Le Couvent Diary

This week we've had two starkly contrasting suppers in nearby restaurants. On Saturday we went to O Bontemps in Magalas with two guests/friends. We were treated to ten courses of delectable treats. We'd ordered four courses, but there were so many amuse bouches that the meal went from a gentle stroll to a glorious hike. Here's my blurry, phone-captured, photo of the starter. Everything was as beautifully presented and utterly delicious.

On the other hand, we thought we'd celebrate the opening of a new restaurant in our village, Le Petit Péché, which has nothing to do with fishing or peaches, but means small sins. Actually they were guilty of several rather larger sins, the worst of which was producing the utterly predictable menu of the same dishes one sees everywhere else. To be fair they've only been open a fortnight, but the menus have been printed to last, so I don't think they'll be changing anything soon. The price difference between O Bontemps and  Le Petit Péché is just 12 euros a head, but the difference in value could not be more stark.

Come on France. You produce some of the best raw ingredients in the world, but you keep on dishing up the same magret de canard, bifsteck and poulet, chased up by ile flottante, chocolat moelleux, tarte tatin, crème brulée and ice cream. And where are the vegetables for heaven's sake? Give us a break. You're better than that. Shape up.

NOTE:

Since publishing this post we have received the comment below. Normally we do not publish anonymous comments, but this one has some valid points, so rather than deleting it we're giving it prominence.

We've been to Le Petit Peche twice with no complaints whatsoever - good presentation, simple and consistently good food, local produce and good value for money. The restaurant additionally offers the opportunity to eat either inside or outside in its pleasant courtyard. This review is overly harsh and critical, especially from business people who should know better. Not only is it unfair to compare a restaurant which has been on the go for years to one which has just opened, it is also ridiculous to compare their menus considering the huge price difference. I doubt that Le Couvent would have appreciated similarly severe criticism in its first month of opening. Support, rather than criticism, would be more likely to encourage these young people and help the restaurant survive in Roujan! - DB

Thank you 'DB' -  don't hide, give us your name next time.

As I thought, the fire was a bit too hot, so after 8 hours of smoking over oak and juniper, Sam the ham became Sam the slow-roast-smoked pork. And utterly delicious he is too. Next time I'll either hang the pork higher, or spend hours tending a half-lit fire. Guess which.

It's been a great experiment. Ali adores the flavour of the salty, slow cooked pork, but I did want to have a go at curing our own bacon, so the lessons learnt have been well worth this particular effort. I'd recommend it. After the excesses of Christmas, simple, salty, delicious morsels of pork and a hunk of homemade bread are just divine. You can just spot Kit the dog and Goutierre the cat hovering for pork-spillage.

Today we're off to the vineyard to work. To tease us along we have Sam the pork, homemade tomato and coriander soup and a loaf I made yesterday which will be waiting for us in Olive the caravan at half-time. That should make the work go faster.

Sam the Ham has been hanging in the chilly hall for 48 hours (we didn't have time to see to him yesterday) and is now out of his jolly muslin coat and hanging on a hook above the fire in the kitchen.

In theory he'll stay there for 24 hours bathed in oak smoke. I'll pick an armful of wild juniper when I walk the dogs at lunchtime. The oak isn't making as much smoke as I'd like and I don't want the ham to just slow cook over the fire.

Frankly I have no idea what I'm doing, so it'll be a miracle if this is edible at the end, but it's worth a try.

Meanwhile I'm chuffed to bits with the flour I found at the wholesalers yesterday. It is choc-a-bloc with different flours and grains. I actually went to find a 500g pack of yeast. I hate those tiny packs of yeast from the supermarket so I was very pleased to find this pack. This afternoon I'll make a loaf and report back. It sometimes takes a while to get good results with a new flour or yeast, so it could be disastrous.

It seems such a simple thing, but bacon like one has in the UK just doesn't seem to exist here. Last year some pals brought down our gammony pig-leg from Brighton so we were able to do the Christmas ham . But no-one was coming this way this year.

So I thought I might try curing it myself. It's bound to take lots of experimentation, so I'll record what happens here in case anyone else fancies having a go. If it works I'd like to try bacon, so fingers crossed.

Thus far I have steeped our 2kg half leg of pork in a brine comprising 300 grams of salt, 2 heaped teaspoons of black treacle, bay leaves and wild juniper berries and about three litres of water (enough to cover). I kept it in a stainless steel container with a heavy plate keeping the pork below the water, and covered with a lid. I left it like that for four days, which I suspect won't be enough, but I don't want to oversalt it.

Next it had to be wrapped in muslin. Needless to say we don't have any, so we've improvised with a bit of an unused Ikea muslin curtain in a fetching shade of yellow. It's now hanging in the chill of the big hall for the next 24 hours. After that I'm going to smoke it over the fire in the downstairs kitchen for 24 hours. Then we'll try cooking it, making sure we have an ambulance on stand-by in case it all goes horribly wrong.

Watch this space.

Kit the dog is a vegetable-lover. Actually, being 90% Labrador and 10% Pig she loves absolutely anything that vaguely resembles food. But here she is waiting for Ali to peel the carrots in preparation for Christmas lunch. I just love the full-blooded crunch that a dog's jaws can impose on a humble carrot.