La Galette des Rois

It’s January and the boulangeries & patisseries here are full of large round tarts – the famous Galette des Rois, which is traditionally eaten to celebrate Epiphany – the visit of the Three Wise Men.   The cake or tart is made of flaky pastry with a filling of frangipane (an almond paste) and hidden in the filling is a fève – traditionally, a dried broad bean.  In the 19th century, the bean was replaced by a tiny porcelain figurine (now, they are inevitably plastic!).  Whoever finds the fève is king or queen for the day and they get to wear a cardboard crown (usually sold with the galette).  I checked out Wikipedia to make sure my history was right – it was – but then I found the following nugget of information:  “ The cakes are usually sold in special bags, some of which can be used to heat the cake in a microwave without ruining the crispness of the cake.”

So much for tradition -  special bags so we can heat our galettes in the microwave!

We bought a galette from the  local supermarket, forking out a little extra for the ‘version gourmande‘ and re-heated it in the oven.  Biting into it, the taste was synthetic, too much artificial almond essence, the density of the frangipane was thick and cloying and the flaky pastry was at the same time dry and faintly rancid.  What a disappointment!  And then I thought, hang on, traditions can’t be bought in supermarkets – why am I complaining?  So I got out the scales and the flour and set to.

The frangipane was easy: 125 grammes each of butter, almonds, & caster sugar, one soup spoon of flour, all blended until creamy in the mixer.  Then I added 3 drops of real bitter almond essence to one beaten egg and tipped that in and mixed it.  Finally, I added a good slosh of Monsieur Gervais’s Eau de Vie de Prune (matured six years in an oak cask) – a gift to Roland and another story to tell, another day.

I cheated on the next bit, tradition or no, I didn’t have the time to make my own flaky pastry, so I bought two ready-made packs of the best I could find made with butter.  Putting baking paper on a large metal tray, I unrolled the first layer of pastry and then covered it with a good spreading of our Confiture des Figues, leaving about 1.5cms of pastry clear all round the edges.  Then I covered that with a thick layer of the frangipane and stuck a real fève in the paste.  With the beaten yolk of an egg  I brushed all round the edge of the pastry and sealed the second layer of pastry over the frangipane.  I folded and crimped the edges then cut with a very sharp knife a fine trellis of decorative lines all over the surface – there are lots of local variations as to the pattern.  Mine ended up looking a little like a spider’s web (given Roland’s arachnophobia – perhaps a mistake! ).  A final brushing of egg yolk and it went into a hot oven (220 C) for 20 minutes. Fifteen minutes in, I whipped it out briefly and sprinkled the top with a dusting of icing sugar for the final five minutes of cooking to caramelise.  It was big enough to feed eight – if I told you that the two of us ate half the galette in one sitting, there are only two conclusions: a) we are really piggy, or b) it was really good!

Another country…

Stone steps carved into the rock leading to the vine terraces

It’s winter here and we are adjusting to a different rhythm.  Wood fires burning and shutters closing as the sun goes down.  Long walks in the woods of the Viaur Valley reveal a different picture of the place where we live.  With no leaves on the trees it is easier to see the traces of the old vineyards that once covered every inch of the now thickly wooded slopes.   The steep narrow paths are peopled with reminders of another way of life, stones worn away by the feet of farmers and animals returning from the vineyards, baskets laden with grapes.  In the 18th century, the wines of Bor & Bar (just 7 kilometres downstream from us) were drunk in Paris.  Then the phyloxera epidemic arrived in the late 19th century, destroying not only the vines, but the whole way of life of this area.  The men left to work in the coal mines of Carmaux and the women struggled to keep small-holdings going to subsidise the family income.  Now, scrub oak and chestnut cover the old vineyards and only the winter bareness reveals the hidden past.

Le roi des champignons

Walk into any cafe of bar in rural France at this time of the year and ask if anyone has found any ceps and you will immediately provoke enormous discussion.  The bar man will shake his head as he wipes a coffee cup dry, “Non, il n’ y a rien!“   But then the man sitting in the window will pipe up and tell you that his friend found five kilos the day before on the other side of the valley – but he won’t tell you where – for people jealously guard their cep-hunting sites and don’t share this information with just anyone.  To the uninitiated,  a ‘cep’  here in south-west France is ‘the king of mushrooms’  – ‘le roi des champignons’.  So much so, that people refer to ceps as ‘champignons‘ and all the rest are ‘faux champignons‘ or ‘false mushrooms’.  They are contrary creatures, appearing only under the most particular conditions and theories abound as to why there hasn’t been a good season of ceps for three years now.

The ideal circumstances apparently  depend upon having the right amount of rain and warmth on the right type of soil – and hey presto, out pop the ceps!  Simple – but it isn’t.  Monsieur Serieys says its best when the moon is waxing.  Despite a rainy warm autumn  which should have provoked an appearance or two, Madame Fiamazou says it’s because the summer was too dry,  and now, her husband says it is too cold, and so on and so on.   My favourite explanation why this year was not a good season for ceps was the rather cryptic comment of the local doctor in the village bar, “Ah, but it’s the third year of thirteen moons…”

The truth however is that everyone round here found a couple of kilos or so, but nothing like the autumn of 2006 three years ago – so perhaps there is something in that moon theory?  That autumn we managed to freeze over 40 kilos and ate probably another 15 kilos in one form or another  - and then the day came that I unplugged the freezer by mistake – and our collection of ceps metamorphosed into a different kind of fungi!  Roll on next autumn…

 

Crème de châtaigne

Walking in the sweet chestnut woods

In October it is impossible to walk in the woods without treading on the prickly round burrs of sweet chestnuts.  This year, we weren’t busy building so instead of simply roasting them on the fire, we decided to make our own Crème de châtaigne – in English – Chestnut Jam though it’s more like a nut spread or butter than a traditional jam !

The shop-bought version which they sell in France bears no comparison with the home-made version.  It was bland and floury and only when I tasted the finished home-made version did I understand why Monsieur R is such a fan.

The French recipe said 1 hour of preparation time and 45 minutes of cooking – it wasn’t true – but we did make far more than they specified.

For every 2 kilos of peeled chestnuts, you will need 1.5 kilos of sugar, 2 glasses of water, and one vanilla pod.  This makes enough for 6 x 500g pots.

Our version starts with a good walk:

Go out in the woods and gather the fattest, biggest, shiniest sweet chestnuts you can find.  Ignore small ones (too fiddly to peel) and dry-looking ones (too old).  The best taste comes from using the freshest you can find and cooking them as soon as you can.  Here in the Tarn, the chestnut woods are everywhere and it’s relatively easy to gather four or five kilos in a couple of hours. If you don’t have access to chestnut woods, the next best thing is bought chestnuts – but again, select carefully.

Back in the kitchen, with a sharp knife, cut a cross in the bottom of each chestnut and put them in a very large saucepan and cover with cold water.  Bring the casserole to the boil and let the chestnuts simmer for 10 minutes.

Tip the water away and begin the tiresome process of peeling the chestnuts – namely, removing the thick brown outer shell and as much of the pale brown inner skin as possible.  Two of you doing it is more fun than just one – stick on some good music, and have a glass of wine while you do it.

When you’ve finished, weigh the peeled chestnuts – this gives you the quantity of sugar you will need to use – see above.  Put them back in the cleaned casserole and cover with warm water this time and bring to the boil, simmering at a steady bubble and stirring the chestnuts round from time to time so they cook evenly to the point that they can be easily crushed – depending on the quantity this can take up to 20 minutes.

Drain them.  Then pass them through a sieve or better still, a mouli, and you will end up with a large bowl of floury puree.  Keep this warm whilst you make the syrup.

Place the sugar in a large heavy-bottomed casserole or jam pan – add a couple of glasses of water to the sugar and heat and stir until it has turned syrupy – but don’t let it caramelise!  Add the chestnut puree and a vanilla pod split open.  The heat needs to be high enough to make the mixture bubble fairly energetically but not boil furiously.

Stir the puree – and then keep stirring.  If the puree sticks it will burn and ruin the taste.  Depending on the quantity (we ended up cooking 4 kilos at a time!) it will take anything from 20 to 45 minutes to thicken up.  After the first 20 minutes remove the vanilla pod or the flavour will be too strong.  The ‘jam’ is ready when you have a thick-ish shiny consistency that can be poured into pots.

Have your glass pots ready and waiting – sparkling clean and heated up on a metal tray in the oven to 110C.  Pour the puree in leaving a good 1cm clear.  The French fashion of sealing the pots seems to work well – screw tight the lid and turn the pots upside down until they are cool.  This seems to sterilise and seal all in one!

We eat it on toast for breakfast, in pancakes (delicious), and added it to a recipe for chocolate fondant pots.  We’ll be putting it in the chocolate log cake for Christmas and giving pots to good friends as presents.  Note ‘good’ friends – it really did take too long to just give away to ‘all and sundry’ – but it does taste heavenly!

Les mousserons – foraging tales

I set off with my walking stick but no bag or knife.  I should have known better, for it is mushroom collecting season here and no-one goes walking without this essential equipment.  The morning mist rising out of the steep river valley was only just beginning to burn off so I decided to take the top lane that follows the headland before it plunges down into the Viaur Gorge – that way, I would stay in the sunshine.  A few minutes later, I saw Thierry’s car pull into the hedgerow a few hundred yards down the road, and his wife, Marie-Claude, jumped out and ran into the field.  How odd, I thought, maybe she was desperate for a pee?  Then Thierry got out carrying a plastic bag and waved at me.  Of course!  How stupid of me – they’ve spotted some mushrooms.

“Bonjour” he cried, proudly showing me the contents of his bag – beautiful pink-gilled field mushrooms, champignons de prés, and tiny tawny brown mushrooms like little hats – les mousserons.  Marie-Claude returned with a large handful of the mousserons that had precipitated her sudden descent form the car and Thierry trimmed the stalks with his mushroom knife.  “Here, you take them,” he said, and they found me a plastic bag.

“Cook them in the pan with a little butter and some garlic,” Marie-Claude explained and added, “they are excellent with veal.”

“But don’t cook them for too long,” Thierry said, “and serve them with un bon petit vin.”  And then they left, having explained they were en route for yet another little vacance.  (Marie-Claude has just retired and with a generous French pension and all the time in the world, they seem to be on constant holiday).

I continued on my way, and before long, I too, had found more tiny mousserons and some reasonably impressive field mushrooms.  And then I passed a  fig tree leaning over a garden wall.  The house belongs to some Norwegians who had been and gone for the summer and I knew that the figs would only fall and rot, so I didn’t feel too guilty about gathering a goodly quantity.  I began to fantasize about a fig tart I had eaten the year before – succulent ripe figs poached in a sweet wine sitting on a crème pâtissière.  Gradually tonight’s meal took shape in my head as I descended the lane down to the fields by the river – yes, there is rocket in the garden and a small lettuce, and some pork which I will marinade before cooking and serve with a creamy sauce of mushrooms.  Will there be time to bake bread?  No – but Roland can bring a fresh baguette back with him when he returns this evening, and we will drink a bon petit vin with our supper of mousserons and figs.