Projet Cochon- the Butcher & the Kids

The white blackboard read: Project- “dans le cochon tout est bon” . And so it was.

This week, twenty-four French lycée students between 16-20 years old and their professors M. Franck LAPIERRE and M. Jean Marc BOUILLY allowed three American kitchen-crashers to look over their shoulders as Dominique Chapolard, artisan butcher and pork producer, demonstrated in the expansive  school kitchen that “in the pig, all is good!”

The attentive white-clad chefs-in-training crowded around as M. Chapolard reconstructed the whole pig carcass, piece by piece, organ by organ. Silence reigned as Dominique, our master butcher mentor here at Camont, explained what goes into making good pork from field to table.

Only when he split the skull to reveal the tiny brain did squeamish teenage yelps erupt.  Quickly silenced by Chef Lapierre, he teased them that they see more blood on the horror films they watch. After the initial hour of dissection, as the muscle groups began to resemble familiar meat cuts, this next generation of France’s good cooks began to chop and grind, season and taste, while the scent of Gascony’s prized pork filled the kitchen. A hind leg became a Jambon, a shoulder a Roti de Porc. The large rib cage transformed into ventreche, poitrine and travers. Legs broke down into jarret and pied de porc while the caul fat was washed and leaf lard rendered out before grattons were drained and pressed into a terrine.

This fine piggy day was a part of “Cooking at the Source-Gascony“, a collaboration between Robert Reynold’s Chef’s Studio in Portland, Oregon and my own Kitchen-at-Camont. We spent the morning with our good friend and farmer/butcher Dominique Chapolard as he did a day long demonstration for the students of  the Lycee Jacques-de-Romas in neraby Nerac. For upcoming Duck workshops in the U.S. and France consult our program pages.

Could this be your Perfect Pig on an October morning?

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

Piggy Newtons Part 1- My Perfect French Fig Jam

When visiting Flower Power Lisa and her two kids t’other day, Miles- the wee one with the duck down hair, offered me a ‘Piggy Roll’ with my tea. He cracks me up with his 2 1/2 year old hospitality, dead serious and smiling at the same time. Yes, I’d love a “Figgy” Roll, I corrected.

Figs. Pigs. What’s the diff? A figgy newton-like cookie is always good with Earl Grey.

This week, I gathered the first harvest from the GIANT fig tree at Camont and I knew just where I was going. No recipe needed to make a batch of dark, delicious figgy/piggy jam. But I will tell you what I did with what was at hand. Next post, I’ll make a homemade a cookie dough with lard and butter (like my Grandmother’s biscotti) and cook the ‘Pig Newton Rolls’ for Smilin’ Miles- my new beau.

Kate’s French Figgy Jam- notes on a cooking riff.

The most important ingredient is my pot. For years, I used a too-deep 20-liter stainless steel stock pot or a too-wide braising pan with lid that was big enough to hold 2 chickens. One was not wide enough for the volume of fruit, the other too wide. So just like Golden Locks, I now have refined my perfect small batch confiture bassin- a not too big, not too small, JUST RIGHT, second hand, acid-green le Creuset acquired last year at a brocante for a few paltry euros. Measuring about 24 cm and holding 4 liters, it is the PERFECT size for fast cooking a 2 kilo or 4.5 pounds of fruit plus sugar, etc. Now, I know by sight that when the casserole is half full (about 2 liters of cut up fruit), it is time to stop picking, pitting or peeling.

Next.

2 kilos or 4-5 pounds of figs with the stems trimmed off and cut or pulled into quarters. When the figs are as ripe as these, its easier just to pull them apart.

500 grams or one pound of rapadura sugar (the SECRET ingredient) The caramel/molasses flavor immediately darkens the fruit mixture into a deep jammy color.

500 grams other sugar- white, brown, raw, etc. This is where we start to get creative with what’s at hand.

One whole organic lemon: zest, juice and pulp- zest it, squeeze it, then scraped the pulp out with a spoon. Add it all.

I also added:

• a handful of wild blackberries
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 vanilla bean- split and scraped
• a large glug (that’s a metric measure) of orange juice

COOK. I put the flame on high under the fig-filled le creuset; dumped the sugar on top of the figs. Added the rest of ingredients and then waited. Just waited. As soon as I heard the juice from the orange, lemon and figs start to burble, I stirred. A quick stir to mix everything together and placed the lid on until it was boiling away nicely.

THEN. Take off the lid, adjust the heat so it won’t boil over and let cook about 15-20 minutes.

BLEND. I use the immersion/stick/magicwand blender and gave the mixture a half stir. Some chunks, some puree. Taste and adjust lemon if needed.

That’s it. It was sweet, dark and thick. Perfect. How did I know? It said so on the jar.

Meet the teachers #1- a solo act.

This is the pig that roots in the woods then lives in the barn that eats the grain that becomes the bacon that I bought in the market that came from the house that Jill built.

Jill is really called Marie-Helène but she did indeed plant the corn that she feeds her long-snouted pigs that she takes to the abattoir that she turns into fine traditional charcuterie that she sells at the weekend markets in the Tarn department about 2 hours from here.

Marie-Helene defies the beret-wearing burly butcher stereotype here in France. She is a feminine and soft-but outspoken butcher/pig farmer who singularly raises and processes her own pigs before selling them to a small but loyal group of farmer market goers. She tells me that she sells a relationship as well as the fresh pork and cured meats, one based on trust and confidence in her everyday hard work. Her week is long, like most farmers, but she has learned how to maximize the time spent in the ‘laboratoire‘ to slaughter, cure and pack just enough pork each week to sell out. And she does it alone. Yup! All by herself. single-handed. Alone. She raises, slaughters, butchers and cures two to three pigs a week, every week, all year long. She is my new hero.

The bacon made with these pigs tastes and smells of that earthy farm perfume that distinguishes  ‘small-batch’ farm-raised charcuterie from the sanitized version of pork products that Americans have come to know and love. It only happens when the farmer is the cook and in this case, the butcher and charcutière as well. I call it ‘close-to-the-earth’ gastronomy.

What do you know about pigs and pork? Think again. Think France. Think 5 generations of raising pigs.

This could be your new teacher.

(Fergus Henderson admonished us years ago to ‘hug our butchers’ and today Ed Bruske inspired to me hug my teachers.  Hugs to the garden teachers here at Slow Cook.)

Photography by Eugene Frerichs while at the Kitchen-at-Camont this summer. To see more of her work while in residence here, click here.

Merci!

crowing hens…cluck, cluck, cluck whole hog!

Do you know that hens crow too?

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!

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.