One of the best things about living in France is the wonderful produce you can buy at a French market. Being Christmas and the time for being a bit of a piggy what could be more appropriate than seeking out the most luxurious of ingredients, the truffle.
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| A basket heaving with one of the most precious harvests in France |
The truffle business is so serious in France that a man was recently killed by a Trufficulteur who suspected him of raiding his truffle harvest so it was not without trepidation that I agreed set off with a friend early on Christmas Eve to buy one at a market in the pretty town of St. Jean d'Angely.
Last year I visited an annual truffle fair in the nearby town of Jarnac with my husband, Spike, and it is fair to say that we were a little out of our depth as it felt like we had stumbled into a den of drug dealers. We stood and watched for a while as slightly shady characters carefully weighed out the black diamonds and whispered secret deals to obviously experienced buyers. I am glad to say that we did eventually pluck up the courage to approach one of the stands and procure the goods before hurriedly scuttling away.
Thankfully this year, as we found the small oilcloth clad table laden with les truffes I had been tipped off about by a fellow market trader, the man selling these petits morceaux of heaven was very warm and helpful and I went away with one of his smaller offerings for the princely sum of 28€ without any obvious discomfort at all!
That evening when Spike came home from work we enjoyed a simple truffle omelette in order to gauge it's strength in preparation for the all important Christmas lunch (well that's our excuse anyway for snuffling some of it up early!)
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| Our Christmas lunch of roasted monkfish and truffles |
On Christmas Day we prepared together (with me as sous chef) a mushroom duxelle that Spike used as stuffing for the monkfish we had decided to try this year. The fish was then rolled into a joint (no not that kind!!!) and roasted along with some traditional roast potatoes.
This was accompanied by a fennel bake with cream and parmesan, a carrot and courgette tartlet and a rich red wine jus (get me!).
We also had a few brussel sprouts on the side which I thought that was a bit weird but Spike actually refused to eat Christmas lunch without them!
I have to say that we both agreed that it was the best Christmas lunch we'de ever had and the truffle shavings on the top of the fish left us both eating in blissful silence (only to be occasionally broken by a few 'mmmms', 'yummy yummy' noises and deep sighs).
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| Truffled quails eggs |
On Boxing Day we invited our friends, Karin (who had come with me for moral support to buy the truffle) and her husband, David, over for supper.
For the starter Spike poached quails eggs and served them on brioche toast with a truffle cream sauce and truffle shavings on the top.
He had cleverly thought the night before to keep the quails eggs in a jar with the truffle to see if they would take on some of the flavour but it's hard to say if it worked (having been slathered in the aforementioned yummy truffle cream sauce!)
Sadly there is not much our petit truffe left now so we have decided to finish it off tomorrow morning for breakfast by having truffled scrambled eggs on muffins - of the English variety!
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| The dwindling truffle that had infused the quails eggs |
We had a truly lovely Christmas this year and hope that you did too. Soon things will be back to normal and I will be back to posting blogs on my usual trucs in the New Year but in the meantime I send you my very best wishes for 2014.
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