Weekend Breakfast-at-Camont. Asparagus & HAM
It begins here, with two good ingredients.
Ham- Eric Ospital’s Ibaiona brand from the Basque Country.
Asparagus- local, just picked and carried to the market so fresh it snaps.
This week, my Kitchen Godmother, Vétou Pompele, came by for weekend breakfast (a decidedly not French event) and asked me what I would make for her.
I grabbed a copy of my first cookbook that chronicled my early days sailing on the Julia Hoyt and said,
“Your Asparagus and Ham dish, of course”.
She had forgotten about what was long one of my favorite dishes. It’s easy. When you cook everyday, EVERY DAY, that’s a lot of recipes under the bridge. We have both forgotten half of the wonderful dishes we cooked together over years of sailing the canals and rivers of France on the Julia Hoyt. This was always one of my Spring favorites, because unlike my life BF (Before France), asparagus is a once a year event, a few scant weeks of spear-ful delight. Read More
My Keeping Kitchen! A is for Asparagus
I’ve always loved the term “a keeping kitchen.”
Keeping Kitchen…
- a place for making food to keep for the winter.
- an edible way of keeping traditions alive.
- a gathering then sharing of abundant harvest.
Over the years, I’ve referred to my French pantry, the way of keeping it stocked, and the very kitchen at Camont as the “Keeping Kitchen”. Within these stone walls at Camont, I have been keeping the traditions of Gascon cooking alive as well as adding to it with my own fresh take on authentic recipes- folding in a new good idea here, leaving out an old bad habit there but always keeping true to the spirit if not the actual letter of the laws of the kitchen.
Good friend and co-conspirator in Italy, Judy Witts- the DivinaCucina diva and I hatched the idea of another combined blog effort like the Going Whole Hog blog project we did a couple years ago. We wanted more than a way to keep tabs on each other’s gardens, kitchens, and lives in Tuscany and Gascony. We want to share our euro-view of what surrounds us as not-quite natives/not-quite-expats. Trends come strong and fast up the internet pipeline but from here they can actually be old world news. We decided to share our everyday cooking habits for stocking the Euro-Larder otherwise known here as the Keeping Kitchen.
it’s all about the buzzzzz: NEW working grrls-at-Camont
Oh Honey!
Beekeeping-at-Camont, Round 2.
A couple summers ago I trapped? caught? coaxed? a wild swarm to move into my waiting hive- la ruche. I savored the summer apiarist antics while discovering the sweet taste of Camont, letting the garden wild up, and learning from my favorite beekeeper- Narcisse Ferronato.
The winter was hard, the swarm was fickle, bee mites attacked and the bees were all gone by the spring. Like many new things I’ve attempted- making charcuterie, growing a garden, and driving an 85 foot barge- you don’t always get it right the first time around. Part of the ‘getting it right’ (or just getting it done) & part of growing up (and older) that I’ve practiced at Camont is learning that once is for dilettantes. Pros work, create, and practice all the time. (Sorry, but cooking once a weekend doesn’t make you a chef!) So at the end of last year, I took my sorry/sad/empty ruche to Narcisse’s small bee farm underneath the Chateau Madaillan and left it with him to over winter for some loving care. Today I picked it up- 3/4 full of fat honey and healthy bees and ready to welcome them back to Camont’s bounty. I am ready to begin again and really learn to keep bees. So what’s bloomin’ at Camont?
Charcutepalooza Love or Like Meat Loves Salt- a primer.
Whispers of salty advice are twittering down the internet lines. Hints of red gold are wrapped in cheesecloth and hanging from basement stairs, under eaves and nestled among the Chablis. Nervous declarations of love, success, or failure ring through the comment boxes.
Here in Gascony, friends and neighbors make charcuterie like they plan their daily meals- seriously and with great centuries of experience. So I decided to answer @Mrs.Wheelbarrow and @theyummymummy ‘s challenge to play together and help make “A Year of Meat’ with a dozen charcuterie challenges named Charcutepalooza. Their Ruhls are here.
Since the first challenge was already underway and I had a pair of Magrets (duck breasts from a Mullard foie gras duck) hanging in my stone larder from our last AB&C Meat School program, I thought I’d take up the old world perspective and pass on some tips from the pros, my neighbors who raise foie gras ducks and how they salt and cure their own product.
These are the Gascon ABC’s for making Magret Séché straight from the duck’s beak!
A. MEAT. Duck. Use a duck breast that comes from a mature foie gras duck- that is a large breed duck (Muscovy or Mullard hybrid) of 16 weeks age average that has been raised for it’s fatted liver. The breast meat is dark red with a thick layer of fat. The meat is rich and fully developed as any meat use for curing would be. Think beef not veal. There needs to be structure to the meat cells for it to cure properly.
B. SALT. Appropriately. One tablespoon of good sea salt well-rubbed into the meat side of the duck breast is enough. Placed skin side down, the fat acts a cradle to retain any meat juices that then get reabsorbed. After 12 hours- yup, just over night, wipe off any excess salt. There should be almost nothing left.
C. DRY. Age. In other words, let time make magic. At Camont, I have a stone larder sandwiched between the kitchen and the barn. It once served as the piggery for the farm and is now the laundry room/pantry. We still call it the Piggery. It’s airy, cool and humid and fluctuates temperature just like the étuve on the Chapolard’s farm- warm days, cool nights. Just like the rest of Camont. It’s perfect to let meat hang free in the air, no cheesecloth needed, and out of the cat’s reach. I have never seen anyone here wrap their saucisse or hams in anything but black pepper. 10 days to 2 weeks is enough.
These are the basics of dried duck breasts… as we do them in Gascony, the kingdom of foie gras ducks. Stayed tuned for my own Duck Breast Bacon sandwich- a DLT, coming soon for the Charcutepalooza challenge. and don’t forget to follow along on Twitter with the #charcutepalooza hashtag.
Day two… this Gascony, this terroir.
Driving to the Chateau St. Loup en Albret this morning was like flying between cloud and earth- rows of golden vines turning in sunshine alternated with blankets of fog concealing house and farm. Montagnac’s church spire floated above the mist.
First stop after gathering Melissa, Robert, Tag, Porter and Nick was the morning market at Lavardac- a good beginner’s guide to local good food.
What we bought and then cooked and ate this day:
- pâté de grand-mere- a black pepper-studded liver pâté from Patricia
- 2 magrets de Canard. 1 1/2 pintade
- pâté de langue- pork tongues en gelée
- 3 cheese from Bruno-a Pyrennes sheep cheese, a creamy goat cheese from the Perigord, a slice of perfectly ripe Brie de Meaux
- from the Chapolard’s charcuterie stall- saucisse de toulouse, boudin noir, an aire-cured noix de jambon, saucisse sèche
- black radishes, mustard greens, radicchio, spinach and sunchokes form Francoise’s organic garden
- mushrooms- cèpe and girolles from Paul
- bread
- wine, armagnac and little shot glasses with a pruneaux drowning in Armagnac in each one
We ate lunch, a picnic near the river at Vianne before driving to Camont.
Camont in sunshine on a November day- the kitchen warming to the fragrance of a richly perfumed Gateau Basque, a pintade braising in a short wine broth enriched with pruneaux, la cruchade cooked and steamed, and several bottles of Domaine la Galine.
Dinner was the rich and savoury terroir of Gascony on a plate. Fotos to follow.
