Chicken for Dinner - Again

Bresse chicken, the best in the world

Cees accuses the English of being boring eaters, he says that they always serve chicken. I must admit it, give me a nice piece of chicken and I am a very happy bunny and actually I do notice that when we eat with English friends or relations we do seem to be served chicken on the majority of occasions. But chicken is so nice and versatile isn’t it?

I have recipe books just dedicated to chicken recipes and I have a large ring binder just full of them as well. I could find a different way to cook or serve the stuff every day of the year if I were allowed. Which makes it all the more surprising when I eat at someone’s house and I taste chicken done in a way I have never tasted before. That was just what happened on my “early birthday”.

On that occasion, I was served chicken which was absolutely divine. I have finally received the recipe, which has winged its way down the wires (or was it WiFi) from the far reaches of the North American coast. So a big thank you to Ricki who sent me the recipe and an even bigger thank you to Simone the originator. And here it is:

Last night's dinner, yummy

Chicken with balsamic vinegar sauce

4 chicken breasts
Flour with salt & pepper added
1 ½ Tbs butter
1 ½ Tbs olive oil
3 – 4 finely chopped shallots
50 ml balsamic vinegar
50ml chicken stock
1 Tbs butter

Coat the chicken with the flour/salt/pepper mix.
Fry the floured chicken gently in the first lot of butter and the olive oil until done.
Remove and set aside.
Add the shallots to the frying pan and sauté for a few minutes.
Add the vinegar and stock to the shallots and reduce by half.
Add the second lot of butter and allow to melt.
Either add the chicken pieces back to the pan to coat in the sauce, or serve the sauce over chicken when it is on each plate.

After that, does anyone dare tell me chicken is boring?…


For information on some lovely holiday accommodation in Burgundy not far from the home of the Bresse chicken click here.

Fighting the anarchists

The biggest most onerous responsibility of being the head of the “commission des hébergeurs, commerçants et artisans d’art” committee, for the local tourist office, is running the committee meetings, which can best be described as a very French, anarchistic get-together.

My first experience of this type of approach to holding a meeting, left me shell-shocked. The noise, the chatter, the seemingly endless discussion of one subject and the dismissal of others for no apparent reason, the constant jumping from one subject to another and then back again, agenda what’s that? Sure we have a list of items to be discussed, but don’t let that confuse you or hold back the flow, it is only written for… what’s it for anyway?

Ok I’ll admit it, I didn’t really understand what job I was taking on when I started. Basically I knew we organise the yearly trip to visit various establishments of our members (B&Bs, gîtes, artisan’s studios etc), we also organise the welcome drinks for the tourists in July and August, as well as organising a show of local arts and crafts. Back in The Netherlands, I ran an engineering department of more than a hundred burly men and a budget of millions, how difficult could a little job like this be? I hadn’t bargained on the French way of doing things.

I have struggled to keep the committee meetings on track and to guide them to a meaningful conclusion. Having watched others, I notice that they cope very badly too, so at least I am not alone. But the other day I was at a meeting where one woman seemed to have her mob relatively under control. Apart from being able to speak French better than me, what did she do that was different? Here’s the secret - she bribed them all with chocolate. Brilliant! So this week, in an attempt to get things running more smoothly than usual, I baked some biscuits and do you know what? It worked! They were too busy eating to notice that I was sticking to the agenda and we were finished on time as well. It looks like that’s how it going to be from now on.

For those interested, I made some walnut and raisin cookies - using local ingredients of course - and very nice they were too.

Walnut and raisin cookies

8 oz softened butter
6oz soft brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
6.5oz flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3.5 oz raisins
2oz chopped walnuts

Pre-heat the oven to 190 Celsius.
Cream the butter and brown sugar. Then add the egg and vanilla and mix together thoroughly. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Then add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients whilst mixing. Stirred in the raisins and walnuts.

Drop teaspoon-fulls of the dough on to an oven sheet lined with baking paper, make sure the blobs are at least a couple of inches apart otherwise they will all merge into one great big blob. Bake for about 10 minutes until brown at the edges and cooked right through. Leave them on the sheet to cool for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.


For holiday accommodation in walnut country click here.

Flower making then another long lunch with delicious potatoes.

An evening's work.

The other week we enjoyed yet another St Vincent celebration where the winegrowers in the area join together on the occasion of their patron saint’s day. After a parade, there is a church service and then a lunch with locally produced wine.

As with every year, paper flowers are made to decorate the village hosting the event. Not just one or two, but thousands upon thousands of the things, roses, wisteria, peach blossom, poppies, anemones and forsythia are just the ones I can remember. This year we decided to join the flower making team in one of the villages. So we turned up, awaited our instructions and we were allocated to poppy making. Cees and I had quite a little poppy factory going by the end of the evening. In all, we made nearly 50 poppies between the two of us in a couple of hours. You can just imagine how many man-hours are needed to make the thousands of flowers actually produced ! All the paper flowers were duly set out in Coretvaix (the host to this year’s party) on Saturday afternoon and that night it literally poured with rain. The blossom, wisteria and forsythia faired quite well, but sadly our huge poppies caught too much water to be at their best come Sunday morning.

Slightly floppy after the rain

But of course, the main event of the day is the lunch and this year they had returned to using the caterer Rose from Monceau-les-Mines and it was truly superb. We started with a terrine of guinea fowl and foie gras with pistachio, the fish course looked interesting, but I was treated to sweetbread vol-au-vent with mushrooms. After a trou bourgignon (local fire water poured over a cassis sorbet) the main course was a mouth-watering braised veal, tomatoes Provencal and pommes dauphine, a plate of cheeses followed and then a variety of delicate desserts with the coffee. We left as soon as the coffee was served at 7 o’clock in the evening - lunches tend to take a long time round here !

The potatoes (pommes dauphine) are worthy of a mention in their own right as I had never had anything like them before. To be honest when I see them on the menu I always confuse them with pommes dauphinoise, which is layers of potato roasted in cream to give a soft succulent finish and brown crust – one of my favourite ways of making potatoes and worth every massive calorie in my opinion, so when the usual deep fried balls of potato coated in breadcrumbs arrive on my plate I am always disappointed. But on this occasion we were treated to an absolute delight of a potato dish, a light crusty potato ball almost like choux pastry or a small Yorkshire pudding but with a potato taste, hollow in the middle, just crisp and delicious.

Somewhat confused at not having received the usual miserable potato balls, I started an internet search and found out that all this time I have been cheated. The disappointing bread crumbed potatoes normally served to the public are imposters, they are not pommes dauphine at all, they are pommes noissettes. So for the first time in my life, at this year’s St Vincent lunch, I was treated to the real thing.

I can’t pass up the opportunity of giving a recipe for these delights.

Pommes dauphine - the real thing.

Pommes Dauphine – makes about 30 potato balls

(sorry about the mixed units, it’s just the way I think..)
5 oz plain flour
4 oz butter
a large pinch of salt
¼ pint milk
¼ pint water
4 eggs - lightly beaten
1 kilo Potatoes, peeled and cut into equal-sized chunks
Freshly-ground Black Pepper

Put the milk and water in a large saucepan and add the butter and heat gently.
When the butter has melted, raise the heat and bring the mixture to the boil.
Add the sifted flour and the salt to the liquid (stirring all the time) and mix it all together.
You should end up with a smooth dough.
Allow the dough to cool slightly, then mix in the beaten eggs, a little at a time.
Cover the pastry and set aside.
Boil the potatoes in a pan, adding a little salt to the water.
Simmer until they are done (test with a knife).
Drain and mash the potatoes without adding any extra liquid.
Mix the mashed potatoes and pastry mix together, adding some pepper.
Heat enough oil to 190ºC so that the potato balls can be deep fried.
Scoop out dessertspoons of the potato/flour mixture and fry them in the hot oil for about 2 minutes – by which time they should be golden brown.
Remove the browned balls with a slotted spoon, and keep them warm in the oven on some kitchen paper.

Absolutely yummy.


La Tuilerie Website

Local Delicacies

The French are very proud of their culinary heritage and want to share it with the world. Each area has its specialities and this area is no different. Everyone is very proud of what they make and they want to show off what makes their area different from any other. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we have set up a stall outside the “Office de Tourisme” in St Gengoux le National every Sunday morning in July and August to do just that.

We have goats’ cheese from La Truffiere in Lys (just down the road), we have jambon parsillée from the butcher in St Gengoux, Gougères from one baker and delicious ham/cheese/olive bread from the other baker in St Gengoux, Scottish salmon smoked in St Gengoux, spices and amazingly flavoured jams from Joncy, wine from a number of producers here in the area and fruit juices from Parfum de Terroir in Taizé, a cooperative of fruit growers.

We have been blessed with good weather for all our Sundays so far and the last one will be this weekend, so fingers crossed. The initiative has been very popular with the tourists and volunteers alike and it has given us all the chance to taste some very good food. Whilst I will be sad to stop, it will be a relief not to have to get up so early to cut up the ham and cheese !

I have managed to find a recipe for jambon persillée which is well worth a try.

Ingredients

2 ham hocks roughly 1 kg each
1 large onion, stuck with 3-4 cloves
3 cloves of garlic
fresh tarragon
fresh thyme
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1.5 litres dry white wine
large bunch fresh parsley, chopped very finely
1 packet gelatine
50ml white wine vinegar

Soak the ham in cold water over night.

The next day, change the water, then bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Discard the cooking water.

Run the ham under cold water, then put it back in the pan and add the onion, garlic, a few sprigs of tarragon & thyme, peppercorns and wine. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 2½ hours covered.

Take the ham out of the pan, but keep the cooking liquid. Remove the skin and excess fat from the ham, then using two forks, break the meat away from the bones. Gently crush the meat with the forks.

Cover the sides and bottom of a loaf tin with cling film, then pack a third of the meat in quite tightly. Use half the parsley to make a generous layer on the meat. Pack in another third of the meat and then the rest of the parsley. Finally pack in the last layer of meat.

Strain the cooking liquid through cheese cloth or an old tea towel at least twice, but in any case until the liquid is clear, as this will be used to make jelly. Reheat the liquid if it has gone cold.

Soak the gelatine in a little white wine, according to the instructions on the packet. Whisk the softened gelatine into the clarified cooking liquid, while it is still hot. Add the wine vinegar. Pour this liquid over the ham.

Chill in the fridge until set, then turn out on to a plate and serve in slices.

A meal fit for a Burgundian duke or duchess.

La Tuilerie Website

Strong Cheese

The French are big in cheese and one of my absolute favourites is a relatively local cheese, Epoisses. This cheese was invented at the beginning of the 16th century by Cistercian monks at L'Abbaye de Citeaux. A good one (like the one in the photo) is runny and very, very smelly, it has quite a unique flavour, due to it being ripened in Marc de Bourgogne - the local fire water and it is truly delicious. Just a little bit of trivia - soldiers in the Naploeonic armies were strictly banned from carrying Epoisses in their bags due to the pungeant smell.

Epoisses is one of the two AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) cheeses that Burgundy produces, the other being Mâconnais. More cheese trivia for you - there are over 1000 known varieties of cheese in France but only 56 have AOC status.

Our other local AOC – Mâconnais, is a soft goats’ cheese, although I must admit I can’t tell the difference between the ones that have Mâconnais AOC recognition and the ones other local farms make, both are very delicately flavoured delicious cheeses to be eaten the day after production, for a very soft cheese, or kept for a couple of days for a firmer and tastier version. However, you can put the fresh cheeses into in a cheese cage and then let them dry and go mouldy. Depending on the season and depending on the temperature, this mould can be created in less than a week or about a month or so. The longer you leave them the mouldier, dryer and tastier they get. In the photo are two fresh cheeses, one that has been dried for about a week and the more mouldy one has been dried for a couple of weeks. You can eat the dry ones, cut into little bits, to go with your aperitif or you can turn them into fromage fort - a very powerfully flavoured spreadable cheese.

Cees made me a cheese cage a couple of years ago and I use it to dry goat’s cheeses to eat. The photo shows two cheeses just starting their drying in Cees' cheese cage. I also dry left-over bits and pieces in it and then make fromage fort (strong cheese). As with any food worth eating round here, there are as many recipes for fromage fort as there are grandmothers. This is my recipe:

Use any left-over cheese you have, Cheddar, Gouda, Camembert, Brie, Emmental, goats cheese, in fact anything you have to hand, dry for about a week. Many recipes include a leek bouillon, but I found it fussy to make and it didn’t add any real taste.

500g left-over dried cheese
50ml dry white wine
1 – 2 cloves garlic
Salt & black pepper

Remove any rinds from the hard cheeses and grate, leave rinds on the soft cheeses and chop into smallish pieces. Put the cheese, wine, and garlic into a food processor and blend until smooth. Add salt and pepper.

Refrigerate, do not cover. After about 24hrs check for dryness. If the cheese mixture is dry, add a little bit of wine and leave for another day, keep checking and adding wine as necessary and the cheese will be ready to eat after about a week. Adding the wine in small quantities ensures that the final consistency is not too runny and that all the liquid is incorporated into the cheese. The ultimate consistency should be a bit dryer than cottage cheese.

This will give you a very strongly flavoured spread, ideal for aperitifs on crackers. A tip on the ultimate flavour - the longer you dry the cheese and the longer you give it the fridge maturation treatment, the stronger the flavour. I have one neighbour who makes hers with non-dried cheeses and she serves it as soon as it has been made, but her cheese is strictly for wimps !

Bon appétit.

La Tuilerie Website

Bingo and Bugnes

This weekend was the annual bingo weekend in Cormatin. The Saturday is the day we play all the “external” cards (a BIG thank you to everyone who contributed by buying cards from us) and Sunday is the day of the real bingo, when more than a hundred people, who travel from near and far, come to play for some very nice prizes. It is a big event financially for our little club and one we needed to be a success as our finances are getting quite precarious.

We have had an unusually warm January this year with no snow and precious little frost (only 7 days as opposed to the usual 25), so imagine our thoughts when we awoke on Sunday morning to see it was snowing. Are the weather gods out to destroy our club ? How many people were going to turn up for the bingo if it was snowing ? The prizes cost about 1,700 Euros, the ladies had spent all Saturday afternoon making 1,000 bugnes (small deep fried doughy things, a speciality of Lyon), so you can just imagine how much money we stood to lose. Memories of the October organised walk ran through my mind. Just to remind you of that dreadful event: the day of the walk was the only rainy day in October and instead of 300 people coming as usual, only 23 turned up, which meant we made a huge loss.

Anyway, we took all the prizes over to the bingo hall in the morning as planned and crossed our fingers as the sky went very dark. Fortunately, in the end, the bingo addicts did turn up, not as many as last year, probably only about 90, but we made a healthy profit over the whole weekend.

Interestingly one of the big success stories was the bugnes that we had made. They sold like hot cakes and by the second pause we had run out. All thousand of them went and people kept coming back for more. They actually contributed 50 of the 750 Euros profit we made during the weekend, not bad for a lump of dough !

Michèle our Bugnes Baroness from Lyon has kindly given me the recipe for me to share with you all. Try them covered in lots of icing sugar, the more the better.

For roughly 300 bugnes.
1 kg flour
8 eggs
150g melted butter
120g castor sugar
4 ½ sachets of baking powder (approx 45 grams)
3 sachets of vanilla sugar (20 – 25 grams)
2 pinches of salt
small glass of rum
milk

Mix all ingredients except the milk together, then add milk, whilst kneading, until the whole mix makes a firm, but flexible homogenous ball. Leave the mix overnight at room temperature, in a bowl covered with a tea towel. You will then have a sticky and difficult to handle blobby mix.

Flour a kitchen surface generously and break off about a quarter of the mix and roll it in the flour until you can handle the mix enough to roll it out. Roll it out until it is about 2 – 3 mm thick. Then using a pastry cutter, cut the pastry into diamonds about 8cm long by about 2 cm wide and roll the cutter down the middle of the diamond to cut a hole in the middle.

Deep fry in hot oil until they are golden brown. If they don’t puff up pretty quickly the oil is too cool and if they go brown quickly the oil is too hot.

Let them drain on kitchen paper and serve covered in icing sugar. They can be kept until the next day after frying if required, but if you do that, make sure they are not stacked too densely otherwise they will go a bit soggy.

Now doesn't that punnet look rather yummy? Enjoy !

La Tuilerie Website

Crème Vichyssoise

I just love cold soups in the summer and ever since I first tasted Crème Vichyssoise at the tender age of 16, I fell in love with it. I can still remember the occasion, it was my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary and the four of us (Mum, Dad, my brother and me) went to a restaurant to celebrate. I ordered the soup and not knowing it was supposed to be cold, I was a little confused to say the least when it arrived in a cold bowl resting in a dish of ice, but just one sip and I was sold and have been ever since.

The soup comes from Vichy as the name suggests (not so far from here) and the story goes that in the 17th century Louis XIV was to be served a normal leak and potato soup but because of all the tasters and hangers-on that had to check out the safety of the food etc, by the time it reach the king himself, the soup had in fact gone cold. The king however, was delighted with this cold soup and so it has forever remained a chilled delicacy. How much more authentically French than that can you get?

Along with most really good stories this one appears to be a bit of a fabrication. Normally when these things come to light they are found to be some sort of marketing ploy, but this one is in fact an anti-marketing ploy. The soup was actually invented in 1917 in New York by Louis Diat the chef at the Ritz-Carlton - it was an instant success however, professional jealousy took hold of yet another Louis (Louis de Gouy) the chef from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He wanted to take the glory away from his great rival and so he invented the Louis XIV story and spread it far and wide, thus making this recipe forever French, but more importantly allowing him to also serve it in his restaurant !

Why not try it, here's my version of the recipe.

Ingredients.
2 leeks, finely chopped, not too much of the dark green bits
2 shallots, finely chopped
a large knob of butter
4 large potatoes, peeled and chopped into smallish pieces, keep in a bowl of water until use
1 litre chicken stock
Crème fraiche or thick sour cream
Salt and pepper
Chopped chives as garnish

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan and very gently stew the leeks and shallots until they are completely cooked. Keep the heat very low, the leeks and shallots must not brown at all.
Add the chicken stock and the drained potatoes and simmer for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked right through.
Put the whole mixture into a blender or use a hand blender to blend the soup into a homogenous mix, it should be pretty thick, but a spoon should not stand up in it ! If it is too thick, add some stock, water or milk.
When the soup has cooled to about 40 degrees add two ladles of crème fraiche and stir it through until it is thoroughly mixed in, taste and add “slightly too much” salt and pepper.
Let the whole soup cool in the fridge for several hours then taste again. You will most probably have to add more salt and pepper as cold food needs more flavouring than warm food, so do not be surprised.

Serve in cold bowls with a sprinkling of chopped chives on top.

What could be better on a summer’s evening sitting in the garden eating an authentic French Crème Vichyssoise with a cold glass of the Chardonnay ?

Our gites are near Chardonnay and not too far from Vichy why not click here to see our website.

Rabbit in Mustard Sauce

Tuesday is our shopping day in Cluny, certain items in the supermarket have 10% off so we do our shopping on a Tuesday to save money – makes sense. However, we always have other chores to do in town and we end up having lunch in Cluny as well, which is of course more than the money we have saved by shopping on a Tuesday, so one could argue what is the point of shopping on a Tuesday at all..

Anyway, Cees has become a big fan of the “plat du jour” for our Tuesday lunches. The plat du jour changes every day and in the year he has been having it at our favourite restaurant (La Petite Auberge) he has only had a repeat dish on two occasions, quite an impressive feat. Due to holiday closures, we had lunch this Tuesday at Café du Centre and Cees’ plat du jour was rabbit in mustard sauce a real speciality around here. Rabbit is also very popular in The Netherlads, many people eat it for Christmas. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the family cat should be kept indoors around that time of year as these creatures have been known to go missing and sold on as rabbits. Seeing the little bones on his plate, Cees commented that now he understood why people could have been fooled into buying a cat. Anyway after shuddering at the thought of Fifi ending up in the pot, Cees went on to enjoy his Lapin à la Moutarde.

On Wednesday morning we woke up to find that Fifi had disappeared, no amount of bell ringing summoned her. The same in the afternoon. As she has never gone missing before, I went out to search the property in case she was trapped in a drain somewhere, I then searched all the ditches within walking distance of here to see if she had been hit by a car and crawled to the edge of the road, but no Fifi. When Thursday morning dawned and still no Fifi and she hadn’t been back to eat anything during the night, we were convinced that she had in fact been killed by a fox or even shot by a hunter and I thought back to Tuesday's lunch and began to think she may have been taken. Thursday afternoon I switched the light off in her little house and faced up to the prospect of packing up her bed and blocking up the door but decided to leave it one day more, miracles could happen. As I pottered around after dinner putting out the rubbish, almost exactly 48 hours after the last sighting of Fifi, I didn't look down as I opened the front door and who shot in like a rocket straight up the stairs to the bedroom, but our little cat. Fifi was home, fit and well and not a mark on her. Welcome home Fifi and please don't do that again!

Anyway, in celebration of her return, here is the afore-mentioned recipe:

Lapin à la Moutarde

1 rabbit chopped in pieces
Mustard
75g butter
2 shallots chopped finely
1 glass of white wine
200g cream (double or crème fraiche)
salt and pepper

Cover the rabbit pieces with a good layer of mustard. Put them in a bowl and cover in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Heat the butter in a large pan, add the shallots and fry until the rabbit pieces are brownish. Sprinkle a small amount of salt and pepper on the rabbit pieces, add the wine and simmer gently for 45 minutes. If the pan goes dry, add a little water.
Remove the rabbit and add the cream, stir well to remove all the bits stuck to the bottom of the pan and when the cream has boiled for a couple of minutes add 1tbs more of mustard, turn off the heat, mix the mustard well into the sauce and pour this sauce over the rabbit pieces.

La Tuilerie Website

Gougères

At this time of year when you are snowed in, like we have been for the last week, I use the time to try out new recipes and in particular to try and perfect local dishes. The French are big on cheese in all regions but we in Burgundy sadly only have two AOC cheeses, so it is a bit strange that one of the most popular local delicacies is in fact a cheese choux pastry recipe called Gougère.

At an apératif evening the other day I got talking to the local ladies about these lovely little tasty morsels and I ended up with a host of different recipes, handed down from Grand Mère - bien sûr! I've pulled together the essence of all these recipes and here is the result which works quite well I must say.

60ml water
200ml milk
80g butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
140g flour
4 eggs
180g grated cheese (Gruyère is the best)

Heat the milk, water and butter in saucepan gently stirring until the butter is melted and the mixture just comes to the boil. Add salt and pepper and all the flour and stir vigorously until the dough is smooth and comes together in a ball then remove from the heat and allow to rest for a couple of minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time (most important) and mix them in quickly, the mixture does look a bit curdled but it will be OK. Make sure each egg is fully mixed in before adding the next one. You can do this in a food processor, but it is relatively easy by hand. Let the dough (and your arm) rest for about 5 minutes. Add half to two thirds of the cheese and stir it in. Let the dough rest again, this time in the fridge, for about 1 hour. I am told it can be kept covered, at this point, for up to 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Put rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough on grease-proof baking sheets or baking sheets covered in baking paper. To make more “professional” but boringly uniform gougères, you can use a pastry bag or plastic bag with the corner cut off to pipe the dough on to the baking sheet. Scatter with the remaining cheese and bake for 20 – 25 minutes. They should be golden brown.

Homemade gougères are best served warm, and if you are making them in advance, you either prepare them and cook right before your guests arrive, or you can reheat them in a low oven for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Some people stuff them with cream cheese mixtures, prawns or salmon just to add a bit extra, but I find that homemade ones go soggy if left stuffed and uneaten for too long. So give it a go and just eat them warm, straight from the oven. Bon appétit!

La Tuilerie Website

Chicken in Cream

La Tuilerie Website

Back on to one of my favourite subjects – food. I love trying out all regional dishes. We are just on the edge of the country’s biggest chicken farming area, the Bresse, so chicken is one of the local specialities. The Bresse chicken is the first animal/meat to be awarded its own AOC (in 1957) which means that the farming of these birds is strictly regulated and they can only be reared in the Bresse itself. During the bird flu scare a couple of years ago, all the chickens in the country had to be kept indoors to prevent migrating birds contaminating the human food chain. This caused enormous problems for the Bresse. Part of the AOC rules for Bresse chickens is that they spend a large proportion of their time outside and there are at least 10 m^2 available for each bird. These rules had to be modified temporarily whilst the outdoor ban was on and that caused an uproar around here. This chicken is said to be the finest in the world and commands a suitably high price.

This recipe is chicken in cream. It is very filling and fattening, but very nice. I don’t make this dish with Bresse chicken although maybe I should try it!

Bon appétit!

Click for my recipe for Boeuf Bourgingnon

1 chicken portioned or 2kg of chicken bits
1 onion (chopped)
100g button mushrooms (sliced thinly)
4 whole cloves of garlic
1 litre cream
100g butter
2/3 bottle of white wine (dry)
1 bay leaf
1 bunch of thyme
seasoning
Salt and pepper the chicken pieces, fry in the butter on a medium heat until light brown. Add the onions, mushroom, garlic and herbs and cook for a further 5 - 10 mins. Add the whilte wine, stir to release any residues from the bottom of the pan, reduce to half, then add the cream, cover and simmer for 30 mins. I fish the garlic cloves and herbs out, put the chicken surrounded by the onion and mushroom directly on the plates, then quickly "whizz" the sauce (check for seasoning) then pour over the chicken to serve.

Kir

Kir is the local aperitif named after Canon Félix Kir (1876 - 1968) who was not only a priest but an active fighter in the Résistance during the Second World War and later he became the mayor of Dijon. The drink was named after him because he always served it to visitors who attended functions during his time as mayor. Before this time it was known by its original name blanc-cassis.

Kir is 1/3 Crème de Cassis (a local blackcurrent liqueur 20 °) and 2/3 Bourgogne Aligoté a local white wine. Nowadays the proportions are more like 1/4 - 3/4 .

If any other white wine is used, the drink reverts to its original name of blanc-cassis.

A whole family of drinks has grown up around the Kir name.

A Kir Royale is made by replacing the wine with Champagne and a Kir Impérial is created by adding a shot of Marc de Bourgogne (the local firewater) to a Kir Royale although some sources say that a Kir Impérial is Champagne and raspberry liqueur. If the local sparkling wine Crémant is used it becomes a Kir Téméraire, Crémant from the Alsace makes it a Kir Alsace and if any other type of sparkling wine makes it a Kir Pétillant.

A Communard is made using burgundy red wine instead of white and a Cardinal is made by using a strong red wine instead of white most usually a Bordeaux.

There are many other variations on this theme. The white wine can be replaced to create the following:
Kir Normand - made with Normandy cidre and if you add a shot of Calvados and you get a Cidre Royal
Kir Breton - made with Brittany cidre
Tarantino – or a “Kir-beer” – is made with lager or light ale
Kir Savoyard – made with Rousette de savoie, apremont or abymes
Kir Médocain – made with rosé
Canon Kir also created the Double K when Krushchev visited him in Dijon and it is a normal Kir with a shot of vodka in it.

Staying with Bourgogne Aligoté, the type of liqueur can be changed to create:
Kir Mûre using wild backberry liqueur
Kir Peche using peach liqueur.
Kir Lorrain using mirabelle plum liqueur

Changing both elements of the drink and you can get:
Kir Celtique a mix of chouchen (a honey based liqueur similar to mead) and muscadet
Kir Pamplemousse using red grapefruit liqueur and sparkling white wine
And finally the most complicated of all
Hibiscus Royal is made with sparkling wine, peach liqueur, raspberry liqueur, and an edible hibiscus flower.

And who ever said an aperatif was easy?

Boeuf Bourgignon

La Tuilerie Website

Every region has its own food specialities and what is conjured up in your mind when you think of Burgundy? It has to be Boeuf Bourgingnon. This is a dish that is surprising difficult to get hold of around here and if you find it, most are very poor indeed. There is one exception and that is Monique’s version served every so often as the “plat du jour” at La Terasse in Cormatin. She is very precious about her recipe and rightly so, all she will say is that it is cooked for a very long time – not giving away much there Monique!

Anyway, a lot of research and trial and error and I have come up with a version that comes close. You don’t need the extra cocktail onions or in fact the carrot, I sometimes put them in and sometimes don’t, they just add a bit of interest. It is always a favourite with our gite guests.

Bon appétit!

1kg stewing steak chopped
1 med onion chopped fine
1 bottle red wine
20/30 small cocktail onions drained and washed (optional)
Bay leaf
100g butter
100g pork belly chopped finely
1 large carrot
Corn flour

If using them, fry the cocktail onions in 50g butter until brown, remove and set aside.
Add the second 50g of butter and fry the stewing steak, pork belly and onions on high in the same pan until brown.
Pour in the bottle of wine, add the bay leaf, chopped carrot and some salt and pepper, bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 3 to 4 hours or put in the oven at about 100 degrees for the same amount of time.
Just before serving, mix a tablespoon of corn flour with some water until smooth, add to the pan with the previously fried cocktail onions. Bring to the boil stirring and serve with mashed potatoes or pasta and a vegetable of your own choice.