Clafoutis

So I finally got around to making clafoutis! Being in the land of dessert cups that put pudding and jelly to shame, we did try some individual pre-made clafoutis last year and found it - underwhelming. I made a note to try it myself, then by the time we got settled and acquired some basic baking equipment, cherries were out of season!

Now, yes, you can make clafoutis with other fruits. And yes, people will by and large call it a *fruit name* clafoutis. But the classic is with cherries.

So, finally set up. Finally have time. But too late. Cherries were already done for this year. No matter, I'll try with another fruit and hope to have time to attempt with cherries just before we leave next spring. It's a rare rainy weekend and not too hot, so a perfect day for summer baking.

Until! Ha ha!!!

Went to the farmer's market this morning and saw... CHERRIES!!! Ripe, plump, dark, juicy, deliciously fresh local cherries. An upside to living near the mountains is that the altitude delays some fruits. So while the sea level cherries have come and looong gone, the ones at 800m have just started!

Next: what is clafoutis? It's a dessert that basically consists of a bunch of cherries with flan batter poured over them and baked. You can make it with other fruits, apricots or raspberries being popular, but if you want to be technical about it, making it with stone or pome fruit - especially apples - makes it a flaugnarde.*

And yes, the cherries are often left whole so you do need to pay attention when eating. While the fact that is makes prep much faster is a perk I doubt anyone would deny, the idea is that the stones release just a bit of amygdalin - that wonderful bitter almond flavour - into the dish, giving the clafoutis more depth and complexity. People who are nervous can find recipes using pitted cherries and an optional dash of almond extract.

I used a recipe from Marmiton, which is a lot like a french equivalent to AllRecipes.

Final verdict? Easy and quick to make. Forgiving recipe. Very tasty. Waaaay better than the premade ones. That being said, I'm the kind of person who doesn't even like dealing with seeds in a watermelon wedge so I really didn't enjoy picking around the stones.
It was also much better warm than cold as some butter separated out and pooled in the wells made by the cherries. Not a big deal warm, but once chilled, it meant lots of little bits of solid butter. Not pleasant. This could be because of the recipe, though.
I will definitely make a clafoutis again, but I'd try another recipe and remove the pits, complexity and ease of prep be darned. If I ever hit on a five-star recipe, I will share it here.

*I did see one recipe with apples calling it a "clafoutis tatin" which is a pretty clever description.

Beer in Provence

The French - or at least the southern French - surprise me sometimes though every time, it really shouldn't. These are the people from the sophisticated-yet-simple land of wine. Want to get crazy? Ooh, bubbly wine! Add a splash of crême de cassis and call it a Kir! Madness!

Because once something isn't under the revered mantle of AOC or AOP, they're not afraid to play with flavour combinations or to bring influences of their childhood into adult life.

Enter: beer.

Now, the fact that I don't like beer probably has a lot to do with why I'm only discovering this now. Alongside the grocery store aisle laden with mostly lagers and the odd pack of Guinness, there are beers flavoured with raspberry, cherry, tequila, or wormwood. And there's a thing called Panaché which I finally found out is half beer, half lemonade.

Ok, cool.

Now, have I mentioned the French love of the "sirop"?  No drink crystals here. Ask for Kool-Aid and get a blank stare. But sirop - quite literally flavoured sugar syrup, with some real fruit for the fancy brands -  aah. Sirop will have almost an entire aisle devoted to it with flavours like strawberry, grenadine, lemon, grapefruit, grape, cola, mint, orgeat (bitter almond), aniseed, violet, and so on! The idea is you put a splash of it in water or fizzy water to make a flavoured drink for kiddies. Very common on kids menus at restaurants "includes a main course, a soda or sirop, and a scoop of ice cream" or for drizzling on top of shaved ice for a granita (what I would call a snow cone.)

A couple shelves of the sirops on offer at the small-but-awesome Monoprix in town.
They allowed me to take photos on condition I didn't show prices, hence the award winning editing here.

Now we've got sirop covered.

Tonight, I asked about something on the menu and discovered beer-meets-sirop. In this case grenadine (though lemon and strawberry were also popular, I'm told) was mixed with whatever was on tap and I'm not quite sure what happened or if it was right, but...

I liked it.

Picture a grown-up Shirley Temple in beer form with a bubble gum pink tinted head of foam from the garishly red grenadine. No orange wedge or maraschino cherry, sadly, but mind-bending and oddly satisfying.

I wonder what other beer-based surprises lay in wait.

24 Days of French Wine: Champagne!

What else for Christmas Eve but Champagne?

Ohh, champagne. The queen of hype. The name immediately conjures thoughts of wealth, luxury, and celebration. So what is it, anyway?

Well, it is a sparkling wine produced in Champagne which is the most northern of France's wine regions. A bottle typically won't have a year on it unless it is a "vintage blend" from that year. This is because most of the time, the wines are blended from not only different vines but different years as well.  Chardonnay grapes are certainly associated with champagne but Pinot Noir and Meunier Noir are used as well. Don't like Chardonnay? Look for a blanc de noirs which will not include Chardonnay. Alternately, if you absolutely love Chardonnay, look for a blanc de blancs which will be all Chardonnay.

"Champagnes are also ranked and promoted by producer, not by any more finely delimited appellation."

Not surprisingly, when you buy a bottle of wine from a big name - Krug, Mumm, Moet & Chandon - a portion of what you're paying is definitely paying for the name on the label, so keep the following in mind: given the choice of a big name brand with no further appellation or an unknown-yet-legitimate champagne with a "premier cru" or "grand cru" label, both for roughly the same price, go for the cru over the name.  Also, most people will find a good french sparkling wine just as nice to drink and substantially cheaper but I have heard it said that the best champagnes are in a league of their own.

~The details~
Name: Quatresols-Gauthier
Year: Unlisted
Region: Champagne
Grape/Cépage: 30% Pinot Noir, 40% Meunier, 30% Chardonnay
Alcohol: 12%
Serving Temp: unlisted
Serving ideas: unlisted
Special notes: Brut. Premier Cru

What we did: Served it at our Christmas Eve Réveillon along with nibbles which included a raw milk Brie de Meaux, a hard cheese laced with truffles, goose rillettes, a paté with foie gras in the centre, my father-in-law's awesome Canadian tourtière, and lots of sweets.

I can't say this one was a surprise. We bought this champagne last autumn during the wine fair at the grocery store under the guidance of a well-informed employee who gave me a good crash course in reading labels and a few samples to taste, so I knew the bottle we bought was going to be good.

I've never been very fond of champagne. I'm not a huge fan of chardonnay either, frankly.  A lot of off-dry sparkling wines are so sweet that they get sickly in combination with the bubbles or so dry that the fizz seems to amplify the harsh sourness of the product. It makes finding a pleasant middle-ground challenging.  I'm sorely tempted to go seek out a case of this stuff, though. This was floral, fragrant, fruity with a bit of grapefruit but still dry and refreshing. Loved it!


1- Source of quote.

24 Days of French Wine: Vouvray

Vouvray is a sparkling wine from the Loire Valley. The wines can be produced in varying levels of sweetness depending on the warmth of the year and the sugar levels in the grapes. Ours was "brut" meaning fizzy and dry. It is produced from Chenin Blanc grapes. "Méthode Traditionelle" means it was produced using the Champagne method. They used to call it "méthode champenoise" but Champagne lobbied to keep that term to their region exclusively. It's the same process.

~The details~
Name: Vouvray/No Name/Store Brand
Year: Unlisted
Region: Loire Valley
Appellation: Appellation Vouvray Contrôlée
Grape/Cépage: Chenin
Alcohol: 12.5%
Serving Temp: Unlisted
Serving ideas: Aperitif, Poissons, Fromages, Desserts
Special notes: Brut, Méthode Traditionnelle

What we did: Fish with beurre blanc sauce, mâche salad, baguette

Oh, this was yummy and a nice change. Lately - and I'm including before the start of this advent calendar - it seems we've mostly been drinking big red wines or sweet whites, or sweet fizzy wines. It was nice to have a dry fizzy wine for a change. The bubbles and acidity of the wine balanced nicely with the creamy beurre blanc sauce. It's a nice wine and I'd be very happy to serve this to friends and family.

24 Days of French Wine: Pineau des Charentes

Pineau des Charentes is a sweet fortified wine from the same area where cognac is made. Not being known for any regular wines, they work with what they've got and have produced this

Legend - gotta love legend - says that back in 1589, a winemaker poured some grape must into a barrel that he thought was empty but actually still held some cognac. When he checked on it a few years later: ta-da!  The process was remembered and repeated but wasn't commercialized until 1921.

It's also, supposedly, a bit out of fashion right now and considered an old guy's drink.

~The details~
Name: Baronne de Fontignac
Year: Unlisted
Region: Charentes
Appellation: Appellation Pineau des Charentes Contrôlée
Grape/Cépage: Unlisted
Alcohol: 17%
Serving Temp: Very cold
Serving ideas: With aperitifs

What we did: A bit of blue cheese after supper

Well thank goodness for ignorance! I had no clue about the social associations of this drink. I just heard it was something from the cognac area and it sounded neat. And it was. 'Twas yummy. Lots of notes of honey and apples. It was sweeter version of calvados but less cloying than mead and reminded me a bit of the brandy fortified ice wine I had in Canada.

An article about Pineau.

24 Days of French Wine: Burgundy

Burgundy is a region very famous for their wines. Appellations - and I'm noticing a trend here - get more specific geographically as the wine gets better and/or more tightly controlled in its grapes and production methods. The bottom is the general Burgundy appellation. Next up come special regions within Burgundy. Above that are the specific villages that get their own appellation. At the top we get the "grand cru" labels usually labelled with the name of the chateau or what-have-you where that wine is produced.

In my research, I'd heard it said that the generic wines tend to be overpriced, leaning more on the history of their name than the quality of the product, so I just got a basic passetoutgrains bottle which mean everything gets used: grapes, pips, skins, even stems, from a mix of permitted grapes.

~The details~
Name: Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains (no name)
Year: 2014
Region: Burgundy
Appellation: Bourgogne - Appellation d'Origine Protégée
Grape/Cépage: Pinot Noir, Gamay
Alcohol: 12%
Serving Temp: 10-12C
Serving ideas: Charcuteries, Pot-au-feu, Oeufs en meurette

What we did: Oeufs en meurette. Didn't know what it was, but I was intrigued. It's basically a beef burgundy sauce without the beef - so, onions, garlic, bacon, mushrooms, a bit of sugar and a lot of wine - served with poached eggs and garlic bread.

Drinking this a little after the Brouilly from the Beaujolais region, all I could think was "Nope, still sour."  I was very grateful for the sugar in the sauce recipe. The wine and the meal paired well together, but seriously, I'm not seeing what the hype is about in this region. Maybe I need to try the nicer, older, finer, better, whatever-er wines, but if I can find wines at a similar price point from other regions that I enjoy far, far more... why bother?

24 Days of French Wine: Madiran

Madiran is a dark red wine with lots of tannins. It is produced in the commune of Madiran in southwestern France, near the Pyrenees. It is required to be aged for a minimum of 12 months before selling, with average wait times sitting around 18 to 20 months. It is said to have the highest levels of polyphenols of any wine. Mostly made from the Tannat grape, it was a Madiran producer named Patrick Ducournau, who, in working with the harsh tannins of this grape, developed the technique of micro-oxygenation.

Madiran can be divided into three main types: young, medium, old. Young, which is what we have, pairs well with grilled meats, especially duck breast, or with dishes using confit meats, like cassoulet.

~The details~
Name: Domaine Bernet - Grande Tradition
Year: 2013
Region: Southwest France
Appellation: Appellation Madiran Contrôlée
Grape/Cépage: unknown. Likely at least 40% Tannat.
Alcohol: 13.5%
Serving Temp:  Unlisted, a cool room temperature
Serving ideas: Grilled steak, Duck breast, Duck confit, Cheese
Special notes: Bottled at the estate

What we did: Funny story. There was a possibility of having guests for dinner on Sunday - the day we had the Cahors - but stores close at noon on Sundays, so we bought extra duck breasts just in case. Now - oh tragedy - we had extra duck! So we popped them in the freezer for later and had duck with red berry sauce this time. It's a hardship, I know. Paired with gratin potatoes and sautéed spinach again.

I think this was more what I was expecting when I tasted the Cahors. Very dark, lots of tannins, a bit intimidating.  I'm very glad we paired this with duck and would be happy to try it again with other rich, fatty, meaty, hearty foods like cassoulet. It definitely needs to be paired with something of substance.