Gourmet Secrets: The French connection

After 10 years as Chef Instructor at The Paul Bocuse Institute in Lyon, Jean-Marc Villard moved to Provence in 2015 with his wife, Alice, and started a cookery school. They had already been running their own school in Lyon for 14 years prior to this but the warmth and produce of Provence beckoned along with the new wave of tourism that came to the area.

Fluent in English, because of time spent in the US, he takes small groups of enthusiasts through a French meal of starters, main course and desserts interspersed with local wines, nibbles like the local bread fougasse studded with dry black olives and laughter and, finishing with a lovely long lunch of the three recipes, which you enjoy in the garden. Some of the dishes are already prepared in advance. So if you doubt your own abilities, fear not. You don’t necessarily have to eat your own cooking! What is wonderful to learn is plating though. Quite special.

On the job…

I attend a day’s cookery workshop thinking I may get bored half way through. I certainly ate humble pie. Boy, did I have a thing a two to learn. The class is hands on so you have your own knives and stations in their delightful country kitchen in Maubec. I was impressed by the level of professionalism and passion.

Armed with tons of new gastronomic knowledge, I head to the farmers’ market in Coustellet on Sunday morning. There is a smaller market near Jean Marc on Saturday at Petit Palais but Coustellet is the real deal, full of locals. Farmers’ markets in the Luberon are common and run from April through to December, and on Wednesday evenings from late May to September. Locals still buy and sell their vegetable, fruit, local honey, olive oil, salami and spices here.

Jean-Marc Villard with the author

Market value

Each small village will have a market on a different day of the week. Coustellet also has a terrific farmers’ shop open seven days a week called Naturellement Paysan run by local producers where you can buy local produce alone. I learn the differences between the local lavender or lavander fine, which is edible and used in Jean Marc’s dishes as opposed to lavandin, which is used in perfumes and cosmetics. The former is five time more expensive and is grown at 800 metres above sea level. The other one grows almost wild all over the region.

These are two of Jean Marc’s signature recipes. Both are great examples of good, solid Mediterranean cuisine with some of my tips in the margins for a high success rate!

Peach tart with almonds, candied lemon skin lavender and cantaloupe melon sorbet (serves 6 to 8)

Peach tart with almonds, candied lemon skin lavender. This is another signature dish of chef Marc.

Ingredients:

For shortbread dough

200g flour

60g powdered sugar

130g butter

1 egg yolk

Zest of half lemon

For peaches

50g ground almonds

50g softened butter

30g granulated sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 eggs

50g candied lemon skin

1 big stem fresh lavender

5 peaches

Method:

Dough

Cut the butter into small pieces and mix in a bowl with powdered sugar, the flour and the lemon zest. Make dough with these ingredients and add the yolk at the end. Roll out the dough with the rolling pin and lay the pastry into a big tart mould.

Peaches

Make a little cross on the skin of the peaches. Drop them in boiling water for one to two minutes and stop the cooking in cold water. Peel the peaches and cut them in equal size quarters. Soften the butter with the granulated sugar and the ground almonds. Add the two eggs into the mixing bowl. Then add the chopped lemon skin. Stir to homogenise the mixture.

Carefully spread the almond batter into the dough. Place the cut peaches over the top, add the fresh lavender flowers and sprinkle some brown sugar. Bake in hot oven temperature 200 degree C for 60 minutes. Serve with a cantaloupe melon sorbet.

Fresh tomato with eggplant filling, raisins, pine nuts and mixed green salad (serves 4)

Ingredients:

4 tomatoes

250g eggplant

15g raisins

12g pinenuts

35g onions

1 clove garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small pinch cinnamon

1 small pinch espelette chilli

1 tsp fresh oregano

1 tbsp tomato puree

Salt and pepper

20g green salad

10g Purslane salald

Few stems chive

1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

Soak the raisins in warm water. Toast the pine nuts in a pan or in the oven.

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise, score flesh. Add salt, pepper olive oil and turn over so skin side is up. Roast in a hot oven 200 degrees C for 30 to 45 minutes.

Scoop out the flesh. Finely chop and recook in a pan. Saute chopped onion and garlic cloves in olive oil. Evaporate the remaining water, season with cinnamon, salt, pepper and Espelette chilli. Add the minced fresh oregano into the mixture with the raisins and the chopped pine nuts.

Add with the tomato puree. Cook till dryish and save in a dish before to fill the tomatoes.

Plunge the fresh tomatoes in boiling water for few seconds, then stop the cooking in cold water bowl. Remove the skin, cut off the top to make a hat. Remove all filling with a scooper. Season the inside of the tomatoes and turn them upside down. Fill the fresh tomatoes with eggplant filling. Bake them in a medium oven temperature 190 degree C for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve the tomatoes with the mixed green salad and herbs. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Culinary expert and explorer Karen Anand has been writing extensively on the subject of food and wine for 30 years. Apart from having her own brand of gourmet food products, she has anchored top rated TV shows, run a successful chain of food stores, founded the hugely successful Farmers Markets, and worked as restaurant consultant for international projects, among other things. Her latest passion is food tours, a totally curated experience which Karen herself accompanies, the first of which was to Italy.

This is a fortnightly column. The next edition will appear on November 4.

From HT Brunch, October 21, 2018

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First Published: Oct 21, 2018 00:13 IST