Volume 9, Issue 74 - October 13, 2005

Hello Recipe Club,

The Cooking of Southwest France. These 200 wonderful recipes are cast in Wolfert's own unique vision and voice, with sharply etched scenes peopled by local characters ranging from canny peasant women to world-famous master chefs. She captures the region's living traditions and passion for good food, proving that the phrase so often used by the French—"They really eat well down there!"—remains true to this day. With sixteen pages of luscious color photographs and classic black-and-white food portraits by acclaimed photographer Christopher Hirsheimer, this edition of THE COOKING OF SOUTHWEST FRANCE is destined to become another Wolfert classic.

Chicken or Duck Liver Salad with Apples and Watercress
(Salade Cressonnière aux Foies de Volaille)

A very easy first course. The beauty of this particular dish is that the livers are sautéed gently until they obtain a consistency reminiscent of foie gras, then arranged atop a lightly dressed salad. The salad can be further enhanced with Duck Cracklings, if desired. I usually serve this dish whenever I spot a few very pale-colored chicken livers at the meat counter. "Blond" chicken livers have a very delicate flavor, which is necessary to make this dish distinctive.

Another good time to make this salad is when you are cutting up ducks for confit.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

4 chicken or duck livers, pale-colored and picked over for bile, fat and strings
milk
coarse (kosher) salt
1 1/4 cups picked-over watercress leaves with tender stems only, well washed, dried and kept crisp in the refrigerator
1 tasty red apple, unpeeled
2 tablespoons strained fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon sherry wine vinegar
1 tablespoon imported walnut oil
2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 thin slices garlic-flavored sausage such as Genoa salami, cut into thin julienne strips
1 leek, trimmed, split, washed, cut crosswise into hair-thin julienne strips and kept in iced water

Preparation:

At least 3 hours before serving, place livers in a bowl to soak in lightly salted milk to cover.

10 minutes before serving, place watercress in mixing bowl. Halve the apple, slice thinly and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Add to watercress.

Mix vinegar, remaining lemon juice and oils. Season with salt and pepper.

Rinse livers under running tap water until water runs clear. Drain, but do not pat them dry (the slight amount of moisture will keep them soft as they cook, rather than allowing them to harden at the edges).

Heat butter in a small skillet and cook livers gently 1 1/2 minutes per side. Set on a plate to rest 2 minutes before slicing each liver thinly on the diagonal.

Toss watercress and apple with dressing; arrange on four plates. Add the livers, dividing them equally. Grind additional pepper over each salad and scatter with the julienned salami and drained leek. Serve at once.

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Compote of Rabbit with Prunes
(Compote de Lapin aux Pruneaux)

This unusual and heavenly compote is Lucien Vanel's version of an old French dish - shredded rabbit and plump prunes set in aspic. In the South-West the word "compote" can be applied to any sort of stewed, shredded meat or poultry.

One of the problems with rabbit is that it often comes out tasteless and dry. In this dish, however, the flesh is tender and moist, and when shredded gives the compote the texture of rillettes. The main difference between this compote and rillettes is lightness - instead of enriching it with duck, goose, or pork fat, Vanel's recipe calls for a small amount of fresh cream. The tangy, piquant touch of sorrel rounds out the dish, and the rich, plump prunes make a sweet counterpoint.

This must be made 2 to 3 days in advance so the compote has time to mellow. It is wonderful on thin slices of lightly buttered toast.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 mature, skinned stewing rabbit or fryer (about 3 pounds), fresh or frozen

Marinade:

2 cups dry white wine
3 medium yellow onions (about 12 ounces), peeled, halved and thinly sliced
1/2 cup sliced carrots
2/3 cup olive oil
1 shallot, sliced
1 clove garlic, halved

5 ounces lean salt pork or mild-flavored bacon, blanched 3 minutes and refreshed and drained dry
2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4 cups unsalted chicken stock
herb bouquet: 3 sprigs parsley, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme or 3 fresh sprigs, 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary or 1 sprig and 1 bay leaf tied in cheesecloth
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup heavy cream
15 to 18 fresh young sorrel leaves, cut into thin shreds (chiffonnade)
fresh lemon juice
12 prunes
black tea

Preparation:

Have the butcher cut the rabbit into 7 or 8 pieces. Combine ingredients for marinade in a large earthenware or glass bowl, mix well. Add rabbit pieces and turn them over until well coated. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. (Frozen rabbit defrosts directly in the marinade, add 6 hours to time of marination.)

The following day, remove rabbit and pat dry. Strain marinade, reserving vegetables and juices.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Cut salt pork into 1-inch cubes. In a large skillet over high heat, heat oil and sauté the cubes, transferring them to a 4-quart casserole as they are browned. In the same skillet over medium heat, brown the rabbit pieces in the same fat, a few at a time, on both sides. Transfer rabbit pieces to the casserole as they are browned. Add the reserved vegetables to the skillet and sauté over moderately high heat 10 minutes, stirring. Using a slotted spoon, add vegetables to the casserole when they have lightly caramelized.

Stir mustard into casserole, stirring over low heat and blending with the juices exuded from the rabbit, pork cubes, and vegetables.

Pour off fat and deglaze skillet with the strained marinade. Bring to a boil, stirring, then immediately remove skillet from heat. Slowly stir the marinade into the casserole over low heat.

Add chicken stock and bring to a boil, skimming. Add herb bouquet, salt and pepper and cover tightly. Cook in the oven 4 hours, or until the rabbit meat is falling off the bones.

Remove rabbit pieces carefully from cooking liquid. Strain liquid into a tall narrow container and set in refrigerator, uncovered, so that the fat quickly rises to the surface. Spoon off fat.

Place cooking liquid in heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Set saucepan half over a stove burner to cook 20 minutes. Adjust heat so that the side over the heat slowly boils and the fat and any other impurities in the sauce rise on the cooler side. Skim frequently. Add the cream and reduce to 1 cup.

Meanwhile bone each piece of rabbit (use your fingers to remove tiny bones) and crush meat with the back of a fork. Place in a wide dish.

Add sorrel shreds to cooking liquid and bring to a boil. Pour hot sauce over rabbit and allow to cool. Rabbit meat should absorb all the sauce. Season highly with salt, pepper and - if you want extra piquancy - a few drops of lemon juice. Pack down in an oiled round-bottomed dish, preferably of stainless steel and allow to cool. Refrigerate covered with plastic wrap, it will keep 6 or 7 days.

The day the compote is to be served, soak the prunes in hot tea until swollen. Simmer 10 minutes and drain. Set aside until ready to serve.

1 hour before serving, remove the compote from the refrigerator.

To serve, turn upside down onto serving platter. Garnish with the prunes. Pass rounds of toasted French bread or thin whole wheat bread, toasted and lightly buttered.

Note to the cook: Toward the end of the season, sorrel becomes very large and a little harsh in flavor. Use about 12 leaves to preserve proper flavor.

Source: The Cooking of Southwest France.

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Batter Cake with Fresh Pears from the Corrèze
(Flaugnarde)

"It's our best dessert," says Albert Parveaux, proprietor of the Chateau de Castel Novel. He is speaking of the flaugnarde of Corrèze, a superb soufflé like fruit cake similar to a German apple pancake. "But," he adds, "its simplicity is misunderstood by some of our guests who think complexity is the same thing as excellence." He explained the true secrets of a successful flaugnarde: "First, never put sugar into it the way they do in the Périgord, because it won't rise on account of the extra weight. Second, be sure to use a metal dish since metal heats up quicker and thus will give the batter a better rise. Third, only fill the pan to one third of its height the flaugnarde will thus have room to rise, and it will in fact fill the pan when baked."

You must eat this flaugnarde while hot, though it will hold its rise as long as 10 minutes. When serving, slip it out of its pan onto a serving plate, then dust heavily with granulated sugar. You can substitute a straight sided skillet to cook this.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

3 eggs
7 ounces (about 1 1/2 cups) unbleached all purpose flour, or 1/5 cake flour and 4/5 unbleached all purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 cup milk, warmed
1 tablespoon dark rum
2 tasty sweet pears such as Cornice or Anjou
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
superfine sugar

Preparation:

2 to 3 1/2 hours before serving, lightly beat the eggs in a mixing bowl. Sift the flour and salt, add to the eggs, stirring. Add 2 tablespoons warm milk and mix until the egg flour mixture is completely smooth. Gradually stir in the remaining milk and rum, strain through a fine sieve and let stand 1 to 2 1/2 hours.

1 hour before serving, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Peel, core, halve, and thinly slice the pear (the 3 mm slicing disk attachment of a food processor is perfect for the job). Lavishly butter a straight sided 8 or 9 inch cake pan (use half the butter). Pour in the batter and delicately lay fruit slices on top, then scatter bits of remaining butter over all. Bake on lower oven shelf 15 minutes, then lower oven heat to 400 degrees F. and bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until well puffed and golden brown.

Use a spatula around the edges and under the flaugnarde to loosen. Lift out onto a serving dish. Sprinkle lavishly with sugar and serve within 5 minutes.

Source: The Cooking of Southwest France