While a simple court-bouillon simmers to poach a pink supper trout, it’s time to count my blessings after a tumultuous year.  I made it – sometimes wondering how – but here we are at the tail end of 2011.  December’s days are slipping into a grey nothing.  January’s stage is curtained, though with some positive events lined up, it promises both continuity and new scenarios.  Certainly I will find (with apologies for recent silence in this space) more time to post these little tidbits on travel, wine and seasonal arrivals in local markets.  So, dear friends and family, the vagabond thanks you for patience, for support through a difficult year and wishes you great health, happiness and promising new horizons.

The Larkspur ferry heads for San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Market

Keep an eye on this space for new winter veg ideas, some savory as well as sweet!

Crisp, juicy, and so good for you...

The fruity season continues, and with trees groaning with loads of peaches, figs and nashi, my friends are sharing the bounty. One morning, a sack of figs appears at my front door, the next I am surprised by a platter of golden fruit:  apples, non?   Non!  These hybrid wonders are sometimes called Asian pears or Asian apples, but more often known simply as nashi.   Their crisp wedges are the perfect foil for softer textures of figs or peaches in a fruit salad, and a small slice wrapped in a sliver of country ham makes a tasty morsel at apéro time before dinner.  Actually, I like them best chopped into my morning bowl of yogurt with a drizzling of chestnut honey.  Great way to start the day!  But beyond tasty – these little beauties are packed with vitamins C and K, antioxidants, potassium and natural fibre.  Nashi are used in treatment for colitis, arthritis, gout and gallbladder disorders.  So, roll with the season and enjoy them now, as this Asian pear is a fruit that doesn’t like to be cooked nor does it take well to freezing – a clear case of  “fresh is best”.

Lily of the Valley, Muguet for May Day!

In the village square this morning – and in front of the busy bakery – stalls selling muguet were doing a steady business.  An endearing custom, one buys a nosegay of this fragile, very short-season flower to present to someone dear to you.  This year there was a panic among the muguet growers – mostly based around Nantes in Brittany – to preserve the buds during an unusually warm and early  growing season.  Many were in blossom two weeks before May Day.  Somehow, there are enough to go around, whether local or brought in from the north.

Spring is about lightening up – for the waistline as well as for the mood of the season.  But a little something sweet after the asparagus and trout or chicken and fennel somehow feels deliciously indulgent.  Simple puddings have become my (pre-berry season sorbet) standby desserts.  Small glasses, verrines as many refer to them, are up dates of classics come-around again…. and why not?  To top off a Sunday dinner on this chilly spring evening, I whipped up a satin-smooth sabayon and layered it with prunes (or call them dried plums?) soaked in nut wine and topped with toasted walnuts.

The old standard, sabayon, does take a little practice  – attention to the details will reward you.  Set a pan over (not ON the boiling water) a saucepan of hot water as you did for Mousseline sauce – in fact the two are so similar.

Ingredients:    2 large egg yolks

4 Tablespoons of sugar

6 Tablespoons of sweet wine, such as Monbazillac or a sweet Bordeaux

nutmeg to grate before serving

8 semi-dried prunes, pitted and soaked in 1/2 cup of nut wine

oven-toasted walnuts, halves and pieces

Begin by soaking the prunes early in the day.  Make the sabayon ahead of time or – if you want it warm, 20 minutes before serving – and pour into individual glasses putting the prunes in first. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar over the heat, and as it begins to thicken, add the sweet wine a spoonful or two at a time (not all at once) and continue whisking as it thickens and small bubbles form. Grate in a little nutmeg and immediately pour it over the prunes and top with toasted walnut halves.  Don’t let it wait (it will set up and be about as supple as fresh concrete if done an hour ahead of time), but pour it while warm.  As an Italian friend counseled:  sabayon should be rich, but should never taste of cooked eggs.

This was adapted from  Alice B. Toklas’ Hot Sabayon Sauce, page 176 in my old battered copy of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, Anchor books 1960.  What was I saying about “old standards”…?

May Day delights - from dawn to sundown

Sauce mousseline..an elegant touch for everyday veg or fish

The weekly fish vendor has got my number….always asking where this or that sea creature is from, which doesn’t seem to be a common line of questioning. The first time I queried the provenance of a glossy little trout, he looked puzzled and said :  “…farmed, Madame”.   So on Thursday, before I could ask as I again selected fresh trout he piped up:  “…truite Périgordine!”  as his usual stern  glare broke out into a grin.   Next week, I expect he will ask how I like to prepare it, a natural question often part of the banter of market day interchange.  And this is my current (before the grilling season begins) favorite:

Poached Trout Mousseline is about as flexible a quick meal as one can produce.  Why mousseline, which is also the French word for flannel?  So smooth, so comforting, and so easily whipped up.

For each diner, one small trout can be cooked with spring onions, garlic and fennel…or with carrots and new potatoes…or…whatever catches your eye in the spring market stalls.  This option goes together in a blink – well, on the table in about 30 minutes:

Ingredients:   1 small trout

1 to 2 T. oil or butter (or half and half)

2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1 spring onion, trimmed and sliced in rings

1/3 cup Noilly Prat white vermouth

bay leaf, sprigs of tarragon, minced chives, etc.

1 cup fish bouillon (or a court bouillon cube dissolved)

3 new carrots, stemmed and peeled, sliced diagonally

4 new potatoes, peeled and quartered

for the sauce:  2 egg yolks + 1 tsp  cold water

Juice of 1/2 a lemon, salt & white pepper

2 T. cold butter, cut into bits

Set the carrots and potatoes on to cook in hot water to cover, cook at a simmer for about 15 minutes or ’til tender.  In a large enamel fry pan (I have a favorite one, used only for fish), heat the oil or butter (or a bit of both) and sauté the garlic and onion slices, add sea salt & white pepper & herbs, then splash in the vermouth to let cook for about 5 minutes.  Push this to the side of the pan and add/heat the bouillon, place the fish in this, poach on one side for 5 minutes, turn and cover to poach for another 5 minutes.

For the sauce:   heat water in a medium-sized saucepan and set a pyrex or similar dish over – not touching (or you will wind up with scrambled eggs) – to whisk the egg yolks, adding the lemon juice; as you whisk in the bits of butter, it will thicken quickly.  Double the recipe if you wish, and save some sauce to nap some cold potatoes for the next day’s lunch.  The Mousseline’s zippy flavor resembles a savory lemon curd, a great touch for this season’s asparagus spears or steamed new turnips. Try it with salmon or chicken suprèmes poached with herbs in white wine.  Divine.

Salmon steaks take to Mousseline, too

A drift of sweet scent wafts through the window as I lift a pot of deep blue and punchy pink hyacinths from the window sill and close the shutters every night. Fragrance, color, what healing powers the senses convey.  I turn to spices as the soup, sauce or chops are cooking, digging in the spice drawer for brilliant turmeric, tiny cumin seeds, ginger and crushed cardamom.  Cumin seeds send a smoky hint of the east  as they toast in the old Griswold skillet before I add sliced onions and then sear the turkey or sausages for supper. Just a dash of Nouilly Prat white vermouth deglazes the pan, a knife-tip of ginger and a pinch of sea salt are sprinkled in before the lid goes on and flame is turned down.  Using cardamom in savory dishes has become a habit as I stretch from accenting apple cakes or poached pears with this member of the ginger family.  Beyond its presence in Scandinavian sweets and pastries, where I first encountered it, cardamom is a great team player.  Indian and eastern Mediterranean cooks have known this for eons!

What is cardamom, anyway?  Happy growing in rain forests and tropical climates, the seeds of the pod of Ellettaria cardamonum are prized from India to Sri Lanka, and east to Malaysia.  It is a member of the ginger family (as noted), with long flat and pointed leaves.  The cardamom tree grows to ten feet/three meters high, and bears white flowers with a blue or lilac stripe in the center.  Cardamom appeared in Europe about 1200 A.D. – possibly another import brought with the courageous crusaders on their return from the middle east.  Its attributes are not only fragrance and flavor, but as a digestive aid and as a breath freshener.  Many cooks prefer to buy the green pods and to seed them as needed, certainly keeping flavor longer -  do avoid the finely ground caradamom found in supermarkets, which loses flavor once uncapped.  The pods mixed in with coffee grounds add an eastern Mediterranean tone to a French press or drip coffee.  This cardamom fan uses it so often,  I find the long glass tubes of crushed Guatemalan cardamom sold in Scandinavia keep the parfum longer when tightly re-corked and kept in a cool place.

It is a spice with character; a pinch is enough.  What was I saying about this team player:   skillet-toasting cardamom with cumin seeds before adding onions perks up a weeknight meal.  It adds an intriguing note to carrots cooked with garlic and sliced fennel.  Include cardamom in a “rub” for pork or duck, or even in a marinade for fish to add a new dimension to supper for a valentine….

Festival of Lights

While this uniformly gray December day draws toward dusk, the vagabond lights an Advent candle and begins to stir up a batch of croquettes.  My many friends of the Jewish faith are probably doing the same in observance of their last night of Hanukkah.  It is almost sundown on the eighth night of Hanukkah, and within half an hour, the last Menorah candle will be lighted in Jewish homes around the world.  A puffy or crispy fried food is always on the menu, with Latkes, crunchy galettes of shredded potatoes, the most common.  Interpretations of “fried” have expanded to include all sorts of savory fritters, croquettes and beignets to commemorate Hebrew history when the Macabees’ miraculous eight days of oil was supplied from a small flask that would normally last just one day.  In Portuguese Jewish homes, salt cod croquetas might be served, while on Italian Hanukkah tables a diamond shaped sweet Frittelle di Hanukkah will be studded with raisins and anise seeds.  My fascination with food traditions of many faiths led me to stir up a variation on croquettes, but rather than deep fried, I found that a moist vegetable croquette was better lightly browned in oil (to qualify on a Hanukkah menu), then baked to finish. This variation on sweet potatoes might suit your Holiday of Lights as a side dish – or even as a nibble with apéros.

Crispy sweet potato croquettes

This recipe for Croquettes de patate douce was tested with baked rather than boiled sweet potatoes, and the baked potato needed a tablespoon or two of boiling water to be mashed, as they dried slightly while baking. They can be made several hours ahead, then finish the baking & crisping before serving. But it is a very moist interior – the baking step is necessary. Shaped with two tablespoons they make an oval, relatively uniform shape and will serve four as a vegetable or beside the starter, while lots of small round ones will be enough to serve eight with cocktails.

3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, rinsed and cut up (300ml/1 1/3 cup mashed)

100 g/3/4 cup + 1Tablespoons plain flour; 1/4 tsp salt, white pepper , nutmeg

50 g/1/2 cup +2 Tablespoons ground almonds

50 g/1/2 cup + 3 Tablespoons freshly grated parmesan or grana pradano cheese

1 egg

flaked almonds, toasted as a finishing garnish + sea salt

oil for frying

Cook the sweet potatoes for 20 minutes in boiling water, drain and mash them or put into a food processor.  Stir in the egg and mix well, then the flour, seasonings, ground almonds & cheese. Mix all together (if you like the odd chunk of sweet potato , don’t blend it too smooth). Set the oven at 180°c/350°f; line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Heat the oil to cover the bottom of a cast iron skillet or deep fry pan. Have a plate lined with absorbent paper towels for the fried croquettes, with a skimmer or slotted spoon ready. Using 2 tablespoons, shape the croquettes and plunge them (no more than 5 or 6 at a time) into the hot oil, turning with a spoon or tongs as each side browns – which will be quickly; they burn easily. Turn gently til all are browned and ready to bake.  Transfer the hot croquettes to the baking sheet and bake for ten to twenty minutes (depending on size), shift them into a basket for appetizers or onto a platter with your main dish….lovely with duck or brisket of beef.

Versatile croquettes - with duck breast and seared peppers

Whether your candles are lit for Hanukkah, for Advent or for the Winter Solstice, the vagabond wishes you warm and wonderful holidays!

Begin with a bowlful of juicy arils

A marvelous seasoning – a magic ingredient – hasn’t turned up on the vagabond’s usual shopping circuit, so I set out to make pomegranate molasses chez nous. But why get into the loop of juicing and simmering this ruby fruit: why bother?  Is this just one of those esoteric culinary trends that come around in cycles?  Everyone has their motives when ingredients are involved, and for this cook in the Périgord, it relates to duck – lots of duck and all other feathered fowl so plentiful in our region.  Not only for duck, but the sweet tang of pomegranate molasses lends a complex dimension to many rich meats, a “secret ingredient” in the lamb and poultry tagines of the Middle East.  When I opened Crazy Water Pickled Lemons*, Diana Henry’s delicious romp across the cuisines of the eastern Mediterranean, to “Breast of Duck with pomegranate and walnut sauce”, my pursuit of pomegranate molasses began in earnest.  The recipe only asked for two tablespoons, so why not stir it up at home?  Concocting my own pomegranate molasses was not difficult – it simply takes a little time, a “Saturday afternoon with no rush” sort of project.  Winter sunlight slanted through the kitchen door windows as I whacked, peeled back the rind to pop out the arils (shiny red seeds) and juiced two mid-season pomegranates.  Our bio-grocery displays Valencia fruit from Spain’s east coast (possibly from the region of Elche), and once cut in half to top a salad, I noted the density of seeds in these pale-skinned pomegranates.

Dense with arils, the membrane releases easily

First, the seeds needed some encouragement to release from the skins, so I whacked them with a small rolling pin before scoring each fruit in quarters.

A few taps to loosen the arils

Then over a large bowl, I held the rinds and peeled them back to release the glistening arils.  A little juice was released, while the seeds were plump and easily separated from their veil of membranes.  Caution: cover yourself, as this juice stains cloth….in fact it is used as a dye for Turkish carpet wool.

Pull away any clinging bitter membrane

Curious about how much would be needed, I let the seeds accumulate to fill a two cup pyrex measure.  That was from one and a half pomegranates.  After tapping and peeling, juicing the “jewel of winter” is the second step in the process.  My blender has a juicing column attachment, so I filled the filtered column with rosy seeds and pulsed the juice out in short order.  It needs to be scooped and scraped once or twice to allow top layer seeds to fall closer to the central blades.

Pour the juice out through a small sieve into a saucepan, turn the heat on low and let it simmer for 20 to 30 minutes to reduce by half.  Watch carefully that it doesn’t burn.  Have a sterile jar and lid ready, or a small lidded cup to keep your pomegranate molasses ready for use.

Depending on variety and country, it can be a pearly pink or ruby red

And what about the other half a pomegranate, bursting with scarlet arils?  Ah, they are preserved in good gin – just a small jar full – to top a festive New Year’s sorbet or….perhaps to enhance a duckling as we welcome 2011.

* Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry, published in 2002  by Mitchell Beazley, takes a fresh look at multitudes of traditional dishes across Turkey, Spain, North Africa, Greece and southern Italy.

Next up: a little beignet for the holidays

Walnuts - in every region of France, a handful of favorite varieties

Not only is the approaching holiday season whispering a list of get-ready and must-be-done details in my ear,  there are menu traditions to be stirred into the upcoming days.  One tradition dictates poultry, another asks for at least one green or golden side veg, while the topper remains:  a rich nutty-fruity dessert.  For all courses, nuts really come into their own during the holidays – beyond the classic bowl of nuts with a casse-noisette after the feast, relaxing by the fireside (is this too too yesterday?) with a bit of brandy.  From the vagabond’s perspective in southwestern France, where nut groves march across undulating Périgord hills, the presence of energy-rich walnuts goes from soup to dessert.  Along the way, there are a few regional tricks I could pull out of the recipe box (or folio) to enhance both the fête…. and the leftovers.  What? already thinking about les restes?

Shelled and briefly toasted nuts, ready for... action

Nuts in the market are ready for shelling, and pink Lautrec garlic is still sweet (once the green germ sprout is poked out), so I reached for the mortar and pestle to combine the two in an aïllade.  Since anything aillé suggests the presence of garlic, you can imagine related condiments reach toward aïoli in Provençal fish stews and Gascon aillada to season snails. A related mix in the Périgord is persillade, a crushed blend of parsley and garlic for topping potatoes and grilled meats. I knew that chopped walnuts and garlic form the hefty flavor base of aillade and began to search for proportions. The more sources I found, the more variations appeared – but most agreed that the Toulouse version is the best known. When I began mashing 3 chopped garlic cloves in my small mortar, it was clear that however my intentions were to keep it “authentic”, I needed a larger mortar.  So, oop-la into the blender for this Aïllade Toulousaine:

22 g/3  plump cloves of peeled garlic, chopped + pinch of sea salt

75 g/3 oz.  dry*, skinned walnuts, very lightly toasted, chopped

150 ml/5 oz. oil, half walnut oil, half light olive oil

3 Tablespoons finely chopped parsley leaves  (reserve 1 T. for serving)

100 ml/1/3 cup + 2 T. crème fraïche (optional)

Put the walnuts & garlic into the blender in layers, pulsing half of it before adding the rest. Stop and scrape down sides twice, add 2 T. parsley and when it is all of a mealy texture, add the oil beginning with a thin drizzle with the motor running. Depending on your preference, you can blitz it until is becomes almost creamy (or add 1/3 cup + 2 T. of crème fraïche) or stop with the coarser texture. Turn it out into a bowl and blend in the last T. of parsley.  Cover the bowl and let it mellow for a few hours before serving as a dip for celery and other crudités, or with cold cuts, sliced game or …turkey.

The southwest classic with sautéed potatoes

Actually, our favorite market-break café stop suggests another course

Tartelettes aux noix, a hint of desserts to come

To all my fellow vagabond gourmands, wherever you are perched:             Happy Thanksgiving !

Nut notes: The best season for this and many other condiments and sauces using crushed nuts and garlic is August into September, when the new walnuts are considered “wet”. New crop garlic is juicier as well, so both are much easier to mash in a mortar for a finer consistency. Obviously, it is also the best time for making pesto with fresh basil and new almonds or pine nuts.

Primeurs are ready to sip with roasted chestnuts

Nouveau!  Signs scrawled on bistro black boards and in grocery windows across southern France proclaim their arrival:  the new, fruity wines are here! November’s third Thursday, the official release date for barrels, bottles and boxes of Beaujolais nouveau is cause for celebration – not only of a fresh batch of Beaujolais, but of many other regional reds.  Several of these primeurs were displayed in a cart in our village grocery this week; the vagabond couldn’t resist one of her favorite appellations, a primeur from Gaillac in the Tarn.  The grape for these young wines is the thin skinned, low tannin Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc, the same used in Beaujolais wines, which lends itself to carbonic maceration for reds ready to sip in less than three months.  So, why not celebrate the first red wines of 2010 with a touch of red on our plates as well as in the glasses?

A perk of this process: the aroma of roasted peppers

It all began at noon, when I roasted red peppers and eggplant in the oven to make a sauce for supper.  There are still local peppers and aubergines in the market stalls to inspire me, to suggest a special touch to a simply sautéed turkey steak with onions. This recipe* is one of those country traditions that doesn’t get very specific in quantities, so it is a little different every time I whip it up. The aromas of roasting peppers brings back flavor memories of Catalonian lunches beginning with Escalivada - a starter of roasted pepper strips and slabs of grilled eggplant. Although my original thoughts were to dilute the sauce with stock for colorful cups of soup, all that changed when  I tasted it:  don’t change anything, even the spices.  Be sure the veg are very fresh for this smooth  Red Sauce:

2 1/2 large or 3 medium sized clean red peppers/poivron (not piments)

1 medium to large eggplant/aubergine, washed and dried

2 cloves peeled and chopped garlic

4 anchovy fillets, oil or salt-packed – rinsed and dried, chopped

1 T. capers, drained

4 to 5 T. olive oil

Line a cake-roll (with edges) pan with aluminum foil to catch juices. Place the whole veg so that no sides touch.  Roast the peppers and aubergine in a hot oven, 230°c (fan)/450°f.  for about 20 minutes; turn them halfway through to allow all sides to blister or scorch a little. Remove with tongs onto a soup plate (they will give off more juices) and slip it into a paper bag, pinch closed and set aside to cool. Reserve any collected juices to add flavor to a soup later.  Meanwhile, chop the garlic and anchovies. Take the plate of veg out of the sack and slip off/ separate from skins and seeds, chop up the flesh (the eggplant need not be seeded, just skinned) coarsely. Put this in a blender with the garlic and anchovies, whizz it all together to make a thick sauce, stir down the sides with a spatula, then whizz and drizzle the olive oil in a thin stream. Taste for seasoning – it may want a drop of tabasco but no salt,  pour into a serving bowl; or keep in a jar in the fridge, where it improves within a few hours.  Serve as a color note on or beside poultry, fish or pork – hot or cold.  Finish your meal on a traditional note with roasted chestnuts to best  savor the last drops of primeur.  Packed in sterile jars, tied with a ribbon, this sauce makes a colorful holiday gift for someone who prefers savories to sweets…

Red sauce - when you are hungry for color

*Recipe for roasted pepper sauce adapted from the magazine, Country Living (UK) August 2007.

Next up: Nuts – walnuts, chestnuts and pricey pignola

Get out the old Griswold skillet, turn on the heat...

Irresistible, whether you call them cèpes, porcini (Italian), herkku tatti (Finnish) or boletus edulis, mushrooms from Sunday morning’s market rounds found their way to our table within twenty-four hours.  Our nice “mess”  – to revive an old morel hunting term – of mushrooms was actually enough for two meals, very fresh with relatively little trimming to be done.  We had quickly transferred them from plastic into a paper sack, kept them cool and made sure there were enough garlic cloves and parsley for the prep.  The juicy pink garlic peeled easily and parsley was plucked from the garden; with a little butter and some good olive oil at hand, supper was soon underway.

Lautrec pink garlic to chop, bacon chunks ready

As the resident Mushroom Master began trimming, I checked my Go-To site for mushroom questions:  www.leslieland.com.  This garden whiz has excellent columns and notes by mushroom expert Bill Bakaitis.  My concerns were to make sure that these were safe (raising a few questions even though they were bought from a mushroom vendor) and whether there were any warnings about drinking wine with the champignons. Not to worry:  it was clear that our boletus edulis all had smooth stems, with no shaggy or rough texture of a similar but inedible variety. There were also no warning notes on any danger in having a glass of wine with these mushrooms.  Once cleaned, the cèpes cooked in the hot, heavy skillet with chopped garlic and bacon in bubbling butter for about 20 minutes.  I loaded a basket with toasted baguette slices, we plated the cèpes and sat down to a magnificent country meal – straight from the market!

A quick drizzling of good olive oil puts a shine on the cèpes

Wine Notes: Many would choose a dry but fruity white – a Sancere comes to mind – to sip with cèpes.  The vagabond reaches for a country red, such as a three to five year old Côtes de Duras with a little tannic edge to accent the mushrooms’ woodsy richness.

What does it cost? At a reasonable 24Euros the kilo, or about 12 Euros a pound for the freshest quality mushrooms (older and spotted ones priced lower), I am curious about comparable prices in your markets….send us a comment on prices in your region.