Dave Hatfield

Thanks to the kindness and hard work of Milkman the Alsace area of the interactive restaurant map Click here to see has been upgraded and improved. I now really know where to go next time I'm up that way. If there are any other eGulleteers who live somewhere in France or know some good restaurants please post them & I'll get them onto the map. Or if you know of quite a few PM me & I can tell you how to add your own entries to the map. The more we have the more useful the map is. Also, I'm looking for negative reviews as well. Many times knowing what to avoid is just as important as knowing where to go!

Ive never heard of them either. Liked the look of the combined microwave/ grill. stumbled a bit when I tried to get a price as they seemed to want more info than I was willing to give just to get a price. You might want to try www.ruedecommerce.fr. as a general purpose cheap on linr merchant.

Everyone seems interested in quick cassoulet recipes so here's mine. Being a traditionalist and somewhat passionate on the subject of authentic cassoulet I have stuck to the 'traditional' ingredients. ( I'm not against trying new things & ways, but just don't still call it cassoulet. For detail see my rant upon this subject on my blog.) I will freely admit that I have an unfair advantage in making cassoulet. I live in South West France so ingredients are easy to come by. Having said that this bean dish is not properly a cassoulet even though the ingredients are all traditional. Here goes. Start to in oven was exactly 30 minutes. (I did soak the beans (I use tarbais beans since they're easy to get, but plain old lingots or great northerns work just as well.) over night in this case, but I could have just started fresh & boiled them for 15 minutes while I did other things.) 1) Brown the Ham hock & lamb shank in Duck fat. 2) Meanwhile make a mirepoix and bring the beans to a boil. 3) add a head of garlic, peeled & crushed, to the beans. Add a good dollop of tomato puree & lots of herbs de province to the beans. Turn beans off after 10 minutes of boiling. 4) Take the meats out of the pot & put in the mirepoix. Simmer gently. 5) Fry up a pound or more of Toulouse type sausage, then cut into bite sized links. 6) Pour contents of bean pot into the mirepoix pot & bring to a boil. Turn off heat as soon as it boils. 7) Ready for assembly now. Put a layer of beans in the pot. Add the ham hock. More beans. The lamb shank. More beans & some sausage pieces. Now add your comfit pieces. (For this cassoulet I used 'manchons' which are the leg bits, comfit'd, of a duck. Incredibly cheap in my village shop.) Add couenne. (if you can't get it pork skin which has been boiled for 20 minutes will work). More beans. The rest of the sausage. 8) Pour over the bean juice to just cover. If not enough bean juice then add red wine to make up the difference. Now ready for the oven. 180 C for about 3 hours. Take it out then to rest & blend the flavors. Adjust seasonings. Back into the oven about an hour or so before serving. Add more bean juice/ red wine if needed to cover. Once the cassoulet is simmering again add the bread crumbs if you like. After a further 15 minutes push that layer of crumbs down & add a second one to finish off. ( I'm not adding crumbs today because one of our guests is allergic to all things wheaten.) There you have it; 30 minute cassoulet. The secret to speed is the ham hock & lamb shank. They need no preparation, but have the requisite flavors. If you can't get a Toulouse type sausage I found in the states that mild Italian worked well. If you don't have duck fat then olive oil works. Try it. Its not a 'proper' cassoulet so I call it Dave's Lingot ragu a la Sud Ouest. Sounds good even though it doesn't mean much. Proper recipe in blog below.

Sorry about your laptop, but there's no lack of apples in France. More than 1,000 varieties I'm told. Its more likely because there aren't very many Mac's in France that you are having a problem. If you had a Paul-Claude (PC) you might have better luck. Maybe you can use your apple in making a Tarte Tatin?

Good for you! what a great report. I did a similar thing last February here in France. Did most of the same things except that we made Toulouse sausage, sauisson and copa. We also did 3 kinds of pate with lots of the bits. These we canned using some incredibly old equipment. My ham won't be ready for another three months. Can barely wait. Next yeat I'll try to take pictures. Congratulations again.

Not sure of the name, but definitely goat. Mild with just a slight bite to it. Suspect that it is just the light since for whatever reason that picture had a ad color cast so I had to play with it quite a bit.

I've been far too quiet on this forum. Although I continue to eat my lovely French cheeses I haven't done anything unusual lately. Yesterday, however, it being Thanksgiving & all we did put together a nice little cheese platter that I though I'd share. These are all goat's cheeses & Jacques & I put together the list. He was told to keep it within the bounds of reason. (last year given a free hand he bought the whole store; or at least it looked that way.) The cheese platter. Only 9 varieties! Jacques calls this restraint. These little guys are very soft & creamy. That's a sprinkle of powdered cumin on top. Slightly older, firmer & sharper with mixed herbs & lots of pepper on top. The little round guy next to the knife is my favorite. It is much older, very hard & very sharp. Jacques knows that I buy these all the time. Many of you will recognize the rouelle & the bouche plus the other varieties. I'm terrible at remembering the names of the individual chevres. Still, I'm pretty good at remembering their tastes. Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving. We certainly did.

I have nothing against brining and brining is not incompatible with deconstruction. Its just that my experience with a really good true free range turkey (I guess in the states these days they would be called 'heritage' or 'heirloom' turkeys) is that brining is just not necessary. Why complicate life with an extra step. As you'll see on my blog later today when I post deconstructing has a triple advantage. - You cook the white meat & the dark meat for their appropriate times so that each is done perfectly. - You shorten the roasting time. My bird yesterday was 2 hours & 15 minutes start to finish. And that was starting from cold as I forgot to take the bird out of the fridge a couple of hours before putting it in the oven. - Carving is much easier. Yesterday several people asked how I got the perfect little fillets of dark meat. It was easy because without a bone the leg/thigh just slices easily. Taking the whole breast off the carcass then carving also makes it easy to get nice white meat slices. Carving up the whole bird (including the two extra leg/thighs) for 16 people only took 10 minutes. Christmas is coming! Try it.

Yes, that's a pretty typical looking French free range turkey. Doesn't need brining or much of everything else. You might want to look at deconstructing, works a treat with French (well, all) turkeys. Will help with your pan problem as well. Illustrated instructions on my blog. Address below.Happy Thanksgiving.

Simon, I'm with you. Maybe they should be called "Domaine de Maladies" My experience (admittedly only gained by guzzling over many years) is that the 10% rate is far too high.

John, I haven't seen many plastic corks or screw tops down here, but I have seen quite a few boxes. Many of the boxes are at the less expensive producers. One of my favorites being Domaine de Monteils a bit North of Montauban. Their wines are good solid vin ordinaires, nothing special, but very quaffable. There you can buy the wine in three ways: In a bidon you bring. Filled straight from the tap. In a box which you buy from them, price according to box size. You pay the same price/ litre as when using the bidon. They fill the box as you wait. In a corked bottle. As you would expect the bidon is cheapest, but you have to drink fast to prevent oxidization or decant & still drink fast. The boxed wine seems to stay fresh for quite a long time and is now my preferred method of buying everyday house wines. I am starting to see more & more boxes available at more upmarket wineries, but there is still a reluctance to put the very top quality stuff in a box. I wish they would as I think it saves money given the rising cost of corks & bottles. I doubt if a box would do for a wine that's going to be laid down for a few years, but equally I doubt that screw tops or plastic corks would work either. I think you need that slight breath ability that only a natural cork seems to give. I'm not bothered as I decided a few years ago to start buying only wines I could drink without cellaring for any length of time. I'm at an age where I think; why should I leave the good stuff to the Kids?

Gotta be Oregon with that cheese?

My first visit to this forum. Sad that Germany doesn't have it's own. Perhaps a reflection of something or other. In any case I was wondering who had read the attached article in today's NYT. Seems that maybe all is not lost. Comments?

Agree with Margaret. I can't find anything other than the pictures and the introductory line either.

Chaque un a son goût. As they say in France. Brine by all means if you like. My preference is otherwise, but ..... to each his own taste. I would highly recommend deconstructing your turkey. Julia Child gives recipes in several of her books. I did find this link which I don't think is a very good description, but sort of gives the idea. here it is. I also usually buy a couple of extra leg - thighs as we never seem to have enough dark meat. I bone stuff these. If I have time I'll do a photo recipe for my blog on this. Too late for TG, but maybe useful for x-mas.

Would not bother with brining; a few hours ain't going to do much. Besides with a 'real' turkey brining is redundant. Do you have a cold place (less than 45 degrees) where you can hang the bird? If so so that as a few days aging won't hurt the bird at all. If not keep it in the fridge, I wouldn't t freeze it. I'm lucky, I'm picking mine up from the vineyard on Tuesday. I do, however, have to start brining my fresh ham.

Gourmug - One who frequents over priced trendy restaurants.

Surprised that so far nobody has mentioned that lovely goose fat that you get. Goose fat IMHO is absolutely the best. Better than duck fat any day. Use it for sautes, coating potatoes to be roasted and so forth. Its wonderful stuff; light, flavorful and just plain delicious.

Have added this thread to the interactive map of restaurants in France OUTSIDE of Paris. Always on the lookout for more reviews. Where did you last eat in France (outside Paris) that you liked? Hated? would/ would not recommend?

Last year we paid 9 Euro/kilo for the best turkey I've ever had. Free range on a vineyard. You do have to order - like Monday - as the producers are all geared up for Christmas so need a bit of time to pick a bird for Thanksgiving. Otherwise turkey parts abound. Stuffed, boned leg/thigh can be nice. Or cheap, but less traditional is ham. I bought a 7.3 kilo fresh ham today for 12 euros; on sale of course. It will get brined and roasted to go with the turkey. We've kept it down to 16 this year. French, Brits, New Zealanders, Belgian and me the lone American. We always have a great time & this year I have a dynamite wine (see Blog) to ease things along.

I promised somebody some time ago to do a photo recipe of "Old Fashioned Tarte Tatin". I've finally got it done. The recipe can be seen on my blog. Address below. Enjoy.

Judith, Just call them. I'd be very surprised if the person on the phone does not speak enough English to take a reservation. An alternate might be to persuade someone (A Parisian eGulleteer, perhaps) who speaks good French to make the reservation on your behalf. Any volunteers?

Heritage everything seems to be the hot new term in culinary circles. I, however, wonder what is really meant by the term. Today's NYT had an article on heritage turkey's. Even the champion of the older more flavorsome turkey breeds seemed to dislike the term. We seem to have heritage tomatoes, chickens, apples, ad infinitum. I expect somebody to introduce me to their heritage spouse any day now. So, what do we really mean by heritage food products? I think there is or should be a reasonable definition. I would hate to see the term corrupted as 'organic' has been. My somewhat bumbling definition might be: Animal or vegetable food stuffs grown from long established species in a traditional manner. That says nothing about the pro's or con's of such produce, nor does it address the implicit 'sense' that heritage produce is 'superior' to non- heritage. I'd love to see some debate on this. Especially from the food professionals amongst us.

A quick update. After 6 days on the Montignac Method I have lost over 6 pounds. I feel great, am not hungry and am enjoying my meals of fats, proteins and COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES! Daily reports on my blog below. We'll see how things continue. Bound to slow up.

I cannot list or recall the number of times I've said the equivalent of "so, what wines do you make around here that are interesting?" and received a great bottle (which sometimes leads to ordering up a case.) Sure, in the great regions, including now Languedoc-Roussillon, one expects good stuff, but try it in outposts. My most revealing was in Andorra. Your experience, folks? ← Spot on, John. The problem is where does one start? Buzet? (Bordeaux blend of grapes, hyper Market prices.) Cotes de Roussillon? Some amazing whites! Corbiers? Knock your socks off reds at very low prices. Gaillac? Huge range of wine, whites, reds, desserts, fizzy. My favorite Domaine Chandon makes something they call 'Gallian' in both red & white. Both are absolutely delicious. 5 for the white & 9 for the red. 90% of their production is exported. The appellation abounds with good producers. Quercy? Small area, but some nice stuff including Domaine du Merchien successfully run by an English couple. (We get our wonderful free range turkeys from their children.) Our favorite is Domaine d'Aries. Or as Linda says "grandma's wine" because every time we go to buy she comes out in her slippers to open up the tasting room. We get all of her family news as we buy. Their's is a true mixed farm; pigs, cows, rabbits, chickens, duck, geese and, of course, a phalanx of dogs to greet you & cats to keep the rodents down. The wine ain't bad & you can buy by the bidon, box or bottle. I could keep going, but all I'm really doing is reinforcing your point. Ask what's local. Normally the locals are proud of what they make & will serve up what they consider their best stuff. Its a great way to make friends.