I fell for grissini in Turin one winter weekend, and although it was a few years ago, it was a memorable gastronomic crush.  Bakers’ windows,  steamed up from the warmth inside, all displayed individual styles – some straight, some knobby – of these long, crisp fingers of bread.  To call them “bread sticks” doesn’t seem quite fair, for they ran from delicate wands to thicker, shorter sticks studded with herbs or seeds. All variations are very crisp, wonderful for nibbling with a bowl of thick, hearty soup. Every winter I indulge in a nostalgic trip back to Turin via a batch of homemade grissini.

Savory wands, Grissini banish the winter "blahs"

If you can’t find frozen pizza dough, or if your favorite bakery doesn’t take orders for unbaked baguette dough, simply make your own. This can be made the day before, kept to cool-rise overnight and rolled out, shaped to bake for the next day’s lunch. If you do this, let it rest at room temperature before working the dough. It also can be rolled into a long log, sliced into rounds and patted flat to make pitas.  Simple, economical grissini can be on the table in under two hours. Begin by proofing (sprinkle yeast over the water, cover and let it rest for 10 minutes in a warm place) until the surface begins to show some tiny bubble activity :

1 teaspoon dried yeast sprinkled over 1 + 2/3 cup/14 oz/400ml warm water

4 1/2 cups to 5 cups/1 lb.4 oz. unbleached white flour – this will vary with the flour you use; allow more for dusting the work surface)  + 1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons each mixed herbs and seeds for rolling each wand: oregano, thyme, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, Hungarian sweet paprika, celery salt, crushed black pepper – choose 2 or 3, as you like – mixed on a plate.

olive oil for your hands and to brush over grissini before baking

Put the flour in a warm bowl, gradually pour the water + yeast in along the inside of the bowl, stirring to incorporate it without becoming lumpy – pinch any lumps with your fingertips and keep working it into a ball. Cover and let this rest for about 30 minutes. Prepare 2 large baking sheets by lining each with a piece of baking paper, preheat the oven to hot:  450° f./230°c. When the dough has almost doubled, oil your hands and knead, slapping the dough and turning it over until it feels elastic. Slice it into 6 parts, roll one by one into a long rectangle 1 1/2 inches/3 to 4 mm thick, and cut evenly into 6 parts. Pick each one up, roll and begin to twist – the dough will stretch – so cut each strand in half, roll in the mixed herbs and place on the baking sheet. Brush each with a little olive oil. Let rest while shaping all the grissini, then bake for 10 minutes - just as you put them in, spray the oven interior with a water mist (to crisp edges) – until lightly golden. Then turn off the oven, open the door slightly and watch closely that they are not too brown, but leave to crisp for about 10 minutes before taking them out to cool on a rack.  Depending on how thin you shape them, this should make 2 to 3 dozen grissini. In metal tins lined with aluminum foil, they will keep at least a week in a cool place.  Serve short ones with apéros to dip into a tapenade, brousse or soft cheese dip – save the long grissini to enjoy with  salads and soups… to chase away any winter blues or blahs.

Every recipe has its source, an inspiration to try a new angle. I must thank Alba Pezone for clarifying steps in making grissini, as found in Elle à Table, December 2009.

Roots, herbs...all go into the stock pot

Making Soup,  a few words on step 1:  Stock

Turnips with lilac shoulders, a stalk of crisp celery or two, a duck or guinea fowl carcass, maybe a ham bone, and don’t forget the carrots to give a winter soup color…with  sage, thyme and bay leaves. All of these flavor-giving basics are at hand when I reach for the soup stock kettle. Market day will provide more ingredients: leeks, a handful of parsley that the maraîcher always tucks into my sack, and yellow onions whose inner skins will be added for color.  I’ll use the inner, trimmed green leek tops minced up – save the most of the whites for the final soup, onions  will be quartered and stuck with cloves and carrots scrubbed but not peeled. Following Patricia Wells’ sound advice that vegetables cut in small pieces give the stock more of their flavor, I’ll chop them up, run cold water into the soup pot to cover all ingredients, turn on the heat to medium and begin the day’s simmering. The herbs tucked inside the carcass won’t float to the top with eventual foam, making skimming easier. Actually, any fresh veg you have on hand, from cores of cauliflower to broccoli stems will add flavor and nutrients, so use it all up. Lift the lid after ten minutes, begin to skim off any foam rising, then add 1 tablespoon sea salt and 1 tablespoon white wine or cider vinegar (to draw calcium from the bones into the stock) and turn heat to low.  After about four hours – or longer if you wish – strain the soup into glass jars and let the stock cool. Pull pieces of duck or pork off the bones for a spaghetti sauce or soup later. With a good layer of duck fat on top, the stock will keep about a week – if you don’t use it in a risotto first!  More about soup next week: pastinas, tiny noodles…and almond dumplings.

As golden and plump as a ripe quince, autumn is here at last.  Something about the fullness of this season, always a mixture of pleasure and melancholy, brings more to do than hours in a day allow. Beyond finishing up some desk work, beyond raking a fresh ton of maple and elm leaves, then pulling out dry tomato plants – it is a season that draws me into la petite cuisine. With a bowl of firm quince at the ready, what is stopping the vagabond from taking a new tack with a pork roast?  And stirring up a pot of duck stock for vegetable soup fits into the week end’s goal: a Sunday lunch with friends. The menu is lined up:  a pork roast has been rubbed with minced rosemary, garlic, sage and a little pepper, then wrapped in jambon de pays/cured country ham to mellow overnight. Quince and sweet onions are ready to sauté in duck fat to accompany the pork.  Sweet potatoes and carrots will roast slowly, drizzled with pan juices for an hour. A ripened bleu de Gex and lait cru/raw milk Camembert are cool, waiting their turn on the table. My master chef/MC has cooked the apple sauce and formed his special pastry dough into a ball to rest overnight – ready to roll in the morning for Tarte aux pommes à la Michel - before slicing firm apples for the garniture/topping. A few recipes will follow after the true test: tasting on Sunday.

Monday’s report adds a few details to the pork roast recipe sketched above. A 3 pound/1.5 kg rolled pork roast for 7 or 8 begins with the seasoning and wrapping in four slices of jambon de pays/cured country ham. Let the seasoned roast rest overnight, then bring to room temperature in the morning. Allowing about 2 hours roasting, preheat oven to 350°f/175°c; a meat thermometer should show 185° f/90°c  when done. Heat a heavy skillet and sear the roast on all sides before putting it into the roasting pan, on top of a bed of sage leaves. Insert meat thermometer. After 40 minutes, add 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into rounds (some may be tucked under the roast). Season with white pepper and nutmeg, drizzle with olive oil or melted butter, return roast to oven – but baste every 30 minutes. Remove from the oven 20 minutes before serving in a heated dish, surrounded with the rounds of sweet potatoes. Garnish with parsley & sage leaves. Serve with a side of brown rice or wild rice. Well balanced wines from our Bergerac region, the Pécharmant, compliment the rich flavors and sweet tones of this menu. Look for the Pécharmant reds of Château Tillerai, Château Terre Vieille – or splash out with a Graves from Château d’Ardennes….to toast the golden season.

Quince in focus: The fruit, the tree, the lore of cydonia oblonga are brought into focus on the site – scroll down to October 27 entry:

http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008

Next up: report on the almond harvest, making chèvre at home (at last), and a visit with vintners.

With Labor Day comes a “back to school” mood, and with that mood memories of many years spent preparing the art room for a new round of  classes.  Days short on time meant bag lunches of fruit, a sandwich and…Fig Newtons.  Is it any wonder that an association still remains?  This month, daily walks to a splendid white fig tree – the Adriatic variety, if my sources are correct – bring back a few hazy memories of figgy brown-bag treats.  The green, sheeny globes of figs are bulging now, inviting me to gather a few every evening as they slowly ripen.  Since the large tree grows next to a railroad overpass, we have access only to the tree tops.  I use an umbrella handle to loop over branches, pulling them closer to twist off a few ripe fruit. Figs don’t ripen after being picked, and can only be kept for a day or two in a cool pantry. So, with twenty-four perfect figs on hand, it’s time to preserve them for winter feasts.

Select firm, ripe fruit with no marks or splits, rinse gently and let them dry. Prepare a simple medium syrup in one soup pot, dissolving 3 cups of sugar in 6 cups of water and letting it simmer while preparing the 24 figs. If you like, add a stick of cinnamon or a few star anise to the syrup. Wash a lemon and cut into thin slices, to be added to each jar. In another pot half filled with boiling water, blanch the figs for 2 minutes. Scoop them out with a skimmer and immerse in the hot syrup, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 5 to 8 minutes.  Sterilize 3 (or 4*) pint jars & lids in a boiling water bath. With tongs, remove the jars; carefully ladle figs into each jar, slip in a lemon slice and top up with the hot syrup, leaving 1/4 ” air space.  Wipe rims clean and place lids on, twist to seal. Place in a boiling water bath (use the one in which jars were sterilized), cover and process for 45 minutes. Depending on the size of the fruit, you may need another* jar. Any remaining syrup is ready for poaching pears or nectarines.  Let the jars cool away from drafts, let rest for a day, then label and store in a cool, dark place for a month. Then they’ll be ready to serve with a cheese platter, as a sweet garnish for duckling or pork – or as a gift for a fig-loving friend.

Scents-wise: Gathering the fruit or stirring up a jam, the fig’s sensual aromas are so intense – “this should be bottled”, I mused.  A California couple has done just that, with Mediterranean Fig scents and soaps in the Pacifica line.  Visit www.pacificaperfume.com and don’t miss the Mediterranean Fig body butter with almond oil!

Or should I say, rooster soup?  While September winds rustle in the maple trees, a pot of soup simmers away on the back burner.  Rich aromas of leeks, carrots and herbs in chicken soup fill the house.  After Sunday’s delicious dinner of braised coquelets, the obvious follow-up is to fill a kettle with vegetables, the trimmed wings and necks  (no feet this time) and gizzards of the little roosters. One advantage of living in southwestern France is an abundant supply of poultry – all sorts of feathered fowl.  So, when a friend thins out the number of young roosters in her chicken coop, the meaty little birds are on the menu.  They are bought with necks intact, so these and the wing tips are loped off for Monday’s rich broth.  With fond memories of Julia Child’s inimitable “Making Chicken Bouillon”  TV episode, I pull the gizzard, heart and liver out to reserve as well. The hands-on approach becomes second nature when fresh fowl is so much a part of the culinary landscape.  Actually, the coquelet can be prepared as you would squab or quail or small game birds: they need to be wrapped in strips of smoked bacon to retain flavor, stuffed with garlic and herbs, then roasted or braised in red wine. In this Bergerac region, there’s no shortage of red wine.

It does take time, making soup, and in France, “…time bows at the altar of gastronomy” as Roger Cohen observed in Monday’s  International Herald Tribune (August 31, page 7, Views). In an article titled, Advantage France, he cleverly recounts the ceremonial trimming of canettes (female ducklings) in a French market, and ladles out astute philosophy while noting innate cultural differences.  Being more involved with our food sources, and the less appealing tasks of preparation is, well, part of the process.  It is, as Cohen points out, connected to time, place and terroir.  And often this can’t be specifically translated, but ….it can be tasted.

September’s bites :  White figs,  Limousin markets, making fresh chèvre, and notes on the almond harvest.

There is no easier bread to bake than Fougasse. That was my conclusion this morning when I stirred up a small batch of this ever-so-basic bread before lunch.  Fougasse was originally an unleavened “hearth bread”, baked under the coals or cinders in the fireplace or bake oven in the “casa foganha“, the kitchen of an Occitan farm. Clearly, it is humble fare.  Traveling across southeastern France today, the region of Occitania called Provence, one doesn’t hear the Occitan language spoken (except, occasionally in the back country livestock fairs) anymore. You may sometimes hear the rustic Fougasse called “ladder bread”  shaped in circles, rectangles or leaves with slits in the dough. Some bakers top the dough with olives, salt, seeds and herbs, while others make a simply unadorned, delicious loaf.

To have Fougasse for lunch, begin 2 to 3 hours ahead by letting 1 teaspoon of dry yeast proof in 3 tablespoons warm water for 10 minutes. Warm bowls and flour at room temperature speed up the process. Measure* 250 g/2 cups bread flour (a light whole wheat flour works well – I use organic T80) into a warm bowl and make a well in the center, pour the dissolved and slightly thickened yeast mixture into the well.  Dissolve 1 teaspoon sea salt in 2 tablespoons water (it should not be mixed directly with the yeast), then mix it with the flour:  use a long handled wooden spoon or stand mixer with a dough-hook (wish I had space for one!), sprinkling more flour to make a workable dough as it pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  Oil your hands with olive oil, pull the dough together and knead on a lightly oiled surface. Add a little more flour if needed, turn and pummel the dough as it becomes more elastic, then form into a ball. Let it rise in an oiled bowl until doubled (about 2 hours, depending on temperature), punch down and split in half; on an oiled metal baking sheet, shape into rectangles and flatten them out to form 2 leaves or rectangles. Let rest, covered, for 30 to 50 minutes. Turn the oven on to 225°c/420° to preheat for 35 minutes.  At this point, you can make slits like the veins of a leaf, poke the top with a fork, or poke with your finger overall to make a dimpled surface. Brush with oil, lightly press 1 tablespoon chopped fresh (Not dried) rosemary leaves and sea salt over the surface. To top with olives, gently press halves of pitted olives into the top. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower temperature to 200°c/400°f  for another 15 minutes – but watch that it doesn’t brown too much. For a crunchy crust, spray with a water-mist sprayer when you put them into the oven, or put a pan of water in the lower half of the oven. If you like a puffier bread, don’t roll it too thin and avoid misting. The thinner style of Fougasse is more like a crisp Ligurian Focacia – a close cousin – both traced to the Latin foyer, hearth or focus of the home.  Toss a green salad, set forth a plate of local cheeses, pour chilled rosé into glasses all around…. an easy-going summer lunch is ready!

*For larger loaves (more coming for lunch?) follow a ratio of 5 parts flour to 3 parts water as  proportions. This and heaps of other sensible advice is at hand in Michael Ruhlman’s book: RATIO, The simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking, published this year by Scribner. Keep it IN the kitchen, for referral on everything from custard and ganache to toffee.

Note: Rosemary, romarin, is tender in June, the perfect time to chop it onto a fougasse or to freeze stems for later use – by the end of the summer, the rosemary leaves stiffen up like little green needles…. gather your rosemary while ye may.

Green and fuzzy, the early stages of an almond’s life hold little in common with the adult nuts that we roll into Christmas kringle or Noël gâteaux.  In fact, what can you do with the sour little brats – within a few days, baby almonds go from a viscous gel to a tangy white lozenge that melts on your tongue.  Fragile, edgy, prone to changing character within hours, the green almond is not a volume item in shops.  A small basket of the pale green nuts – if you are lucky to spot one  in the produce cooler – might be found from April to June in Whole Foods Markets, or in the open markets of Provence. In San Francisco last spring about this time, I spotted a basketful in a Ferry Plaza restaurant – but backed up when someone pointed to the “No Photos” sign.  Since the vagabond is not close to green almond venues, and since the four (at last count) almonds clinging to the top of my almond tree are inaccessible, I was most grateful when friends returned from Perpignan with a branch in tow.  Not a laurel branch, but this was a stem loaded with downy-soft green almonds from the windy Roussillon, one of the best French almond regions.

“What will you DO with them?” my friends asked.  I slit one to extract a rather soft ivory almond, popped it in my mouth and puckered up. Maybe ‘tangy’ is too gentle a word for this stage.  This is the almond for tapas tables – I can imagine bowls of them on bars in Barcelona:  shell it, dip into sea salt, then do that again, with a sherry apéro.  So, the green almond lends itself to salty, appetizing tidbits…and to topping seafood tossed with pasta. With a few more almond branches, I would give the mortar and pestle some pesto action, to blend the green almonds with fresh herbs such as tarragon and chives and a few capers stirred with oil and minced aillet garlic. Chefs team green almonds with everything from squid to chilled soups.  Why not try that…a cauliflower soup accented with delicate green almonds?

This recipe, concocted as a foil for the strange little almonds, is a simple vegetable soup:  wash 2 leek whites (about 400 grams) thoroughly, chop, then sauté in a soup pot with 2 tablespoons duck fat or vegetable oil.  When the leeks have cooked about 10 minutes, add 1 cup chopped celery branch with leaves, cook another 5 minutes and add a medium head of cauliflower, (just under 500 grams) trimmed of leaves, and chopped (include the core/stem chopped).  Pour 5 cups of water into the pot, add a bay leaf and 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (add fresh tarragon, too – if you have it) and bring to a simmer. Cook the soup for 30 to 40 minutes until all is soft, add salt, (remove bay leaf) blend to a coarse purée with a blending wand. Taste for seasoning: a chicken bouillon cube and pinch of salt may be added to your taste; if it is too thick add a little white wine or water and cook 10 minutes longer. Let the soup cool, then refrigerate overnight.  Prepare the almond garnish, slitting each almond open, slicing lengthwise (depending on the stage – the gel-center stage is best chopped crosswise).  In a shallow bowl, mix seasalt (such as fleur de sel), ground white pepper and a pinch of Hungarian paprika – toss the shelled almonds in this before serving (not too long in advance or the almonds will ‘weep’).  Serve the soup in small bowls – or in chilled lowball glasses -  topped with the seasoned green almonds.  Or… if it is a cold, rainy spring evening, reheat the soup and serve hot, topped with the baby almonds, and a pair of sesame grissini at each place.  Pour a chilled Montravel white wine, to toast Spring in all its phases.

Oysters, truffles, chili peppers, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chocolate, oh – cinnamon, mint and almonds – the list of notorious aphrodisiacs is long. Is it the zinc in oysters (and pine nuts as well) that lends credence to their legendary powers? How much of the allure rests in nutrition, for garlic’s medicinal heat as one case, has stirred research into the pungent bulb’s properties.  Certainly each ingredient’s sensual qualities, the color and aromas come into play when preparing a menu with a hint of seduction. Fragrance is on almond’s side, as Samson knew when he courted Delilah with sweet almonds. Did cinnamon do the trick when the Queen of Sheba set her cap (or crown?) for King Solomon?  Spices are legendary, as Romans knew when they munched on anise seeds to stimulate their libido. There appear to be several winning combinations on the list, depending on the setting and mood, the season and personalities involved in the plot…..and seduction is a plot, non?

The plot… er the menu: in truffle season, pull out a paring knife, trim a small truffle and dice it, slice a log or a round of fresh chèvre cheese horizontally. Sprinkle truffle dice between the layers and wrap this appetizer in baking paper or a small brown paper bag (NOT in plastic) and tuck it in a cool place for a day or three before your dinner.  Garnish it with arugula/roquette (also on the list…). Stir up a hearty soup based on garlic, ginger, tomatoes, with basil and even a little fresh mint (to add at the end of cooking). Use chopped chicken or lamb for texture and protein, and toss in a touch of chili pepper, let it rest to mellow overnight. A fresh baguette or crusty roll is perfect on the side.  All of this can be ready well before dinner time, to allow maximum time for “conversation”.  The wine, a fresh white Vouvray with the chèvre truffé, and later a subtle and complex Bordeaux Supérieur or the dark fruit of a Gigondas would be my choice – but possibilities abound. Now, what’s for dessert? A gooey chocolate-almond-nutmeg fondant cake would be superb (with or without a dusting of chili).  Stay tuned, the Valentine recipe is being tested…and tasted.

Fondant Chocolate, a cake that is almost done retains a molten middle if not baked too long – but is not bad as a cake….if you get distracted before dessert.  Stir it  up ahead of time, it can be popped into the oven and bakes at 350°f for 8 to 10 minutes in individual ramekins (1/2 cup+1 tablespoon/150 ml) or baking cups. Melt 3 packages of 70% chocolate (each package 100g, broken into little pieces – half milk chocolate is milder) in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water; let cool while mixing 1/3 cup light brown sugar with 6 tablespoons butter cut into bits and 5 medium-sized eggs.  When blended, add 1/2 cup ground almonds (or 1/2 cup flour, sifted), 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg. Orange zest or cinnamon could also be added at this point if you wish. Blend in the chocolate – it will be grainy at first, but blend steadily – and then add 2 tablespoons dark rum. Pour batter into 5 or 6 buttered ramekins, each 2/3 full, place them on a baking sheet, dust with a little sugar, and bake until edges firm up, begin to rise but middle remains soft, about 9 minutes. Serve warm in the cup or turn out (carefully, to retain the soft center) onto a dessert plate and garnish with sour cream or whipping cream sprinkled with crimson pomegranate seeds.  If desired, dust with cocoa mixed with chili powder for an extra zing. To cut the recipe in half, use 2 large eggs to make 3 servings.

Marmande

Late summer, these sun-washed afternoons of l’arrière saison in the Périgord, could otherwise be known as le temps des tomates: tomatoes are rolling in from all directions. The phone rings, a friend in the valley calls: …”lots of tomatoes -bring a box!”…. and every other day Madame L, my petite neighbor calls “ooh hoo” with another sack of tomatoes for our lunch. I’m not quite ready to shout: “enough/assez”, for there are more ideas to explore for baking, stewing and preserving these globes of summertime goodness.

Actually, it all begins in July with the Marmande, a mid-season French heirloom – probably the best known of our patrimoine des potagers – whose convoluted bulges only add more tangy flavor to salads and sauces.  Another favorite rather lumpy heirloom is the Costralee, followed by the popular Coeur de Boeuf (big, but not as large as a beef heart, about the size of a beefsteak tomato). For color variety, I look for the mid-season La Carotina, a small, juicy orange tomato and later, the pinkish red Grosse Cotelee. In every region, you’ll find other heirloom varieties alongside the dependable sauce tomatoes such as Roma and San Marzano. Heirloom seeds are dried, kept through generations for each summer’s open-air pollinated fruit, no genetic modification, nor hybrid-crosses, all dependent on bees and other buzzing pollinators.

But what can I do with a heap of tomatoes, besides hauling out the preserving kettle and stirring up a batch of chutney? Faced with a shortage of time in the kitchen, I recently roasted a batch and froze them to add some zing to a winter soup or ragout. This is the simplest drill: line a clean roasting pan with fresh herbs – bay and sage leaves, branch-tops of celery, thyme, whatever you have. Choose large and firm tomatoes, wash and dry each tomato, trim the stem-tops and core, sprinkle with olive oil and more thyme. Roast in a medium/ 350°f oven for about 2 hours. Remove from the oven, let cool, scoop out tomato pulp into freezer cartons, cool, cap, label and freeze. Add salt and pepper to taste when you thaw them; the roasted tomatoes taste richer than when cooked on top of the stove. Fast-forward to the winter soup: drizzle a little basil bud oil over all…

Basil bud oil’

Basil buds, those perfect center leaves so easy to pinch when you don’t want the basil stem to flower (which they will do anyway…another story), come into full-tilt production at the same time as the plethora of tomatoes hits. So, pack small clean jars with basil leaves, then pour in some light olive oil – greener and fruity, not yellow and heavy – before sealing the jar and storing it in a cool, dark cabinet. Imagine a rainy December night, long past these bright September days, when you can top a provençal tomato soup with a dash of fragrant oil that brings it (almost) all back: l’arrière-saison revisitée!

Notes on seeds and tomato festivities:

Sources for heirloom varieties include: www.chileseeds.co.uk/organic-heirloom-tomato and www.heirloomtomatoes.bizland.com

Tomato Festivities in France are many, but one noteworthy event occurs near Tours in mid-September, when an exceptional potager (vegetable garden) featuring over 550 varieties of tomatoes opens its doors to visitors. Prince Louis-Albert de Broglie has filled his Loire valley, 16th century château gardens with tomatoes (and stunning dahlias). The remarkable Château de Bourdaisière in Montlouis-sur-Loire lies west of Amboise. For directions, dates and (they host B&B in the château) details, see: www.chateaulabourdaisiere.com

Gigot! Festive and easy is the best description for this variation on simply roasting a lamb leg for a special occasion dinner. An herb-crumb crust made with ground almonds seals in the juices as the gigot roasts.

Ingredients:

1 small leg of lamb, about 4 1/2 lbs/2 kg. (to serve 5 or 6)
1/4 c./56 ml olive oil, sea salt & freshly ground pepper.

For the crust: 1 egg beaten with 2 T. Dijon mustard (do not use a sweet mustard)
8 T./160 ml cream mixed with 1/2 cup crushed or ground almonds
5 T./90 grams fine breadcrumbs mixed with chopped thyme & sage

Preparation: Preheat oven to 426°f/210°c. Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan, rub the leg with seasoning and brown the lamb on all sides. Transfer it to a roasting pan. Make the crust by mixing the ingredients together. Then spread this paste over the lamb. Insert a meat thermometer and roast for 45 to 60 minutes, depending on how rare you prefer the lamb. Before serving, allow 10 minutes for the meat to rest before carving. Serve with your choice of seasonal vegetables, steamed or creamed, and a light rice pilaf. With each serving, include a strip of crust on top or beside the lamb. Garnish with flowering thyme, sage leaves or sprigs of lavender.

This recipe is adapted from La France Gourmande, the May Fête de l’Agneau in Pauillac, Gironde. A fine Médoc red, a Pauillac or St. Julien, is always a good wine choice for gigot.