the Lost Orchard of Camont… Pear Vanilla Preserves

Too many pears hang from the orchard tree.

Too many trees sad with abandon and falling fruit.

Here is “Poire de Citron”- a lemon scented old pear from my neighborhood conservatory nursery, planted over a dozen years ago, bearing such abundant fat fruit that the branches break, the sweet weight too heavy a burden.

Making confitures between travels, I pick, peel, weigh, sugar & cook the wet pale flesh with a vanilla pod and lemon zest.

When the pantry shelves groan under the sweet jarred summer, I am happy.

When I spread the fragrant golden taste of my overgrown orchard on the morning baguette, the pear tree forgives it being ignored.

When the little black Gascon hen leads her 6 furry chicks to the fallen fruit for their own breakfast, we share the wealth of Camont’s lost gardens…

 

Miel de Poivre- miracle pepper honey magic

Dear Queen of Gascon Cuisine,

If you could wave your magic bleu doo-rag and teach everyone reading this one very easy recipe, what would it be?

Signed,

loyal kitchen slave

This is it. A miracle sauce to change your life. Easy, cheap and fun. A sure-fire pantry pleaser. Magic in a jar. my new piggery pantry staple. A cunning condiment.

All this magic in a jar came from a sweet French book called Tisanes et Sirops Delice, one of three that I use for all things herbal, floral and frenchy.

The Miel de Poivre caught my eye flipping through the other day. Huh. Honey? Black Pepper? Hmmm. So I tested and tweaked and added my own touches , of course. This is what I discovered- a perfectly flexible honey-like spicy condiment perfect for glazing a golden Roti de Porc, zigzagging over a sharp Fleuron cheese, or stirring into a cup of mint tea. Magic!

Recipe:

In a medium sized sauce pan, place 2 handfuls of black pepper corners and 20 cl of water. Bring to a boil, cook 5 minutes.

Strain and reserve peppercorns. Add 500 gr sugar to the now dark hot water, plus the juice of one lemon as well as the zested lemon rind (organic please). Bring back to boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved and the sirop is thick. about 5 more minutes. NOW add the peppercorns back to the sirop and cook on a low heat for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat, taste, bottle and then start thinking of all the ways you’ll love this spicy sweet peppery faux honey!

from the Queen of Gascon Cuisine…   and thanks to http://cowgirlchef.blogspot.com/ for this delicious pic!

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.