The Gift: Galette Bressane

I received a call from someone who was working on a travel itinerary for her employer that included a stop in Lyon. He was a restauranteur taking two of his key people on a discovery tour for inspiration and ideas through France. I figured anyone willing to take his people on a tour like that was someone I'd like to meet. I trotted down to Les Halles to meet them and discovered within the first 10 minutes that these men were extremely interesting people to be around. They focused diligently on things that for many people might just be a detail that fades into a general landscape. They appreciated and wanted to discuss at length the things that interested me the most, and had plenty of great thought provoking questions. They didn't realize it but their devotion to their work lifted my spirits and made me feel less alone. You know how sometimes you put all of your effort into something and then have that hollow "maybe this is crazy" feeling? Our conversations, their questions, remembering what I am doing this for, it all served as a fond benchmark for the creative demands I was presented with in the weeks that followed. I remembered my purpose in the midst of a whole lot of chaos, in other words. I was grateful for their having found me at that particular time, and at the same time could not find words to express this gratitude.

I was recently re-contacted by one of these men, a chef working on a fantastic new project, a restaurant that runs entirely on wood-fired ovens. If you know me and my passion for wood oven cooking, you understand how much I adore this project. He was asking if I could give him a recipe for that Galette Bressane we tasted on the last day of their visit.

There are many places to get a good galette Bressane in Lyon, which is kind of like a sugar and cream topped flattened brioche, light and fluffy but possessing a cake like moistness, deliciously filling that little hole in the belly on cold mornings like these. One is on Wednesday evenings at the market on Place Carnot, and the other is at a bakery on rue St. Jean in the 5th arrondissement.

The cake itself has its beginnings in the flat country north of Lyon where they raise those lovely blue-footed flavorful chickens and are famous for their excellent butter and cream. This is the country where La Mere Brazier spent her childhood working on farms in the countryside in exchange for room and board, as was the custom for children who were a financial burden to struggling widows. I know it sounds terrible but this was the reality for many children not that long ago. She dictated a memoir (she wasn't very good at writing) in the 1970s before she passed away, where she recounts her only food-related childhood memory. She remembered being given a slice of a Galette Bressane coming out of the kitchen of the farm where she was working and most of all, she remembers sitting in a field, eating it, and feeling grateful.

It's my pleasure to share this Galette, I bet it will be delicious coming from a wood fired oven too.

Galette Bressane

Serves 4

Notes: If you're baking in the States, I would recommend cake flour because the texture of the galette strikes a delicate balance, one that will be more easily achieved with a lower gluten flour. If you're cooking this with American flour, you might also consider tweaking the flour weight by reducing it slightly for the same reason, to get your perfect version. For the cream, try and use creme fraiche, it gives a more complex flavor to the galette than regular whipping cream. If I were cooking this in a wood oven, I would salt the cream slightly in order to better bring out the smoky flavors that the galette will take on.

For the brioche (400g):

6 ounces by weight or 170g flour
2 eggs with water added to weigh a total of 130 grams
3/4 cup or 80 grams butter, room temp
2 tablespoons or about 20 grams granulated sugar
10 grams bakers yeast
1 generous pinch salt



La garniture:

1 egg
20 grams or about 3 heaping tablespoons crème fraîche or whipping cream
20 grams or about 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

One day before serving: Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the salt, sugar, and yeast, and then incorporate the eggs, beaten, one at a time into the dry ingredients, to create a dough that separates from the edge of the bowl. Add water if your eggs are on the small side.

Add the butter cut into tablespoons and work it in until it is fully incorporated. Knead this dough for another 5 minutes by hand. Leave at room temperature for 45 minutes before covering and refrigerating overnight.



The day of serving, line a baking sheet with parchment. Place the ball of dough into the center and press flat by hand to about 1/4 inch thick. Let rise for 2 hours in a warm place free of drafts.

When the dough has doubled in volume, pinch a border about 1 cm or 1/2 inch high and prick the center at regular intervals with a fork. Lightly beat the egg and paint the surface inside the raised border completely. Avoid letting egg drip outside of the border, because doing so will keep the tarte edges from rising evenly in the oven.



Add salt to the cream and whip it for a minute or two with a whisk, if using whipping cream, beat it until stiff. Spread it evenly over the surface of the tarte and sprinkle the sugar evenly over that. Bake in a hot oven (230C or 450F) 8 to 10 minutes. Verify its doneness by lifting the edge of the tarte with a spatula and checking the color underneath, it should be only slightly browned.

Place the galette on a cooling rack and let cool completely before serving.

Confit de Manchons de Canard

The reason why I got the two pots of freshly rendered duck fat the other day when I went to see the butter man was because I was there early enough to catch the volailler's duck wings, which usually sell out before 9:00. At less than 3 euros a kilo I was suddenly inspired. She always has her duck broken down into cuts which allows for very good deals on the less popular parts. It is a shame not to think of things to do with them.

I'm ready for slow cooking today, spending some time organizing, preparing for the busy week ahead. Duck confit is very little hands on work. Slow cooking in multiple small terrines allows you to economize on the duck fat. You can also do this recipe with duck legs or using a whole duck, but I find the beauty of the whole thing the fact that it costs me less than 2 euros per serving using wings. I can go all out on some other part of a meal for guests or painlessly serve a group this way. They're delicious, trust me.

Confit de Manchons de Canard (Duck Wing Confit)

(serves 4-6 or a whole lot of little lunches on salad)

5 tablespoons coarse grey sea salt
1 kilo of duck wings, or 8 meaty wing sections
1 pound or 500 grams duck fat
4 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, whole
1/2 tablespoon whole peppercorns of various flavors
8 grains of whole allspice
4 juniper berries
dried sprigs of herbe de garrigue if you have it

Equipment: 4 porcelain terrines, each holding approximately 1 1/2 cups or 350 ml

Carefully check over the duck wings for leftover quill tips that might have been overlooked, and remove them. Rinse the duck wings, dry them, then salt them thoroughly. Rub it in, coat it on. Place the salted wings in a non-reactive bowl and keep in the refrigerator overnight. You can leave them in the salt for a second day, if you want.

On the day that you will slow cook them, Set the oven to to 120C or 250F. Divide the duck fat into 4 terrines and place it in the oven to melt while the oven heats and you prepare the other ingredients. The duck fat is going to melt down and fill up about 1/3 of the terrine. You don't want more than this because filling it more will result in duck fat spilling over the edge when you add the duck wings.

Rinse the duck wings thoroughly and dry them carefully. Get the bay leaves, peel the garlic, and measure the spices. When the duck fat has reached 80C or 175F, slide the duck wings in with the fat along with the leaves, berries and spices. Cover the terrines and place them back in the oven to slow cook for 2 1/2 hours.

Once the duck wings are done, that is tender, soft, and aromatic, meat retracted down the bone, garlic turned to a pretty caramel brown, remove them from the fat with tongs and place them on a grill to drain. Filter the fat with a screen strainer, and then nestle the wings into a tall jar to re-cover with the filtered fat. If you use a tall jar, the fat you have will cover the duck wings by about an inch. If you place them in a wider receptacle, you may not have enough duck fat to cover them for long term storage. Heat treat according to your jar manufacturer instruction if you want to save these for a long time. Otherwise, you can keep them in the refrigerator to use in the next few weeks. In all likelyhood you'll find yourself devouring the lot in short order either browned with a classic plate of parsleyed potatoes which have been cooked in a bit of of fat from the terrine, or for a low carb alternative, shredded and browned in a flat pan then spread luxuriously on an escarole or winter greens salad served with a garlicky anchovy-salted sherry vinaigrette, the lot sprinkled with grilled pine nuts and walnuts.

La Religieuse

I made these!

We began first with equipping the kitchen and talking a lot. This week we started the actual preparation of pastries, following technique, learning gestures, positions, economy of movement, doing things in order. We did several wonderful things with the lovely butter but my absolute favorite was this one. In French, it is called La Religieuse, which means "the Nun". I believe this might be a sign that I must look to the nun within and exercise self-restraint in the coming months as we bake together through the program.

But aren't they beautiful? They're choux pastry with a crackly dough on top to make them puff up nice and round, filled with flavored creme patissiere, topped with flavored fondant, stacked, and graced with flavored buttercream. We prepared all of these here in the kitchen. These were coffee flavor.

The Color of Butter

“Get the cheap kind. We’re going to go through tons.” I nodded when she said it, and calculated briefly. Even if I am going to be baking though an entire textbook lineup of French pastry, I sure as hell am not going to be using low quality butter. I am going to get the very best possible butter available to me, albeit at a reasonable price, which means, periodic Friday mornings at dawn, I will be trotting down to the Quai St. Antoine to find my butter man. Now it is an extra 15 minutes walk, but I don’t care. I have already explained my reasoning for this.

I searched his small cart for the mound of the good stuff. He began with the typical dry Lyonnais greeting. “I’m listening.” Not meeting my gaze or even turning my way. It was early, many of the stands were still setting up. He had money out on the table, a cluster of coins on the mat, something he didn’t seem to plan to move anytime soon. I looked at his back, the slope of his shoulders. I felt a little bit sad.

In a tone that matched his, my simple response was “I am here for your butter”. He froze for a moment and turned around, a huge smile on his face. He came to life. It is this that I miss about Saint Antoine, my market for 10 years. I must come down more often even if it isn't logical for me to carry a market basket so far.

“Hey, I know you,” he joked, his scrubbed clean cheeks pulling taut in the morning wind. I felt a little tear swell and put a check on it immediately. No need to get misty eyed over such a thing.

I made my order (about 5 and a half pounds) and he began to cut off pieces. He always cuts them into smaller chunks because his paper is sized for smaller blocks. I have this game with butter. I like to predict, down to the gram, exactly how much is cut. A little pat, a chunk, irregularly shaped, stacked, in a mixing bowl, cut for a recipe. If it is butter, I guess. Just one of those things. I try to hit down to the gram. Always.

360, I thought. He slowly wrapped the block in a thin sheet of paper that resembles that old onion skin that we used to be able to get and plopped it on the scale. Score! 363.

“You are lucky you didn’t come last week, Madame Vanel. They didn’t malax the butter enough. Terrible, just terrible.”

I pondered this idea and he began on a new subject. “You see that this is still quite yellow in color. Do you know why?” he didn’t wait for my response. “It is because the cows, right now, are still in grazing in the pasture. Can you believe it?”

“This time of year? Bizarre. I doubt that happens very often in January.” I responded. A special butter then. It seemed to fit. A special butter to begin this year’s project. He launched into some other story involving geographical details in the pastureland, I admit I was watching the wire he was using to cut the butter, observing the coil it made, wondering how this affected my perception of the mass and how it could translate in my guess. He cut and wrapped slowly.

An older woman sidled up and he continued his careful cadence, running the kinked wire evenly to slice through the block. She waited patiently but shuffled a bit after a few minutes. “Do you have just a short order, Madame?” he asked.

“Oh yes, just a wedge of Morbier” she said, meekly. He quickly filled her cheese order and sent her on her way. He knew I wouldn’t mind.

I lined the bottom of my sack with butter and then headed back up the riverside. I didn’t want to buy too much because I had another errand to run before returning home. But I did get herbs, a bunch of beautiful rocket, two lettuces that seemed to be glowing in the morning light, 24 fresh eggs, two pounds of meaty duck wings, a couple of pots of freshly rendered duck fat, and a pound of guinea hen necks. I wished I could have bought from all my vendors.

When I got home after my errand, the fireplace man was waiting to be let into the house and the electricians were smoking in the hallway. They all smiled and forgave my being late, thank goodness.

Langouste Tails and Sauce Mireille

I certainly wouldn't steam or boil langouste tails at these prices. The best way to bring out their best is to split them, season them with a freshly ground house spice mix featuring pink peppercorn, a whisper of sechuan peppercorn, and a juniper berry or two, sear them meat side down in hot butter to create a spicy crust, flambee them off heat with whiskey and bring them flaming to the table just cooked to serve with a caper-heavy Sauce Mireille.



Sauce Mireille

2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice or wine vinegar
1 tablespoon prepared dijon mustard
1/2 cup neutral oil
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon each of parsley, chives, minced capers and pickles to taste

Place the egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, pepper and mustard in a mixing bowl, and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon while adding the oils in a slow thin stream. When all the oil is incorporated, fold in the herbs, capers and pickles. Refrigerate if not serving immediately.

Plum Lyon

Slowly getting things organized.

Eva Plum would have been her name. It is a name I would have given to a girl, if I ever had one. Eva after my great-aunt, and Plum, meaning... completely. Meaning... fruitful and innocent. Meaning... Fortunate. Plum. So there you have the name. Plum Lyon. It is simply mind blowing to think back one year ago when I first started thinking about this project, creating this kitchen workshop.

In February 2011, I located a property, and within a few weeks we had signed the first batch of papers that would lead to ownership. By mid-May, we were neck deep in a feasibility study with an architect (who would eventually conclude our project was not feasible within our budget), and in June we took possession of the site.

The first week of July, forging on, I had my business plan reviewed by a representative appointed by the mayor's office at the Chamber of Commerce. It might seem strange, but once I finished the business plan, the project had transformed into reality. It was a dream, even if it was a dream coming true, and then finally it was real. Pounding it all out, placing it in its context, plotting it out numerically, made it real.

Not long ago...

Work with a general contractor began to roll out during the month of August. During the time that followed, I got tired, but kept my mind on whatever needed handling at the moment. Due to some timing miscalculations (oh it's such a long story), we ended up homeless for a couple of months, forced to put our things in storage, which was kind of a drag. Still smiling, we packed up a couple of suitcases and moved into a 300 square foot vacation rental, and as autumn rolled in I began walking with the baby down to the site every day.

While at first even the various contractors we invited in for estimates had stood there slack-jawed at the ideas I was throwing at them, I kept at it. I had faith that someone would finally get it. I could tell that friends who came and saw the site at the beginning were a little bit concerned, a little bit skeptical. Strangers and friends kept saying, "you're so brave!" and I could not understand what they meant. Brave? What does that mean?

We have been here in our own place two weeks now. It is heated, we have water, some lights, some plugs, etc. The wood floor is stacked in the corner, the photo studio's roof is scheduled to go up soon, the kitchen's window is still covered with plastic sheeting due to our ineptitude with anchoring systems for the shade. But it is sort of functional, there is counter space, tile and there are ovens and cooktops and hoods. The phone is in. I treated the old pastry marble that the boulanger left to me today. But most of all, she has her name. Plum Lyon.

A mess but slowly getting there.

Short & Sweet: New Neighborhood

I have a new market to explore. Although I've been here before I never had it to rely on like I do now. We are living in a gite up on the plateau next to the Croix Rousse market and although our little courtyard house is not equipped for the kind of cooking I normally do, I do have a big pot and a burner, which is all we need right now for autumn slow simmers. What's more, one of Lyon's major offal suppliers is present on the market four days a week, and the prices for these special cuts are well below the cost of the more common meats from the butcher. You know what this means. It means an enormous brass key turns in an ancient lock in a huge blue painted door. It means my market basket is switched to my left hand while I use another big key to open another gate and I step out, crunching through leaves across a square into the autumn morning with one mission.



I am marking things down in my notebook and will be sharing everything with you in time. But for the moment I will just try and keep things simple. Prepare an autumn stew, pair it with crusty baguette and a cool Bourgogne Aligote, follow it with a salad and a generous cheese platter, roasted or poached pears, and there you have the gist of the pleasures of our table right now.