It's

Cozy Food Friday!

That means it's time to share a recipe from 

another great cozy mystery!

Today I'm featuring a recipe from the cozy mystery 

CHEF MAURICE AND A SPOT OF TRUFFLE

Book 1 in the Chef Maurice Mystery series

by

J. A. Lang

First in a new series of British culinary mysteries! 

“They say one should never trust a thin chef. By this measure, Chef Maurice was very trustworthy indeed.” 

It’s autumn in the Cotswolds, and Chef Maurice is facing a problem of mushrooming proportion. Not only has his wild herb and mushroom supplier, Ollie Meadows, missed his weekly delivery—he’s missing vital signs too, when he turns up dead in the woods near Beakley village. Soon, Chef Maurice is up to his nose in some seriously rotten business—complete with threatening notes, a pignapping, and an extremely well-catered stake-out. Can he solve Ollie’s murder before his home-made investigation brings the killer out for second helpings?

Today's recipe is can't be found in today's book, but is shared from the author herself, J.A. Lang. 

She assures me that it comes from 

Chef Maurice himself. ;-)

CHEF MAURICE'S FRENCH ONION SOUP

Serves 4

Ingredients

6 large onions - around 1.5kg (3 lb)

40g (1.5 oz) unsalted butter

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

1 bay leaf

1 sprig of thyme

1 tbsp flour

150ml (1/4 pint) dry white wine

750ml (1.5 pints) cold water

Salt for seasoning

Serve with:

bread, comté or gruyère cheese (grated)

Equipment note: You may need two saucepans if one is not large enough to hold all the onions at the start. You can transfer them into one pan once their volume reduces down.

Method

1. Halve, peel and cut the onions into thin slices. (Yes, this looks like a huge amount of onion. Don’t worry, it won’t be by the end.)

2. Put a large saucepan over high heat. Melt the butter until it just starts to sizzle.

3. Add the sliced onion and cover with a lid. Leave the onions to steam in their own juices until slightly softened. This should take 5-10 minutes. (Make sure the onions do not burn to bottom of pan.)

4. Remove the lid. Add the sliced garlic, bay leaf and thyme. Add a large pinch of salt.

5. Leaving the lid off, turn down the heat to low-medium and continue to soften down the onions, stirring occasionally. (This is the longest and most crucial stage.) The onions will slowly start to caramelise, eventually reaching a deep reddish-brown. Scrape down the bottom of the pan at intervals to stop them sticking. The whole process will take 1.5-2 hours. (Yes, I'm afraid so. Don't believe the other recipes that say it takes 20-30 minutes!) Don’t stop too early, and try not to be tempted to turn up the heat.

6. Once the onions are a dark brown sticky mess at the bottom of the pan (see picture), increase the heat to high.

7. Stir in the flour, then pour in dry white wine, leaving on high heat for half a minute to allow alcohol to boil off.

8. Add 750ml (1.5 pints) of cold water, and allow the soup to come to a simmer. Turn down the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

9. Taste the soup, and season with salt if needed. (It’s probably needed.)

10. Ladle into bowls, and serve hot with bread and grated comté or gruyère cheese.

Bon appétit!

For those interested (hands up, fellow food geeks!)

 in the difference between comté and gruyère:

Gruyère is a style of hard, pale yellow cheese with a mild nutty flavour, named after town of Gruyères in Switzerland. Comté (or gruyère de Comté) is made in a similar style, in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France. Both taste fabulous with French Onion Soup!

Images supplied by author J. A. Lang

Doesn't that sound wonderful? 

Yum!

MY REVIEW

It’s been some time since I’ve read a book quite like CHEF MAURICE AND A SPOT OF TRUFFLE. This book doesn’t fall in step with today’s cozy mysteries. It’s more in line with traditional British mysteries which makes since because author J. A. Lang is British and she captures the genre perfectly.

This mystery was so intriguing and had an original concept.  It was an enjoyable read that flew by too fast. Ms. Lang has a very fluid writing style that drew me in and made me want to keep reading.

Chef Maurice, owner and head chef of Le Cochon Rouge, is quite a character. Think Hercule Poirot, Columbo, and a robust French chef all rolled into one. There were many times his scenes had me laughing out loud. I can imagine knowing someone like him would be both fascinating, frustrating, and exhausting, but you would still have the utmost respect in him.  

The end of the book, the reveal, brought images of scenes from an Agatha Christie novel. The setting, delivery, and accusation were all done with the same Christie flare.

I enjoyed CHEF MAURICE AND A SPOT OF TRUFFLE immensely and look forward to more adventures with Chef Maurice.

J.A. Lang is a British mystery author. She lives in Oxford, England, with her husband, an excessive number of cookbooks, and a sourdough starter named Bob.

To keep up to date with new releases, please hop over to 

www.jalang.net/ 

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About the Book: For more info and to read a sample chapter of Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle, head over to 

www.jalang.net/book-1-chef-maurice-and-a-spot-of-truffle/

Please keep reading and check out my 

installments of 

Book Beginnings on Fridays

and

The Friday 56

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Book Beginnings and Friday 56

 for this week are also from 

CHEF MAURICE AND A SPOT OF TRUFFLE

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading

My Book Beginnings...

It had not been a good day. Hamilton knew about good days, and this was not one of them. First there'd been that rude early morning awakening, the sky still dark outside, and a bumpy car ride out into the middle of nowhere.  

The Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that's okay.) *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grab you. *Post it.

My Friday 56...

PC Lucy stared down into the gully. She was not in the best of moods. 

First off, and most definitely first off, was the dead body. Not just any dead body, but the dead body of someone she knew.

 

Available now!