A bit of terroir

It's become quite apparent since we had Elfie that if you want to reach a whole new level of assimilation into life in Brittany, get yourself a Brittany spaniel.* Many older local friends glow with admiration at the sight of her, or love to hear about her, and tell me fond stories of all the dogs of her breed they have had or known, and complete strangers stop us to compliment her and talk at length in the same vein. I have the feeling we have adopted an emblem of regional pride as well as a dog. Not that this would have made any difference to our taking her of course, but I am rather enjoying basking in her reflected glory, and the increased contact and conversation I'm experiencing.

In fact, when a couple who had parked nearby at the supermarket and were admiring her through the car window, so I got her out to say hello and display her general wonderfulness, then the man opened his car door and she almost jumped in** and he chuckled that she was very welcome to come home with them, it made me think twice about making sure the car was securely locked when I parked outside the next supermarket; their appreciation, it seemed to me, was decidedly tinged with covetousness. They were quite rough-round-the-edges people, but clearly lovely; they couldn't believe she had been abandoned and in a refuge, had not long lost their last Brittany after keeping them, along with Labradors, for eighteen years, and weren't sure how long they could go on without another one. The woman praised us warmly for taking her, said that being such an intelligent dog she would know she had found a loving home with us, and that everything we gave she would give to us back again, we wouldn't regret it. However, not everyone who takes a fancy her might be so nice, and she is much too sweet and trusting not to let herself be led away.

Anyway, to celebrate our chienne de terroir, some cuisine de terroir, since she'll be keeping us at home rather more (though not entirely, we are quite hopeful of her adaptability, and her car habits and plans for appropriate equipment are coming on), and since all the walking is giving me a good appetite, one might as well make the most of some local food (apologies if this gets to sound a bit Peter Mayall...)

~

Côtelettes d'agneau pré-salé - salt marsh lamb chops

Just a few weeks ago, when Elfie was no more than a twinkle in our eyes, we went to the Mont St Michel area. I took lots of photos, as one always does there, and haven't got round to doing much with them, perhaps I will. Here is one from near the top though:

What you can see in the inland distance is salt marsh, pré-salé. That's where the sheep live, and one of the reasons I go there, frankly, is to eat them. We don't eat much red meat, and hardly ever lamb but this stuff is too good to resist, for me anyway. The hotel we stay at is in Pontorson, about five miles up the road from and with the nearest railway station to le Mont, but despite that the latter is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, Pontorson is a rather scruffy, down-at-heel, undeveloped place, and the hotel is remarkably cheap, with rather good food, including the lamb. Breakfast is bread and jam, good coffee and lousy tea, and trying to save ourselves for our evening meal, we picnic on fruit and biscuits at lunchtime, once stopping out on the salt marsh to the east of the landmark, observing something of the life of the sheep.

They are very free range, grazing on sparse grass, herbs, samphire and the like, which gives the meat its excellent flavour. They grow slowly and don't have to travel far at the end of their lives. They help maintain the unique habitat and landscape, for other wildlife such as these shelduck.

As well as indulging while we were there, this time we looked into the butcher's on the high street in Pontorson, and bought some chops which I put in the freezer when we got home. The lamb's availability is confined to the very local area, I gather there's a butcher's in the indoor market at Rennes that sells it a couple of times a week, but that's the furthest afield you'll find it. Six chops, not large, cost €20, which is a lot, but I really feel this is the kind of meat we should be prepared to pay more for, less often, in terms of sustainability, animal welfare, and not least, taste.

When it comes to cooking it, you shouldn't really have to do much, since it's flavour and tenderness is such that, as Brillat-Savarin said, it should taste of itself, and not be buggered about with (Brillat-Savarin didn't say that last bit). That said, I rather feel grilled or roast lamb without garlic and rosemary isn't right, so I smushed up a bit of garlic, and laid a couple of sprigs of rosemary in the pan, and also rubbed a bit of lemon thyme over it, and some sea salt and black pepper, and splashed some rosé wine over it to moisten it... yes, OK, I did bugger about with it some. It tasted bloody amazing anyway.

I also think redcurrant jelly is something of a necessity with lamb, after the fact, not in the cooking. Mint sauce, however, is an abomination. The jar in the photo is labelled in French not because I am an insufferable Peter Mayall type who has to show how very assimilated I am, or some would-be cheffy type who thinks all food should be in French, but because I gave the rest of them to the ladies at Quessquitricote, who were very appreciative. In fact it's white currant jelly, I still don't really know what to do with all the white currants I grow, but at least I can make jelly and give it away.

Having gone relatively easy (by our standards) on the garlic in the cooking, I roasted a load more whole cloves with some sweet potato and pimento, and served them with these and some green pease pudding. I feel so sorry for people who can't eat garlic.

 There wasn't much left over.

Dogs mustn't have chop bones. Bugger it.

~

Chicken with Roscoff pink onions and pommeau de Bretagne (or Normandie)

Long time readers here will know about the Roscoff pink onions. Or you can type it into the dinky little search widget top right, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I don't have any photos to illustrate this one but here's a drawing.

I did it the other day, I've not drawn anything for ages, but set myself half an hour before Elfie's late afternoon walk (that being quite long enough to sit in front of a cut onion), got out the pastel paper and pastel pencils, no rubber, to see what happened; my hand is not in, but it was nice to do it. The appetite and motivation for certain things I had set aside seem to be returning a little, tentatively.

Roscoff pinks are known for their keeping quality, which is how the onion sellers were able to store, carry and sell them abroad, so there are still some about, including a couple from my own last year's crop. For this recipe, take a fair number of them and slice them as you like (I like top to bottom for most things), caramelise them for as long as you've time, and deglaze them with pommeau. Pommeau is the cider producing regions' (Brittany, Normandy) version of pineau de Charentes, that is, an aperitif made from the must, the fruit juice base, grape or apple, of wine or cider, mixed with the eau de vie distilled from the same production, cognac or Calvados or its equivalent. The fruit juice sweetens and lightens the spirit, the spirit stops the fruit juice fermenting. Both drinks are quite sweet, and about 16%. I guess you could just use some sweet apple juice (or what in the US is called cider, as opposed to hard cider) and some other alcohol, applejack if you've got it, or whatever.

Roscoff pinks are not unlike shallots in flavour, so perhaps banana shallots would substitute.

Put the onions into a slow cooker (or heavy pan in a low oven), slosh in a bit more pommeau and some chicken stock, which I do make myself, properly, but I am also a shameless user of chicken stock cubes, which I also add some of, then sauté a chopped up chicken breast or two , or any other chicken meat you like in the oniony pan; I am a leg woman myself and Tom is a breast man (I'm talking about chicken here, for shame!), and thus between the two of us we do the Jack Spratt thing, but you can't buy boned leg meat here so if I'm feeling lazy it has to be breast. I think I meant to chop up and sauté an apple and add that too but I forgot.

Leave it to cook and go out for the afternoon, perhaps peel some spuds for mash, which goes well. I think I was going to walk refuge dogs, a volunteer activity I started before we got Elfie, while we were still purportedly at the stage of thinking of getting another dog in a year or so, as a kind of preparation. However, now I'm sort of committed to it, and after an afternoon of having my arms nearly pulled out of their sockets by Tifou, Idyll, India, Olga or whichever old lag I've been walking (most French dogs have daft names, Elfie was a lucky exception, and many of these dogs are unlikely to see a life beyond the refuge, which isn't necessarily so bad for them) I am most appreciative of coming back to a hearty, tasty meal and to luxuriating on the sofa with our, clever, affectionate,(mostly) gentle medium-sized darling; even if I never dare let her off the lead, at least she doesn't pull me all over the countryside like a plough horse.

Terroir is one of those pretentious, snobby kind of words/ideas about food, like fusion, which is its antithesis. Yet there's something about putting things together from the same corner of the earth that often does work; sweet potatoes, pimentos, garlic, redcurrant and split peas with the lamb is clearly more like fusion, and they work too, but the simple combination of the pommeau and the pink onions really is spot on, you don't even specially need the chicken.

~

Finally, if that all seems a bit heavy on the meat and rich stuff, here's a bit of foraging fusion.

Bean tops, sorrel and noodles

In the last couple of years, a number of the fields hereabouts have been planted with legumes - field beans, peas, vetches etc - as cover crops. They get ploughed in at some point and things like maize planted on top. This year, the ones with field beans - rather like small broad (fava) beans, and not bad eating, have been left fallow for the moment and begun to sprout from the old crop. Here's Elfie in such a field, with a view of Plémy in the background, looking every inch an emblem of rural Brittany, despite (or perhaps because of***) the rather orthopaedic looking harness:

I'll wait on this nice slack lead for as long as you say, but if you think I'm going to pay you any other attention just because you're pointing that thing at me you can think again****.

Broad bean tops are good eating as greens, if you can get to them before the blackfly, so I wondered if these would be. I picked a good bag full, along with some sorrel, and washed it in the salad spinner. 

I have a great appetite for the first wild and foraged greens at this time of year, one which Tom doesn't share. They seem very cleansing and refreshing. I heard somewhere that women's biology really does need and want vegetable matter rather more than men's, and we certainly seem to be more easily constipated. I'm not entirely convinced they aren't just mostly babies who never learned to like their greens, though. (She says, while Tom's cooking mushroom, pea and cashew curry.)

Soak some chow mein noodles. I've nothing against ramen, and eat them sometimes, but chow mein soaked for a bit longer is just as simple and really has a bit more texture and integrity. Sauté a shallot or two, in a wok or just a saucepan, then add some soy of some kind, I used a sachet or two of Japanese left over from sushi.

Then, and this is the important bit, throw all the raw greens and noodles in together, and stir it up. Serve, sprinkled with some of those crispy onion bits, my current favourite savoury topping.

An experiment, but really a very successful one. The bean tops stayed very chunky and substantial, unlike a lot of leafy greens which seem to dissolve and nearly disappear when heated, but they lost that rather nasty bitter, raw bean, leguminous taste. The wild sorrel melted, but the acidity of it offset the other ingredients very nicely. I must make it again before they plough the field up.

~

* or rather épagneul breton. According to those in the know,  épagneul derived from an old French word for a net, the original manner of bird hunting with such dogs, and 'spaniel' is a mistranslation, since that word originated in the fact that English spaniels were supposed to come from Spain, or something like that.

** an absent minded reflex common in dogs; an article I was reading the other day recommended if you are faced with a runaway dog, your own or someone else's, especially in dangerous traffic, a good ploy is to open your car door and they dog will often jump in without thinking about it.

*** Breton back or hip problems are well known, openly attributed to consanguinity.

**** I still wouldn't let her off. This field is full of skylarks, as well as partridges and pheasants which have survived the hunting season and gone on to breed another day, so that gives me another excuse for curbing her freedoms: even if I could get her back, there's no reason that all the spring wildlife should be rampaged all over. Also fox poo and other temptations.