Food On A Shoestring Four: Terroir du Toulouse

There is a word in the french language that has been in the wine canon ever since the french told everyone French was the wine canon: terroir. With its root in 'terre' it links flavour to its place of origin. The soil of the vineyard, its weather, the grapes all contribute to the complex savour of the resulting wine. It's a fine, exacting word for the inextricable relationship between ingredient and its land, figs in the south of france, sardines in Algiers, olives in Greece. The sunlight that warmed them, the land and waters that nourished, all leave an indelible mark that the senses can trace. It's a wonderful concept, and has a ring of truth to it. But it also can be the smug reasoning behind the bullying food snob. 'Terroir' has an air of exclusivity: there is the right soil and the wrong soil, just as there are those who love to tell us we drink the wrong wine, use the wrong balsamic or make bread the wrong way (I like the 'needless kneading' thank you very much). Terroir has those in the know in and the rest of us are out.

I don't really see the point of exclusivity in food. It's beyond banal to point out that everyone eats, it's more interesting to see that everyone has a favourite food, a favourite restaurant, a meal they always cook in company or at weekends. We link food to our childhoods (my first memory is of grated cheese in Canada. Never mind I was in Canada, the cheese is what stuck.) we treat ourselves with it for an emotional boost, we share it with our friends and loved ones, whether they like it or not. The food memories I cherish most are of their time and place: I look back with childish enthusiasm for sandwiches on white bread with flora, kraft cheese slices and iceberg lettuce. I remember Lincolnshire sausages, runner beans straight from the garden and carefully separating the strawberry from the vanilla and chocolate in neapolitan ice cream. I remember the yellow light on my grandparents' kitchen in the mornings where they ate brown toast, the way the aga in my childhood home filled my bedroom with heat in spring, my mother's quiet satisfaction in her shiny new kitchen. I also to my chagrin remember Good Friday fish in pink sauce, the miserable smell of my prep school dining room, the feel of the hard benches and the dread in my heart at least once every school mealtime. Every human has matrices of food memories, domestic, pleasant or otherwise.

Last week I found a book in a Books for Amnesty shop on Gloucester road that probably shouldn't have taken me by surprise. Toulouse-Lautrec was a well known gourmand, eccentric and experimental, as devoted to food as he was to art, indeed to all aspects of life, but I was still amazed by The Art of Cuisine, a collection of recipes, both original and classic, collated and published posterously by Maurice Joyant, a gallery director with whom the artist shared a passion, not just for eating but for cooking and entertaining. The book's introduction notes one particular evening:

'In 1930, Vuillard (fellow painter and friend) told the story of a memorable and succulent feast held in about 1897 at Lautrec's home in the Avenue Frochot- a feast somewhat mysteriously cut short at the cheese course: "Follow me," the master of the house ordered his guests, and led them a short way to the apartment of his friends, the musicians Dihau. Hanging on the wall was a then unknown masterpiece of Edgar Degas, inspired by the orchestra of the Opera where Dihau played the bassoon. It hangs now in the Louvre.

'"There is your dessert," cried Lautrec, showing them the painting.'

This has put me in mind of the current foodie craze for supper clubs. Bristol is teeming with them, with bloggers, editors and punters all tweeting, texting and generally clogging up media with their accounts and opinions. I haven't been to one myself, though I am sending The Blonde to The Montpelier Basement later this month, part birthday present, part reconaissance mission. The mystery, the excitement of strangers meeting over food, the different locations emphasize the all round experience of eating, and not in a concept restaurant way. There is nothing elitist in a celebration, and the setting may heighten the experience (watch Olly Smith in The Secret Supper Club, it's genius. I must admit to a bit of a foodie crush) without the intimidation of a chichi restaurant designed by a Zen motorcyclist or whatever works right now. We are taking 'Terroir' and making it a stage set, and M.Lautrec is invited to observe, if he's available. I think he'd hold the greatest supper club of all.

The recipes themselves range from how to make the simplest sauces to cooking an entire leg of wild boar to the best way to cook squirrels. The latter is too good to miss from this post, as you shall see in the last sentence:

'Having killed some squirrels in autumn, skin them the same day and empty them. Roll them up in a piece of lard and let them brown with some good quality butter in a copper saucepan. When they are a good golden colour, salt them, cover, and let them cook on a very gentle fire.

'One must use no spice of any kind which might entail the risk of taking away from the animal its exquisite nutty flavour.'

I know. Recipe books don't come better than this in terms of reading. tempted though I naturally was by the squirrel recipe in April they quite simply aren't in season, so I allowed myself to be drawn to the slightly more accessible Leeks in Red Wine, or Poireaux au Vin Rouge. Here is the original recipe in full for those of you with several hours to spare:

'Peel a dozen or two leeks, leaving scarcely any green. Wash them, wipe them and dry them with a cloth.

'Into the bottom of a saucepan put a pound and a half of bacon cut in pieces and arrange the leeks on top.

'Moisten thouroughly with three quarters of red wine and a quarter of water. Above all don't blanch the leeks beforehand or else they will be soft. Add only salt, pepper and cloves. Let them cook gently for at least two hours, having covered the saucepan with buttered paper. At the end of this time the leeks will be cooked, rosy, and firm and the liquid will be reduced.

'Now in a long heat-proof dish arrange the leeks. Take some of the liquid which you will bind with an egg yolk. Garnish the dish all round and in the middle with rounds of Toulouse sausage previously lightly cooked and sprinkle all over with bread crumbs lightly worked with parsley.

'Let it brown and go on reducing in the oven so that the dish has a creamy appearance and the leeks don't swim about.'

'Do not add any onion, garlic, scallion etc., but only ordinary and cayenne pepper; strengthen with cloves.

'Use large leeks, 3 cups wine and 1 cup water. Use 3/4 cup of skimmed cooking liquid for sauce. About 1/4 cup bread crumbs and 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley. 300(F) oven about 20 min.'

Probably one of his simplest dishes, simplified further by me to make wine braised leeks and chicory, baked with Toulouse sausage and breadcrumb topping. Here's my version:

I trimmed, washed and halved three large leeks and threw in a spare chicory. Having fried up streaky bacon in the bottom of a deep, non-stick frying pan i added the leeks and chicory and let them brown on each side.

Then I added a 1 part water, 3 parts red wine, salt and pepper, brought the liquid to the boil then let it simmer for half an hour with the lid askew. In this time I put the oven on and cooked the Toulouse sausages, £5 for six from The Bristol Sausage Shop in St. Nicholas Market, and marvelous specimens of Toulouse sausage they are too. Use them in the classic sausage cassoulet for authentic south of France peasant food.

After the half hour was up I took out the sausages and removed the leeks, chicory and bacon to a small heat-proof dish and checked on the cooking liquid. The wine had reduced but I wasn't happy with the overall flavour so I cheated and sweetened it with 1 tbsp sugar, then reduced the wine right down on a high heat. When I was happy with the reduction I poured it over the vegetables, then arranged the sliced sausage on top. I know M. Lautrec uses the sausage as a garnish but i wanted this to be a full dish for hungry people.

Then came the breadcrumbs, enough to cover (leftover from the last batch of bread, sometimes I feel very grown up) with a small handful of chopped parsley. Into a 160 degree oven (150 fan) it went for an hour and out it came bubbling gently beneath the sausage and breadcrumb layer.

Served with lightly buttered new season asparagus from Source it was full, rich and delicious. I admit it wasn't entirely seasonal but I reckon I've found another comfort food dish . M. Lautrec would have approved of the setting as The Blonde and I sat at the table with wine and chatted about the day and life. A pleasant reminder that that every moment is an occasion depending on how you treat it.

Next week I shall go veggie, as this week I have most certainly contravened step 5 of Shoestring's laws, so do stay tuned.

TTFN

Food on a Shoestring Three: Seasons Treasures

I love this season, some of my favourite English ingredients are sneaking into the butchers shops and grocers: peppery watercress, the first spears of asparagus, jersey royals and (drum roll...) lamb. Isn’t it lovely? It speaks volumes of Sunday lunches, celebrations and company, cooking juices and clinking glasses across a sunlit table. And despite my budget I’m not going to miss out on one of spring’s greatest ingredients. Luckily for me on monday I found the compromise too delicious to be called a compromise at the table.

Source is a newish company in the St Nicholas Market, originally known as Taste (and still called that on the St Nicholas website, tsk), the owners were hit hard by the recession and had to pull out. The management team (Joe Wheatcroft, Ross Wills and Liz Carrad), loath to see this great business disappear from the Bristol food scene, took over and have been running it ever since. Inside it’s well lit and spacious, the counters have a gorgeous selection of meat, charcuterie, fish, cheese and cakes, not to mention fresh local vegetables. The Stokes range of chutneys and sauces look very inviting and as for the jars of crab bisque, well. Clearly I could go on but lamb was my quest and I saw only ‘Salt Marsh...’ on the chalkboard before I dashed to the meat counter.

There were the classic cuts of course, and a very tempting brisket but then the breast cuts caught my eye and I realised I’d never cooked or eaten this cut. And at £5.50 for one whole breast now seemed the perfect time. I could have asked the butcher (or Joe, as I now know from the website pictures. It’s research, not stalking, okay?) to take the whole cut off the bone and roll it, then roast it quickly with some herbs and garlic, but Joe’s suggestion of marinating the riblets in spices and slow cooking them made us both hungry over the counter. I grabbed a bag of Wiltshire new season watercress, handed over my tip fund and headed home post haste.

Having shown off my treasure to Harriet I made up a marinade, toasting 1tsp coriander seeds and 1tsp cumin seeds, crushing them with the mortar and pestle. Then I added 1 heaped teaspoon harissa paste, 4 anchovy fillets, a small handful of toasted almonds, lots of olive oil and a little honey. I left it for as long as I could, in this case about 4 hours, covered, seasoned with salt flakes, ground pepper and whole garlic cloves. While the main marinated I made a loaf of bread for mopping up juices later, and for table decoration.

Dinner was set for 8.15 so at 6.00 I browned the riblets in the faithful Le Creuset, then drained the fat and scrubbed off any burnt excess.

Then the riblets went in layered with finely sliced red and white onions. At the last minute I remembered the apricots (one packet dried whole apricots). After an hour I added a sliced lemon and some young thyme.

After a further 30 minutes the riblets were tender and delicately flavoured. Company arrived, wine was opened and dinner commenced, with a little honey served at the table for a quick glaze and the watercress.

The lamb was juicy, the fat had rendered out well and the honey offset the gentle spices. The apricots had soaked up some of the meat juices and matched the savoury meatiness of the lamb. Add the peppery watercress, light bread to mop up the juices and conversation flowed in the way that simple food cooked well encourages. For me the payoff is in the happy, well fed people at the table, chatting happily over the quiet clink of cutlery and glass.

Dinner was finished off with small squares of chocolate brownie, from Tristan Welch’s recipe for Delicious Magazine, an intense little brownie best served fridge cold so it resembles fudge.

As for the leftovers the lamb held up well in the fridge and kept its flavour, though I had to trim the meat from the bone and fat and shred it. This is going to sound prissy but it’s lovely in chicory leaves with a little oil and balsamic. The leftover apricots I blitzed up with some white wine vinegar and put in jars, I look forward to using it as a sweet chutney with a mature cheddar.

a roaring success for spring food and a happy indicator of the coming months. Next week will almost certainly involve asparagus, I simply refuse to be left out.

TTFN

Food On A Shoestring 2: New Kitchen

I have a new home and am settled in to the new waitressing job. The former gives me more pleasure needless to say, but waking up to natural light pouring into the elegantly furnished sitting room more than prepares me for the trials of the latter. My first days off in the flat had to be spent baking, just so I could break in the kitchen and get my culinary bearings for a summer of food.

Having wound my way through a new supermarket (hate that lost sensation, and why doesn't ASDA put all its baking items together? It's nuts) and having found a cute little recipe in Olive Magazine which flavours the pastry with thyme and smoked paprika I set about my first quiche Lorraine.
Ah, pastry. Very satisfying to make, not always a dream to cook. A tip for first time bakers, don't use a spring based tin for your first quiche. Use a proper tart tin and avoid the leak that happened with mine! Still it was caught in time and hurriedly encased in foil which held everything together. Not my most attractive dish but the filling was wonderful. Turns out you really can't go wrong with cream, eggs, gruyère and pancetta gently baked. The pancetta came from Jamie Oliver's range, looks like his world domination plan advances with confidence. It works, light, sweet and piggy, perfect for this dish. And at £2.38 for 180g it's good value as my one meat purchase this week. It passed the roommate test (going back for seconds) and tasted many times better than that which can be purchased in a supermarket. Make the real thing and you realise that satisfying, filling sensation you're getting is from the cream. Replace it with milk or water or whatever these places are using to thicken the eggs and you've got an omelette set in pastry. Not bad, but lacking the rounded flavour needed for a satisfying dish. I made a six portion piece and I'm having the last slice two days later and it's just as lovely. Not a success for the eyes but a winner for the taste buds. In the end I had enough ingredients leftover for cheese biscuits.

I used roughly 70g leftover gruyère, finely grated, 100g butter chilled and cubed and 100g plain flour. For seasoning I added 1tsp thyme leaves and 1/2tsp smoked paprika. I rubbed the ingredients into a breadcrumb consistency and brought the dough together. Then I rolled the dough into a sausage shape, wrapped it in clingfilm and left it to firm up in the fridge overnight.
Next morning I took out the firm dough (half an hour will do, I just made it last thing) and set the oven to 190/fan170/gas5. I sliced the dough into thin rounds, about 3mm and baked them for 5mins. The result was crumbly, warming and very, very cheesy. Not quite breakfast material but a lovely late morning snack. speaking of snacks I'm a little peckish. Back in a moment...

That's better. Now, where was I? Ah yes, Tuesday.

Tuesday I woke pleased with my success and hungry so I went back to the supermarket (with tip money, I must add!) and bought more bread flour and tinned cherry tomatoes. There was leftover mozzarella in the fridge from last week's pesto/pasta (I was moving, had little cooking time) and had pizza on the brain.

Once again, if you make your base from scratch it will taste better and be more cost effective. It costs about £2.00 for a large margherita pizza from asda. £1.00 for bread flour and you've enough dough for six pizzas, which you can chill and even freeze in advance. 50p for a good tin of Italian tomatoes and you've got a sauce base. It's proper passata if you strain it afterwards but I prefer to stick blend it for a very quick, thick sauce.

Finely slice a medium white onion and four fat cloves of garlic. Fry them off in a deep saucepan slowly and gently until caramelised. At this point I chuck in 1/2 tsp chilli flakesfor a little kick and fry for another minute or so. Then add two tins tomatoes and two tinfuls of water (gets out all that juice from the tin and makes it a sauce). Season well and bring to the boil, then simmer with the lid askew for at least an hour, more if you have time. If you're making a dough base it'll take roughly as long as proving the dough and warm up the kitchen which encourages the yeast. Essentially the two actions dovetail into your day with ease. When the sauce is nearly done get your seasoning ingredients out, line them up and taste. I usually add a little red wine if I have it and a tbsp balsamic. If it's too acidic I balance it with a little caster sugar. You may not believe this, but ketchup also works, just don't tell your foodie friends. They'll never know. For a fine finish strain it or if you're not fussy just blitz it. Set aside enough for pizzas and store the rest. I like it with grilled polenta, and pasta will do. Or just toast homemade bread for dipping after a late shift.

Okay, the pizza dough I used was lovely but the ingredients ratio (1kg flour, 650g water plus oil, sugar and yeast) was far too much for my kitchen, which is best described as bijoux. Yeast water went everywhere. Jamie's a nice man but he's clearly never worked in an apartment kitchen. I salvaged enough dough to continue but Jamie's method works far better in a small space with 500g flour and 300ml water mix, as I did this morning to make a loaf of bread. You can add more water if the dough's a bit dry. Also make sure to make a very large well in the flour, much bigger than you think you need.

After that all it takes is toppings and ten minutes in a hot oven. Don't drown the base if you want it crisp. Just 1tbsp sauce, a little mozzarella and some flavourings scattered and dinner is served!