Chicken and Rabbit Pie

One day I happened to complain to my friend Jean, who writes Baking in Franglais, that I didn't have a traditional pie dish. I had plenty of flan, quiche and tart pans, but nothing that was really an old fashioned pie dish. The next thing I knew, Jean had scoured her local charity shops in England, and found me two Pyrex style dishes, which she very kindly gave to me. These chicken and rabbit pies were the first thing I made in them, and they worked a treat. This recipe makes enough for one double crust pie serving four and one single crust pie.

Ingredients
Pastry
3 cups flour
250 g cream cheese, cut into cubes
125 g butter, cut into cubes
2 egg yolks

Filling
1 tbsp oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
125 g lardons
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
500 g chicken pieces
500 g rabbit pieces
60 g butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
125 g grated cheese (Cheddar, comté or similar)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp seedy mustard

An egg yolk
A tsp of milk

Method

1. Grease two pie dishes.
2. Make pastry (steps 3 - 4)
3. Rub cheese and butter into flour using a food processor on pulse.
4. Add the two egg yolks and process until the dough forms a ball, then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
5. Make the filling (steps 6 - 13)
6. Heat the oil in a pan and add the onions and bacon, cook until the onions are soft, then add the garlic, stirring for a few seconds.
7. Transfer the onion and bacon mixture to a bowl and reheat the pan.
8. Brown the chicken, then the rabbit.
9. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and cook for a minute.
10. Remove from the heat and stir in the milk gradually.
11. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly until it thickens.
12. Remove from the heat and stir in the grated cheeses and mustard.
13. Combine the onion and bacon mixture, and chicken and rabbit, with the cheese sauce and put aside to cool.
14. Put the pies together and bake (steps 15 - 26).
15. Heat the oven to 200C.
16. Divide the dough into three and roll one third out to line one pie dish.
17. Trim the pastry then cover with baking paper and weigh it down (I use copper coins).
18. Bake the pie case for 20 minutes then remove the paper and weights and bake a further five minutes.
19. Let the pastry case cool and put a pie funnel in the centre of the other pie dish.
20. Put half the filling in the pastry case and the other half in the unlined dish.
21. Whisk together the extra egg yolk and milk.
22. Roll out another third of the pastry, brush the edge of the prepared pastry base with the egg yolk and milk mixture, and lay the newly rolled pastry over the pie.
23. Press the pastry edges together carefully and decoratively then trim.
24. Roll out the final third of pastry and lay over the other pie, pressing lightly into the edge of the dish and trimming the excess.
25. Cut slits in the pastry tops and brush them with the egg wash.
26. Bake for 35 minutes.

The flour I used was purchased at my local Intermarché supermarket at Yzeures sur Creuse, and comes from the last working flour windmill (Fr. minoterie) in Berry. Local butter, from the Laiterie  Cooperative de Verneuil, can be purchased from their factory shop or local supermarkets and corner stores.

The chicken and rabbit came from my local poultry producer, who sells at the market in Preuilly on Thursday mornings and Loches market Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The milk came from a local dairy farm that home delivers. She also supplies the EpiServices in Preuilly and Le Grand Pressigny, and the Intermarché supermarket in Yzeures sur Creuse.

The parmesan cheese was bought from the Italian pasta stall in Loches market on Saturdays.

Yum

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

This Little Black Duck

The Pacific Black Duck Anas superciliosa isn't really black, but it's been known by that name since first seen by white explorers. They are the Mallards of the southern hemisphere, being closely related and occupying the same ecological niche. Pacific Black Ducks are found all over the Pacific region. Unlike Mallards, male and female Pacific Black Ducks look similar.

They are dabbling ducks, eating aquatic vegetation. Like many Australian bird species they breed in response to environmental conditions (ie rainfall), to ensure there is sufficient resources rather than strictly seasonal. The species is abundant and not threatened.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Ciboure

Ciboure is the town across the harbour from the much better known Saint Jean de Luz on the Nivelle inlet. Its main claim to fame is being the birthplace of the composer Maurice Ravel.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Preuilly Municipal Council January 2020 Meeting Report

Documentary: Local film maker Sylvain Desclous is making a documentary about the upcoming municipal elections, and was present to film one of the last council meetings to be presided over by current mayor Gilles Bertucelli.

Sylvain Desclous and the actors answer questions at the preview of Vendeur, also filmed locally.

Town Water: Responsibility for the town water supply and sanitation has transferred to the Communauté des Communes and Preuilly has handed over equipment relevant to managing the system. Several councillors brought up the complaint by various residents that the water has been very chloriney since the Comcom handed management of the system to Véolia in 2019. Prior to this Preuilly had been one of only three municipalities who managed their own water.

 The water tower in Preuilly is buried in the chateau ramparts.

Place des Halles: The refurbishment of the market place has been suspended as Batiment de France, the State agency responsible for heritage buildings, wants changes to the plans that the council does not agree with, such as the removal of parking places, the existing trees and the proposed steps. They feel the project is jeopardised to the extent that they will leave it for the next elected team to take up.

 Place des Halles, decorated for Christmas.

New Doctor: The current local doctor, Patrick Mureau, is due to retire in the next four years. It was envisaged that the wife of the current dentist, who is a doctor, would replace him. However, she is Romanian, and has still not received authorisation to practice in France. The Romanian government is making it more and more difficult for their nationals to work in foreign countries as they want to retain doctors trained in Romania. The new council will maybe have to use an agency to find a new doctor.

Simon at the doctor's.

Seasonal Jobs: Every year the municipality creates two seasonal jobs -- swimming pool lifeguard (maitre-nageur) and camping grounds manager. These posts are currently unfilled and the council is searching for candidates.

 The municipal pool in Preuilly, with a former maitre-nageur on the left.

Solar Farm: The modification of use of the Dennery factory site has been approved and the public enquiry completed. It is not yet clear if the photovoltaic panels will be erected after the demolition of the existing buildings, or if they will be kept. The facility will produce 8.074 kW from 4.12 hectares of panels on 8.6 hectares of land. The annual production is estimated at being the equivalent of the consumption (except heating) of 7786 households.

 Site of the former Dennery factory.

Grants: A grant of €50 per primary school pupil was agreed for a science discovery stay at Azay le Ferron. A grant of €2970 was agreed for the Sports Union, for the club itself and towards salaries and expenses of personnel.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Botany and Mycology Club AGM

The Association de Botanique et de Mycologie de Sainte Maure de Touraine held its annual general meeting on Saturday 1 February. All the usual AGM stuff was done, then Jean gave a very informative lecture about plant galls, followed by cakes and drinks. I didn't take my camera, so these photos are courtesy of Louisette.

The president delivers her report.

Photo courtesy of Louisette Chaslon.

The club has been in existance more than 30 years and has about 90 members, virtually none of whom live in Sainte Maure de Touraine now -- but the town is central to the southern half of the county (département) so it continues to be useful to be associated with the town. Eight members do not use the internet. Twenty-seven members were present at the AGM. We do not take an activist or legal role, but are an observatory only, with connections to activist groups. Our role is to educate the public and popularise topics such as biodiversity and natural history, encouraging them to value the natural world around them.

 Looking at the lecture notes.

Photo courtesy of Louisette Chaslon.

Last year we conducted twelve botanical outings and six mycological outings. There were eight general botany outings, two which focused on orchids, one on ferns as well as two on lichens. As well as the fungi forays we did two lectures. One of the topics discussed at the meeting was the problem of our aging demographic. Our outings are going to have to adapt to reduced mobility.

Cakes and drinks afterwards.

Photo courtesy of Louisette Chaslon.

Despite the fact that very few members actually live in Sainte Maure these days, the municipal council is happy to offer us the use of a meeting room and a permanent postal address, as well as printing our annual journal.

At the end of the meeting there was home made chocolate and pumpkin tart, biscuits and crêpes. The French way of eating crêpes in this situation is to sprinkle the dry room temperature crêpe with raw sugar, fold or scrunch the crêpe up and eat like a sandwich (I did once witness a French person shove the whole crêpe in their mouth at once, but normally they are a bit more refined than that).

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Witches' Mark

This type of pattern scratched into the stone wall of a building can be inside or out, and are known colloquially in English as witches' marks. It is to protect the building and the occupants from the activities of witches. It seems that witches are remarkably easy to fool or distract, as the idea is that the pattern will attract the witch, who is then obliged to follow the line. They cannot help themselves, but the line has no end, so they are trapped in a never ending series of arcs, and are thus not in a position to be able to harm the occupants of the building.

This particular pattern, known as the 'daisy wheel' or 'hexafoil' is the most frequently found, made using a mason's compasses or dividers. The other very recognisable marks one sees sometimes are the Marian symbols --  a double interlocked V, standing for Virgo Virginum or an A or inverted V overlaying an M, for Ave Maria or Virgin Mary.  The wooden panelling in the bedroom of our early 18th century house in London had several of these. Typically these marks are placed over points of entrance such as doors, windows and fireplaces, and date from the mid-16th to the mid-18th centuries. I would guess that the one above is 17th century, dating from a period when there was an absolute obsession with witches. It's scratched into a small window lintel in the end of a barn in the hamlet of Les Viaullières, a very typical position for a hexafoil style witches' mark, to protect stored crops.

Witches' marks are not to be confused with masons' or carpenters' marks, general graffiti or idle doodling, all of which can sometimes be found close together in the same building. Technically, in architectural history speak, they should be called apotropaic marks, meaning 'to ward off evil'.

Further Reading: The Difference Between Apotropaic Marks and Carpenter's Marks -- Historic England.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Views of the Claise Valley in Winter

The Thursday 6 February walking club outing departed from Chaumussay. Here are some photos of our walk.

The bridge across the Claise at Chaumussay.

The bright sunshine brought out quite a few walkers.

Looking up the Claise Valley towards Preuilly (just visible to the left of centre on the horizon).
Standing water in the low parts of the fields.

Looking towards the hamlet of Les Viaullières.

Garden primulas.

There is always a Gorse Ulex europaeus (Fr. Ajonc) in flower somewhere, throughout the year. 

A very important plant for several bee species.

A herd of Charolais cattle in their well wooded winter paddock.

A view up the Claise Valley -- a nice sunny day, so the cyclists are already out on the quiet roads.

A striking landscape, but sadly devoid of hedges and natural pasture. 

The biodiversity suffers when the hedges and grassland goes. 

I once recorded no butterflies on the transect that runs up the far side of the ploughed field.

A white moon in a blue winter sky.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Cheat's Confit de Canard

Traditional confit de canard (slow cooked duck) requires large quantities of duck fat. Although you can reuse the fat because it hasn't been heated up very much, I find it is far more than I would normally use and it tends to just go off in the fridge before I get to it. I've also on one occasion had a disaster where the liquid fat overflowed on our wood stove, ruining a rug and causing a fire hazard. So for many years I have used Sally Schneider's 'revisionist' technique, where the duck is cured overnight in the traditional way to reduce moisture and impart flavour, but is then cooked in its own juices, sealed in a foil parcel in a low oven for two hours. The flavour and texture is very similar and I don't have all that fat to deal with.

Curing Ingredients
2 tbsp coarse salt
10 juniper berries
1 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
3/4 tsp dried thyme
A bay leaf
6 allspice berries
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dried garlic flakes
1 tsp eau de vie

Method

1. Grind all the dry ingredients of the curing mix in a mortar and pestle. 
2. Rub the duck legs with eau de vie, then with the curing mix. You will need a tablespoon of curing mix for every 500 g of duck legs. The eau de vie will help dry the skin out, and it is a technique you can use for enhancing the flavour of any poultry (very useful for turning industrially farmed chicken into something more savoury and farmhouse).
3. Leave to cure overnight in the fridge (can be left for longer).
4. Heat the oven to 150C.
5. Pat the duck legs dry with kitchen paper towel and prick the skin in a number of places.
6. Arrange the duck legs on one half of a long piece of foil, fold over the other half and fold the edges to seal.
7. Put the parcel on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 2 hours.
8. Take the duck out of the foil. You can use the duck immediately or store in the fridge or freezer for later.

I tend to make in batches so some is eaten immediately and some frozen. One batch of curing mix will do 4 - 6 duck legs. 

Duck legs are one of the by-products of foie gras production and are often very reasonably priced.

I harvested the juniper berries for the curing mix from wild juniper growing locally on the hillsides here.

Yum

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

Testing the Water

While we were picnicking at Uriarra Crossing a young woman in an official water agency van turned up and took some samples from the Murrumbidgee River. The river is part of Canberra's water supply system and she was doing a routine check for things like E. coli.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

L'Erable, Saint Jean de Luz

Le Residence de l'Erable is a modern block of 69 apartments right in the middle of Saint Jean de Luz. It is an L-shaped building with flower covered balconies, over a medical laboratory, and on a square with a sandstone statue in the middle. It's attractive and looks a nice place to live.

The three metre high statue, also usually called L'Erable, but technically entitled "Indépendence, Liberté, Volonté" was commissioned for the housing project and installed in 2016, but unfortunately, the developer did not appreciate all the publicity about how phallic it looked. The artist, local sculptor Régis Pochelu was forced to make some alterations (but frankly, I don't know where -- it still looks fairly phallic to me...)

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Notre Dame des Champs

Lisa walks up the Roman road and pilgrim route to the chapel.

Follow the Roman road from Boussay along the wooded ridge of the Bois aux Prêtres, as I often do, and you will come across the ruin of a medieval chapel. Nothing more than a sort of stone bower now, it is topped with a rather etiolated statue of the Virgin Mary.

The grotto of Notre Dame des Champs.

Every year in early August pilgrims come to honour her, and a mass is celebrated in the woods by the chapel. Benches and trestles are laid out and a meal served in the clearing in front of the chapel in the evening. Last summer we happened to walk up there just after the pilgrimage. The path was lined with home made bunting and the grotto filled with flowers. There was not a scrap of rubbish to be seen.

Statue of the Virgin Mary, perched above her grotto.

The statue dates from the first decade of the twentieth century.

The back of the statue of the Virgin Mary.

Note that the land is privately owned, so technically you need permission to visit the chapel. The site also happens to be one of the best wild orchid sites in the area. I have recorded 14 species for the site.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos. 

Walking From Boussay in the Summer

Back in August we walked from Boussay with friends. Here are some pictures of this attractive area.

Burnet-saxifrage Pimpinella saxifraga (Fr. Petit boucage).

This is a plant that is emblematic of pasture on calcareous soil, and once an important native forage plant for stock. Medicinally it was considered something of a cure all, including protecting you against the plague.

A lane in the hamlet of La Boissiere.

A traditional old house in the hamlet of La Boissiere.

Brandy the dog gets stung by a hornet.

All of a sudden Brandy started twirling around and around. Finally we were able to spot a hornet tangled up in her thick fur, so we assume she was stung.

A glimpse through a gap.

View over the valley with the village and chateau of Boussay.

The hamlet of la Boissiere.

Sloes, the fruit of the Blackthorn Prunus spinosa (Fr. Prunellier).

The perimeter of the Chateau de Boussay grounds.

A pole, which I seem to remember was used in village games involving knocking your opponents off something with the pole.

The view of the Chateau de Boussay that everyone forgets.

Looking up to the church at Boussay.

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For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos.