and saxophonist Andy Sheppard at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Ivan will be cooking live again in Jazz et Cuisine. TV cameras [...]
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A living tradition has room for progress
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
How persistent is the appeal of a terroir today? In the second edition of Isigny Sainte-Mère’s company history, the author quotes recent surveys which found that 30% of all Europeans think that the provenance of a cheese is an important factor in their choice. Three quarters also responded that they eat traditionally-made food, which are [...]
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Preparation first and foremost
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Finger food need not mean undistinguished or bland, but it does mean presenting food in a form in which it really can be eaten with fingers. Isigny Sainte-Mere chef Ivan Vautier puts a lot of time into his preparation which means that most of the real work is done before service starts: take his recipe [...]
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Versatile Cassis
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Lurking in the back of every French kitchen cupboard will be a bottle of Crème de Cassis, a sweet blackcurrant liqueur with multitudes of uses. In his recipe for venison chops, Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier uses it to add colour on the plate and sweetness in the eating. The full recipe is here: http://www.isigny-ste-mere.com/EN/r_viandes.php?id_type_recette=2&numero=18 [...]
