Tourangelle Recipes | The Frugal Gourmet

Everything but the quack – Salade aux gesiers

By Colin, on August 8th, 2012%

A summer salad that is very French in it’s conception is Salade aux gesiers (Gizzard Salad), I say very French as most nations in the English speaking world struggle with the idea of eating gizzards but cooked low and slow (confit) they really are delicious. Like 99% of French people we buy ours ready confitted in the supermarket and they just require reheating in a frying pan.

Salade aux gesiers a la maison

A gizzard is part of a muscular bird’s stomach that is designed to retain grit to help grind the seeds that a bird digests. The gizzards used in France are commonly from Chickens or Ducks. If you are in the UK or elsewhere finding gizzards in the supermarket can be problematic, your best bet is to find a traditional butcher, order on-line or pick some up if your visiting France.

The are a myriad of ways to prepare Salade aux gesiers, when I make mine I always ensure that I use roughly chopped walnuts, chunky homemade garlic and olive oil croutons and some fresh herbs, typically flat leak parsley and chives. I prefer to dress the salad in a walnut oil vinaigrette but any vinaigrette will do as long as it is not to bland.

A general recipe for 4 people would be

Add to a bowl and mix the following ingredients;

Several handfuls of chopped mixed salad leaves.
A good handful of garlic croutons
A couple of handfuls of chopped cucumber
2 or 3 chopped tomatoes
A handful of finely chopped spring or white onions
A handful of roughly chopped walnuts
A small handful of mixed herbs

In a frying pan reheat your confitted gizzards on a fairly high heat roughly chop and add to your salad.

Mix in the walnut oil vinaigrette and serve. To make walnut oil vinaigrette simply add to a small jam jar 4 tbs of walnut oil, 1 tbs of white wine vinegar, a good sprinkling of salt and black pepper and 1/2 tsp of mustard, shake well.

I know it’s a hassle getting hold of the gizzards but this recipe is quick, simple, healthy and filling. If you can overcome any prejudice you might have about eating gizzards I assure you you are in for a tasty treat.

Pâté de Pâques

By Colin, on May 21st, 2011%

Hi everyone I’m back after a computing nightmare that affirms the ancient law of 3′s. Three broken computers, 3 weeks to sort it out and 3 times more work than I really wanted! Poor me. I’ll pause at this point so that you can get a violin.

so what have my readers been missing, well you have missed my Easter post which was going to be about an old Berry recipe Pate de Paques or Easter Pate.

Berry is the old provincial name for the adjacent department (by about 3 K to where I live).

Pate de paques is traditionally eaten as a first course for Easter dinner and any leftovers is simply eaten with salad over the ensuing few days, in our house leftover’s are quite rare. It is a bit of fuss and bother making it, but the final dish always looks spectacular but if you really don’t want to bother local supermarkets sell a range of Pate de Paques from the cheap and nasty to the luxurious – veal and quails eggs anybody?

There are many different ways of making Pate de Paques, I think each family has their own tricks and tips. But some features are consistent, hard boiled eggs; pork and veal mince and pastry.

To make Pate de Paques you need

2 packets of puff pastry
700g of Veal and Pork mince
250g of nice fresh Spinach (a good handful)
3 good sized Shallots
2 cloves of Garlic
A few branches of Parsley
6eggs and 1 Egg yolk (for glazing the pastry)
50g of Butter, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of ground coriander.
Sweet spices
Salt
Pepper

Method

This recipe is rated ‘difficile’ but really it isn’t but you do need to take your time and be well organised.

To start hard boil the 6 eggs and set aside to cool.

Roughly chop your bunch of spinach and add to a pan with the butter, cook gently for 10 or 12 minutes adding chopped parsley halfway through, set the pan to one side and cool.

Finely chop the shallots and garlic and gently fry with a small knob of butter until soft and translucent.

Put your minced pork and veal to a bowl, and add the fried shallots and garlic, the sweet spices and the cooked spinach, mix well, I always think the best thing to do is to get your hands in to the mix.

Grease and generously flour your cooking container, a pate pot or loaf tin is ideal. Then line the container with puff pastry.

Add half the meat mixture to the container. Then shell the hard boiled eggs and cut at each end a disk of white so that the length of the end has at least some egg yolk in it, place each hard boiled egg on top of the meat so that they butt together in a continuous line (the photo shows how).

Add the remainder of the meat mixture then add a puff pastry lid with the remaining pastry.

Put pate de paques into a preheated oven 200C of gas mark 6, cook for 1 hour, if the pastry becomes to coloured cover the top with baking foil.

Once cooked, leave to cool completely. You could serve the dish straight from the cooking container, but I prefer to turn it out. Chill the pate in the fridge, carefully run a knife around the cooking container and with care invert the contents gently onto a serving plate. You can then carefully turn the pate by hand or invert the correct way up on to a different serving plate. Take care, pate served from the floor is always unappetising.

There you are, very traditional, very lovely and very well received. I recommend it! Bon appetit

A Better Tarte Tatin

By Colin, on March 11th, 2011%

At my fruit and veg shop last week I noticed that they had Clochard apples for sale, a variety though old and long grown in the west of France is rarely seen.

I was first introduced to the Clochard by the chef of the Auberge du Val de Vienne restaurant at Sazilly near Chinon. An excellent restaurant that offers for the quality and creativity of the cuisine an unbelievably good value Menu du Marche for 18 euros. Julie and I tend to call in when we are having a buying trip for Chinon wine and we would go more often if the auberge was nearer to us or if we could afford more wine.

On one visit we both had an unbelievably good Tarte Tatin that was filled with a lovely flavoured and textured apple which had been cooked in a manner that gave the dessert a lovely chewy toffee apple edge. I was so impressed that I cornered the chef Jean-Marie complimented him and asked him how he had cooked it. Fortunately Jean-Marie was friendly and quite happy to offer his secrets. He told me that the trick is not to add butter when making the caramel just to simply cook the sugar with the apples on the stove top until a good caramel has been formed.

The Clochard Apple

The second trick is to use the correct variety of apple – a Clochard which according to Jean-Marie meant bell because of its shape.

I stored the information in my head in the space marked things I will get round to doing, seeing the Clochards in the grocers gave the connective spark that I needed, a kilo straight in to the basket, Tarte Tatin a la Auberge du Val de Vienne ce soir.

Tarte Tatin was first created allegedly by accident at the Hotel Tatin in Lamotte-Beuvron, at the turn of the century. The Conseil General d’Indre et Loire (A county council in English terms) claims that the recipe is a Tourangelle one, but I’m not sure that people from the Solonge would agree. In any event Lamotte-Beuvron is only about 30k from where I live, the dish is local to me.

The main account of the tarte’s origins is that Stéphanie Tatin one of the two sisters who owned the hotel, was overworked one day. She started to make a traditional apple pie but left the apples cooking in butter and sugar for too long. Smelling the burning, she tried to rescue the dish by putting the pastry base on top of the pan of apples, quickly finishing the cooking by putting the whole pan in the oven. After turning out the upside down tart, she was surprised to find how much the hotel guests appreciated the dessert.

Most people with an interest in cooking have cooked a Tarte Tatin at some point, it’s delicious and simple. If you have not cooked it you certainly should, there’s plenty of conventional recipes on the web, theres a decent one here by Heston Blumenthal no less.

For Tarte Tatin a la Auberge du Val de Vienne you need;

1 packet of good quality puff pastry
1 kilo of firm dessert apples, Clochards if you can get them, Reinettes or other old variety
100g sugar
Creme Fraiche for serving

That’s it only 3 core ingredients it doesn’t get any simpler or frugal than that!

Peel, core and cut the apples into quarters. Add the sugar to a heavy based pan such as a frying pan then add the apples so that they are evenly spread across the pan.

Heat the apples and sugar on a moderate flame until the sugar caramelises to a medium brown.

Roll out the pastry .

If your pan is oven safe simply cover the apple and caramelised sugar mixture with the pastry tucking the edges of the pastry into the edges of the pan. If your pan is not oven safe swiftly decant the apple and caramelised sugar mixture in to an oven dish then add the pastry as described above.

Pop the tatin into a moderate oven 190c or gas mark 5 for about 30 minutes, the pastry should be golden.

Once out of the oven you need to turn the tatin out, cover the top of the pan or dish with an upturned plate large enough to hold the tart. Quickly, but carefully, tip the pan upside down and shake gently if necessary.

Serve while still warm, if needs creme fraiche or something similar.

Tarte Tatin a la Auberge du Val de Vienne

There it is, looks good? Jean-Marie’s was deeper coloured than mine and to be honest a bit more toffeey but mine was very good against his excellent, something to practice.

As an aside I looked up the Clochard apple to write this post, the Clochard is related to the Reinette apple, hence it’s fine flavour. But Clochard means tramp not bell, no one knows why it’s a ‘tramp’ apple or probably cares.

The Frugal Gourmet

Everything but the quack – Salade aux gesiers

Pâté de Pâques

A Better Tarte Tatin

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