COOKDORDOGNE Cookery course – Arbuturian

Dordogne, Aquitaine, France

BY KAREN YATES ON FEBRUARY 25, 2016 TRAVEL
Boasting more than 1500 castles, not for nothing is it known as ‘The Other Chateaux Country’, Karen Yates dives into history (and charcuterie and wine and caves) as she treads in Eleanor’s illustrious footsteps. Step forward, Karen of Aquitaine…

It began, like most good cookery classes, in a market. And as we were in the market town of St Cyprien in the Dordogne, this was to be a seriously foodie affair. Before deciding what to buy for our class, our host Ian Fisk first wanted to show us the diversity of local produce, especially now, in the third week of September, at the height of the harvests and just days before the grapes were to be picked from the surrounding vineyards. Glossy vegetables, from red and yellow tomatoes to pumpkins, squashes, green and yellow courgettes, raspberries, figs and much more were piled neatly onto tables groaning under their weight. Mushrooms were having a moment, too – morels and ceps were plenteous; this was just before the truffle season and high demand meant prices were expected to reach €500 a kilo.

On to meat and the choice of sausages from just one supplier included pork mixed with duck, venison, wild boar, blue cheese, hazelnuts, figs, walnuts, ceps, peppers and pimento. Another producer had arranged his stock of plucked quails, pigeons, poussins, older chickens for roasting or coq au vin and skinned rabbits in size order. If, unlike me, you like foie gras, this area will be heaven to you. If like me, you are not a fan for both ethical and taste reasons, you might want to look away now, because along with superb wines, the area specialises in fatty liver – and how. So fatty, in fact, that the stall with the birds also displayed fatty livers for frying. Enormous, roughly the size of the quails, yellow and, as Ian explained, never to be eaten raw. Plenty of stalls specialised in foie gras – at least it’s true to say that apart from the bill every part of the duck or goose was used. Jar after jar and tin after tin of foie gras, duck breast and legs prepared every which way were being snapped up by local people who couldn’t get enough of the stuff. We saw it on every menu, even served with burgers. One foie gras producer invited me to visit her farm and help “stuff the duck”. Needless to say, I passed.

Stitched Panorama
The region isn’t known for its cheese, but Ian recommended walnut Trappe cheese, made by monks, with an edible brown rind, which I bought to take home, and goats’ cheese for our class – we chose crotins that were one and eight days old direct from the farmer. Jars of honey included acacia, chestnut and sunflower, and this was the time for just-bottled homemade vin de noix, made from fresh walnuts grown along the Dordogne river and in the hills of the region. This fortified wine tastes a bit like port with nutty notes, and like port it keeps a long time. Homemade walnut and chestnut tarts were also available to buy.

After selecting our produce, we drove to nearby Le Chèvrefeuille COOKDORDOGNE cookery school, where Ian, who trained at Le Talbooth on the Suffolk-Essex border, and his wife Sara have a Perigordine farmhouse with 13 bedrooms including five guestrooms, plus outbuildings with two gites for rent. Throughout the summer, Ian cooks evening meals for guests and runs a cookery school in the day. Ours began with everyone given a job and Ian showed the patience of a saint as we chopped olives and mushrooms, diced chilled butter, cut out pastry, prepped green beans, whisked melted chocolate and cream, over all of which he waved a cheffy wand and a form of food alchemy was created.

Before we knew it, lunch was served in the sunny garden and comprised a tapenade, the most intense mushroom velouté made from ceps and a real stock; a salad of tomato, avocado, wild rocket, buffalo mozzarella and smoked duck with heaps of homegrown fresh basil; goats’ cheese tarts served with rocket, poached figs and sliced almonds with a balsamic dressing; and dark chocolate fondant puddings with a foolproof melting interior, an intense strawberry coulis and fresh cream. All served, as everything in these parts seems to be, with a few bottles of Bergerac.


It may not have escaped the alert reader’s attention that Ian and Sara are English, and on our travels we met a fair few British people with successful businesses here. Part of the reason Brits move to the Dordogne, along with the natural beauty of the landscape and the great quality of life is history. With this in mind we drove for just 10 minutes to Château de Castelnaud, which was owned at different times during the Hundred Years’ War by British lords and is perched on the top of a hill like something from The Lord of the Rings, with magnificent views of the river and surrounding countryside. The castle was renovated in 2005 and has a museum of medieval warfare, filled with gruesome weapons that make you glad you weren’t around in the 13th century, together with suits of armour, a blacksmith’s workshop and a kitchen – perhaps the only one in the area without foie gras……………………………….

To read the full article please click on the following link http://www.arbuturian.com/travel/travelfeatures/aquitaine

Learn more about the cooking classes and accommodation at www.cookdordogne.com

Direct flights from London go to Bordeaux and Bergerac.

France: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Aquitaine

COOKDORDOGNE – Stock Making Recipe – Video

Stock making forms the basis of all great sauces and will elevate your cooking to restaurant standard. In this video, Ian takes you through the process of making your own chicken stock. Check out this stock making recipe and start cooking like a pro.

 

 

St Cyprien, Dordogne Market

cyprien

Situated on the hillside above the beautiful Dordogne River, St Cyprien (4.5km from Le Chevrefeuille) dates back to 620AD – when a clever hermit called St Cyprien took residence in a cave overlooking the valley. As he whiled away his time ogling the remarkable view, he likely imagined the future of this bustling, bright little village, earmarking in his imagination that on Sundays St Cyprien would hold one of the brightest, most colourful and fresh farmers markets in all of the Dordogne.

And, wow! How right he was!

The St Cyprien market is one of colour, fun and produce galore. We kick off our cookery course market tour by descending into the ancient heart of this pretty village, which beats with all the jolly colours, scents, tastes and sounds one expects from a traditional Perigordian farmers market.

Stalls burst with local duck and goose products. Olives – black, green, stuffed and pitted glisten – even on the rare days when the golden Dordogne sun isn’t shining. Walnuts bulge in over-stuffed sacks and there’s fish so fresh they appear to flip and flop before your eyes. There’s an assemblage of goat’s cheese that would have even the most savant, cheese-loving mouse hard pressed to choose just one, and if that’s not enough tasty-weight to add to your basket, there’s oils, honey, spices, fruit, vegetables, and – of course – bread.

In summer the sweet scent of strawberries grabs you by the nose and pulls you deeper into this belly-pleasing-taste-bud teasing market. In spring white asparagus, morels and tender young fruits will have you wishing you’d brought a bigger basket, and in autumn fruit and veg pop with colours, textures and tastes remarkably different to those of summer and spring. Autumnal walnuts and chestnuts plump before your eyes, courgettes, pumpkins and squash beg to be baked or “soup-ed”, apples whisper sweet-pie-and-tart nothings as you pass, and mandarins, with their radiant-orange peel, beg to be stripped and eaten.

If you’re lucky to hit the season after the rains of autumn when the trees blaze orange and yellow before succumbing to the nudity of winter, and the sun shines almost every other day, then keep your eyes open at market for the truffles, wild cepes and girolles this area is famous for. They’re precious, a little on the pricey side, odd-shaped, much-sought-after, delicious little fun-ghi!

Not far from this wonderful market, our cooking school,  CookDordogne is situated. Why not come and join Chef Ian on his regional cooking courses, in which he will impart his extensive knowledge of the regional ingredients, which producers you should visit and what to look for in the array of fresh and traditional produce.

The market at St Cyprien is held every Sunday.

CookDordogne Tapenade Recipe

Tapenade

Preparation time: 10mins

Cooking time: None

 

Ingredients (serves 4)

250g pitted green olives
100g Freshly ground almonds
40g  capers, rinsed or drained
10 anchovy fillets, rinsed or drained
1 garlic clove, peeled
50 ml olive oil
pepper

 

  1. Put the olives and the ground almonds into a food processor and cut and chop them into a fine paste.
  2. Stop the machine and add the capers, anchovy fillets and garlic. Start the machine and chop and blend these into the olive mixture until you have a smooth paste.
  3. Mix the olive oil, then season with pepper to taste
  4. Pour the finish tapenade into a preserving jar. Pour a little more olive oil over the top and store in the fridge until required.

Chestnut velouté (Velouté aux Chataignes)

veloute_courge

Preparation time: 10mins
Cooking time: 30mins

Ingredients (serves 8)

  • A knob of butter
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, finely sliced
  • 2 celery sticks, chopped
  • 1 large potato, diced
  • 400g vac-packed chestnuts
  • 1–1.2 litres vegetable stock
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 150–200ml single cream

In a saucepan, melt the butter and fry the onion, garlic and celery till soft but not colored.

  1. Add the potato, all but 4 of the chestnuts, stock and bay, with salt and pepper to taste. Boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.
  2. Once the potato is soft, remove the bay leaf and blitz with a hand blender till smooth. Stir in the cream and check the seasoning.

Cauliflower Soup with Truffle Oil

Ingredients (serves 8)

1 kg fresh cauliflower
150g unsalted butter
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
1 sprig fresh tyme
1 bay leaf
800 ml milk
800ml chicken stock
Salt & pepper
75ml truffle oil

  1. Trim, wash and break the cauliflower up into pieces or small florets. In a large, lidded saucepan, melt the butter and add the cauliflower pieces, stirring them to coat with the melted butter. Cover with the lid and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes.
  2. Add the onion, garlic, thyme and bay leaf to the cauliflower. Stir, then cover and cook for a further 5 minutes.
  3. In another pan, heat the milk and chicken stock together. As soon as they have come to the boil, pour them over the cauliflower. Turn up the heat and cook the soup on a rapid simmer for half an hour or until the cauliflower is soft.
  4. Check the seasoning of the soup, adding salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the stove, pour the soup into the liquidiser and blend until smooth.
  5. When smooth, pour the soup back into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and add the truffle oil. Whisk the soup with a hand blender until it froths. Ladle it into lightly warmed soup bowls and serve immediately.

cream_of_cauliflower_soup

Spring has sprung at Le Chèvrefeuille

As winter shakes of its chilly coat, the meadows, lakes, rivers and trees around Le Chèvrefeuille make way for the fresh, new, delectable, light flavours of spring.

Traditionally in the French kitchen, the arrival of spring is marked by a shift from the heavy, rich flavours of winter to lighter, simpler foods, which better suit the warmer weather and energetic lifestyle of spring.

Le chevrefeuille fresh ingredients

Some of the special spring treats local to the Perigord Noir are fresh trout from the Dordogne River, which we are lucky enough to receive every other week from a local fisherman, and our local farmers markets start to fill with spring treats: sweet new peas, broad beans, asparagus – both green and white, wild garlic and green dandelion leaves.

Chef Ian took some time out from the kitchen to tell us what he loves most about cooking in spring.

 

Q. What’s your favourite dish to cook in spring and why?

A. My favourite spring dish would have to be green and white asparagus cooked lightly in salted water, topped with hollandaise sauce and a fresh, free range, organic poached egg from our very own Le Chevrefeuille chickens – simply lush!

Q. What is your favourite spring food?

A. I’d have to say asparagus. White asparagus is a specialty of this region, grown in Carsac-Aillac, about half an hour east from Le Chevrefeuille. In spring the markets are stocked with beautiful, tender stalks of white asparagus. There’s green asparagus too, of course, but the white is very local to here and not so easy to find in other countries, so I tend to focus on it more.

All asparagus grown in the Perigord Noir is harvested by hand and we offer translator-led visits to the local asparagus farm (during the season) for guests at Le Chevrefeuille and participants of our one-day cooking courses.

Q. What are you seeing a lot of at the markets now it’s spring?

A. The markets are really coming to life with new peas, broad beans, asparagus – both white and green, dandelion leaves and buds and wild garlic. Winter has definitely left because it’s all starting to happen in terms of fresh, new spring produce! It’s very exciting and inspiring for me as a chef!

Q. What plans do you have for the CookDordogne menu this year?

A. We always stick to what’s fresh, local and in season for our menu at CookDordogne.

When the figs on our tree ripen, we’ll be doing confit de canard with fig sauce, and later in the year when chestnut season arrives, we’ll be preparing a delectable chestnut veloute. Of course, desserts are always in season in France, and we’ll be serving up everybody’s favourites: cream brûlée and fondant au chocolat… to name just two.

Q. What do you love most about cooking for others?

A. I love the joy a good meal gives people!

Autumn has arrived at Le Chevrefeuille – Walnut Banana Bread

Autumn has arrived at Le Chevrefeuille and we are in love with the stunning, earthy, colourful edibles that flourish at this time of year.

One of our all-time autumnal favourites is walnuts and – wow! Are they bursting right now! We’ve been using our very own beautiful walnuts – picked from the lovely old walnut trees that reign the grassy meadow between the B&B and the swimming pool – to make a plethora of delicious autumnal dishes.

Here’s one of our favourite walnut recipes. We hope you enjoy it as much we have been… NB, it’s hard to resist, so take care not to eat the whole lot in one sitting!

Le Chevrefeuille Walnut Banana Bread

Try not to eat it all in one sitting!

Walnut Banana Bread

Ingredients:

3 bananas, mashed
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon honey
¼ coconut oil or palm shortening
2 cups of walnuts
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

  1. Place walnuts in blender & crush to a smooth flour
  2. Place bananas, eggs, vanilla, honey & coconut oil in a food processor
  3. Pulse ingredients together
  4. Pulse in walnut flour, salt & baking soda
  5. Scoop batter into greased bread tin (7.5inch x 3.5inch works well)
  6. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 40mins or until knife inserted near centre comes out clean
  7. Remove from oven and allow to cool

Serves 12… Or 1 – if you eat it like I do!

Bon appétit!