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. 

ASPARAGUS: Not only does this showcase the first thin green asparagus barely warmed in a saute pan, but gives green garlic, spring onions and the first mint leaves a supporting role to join in the Spring celebration. Wild foraged asparagus would work great as well.

HAM: The Ham? oh, the HAM. This is indeed HAM spelled in big letters. Eric Ospital’s Ibaiona hand-crafted HAM is aged in sechoirs or drying rooms near Hasparren in the Basque Countries. As sweet as salty, and barely both, there is a toasted nut flavor that lingers as the ham melts on your tongue. It has spoiled me forever. No more cheap ham! or maybe your home-made wild boar ventreche, Hank Shaw?

GREENS: We gathered, some garlic shoots- a good reason to plant garlic last November- thanks Lisa! Then hunted down the mint which is just sprouting after a hard winter, and picked some thyme. I call this ‘frontdoor foraging’- the things I planted, let go wild and then provide my kitchen with high points all year long.

This is a great dish to just use the tips and reserve the stalks for soup or my gingered aspargus stem pickles. I served the barely cooked asparagus while Vetou poured Champagne. The poached eggs have yolks as deep orange as only home-grown eggs can be so I slipped one over a nest of asparagus; more ham was left to pile on the plate, the thin slices waving like little Basque flags before we popped them in our mouths.

These are the meals I love best. Friends, family, some good food and a great idea. Merci Madame Pompèle!

and now the recipe…

Asperges de Vetou 

• 1 tablespoon duck fat (you forgot I was in Gascony?)
• a couple oz or 60-80 grams of thinly sliced ham, ventreche, bacon, etc…
• 1 small bunch new spring onions, sliced in half lengthwise
• a few fresh green garlic shoots- we call them aillets, also sliced lengthwise
• 1 bunch perfectly fresh asparagus- white or green, peeled, trimmed and cut in thirds
• 1 mint leaf (swear that Vetou only uses one!)
• a few springs of fresh thyme
• seas salt and freshly ground pepper
• half a glass of white wine

1. heat the duck fat in a heavy saute pan over medium high heat. Add the ham and warm briefly.
2. add the onions and garlic, sauteing gently until half-cooked.
3. add the mint leaf, a little thyme, salt & pepper. Now cover, turn down the heat a little, and cook for 10 minutes or so. keep an eye on it, you don’t want mushy tips, but nether do you want a crunchy mess. the flavors have to melt into each other. No need to add water because the asparagus is so fresh it gives up it’s sap and makes a nice pot liquor.
4. now, take off the lid, add the wine and let it become sauce as it finds the fat and flavor.
5. when the asparagus is perfectly done, remove to a warm dish, and crank the heat up to reduce the sauce further if desired. for those so inclined, a knob of butter swirled around the pan will emulsify and enrich the sauce. Because we are serving this with poached eggs, I skipped this unnecessary addition. The egg yolks are the sauce!
6. serve with poached eggs and copious rashers of thinly sliced very good ham.

Enjoy a weekend breakfast with friends…

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.

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?

Colza at the corner field; apple orchards down the street; kiwi, peaches, nashi and pears across the canal. And on our own 2+ acres at Camont, right now, wisteria, crab apples, flowering cherries are rioting. A couple dozen heritage plum, fig, apple, quince & peach trees are all flowering at once. Next, the acacias will pop, the roses will blossom and mint will start to flower. I learned to relax the garden and leave it a bit wild, a bit shaggy for the good of all. I think the new working grrls will be happy here. Plant more trees now! I planted my orchards, spreading them around the place, little pockets of fruitful activities over the last 20 years. Think long term, kids. It’s rewarding to be harvesting time as well as fruit and honey now. I didn’t know I would stay so long in France, but I did know someone would have profited from my acts. I think of this as insuring gifting future foraging rights for someone. Anyone.

From time to time, I’ll let you know what the Honey-Man is teaching me. These posts will be under a new Living-at-Camont section coming soon. For now, just look for the #beebuzz tag.

Bee Smart Lesson #1- Before opening the hive when I got it home, Narcisse told me to give a couple puffs of smoke at their front to let the p’tite darlings knowI was there. That it was me, their new sweet maman, and I would help take care of them. Now that I have read some more on whether bees have ears and can hear sounds, I think I will also tap lightly on the hive with a gentle bonjour greeting. Tap, tap tap-allo mes puces!

After all, I’d rather have someone tap on my door than blow smoke in my face…

Recipes:

Miel de Poivre- no bees? here’s a favorite faux honey confiture from my Keeping Kitchen

Pain d’Epices- an easy French classic honey cake perfect with foie gras

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.

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.

The Agen market is full of surprises on a perfect fall morning.

Today, shopping for quince, cress, and cilantro I ran into a drove of pigs.

Free-range, pasture-raised French pigs.

Like a stage setting, simplicity itself- one knife, a cleaver, a wooden block,

& a smile.

Julien Veyrac

of Tournon d’Agenais

No one was more surprised than me to meet the new butcher boy on the block

and discover some damn good looking charcuterie and fresh pork.

Merci, Julien for taking over the family farm.

See you next Wednesday for your andouillette-

my secret ingredient for an onctuous cassoulet.

Wednesdays- Agen Central Market

]]> http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/10/29/could-this-be-your-perfect-pig-on-an-october-morning/feed/ 0 http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/10/23/and-now-a-word-from-our-sponsors-la-basse-cour/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=and-now-a-word-from-our-sponsors-la-basse-cour http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/10/23/and-now-a-word-from-our-sponsors-la-basse-cour/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:17:28 +0000 Kate Hill http://kitchen-at-camont.com/?p=956 This French life is full jour & nuit of good food, hard work, and harvest. Although Camont is no longer the grand historic farm it was in the 18th century, we do stand on centuries of terra firma that resonate of good food cooked largely from la basse-cour- the farmyard of laying hens, ducks, geese and guinea fowl.

Last year, when Matt Chambas and Alvin Stillman built the chicken coop that we washed with Bleu de Lectoure, I had a vision of 3 or 4 hens pecking lazily around their own square in the potager carré. One year on, and after a volunteer gang helped to fence in the heritage orchard, we are holding at a dozen hens (with half in egg production at any given time), one Black Gascon Coq, a pair of Rouen Clair ducks and their three summer offspring. Some days I think about a couple pigs for next spring lounging in a straw bale hut or a pair of black-eyed lambs grazing the parc over the summer. I think that there is plenty of land to work in a small yet concise way. This morning while listening to the twittering birds,  @hyperlocavore tweeted this video about organic farmers Bette & Dale on their intensely farmed 1-1/2 acres. I got distracted, very distracted.

The Kitchen at Camont’s two-and half acres ramble along the Canal de Garonne, with the farmhouse and barn sitting in the middle like the knot in a fat bowtie separating the domesticated side of parc, potager, and basse-cour from the “where the wild things hide” side of wooded spring and shady stream. It’s a nice balance like wild honey and salty farm butter or a fat farm duck roasted with wild cèpes and watercress.

A golden egg custard courtesy of the working girls!

Flexibility and structure work in cooking as well. Too many fresh eggs in the Bulgarian egg bowl led to a golden-hued baked custard for lunch. No recipe needed but the kitchen experience that 5 eggs plus a liter of milk with 3 tablespoons sugar and a shot of armagnac is a magic formula= whisk in large bowl, pour into a buttered cazuela and set in the oven at a medium heat for as long as it takes to cook.

To keep the balance in check in my life, I also like to mix the wild and unplanned hazards of life in the slow lane with a cartoon outline of what’s to come.  I am now ready to pump it up a notch and explore the edges of Camont’s beating heart. In an eggshell, I am looking for more eggs, metaphoric eggs that will produce delicious, golden, rich results.  Anyone interested in an organic gardening/forest garden/permaculture experience and ready to trade time & experience for French room & board, please contact me here on the intern and residency page

It’s been dry since April.  I know this fair weather won’t hold much longer. Rain is sure to come. The chicken coop needs some end of season love and weather proofing,  so it’s off to the tool shed, hammer, nails, screws and ingenuity in hand. The best part is getting to spend an hour with the girls, clucking and clicking as they scratch, peck and lay their golden eggs.

With Julia preparing some winter crop beds, we’ll turn the flock into the potager and let them give us a hand. Should be a slugfest frenzy!