a MAGYC PIE...

There are pies and there are PIES.

There is magic and there is MAGYC.

And yes, this is a bonafide, real, authentic MAGYC PIE.

Over the years, I have dabbled in savoury pies as the visual and gustatory homage to Monsieur Monet’s painted pies here, here and here, of course!

But this week as Fran and Ian from Melbourne, and Hilary from Sonoma, and Matt from Welbeck descend on the Chapolard home for lunch, we’ll be bringing this fat MAGYC PIE with us.  MAGYC stands for Mastering the Art of Gascon Cooking (with a nod to Julie Child’s masterful book). What’s in this golden-crusted succulent pie? Read on…

This MAGYC week of Gascon food is a 4-day winter exploration from Farm to Market to Kitchen. We swooped into Lavardac market on Wednesday and filled our baskets with: a guinea hen or pintade, a stewing hen, 2 demoiselles or duck carcasses some pork sausage, fresh foie gras, thinly sliced jambon de campagne and enough vegetables to make a rich stock- carrots, onion, celery, leeks, garlic, bay, thyme.

Less a recipe than a blueprint- we built the pie like this:

• boned the pintade then reserved the breasts and thighs.
• make a rich and short bouillon with the carcasses of the duck, pintade and the stewing hen.
• seasoned the 500 gr of pork sausage meat and pintade & chicken liver with onion, salt and pepper.
• deveined the foie gras

I was just going to call this Workday Soup- a 20-minute solution to feeding a small crew at Camont. I’ve been working on my homework for SAF  (actually, my homework will be your homework, you lucky Butchery & Charcuterie students who begin next month!). I hate to get interrupted when working on tables and calendars. When the Noon siren blew from the nearby village spire, I just started shouting cooking advice into the kitchen. Cut up some potatoes! Chop up that Ventreche into lardons! Throw it in a pan with the duck fat!

Twenty minutes or so later, the potatoes were creamy and tender, the duck fat broth was golden rich, and a jar containing an solitary confited duck breast was popped in a pan to warm through, crisp up and garnish the steamy thyme and bay infused broth. Eh Voila!

This is the sort of nourishing and soothing meal that might help in a hurricane ravaged moment- grab a sack of potatoes, a jar of duck confit and your sterno stove. To all my dear friends and family in Irene’s path, I dub this soup for you!

ps- don’t have any duck confit in the larder? I still have one place open on the October 3 Confit Course -http://kitchen-at-camont.com/programs/cookery/dig-in/cassoulet-confit-coq-au-vin/.

Last night, as the kitchen crew began to lose control between increasingly large portions of truffle-related wonders, Jack uttered a solitary phrase as I suggested we taste the fruits of our week’s labors- a recreation of a historic hunting-inspired terrine favored by Henri IVth.

“Let’s taste Kate’s small terrine of joy”.

The Small Terrine of Joy- henceforward referred to simply as STJ- had been resting on the counter perfuming the air above and around that corner of the kitchen, wafting up the stairs and sneaking under the pigeonnier’s chambres with a heady hint of forest and field elevated to a sublime taste of… game, pork,and veal bound by truffleness.

Less a recipe than a celebration of special ingredients, bound by traditional respect for lean and fat, natural flavor and added seasoning, we began with an idea and ended up with delicious mouthful of succulent savory textures that played between toothsome and tender as foie gras melted onto truffles under a lean strip of marinated pheasant.

This is a lesson in cooking, as we let the ingredients dictate how we treat them, slow or high heat, moist, covered or browning. This is not a recipe of proportions or weights; this is an afternoon of friendship and inspiration manifested at the table and on our plates in the Kitchen-at-Camont. For Tim Clinch’s lovely take on this: http://timclinchphotography.tumblr.com/post/3561477421/the-small-terrine-of-joy-actually-a-terrine

It is just 26 days to D-day. January 1 2010 is Duck Day and I’m  counting days to my arrival on Podchef Island to help the @podchef himself, farmer, chef and food guru Neal Foley, kill, cook, cure and eat a few dozen meaty Rouen ducks. Someone declared December as ‘all-duck, all the time’ month. So as December’s kitchen becomes more and more infused with the scent of duck, I took a break from savory to sweet with these melt in your mouth shortbread cookies.

In the spirit of Ashley Rodriquez’ great post on bacon fat shortbread cookies here, ‘nothing goes to waste’ in the Kitchen at Camont. So with a bit of tweaking from Ashleys’ recipe and an inspirational nod to my sweet guru David Lebovitz easy jam tart use of cornmeal (after all ducks take to corn like… ) I baked up a first batch of these crumbling rich, nutty-flavored shortbreads. Duckys.

Here’s the recipe for a few dozen Duckys

What:

70 gr duck fat

70 gr butter

50 gr white sugar

50 gr brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon white armagnac- (or rum)

200 gr white flour

80 gr fine cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon baking powder

How:

I melted the duck fat and butter together with the sugar until it formed a broken caramel.

Then measured all dry ingredients into a large bowl, poured in fat/sugar mix, broke in the eggs with the armagnac then stirred like mad.

Next, I divdied the dough in half, formed two rolls, wrapped them in parchment and stuck them in the frigo until I was ready to bake.

Cut the rolls into thick slices. Place on cookie sheet. Bake in a hot oven (400′F) for 15 minutes or until slighty toasted. Quack! Quick, make coffee or tea!

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

Nothing like a little frost on a Sunday morning to bring out the baker in us all. So when Julia Leach, the Kitchen-at-Camont’s fall intern, fell under the Pain d’Epices spell, we turned on the oven and began a day learning about dough, pastry and good smells.  Here in Gascony, Pain d’Épice or Spice Bread is thought of as a foreign treat- from the north, another region, a taste of winter.  Usually, I buy thick slices of honeyed pain d’epices made near Rocamadour from Kakou & Francoise at the Saturday market and serve it in the Gascon way with duck rillettes or thin slivers of foie gras. Dense, solid and studded with walnuts or candied orange peel, prunes or even chocolate chips, this honey bread is made by a former beekeeper turned patissier specialist in the Lot at la Noyeraie des Abeilles.

With that tasty inspiration at hand, we turned to a monograph on the subject published by Les Editions du Coq a l’Ane and signed and prefaced by the late Bernard Loiseau. I found it one year in Dijon, one of the spice cake centers of France and have hoarded it since waiting for a chilly baking sort of day. All secrets lie within this thoroughly researched and well written book, from history and folklore to dozens of recipes. From the sucrée- actual recipes for dozen’s of versions of honey spice bread, to the salée-including a killer looking Lapin au Pain Épice for rabbit with cream, mustard and pain d’epice breadcrumbs.

But first things first, I chose this basic recipe “like in Dijon” to honor the book, the source and inspiration to cook regionally. We used local honey, mixed flours and upped the spices some. Results? Perfect! A chewy caramelized crust, moist but substantial density and just right  balance of honey, spice and orange flavors. Have fun!

Adapted from Le  Pains d’Épice by Lise Bésème-Pia.

Le Pain d’Epice Comme a Dijon.

• 250 gr wheat flour (we used half white wheat flour &  half whole wheat; rye and buckwheat are traditional choices as well)
• 125 gr honey-
• 125 gr sugar
• 200 ml warm milk
• 1 tsp spices (1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, allspice or cloves, & anis)
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• zest from one orange

Place the flour in a  bowl. Add the sugar and spices. Melt the honey with the warm milk and add to the flour. Whisk together and work the batter (not using machines much here, we whisked by hand for 10 minutes). Then add baking soda and whisk again until well mixed, stir in orange zest. The batter should be smooth and fluid. Pour into a well-buttered loaf pan (22 cm or 8-9 inch) set on a baking sheet. Place in cold oven; turn on and set at 180′C or 350′F. Bake for 45 minutes, then lower heat to 150′C or 300′F for another 15 minutes; total baking time 1 hour. Remove from oven, cool some, remove from pan, cool some more. Then attack with knife and fork with good coffee or tea at hand! A taste of honey for you sweet things…

The new red hens are starting to lay their first eggs.  When the commotion in the chicken garden reaches a crescendo, I know there is yet another golden yolked egg waiting in the straw nest. But here in Gascony, even little Pigs crow. So when Judy Witts  and I start crowing this morning, it’s because after 4 years of reporting on all things pork at the Whole Hog Blog we made Saveur Magazine’s best of the web. Cluck, cluck, clucckkkk!

learning about pork from the ground up

While Judy has been giving online courses to chefs  in making Porchetta, I have been waking up at 4 in the morning (ouch!) to drive charcuterie apprentices to the abattoir, hauling 150-pound half carcasses in the trunk of my Renault Clio back home, and helping them learn the names and cuts of the French Pig from jarret to jambon.  Then we cook, cure & preserve all week until the larder is full, the pantry est plein.

My favorite French ‘pulled pork’ is called escaoudoun in the Gascon patois. Tasted in a hideaway of a cafe in the Landes forest called La Croute du Pin where it was made with the typique Noir de Gascogne pig, I re-created the dish here at Camont with most of the shoulder from Camas’ graduation pig.

Once it cooked in the sweet onion sauce for a two hours, I ladled the sauce pork into large canning jars. When unannounced friends arrive for dinner, I’ll cook some Monalisa potatoes and serve them floating on an island of sweet onions pork, just like Madame did.

Recipe- for  Estouffade de Porc- l’Escaoudoun

• 2 kilos / 4 1/2 lbs. of farm raised pork shoulder, cut into large cubes
• 1 kilo of onions, sliced thinly
• 2 soupspoons of duck fat
• 1 bottle of sweet wine wine (jurancon or cote de gascogne)
• 1/2 bottle madera, sherry or white port
• 1 generous glass of armagnac
• 2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
• a large bouquet garni- lovage, bay leaf, thyme
• sea salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper, a lot of it!
• a large pick of quatre épice  (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves)

The basic recipe is to cook all of the above until the onions have melted, the pork is falling apart and the flavors of the sweet wine mingle with the onion in a caramel-colored sauce.

Cook the onions in duck fat until they start to be translucent.  Add the pork and herbs, season (using only a little salt at this time to allow for reduction of the sauce), pour the wines and armagnac over the meat, cover and cook over a very slow heat for 2 hours or until meat is falling apart and the sauce is thick. Taste to reseason for salt. Serve warm with boiled potatoes.