Gallic food recipes

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Gallic, garlic recipes

French twist: daube of beef. Photograph by Alan Robinson.

By Mike Robinson of The Field

Monday, 21 January 2008

Mike Robinson rustles up Burgundian dishes of snails, cockerel and beef and adds sufficient garlic to keep even the most bloodthirsty vampire at breath's length

Oh unhappy time! If I could get away with saying, “Woe is me,” I would, but that would just be silly. Suffice to say that February is pretty dismal. Very little is in season, except pigeon, of course, which provides the best February sport there is. From a restaurant point of view this is the quietest month of all, not just because everyone is strapped for cash after Christmas but because of the general malaise that grips the nation at this time of year.

Of course, comfort food to warm us and improve our mood is required, but of what kind? Last February I went to visit some old friends in Burgundy – which is home to one of my favourite cuisines in all the world, and the first style of food I learnt to cook. The weather was, if anything, even worse than here, but the atmosphere was very different.

On the first day we went to lunch at a typically Burgundian little establishment in a village square in the charmingly named village of Anus. This was your real French workman’s joint – tumblers for wine, pastis by the gallon and the comfortable fug of a busy restaurant, tinged lightly with garlic. The menu was short and the food was all cooked simply from scratch. We love to display the whole local food thing, but the French don’t know any other way – they just assume that the rabbits and cockerels are from the area, because why would you buy them from anywhere else? The food was totally Burgundian – coq au vin, snails and a daube of beef. What was amazing was how cheerful everybody was – they were all happy and mildly inebriated. I ordered snails in garlic and parsley, and coq au vin – my favourite food in the world when made with pinot noir and a real old cockerel (not a chicken, or it would be poulet au vin). My wife had a daube of beef – big chunks of very slow-cooked beef that, when rare, would be so tough as to be classed as a weapon, but meltingly juicy and tender when braised in the wine for five hours or so.

Having rolled out bulging and happy, I realised that this was what winter grub is all about – uncomplicated and good ingredients in an unpretentious, fun environment and lots of wine – simple.

Snails in garlic and parsley butter

Serves 8

250g (9oz) butter
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
A big handful of curly parsley, chopped
1 baguette, sliced thinly on an angle
48 snails – you can buy them ready to go in tins

First make the butter – soften the butter slightly and work the finely chopped garlic and parsley throughout. Now roll the mix into a 1in-thick tube of cling film. Pop it in the fridge ready to use.

Rub a little of the butter on each slice of baguette, then grill until golden. Heat a frying-pan, then add a good slab of garlic butter and the snails. Give them about 90 seconds, then remove. Spoon them on the toast, melt some of the butter and pour it over.

Coq au vin

Serves 8

1 tbsp duck fat
50g (2oz) butter
2 cockerels, jointed
2 tbsp plain flour
150g (5oz) smoked bacon lardons
32 small shallots or pickling onions, peeled
6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 tbsp tomato purée
4 sprigs thyme
2 bottles good pinot noir
Salt and pepper
Splash of cognac (optional)

Find your biggest casserole and heat it up. Add the duck fat and butter, then dust the cockerel with flour and brown all the pieces thoroughly. Put them to one side. In the same pan brown the bacon, onions and garlic. Now add the purée and pop the cockerel back in. Add the thyme and enough wine to cover. Simmer in a 325ºF/160ºC/Gas Mark 3 oven for three hours or until very tender.

To serve, haul all the meat out of the pan and put in a serving dish. Put the liquid on the heat and reduce to the consistency required. Season to taste, add an optional shot of cognac and pour over the meat. Serve with boiled new potatoes, bread and Burgundy.

Daube of beef

Serves 8 to 10

3 tbsp olive oil
50g (2oz) butter
1.5 kg (3¼lb) blade or shin of beef, cut into 1½in chunks
2 sticks celery
1 onion
2 carrots
10 cloves garlic
100g (4oz) bacon lardons
4 sprigs thyme
250g (9oz) button mushrooms
2 tbsp tomato purée
1 bay-leaf
1 bottle red wine
750ml (1½pints) good beef stock
Salt and pepper
Splash of cognac (optional)
1 baguette, cut into rounds, splashed with olive oil and toasted
Some Gruyère cheese (optional)

Once again a big casserole is essential. Heat the oil and butter in it and brown the beef well. Remove the meat from the pan and add the mirepoix of veg, garlic and bacon. Allow these to brown for 10 minutes, then put the beef back in. Add the thyme, mushrooms and purée and stir well. Add the bay-leaf, wine and stock and stir again. Now put a lid on the stew and pop it in the oven at 325ºF/160ºC/Gas Mark 3 for about three hours.

Once the beef is falling apart and the sauce is thick, season, add a splash of cognac and place the toast on top. Grill for a few minutes – if you want, add some Gruyère cheese.