Cockles and Pasta Recipe - Ile De Ré

What a splendid way to start the summer, escape Paris, head for the beach, get a tan and treat yourself to the most divine and rewarding seafood dish! My petit sejour on the Ile de Re was exactly that with fellow blogger and friend Ge.

I share with you here our delicious yet simple recipe for Coques aux Pates (Cockles with Pasta), and pay our thanks to Ge's sister who passed us the recipe.




Cockles with Pasta- For 2 persons

Ingredients;-

• 500g hand picked cockles (if you aren't near a beach you'll have to make do with your fishmonger)
• 2-3 garlic pieces
• 150g of fresh parsely
• lots of olive oil
• sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 250g Spaghetti

Method – as per Ge and I

Cockle preparation (picked from the beach):-

• We picked well over 2Kg of cockles from the beach at low tide which made about 500g of cockles after the de-shelling. Washed off residue sand and soaked them in seasalt and water overnight – repeated this 4 times to get rid of the sand in them.
• Rinsed the cockles once more and placed in a pot of boiling water enough just to cover the cockles. The cockle shells opened up with the heat – once all opened, heat turned off and strained. Ran cold water over them so that they were ready to be de-shelled.
• Picked out the cockle flesh – and discarded any which weren't open.

Sauce:-

• Roughly blended together garlic, parsley with the olive oil and salt & pepper to taste. Texture was bitty and not pasty.

Cooking:-

• Cooked pasta adding sea salt and olive oil into water – timing according to packet Split the pasta into 2 plates.
• Heated a frying pan and splashed a dose of olive oil in it before sliding the de-shelled cockles in.
• Then added in the sauce and stirred for 5 mins until the aromas filled the kitchen
• Added additional fresh pepper to the dish and garnished with sprigs of fresh parsley – like the pros do it.

The dish was soon wiped clean from the plates! We thank Ge's sister for the recipe!

Bon Appétit!

Can't live without the Internet and Paris tourist guide

I'm really feeling the pinch without immediate access to Internet - yes I'm at the library again to post my latest news. God knows when France Telecom or Orange decides to activate the modem we received 3 weeks ago. So I am limited to the small screen of the iphone which has been my saving grace as a window to the world and I really noticed my internet dependency when my Iphone froze. For 2 days I couldn't check my mails.....ah panic....okay I exaggerate I used Xavier's phone. So wasn't it just typical to wait 30 minutes on line to Orange/Apple to speak to some customer service to be told that they couldn't do anything if we weren't in front of our computer and Itunes! Plus we are paying for the call....have a nice day! Thankfully I have now gotten a copy of the Apple Iphone manual in French which I'm not kidding has 164 pages – DIY customer service!

So quoi de neuf (what's new?)...my parents and my sister visited Paris for the first time last week and I had to give them a few warnings at the beginning which consisted of keeping their eyes peeled on the ground to avoid stepping in dog shit, not crossing the road even if there is a green man before checking that the cars aren't going to run them over and of course the tiny lift in my building (it only fits 3 people and is not the smallest I've ever been in). Oh and they understand why there aren't many 'nice' cars in Paris by the way people manage to bump their cars into spaces which are barely the length of their cars. But having said all that they had a great time...we spent 5 hours in the Louvre - yes it's possible to get your money's worth there, we eventually saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle at nightfall, we marveled at Haussmanian buildings (everywhere) and we ate baguette sandwiches! My mum was impressed with Tang Freres and the Asian neighbourhood - we even managed to get pig's blood (boudin) and cow's tripe/inners for our Chinese hot pot.

So we 'nearly' have all the fixtures up in our place, but there are still a few things we need to sort and chuck out to make 'space' (the holy word). It's amazing the amount of things one accumulates over the years - we need to get down to business and be brutal about our belongings or articles which we can depart from.

Okay, back to job research now at the library - shhhhhh!