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Rich chicken “basquaise”, the French recipe. One French Word: basquaise

Posted on October 18, 2013 by OneFrenchWord

One French Word: basquaise, a French recipe : poulet basquaise

Poulet basquaise

Basquaise is a feminine adjective, pronounced bass-kezz and means “from the Pays Basque”.

In fact, it should be “à la basquaise“: chicken in the manner in which it is cooked in the Pays Basque. Like “à la bordelaise” is a dish as it is cooked in and around Bordeaux.

The Pays Basque is situated in the south western corner of France (Biarritz, Bayonne, St Jean de Luz) but also the north western corner of Spain. The Basque people are a cultural and linguistic entity, who have for a long time demanded their autonomy, with some force, from both Spain and France. But I won’t go into politics, it is not the vocation of this blog, and I’m hardly qualified.

“(A la) basquaise” denotes a dish cooked with green bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and piment d’Espelette.  Green and red are traditional Basque colours. Basquaise does NOT include aubergine/eggplant or courgette/zucchini. That would be ratatouille,

 something quite different.

Espelette is a village in the Pays Basque where this particular hot pepper is grown. In the autumn, you can see strings of peppers drying on south facing house fronts, before being ground into coarse, fragrant powder for sale. It is the only pepper which has an “appellation d’origine contrôlée” (AOC),  which means that any pepper sold as “Espelette” must have been produced there, and only there.  It is extremely fashionable at the moment, and rightly so, it is quite delicious and adds a distinctive flavour to any dish.  It is easily found anywhere in France. Abroad I don’t know… if you can’t find it, use a pepper which is slightly hot, but very flavoursome. Not simple cayenne, something Mexican maybe?

When I was a very small child, I spent some time with my family on the outskirts of St Jean de Luz, a Basque fishing village, because my Father’s work had taken him there. I remember little, but have retained a love of Basque crockery and table linen, some of which has been handed down to me by my Mother, and which dates back to that time. It is the deep red and navy pattern you see so often in my photos. I have collected it over the years, and have far more than I really need! The only original pieces are four “raviers“ (hors d’oeuvre dishes, often oval) and a table cloth and napkins. 

This dish was always a favourite with guests eating at my table d’hôte. It is not difficult to make, but requires fresh, high grade ingredients. Good quality chicken, ripe tomatoes and if possible “old variety” (I used tomates cornues,  horned tomatoes, large, long pointed ones).

Main ingredients

Main ingredients

Ingredients for 2 people with good appetites, or 4 with smaller appetites:

  • 2 chicken legs and thighs, separated at the joint, or 4 thigh pieces
  • One very large onion, roughly chopped
  • 500gr tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped
  • One large green bell pepper, cored and sliced into rings (or two if you are fond of bell pepper)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, smashed with a cleaver
  • 2tbs olive oil
  • 1 level tsp piment d’Espelette
  • salt, pepper
  • 1/4 bottle of dry white wine

Rice to accompany

Basque colours - red and green

Basque colours – red and green

Preparation:

  • Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and fry the chicken pieces so that they are golden all over
  • Remove the chicken from the pan, and fry the onion, browning it slightly
  • Replace the chicken in the pan, together with the tomato, garlic, bell pepper, a tsp sea salt, a few grinds of black pepper and a tsp of piment d’Espelette. Do not stir.
  • Add the white wine, and as soon as it looks like boiling, turn down to a simmer.
  • After 10 minutes, put water on to boil for the rice, or start getting your rice cooker ready.
  • After 20 minutes, stir gently to mix the ingredients top to bottom to cook evenly. Put the rice on.
  • Cook for a further 20 minutes. Your rice should be ready. Make a bed of rice, and serve the chicken and the sauce on top of it.

CIMG5918

The white wine makes a far finer sauce than chicken stock, water, or chicken cubes. But you cannot really identify the fact that it is white wine. So if you wish to drink red with the dish, you can do so perfectly well. Or the remainder of the bottle which you opened to cook with.

CIMG5919

Bon appétit!

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Guest appearance: Mexico Pete’s Poulet au cidre, Vallée d’Auge (chicken in cream and cider)

Posted on August 29, 2013 by OneFrenchWord

When I first explored Normandy many years ago I took the Nationale 13 instead of the motorway from Paris. It was a more picturesque route and I often left it to visit small towns and historic sites along the river Seine.

I passed through the charming town of Cormeilles when I left the N13. I didn’t stop there at that time, saving it for my return maybe, but continued towards Pont l’Eveque and Deauville as I wished to reach the coast.  A few kilometers after Cormeilles, I reached a lovely hamlet called Bonneville-la-Louvet, boasting a 13th century church and a sign for a restaurant. Having been warned of the inflated prices of seaside restaurants, I made a frugal decision to stop and dine here.

The village was beautiful, black and white timber-frame houses, a flower-clad bridge over the clear, fast-flowing river and a bent but elegant church built of creamy local stone. It was like stepping back in time.

I entered the small, busy restaurant and was immediately assailed by wonderful cooking aromas hanging in the heavy, slightly humid atmosphere. The owner, Henri, held court in impressive fashion from behind the bar counter, his girth making it impossible for a belt to retain his trousers in place so a large set of braces helped to defy the pull of gravity.

I was seated with astonishing rapidity and was told that only the “Plat du jour” was left.

“Fine, what is it?” I asked.

“Poulet au Cidre, my own recipe and the best you will find anywhere”.

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So this was my introduction to that particular and excellent regional dish. Henri became a friend, along with his wife Marcelle and I actually bought a piece of land in the town and built a house there. This is his recipe. The restaurant has changed hands, Henri has gone and like so much of French culinary heritage that is disappearing, it is now a pizzeria.

Enjoy, and raise a glass to Henri.

The Recipe (for four people)

 

IMG_2825

  • 4 chicken pieces (thighs, drumsticks, breasts)
  • 1 large onion or 3 shallots, finely sliced
  • 300ml dry cider
  • 2 tbs crème fraîche
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 100gr butter
  • 2 pinches tarragon
  • 1/2 level tsp fresh grated nutmeg
  • 1 apple (Granny Smith), peeled and cubed
  • 1 heaped tsp flour
  • 100ml good chicken stock

IMG_2828

Preparation:

  • Trim the fat and excess skin on the chicken pieces.
  • Melt the butter in a pan and fry the chicken for 4 minutes each side until golden, remove and set aside.
  • Add the finely-sliced onions to the pan and sauté for 4 minutes at medium heat until slightly golden.
  • Sprinkle in the flour, nutmeg and pepper and mix with the onion and juices and then add chicken stock.
  • Put the chicken pieces back in the pan, add the cider and cubed apple, bring nearly to the boil and reduce to a simmer.
  • Cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally and add the chopped tarragon.
  • Stir in the crème fraîche just before serving. Salt to taste.

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I sprinkle a little chopped tarragon on the chicken when plated for colour and freshness.

I like to serve this dish simply with boiled new potatoes and a little spring cabbage, or if I am adding an British twist to this for my French friends, I make suet dumplings. A real Entente Cordiale!

Andrew David, alias Mexico Pete, has been a fellow participant (with many other writers) in Free Range Humans Writers’ Month organized by Marianne Cantwell. He describes himself as a “World Person”. He travels a lot, lives in different countries, and has a profound love of food. In every country he has visited, he has discovered wonderful, often simple recipes, based on excellent produce.  Andrew intends to start his own blog to showcase some of these as well as recipes of his own invention. When he does, One French Word will invite him back, so watch this space!

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One French word: printanier, a French recipe: printanière de légumes au blanc de poulet

Posted on April 22, 2012 by OneFrenchWord

All sorts of tender, colourful, flavoursome Spring vegetables are appearing in shops and on market stalls. You must seize the opportunity now, they will soon lose their tenderness, and their attraction. When we come out of Winter, we are hungry for something different and fresh.

 The French language bit:

Printanier, adjective (printanier (m.), printanière (f.), printaniers (m.pl.), printanières (f.pl.) = springlike, Spring seasonal (pronounced prah-n-tan-yeah, prah-n-tan-yair). 

Le printemps = Spring (literally a sort of prime time (prin-temps)). Summer = l’été (estival = summerlike). Autumn= l’automne (automnal = autumnlike). Winter=l’hiver (hivernal=wintery). 

Une printanière is a dish made with Spring vegetables.

 

Printanière de légumes au blanc de poulet

My recipe is for a printanière de légumes au blanc de poulet, which uses a small quantity of several different vegetables together to accompany a chicken breast cut into strips.

Chicken breast in strips

For two people you will need:

  • 1 good sized chicken breast, cut into strips
  • 1tbs cornflour
  • salt
  • 6 small mushrooms cut into quarters
  • 6 small broad beans cut into one inch pieces with their pod (better to use organic)
  • a tender inside stick of celery
  • a couple of spring carrots
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 4 new onions (the bulb of a largish spring onion
  • and anything else you find that you fancy
  • 1tsp fond de veau (veal stock, failing that, concentrated chicken stock)
  • 100ml water or white wine
  • oil for frying
  • fleur de sel

Cornflour added. The bits of yellow you can see are strips of ginger I added, just for me!

Preparation:

Main ingredients

  1. Slice the chicken breast into thin strips, put into a bowl with a good tbs cornflour to coat and 1/2 tsp salt.
  2. Wash, prepare and chop the vegetables: chop the broad beans into one inch pieces, with their pods; peel the carrots and slice into four lengthwise; take the outer skin off the onion leaving a couple of inches of stem and slice into four lengthwise; chop the celery into long pieces; crush the garlic with a cleaver and chop roughly; cut the mushrooms into four.
  3. Put a little oil into a non stick pan and fry the chicken pieces quickly, turning, for about 2 minutes.
  4. Add all the vegetables (and a little more oil if necessary) and fry for about 5 minutes, stirring.
  5. Dilute a tsp of fond de veau in 100ml water or white wine and pour over the vegetables and chicken. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes.
  6. Serve in soup plates, seasoned with a little fleur de sel.

Chopped broad beans

A word about fond de veau: this is a rich stock which you can make from scratch with pieces of veal, veal bones and vegetables. You can also buy it in powder form, made by Maggi, which is very good. It’s a bit like a powdered stock cube. If you can’t find any, use a crumbled chicken or vegetable stock cube. Together with the cornflour from the chicken, this makes a rich sauce, slightly thick and shiny. If you are using a stock cube, be careful about resalting.

Frying the chicken and vegetables

And a word about fleur de sel: the very cream of salt, not to be used for cooking but sparingly, as it’s expensive, to season dishes on your plate. I shall be doing a whole post about it one of these days.

Savour every mouthful, eat each vegetable separately, taste the flavours: Springtime in your plate.

Bon appétit!

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One French word, plus a French recipe: beurre à l’ail

Posted on January 24, 2012 by OneFrenchWord

Beurre à l’ail, masculine noun (le beurre à l’ail, du beurre à l’ail) = garlic butter (beurre = butter, ail = garlic) (pronounced ber a l’aïe, a difficult one to transcribe! You don’t hear the l at the end of ail).

No expressions here, but lots of ways to use this delicious and useful butter. You can make garlic bread, baked potatoes with garlic butter, you can stuff snails or shellfish (mussels, clams), pop a chunk on top of a steak. But my recipe for today will use it to stuff a chicken breast.

Garlic

Garlic at the market

 

The basic recipe for 125gr of garlic butter (about one American stick, or half a pat of salted butter) is to take the butter out of the fridge, put it in a bowl and let it get good and soft. On top, crush or grate one clove of garlic and add three heaped tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley, a little more salt, very little, and a several grinds of the pepper mill. Mix thoroughly.

This butter freezes very well of course, and it is useful to have a roll on hand. Form it into a sausage shape, cover with cling film, and put it in a ziplock bag. It needs double wrapping so that it does not contaminate the whole freezer with a garlic smell! Still frozen, you can chop off the quantity you need.

The variations on this theme are endless, using shallott instead of garlic, chives instead of parsley, even fresh nettles in Spring. You can add a little lemon juice or make a completely lemon butter with grated zest, juice and some parsley, excellent with fish. Blue cheese and parsley butter is good on steak. And so on, your imagination is the limit. And in fact, you may think you really didn’t need me to give you this “recipe”, but all I’m doing is reminding you of possibilities you may have forgotten.

I use garlic butter to stuff chicken breast (du blanc de poulet, remember?).

Poulet à l'ail before cooking

Blanc de poulet, fendu, avec du beurre à l’ail

One chicken breast per person:

Preparation:

  1. Pre heat the oven to 180°C.
  2. On a wooden board, press down on the chicken breast with one hand, and use a sharp knife to cut a pocket (fendre=to split, fendu (past participle) = split)  one side of the breast. This pocket should stop about 2cm from the ends and should reach just over  half way through.
  3. Fill the pocket with a generous helping of garlic butter and put a little more butter on top of the breast, to moisten it, and some pepper (no extra salt needed), before wrapping the meat tightly in foil or greaseproof paper to prevent the butter from escaping too far when it melts.
  4. Cook  for 20 minutes. Serve with salad, or a green vegetable such as beans, and plain boiled new or small potatoes.
Blanc de poulet

Blanc de poulet, beurre à l’ail

If you buy a tray of several fresh chicken breasts, these can be prepared in advance and frozen, wrapped up ready to pop in the oven. Count 30-35mns cooking time if you put them frozen into a preheated oven. A really quick supper dish – you just have time to prepare the vegetables while the chicken is cooking.

Bon appétit

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One French word: bouillon, a French recipe: bouillon de poule

Posted on January 13, 2012 by OneFrenchWord

Bouillon, masculine noun (le bouillon, un bouillon, des bouillons) = stock (in the sense of beef stock for example), pronounced bou-ee-yon, with the emphasis on the first syllable, and the final n hardly pronounced.

Hands up all those who chuck a chicken carcass in the bin once the meat has been eaten? Or a duck carcass Or pork bones?

Well you are missing something, you can get another couple of meals out of a chicken, for instance, if you make stock with the carcass. Any meat bones can be used to make stock, some better than others. You must have a farmer’s market, an ethnic market, maybe an Amish market near you, where you could ask for a ham bone with a little meat that is left after all presentable slices of ham have been removed? This is a real gem.

You can use a pressure cooker, or just an ordinary large saucepan. With your stock, you can make nourishing and tasty soups. Any meat left on a carcass falls off easily after being used for stock, and is sometimes enough for a meal in itself, or an addition to a soup, or at worst, to give to the dog. If you can get a ham bone, put it to cook with beans even if there is little meat left on it, it will give wonderful flavour to the dish.

So my recipe for today is bouillon de poule (or poulet more usually). I’m making some as I speak (write, I mean), mmmm, it smells lovely.

Chicken carcass ready to make stock

Ingredients: a chicken carcass and a few vegetables: onion, garlic, bouquet garni, carrot…

Preparation:

  1. In a large saucepan, put between one and two litres of water to boil.
  2. Add salt, an onion (you don’t even need to peel it, it will give colour to your stock), and a cloveor two of garlic.
  3. Make a bouquet garni, that is, a little bundle of fresh thyme, bayleaf and celery (see picture below).
  4. You may also add other vegetables to the pot if you wish, carrots and such, I personally don’t.
  5. Add the bones, or the chicken carcass, broken into two to fit into the pan. Scrape all the jelly and fat that may be left in the roasting pan. This will give flavour. If you want a less fatty bouillon, you can always degrease it later.

Bouquet garni

6.  Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour.

You can also, as I said, use a pressure cooker, in which case, the cooking time will be at least halved. But I’m not very good on pressure cookers (cocotte minute).

7. Leave to cool, strain through a colander, putting the bouillon into a clean saucepan.

8. Pick the carcass. You will see from my photo above that there was quite a lot of meat left on the carcass I used (I get tired of eating cold chicken). I divide the meat from the carcass into three bowls: one for large chunks of breast or thigh meat that I can make a curry with for instance; one for nice but bitty bits, which can go into a bowl of Chinese chicken and noodle soup; and one for icky bits from inside, and cartilage and such, which I give to the dog (who doesn’t think it’s icky at all!). Do the same with other bones if you are not using chicken.

9. Throw away the bones, the onion, the garlic and the bouquet garni.

10. Strain the bouillon in the clean saucepan once more using a finer strainer. When it is quite cool, put it in the fridge, the fat will rise to the surface and congeal on the top. If the bouillon is concentrated enough, it will turn to jelly.

You can remove the fat if you wish, either throw it away, or use it to cook vegetables for soup. You should use your bouillon within a couple of days, or freeze it in suitable sized portions. It might be a good idea to boil it down and concentrate it so that it takes up less room in the freezer.

There is nothing like home made stock. It is filled with flavour, you know what has gone into it, and you have the feeling of getting something for nothing!

To use it for making soup, just follow any soup recipe, and instead of putting water or a cube, use your home-made stock. If you want to make Chinese chicken and noodle soup (this is not a French recipe but I’ll give it to you anyway!), heat the required quantity of bouillon, with dried egg noodles or rice noodles as per instructions on packet, and the chicken pieces from your middle bowl.  In the bottom of a very large soup bowl, put a couple of lettuce leaves, a raw egg yolk (this is optional), some chopped or grated garlic and the same of ginger, fresh not dried, a teaspoon of Kikkoman soy sauce, a teaspoon of oriental sesame oil.  Remove the noodles from the bouillon and put them into the soup bowl. With a slotted spoon transfer a portion of chicken pieces to your soup bowl. Taste the bouillon for seasoning and pour it, boiling, over all this. Boiling is important, it cooks the egg (soft boiled). You can stir as you pour if you like the egg scrambled “egg drop” style. In this case you can put the whole egg, not just the yolk. On top of your soup, add chopped fresh coriander, sliced spring onion green, and sliced fresh red chili if you like it. This is simply the most delicious soup, and it makes a full meal. I do it about once every two weeks, I love it.

Soupe chinoise

Chinese chicken and noodle soup

So promise me from now onwards you will never, never again throw away a carcass? If ever you don’t have time to deal with it, you can freeze it and do your stock later!

Bon appétit.

PS – are you keeping your vocabulary book up to date? It is essential you do if you wish to remember the words. Keep it in the smallest room in the house, we all spend a certain time there. It will be time well spent if you re-read your French words.

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One French word: poulet, a French recipe : croquettes de poulet maison

Posted on January 10, 2012 by OneFrenchWord

Poulet=young chicken, masculine noun (un poulet, le poulet, les poulets), pronounced poo-lay

There are a multitude of words in French for different types of chicken. Une poule is a hen. Usually an old laying hen, best boiled and served as poule au pot, or poule au riz.  Un coq is a cockerel. Un poussin is a chick. Un chapon is a capon. Une poularde is a young female bird that has been fattened for the table.

Then you have the different colours: white ones, yellow ones. Grain fed, free range, organic, etc. I personally won’t eat battery produced chickens, but they don’t necessarily have to be organic.

Poulet is also a slang word for the police (la police) = cop. Another French slang word for cop is flic.

A talent much appreciated in a cook is the art of using up leftovers (l’art d’accommoder les restes). It has been the subject of a book in its own right. My recipe for today uses leftover roast chicken.

Croquettes de poulet maison (home made chicken nuggets – use fresh chicken if you do not have leftovers)

Croquettes de poulet

For 4 people you will need:

  • The equivalent in leftover chicken meat of two breasts, although the dark meat is more moist
  • One quantity of sauce béchamel (see recipe below)
  • One quantity of batter (pâte à frire) (see recipe below)
  • a clove of garlic
  • one or two shallots
  • some parsley
  • a handful of pine nuts (pignons de pin) (optional, but they do add interest and crunch)
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • flour to roll the croquettes in
  • oil for frying

 

Preparation:

  1. Chop the garlic and the shallot and fry in a little oil until transparent.
  2. Take the meat off the carcass, chop into chunks, pop in the food processor with the cooked garlic and shallot, parsley and a spoonful of the jellied juice left under your roast chicken in the dish. Add salt and pepper at this stage. Do not grind too finely, you do not want a paste, you need texture.
  3. Add the pine nuts after the grinding process, you want them whole.
  4. Make a quantity of sauce béchamel (now this is just white sauce, but that sounds like something we got at boarding school, béchamel sounds classier):
  5. Warm 1/8 litre milk in a saucepan or microwave. In another, non stick saucepan, put 2tbs flour and 1tbs butter. Heat to melt the butter and stir vigorously into the flour, using a wooden spoon. Leave the mixture obtained to cook for a minute. Add the milk gradually, beating with the wooden spoon. When you have used up all the milk, add a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Change to a whisk that won’t damage your non-stick pan and beat to a very smooth creamy paste with no lumps. It should be thick. If it is too thick, add a little milk. Let it bubble for a minute and remove from the heat. This mixture is going to bind your chopped chicken.
  6. In a bowl, mix this sauce with the mixture from the food processor. NOTE: if you don’t want to do this last stage (making béchamel), you can bind the mixture with a small egg yolk. It will be less creamy but perfectly acceptable.
  7. Make a quantity of batter: 3 tbs flour –  1 tbs cornflour – salt – pepper – beer (just any old can of beer, but fresh and frothy). Add the salt and pepper to the flour and cornflour, add the beer gradually, stirring until you arrive at the consistency you require (fairly thick). Do not stir too vigorously or you will defeat the object of the beer – that is the bubbles. It is the gas that makes your batter light and crispy. Dip a spoon into the mixture and let the batter drip off. It should coat thoroughly. If it drips off too quickly, add a little more flour. You can flavour this batter with herbs, spices, curry or turmeric for instance if you wish. Leave to stand for about 10 minutes. Any left over batter can be stored, covered,  in the fridge and used the next day. NOTE: you can also miss out this stage, and just roll your balls of chicken in seasoned flour. This makes crunchy morsels, but not as crispy and delicious as the battered ones. But we’re maybe getting a bit lazy here? If you do, just roll in flour, fry the nuggets in a frying pan, not a deep fryer.
  8. Form walnut-sized lumps of chicken mixture into little balls, rolling them between wet palms (they don’t stick that way), and then in flour. Place on a plate as you do them.
  9. Heat oil in a deep fryer or a saucepan. Test that the oil is good and hot.
  10. Dunk the balls into the batter, allow excess to drip off, and fry half a dozen at a time for a couple of minutes in all. Turn them over at half time.
  11. Remove with a slotted spoon to a serving dish covered with a layer of kitchen paper and keep warm in the oven while you cook the whole batch. They will stay crispy with this batter.

NOTE that if you are using raw chicken, you must first cook the mixture before rolling into balls. Always wash your hands thoroughly after touching raw chicken.

Serve with a green salad.  (Or chips if you are not trying to lose weight.) Much nicer than industrial type nuggets!

Bon appétit.

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