Bon appetit

Since we are nearly in winter, 21st December according to my Banque Populaire calander, I thought it would be nice to share some recipes with a traditional Catalan stance. Here are two dishes for today that I think resonate Catalan cuisine more than any others. No doubt you will have other ideas......

 

Boles de Picolat

Cooking this to a traditional recipes and not  taking it out of a packet makes all the difference.

As always with these types of stews, there are many versions, which means you can play and be as flexible as you want. You can make it with ground beef and pork, or pork and veal, or any combinations of the three. You can even add sausage meat to the mix, depending on how lusty you want your dish to be. Cinnamon is an important seasoning according to Eliane Comelade, the foremost expert on French Catalan cooking — it adds great depth and complexity to the sauce. Just as important are dried hot peppers; they play nicely against the sweetness of the cinnamon and cut through the richness of the sauce. Dried cèpes or chanterelles are often added toward the end of cooking lending an extra layer of flavors. But some cooks prefer to add few pieces of dry-cured ham instead. Last, traditionally, and everybody agrees on this, Boles de Picolat is served with warm fresh shell beans tossed with olive oil and a hefty amount of minced garlic. I didn’t have any and used chickpeas as a subsistute. They worked perfectly.

Boles de Picolat
Adapted from La cuisine Secrète du Languedoc-Roussillon by André Soulier (Les Presses du Languedoc, 1997)

Serves six

• ¾ cup dried cèpes
• 1 ½ to 2 inches day-old piece of baguette
• 3/4 cup milk
• 11/2 pounds ground veal and pork mixture
• 2 small onions, finely minced
• 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
• ¼ cup minced parsley
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• Salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 3 small dried chili peppers, or to taste, minced. You can also use hot pepper flakes, about ¼ teaspoon, more or less according to taste
• 2/3 cup crushed plum tomatoes
• ¾ cup pitted green olives

Soak the cèpes in hot water for 30 minutes. Drain.

In a bowl soak the bread in the milk for 10 minutes. Remove from the milk and squeeze out excess liquid.

In a mixing bowl, combine the meat mixture, 1 onion, 1 garlic clove, bread, parsley, egg and 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon. Season with salt and pepper and blend until well combined. Form mixture into medium-sized balls and set aside on a baking sheet.

Place the flour on a flat plate. Lightly coat the meatballs with the flour, shaking off the excess. Reserve any lefover flour. In a large heavy skillet, heat ½ cup of oil over high heat until hot but not smoking. Fry the meatballs in batches without crowding, until deeply brown on all sides. Transfer the meatballs as they brown to paper towels to drain. Continue until all the meatballs are browned.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the remaining minced onion and garlic, and cook, stirring until lightly golden. Stir in the reserved flour from the dredging and cook for 1 minute, or until golden. Add the tomatoes, hot peppers and remaining cinnamon and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the meatballs and cover with about 3 cups of water. Season lightly with salt and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add the olives; bring back to a strong boil and drain.

Add the olives and cèpes to the pot. If the sauce seems too thick, stir in a little water. Cover and continue simmering for another 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning to taste and serve with warm white beans or chickpeas tossed with garlic and olive oil on the side.

Cassoulet

I make no excuses for using the recipe by my favorite chef  "Rick Stein" This comes from his series, French Odyssey, when he took the time to find out how traditional Cassoulet is made.

Rick Stein indulged his passion for hearty fare in this programme with a visit to Toulouse market in search of the famous Toulouse sausage. He was seriously impressed with the abundance of fresh, whole fish on sale at the market and sampled some of the region's most quaffable wine.

But it was his quest to discover the definitive cassoulet that caused him to loosen his belt a notch or two. Mr. Stein admitted he sampled up to two servings of cassoulet a day, in different restaurants, to try and solve the mystery of what should and shouldn't go into making this notoriously substantial dish.

Cooking cassoulet

"It's essential to drink lots of red wine with cassoulet because it's so fatty it glues your mouth together!" advised Rick.

Cassoulet is not a dish for the faint-hearted and a good appetite is an essential ingredient for the enjoyment of this dish. The debate rages as to what traditionally makes up cassoulet, whose name comes from the earthenware bowl in which it is cooked.

Rick Stein indulged his passion for hearty fare in this programme with a visit to Toulouse market in search of the famous Toulouse sausage. He was seriously impressed with the abundance of fresh, whole fish on sale at the market and sampled some of the region's most quaffable wine.

But it was his quest to discover the definitive cassoulet that caused him to loosen his belt a notch or two. Mr. Stein admitted he sampled up to two servings of cassoulet a day, in different restaurants, to try and solve the mystery of what should and shouldn't go into making this notoriously substantial dish.

Broadly speaking the dish should consist of haricot beans, goose or duck fat, plenty of garlic and a selection of meat such as confit duck and goose, Toulouse sausage, pork and even mutton. Once cooked the cassoulet is often sealed in jars and preserved.

Rick discovered that trying to understand cassoulet is 'impossible' and says: "For me it's like trying to understand the Common Fisheries Policy. You might as well just decide what you like about cassoulet and put those ingredients in. But duck or goose fat is essential for the flavour."

"It changes from town to town and village to village. I've been told that families have been known to fall out over what makes the perfect cassoulet."

Ingerdients

• 500g/1lb 2oz home-salted belly pork
• 65g/2½oz duck or goose fat
• 1 head garlic, broken into cloves, peeled and sliced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1kg/2¼lbs dried haricots, blancs beans, soaked overnight
• large bouquet garni made from leek, celery, thyme sprigs, bay leaves and parsley stalks
• 6 good quality Toulouse sausages
• 4 legs duck confit, cut into two at the joint

Method

• Cut the piece of belly pork lengthways into three thick slices, then cut each piece across into two.
• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
• Heat 50g/1¾oz of the duck fat in a six-litre flameproof casserole dish.
• Add the garlic and onion and fry gently until soft but not browned.
• Add the beans and the pieces of salted belly pork, cover with 1¾ litres/3 pints water and push in the bouquet garni.
• Bring to the boil, skimming off any scum as it rises to the surface, then cover, transfer to the oven and bake for one hour or until the beans are just tender (this will depend on the age of your beans).
• Heat the remaining duck fat in a frying pan and brown the sausages all over.
• Lift them onto a board and slice each one sharply on the diagonal into three pieces.
• Remove the cassoulet from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
• Add the sausages and the pieces of duck confit to the casserole and push them down well into the beans.
• Return the casserole to the oven and bake uncovered for a further 45 minutes or until the liquid has reduced and the cassoulet is covered in a dark golden crust.
• Serve straight from the pot at the table.