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I know, the Tour is almost finished and I am far behind in my recipes. Life got in the way, in a good way that is, as I have signed a new client who I have been trying to work with since I started my business. So it is all good. Episode 3 relates to Stages 10 and 11 which were based across the South West of France and the Pyrénnées, and what best recipe comes to mind from there? Rich, earthy, wintery and perfectly appropriate for my Australian readers who are still experiencing winter, although it feels like Spring today. It should include duck or foie gras, other meats and vegetables, so here it is: CASSOULET RECIPE The lazy option... You are not visiting my site to get told to buy a conserved Cassoulet, although some can be very good. So how do we go about it, then? Well, first a word of caution as this recipe is expensive in terms of the time involved and the cost of the ingredients. It is also better cooked in large quantities, so if it's only you and your significant other, visit Jean-Marc at the Orange Grove Market and it will be quicker and cheaper. In my case with 4 or 5 people around the table, it starts to make sense, and in that particular case, I did it just for you my dear readers and a young man who stayed with us for a couple of weeks last year. Now, feel free to compensate me for my trouble with a good bottle of Bordeaux - my address is in the footer!  1982 would be my preference, but 2006, 2010 and 2011 are acceptable... More seriously, you will need to buy some organic beans, some magrets or confit legs, some duck fat and some saucisses de Toulouse. See my choices below:  Get the best possible duck  That might have been an overkill...  Two nice legs of duck to start with bathing in the duck fat...  Saucisses de Toulouse are mandatory. I get mine from David's Larder  And here they are slowly cooking  Mixed beans will be your veggies  Interesting mix of textures, flavours and colours  Lardons and Maggie Beer or any good vegetable stock You will also need some onions, carrots and potatoes to garnish in the end. Now that you have spent your good money on quality ingredients, it is time to use them properly, and that entails starting to prepare at least the day before you want to serve. If you can, add an extra day, so the cooked cassoulet can rest overnight and reheated on the day. You need to first soak the beans in cold water overnight. But let's start with cooking the duck! In my case, Commissary Kitchen did most of the work for me and I just had to re-heat the duck legs in plenty duck fat in the oven for half an hour. If you start from scratch, then slow cook them for 2 hours at relatively low temperature like 160 degrees. Rest overnight in the fridge.  The morning after...  olive oil, baby carrots and spanish onions to start with...  Then add the beans, cover with the stock and cook for an hour or more. Add thyme and a whole clove of garlic  When the stock is reduced enough and the beans are cooked, add the saucisses that you have cooked prior  Bring the pot with the duck to a temperature where the fat liquifies, then add the lardons and top up with more duck fat. Put back in the oven at low temperature to cook the lardons through  To plate, spoon some beans first, add the lardons, saucisses, top up with the duck leg and some more thyme. Enjoy!  Serve some good Bordeaux wine with the cassoulet et voilà ! Bon appétit
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 Windellama Organics in Marrickville Saturday's market in Kings Cross and Sunday's market in Marrickville are both organised by the same people behind the Orange Grove Market in Rozelle, my local you could say... Hence the reason why I have never wandered and visited these markets was simply that I was not aware of their existence! They are quite different and again different from the Orange Grove market, as the one in Marrickville, although full of interesting people and stalls (more on this later...) it is in a location which, in my opinion, is poorly maintained and there is feeling of dirt which doesn't go well with the "clean" organic food being on display. The Kings Cross one is near the famous fountain and under beautiful trees. It is a small market though with maybe 35 stalls, and to close to 100 in Rozelle.  The famous Kings Cross Fountain  Manelli Farms from Young NSW - home of Chalkers Crossing Winery - one of my favourite  Nice display of organic veggies - Marrickville   Best bananas and mangoes from Coffs Harbour  Beautiful Organic Free Range Eggs from Pitt Town NSW  Milk and cheeses from the far south coast of NSW  The talented Mister Christian Estèbe - La Planchette Berbigier  Importing cheese and saucissons directly from France  AOP and "Fermier" cheeses on display at La Planchette - The Camembert is exceptionally good!  St Maure and Crottin de chèvre, Brillat-Savarin and Pyrennées ewes cheese  Roquefort, Gruyére fermier, Beaufort style from L'Abondance Valley in the Alps, as well as the little known Langres, a less pungent version of the neighbouring Epoisses, often eaten with a drop of Marc de Bourgogne  Fourme de Cantal, from where Christian comes from, a beautifully mild cheese with milky flavour sometimes nutty or with a taste of vanilla. Here in its young 30 days ageing version. I am longing bfor the 240 days one... Christian Estébe has named his business after his grandfather's name who had a great influence on his upbringing in Cantal, a region where cheese has been made for a couple of millennia, even mentioned by Pline The Elder as the most appreciated by the Emperor in Rome! A long tradition indeed. Christian specialises in AOC/AOP and "Fermier" cheeses which he imports directly from France, like Ocello and Australia on a Plate. He is catering for the high end of the market. If you are not familiar with those terms, then I might give you a little hint: AOC, you might be familiar with as it also applies to wine and means "Appelation d'Origine Controllée", a very strict accreditation procedure which is linked to the "terroir" where the product comes from; AOP is its European equivalent and means "Appelation d'Origine Protégée", again linked to the provenance of the product. "Fermier" on the other hand protects the way a product is manufactured: the milk needs to come from one farm, be processed on that same farm that same day or until midday the next and usually not thermally treated for the making of unpasteurised cheeses sold in France. The export market however imposes pasteurisation for cheeses aged less than 90 days, like Camembert, Brie and similar cheeses. Gruyères in all appellation - Comté, Beaufort, Emmenthal, and Roqueforts can be sold unpasteurised as they are aged for more than 90 days. As a result, Christian imports a very limited range of 25 cheeses that he sells at three markets in Sydney: Double Bay on Thursday, Kings Cross on Saturday and Marrickville on Sunday, and online everyday! He also sells charcuterie in the form of saucissons (made in Oz) and duck foie gras . Christian is expecting a new shipment in 10 days time, so look out for new and exciting cheeses! Christian is a very dedicated and passionate young man and I encourage you to pay him a visit and sample his beautifully crafted products. You can visit his website here: www.laplanchette.com.au  Saucissons from La Planchette Berbigier  Christian Estèbe in action at the Kings Cross Market.  Bananas and pumpkins from Coffs Harbour at Kings Cross  Beautiful succulents at Kings Cross Market  Magnificently elegant and simple Japanese crockery from ginkgo leaf at the Kings Cross Market  Morning at the Kings Cross Market  Across the road from the fountain, some of the best croissants in Sydney!  Danielle Mazet-Delpeuch returns to Sydney after a 23 years absence to promote the film based on her time in the private kitchen of the Elysee Palace, cooking for Francois Mitterand - Haute Cuisine - Les Saveurs du Palais.
We had a chance to meet her after the screening of the film and then again in a more intimate setting at the Alliance Francaise of Sydney yesterday afternoon. Today she was interviewed by Margaret Throsby on ABC Classic FM and you can listen the podcast by clicking the button below. Danielle is a vibrant 71 year old, full of life and humour, with plenty adventures over these many decades, and my guess is she is not done yet! A few things emerged from these three contacts I had with her: As she says herself, she is not a chef, but just a cook, but obviously not any cook, having learned the tricks of the trade from her grandmother, then mother and many other relatives and people around her over the years. So really the English title for the film - Haute Cuisine - is misleading and the French title suits better the task at hand and the skills required. Mitterand said to her: Cook like my grandmother and I will be happy: "Vaste programme" like this other French President, Charles de Gaulle famously answered to his Chief of Staff after he said in a moment of frustration: "Morts aux cons!". (and yes it is quite less rude in French than the English translation will suggest...Actually, I can't print it here, not to offend anyone!) One person in the audience at The Chauvel asked her what was the most interesting to her: politics, sex or food? She very politically answered that she was not interested in politics, letting the other two up in the air! Well, let me tell you, Danielle is a very skilled political animal, as she has maneuvered herself across continents, social layers and various kitchens around the World with aplomb and a sense that anything is possible if you put your mind to it! Her life is certainly a testament to that... Another interesting comment she made - and I certainly relate to it - was that to be a good cook, you need a good audience, you need "gourmands", and in this regard, Mitterand was definitely famous for his love of good food and good company, with a penchant for the feminine one... From the moment she started her cooking classes at La Borderie - the famous week-ends foie gras - she actually attracted the right crowd, people that have been exposed to the "Cuisine Bourgeoise" either in their childhood or later in life as they became more affluent and could afford to travel in search of this authenticity attached to it. This in turn triggers the search for the local and seasonal ingredients and the art of designing a menu with what you have in the pantry or you can source from the farm or the local market(s). Promoting these ideas at the time she started was completely revolutionary, although today this is becoming mainstream again, and sometime to the extreme, as Chefs around the World go foraging themselves for special herbs and vegetables. Not very different from digging truffes from your own backyard or gently force feeding geese and ducks to produce delicious meat, silky foies gras and fat to cook with. Nothing was dicarded from the animal apart from the head! A bit of trivia gleaned here and there over her visit: It took three people to recreate her recipes for the film: Gerard Besson, ex owner of Le Coq Heron in Paris, now owned by and renamed Kei, a promising young Japanese Chef Guy Legay, ex Chef de Cuisine at the Ritz, and like Gerard Besson, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, the highest distinction one can achieve in this trade And finally, Elisabeth Scotto, a very famous stylist who write for Elle The Antarticas scenes were in fact shot in Iceland - a tad simpler, closer and cheaper than going all the way to the Antipodes... The book mentioned in the film "Eloges deal Cuisine Francaise" by Gerard Nignon is out of print, and is available as an antique for 700euros - that's almost 1000A$. I will be waiting for a generous benefactor!!! Danielle said also that she dreamt of travelling at a very young age, and she certainly did catch the travel bug, having spent time in the USA, Australia, New Zealand (where she owns a plot of land destined to be transformed into a "truffiere" one day...), all over Asia and Europe. Maybe the next adventure will be to cook for Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson...Stay tuned! Danielle, thanks for your time in Australia and thanks for having shared with us some of your experience, adventures and wisdom. Food is all about celebration and connections really, so apart from the exchange of gifts, a tradition anchored in the night of times (dans la nuit des temps...), a birthday would not be complete without the partaking of a nice meal, in this case dinner. Our boy is away in the Alps riding mountain bikes in Les Gets and off to Castiglioncello in Italy next week, so it is only the three of us. As you may recall from my last post, we had bought zucchini flowers, goat cheese and scallops from the markets today and I had bought some magret de canard yesterday to recreate a dish that I sampled recently in Melbourne at the Waterfront in Southbank - a very nice place indeed, although you will find a collection of bad reviews for it. Let's say that I sat at the bar and watched the kitchen buzz, which I really enjoy, and I could not fault any of the dishes being prepared, plated up and served. My meal came quickly enough, the service was attentive and the maitre d knowledgeable about the wine list. Anyway, moving on to my own kitchen, I prepared baked zucchini with ricotta filling and pecorino as per Carmel's Kitchen recipe (Zav's wife...) and here it is: Remove the pistils from the flowers and fill with ricotta Spray olive oil in a baking tray, lay the flowers into tray, season and sprinkle with grated pecorino Bake for 15mn in oven at 180 degrees Celsius Serve as an entree.  For the main course, I prepared scallops with duck magret, asparagus and endives. This is not difficult to prepare, but difficult to serve hot and still rose for the duck, and warm for the scallops... So, here we go: Braise the endives until transparent but not fully cooked to keep them almost crunchy. I achieve that in a pan with a little olive oil, the endives shredded, seasoned and covering the pan with a lid on low heat for 15/20mn. Keep warm in a bowl. In the same pan, cook the small asparagus and the duck sliced in 3mm thick morsels. Warm your oven to 120 degrees, place your plates on different trays for 10mn until lukewarm Plate up the endives in the middle, the aspatragus next to the duck slices and leave enough space in between for the scallops. Put back in the oven after covering with aluminium foil or baking paper to prevent the duck to dry. Go and enjoy your entree with your guests and a glass of wine. Then, pan fry the scallops in a large pan with olive oil and some butter, as you want them to cook in a similar way. 30 seconds on one side until brown, then turn them over for another 30 seconds. Sprinkle with the juice of half a kaffir lime to deglaze the pan. Remove plates from the oven, plate up the scallops, and serve immediately...yum! Serve with your favourite Chardonnay and enjoy with no moderation, you are done for the day! Serve goat cheese with nuts and raisins bread to finish. And enjoy the company of your happy guests: Happy Birthday, Trish!     |
 In Sydney - October 2019 AuthorBorn in France, well travelled, relocated to Sydney in 1997. Archives
October 2021
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