Cooking with 'The Cooking of Southwest France'

[snowangel]

It was cold today and I wanted soup. So, I reached for this book again, and made the autumn squash soup again. I will admit that when I made it the first time, I had a small bowl and froze the rest in single servings for me to have for lunch.

But, I have a lot of squash, so I made it yet again.

The ham I had smelled and looked off, so we had some lardons instead. On the side, some bread I baked. I was going to make a salad until Peter and Paul tasted the soup and decided we didn't want anything else.

This is another wonderful soup from this book. My family doesn't like squash, and they loved this soup. There is a bowl left for me for breakfast!

I'm batting 1,000 with the soups I've tried in this book.

[Abra]

I just made the celery root and apple puree again, for the fourth time. We like it so much that my husband even authorized it instead of mashed potatopes for Thanksgiving, which is saying a lot.

Until today, I have drained the cooked celery root and apples and dumped the milk. Today I happened to taste the milk, found it to be delicious in its own right, and decided to recycle it. Because I have no time to really cook today, unless it's Thanksgiving-related, I just tossed a bunch of rice into the hot milk, put a lid on it, and let it sit on a still-warm burner. Twenty minutes later, voila. Something between a risotto and a savory rice pudding, with that delicious flavor shining through. I'll never toss the milk again, and I'll be looking for even better things to do with it. Try it, it's fun.

[Pallee]

I want to make the Toulouse Sausages. The instructions call for fatback but there it's not listed in the ingredients. Any ideas on how much fatback to add?

I made the Baby Chicken with Lemon-Garlic Sauce and highly recommend it!

[Wolfert]

I want to make the Toulouse Sausages. The instructions call for fatback but there it's not listed in the ingredients. Any ideas on how much fatback to add?

I'm really sorry about this error.

I've sent the correction to the publisher.

Here is the correct list of meats to be used in the sausage:

4 ounces very lean salt pork without rind, washed to remove surface salt, dried carefully and cubed by hand.

12 ounces pork tenderloin, trimmed of all fat

4 ounces pancetta, at room temperature

Edited November 27, 2005 by Wolfert (log)

[Chris Amirault]

I made the daube of beef, Gascony style for Christmas dinner last night, and it was fantastic. It's multi-day dish, and it requires quite a bit of work and attention. But it was fantastic, a joy to make and the highlight of the evening.

[mrbigjas]

i got a copy of this book for christmas and i can't wait to get started...

ok actually i'm going to have to because i have a container of crab that i have to use. but speaking conceptually i can't wait...

[FoodMan]

For Xmas eve dinner, I had several dishes from this book.

- Duck leg ragout with prunes (i did not use the pearl onions since one of the side dishes we had used pearl onions). Too many things going on and I actually forgot to take a picture of the finished dish. It is the one in the background of the gratin picture below though, the one with the carrots behind the roulade. It was very good and the sauce it made went well with other dishes we had. I also love smearing the cooked prunes on crusty bread

- Potato gratin Auvergne style. Since no on ebut me likes blue cheese i had to omit it...maybe now it should be called something else. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. These crispy potatoes on top are the best ones

- Michel Bras Stuffed Onions. This one was such a big hit and so good that it could be a meal on its own. If you have not tried it yet, do so as soon as possible. It really is outstanding with a deep and complex flavor. I used duck giblets since we were serving duck legs and duck roulade for dinner.

[Shalmanese]

I have a few questions about the duck ham recipe.

-You ask for a single duck breast weighing 1 1/4lb. My duck breasts are maybe 1/2 a lb at best. Is it critical to use such large breasts or can I scale down? Will it affect the cure time? I started it hanging yesterday and I'm checking on it every day but I assume it will cure pretty quickly. I don't even know where to get a duck that size, it must be a 7lb duck or something.

- You say to remove the skin but not the fat from the breast. I had no idea how to do that so I just left the skin on. Will this be a problem?

- How am I meant to roll up the breasts for curing? I rolled them longways so I have a short, fat cylinder. Was I meant to get a long thin cylinder? does it matter?

[Wolfert]

I have a few questions about the duck ham recipe.

-You ask for a single duck breast weighing 1 1/4lb. My duck breasts are maybe 1/2 a lb at best. Is it critical to use such large breasts or can I scale down? Will it affect the cure time? I started it hanging yesterday and I'm checking on it every day but I assume it will cure pretty quickly. I don't even know where to get a duck that size, it must be a 7lb duck or something.

- You say to remove the skin but not the fat from the breast. I had no idea how to do that so I just left the skin on. Will this be a problem?

- How am I meant to roll up the breasts for curing? I rolled them longways so I have a short, fat cylinder. Was I meant to get a long thin cylinder? does it matter?

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Now that the moulard duck is available and the book is an update, I posted the new recipe first. It isn't critical to use the breast from the moulard duck, but it is a lot better and more traditional. At the bottom of the recipe on page 83 in the new edition, you have the old recipe for Pekin duck breasts which weigh about 5 ounces with the skin on. If you reduce the seasoning as I suggest and the curing time you should be pleased with the results. Let me know how it turns out.

It is not necessary to shave the duck skin just more traditional with moulard ducks. When the duck is cured, simply wipe the breast skin with some mild wine vinegar to remove any bacteria.

It is correct to roll the large moulard breasts lenghtwise to avoid any air pockets.

Your short fat cylinder should be fine.

[Abra]

Elie, thank you for your beautiful stuffed onion photo. That recipe has been calling to me since day one, but I've wondered about the amount of work relative to the end product. Sounds like it's at least as delicious as I thought it would be.

Of all the posts, yours is the dinner I wish I'd had on Christmas!

[FoodMan]

Thanks Abra!

Really the onions are worth it (my father in law loved them so much that he took all 3 that were left home with him). Also it is not that hard to make at all. It does have several steps, but it's pretty straight forward and needs no special skills. Just make sure to buy the largest onions you could find and try and get them as "football-shaped" as possible, rather than squat.

[Chris Amirault]

Elie I have a question about your gratin preparation that I thought about when I was finishing my daube.

- Potato gratin Auvergne style. Since no on ebut me likes blue cheese i had to omit it...maybe now it should be called something else. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. These crispy potatoes on top are the best ones

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Is that dish Corningware or some other heat-resistant glass? It seems to be. I ask because your description of the finished dish suggests that the potatoes on the top were "the best" -- and thus that internal creamy, cheesy perfection was not achieved. I can also see some liquid on the bottom of the pan; the directions indicate that the liquid should be "nearly absorbed."

I'm being so nit-picky because I found that the very last stage of my daube didn't go as perfectly as I'd hoped, and I believe that the guilty party was a "copper" baking dish that I had found at a yard sale (but had never inspected while using my reading glasses -- I just kicked its faux ass into the garbage can ). It never heated up properly and thus wasn't a good dish for the final blast of heat. I'm wondering the same about this baking dish of yours.

I certainly think that the daube I made required the right pot (in my case, a battle-worn Le Cruset big boy) and its success during the six-hour, 250F braising relied at least partly on that. I wonder if the same might have happened with your gratin -- and if it is something worth considering with SW French cooking generally. I certainly feel that I need a good non-covered baking dish for final, high-heat finishing in the oven, and I'm not sure what that would be exactly.

Perhaps, Paula, you can weigh in on this? Seems apropos given the book on which you're now working!

[Wolfert]

Elie: The onions do look great. Keep in mind that all the Bras recipes in the book are fabulous and worth making. Never mind that they take time if they are that good!

I was so lucky to have worked with him back in the 80's when he had a smaller restaurant, fewer michelin stars, and time to spend with a young food writer.

Chrisamirault:

The potatoes are best baked in a stoneware, earthenware or enamled cast-iron baking pan. Did you know that when one cooks a gratin in Pyrex or glass you need to bake

food for a longer period of time or change the temperature by 50 degrees?

A daube is best cooked slowly in a pot that retains its heat through thick walls.

All the recipes for long cooked meats in the book can be prepared in any good, heavy porcelainized metal vessel or claypot so long as they're the right shape and size and can hold and distribute slow even heat.

One reason I now cook daubes and other braises exclusively in clay is though they are prepared with less liquid, the final product emerges especially moist with an unctuous tender texture, and a special distinctive flavor.

[FoodMan]

Chris-

You are mostly right. It is a pyrex dish that I baked the potatoes in, the ceramic one had the onions in it. I really wanted it to cook longer so that less liquid is left in the dish. However, and you can see my long list of dishes for that dinner in the dinner thread, I HAD to remove it after two hours because everything else was ready. So it was not as creamy as I would've liked (make no mistake though, it was all gone that night ). Like Paula said, another 30 minutes would've helped the pyrex dish a lot.

[Abra]

Paula, will you be so kind as to give us your favorite sources of clay pots? I got Slow Mediterranean for Christmas, as well as cooking my way through SW France, and I only have some glazed Polish bakers, and a glazed cazuela, which I don't think are what you would be using.

[FoodMan]

Paula, will you be so kind as to give us your favorite sources of clay pots?  I got Slow Mediterranean for Christmas, as well as cooking my way through SW France, and I only have some glazed Polish bakers, and a glazed cazuela, which I don't think are what you would be using.

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Abra-

I think the resources pages in both books lists some. If I am not mistaken and working from memory here, I believe Clay Coyote is one of them.

[FoodMan]

yeap, I am right, from the Clay Coyote website:

Cassole (cassoulet)

Last year we were approached by Paula Wolfert (she had used several of our pots in the past) to see if we could make a cassole similar to one she had bought in France years ago.  She was updating her famous book "The Cooking of SW France" and needed a pot large enough to hold the whole cassoulet recipe (over 5 quarts) and shaped to properly bake this wonderful dish.

So here it is....about 13 inches across the rim, 2 handles and about 7 inches tall.  It's a big pot!  And it just about matches Paula's original which is on the cover of the book.

But don't just use it for cassoulet...try any baked dish for company.  Think stew, chili (spectacular) or any type of casserole.

[Wolfert]

Paula, will you be so kind as to give us your favorite sources of clay pots?  I got Slow Mediterranean for Christmas, as well as cooking my way through SW France, and I only have some glazed Polish bakers, and a glazed cazuela, which I don't think are what you would be using.

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Although I own a huge number of clay cooking and serving pots, I plan to make it clear to the reader that only five basic ones are required to execute the recipes in the book...an investment of less than a hundred dollars.

Abra, you are halfway there with a cazuela and/or the Polish baker or a tagine.

Plan on purchasing a clay sandpot from your local Asian market for bean dishes and waterless vegetable cookery. One should cost about $10.00 and is worth every penny. You can cook lots of different vegetables or legumes on top of the stove or in the oven. Clean up takes place in the washing machine.

You will want one or two unglazed covered pots as well since they work differently with meat and poultry than LC or its lookalikes. I love the chamba black pottery casserole from nutierra.com. to prepare daubes and braises.

And, finally a covered romertop baker for simulating the roasting of a large chunk of meat or a whole chicken in a clayoven. It also is great for bread.

Oh, another item I use is a stoneware colander for steaming couscous. Www. claycoyote.com is my source. They also have lovely oven to table pottery.

Edited December 28, 2005 by Wolfert (log)

[Abra]

Awesome! I actually do have an unglazed cloche that I'm always forgetting about, so that could double as the Romertopf. So now I need the chamba stuff, and I'll check out claycoyote too. Thanks!

[hathor]

Greetings fellow fans! I've been meaning to add this post for a few weeks now..but holiday madness prevented me.

To celebrate the arrival of my new cookbook, we invited over some friends for a Slow Cooking fest.

The menu was: roasted poussin with garlic-lemon cream, potato/leek casserole and the cabbage crust apple pie. There was a salad thrown in, but it fast and un-cooked.

The poussin with the garlic lemon cream has become a new favorite dish. The first time we made it for the Slow Cook fest, the flavors nearly bowled me over...sinful, sensual, complex, aromatic. Its just incredible. It was the feature course of a long Vigilla dinner and has a new list of converts.

The roasted potato-leek dish is also amazing. But I did slightly tweek the recipe the second time I made it. I let the cooked potatoes sit overnight in the refrigerator. That's usually what I do when making rostii potatoes and the overnight seems to help the potatoes hold their shape and texture better.

Now, lets talk about the cabbage crust apple pie. What is the history on that dish? We were all game to give it a try, but it was universally disliked. We talked about changing the filling proportions etc. etc, but it all came down to the cabbage aroma with the apples. Has anyone else tried this one?

What a lovely, wonderful book. I'm so happy with it that it became a Christmas presents for some near and dear. Thank you, Ms. Wolfert.

[snowangel]

For those who have not yet made the garlic soup, do so! The two little 10-year old boys questioned me about lunch yesterday when I said garlic soup. I have made this soup many times. It is easy, fairly fast to make, and requires nothing that I don't already have at home. THese little skeptical boys lapped this dish up like there was no tomorrow. I have had the same reaction from everyone who has been served this at my house.

The biggest disappointment of this dish is that lovely aroma does not last for days. That aroma should be bottled and put into candles.

[Wolfert]

Greetings fellow fans!  I've been meaning to add this post for a few weeks now..but holiday madness  prevented me.

To celebrate the arrival of my new cookbook, we invited over some friends for a Slow Cooking fest.

The menu was: roasted poussin with garlic-lemon cream, potato/leek casserole and the cabbage crust apple pie. There was a salad thrown in, but it fast  and un-cooked.

The poussin with the garlic lemon cream has become a new favorite dish. The first time we made it for the Slow Cook fest, the flavors nearly bowled me over...sinful, sensual, complex, aromatic. Its just incredible.  It was the feature course of a long Vigilla dinner and has a new list of converts.

The roasted potato-leek dish is also amazing. But I did slightly tweek the recipe the second time I made it. I let the cooked potatoes sit overnight in the refrigerator. That's usually what I do when making rostii potatoes and the overnight seems to help the potatoes hold their shape and texture better.

Now, lets talk about the cabbage crust apple pie. What is the history on that dish? We were all game to give it a try, but it was universally disliked. We talked about changing the filling proportions etc. etc, but it all came down to the cabbage aroma with the apples. Has anyone else tried this one?

What a lovely, wonderful book. I'm so happy with it that it became a Christmas presents for some near and dear. Thank you, Ms. Wolfert.

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I am pleased you like the book.

The farmhouse dessert called grimolles is unique to the Poitou-Vendee region of France. After bread is baked in a brick oven and if there is still plenty of residual heat, a thick crepe batter blended with some sliced apples or pears is spread on a thin layer of wilted cabbage leaves and slid onto the oven floor to cook until golden brown on the outside and creamy within. The cabbage leaves aren't eaten. It is often served with homemade apple cider.

There is a second version using an iron griddle. This is the version I chose for the book because it would be easier for the home cook.

Grimolles is truly " a dish of the poor " and the taste and aroma of slightly burnt cabbage is the secret to success. I am curious what type of pan or griddle you used to create the necessary smoky aroma?

BTW. Even though I like the combination of smoky cabbage and sweet apple alot, my editor truly disliked it!

[hathor]

Merci beaucoup for the explanation. We invented similiar theories, but also got a little silly about it as the evening went on. I used a trusted old cast iron skillet that I have for many, many years and I got the charred, smoky cabbage flavor. Honestly, I thought the flavors interesting, but my easy-to-please-will-eat-just-about-anything husband was truly repulsed by the flavors. What an odd reaction. To each his own.

Maybe some garlic soup tonight.

(speaking of soup, we used the left over bones of the poussin and made an outstanding lentil soup that was 'bumped' up with a little of the left over garlic cream. A bonne femme soup if ever there was one!)

[mikeycook]

For Christmas we went with a small plates concept and included 3 recipes from CSWF. I had done each before and they required very little prep (very helpful when making 9 dishes). They were the Potatoes in the Style of Quercy, Bacalao a-Pil-Pil, and Asparagus with Asparagus Sauce.

All were well-received, but the asparagus was the biggest hit. I have made the dish about 1/2 dozen times now and it always gets a good response (especially from my taste buds). It is more than worth the price of an asparagus peeler. It's such a simple concept and people get a kick out of the fact that the peels of the asparagus make the base of the sauce. This has become on of my favorite vegetable sides to make.

The book has a number of vegetable dishes that have become automatic sides, because they are both simple to make and delicious. Off the top of my head, other than the Potatoes in the Style of Quercy and the asparagus, I make the Straw Potato Cake with Braised Leeks, the Eggplant studded with Garlic, and the Celery Root Puree on a semi-regular basis as sides.

[Wolfert]

For Christmas we went with a small plates concept and included 3 recipes from CSWF.  I had done each before and they required very little prep (very helpful when making 9 dishes).  They were the Potatoes in the Style of Quercy, Bacalao a-Pil-Pil, and Asparagus with Asparagus Sauce.

All were well-received, but the asparagus was the biggest hit.  I have made the dish about 1/2 dozen times now and it always gets a good response (especially from my taste buds).  It is more than worth the price of an asparagus peeler.  It's such a simple concept and people get a kick out of the fact that the peels of the asparagus make the base of the sauce.  This has become on of my favorite vegetable sides to make.

The book has a number of vegetable dishes that have become automatic sides, because they are both simple to make and delicious.  Off the top of my head, other than the Potatoes in the Style of Quercy and the asparagus, I make the Straw Potato Cake with Braised Leeks, the Eggplant studded with Garlic, and the Celery Root Puree on a semi-regular basis as sides.

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