Radio Free Daglan, the easy way

It’s always a bit surprising when I hear something like this from a friendly reader: “Sorry that I haven’t looked at your blog for some time, but today I caught up with it — spent the morning reading all the postings I’d missed!” If that sounds like you, then please just subscribe.

Here’s what happens when you subscribe to Radio Free Daglan: You will receive an email the minute that a new posting is published. If you have the time, you can read the posting right then. If not, just keep it in your inbox until you do have a minute or two. It’s simple, and you won’t miss a thing. And you won’t have to spend all Saturday morning catching up with your reading. (Alternatives: sleep in; go for a walk or run; have a coffee; make a really great breakfast with pancakes and bacon.)

A few tips and suggestions on becoming a subscriber:

How it works: To subscribe, just type your email address in the box at the top right of my blog (just below the Search function) and click on Subscribe. You’ll get a confirmation email from the people at WordPress, to make sure you really want to subscribe. And that’s it.

The best way to read Radio Free Daglan: When you receive an email with my newest posting, don’t try to read it in the email form. For some reason, the format is pretty ugly — the type will span your entire screen, and it’s hard to read. Instead, just click on the title (the headline or name for that particular posting) and you’ll be taken to my actual website, where you can read Radio Free Daglan the way it was meant to be read.

One note about advertising: None of my subscribers has ever complained directly to me, but apparently there is a chance that you will find an ad of some sort at the bottom of the email you receive. For instance, my wife is a subscriber, and recently had an ad for Volvo cars at the end of her email. I have nothing to do with this, in any way, so I assume it’s an attempt by WordPress (the web company that supports so many blogs, including mine) to cover some of their costs. In any case, I don’t think there is any harm in this, because you can simply ignore the ad.

What’s in it for me? Not much, actually. But it’s helpful, as well as a bit satisfying, to know how many regular readers (subscribers) a blog has. From the statistics I see, Radio Free Daglan regularly attracts a lot more readers than it does subscribers.

So, what are you waiting for?

Quail? One each will do

My wife Jan has typically been more pro-quail than I have. She has often ordered quail in restaurants, while I have tended not to. She has been the one to suggest that we could buy quail to roast at home, while I haven’t. For me, I think the main problem has to do with the small size of the birds, and thus the need to perform micro-surgery on your quail before actually eating it.

But we’ve now found a new source, and that just may bring us together on the quail question.

On Tuesday afternoon, I had suggested that we drive up to Castelnaud (about 10 kilometres north of Daglan) to the boucherie that’s become our favourite place to buy meat. (Reasons? A clean and pleasant store; good selection of meats and prepared foods; a nice turnover, so you know things are fresh; and pleasant people.) We had no specific purchase in mind; we just wanted a few things for the next couple of lunches. Here’s what the Lacroix boucherie looks like:

The Lacroix boucherie in Castelnaud.

They were out of rabbit legs (one of our favourites), but they did have nice-looking pork chops, and we bought two of them for lunch today (Thursday). And the shop also had several quail, all tied up with butcher’s twine and covered with a nice-looking strip of bacon. The butcher told us that we didn’t need to open them up, as he’d already salted and peppered them inside their cavities. So with that, we bought two.

Almost as soon as we got in the car to return home, Jan expressed concern that having just one bird each would be too little for lunch. She mentioned this once or twice on the way home, maybe once or twice that evening, and maybe once or twice on Wednesday, when she was preparing to roast them. But what was done was done, and so she just pressed on. One bird each.

To accompany the quail, she defrosted a couple of slices of polenta that we’d made earlier and frozen; they just needed re-heating. For a vegetable, she sliced several Brussels sprouts finely, and sautéed them with lardons (small strips of bacon). As for the quail, she first browned them in a bit of duck fat, and then roasted them for 25 minutes in a hot oven (200 degrees Celsius, or almost 400 Fahrenheit) with the duck fat poured over them, so that they were nicely browned and cooked through, but not at all dry. I had mine with a few spoons of red currant jelly, which I think goes very well with mild meats like roast chicken. Or quail, come to think of it. And here’s my plate at lunch yesterday:

Clockwise from top: Polenta, Brussels sprouts, and quail with red current jelly.

There was still a bit of knife-work involved in eating the quail, but once on the plate they seemed much larger than the birds we used to buy in Toronto. So one quail each turned out to be just fine. And the taste was just fine too — which no doubt means that quail will be joining our list of favourites.

Dealing with anticipation

I remember learning somewhere — high school? university? a book? a matchbook cover? — that “stress” is a normal and important part of life. We have a problem with stress only when we let it become “distress.”

Here in the Greater Daglan Area, we are pretty good about dealing with stress. For one thing, we don’t have much of it.

For another, there are lots of positive aspects of life upon which we can focus. Anyway, failing all else, we can simply relax and let it roll off our backs. Let me give you a case in point, dealing with a real-life stress for me, and using our female cat Amélie as a model for proper relaxation techniques.

The stress  I’m dealing with is one of anticipation, and it faces me almost every morning. Typically, I have a small bowl of Greek yoghurt with some bran cereal for breakfast (one reason that I can consume such substantial lunches). And there, staring me in the face each morning, is this:

Soon! A new look!

Even if you don’t understand much French, you can probably figure out that the cereal maker is warning us that a new packaging design is coming soon. But when is “soon”? What will the new design look like? Will we be able to find the cereal on the supermarket shelves? Obviously, this is a stress of anticipation, with lots of unanswered questions. So, to see how to cope with this, we now turn to Amélie. Here she is, settled on the carpet in front of a cozy fire, beginning to de-stress:

She nestles into place, before the fire.

However, sitting up so properly can be quite tiring. So she obviously decides that it would make more sense to let loose, and allow her muscles to relax further. Like this:

She takes some of the stress off her muscles, by reclining a bit.

Having gone this far, Amélie wisely decides to go for a flat-out relaxation posture, removing any hint of stress. Like this:

She is now in full-relaxation mode.

Looks pretty comfortable. I might even try that posture myself this afternoon, and force myself to stop wondering how the new cereal box will look. But first, I think I’ll enjoy lunch. We’re having roast quail.

 

Going deeper into duck fat territory

Here in Duck Country, better known as the Greater Daglan Area, we are always looking for more ways to get the most from our favourite bird. So I was pleased when I saw on a cooking show recently what looked like a nice way to employ goose fat in the frying of potatoes. Using just a wee touch of creativity, I thought: “Let’s try that with duck fat.”

Since we were planning on having Boeuf a là Bourguignonne  for lunch today (Sunday), we thought that duck-fried potatoes would be a nice side dish. So my wife Jan walked over to Daglan’s 8 à Huit convenience store, and returned home proudly carrying a fairly large can (or tin, if you prefer) of duck fat, known around here as graisse de canard. Here it is:

Relax -- it's only 700 grams of duck fat. Not a kilo!

One of my tasks this morning (after I had finished peeling the skin off the caps of a bunch of button mushrooms, for the Boeuf a là Bourguignonne) was to cut several potatoes into small cubes. Then I brought a pot of salted water to a rolling boil, and dropped in the potato cubes for five minutes. After that, it was a simple matter of drying off the cubes on paper towels, and putting them into a hot pan of duck fat. Here we are, at an early stage of frying:

The little cubes of potato are nestled in the duck fat.

Now a real chef would probably use his or her fingers to turn the cubes, but I haven’t yet developed the necessary fireproof coating on my hands. So I used a knife and a tablespoon to gently turn the cubes as they cooked, trying to get them golden brown evenly. Generally, it went pretty well, as this photo shows:

The potatoes are getting a bit more colour.

As the cooking neared completion, however, the browning started to take place very quickly, and I must admit that some of the little cubes got darker than I wanted. We decided to do a taste test, so I pulled out one of the cubes and had Jan try it. “Terrific!” she said. So I rescued all of the cubes from their duck-fat swimming pool, drained them, and salted them. Then it was on to the plates, with the beef and some broccoli. Here we go:

Potatoes, at bottom. Broccoli, upper left. Beef, upper right.

Was it worth the effort? For sure. Next time, I think I’ll boil the potato cubes for one minute longer, and take them out of the duck fat one minute earlier. But the idea is right, and we’re certainly not suffering from a shortage of duck fat. So as our friend Rob would say: “Bring it on!”

A taste of spring

This will be a brief, but positive, posting. It now looks like we are firmly headed into spring, after an unusual period of cold weather and even some snow and ice (“Curse you, Siberian Cold Front!”).

Today was bright and sunny, with little wind, and there are hints of green on the limbs of some trees. For instance, consider this photo of a field outside the hamlet of Gaumier, taken by my wife Jan this morning:

A field of green, with Gaumier on the right of the picture.

Admittedly, the forecast is for rain tomorrow, so it’s not all sunshine and lollipops around here. However, Jan and I are prepared. As I write this, there’s a glass bowl in the fridge, full of chopped vegetables and big chunks of beef, marinating in a nice Burgundy wine. In other words, there is Boeuf à la Bourguignonne on the horizon for tomorrow’s lunch. Not to mention cubes of potato sautéed in duck fat, plus chocolate mousse for dessert. Who cares if it rains?

Our Valentine’s Day? Just ducky, thank you

For the second year in a row, my wife Jan and I celebrated Valentine’s Day (Saint Valentin) with a lovely lunch at Le Petit Paris, the excellent restaurant right on Daglan’s Place de la Liberté that is less than a two-minute walk from our house.

The basic good news is simply that the restaurant is open again after its traditional winter break; the really good news is that Chef Sylvain Guilbot has expanded the menu to include more choice, both in the tasting menu and in the “ideas of the moment” selections that he changes frequently. Here’s a taste of what we enjoyed, and why:

Chorizo is the bacon of sausages. Like bacon, Spain’s chorizo sausage improves the flavour of almost anything, especially if you enjoy a bit of spice. (For instance, I like to slice chorizo thinly, fry it lightly, and then pour beaten eggs over it, for scrambled eggs.) Today our soup was made with topinambours (Jerusalem artichokes) with slivers of chorizo at the bottom. (I will have to try slivering the chorizo for my scrambled eggs in future.)

A nicely decorated bowl of soup.

Duck shows up again. One of the two choices for plat principal in the “ideas of the moment” menu was a hamburger, Périgord-style. You guessed it — made with duck. So naturally, Jan and I chose that as our main course. The “hamburger” patty was made of ground duck meat, which was then topped with a thin slice of smoked duck breast (serving the traditional role of bacon) and a much thicker slice of seared foie gras (serving the traditional role of a nice fatty cheese). Finally came some sprigs of roquette (rocket, or arugula if you prefer). Our verdict was unanimous: this was absolutely delicious! Have a look:

You can see the slice of foie gras just peeking out.

Cahors wine can be drinkable. Quite drinkable. I had wanted a bottle of red Sancerre with our meal. However, our hostess, Madame Guilbot, apologized and explained that the restaurant hasn’t yet received its full shipment of wines, because of our recent icy weather. Instead, she recommended a Cahors wine, quickly adding that it wasn’t at all typical of wines from that area south of us — namely, heavy, so dark they are almost black, and very tannic. Neither Jan nor I like them at all. But Madame certainly knows her wine, and we finally gave in and ordered a bottle. And you know what? It was quite good. (If you’re interested, just Google “Mas del Périé” and you’ll discover what this vintner can do with Malbec grapes, the dominant grape in the region.) Here’s a look at the bottle:

A lighter, fruitier Cahors wine, without all the tannins.

Where’s the chocolate? It wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without dessert, and of course dessert pretty much has to include chocolate. So that’s what we ordered. Here’s mine — a “profiterole” that (unfortunately) looks a bit more like a chicken pot pie, with a ball of rich chocolate ice cream (and several caramelized hazelnuts) sitting inside the pastry,  which in turn was sitting in a large puddle of chocolate sauce.

A bit odd-looking, I thought, but full of chocolate flavour.

And then it was time for the short walk home. And who should we see in front of our house, wondering where we were? The truck driver who delivers our wine (we order it online). How’s that for timing? Just ducky, if you ask me.

Getting a bit saucy!

One of our everyday culinary challenges is working around my wife’s allergy to gluten. It’s not as tough a problem as some people think, because she can have gluten-free bread and pasta, and has no trouble eating other normal starches like potatoes and rice. On top of that, more and more restaurants are sensitive to the problem of celiac disease, and can offer alternatives.

Still, we do have to read lists of ingredients very carefully, because various versions of wheat proteins are worked into a huge variety of common processed foods. (Did you know that wheat is a major ingredient in most soy sauces? Seriously.)

Recently on a trip to the supermarket, we discovered some sauce mixes that are gluten-free, and thought we’d give them a try. Of course you can thicken sauces with corn starch, or by making a roux with gluten-free flour, but the mixes promised a bit more, including more flavouring. So we bought the packages for white sauces (which I tried successfully with my version of blanquette de veau) as well as for brown sauces (see the photo).

It's gluten-free, and it seems to work.

Late last week, we had bought some meat at the butcher’s shop we like in Castelnaud, about 10 kilometres north of Daglan, and planned to have the veal chops on Sunday (yesterday). My plan was to sear the chops, and then bake them for a fairly short time in the oven with a sauce chasseur, or hunter’s sauce. Here’s how it worked out:

First I melted some butter, and then sautéed a finely chopped shallot in the pan. Then I poured in a generous glug of Armagnac, and flamed it off. Once the fire died down (you’ll be pleased to learn that no damage was done to the house), I added some sliced white mushrooms, a cup or so of chicken stock, a splash of white wine, and a bit of tomato paste (which we always buy in a tube, and you should too). Once this was bubbling away nicely, I added a couple of tablespoons full of the Maizena sauce mix, stirred for a minute or two and — voila! — there was a pretty creditable sauce chasseur.

The chops looked lovely and brown after a short searing, and then I put them in the oven for 20 minutes with the sauce, and with the pan covered in aluminum foil. The result? The sauce was actually delicious, and the veal tasted very good — although it was a bit tough. We think the problem was over-cooking caused by the oven-baking; what I should have done was to simply sauté the chops in the pan.

In any case, the meal looked pretty good. Here’s Sunday lunch, including green beans and sliced potatoes that I had finished in a pan with lardons (small pieces of bacon), salt and pepper, paprika for colour, and a touch of piment d’Espelette (a mild French pepper) for a bit of heat.

It's the real deal -- a veal meal.

If you have a particularly sharp eye for nice touches, you will have seen the Laguiole knife at the right of the plate. (Laguiole knives are named for their original place of manufacture in the south of France, but are now made by any number of manufacturers. In any case, we love ours, and I now sharpen them after every use.) You might also have noticed that the knife is leaning on an unusual knife rest — something in silver that looks like a pig with a very long body — and you would be right.

We have a set of four of these babies, which were gifts from our good friends Kathy and Keith, who, like us, are charter members of the Wild Forest Pig Contrada. That’s the mildly famous tri-nation organization (Canada, the U.S., and France) that we founded (with help from several other friends) on a bike trip to Tuscany in the fall of 1997, and which flourishes today. Here’s a close-up of the handsome pig:

A handsome fellow, and quite useful too.

These knife rests are brought out only for special occasions, like Sunday lunches. Or any time we have a nice meal at home. Okay, to be honest, that’s fairly often.