Artichokes and Asparagus

The new season asparagus and artichokes are in the market and the sunshine has finally returned - so salads are back in vogue and the winter vegetables will soon be forgotten for another year.

Certainly Charles and Nancy from New Mexico, and my latest market tour and cooking day clients, were wowed by their freshness and flavour last week.  Not that we had sunshine then - the market tour took place under a leaden grey drizzly sky which emitted a torrential downpour at the end of the afternoon.

The small violet artichokes are a little fiddly to prepare and one of those things that you only really get right once someone has shown you how to tackle the job, which means it is the perfect task for a cooking day.  Most people have never prepared one so it is a fun job to have a go at with a bit of supervision.  I like to cook them immediately on the day they are bought because they tend to go soft quite quickly if left.  Look for small hard artichokes with the leaves still tight.  The idea is to prepare them quickly and then you can keep them for a good few weeks in the fridge in a sterilised jar and cooking liquid used to cook them - although they rarely last a couple of days in this household!

The cooked artichoke hearts are fabulous in our superfood salad with asparagus and avocado, a wonderful combination of flavour and texture and a great vegetarian dish if you stop there and don't add the crisped cured ham which adds an additional salty crunchy texture to the vegetables.

The tender top ends of the asparagus spears were used in the salad but the lower snapped off tails of the spears were not discarded but used to make an asparagus soup - a fabulous way to make your produce go further and to reduce food waste. Wherever you have snapped your spears there will still be a good few centimetres of useable green spear that will give more than enough flavour for a simple but elegant soup and for this the thinner spears work better than the fat ones.   Discard any really wooden ends and you may also need to sieve the finished soup to remove any stringy bits.  Of course, if you buy your asparagus ready cut and packaged up from a supermarket chain you will miss out on this option as the supermarket will have already trimmed them and charged you more for the privilege!

The main course for the cooking day was a French classic - coq au vin.  I think of this as a Spring or Autumn dish because it is the lightest of the classic French casserole dishes and can be made with either a good fruity red or a dry white.  I like to marinade the chicken for 24 hours in the wine with some garlic, bay and thyme.  I use finely diced onion, celery and carrot in the cooking of the dish but cook the lardons, mushrooms and leek separately in a frying pan right at the end and add to the finished dish when serving it - this way they keep their colour and a bit of crunch and add texture to the dish rather than being cooked down to nothing in the wine.  Serve with pomme puree and the cooked down sauce drizzled over.

Here is how to prepare the artichokes.

Pull away the hard outer leaves until you reach the softer light green leaves inside. Trim off the hard tips (about halfway down the head), cut off all but 5cm of the stalk and the trim the outer layer of that remaining 5cm.  Rub the prepared artichoke all over with lemon juice to reduce discolouration.

In a pan large enough to take your artichokes, finely chop one shallot and sweat gently in a little butter and oil until softened.  Add 100ml of dry white wine and bring to the boil before immediately turning down to a simmer.  Add the artichokes and lemon juice, a bay leaf, a sprig or two of time and enough water to just cover and simmer very gently until cooked (when a sharp knife just penetrates the artichokes with ease - do not boil or overcook or they will fall apart)

Either serve immediately or leave to cool before packing into sterilised jars topped with the cooking liquor.  They will keep in the fridge for several weeks.

Cook Eat Love

Jean-Pierre Campaci

Provenance.  Traceability.  Local sourcing.  These are the 'in' words of food shopping today and they all apply to the produce of Jean-Pierre Campaci.

M Campaci is a butcher based in Les Halles, the permanent covered market in Carcassonne.  The market houses a host of butchers, 2 fishmongers, 2 cheesemongers and a bar - of course there is a bar.

M Campaci specialises in beef and veal and, to my mind, it is the best beef and veal in the market.  The beef is a deep maroon colour with creamy layers of fat running through and the veal is the sweetest rose pink - the colour itself is evidence that the beef has been well hung and given time to mature and that the veal comes from healthy young cows given the freedom of a life outdoors.

The evidence of the good provenance goes further.  He has the certificates to prove not only what breed the beef is but also the farm it came from and indeed which animal it was, who it's mum and dad were, it's star sign and it's favourite band - well, maybe not the last bit but you know what I mean in terms of knowing everything there is to know about where your food is coming from.  He even has photos of him proudly standing with his hand on the rump of his chosen animal.

All of that would mean nothing if the taste didn't live up to the promise.  I can assure you it doesn't disappoint.  I have cooked his cote de boeuf on the BBQ, his bavette on the grill, his saute de veau in a blanquette, his jarret in a daube and his osso bucco cut specially to order from veal shins - all of which were wonderful.

He makes steak hache to order from pure ground minced beef, which is often minced in front of you whilst you, and a growing queue of people, wait - but there is no tension because most of the queue are probably about to order the same and because there is a good natured banter amongst the assembled line orchestrated by M Campaci himself, who is by nature a smiling example of French bonhommie.

As well as the beef and veal, he sells some excellent lamb, also with traceability to the Montagne Noir, just to the north of Carcassonne, some pork and a range of his a la maison prepared sausages, bacon, chorizo and pre-cooked dishes such as lasagne.

In my mind he is the epitome of a good butcher, French or otherwise.  He engages his customers in conversation, he wants to know how you are going to cook his produce and is always forthcoming with his suggestions for the cut you need and the cooking time.

Finally, he always welcomes my market tour clients and offers them a tasting of something - a piece of saussicon - no matter how busy he is, and for that I am very grateful.

PS.  Order 4 steak hache and he will give you 4 more gratuit - now that is a bargain.

Chateau La Baronne

When we first moved to our new house in Moux our focus was fully on the refurbishment needed to make the house habitable to the standard we wanted - not an easy or quick job.  When we finally got our heads above the parapet we started to explore our new surroundings - and our new surroundings, our village, contain a wine estate of undoubted quality.

Chateau La Baronne is owned by the Ligneres family, a family of doctors, pharmacists and winemakers. We all know that wine is made with care and love and chemistry so perhaps they know a thing or too, but there are no pharmaceuticals involved because La Baronne is a certified bio-dynamic wine estate which means not only totally organic but also in tune with the phases of the moon. That means bottling, harvesting and pruning on a fruit day or flower day as best befits the activity.

The wines are not the cheapest you will find in the region but they are cheap compared to their equals in the rest of France and the wider world - what is undoubted is that they are delicious and extremely well made.

The grapes, both white and red, are classic Languedoc varieties.  Rousanne, Grenache Blanc, Bouboulenc and Vermentino blends for the whites and Grenache Noir, Carignan, Mourvedre and Syrah for the reds.

The family favourite is the Carignan and they are 'constantly striving to heighten the expression, finesse and elegance of this emblematic variety of the region' (a quotation from the estate website).  The top wine of the estate is Piece de Roche - a 100% Carignan made from vines planted in 1892.  These were some of the first new vines planted on American rootstock after the phylloxera crisis at the end of the 19th century wiped out the vineyards of Europe.

I find it amazing that I can drink wine made from grapes grown on vines planted so long ago. They don't actually know how long these vines will keep on producing grapes of high quality because there aren't any vines older than this in France - it will be an ongoing adventure and one I hope to keep pace with.

In one of the barns at the estate is this beautiful old 'camion'.  It was used to deliver barrels of wine to clients in the early part of the 20th century.  It replaced the old horse and cart and represented the future back in the 1920's.  Now it just gathers dust, but it has lost none of it's charm and I adore that they have kept hold of it even though it now has no practical use.  It is part of their history, part of their heritage.

The estate isn't set up for visitors but that doesn't mean you wouldn't be welcomed and given the chance to taste these fabulous wines.  I would suggest a call in advance to make sure they know you are coming (English spoken).

http://www.chateaulabaronne.com/index.php

Bacon

Home curing, home smoking, making your own sausages - it's all the rage at the moment.  You can't turn on the TV, open a blog or a cook book without coming across an article about doing it yourself.  I am no exception.

Since moving to France I have made jam, compote and granola for the 42rvh breakfast table, made tomato sauce and pickled vegetables and cured my own olives - all from the excess of local production at the end of each growing season.  I have also successfully cured salmon using wild fennel picked from the countryside where I walk my dog.

But I have never tried curing meat - until now, and it is a lot easier than you probably think it is.  It came about due to various circumstances falling into place - a fabulous book on 'doing it yourself' which my lovely wife, Debrah, bought for my last birthday, an offer on pork belly at a local supermarket which resulted in 2kg of pork for only €12 and a bit of time on my hands in the off-season.

I cut the belly into 4 manageable pieces of half a kilo each.  We roasted one that evening for dinner, I froze one for later, I minced one to use in meatballs and I decided to have a go at making bacon with the last one.

The beauty of curing a relatively small piece of meat is that you can do the whole thing quite easily in a domestic fridge with little or no mess and no difficulty and the only other ingredients you need are salt, sugar and herbs.  I used a standard domestic freezer bag with a resealable top into which the meat would fit quite snugly.  I added my salt, sugar and chopped herb mix, sealed the top and rubbed the mixture all over the pork in the bag.  I then put it in a shallow bowl and popped it in the fridge.

Over the course of a week I turned it over every day and what started as a dry cure mix became a wet cure as the salt did it's job of drawing the moisture out of the meat.

After a week the curing is done.  Take the meat out of the bag and wash it thoroughly, then pat dry.  Make a hole in one corner with a skewer and with kitchen string make a loop to hang the meat, then hang it in a cool, airy place for a couple of days to firm up before wrapping it in greaseproof paper to store in the fridge for up to a month.

I was thrilled with the outcome.  Next, I need to make a smoker!


Notes;
For 500g of meat I used 110g of sea salt, 70g of brown sugar and 5 sprigs of rosemary.
Profesional curers use nitrates in the mix which helps to keep the pink colour in the meat but it is not essential.  It is available online from good suppliers.
Slice as thinly as possible and fry as bacon or cut into cubes and use as lardons.

Colonial Influences

A recent trip to Marrakech got me thinking about the influence of French food culture on it's former colonies and vice versa.

I was in fact surprised how little French influence there appeared to be on Moroccan food.  There are French restaurants of course, but then there are French restaurants everywhere.  However, everyday fare appeared to be predominantly Arabic.

I took a food market tour with a local guide (similar to the market tour and cooking day that I offer in Carcassonne, minus the cooking bit).  It was a fascinating three hours that covered all aspects of the local food culture and how it has been influenced by religion and outside invasion.  I would have to conclude that the Moors left a far greater legacy than the French.

My guide took me deep into the souks to places I wouldn't have ventured on my own.  We visited spice stores, pastry shops, olive and nut sellers, a local meat and fish market and a communal bread oven before finishing in the main square.

The etiquette of the making and drinking of mint tea was explained (heavily sugared and known as Moroccan whisky because of it's addictiveness - Moroccans have very bad teeth as a result).  I sampled harira (a staple soup), prickly pear from a street vendor, a snail stew also from a street vendor, a beef tangia (eaten by hand using bread as a spoon) as well as the olives and pastry and nuts.  The meat market had live chickens and rabbits which are slaughtered to order by the butchers - you can't get fresher than that.!

The tour finished in the crazy main square, Jemaa el Fna, an incredible nightly circus of market stalls selling everything from orange juice to sheep's head stew, from carpets to slippers to fake watches and bags, whilst snake charmers and henna painters vie for passing tourist business and touts try to persuade you into every small bar and cafe.  Wonderful, fascinating and slightly intimidating.

I know that in Vietnam (formerly Indochine) the baguette has become as much of a staple of the daily life there as it is in France - but I didn't see one single baguette during my week in Morocco.

The most famous dish of North Africa is of course the tagine (not to be confused with tangia) and it is interesting that North African food culture has made greater inroads into French cuisine than the other way around.  Tagine and couscous are very much everyday foods in France.  There is now a large Arabic population living in France - coming from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria (a million French citizens moved back to mainland France from Algeria after independence there) so it is hardly surprising that they have brought with them their food.

I adore tagine.  It's subtle flavouring of spices is in marked contrast to British colonial food from Asia and the Caribbean.  A chicken tagine made with green olives and preserved lemon is a thing of beauty and incredibly simple to make.  This is the recipe I usually follow (courtesy of Winter on the Farm by Matthew Evans)

serves 4
4 chicken legs
2 large onions, diced
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
12 green olives
1 quince, peeled, cored and chopped
1/4 rind preserved lemon
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 160C
Heat the oil in a large casserole over a medium heat.  Brown the chicken on both sides and remove.
In the same dish cook the onion for 6-8 minutes until lightly caramelised then stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute.
Reduce the heat to low, add the cinnamon, cumin and coriander and cook stirring for one minute.
Add 250ml water to the dish, scrape up any bits from the bottom of the dish and add the chicken.
Add the olives and quince, cover and bake in the oven for about 90 minutes until the quince and chicken are tender.
Add the lemon, season with salt and pepper to taste and cook for a further 10 minutes with the lid off.
Serve immediately with rice or couscous.

The quince gives this tagine a wonderful sweet fragrant flavour but I know that it not always available for everyone.  You could use dried apricots instead but I find their flavour a little too strong and overpowering for the subtlety of the rest of the dish.  Fennel is a good addition as an extra vegetable and a good sprinkling of chopped coriander over the finished dish will not go amiss.

Restaurant 111

Update:  a couple of months after this review the hotel and restaurant were closed down by the French authorities because of unpaid taxes and bills.  Bailiffs turned up, made everyone leave and padlocked the front door shut.  Tablecloths and glasses were left on the tables and remain there to this day.  It is sad but actually not surprising considering the obvious costs of running the place and the obvious lack of customers.  Shame.


When you leave Carcassonne on the Narbonne road across the new bridge, with its views of the Cité and the River Aude on the right hand side, and just before you reach the roundabout that leads onto the dual carriageway, there is a new hotel that hosts a one star Michelin restaurant. The 111.

 I say new but it has in fact been open for a couple of years now and has been a source of interest for a few years more than that.

 A very grand building stood on the site for as long as I can remember, which means 2006 when I arrived here. It was empty and for sale and had a beautiful double semi spiral staircase leading up to a grand front door. It had been a hotel once but now sat on a busy road opposite some ugly franco-suburban sprawl (zone industriel) that included a Geant supermarket, a Jardiland garden centre, a FLY, some car showrooms and numerous other sales outlets of indeterminate quality and value.

 We would drive past and admire its classical lines and structure and imagine, if we had any money, what we could have achieved there. In our wildest thoughts we did not imagine what was actually done!

 It was eventually bought and developed - the classical features were bulldozed and smashed and a brand new, gleaming structure arose from the rubble. It is modern and white and if I say it has more in keeping with a pharmacy or a clinic then perhaps you will be able to form a mental picture of it.

 A very good friend asked if we had been there.

 The restaurant won a Michelin star under it's chef, Michel del Burgo.

 We should try it, we thought, and so we did - we persuaded a very good friend to accompany us on a sunny Tuesday in early May - and, despite all the above, we were all very impressed and enjoyed a most wonderful lunch. We discovered a very stylish terrace at the back of the hotel with huge sturdy umbrellas to shade the sun (and resist the wind!) and cool ambient music and attentive staff - "Ibiza come to Carcassonne" as Mrs W so aptly described it.

 The food was immaculate and faultless. I needn't say more than that - it was delicious, very well prepared and presented. We all had the fixed price lunch menu of the day at €29 which consisted of an amuse-bouche of asparagus ice (sublime) and a smoked eel muffin (surprisingly subtle), a pre starter of chilled watermelon soup with fresh raspberries and grated almond, an entree of steak tartare with mushroom, truffle and quails egg ( I could eat that every day), a main of baby lamb cutlets with the most divine mirepoix of chopped vegetables including lemon zest and chilli and a very comforting strawberry, cream and almond pastry dessert.

 It was washed back with a couple of bottles very good local red wine that wasn't overcharged.

 I wonder how they make any money. There were five waiting staff including the maitre'd and the sommelier for three lunch tables, not to mention a one star Michelin chef and his kitchen crew. But as long as they are bringing out that quality of food at that price we should continue to support them.

Lunch for two with one bottle of wine at less than €100 at this quality is outstanding.

http://www.hotel111.com/restaurant-michel-del-burgo