Mayday- Mud! The famous Garonne River Fog is late this year; it has rained, rained, rained these last two weeks. So much rain now that with the soggy bottom clay silt soil holding moisture like a sponge, the promise of a clear sunny sky later makes morning fog. My own little micro-climate at Camont alongside canal & river is good for the garden…if I could only get to it though the muck.

This week’s market also shouted “Mayday” with a rouge abundance of rhubarb, strawberries, peppers and early tomatoes. Instead of pique-niques, boat rides, country walks, and gardening, I’m sticking close to my Keeping Kitchen and brewing up some seasonal treats- micro batches, single jars, starter vats. Here’s the list from the market booty…

• Rhubarb- candied and dried to be used in a Gateau Basque
• Red pepper & piment d’Espelette Jam
• Cilantro & mint salsa verde (Cinco de Mayo!)
• Strawberries… oh, just eat these while working

Lunch is green.

• Sauteed Brouttes or cabbage shoots  with
• Green garlic heads cut in half and slowly caramelized
• Raw Beet salad with walnuts and above garlic

M’aider means ‘help me’ in French. and just as it was adopted as the universal cry for help in 1923, I need help, too! The large glass barrel I bought a couple weeks ago still sits empty. Now with radishes, garlic stems, beets, wild leeks, onions, shallots, cauliflower and carrots to clean and peel, pack and pour…I am in a pickle.

Or will be, as soon as I can fill the jar with homemade vinegar brine and special Gascon pickling spices. Keeping up with the Spring bounty is a serious job not to be slighted by holidays and distressful spirits. My French kitchen is never quiet, at any time of year, but now I see that my lopsided pantry needs a bit of balance. This year, the confitures will be given a run for their money by the newly appreciated pickles.

Where do you go for inspiration and advice? For pickling help across the planet, I turn to my blogger friends and few old reliable cookbooks. Here’s my beginning pickle list:

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.

The Foire au Jambon in the colorful Basque port of Bayonne.

A memory of a Bayonne surfaces from a long ago road trip looking for marine goods along the Atlantic coast for my barge, the Julia Hoyt. Rope, cord, and lines I was searching. I drove along the river port of the Adour outside of Bayonne in the very southwest of  Southwest France looking for some fishermen, a working boat or chandlery.  The newly fitted nose of wooden fishing boat peeked out of an over-sized hanger; I braked for a quick look inside. Yes. Men working with wood and fiber glass, paint and canvas. Ocean going small fishing boats. Sturdy, serious and hard-working. The boats and the men. I knew they would know. I have a nose for these things.

I thanked them for the directions to the Co-op Maritime in St. Jean de Luz, I turned to say au revoir  and stopped dead in my foodie tracks. Although the Captain in me was looking for cord, the Cook in me spotted a treasure trove of maturing hams hanging from every square foot of rafter space. A boat yard/charcuterie shed? Welcome to Baiona!

The image remained for years locked in my barge memories until this weekend when I dragged my petite soeur down the long diagonal chemin des vacances to the Basque coast for some ‘fun with ham’. Those crazy Basque jambonneurs know how to throw a fête!

First you need ham. Lots of it! Not your every day made-in-a-factory and way too salty ham… but smooth as salty silk, sweet and nutty, melt in your mouth, slow grown, properly-cured Jambon de Bayonne- a world-recognized mark of terroir. More than 25+ artisan charcutiers and salaisonniers were on hand to fête and share their wares especially the traditional salt rubbed, air cured, slightly piment d’espeletted Jambon de Bayonne. R&D here I come!

I was letting my nose lead me to the people I needed to meet through the ever increasing crowd of young, old and party goers. I stumbled and grabbed first a cornet of ham slices, then a sandwich of epic baquette and thick sliced chorizo, a plastic cup of red wine, then a taloak- a corn cake rolled out with a wine bottle, slapped on a dry griddle and rolled up with nutty Pyrenees cheese slices. The crowd grew louder, Basque songs erupting from crowded bars spilling out from the stone arcades along the quai of the Nive. It was a PARTY. A Ham Party!  The dark sky broke open, the drinking set smashed into already packed bars and we ducked into the inviting Au Bon Coin Les Pied de Cochon (the little red trimmed building in the middle  below!) where a happy marriage of good pork and fresh seafood, Madiran and Jurançon wines consoled our sodden spirits.

The next morning before the Easter bunny made his rounds, I was back at the fair set up along the Nive. Alone with a convivial group of producers setting up for the last day of ham madness- before the ham mass, the ham dancing and the ham parade. There were lots of slices, shavings and sandwiches to produce. My strategy was to arrive too early, grab some pics, some names, and buy some large pieces of the best ham I could find. I hit pay dirt, ham motherload, pink gold.

I met the man. The Ham Man. Eric Ospital. Son of Louis. Smiling here with his mentor and kitchen godfather- Gabriel  Biscay on the left- one of France’s Meilleur Ouvrier de Cuisine ( in other words- a Chef’s Chef) I got the inside scoop of all things ham. It was no surprise that he and two other young elite producers, Christian Montauzer and  Eric Mayté, were the second generation continuum who produced the exceptional Ibaïona mark of distinction. “We’re the inner circle, like Romanée Conté… in ham.”

Just these three producers work to a credo established by their fathers. Ibaïona  branded hams are only made from pigs grown slowly on quality barley, wheat and corn, achieving a minimum weight of 150-180 kilos, and then cured and air dried in the four winds of the Basque Country for a minimum of 15-20 months. Branded on the rind and draped in a medallion, these fine hams and the fresh pork from the pigs are earmarked for the best restaurants and houses in Europe from the French Presidential Palace to top Parisian restaurants- la crème de la crème de Jambon.

After a coffee and another few slices of ham with Eric, Gabby and Christian, I loaded my basket with samples to bring back to Camont and taste with friends and professionals- a Noix de Montauzer Ibaiona ham, slices of Ospital Ibaiona, and the dried beret saucission of Maison Mayté. The Ham Party in Bayonne might be over for this year, but the Ham Chronicles-at-Camont are surely just beginning…

1. Perfect Spring weather.
2. Dense soil left dormant all winter as chickens did daily slug and poop patrols.
3. Kitchen window fertilizer.

I’ll plant the packet of cornichon seeds right near the terrace so I can keep an eye on the little guys as they flower and turn into bite size cukes for pickling. Roquette pesto will be made and jarred, one for the table, one for the pantry. And the borage flowers will be scattered through iced herbal teas all summer without having to hike to the other side of Planet Camont to pick some edible flowers.

Cherry tomatoes and wild mint will dress lunch salads and that package of dill will soon be waving in the breeze above the chervil, and strawberries. The idea this year is to keep this small summer garden fast at hand and in a state of flux. Stripey Ronde de Nice courgettes will grow among the salad greens that are picked daily. As soon as they are the size of golf balls, I’m going to snatch them off the vines and toss them into waiting jars of cherry and rose wine vinegar pickling juice. Same thing with the young beets, tossing them greens and all into the mix. Inspired by a memory of those pickle carts in Istanbul’s along the river market, I’ll serve sour cocktails and rice pilaf sprinkled with toasted fennel seeds and hazelnuts.

This little kitchen garden is but the first step to feeding our greedy pantry. Keeping a few fast growing teasers at hand is the key to inspiring the students who come to Camont looking for a taste of authenticity on their plates and later in their larders.

Here’s the seed list:

• borage
• lovage
• dill
• chervil
• sarriette
• radish
• borlotti & coco beans (I’ll grow a BIG Cassoulet patch elsewhere)
• mange tout
• mesclun
• roquette
• strawberries
• cherry tomatoes
• beets
• ronde courgettes
• Happy planting!

• Foie Gras & Lotte cassolettes- oven baked Foie gras & monkfish on a bed of julienned aillets & carrots
• Foie Gras en Chemise Verte- spinach wrapped poached foie gras
• Confit de Canard
• Rillettes de Canard
• Paté de Foie Gras
• Terrine de foie gras
• Confit de Oie- goose
• Cassoulet Camontw/ saucisse de Toulouse,
• Grattons or cracklins- Gascon popcorn Piment d’Espelette
• Magrets seché fumé
• Magret Chemineé
• Huitres Roti (for a little duck relief)

I was walking down the street on my way to a Fat Market when I overheard two tourists talking. I knew they we’re tourists because one, pushing a wheelbarrow full of duck carcasses and the other with a gang of delicious children in tow, were speaking a foreign tongue. I heard unfamiliar words like prosciutto- ah, Italians! And then charcuterie- non, les françaises. And then- lalapalooza! Americaines!!! Oh my, Madame la Brouette et la NomnomMaman were not showing off speaking foreign words. They were making food. Meat food to be exact. Charcuterie, precisement! Eh Voila!

And so I followed them down this meat garden path to join a hundred other food bloggers for a charcuterie jamboree called Charcutepalooza. I call it “your year of putting your mind and money where your mouth is- on the Meat”. It was happenstance that I had just finished a two-week Artisan Butchery & Charcuterie program here at Camont with Chef Sarah Wong from Seattle’s Culinary Academy- (pictured below with a bowl o’ magrets). We had wrapped up two weeks of pig butchery and pork charcuterie with a trip to the one of the Gers fabulous Marche au Gras, or Fat Markets. the results of buying 5 fat ducks, foie gras to cracklins was a big bowl of magrets de canard or meaty duck breasts. Most of these whopping big steack de canard became confit, but I reserved two to salt, smoked and cure for…bacon. Duck Bacon.

I know the challenge says duck prosciutto, but the gascon purist that I am (meaning as it pleases me!) prefers to use the French term for a French product- hence Magret Seché- dried duck breast. And like the ventreche we salt and cure for French bacon or lardons, I knew that at least some of this deep red, melting fat meat would be destined for breakfast. And breakfast is nothing if about the Bacon.

My Duck Bacon

1. I lightly salted the meat side of the breasts, just about a tablespoon of coarse sel gris, or grey sea salt.
2. I let the salt rest on the duck overnight- 12 hours. Fat side down to cradle and retain the briny meat juices.
3. Next morning with a paper towel, I wiped off  any excess salt.
4. NOW, I heavily coated the magret with freshly ground black pepper. Fresh as in ground with my old hand cranked coffee mill.
5. Then passing a loop of string through the end of the meat, I hung the breasts, un-wrapped (the pepper will keep anything you are afraid of away!) first in a corner of my 8-foot wide fireplace for a night of smoking and then from a couple of wooden rods suspended in my airy stone pantry room. In the winter there is no risk of flies or other bugs and the fluctuating temps from day to night help cure the meat slowly.
6. A week later, maybe 10 days as we were cooking so much other food, I checked the magrets sechés. They were nicely firm, the fat was supple and the fine coat of pepper had cured into a pungent crust.
7. I sliced one immediately lengthwise, fried a couple deep golden eggs fresh from the hens, and shared a Gascon breakfast with my sister and friends.

The duck bacon’s fat melted as sweetly as pork; the meat sliced neither thick nor thin, became crispy and sweet and salty; the pepper raised the flavor level to serious enough for a Musketeer. The fat was already melting at room temperature as I took these picture. I could see it glisten and liquidfy before my eyes. The eggs were fired sunny side up, then slices of a baguette we’re toasted in the same pan to mop up any lost fat. The half fat, half lean Duck Bacon is now my favorite choice for Gascon Sunday Brunch when friends come to visit… here at Camont.

Think mid-summer madness minus the fairies and Shakespeare; add sugar, spices and moonshine to the unripened walnuts. ‘Unripened’ means that under the thick green outer husk, the nut meat and shell are still unformed, a juicy white tannic miracle growing on heavy laden branches.

For me, noix verts herald the long days of looking at Camont’s fruit and nut trees, gardens and potagers as a living larder. White peaches for ice cream, summer pears for jam, blackberries and raspberries for liqueurs. But it is this very first recipe I learned to make at the hands of Claude and Vetou Pompele some 20 years ago that reminds me of my most important job here at the Gascon Kitchen– hands-on teacher of artisan culinary traditions.

The walnut tree has been growing for over the 20 years I have lived at Camont. It was a leggy12-foot sapling when I spared its life. Now it reaches up over 30 feet and spreads a deep shade for the lambs, chickens and us. I used the bottle of eau de vie made by old man Dupuy over 40 years ago. A gift from his daughter, Monique,  I had tucked it away in the back of the boat cellar a few years back. Antique moonshine. The recipe was taught me by Claude Pompele and I published in “A Culinary Journey in Gascony”. This has been a story in the making for a long time.

Last week I had the pleasure of  hosting accomplished food stylist Karen Gillingham for a Natural Light Natural Food photography workshop with Tim Clinch. We are delighted with the sort of easy camaraderie these workshops encourage. Between bouts of refilling the pink carafe with good local rosé, we talked about the change in food photography from the film years to the digital decade. How good food has grown and shaped our lives. How both experienced and ingenue eyes discover rich content in the tradition-steeped farms and village and markets of Gascony.

While Tim is loading the first student galleries to the www.clinch-hill.com site, I thought I share a sneak peek of a few of Karen’s photographs of the Vin de Noix I made on June 24 2010.

Vin de Noix- traditionally made on June 24

24 green walnuts

24 sugar cubes

750ml eau de vie

3 literes of inexpensive rosé wine

handful of lemon rinds

nutmeg shards, cloves and cardamon to taste

smash the green walnuts outside on board. wear aprons and gloves.

place all the above in an earthen ware crock, glass jar, stainless steel bucket.

cover with an old plate.

let sit 24 days.

filter, bottle and drink at your leisure in the cold short winter days.

]]> http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2010/06/29/vin-de-noix-from-the-living-larder-a-natural-lightnatural-food-story/feed/ 2 http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/09/02/piggy-newtons-part-1-my-perfect-french-fig-jam/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=piggy-newtons-part-1-my-perfect-french-fig-jam http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/09/02/piggy-newtons-part-1-my-perfect-french-fig-jam/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:43:37 +0000 Kate Hill http://kitchen-at-camont.com/?p=675 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.

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.

This is the summer that was. Hot. Sultry. Summery. Not enough rain to keep the garden watered but the tomatoes are great! Hot enough to sleep with the fans on all night and drown out the aforementioned rooster’s night song.  A real rare hot Gascon summer where a good wet thunderstorm is what we need.

However, these dry days are perfect for harvesting the purple pod beans given to me by Robert Hammond at Honeyman Creek Farm. The little hand written package said that they came over the Oregon Trail in the 1850′s and now they are growing here at Camont in SW France. What seemed like an abundance of beans on the vine, now looks merely like one good cassoulet’s worth.  But that’s going to be a great Cassoulet- a l’Americaine!

When Vetou Pompele stopped by to sit in the shade, gossip and help me shuck beans, I dipped into ‘the piggery’ (the larder for those not used to Camont’s layout)  for a fast food lunch… French fast food. Vetou plucked some ripe coeur de boeuf tomatoes and three jars later plus one bottle, we were ready to schuck,  sort, and talk story the rest of the long hot day.

A Three Jar Lunch

1. pate de campagne ’09- this was a yet another taste test and yes, the was just enough salt and piment d’espelette.
2. estouffade or escaoudoune- a gascon version of pulled pork cooked with onions and sweet wine
3. confiture de tomates et chilis- my own potager version inspired by New Zealand friends. Hot, sweet and tangy!

After the lazy meal under glass, (actually it entailed hours of cooking but weeks ago!), I got down to business and nudged my faithful hound aside for another hot afternoon tradition- the Nap Attack. oh, these dog days…