Our hens are in exile; they have been forced from their homeland by an overabundance of horses. Four was fine, desirable even; it created a cosy ‘chicken sandwich’ environment. But the newly-arrived pony was the final straw – she’s a Quadruped Lout Too Far and a tiny bit scornful perhaps at the deference required to lay an egg.
So they’ve set up camp on the fourth-floor shelf of the workshop on some torn-up sheets. Not without much shrill, dyspeptic screeching, I might add. I feel a bit bad that all they found for their nest was old sheets and not pashminas, but such is the life of a hen. I only discovered their new hideout because, reaching for an old sheet to clean my saddle, I unwittingly scrambled an egg at my feet. I assume they think that the workshop is horseproof – I’m afraid they’re in for a surprise 😉
Puy Green Lentils (grown on the vocanic soil of the ‘Massif Central’) are prized above other lentils for their strong peppery flavor and firmness, even after cooking. High in fiber and protein, they also contain dietary fibre, folate, vitamin B1, and minerals. As if all that isn’t enough, they also have a very low GI (glycemic index).
Ingredients (serves four)
4 Toulouse sausages
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small red onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
5 mushrooms, peeled and sliced
3 medium sized carrots, peeled and cut into 3cm pieces
1 tin (400g) of plum tomatoes
200g of Puy lentils
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 bay leaf
250ml chicken stock
seasoning to taste: sea salt, fresh black pepper, paprika
Preheat the oven to 150°C. If you have a griddle pan, griddle the sausages briefly. If not, searing them will do just as well. Gently fry the onions, garlic and mushrooms in olive oil to soften them. Add the griddled/seared sausage, the plum tomatoes and carrots and continue to heat. Add the lentils, chicken stock, herbs and seasoning and bring back to a gentle simmer. Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes, checking from time to time that there is enough liquid – the lentils absorb an enormous amount.

I sometimes suspect I might be a bit of a slacker. I’m always hearing about people ‘power walking’, whereas I walk, or at a push, hike if hiking’s called for. And do I spend ‘quality time’ with my family? We eat lunch and dinner together and sometimes even load/unload the dishwasher (although this does inevitably involve heated discussion), but is this enough to qualify? ‘Foodies’ is a term also frequently used. I enjoy cooking and am a bit greedy have a good appetite, but does this make me a foodie?  I could go on, but will stop before I completely trash myself 😉
If I were a ‘power-walking’ sort of person, I would no doubt confit my own duck. As it is, I buy it in a tin. Quite apart from my ‘underachieving’ status, there’s absolutely no way I could confit a duck that I had built up a relationship with (ie caught a glimpse of whilst still alive).
Duck confit (or ‘confit de canard’) is a speciality of Gascony. Confit is a process of preservation that consists of salt curing a piece of meat (generally goose, duck, or pork) and then poaching it in its own fat. Duck fat is a healthy choice for cooking –  it contains 35.7% saturates, 50.5% monounsaturates (high in linoleic acid) and 13.7% polyunsaturated fats (which contain omega-6 and omega-3 oils).
Ingredients (serves four)
4 confit duck thighs (either from a tin or preserved in a jar)
Turn the thighs and solidified fat out into a deep frying pan. Heat on a very low heat to liquefy the fat very gradually. Little by little, drain the liquefied fat from the frying pan into another container and set aside to use as cooking oil for potatoes. Once the surplus fat is drained off, turn the heat up to medium and cook for about eight minutes on each side. The result should be dark golden-brown and very very crisp.
May be served alone with green beans or salad with walnut oil dressing, or with cubed potatoes fried for 15 minutes in the duck fat and garnished with crushed garlic.
And finally, once again for those worried about consuming dishes so apparently high in dietary fat:
‘A high cholesterol diet is not the cause of atherosclerosis. In 50 men with a fourfold increase in dietary cholesterol, two-thirds failed to show an increase in serum cholesterol. Seven patients in another study, while consuming large amounts of beef fat and vitamin and mineral supplements, showed a decrease in average cholesterol levels.’                                                                                                  Roy W. Dowdell, MD, Health Freedom News

I keep reading articles in the English-speaking press about how miserable the French are at the moment and that morale has never been lower. I can’t help feeling that this is no more than a bit of misguided wishful-thinking on the part of ill-humoured hacks (I’m talking about you, Toby Young), but let me nonetheless reassure everyone that however down-at-mouth the French are, they still know how to eat…
This is a deliciously light and good-humoured dish to serve with a side salad and a wide grin 🙂
Ingredients (serves 4)
8 endives
8 slices ham
200g of grated hard cheese (I use Comté, but you could use Cheddar or Gruyère…)
For the gluten-free béchamel sauce :
30g chickpea flour
15g butter
2 tablespoons’ olive oil
250ml milk
200ml vegetable stock
1 tablespoon mustard
Seasoning to taste: sea salt, black pepper, nutmeg
Boil or steam the endives until cooked (about 15 minutes in salted boiling water or 8 minutes in a steamer). Preheat the oven to 220°C. Once cooked, drain well and try to press out any remaining water. Wrap each endive in a slice of ham and lay in a baking dish.
To make the béchamel sauce, melt the butter and heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the flour to the butter/oil mixture and stir rapidly with a whisk until you obtain a mousse-like mixture. Add the liquid (stock and milk) little by little, whisking vigourously to avoid lumpiness. Keep whisking and adding liquid over a gentle heat until there is none left and the sauce thickens slightly – you are aiming for a smooth, glossy, creamy pouring sauce. Add the mustard and the seasoning and leave to heat for a further five minutes over a very low heat, whisking from time-to-time.
Pour the sauce over the ham-wrapped endives and add the grated cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes until bubbling and golden-brown.

My annual flirtation with vegetarianism will have lasted almost a month. Hugo, our labrador, is having a whale of a time ‘playing’ with pheasants at the moment. He waits until I’m in the saddle, then goes out in front to lift a pheasant as close to the horse’s nose as possible. This makes my horse spook flamboyantly (Iberian horses are total show-offs and exceedingly supple to boot) and I end up, more often than not, with my nose in the sand. Which brings me back to why I’ve surmised that hunting isn’t all bad; I’m anxious for them to hurry up and butcher a few of the pheasants near us, to give myself a fighting chance at staying in the saddle 😉
This cassoulet is, perhaps for some people, slightly unorthodox in that it has no breadcrumbs on top. In any case, it’s well worthy of a break from half-hearted vegetarianism and is the epitome of ‘real’ food.
Ingredients (serves 8)
1 large onion, sliced
1 red pepper
4 chilli peppers
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 mushrooms
4 medium-sized carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
8 Toulouse sausages
300g salted pork breast
4 pieces of duck confit
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 glasses of dry white wine
5 medium tomatoes, blanched and skinned
500g white haricot beans (these should be soaked overnight if dry)
Seasoning to taste (seasalt, black pepper, Espelette pepper or paprika)
1 teaspoon juniper berries
Start by de-fatting the duck confit in a pan, heating and removing the fat gradually. Put the onions, garlic and olive oil into a large casserole dish and gently brown. Add the mushrooms, carrots, red pepper, chilli peppers and tomatoes and continue to brown on a low heat. Add the sausages, duck and pork and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Add the white wine, juniper berries and rosemary and bring back to a simmer. Lastly, add the white beans and season well. You will need to add some water – probably about 500ml – enough to come about half the way up the casserole dish. Cook on a lowish heat (140°C) for about two and a half hours, checking from time-to-time that there is sufficient liquid.
This is a very rich dish and should just be served with a crisp green salad.