Far too much food, far too full…

All up about 64 Euro

Quaint little place with lots of packed in small tables.

We both had the snails for starter, I then had a local dish which was Chicken cooked with Riesling with a mushroom sauce and ……. Pam had a local meatball dish…

I had a boysenberry tart, and Pam a Crème Brulee.

We shared a bottle of Pinot Gris.

All up about 75 Euro.

Along our walk we found a bar called the Academy of Beer and since it was 4pm on Friday we stopped in for a beer.

The beers were expensive at ~ 7 Euro for 500ml.

We had:

• Delirium Tremens – 8.5%
• Tripel Karmeliet – 8.4%

Pam did not really like either of them, but I enjoyed the Tripel Karmeliet more than the Delirium Tremens.

Just down the road about 50 meters there is a market on a Saturday – it starts about 8am to 12pm. Mostly books and antiques but some foods as well.

The first mushrooms we found other than normal button mushrooms. This guy above had Oyster mushrooms and a few other types. We bought some for our time in Champagne region which starts on Sunday.

After the market we stopped in for a coffee, 2 euro each – and ok, better than yesterdays 2 euro coffee but nothing on Lucianoes in Christchurch.

We went to the market at Vaison la Romaine which is about 25 minutes dive away as they had a market and we wanted to buy some food and of course Pam wanted to look for bargains in the clothing stalls.

I bought 4 Scallops at 29.90 euro per kilo, which worked out at 1 euro each. Pam does not eat scallops!

They were lovely with some chargrilled asparagus.

Next up was the duck, it was a very large duck breast – about 650 grams, along with a beetroot salad, more asparagus and roasted potatoes in duck fat with a sauce I made.

 

A nice sunset, and it was warm so we sat on the deck for dinner with a nice Muscat from Beaumes de Venise region.

Saucisson is the French equivalent of salami, saucissons are cured pork sausages. A mixture of lean pork and pork fat, salt, sugar, spices, and sometimes alcohol are combined to give the saucisson its unique flavour, but the different recipes for saucissons from different parts of France vary according to the region. They can be sliced and served cold.

Here is a video of how they are made (38 minutes)

The basic recipe in the video is:

• 2 KG of Pork Belly coarsely minced.
• 1 KG Pork Fillet from the neck area coarsely minced (too much fat if only pork belly used) – not too thinly minced – course
• 53 Grams of Garlic (Exactly), cut vry thin, and then used the blade of the knife to make a fine puree, removing the green bit there is one.
• 225 Grams of Medium Bodied red Wine, not too light, not too heavy for curing and moisture.
• 7 grams of freshly ground pepper.
• 60 Grams of salt (not sure what type).
• Lumps of fat – just what looks right. So hard to say how much.
• Mix by hand
  
• Add Pepper corns – about 50-100
• if you add hot paprika now – it will make chorizo, but needs to rest for 2 days in the refrigerator.

The result after blending should be sticky because of the red wine.

Add Red wine if a but too dry

You need OX sausage wrapper, but I am sure you can used any type as long as it is about the same size as an OX sausage.

Use a piping bag if you do not have a mincer to fill the sausage wrapper.

Hang for 24 hours to dry

cover so no flies get near it with muslin for 24 hours.

hang for a further 1 to 4 months with not too dry humidity.

It should have some mold (keep flies away with some muslin)

• I think I have to try this when I get home, maybe a bit less in the quantity but it sounds simple enough.

We had the following type of Sausage/Salami

• Thyme
• Fig
• Canard (duck)
• Smoked

The remaining oysters from our purchase yesterday – all gone now, just natural raw….  I am getting better at chucking them now..

Not too bad, but not as good as the other day, Butter, Garlic, and Herbs, cooked in the oven… Still 6 left so we will try them today..

We decided we needed to stock up on some food and drove to a market in Carpentras, each little village has a market on a particular day of the week. Carpentras is on  Friday.

It was very busy in town when we got there and could not find a park anywhere so we drove around and went into a car park right behind the market and luckily found a park.

We bought a lot of things:

• A cooked chicken – 7.50 Euro
• 12 Oysters – 7 Euro
• Small soft Goat Cheese – 2 Euro
• Lettuces – 3 for 1.50 euro
• 4 Flavored Sausages/Salami – 9 Euro
• Onion, Potatoes, Garlic, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Oranges, Zucchini, Radishes, Strawberries

On the drive back we decided to drop in to have a wine tasting but it was 1:15pm (lunchtime – everything closed until 2:30pm) so we decided to eat at a restaurant at the winery.

Pam had a Plat (main course) + desert  - 25 Euro and I had a Entrée and Plat – 27 Euro

I ordered for my Entrée - Grosse raviole de foie gras  poele aux champignons du moment – which is Large ravioli of foie pan with seasonal mushrooms, this time the foie gras was hot and it was very nice.

For the main we both ordered the duo de magret de canard roti aux epiceset joue de cochon confite, petit jus au trias which is duo of duck breast roasted with spices and plays pig confit, small juice Triassic.

We asked for the duck to be Medium but it was very dry, so we complained – said it was overcooked. After a while, minutes, we managed to get them to take the dish back, with loud voices coming from the kitchen.  We ended up getting a simpler disk with duck that was cooked better.

Pam then had a Crème Brule that she said was a bit too eggy for here (but we did not complain) and they gave her a class of Muscat.

We then went and did the wine tasting next door, I did not know any of the names or anything so just picked a couple off the list that were around the 10 Euro Mark, and Pam has another Muscat.  We bought 2 reds and a Muscat.

Just before Sablet we stopped at another Winery and tried a few wines, we bought 2 bottles of their Muscat.