Archive for the ‘Isigny Sainte-Mère’ category
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Poached pears: a Christmas stand-in?
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Feeling like a change from Christmas pudding this year? Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier has published numerous dessert recipes, including this one with poached pears at http://www.isigny-ste-mere.com/EN/r_dessert.php?id_type_recette=4&numero=27&page=1 It’s worth making sure that the pears are quite firm, so that they do not turn to a mush after being cooked. The result will still be edible, [...]
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Celebrating the new scallop season
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Seafood and a lot of inshore fisheries can be considered as extensions of the terroir notion, since the seabed that forms the continental shelf is contiguous with the land that supports the more readily accessible products of a terroir. By the same token, the inshore waters are fed by the rivers that cross the landscape. [...]
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Foods that span centuries
Friday, December 18th, 2009
A Croque Monsieur is standard offering at bars and cafes across France: it comprises melted cheese on toast with a slice of ham between the cheese and the meat. When the Isigny Sainte-Mère chef Ivan Vautier prepared his version, he used Normandy’s charcuterie speciality, andouille, with Pont l’Evêque cheese. The andouille is a speciality sausage [...]
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Lobster on a plancha, Normandy style
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Fancy a change from turkey at Christmas? The Isigny Sainte-Mère chef and Michelin-starred restaurateur Ivan Vautier has a dramatic recipe for lobster on an onion tart base. Working in the opposite way to the celebrated Tatin sisters, Ivan cooks his onions on top of greaseproof paper atop a plancha or Spanish worktop hotplate, before adding [...]
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Croissant competition winner
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Congratulations to Aurélian Russias, winner of this year’s national Competition for the Best Croissant made with Isigny AOP Butter. A student at the CFA in Livron, he came all the way from the Drôme, one of the the first 83 départements established after the French revolution, part of what is now the Rhône-Alpes region. The [...]
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Who will turn out a winning croissant?
Monday, October 12th, 2009
This weekend (October 17) sees the first national edition of Isigny Sainte-Mère’s annual search for the best croissant made with Isigny AOC butter. Over the past four years, the contest has gradually turned from a regional cook-off to a national contest with regional heats, staged during the summer months. The contestants are all students at [...]
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Isigny AOC butter turns its hand to tourage
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
To make a perfect layered pastry takes a special butter combined with constant turning and rolling, known as tourage. To prepare a leavened pastry, such as a croissant, the pastry is rolled out by hand, spread with butter, folded in thirds, turned through a right angle and rolled out again. And again. And again. And [...]
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Back to the land
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Terroir is another word for a living and working environment, one in which food is produced. Production quality and environmental quality are two sides of the same coin: there is a further aspect of Isigny Sainte-Mère’s wood-powered biomass boiler project that literally goes back to the land. The cooperative is studying a use for the [...]
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Environment fit for a terroir (5)
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Terroir is another word for a living and working environment, one in which food is produced. Production quality and environmental quality are two sides of the same coin: the inputs of the cooperative’s biomass boiler bring the business back to its local roots, almost literally. The wood that is delivered to Isigny Sainte-Mère by Biocombustibles [...]
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Environment fit for a terroir (4)
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Terroir is another word for a living and working environment, one in which food is produced. Production quality and environmental quality are two sides of the same coin: balancing both sides of the equation demands investment and commitment. When milk arrives at the Isigny Sainte-Mère reception tanks, much of the cream is already spoken for [...]
