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A few Ariège recipes
When you're on a self-catering holiday in another country it's interesting to try cooking the regional dishes but sometimes you don't know where to start. Due to the humble origins of most Ariege dishes, they share some characteristics of the best home cooking from other cultures. By using ingredients for which this region is famous, you can give an Ariège twist to dishes from home.
For instance, the French rarely eat eggs in the morning but if they are breakfast fare where you come from, try "les taillous" which is basically ham and eggs with potatoes. Slices of dried ham (jambon du pays), are fried for a minute on each side in a little oil. Remove the ham from the pan and keep it warm. Then fry some eggs in the fat, adding salt and pepper and a spoonful or two of wine vinegar (important) while they're cooking. Served with peeled, cut up and boiled potatoes with the pan juices poured over all.
In most butcher shops you'll notice a bowl full of brown lumps labeled grattons or fritons de canard. These are bits of duck preserved in fat. They will transform an ordinary green salad into a salade de montagne. After dressing the greens with a vinaigrette (try using walnut oil instead of olive), stir the grattons around in a hot pan on the stove until they're hot but not frying. Add them to the salad, along with some croutons (toasted cubes of bread) rubbed with garlic, and toss.
It's your last night in the gîte and you're trying to use up the food left in the fridge. What've you got, half a loaf of stale pain de campagne? a hunk of local cheese? an onion or two? a piece of duck confit you weren't sure how to cook? a head of cabbage you never did anything with?
Mince one of the onions, remove the tough outer leaves from the cabbage and cut it in quarters, slice the bread and grate the cheese.
Put the piece of confit in a pan and heat it until the fat melts off, then remove it. Put the onions in the fat and cook until soft. Put this in a pot with two litres of cold water, salt, pepper and thyme and bay leaves if you have any. Bring it to a boil and then add the cabbage. Let it cook over a low flame for 1 1/2 hours while you finish packing.
Light the oven--200 degrees will do. Slice the bread and cover the bottom of an ovenproof dish with one layer of it. Scoop out the cabbage and spread it over the bread, then add the confit, half the cheese and the liquid from the pot. Cover all with the rest of the grated cheese.
Put in the oven until the top is nicely browned and serve. When they ask what it is, tell them it's "la garbure ariégeoise".
Recipes that use products you might have brought back from Ariège:
Like honey, for instance. You will see honey sold everywhere in Ariège and may pass rows of bee hives while walking in the mountains. "Miel de montagne", "haute montagne", "forêt", "printemps", "bruyère" (heather), "chataignier" (chestnut)... the flavour of the honey is determined by the flowers near the hives. In some parts of the southwest the bees are dying from the pesticides used on crops and the honey production has been devastated. Fortunately, apiculture in Ariège has been unaffected thanks to the unspoiled environment.
Honey-mustard Chicken
Mix half a cup of honey with half a cup of Dijon mustard. Squeeze lemon juice over the chicken parts that you have laid in a roasting pan. Spread the honey/mustard mixture over them, sprinkle with paprika and bake as usual, basting from time to time.
Cherry, apple and Hypocras sauce for duck breasts
Hypocras is a spiced wine dating from medieval times that is widely available in Ariège. This is not a traditionnally Ariège dish. It's based on a recipe by Raymond Blanc, a French chef working in the UK. I substituted Hyprocras for the red wine and spices his calls for and it works quite well. This is a good dish to prepare if you're here in June, when cherries are plentiful.
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 Granny Smith apple (or other tart apple) peeled, cored and chopped in 1 cm pieces
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) Hypocras
250 g (9 oz) cherries, stoned
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) water
Melt butter in a pan and sauté the apple for a few minutes. Add the Hypocras and boil for 2 minutes. Add cherries and water, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Liquidize until smooth, then strain through a sieve. Taste, season to taste and serve over sauted or baked duck breasts.
Some omelettes:
Pig's liver-sausage omelette (typically ariegeois):
150 g saucisse de foie sèche
8 eggs, beaten and seasoned well with pepper
Remove the skin from the dried sausage and crumble into a non-stick frying pan which has been preheated with a little oil. Fry for one minute, then pour the eggs over and cook until set. Fold over and serve. Can be eaten hot or cold.
Easter Monday omelette
8 eggs
50 g sugar
10 g vanilla sugar
40 g butter
8 cl plum eau de vie
Break 5 eggs into a bowl and add the yolks of the remaining three, reserving the whites in another bowl
Beat the eggs and the yolks and salt to taste
Beat the whites until stiff
Melt the butter in a non-stick pan and pour in the eggs
Let cook 2 minutes, then spread the beaten whites over the surface
Sprinkle over the sugar, then brown it slightly under the grill
Slide it onto a dish or plate, fold it and sprinkle with more sugar and vanilla sugar
Heat the eau de vie, pour it over the omelette and flambé (set it alight) and serve.
Omelette with cèpes
500 g to 750 g of cèpes
8 eggs
1 tablespoon crème fraîche
parsley
salt and pepper
peanut oil
Cut off the foot of the mushrooms with earth clinging to it and wipe them with a dishtowel (do not wash them). Slice them fairly thickly and lay them in a dish, salt them and let rest 2 hours so the water is extracted.
Beat the eggs with the crème fraîche an season to taste.
Heat a small amount of oil in a non-stick pan and sauté the mushroom slices until lightly browned on both sides.
Pour the eggs into the pan and cook until just set--do not overcook.
Fold over and sprinkle with chopped parsely. Serve hot.