All those pretty Bottles and Boxes

No matter where I travel to there is always one point on the agenda that I never miss - a visit to a local store, supermarket, souk, bazaar - you name it, I go there. I can spend hours there sniffing out the local produce and sometimes buy something not even knowing what it is, just because the vintage style packaging appeals. This little box started the trend. I found it at my local greengrocers and still have no idea what to use this spice mix for (it smells a bit like allspice) but isn't the box pretty?

 

Spice mix

 

This was brought to us from Germany - a tin box containing 12 little bottles of after dinner digestive herbal liquor. Now used to store vanilla sugar.

 

I will have to use this pretty soon - great excuse to whip up a Tiramisu...

 

Found in Spain: Paella Spice Mix

 

Tuna Fish Spread from the Côte d'Azur

 

My all time favorite: Bovril beef extract as found in Spain, don't you just love the bottle?

Marianne doing her bit for the French Wine Industry

 

I found this at a winery. It says:
Marianne (the French national symbol) is born in 1792, but of all that Blue, White and Red (the French national colours) she has kept only the red....

Aigo Boulido - How to treat a Hangover or prevent a Cold

Now what did I need all that garlic for that I showed you how to speed peel in my last post? To cook some "Boiled Water". That is what Aigo Boulido translates into, a very traditional Provençal peasant soup which serves as a famous hangover cure and an at least even contender to chicken soup when fighting the beginnings of a cold. Here below you see what you need: 2 leeks, a head of garlic, 2 or 3 tomatoes, some sprigs of flat leaf parsley and a generous sprig of sage, plus 1 big or 2 to 3 small potatoes and some chicken or vegetable stock.

Ingredients for Aigo Boulido

 

Break up the head of garlic and peel the cloves, clean and chop up the leeks, pick the parsley and sage leaves off the stalks, peel and halve the potatoes. With not too much water and some chicken or vegetable stock (I use powdered) bring everything to the boil and let simmer until the garlic cloves are real soft. Fish out the potatoes and set aside. Strain all the rest through a fine sieve, pushing with a spatula so you get all the garlic puree into the broth. Let cool a bit then in a mixer blitz the potatoes into the broth. Drink.

 

All chopped up and ready to cook

 

It might not look like much and the consistency is indeed more or less like boiled water but the taste is fabulous and your hangover will be history within minutes. Plus all microbes hate garlic just as much as vampires!  And have no fear: since the garlic is cooked you won't even smell. Santé!

 

Aigo Boulido

How to peel a lot of Garlic real quick

Reading recipes online I stumbled upon a more than useful method of how to peel a lot of garlic real quick. So simple, so useful!

 

Separate a head of garlic into individual cloves

Pour boiling water over the cloves, let sit for one minute, rinse with cold water

 

You will have those cloves peeled in no time at all - great!

Autumn in Provence

We did our best to pretend it didn't happen, but when this sight greeted me this morning when opening the windows I knew there is no denying anymore: autumn has arrived in Provence. Our Mulberry tree dropping its leaves is always the first sign that summer is officially over. We can still have lunch outside, but the mornings are real cold crisp and actually I should have been warned when I found this at last weeks market - one of the perks of autumn is that it is mushroom season, right? 

 

Girolles and Ceps at Vaison's Tuesday Market

Politically Correct Fig Chutney

"Le Météo" as the weather forecast is called in France gave us a rather stern warning yesterday: Thunderstorms and torrential rains was what they promised us for today and guess what we woke up to? Torrential rains and thunderstorms. Good thing that for once I believed what was said and harvested the last of our figs. I don't think we ever had such good and many figs as this year. We have been eating them straight from the tree, on fig tarts and I must have about 15 pots of fig jam stashed away in a corner of the wine cellar. This time I tried my hand at something I'd never done before - fig chutney to go with foie gras.

 

 The last figs of the season

 

The inspiration to this was my friend Theda who told me about a recipe one of her friends had given her and which she generously shared with me. Not entirely happy I searched the Internet for alternatives and ended up combining Theda's friends' recipe with one I found on chefkoch.de .

Having two ingredients missing and doing this on a Sunday (where shops around here are only open until noon) meant that I had to wait until the rain this morning subsided to go and get fresh ginger and raisins.

So I already cut up my kilo and a bit (1200 g) of figs, added 150g red pepper, cut into very small cubes,  one finely chopped white onion (150g), 150 g chopped prunes, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, 400 g brown sugar and stirred it all together with 3/4 cup of red wine vinegar plus 3/4 cup of red wine. All this was left to macerate overnight.

 Left to macerate overnight - Figs, prunes, red wine, brown sugar, spices and red wine vinegar

 

This morning I added a walnut sized piece of very finely chopped ginger and 120 g of raisins, brought the mixture to the boil and over moderate heat and frequently stirring let it patiently simmer until most of the moisture was evaporated. This took about 90 minutes before I could fill my newly acquired jam pots. Which made me laugh. Because even on jam pots the Academie Française reigns supreme! See, whenever a foreign word is used in France the Academie Française, a very honorable institution that was founded in 1635 makes sure there is an astrisk added and the word translated. So zealously the Academie guards French against foreign influence that French radio stations are not allowed to play more that 30 per cent foreign music and "homemade" on the lids of my jam pots had an asterisk added and the translation "Fait Maison" on the side of the lid. Politically correct Fig Chutney.....

 

Fig Chutney

 

Home made of course

See the asterisk? Translated to make the Academie Française happy

Poichichade - Chickpeas go Provençal

Until recently chickpeas to me were synonymous with houmous. Until I met "le Roi des Pois Chiches"  and then tried and tried again to recreate his wonderful chickpea dip that is so different to houmous but just as addictive. Finally I now think I've got it licked: Poichichade à la Provençale!

You can of course start by soaking dried chickpeas overnight but as I always think that life is short enough I simply start but unscrewing a jar of chickpeas and then - and this is important - rinse them thoroughly under cold water. Into a food processor they go together with 3 peeled and crushed garlic cloves, the juice of half a lemon, a good splash of olive oil, a good pinch or two of powdered cumin and sweet paprika powder. Then it is pulse and scrape down, pulse and scrape etc. so all ingredients get nicely crushed and mixed. To get a real nice smooth consistency and round the taste I then add some highly concentrated chicken stock. Pulse again and let the mixture "sit" for at least an hour for the flavors to come together. Serve sprinkled with some sesame seeds. To be eaten as a dip with vegetable sticks or on crackers.

Poichichade Provençale