Slow Cooking
Comments from the author:
“This article has been dragged, kicking and screaming, from the old BretonDiary.”
When I came over in January, Father gave me his old slow cooker (having ugraded, himself, to a larger one). I wasn't sure if I would use it and was tempted to 'accidently' leave it behind. I didn't and now find that I'm using it about one a week.
Father's old slow cooker got put on the top shelf where I expected it to stay for rather a long time. And, perhaps it would have stayed there if, that is, I hadn't had a disaster. Yup, you guessed it, it was a Sunday lunchtime and the gas ran out.
There is some kind of law or rule that says the gas will only run out after the shops are shut or on a Sunday lunchtime. I can think of a couple of places (bars, if you must know) where I can change a gas bottle on a Sunday afternoon but as I would have had to have gone into Josselin first, to get some money, it seemed like a lot of hassle. Madame Maret (my landlady) has a spare bottle but, like all decent people, was busy having a family meal and I didn't like to bother her.
I had been planning a meal based upon an old recipe from the South-West of France. I'm not sure where I found this recipe - perhaps Goosefat & Garlic, which is an excellent book (keep your eyes open for it). I realised that it would work fine in the slow cooker and so down it came from the top shelf. I call this one my.......
Daube de Plat Cote de Porc.
A Daube is a type of very slowly cooked stew or casserole (traditionally in the embers of a fire) which is cooked a large cast iron pot (also, confusingly called a Daube). If any meat other than Pork is cooked (normally beef or mutton), fat from the pig will be added. Of course, if you start with Pork, this isn't a problem.
I start out by putting whole peeled onions, whole cloves of garlic (unpeeled), big chunks of carrot and leek and golfball sized chunks of potato into the pot and pour in enough water to just cover the vegetables. I season with salt and pepper (lots of salt) and slowly bring to the boil.
At this point, I turn the heat right down and add two plat cotes de pork. A plat cote is a small rack of ribs from under the shoulder. They have, for a casserole, an almost ideal mixture of fat, bone and meat. A good plat cote will normally weigh about a pound to a pound and a half. Obviously, this depends on how they are cut from the shoulder. As shoulder of pork has a higher value than plat cote, the butcher will be tempted to leave as much meat on the shoulder which makes the plat cote a little bit lightweight. I always ask for mine cut nice and thick but, as so often in life, I don't always get what I ask for.
For some reason, it is important to put the plat cotes on top of the cooking vegetables, almost so that they are cooking in the steam/vapour. I add wine (and more salt) about half an hour before it is finished - although with this sort of meal, finishing times can be measured in days, if not weeks!
The first time I tried this in the slow cooker, I only managed to fit one plat cote in. Since then, I have added chunks of belly trimmings as well. I have also learnt to start it off with a couple of kettles of boiling water.
Plat Cote costs me about 50p per pound, vegetables cost tuppence (you obviously use what's in season) - this makes this a very cheap meal. I think, traditionally, you would put old dry bread into the juice to thicken it up (you mustn't waste anything, you know) - I don't wait for the bread to get old - this is dunking for real men!
This is the sort of meal that cooks better in a slow cooker than it ever would on a modern cooker - the problem is getting the flame low enough - an Aga might work.
One day, I will try this the old fashioned way, in the warm embers of a real fire.
Pork and Lentils
Seems to be a traditional local meal, although I can't find any mention of it in any of my cookery books (English or French).
It often features on the menu at the restaurant at work as well as occasionally being Dish of the Day in some of the restaurants in town. Mainly, it has to be said, the sort of restaurants that aren't plagued by tourists (possibly because dish of the day is Pork & Lentils rather than chicken & chips).
At work, the lentils and the pork are cooked separately but when I had it at the Bar Duchesse Anne, they had obviously been cooked together and the meal was much better for it.
This, once again, is the sort of meal that the slow cooker was invented for. If you try it in a saucepan on a normal gas cooker, you can end up with boiled pork and, well, boiled lentils. Cooked slowly, they become something more. You need fatty pork - the lentils soak up the fat. You need more salt and pepper than you think. The last time I cooked it, I slipped in half a pound of carrots as well (they were on the turn and I couldn't bring myself to chuck them out). I don't know if they helped but, they certainly didn't hurt.
Pork and lentils is normally served as.. just that. No potatoes, no veg, no rice - nothing at all. If it's cooked right, it doesn't need anything else. It must really confuse the hell out of any English tourists ending up in the little restaurants hoping to get chicken and chips!
Not Really Chinese Pork and Rice
This has about as much in common with real Chinese cookery as I have in common with the England Football Squad (go on Sven - give us a go). It doesn't half taste nice though.
Yes, I'll admit to missing the occasional Indian or Chinese takeaway. There is a Vietnamese food stall in the Saturday market at Josselin. Unfortunately, it is situated just across from the good fish stall, the one where I buy my fish (and Fruits de Mer), the one with the long queue. The smells from the stall are gorgeous and I have been tempted many times - temptation, when it comes to food, is something that I just can't resist.
For my imitation Chinese pork I use chunks of fatty pork. The best kind are the trimmings from industrial bellies. I buy a least one belly a month from work. The first time I bought an industrial belly (not trimmed at all), I tried to de-bone it myself. I'd seen the butchers in one of the cutting halls doing it and it didn't look difficult at all. As encouragement, I placed a cold can of beer on the table and promised myself that I could open it when I was done. When I was done, it wasn't cold any more. De-boning pigs bellies is more difficult than it looks - take it from me.
Nowadays I buy the bellies with the ribs left in, to be cut (for cut, read hacked) into two or three inch thick slices for roasting (where the bones help) or I buy the de-boned bellies, already sliced into quarter inch slices (for cooking as a sort of imitation bacon or to drape over and around a rabbit or pigeon to give it that bit of extra slurp factor - (I somehow can't imagine Paul Bocuse mentioning Extra Slurp Factor).
The other day, however, I did buy a de-boned industrial belly in order to trim the rind off (to be roast later on - I love crunchy, salty pig skin) and cook as Poitrine Roule (I'm going to have to do something about those foreign accents) - rolled belly of pork. We do this at work for our Japanese clients. I think, that of all the things we do at work, the one that makes me salivate the most are rolled bellies.
Trimming the rind and fat off and then trimming the belly nice and rectanglar isn't too difficult - I think I've learnt something over the last couple of years, even if it is just which end of the knife to hold. For the rolled belly, all you need to do is salt and pepper the pork, add slices of garlic - I add dried apricots and prunes as well, not sure why - but it doesn't hurt. Then I roll the belly into a roll and tie it together. This weighs about two and a half pounds and is beautiful to roast - it also tastes scrumptious cold, the next day.
It is the bits left over that I use for my Chinese pork. The bits of fatty belly get trimmed into fat and pork. The fat goes into the fridge for adding to anything that needs a bit of extra taste. The lumps of (slightly fatty) pork go into the slow cooker with a couple of pints of water, any mushrooms that are lying round (with me, there are usually some - even if they are only the sauted Ceps that were cooked and frozen last Autumn when God smiled on the forest, the forest brought forth its bounty and I was a happy man - well, even happier than usual!).
I add Chinese Five Spice powder (cheating, I know) and a Chinese flavour stock cube (I'm not sure why but I brought some over with me from England three years ago and, no matter how often I use one, the jar doesn't seem to be getting any emptier!)
This gets cooked on the slow setting for about eight hours (whilst I'm at work). On the way home from work I pop into the supermarket and pick up a few vegetables to be stir fried. When I say a few, that's just what I mean. I have a thing about buying fresh and buying every day. I have no problem with buying just two onions, three shallots, one carrot etc.
When I get home I boil up some rice, stir fry the veg and serve it all on a big steak platter with a few slashes of soy sauce. Not really Chinese Pork and Rice but, as my nearest Chinese take away is in Union Street, Portsmouth - about 400 miles away - better than nothing at all!
At work, we sell a lot of pork to our clients in China and Japan. I believe that people from that part of the world have a dietary need for the fat that is almost the best part of good pork. I must have some Chinese or Japanese blood in me! Konichi Wa, Father San. Is there something that you want to tell me - now that I'm almost a grown up?
