Le Cordon Bleu - Instruction #22; Practical #22

Instruction #22 – Languedoc

• Salt cod puree, garlic and parsley cream tapanade grissini
• Traditional white bean stew
• Apricot and fig gratin with lavender honey

Each region within France seems to use fat – lard, butter, etc. – based on their surroundings. Provence may use olive oil. But Languedoc has goose fat.

Geese and ducks are some of the most common ingredients of the region. Chicken, lamb, quail, rabbit, and partridge can also be found.

Garlic, asparagus, onions, tomatoes, morels, truffles, and white beans are common farmed items. Plums, figs, peaches and cherries back up local fruit.

Languedoc stretches from the Garonne River. Down the Rhône. To the Mediterranean Sea. Bringing salt cod, perch, lamprey – a jawless eel [pictured] – tuna, mackerel, anchovies, red mullet, oysters, and mussels.

Grissini is a breadstick-type dough. Slowly baked at low temperature – 20 minutes at 180 degree Celsius. Today Chef Tivet flavored with tapanade. Passed on warm potato/salt cod mash. Enhanced with garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and more olives.

The main dish – cassoulet – is one of France’s most traditional plates. White beans. Slowly cooked in carrot-onion-clove-garlic-bacon flavored water. Mixed with stewed tomatoes, onion, and navarin – a combination of browned lamb neck, onion, garlic, tomato paste, and tomatoes. All sautéed in goose fat. The dish is finished with Toulouse and garlic sausages and duck confit legs. Broiled with a breadcrumb-parsley topping until golden brown.

Slowly melting honey with lavender leaves infused the two flavors. Slightly caramelized, the lavender-honey glazed apricots, strawberries, and figs. With a final glaze over whole almonds. Everything layered in a gratin dish. And topped with sabayon.