Today was a bit derailed by freakish fainting feeling. It was all rather Victorian, and much time was passed fanning myself, and fighting claminess. I found the cure late in the day (red wine, foie gras and bread!).
Monday kicked off at 9am on one of the three sun-drenched terraces, with coffee and pain aux raisons. I'd hit the hay at around midnight, but some were up til gone 2, so it was a sedentary start. Then we hit the teaching kitchen, and learnt some knife skills. It was weird, as I know the techniques from a practical perspective from absorbing many cooking programmes and a course with Rick Stein, but it makes a BIG difference when you're angles and grip - and pressure - are being scrutinised constantly over time. We chopped: onions, garlic (from course to puree), peppers, mushroom, foie gras, duck breast, cheese...which was a fantastic preparation for a rather traditionally topped pizza. The foie gras with roquefort was very good.
We made a pithivier pastry - puff pastry ornately decorated, stuffed with sweetened ground almonds and almagnac. And my cooking partner (head-teacher- Philip) was on top form and did a cracking job making our pastry look artistic. Tasted marvelous too!
We made a salad dressing with 6 cloves of pureed garlic, 75% virgin olive oil, and 25%balsamic, with a bit of fresh pepper, and it was sublime.
Leftover puff-pastry parcels were made with burnt onions and a mix of cheeses - very effective leftovers. Almost as impressive as the duck fat scratchings: VERY tasty, if a little ostentatious!
Post-pizza midday snooze, and then we walked the 2 minutes to the pro kitchen, which was a lot less forgiving, and a lot more real! Bernard the head chef is my favourite type of French communicator.
He speaks beautifully in vaguely lewd sounding, calm French, which I understand perfectly....and I reply in English, which he understands to the letter. Bien!
Bernard started by making cassoulet.
This is one of my trademark meals, and it's an honour watching a master at work. One day he will crack, and try my method of adding a load of red wine to make it rich and sticky. I'm going to use the porktrotters to get more gelatine in my next batch. I'd like to say we both grew as human beings. I think his journey was "don't let that mouthy bint tell me - 3 generations of local chef - how to cook a regional speciality enjoyed as a national dish". Particular about their recipes, these Frenchies! It was a good one though.
We then made foie gras 4 ways. When I say "we", I was mostly to be found propped up on cold white tiles, sipping perrier and trying to stay conscious. Very poorly timed body-sabotage. Anyhoo - I couldn't de-vein the lobe of foie, but I watched! And learnt!
We then made a creme patisserie, which formed past of a creme brulee and a creme caramel (both sublime). Then home to nap.
As the sun started to fall, and the photographers hustled for the remainder of the atmospheric orange light, we descended back on Bernards for dinner. I'll post photos to do this justice, but if you can imagine a VERY rustic, French, shuttered restaurant, with a terrace overlooking a castle - sweeping vistas to the pyranees on a good day, and sunflower fields on bad...it's not a hardship. Aperatif (raspberry) with 2 types of marvelous quiche were hoovered, and puis, the main menu.
We started with a soup. Vegetable soup. Sounds 'meh', but the flavours were intense and light, and I dunked crusty Poilane and mopped that bad-boy up. Oh yes. That was with a local red. The the Gaillac vin doux appeared - which I love - and we had foie gras 3 ways (cuit, mi-cuit, and mi-cuit with pain d'epice).
Just in case that wasn't enough, out came cassoulet. And it was perfect. I make mine with red wine (and don't use cloves), but am totally rethinking my approach now. Big toulouse sausage. Big lump of confit canard, big glass of red wine, and hey presto: all the nausea and faintyness left the building. It's not a conventional cure, but I'm sold!
Then: creme brulee. Light as a feather with bitter burnt toffee...
Then hometime. Tomorrow starts with sweet pastry, and then a market trip...we're getting fish to cook for dinner with a veloute sauce, and then a sweet apple tart.
It's so quiet here (and no-one locks their doors) that when the roosters kick off in the farm below, it's reassuring.
My brass bed has high posts, and the bed linen is all ... Whatsit. Where it just blue and white - or in this case red and white - and features fine drawn outside nature scenes. Can't remember the name of it: annoying!
gnight
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2 comments:
I'll be the judge of Bernard's cassoulet recipe, if it meets my strict criteria then and only then can it be approved.
I'm with Bernard, never a drop of Red Wine in my version . It also means that there is more for tou to drink!
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