Bastides

Observant readers may be wondering what happened to the saucisson sec purchased in the margins of the sheep shoulder day, noticed at the end of last month at reference 1. Not the same wrapper as that snapped above from the Waitrose website, but I think the same stuff. Quite dear at around £5 for 200g, but as it turned out one of them made a good meal for two. I might also mention that the natural casing, apparently important for the development of natural flavour, was quite hard to get off, even with a good knife: it might be natural but we prefer not to eat it.

As it turned out, bought on the 18th June then eaten first on Saturday 26th and then second on Wednesday 30th following.

The basis of the stew is frying some garlic in a little oil. Then add some chopped onions - in this case three medium sized - and fry a little more. Then add three beef tomatoes - costing, I might say, more than half as much as the sausage - and simmer for between one and two hours. Not usually necessary to add any water. At some point, if available, add some cross-sliced celery. Then close to the finishing post the chopped sausage and some cut-up cooked potatoes. Then very close to the finishing post add the mushrooms.

Meantime boil up the pasta and invite BH to make a salad. Look as if there might have been some wine involved, but I forget now what it was. 

Nearly polished off in the one sitting. Enough left to pop in the microwave for breakfast.

All entirely satisfactory. Including some interesting near-pyrotechnics at the beginning. I must have had the electric on too high, as the chopped garlic cooked much faster than I expected and ended up burnt & black. Not being sure how best to clean the pan and start again, I added a small amount of cold water. The result being a very pretty fountain of something coming up from the pan, lasting for getting on for a minute. Like a fancy version of the dancing water noticed, for example, at reference 2. Which was all very well, but I also associated to the terrible things that ladies in flammable dresses can do with hot chip fat. But after everything had cooled down, the (Aga) pan cleaned up fine and I started over.

The other point of interest was the amount of heat that pasta soaks up while cooking. To keep the water boiling vigorously, which is how it needs to be, one needs the electric on a lot higher than one might think.

Version two much the same, apart from the swapping out the salad in favour of broccoli.

And no doubt about the (Mademoiselle) white wine on this occasion. More or less all of it done, once again, in a sitting. And followed by the remains of a fine date, walnut and apple cake, cooked the Delia way, lately resident foodie for the 'Daily Mirror'. Maybe topped and tailed with a spot of Jameson. 

I forget why we ate in the kitchen on both these occasions: we usual prefer to decamp to next door, away from the heat and smell of cooking.

PS 1: the sausage was branded 'Bastides'. With bastides being southern French for castle, stately home or walled town. Was made in Aveyron in the south of France, which fits. But yet to track down the company which owns the brand. Maybe later on.

PS 2: later on: I was beginning to think that 'Bastides' was like one of those brands of wine which do not exist outside of the marketing and packaging departments of supermarkets. But I think I have run it to ground at reference 3. Also known as 'Entreprise SACOR', based in the bastide of Villefranche de Rouergue, in the département of Aveyron, but apart from a firm of accountants in Paris, I have not been able to find a website under that name - although there is a fair bit of coverage in newspapers and trade directories. Must be a fairly big operation to supply all the big supermarkets in this country. Gmaps turns up the building above, and panning around the place, it could be a pig processing unit - although there are no pigs or livestock trucks to be seen. Yet another minor mystery.

PS 3: De Gaulle announced the end of the second world war in France on the 8th May, 1945. Maybe there are lots of streets and avenues of this name.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/sheep-shoulder-day.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/dancing-water-or-fluid-dynamics.html.

Reference 3: http://bastides-salaisons.com/.