Gastronomy in the Gers
The Gers, being a part of the Gascogne and a departement of France, has a lot
to offer in regional dishes and beverages, thus giving ample challenges for
(amateur) cooks. This page is intended to contain both descriptions as recipies
for the regional specialities.
Until now Toine Stevenaar has contributed all content for this subject. Do
your have your own recipe or gastronomical story? We would be pleased to add it!
Content
Foie gras - goose liver (MK)
 As
you know, many geese and ducks are raised in the region of our Parc and the
famous Paté de foie produced, with an important market in Samatan. Did you also
know that already 4500 years ago geese were raised with the same feeding methods
in Egypt?
This, and much more interesting information can be found on the official
website: Le
site officiel des professionnels du foie gras.
It also has good recipees!
Cotelettes d'agneau au sause Pernod
(Lamb chops in Pernod sauce)
Shopping list:
8 lamb chops
2 small lemons
thyme
garlic
pepper and salt
brown sugar
yogurt
maïzena
Merlot- wine
Pastis (Pernod, Ricard or another brand)
How to prepare:
Rasp the lemons and squeeze them.
Use a fork to mix the raspings and the juice of the lemons with 4 table
spoons of yogurt, one table spoon fresh thyme, a little splash of pastis, two
squeezed cloves of grarlic, one tea spoon of brown sugar, pepper and
salt.
Spread the mix on both sides of the chops.
Leave the meat in the fridge for one night.
Grill the meat in a hot pan.
After that bring the mix to the boil in a pan. Let it simmer for 3 minute,
then serve it with the chops.
Bon appétit!
Pernod
Pernod is an alcohoic drink based on aniseed, with a light and tempting
taste nherited from the Chinese star aniseed.
Henri-Louis Pernod started in 1805 in Pontarlier with the destillation of
anissed, aromatic plant and herb extracts, water, alcohol and sugar.
Pernod soon became poular with the Parisians.
Many painters and actors, like Picasso and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, were
inspired by the unique and refreshing taste of Pernod.
You can enjoy Pernod in the traditional French way:
1 part Pernod on 5 parts water. The result is a refreshing longdrink with
7.5 percent alcohol.
Conejo al Estilo Morisco
Shoppinglist:
Rabbit
Game broth
Thyme, parsley, sellery leaves, laurel leaf (mixture of herbs)
Pepper and salt
Pepper corns
6 dried juniper berries
butter
8-12 apricots from a tin
raisins
red vermouth
brandy
red wine
Preparation:
Dry the pieces of rabbit, sprinkle them with pepper and salt.
Heat some oil in a pan and quickly fry the meat.
Temper the heat, add some butter and place the mixture of herbs in the
butter.
Crush the juniper berries and pepper corns and add them in.
Pour some red wine in the pan, regularly drip some of the meat-juice over
the meat. Add the game broth and let the meat simmer until it is done.
Heat up the apricots in their own juice with the raisins and a little bit
of brandy.
Sieve the meat juice and add some red vermouth to it.
Use the mixer to stir in some cold butter.
Take the pan for the fire before all butter has melted. Serve the rabbit on
a large dish with the apricots and raisins. Serve the red winesauce
separately.
Apricots:
The first apricots were already growing in China 4000 years ago.
Explorers so much emjoyed this fruit that they decided to bring the plants
back to to West.
Apricots like the sun and grow best in warm areas. The main production is
in Turkey, but they are also grown in other countries, like France, Spain and
Pakistan.
Rumour says that the inhabitants of the Hunza valley (Pakistan) live longer
because of eating apricots.
Apricots are a good medicine against indigestion, anaemia and high blood
pressure.
Shopping list
(for 4 persona)
2 aubergines
2 courgettes
1 red peppr
1 green pepper
2 big tomatoes
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 little bag of fresh herbs de Provence
4 spoons of olive oil
pepper
salt
Preparation
 Clean
and wash the aubergines. Cut them into small cubes. Sprinkle lightly with salt
and leave them for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile clean the courgettes and cut them in small cubes.
Wash and clean the peppers and cut in small pieces.
Bring wanter to the boil in a pan.
Cut crosses in the tomatoes, put them in the boiling water for a few
seconds, rinse under cold water, take off their skin and cut in small
parts.
Peel the onion and garlic, wash the herbs, remove the stems and cut in very
small pieces.
Heat the oil in a pan.
Fry the onion for about one minute.
Add the aubergine an peppers and fry another 3 minutes..
Mix in the cougettes and tomatoes.
Add the garlic and herbs and leave it all to simmer for approx. 20 minutes.
Stir regularly.
Add salt and pepper to your liking.
Very nice with French bread!
Time required
approx. 35 minutes
Little snack (olive paste)
Shoppinglist:
1 jar of black olives, without the stone (160 grams) or fresh black olives
1 jar of capers
½ tin of tunafish in oil
1 tin of anchovy in oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 spoons of lemon juice
0.1 liter of olive oil
pepper
mixer or blender
Preparation: (10 minutes)
Drain the juice from the olives, capers, tunafish and anchovy.
Clean the garlic clives and divide each clove into four pieces.
Use the mixer or blender to mash the ingredients: add the oil very
slowly.
Add pepper to your own liking.
Serve with French bread.
Shopping list:
1 kilo lean beef
120 grams pork in small slices
20 cl. beef tea
2 carots
3 onions
bouquet garni (thyme, parlsey, laurel)
olive oil
1 orange
cloves
garlic
olives
pepper and salt
brandy
red wine, e.g. AOC Corbières
Cut the beef meat in cubes, mix them in a bowl with 2 chopped onions, 2
carots (cut in small pieces), bouquet garni, 4 cloves, pepper and salt, a
spoonful of brandy and ample red wine.
Let it marinate overnight.
Occasionally turn the pieces of meat.
Fry the pieces of porc meat in the oil, together with the rest of the
onions (sliced). Add the pmarinated pieces of meat.
Stir-fry the meat.
When done add three squeezed cloves of garlic and the slices of the orange.
Mix in the marinade sauce and the beef tea.
Cover the pan with a lid and let the dish simmer on a low fire for approx.
5 hours. Add the olives and salt and pepper.
Cook the dish for another 15 minutes.
Bon appetit!!
Cloves:
Cloves are dried flower buds of the clove tree, which can be found in the
Moluccas, the West-Indeas, Madagascar and Zanzibar...
The spice was first introduced in Europe on the fourth century.
Cloves are one of the first plants used in the Chines medicine. They have a
strong smell and can be used both in savoury and in sweet dishes. It is alos
pleasant that cloves repell insects and can be used as a replacement of moth
balls.
Cloves stimulate the congestion and are a remedy against tooth ache.
4 duck legs (thigh or lower leg)
2 teaspoons salt per half kilo duck meat
Garlic, thyme, pepper corns and laurel leaves to your liking
125 grams melted duck fat or lard (see end of recipe)
Marinate the duck meat for at least one day in the herbs, the garlic and
the salt.
Melt the duck fat in a strong frying pan, ad the duck meat after wiping of
the marinade.
The pieces of meat have to be covered totally by the fat.
Fry the meat on a low fire until it is tender.
This takes approx. 2 hours.
The duck can be eaten immediately, by the taste improves in time. You van
keep it in a closed glass jar.
Serve the confit hot.
If you like the fat you can eat the crispy skin and the sauce, but you can
also just use the meat in a salad.
The fat used (duck fat or lard) is special for the regional French
cooking.
To really cook the French dishes one is expected to use these types of fat,
but for your health you could change it.
Nowadays it is supposed that olive oil is best for healthy cooking, but the
duck and goose fat are also making a comeback.
Plums in Armagnac
Fill a glass jar with a wide opening - e.g. like the ones used to sell
fruit juices - half with big plums (Pruneaux d'Agen).
Prepare a syrup by cooking 180 grams of sugar with 150 ml. water fro
approx. 10 minutes.
Wait till the syrup is cooled off, then add it in the jar.
Top up the jar with Armagnac and leave it for about one month so that the
taste ca develop.
Mre information about Armagnac
(in English)
More
information about Armagnac
(in French)
Floc de Gascogne
Floc is a word of the regional language, meaning flower.
A 'floc de Gascogne' is a so called enforced wine, it contains 1/6
distillate plus for the rest grape juice. When sold it contains 16 – 18
percent alcohol.
Over one million bottles get sold, but most of it, 90 percent, stays in
France. The producers are trying to improve the export.
In 1987 3.668 hectoliters of Floc de Gascogne were sold as blanc and 4.603
hectoliters as Rosé.
Floc de Gascogne get bottled approc one year after the distillate and grape
juice are mixed.
It is recommended to drink it soon, within a year.
Gascogne is the famous (infamous) county, enclosed by the high mountains of
the Pyrenees. An 'isolated' area with modest people. The regional language is a
mixture of Spanish and French, comparable to the Bask language.
The 'mousquetaires', who became famous by the novel of Alexander Dumas,
were known in the Middle ages as fierce noblemen, the common folks as fiers
mountaineers.
The Romans started the vineyards, but it were the local people who could
make the earthware to enable to start a trade in the distillate that was
introduced by the Moors.
More
information about Floc de Gascogne (in French)
More
information about Floc de Gascogne (in English)
Lapin en papillote
(packaged rabbit)
Shopping list:
4 pieces of rabbit (lapin)
500 grams minced meat (veal) and 100 grams minced meat (porc)
100 grams fat bacon (minced)
50 grams mushrooms
jar of truffles
egg
pepper and salt
Wine (Bergerac)
Armagnac
Mix the minced meat with the minced bacon, the mushrooms, truffles, salt,
pepper, the yolk of the egg and a small glass of Armagnac.
Cover the pieces of rabbit with a layer of the mix, then wrap each of them
in a piece of fat-free paper which is covered with a thin layer of
butter.
Place these packages on a grate in the oven and prepare them in 80 - 100
minutes at 225 degrees.
Serve with ample amounts of !!
Truffles
The trflle is a kind of mushroom, that grows on the stem of a tree,
normally an oak.
Because of space limitations it doesn't become large.
The smell of the truffle is much appreciated by female pigs, because it is
similar to the mating smell of the male pigs.
Fres truffles taste best.
 For
many centuries the Romans believed that when lightning hit an oak, this would
be the place to expect truffles.
In the Middle Ages truffles were seen as the work of the devil.
Only when the popes in Avignon and later the French royal court
re-discovered the culinary qualities of the truffles they were re-instated,
and now are an important ingredient in the gastronomy.
To search for trflles specially trained pigs and dogs are used. The pigs
are very fond of the truffles, so when they find them the owner has to be very
quik, or else they are eaten already!
Farci de Lauragais à la poêle
(minced meat from the Languedoc)
Shopping list:
100 grams bacon in cubes
500 grams minced meat
goose fat (optional)
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
thyme
chive
100 grams bread crumbs
pepper and salt
Mix all the ingredients.
Form one big hamburger and fry it in goose fat or oil.
Serve with French bread and a salad.
Thyme:
Thyme grows on rocky slopes in the Mediterranean. The Romans already used
this herb and probably took it with them to Western Europe. It was used for embalming
and when smoke was used to clean rooms and cloths.
In the Middle Ages the noblewomen embroidered thyme motifs on the shawl of
their beloved one. Brides put a little piece of thyme in their shoe and
whispered "Thyme I have in my shoe, please don't look at any other
woman".
Thyme has woody stems with rounded grey-green leaves that have a lovely
smell. The flower stems contain a lot of ethereal oils.
Thyme is used in stews, sauces and fried meat.
Thyme helps with the break-dowm of fats. A syrup made with thyme is good
medicine for soar throats and coughing.
|
