I had a leftover magret de canard in the fridge from our most recent trip to the south west, it is a fillet of duck with the skin attached. Usually you put in on a grill or in a pan and the fat of the skin will drip down. In a skillet you can use that fat to fry the duck. However, I wanted a […]
After the end-of-year festivities, the supermarkets offer discounts on certain products like duck. Due to the heavy use of duck liver for Christmas dinners, the remaining parts of the duck are left over. It was a tradition in the south west, where many ducks and geese are kept, to store the meat in a confit. As there was no refrigeration yet, the meat was cured […]
The winter season is a good period for hearty bean dishes and European culture counts a number of such traditional recipes. I often go to the south-west of France and have come to know quite a bit about the local ‘cassoulet’ with several towns still fighting over the “real” recipe. Cassoulet, like sauerkraut, was a poor peasant’s dish that has been elevated to nobility. After […]
Sauerkraut, fermented cabbage, is part of the Germanic diet and eaten from the Netherlands to Poland, with Germany and the Alsace region in France being the standard bearers. In the times before refrigeration, the fermentation process allowed people to have access to vitamins and nutrients in winter when other vegetables were scarce. Sauerkraut still has many vitamins, such as vitamin C, lactibacili and other nutrients […]
The ‘cauldron on the fire’ is a French winter dish with a very long history. The name evokes a large cauldron with water hanging above a wood fire in which meat and winter vegetables are slowly cooked The methods of cooking have changed but in modern France too, this hearty dish remains popular in autumn and winter and supermarkets sell special meat and vegetable packs. […]