Category Archives: Lifestyle

Christmas kitchen tips from Rigaud chef Steve Carss

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Twitt

Red-onion-jamWill you be busy in the kitchen this Christmas? I’m super envious of chef’s lucky family who are sitting down to Steve’s Christmas lunch this year. I was chatting to him about what he’s cooking (goose is on the cards) and about what might make life easier for everyone in my kitchen. He laughs at my total lack of culinary prowess so taking pity on my family he’s provided this recipe for his most excellent Chicken Liver Parfait. He absolutely assures me that this is a fail-safe, dead cert winner and that even I can expect a result.

One thing I have worked out for myself is that the onion jam is pretty handy to have around. It’s a great addition to a cheese board or the cold cuts on Boxing day, or add it to freshly chopped tomato and maybe a handful of basil and it makes a truly delicious bruschetta topping. Pop a spoonful on a square of puff pastry with a slice of goat’s cheese and you have a melting little tart and if you’re considering a little foie gras over the festive season then this is the perfect topping…

Chicken liver parfait, with red onion jam and toasted brioche

“Fantastic starter for Christmas day, I always make this at home for Christmas, it’s easy, you can make it in advance and everybody loves it” Steve Carss

For the parfait

500 g Chicken livers

300 g Hot melted butter

100 ml White wine

100 ml Madeira

200 ml Port

100 g Shallots finely chopped

Thyme

1 Garlic clove

2 Eggs

2 Egg yolks

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cracked black pepper

You need a buttered terrine and also a bain-marie that will fit into your oven. Set your oven to 140C.

Sweat the chopped shallots, thyme and garlic for three to five minutes, then add the wine, Madeira and port. Reduce this to a jam like consistency.

Separately melt butter then add the butter, the wine and shallot reduction, along with the livers, the eggs and the salt to a blender and blitz it up, to emulsify. Pour into greased terrine and cook in bain-marie for about 45 mins turning half way through cooking. It’s cooked when it reaches 65C, or when you tilt the terrine, the parfait should remain in place but bulge slightly. Leave the terrine to cool then chill in fridge for at least four hours. It tastes better if it’s been left to mature for a day.

Serve with a slice of warm, toasted brioche and the onion jam.

For the jam

500g Red onions finely sliced

40g Sunflower oil

50g Soft brown sugar

100ml Red wine

80ml Red wine Vinegar

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Fresh cracked Black pepper

Heat oil in a pan thick based pan, add the onions and sugar and cook over a high heat for 7 -10 minutes until the onions are soft and caramelised.

Add the red wine and red wine vinegar and simmer for 20 – 30 minutes until reduced and quite thick. Season with salt and pepper (yes, you really need that much seasoning)

Sterilise your jars in the oven at 160C for around 15 minutes then once they have cooled add the hot jam to jars and pop the lid on. This will keep for up to 18 months although you’ll probably get through this quantity before the Christmas tree is packed away.

The inaugural Bread & Wine weekend

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Twitt

montage

The inaugural Bread and Wine weekends took place this autumn and were a considered a complete success. As predicted it took chef Steve Carss no time at all to find his demonstration patter and within 30 minutes of arriving at the chateau we had guests making their own bread.

Our first group was a full house of twelve guests, consisting of the fabulous @Markboltonphoto and his assorted entourage of Bristol mates, alongside our lovely returning American clients Grace and Larry, who had been on a previous wine course at Rigaud.

Proceedings kicked off with a couple of glasses of fizz in the lounge before course leader, Peter Tucker, brought the group through to the kitchen where we had twelve work stations complete with brand new mixing bowls, water, flour, yeast and Rigaud branded aprons laid out and ready to go. It was one of those very proud moments for the chateau team.

Steve introduced his ‘slap & tickle’ method of needing dough whilst Peter answered their questions such as “what is Yeast?” It didn’t take long before the badly behaved boy guests were slapping backsides with flour covered hands but we did eventually get to the stage where the chefs were happy and we could all retire to bar for a quick tasting of white wines from South West France. If nothing else this week gave us an excuse to drink non-Bordeaux wines.

The Friday was a crisp but sunny and rather ‘lifestyle magazine’ perfect for lunch in the vegetable garden with home made pizzas cooked in the newly installed bread oven.

Chateau Villemaurine in St. Emilion was the venue for the afternoon tour and tasting before returning to Rigaud and meeting up with Paddy O’Flynn, (www.TheWineBuff.com) with his mate Pierre, who quite by chance happened to be the owner/winemaker of Chateau Petit Fombrauge, one of the wines chosen for the exceptional gourmet dinner that night.

Guests drank into the wee small hours so it was a slower start to proceedings on the Saturday when chef introduced the mystical concept of “the mother”, a living, breathing and reproducing yeast that needs feeding every day. Two starters were used, one which is thirty years old and provided by our baker, Phillipe and one that Steve had been working on for just a month based on figs and grapes from the gardens. If you want to know about this you’ll have to book on to the next course.

The afternoon involved a trip to Sauterne where it was ‘Portes Ouvertes’ (open doors). This is the dream ticket of French tasting tours – the opportunity to rock up, take a quick look at the chai, taste the produce and move on to the next place. We took in four chateaux in total including 1er Grand Cru Classé   Chateau Guiraud. Many purchases were made and shared over dinner, along with some delicious Hospices de Beaune Burgundy wines.

We’re planning to repeat the weekend again, perhaps in April, depending upon uptake. Get in touch if you fancy a relaxed weekend which includes a spot of bread making, a walk in the vegetable garden, maybe a massage, a trip to a couple of chateaux some really delicious food and perhaps a little too much wine, if indeed that is possible?!

“A Week in the Chateau Life” – Our own book in print

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Twitt

Late last year, once the client bookings had started to thin we gathered around our kitchen table and together we created a book. The wonders of the internet that make such a thing possible!

It took six of us about ten days from start to finish, with drawings by Marcelle the housekeeper, diagrams from Eric the groundsman, photography from Steve the chef (alongside the work of the very excellent Mark Bolton), IT support from the Badger and layout by Hayley, the chateau stylist.

It’s not a commercial production – none of us is a publishing professional – but in it’s own way I guess it conveys the very spirit of Rigaud. We’re a one off sort of a place with a can do attitude. We can do almost anything, including our own coffee table book.

We don’t expect to sell hard copies since the short run makes it cost prohibitive but you can preview it for free or buy a download to your iPad for just 1.49€, which is, in the words of the Badger “Cheap as Chips!”. You can preview it on the Blurb site here http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3043054

Of course all this vanity publishing provides cause for celebration and hence we’re planning to launch of the book, next week, here at the chateau. Feel free to come along if you’re in the area. (Tuesday 12th June 2012, 7pm till 9pm.) We’re celebrating with a glass or two of our home-made elderflower Kir, which provides a clue to the follow up book in the pipeline. You’ll have to wait and see what develops there.

The Great Night Market Controversy

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Twitt

The Marché Nocturne season is now in full swing and the Rigaud team supported our local village last night, cue mass hangover this morning. It’s a phenomenon that’s really caught on in the past couple of years, hence the hedgerows are filled with posters advertising the dates and villages for the next few weeks.

The idea is a little like a French take on a pop up restaurant. Village squares are filled with communal trestle tables and the people gather to picnic together, sitting under strings of coloured lights to the strains of an accordion player. Villagers gather together a meal from a range of local suppliers, drink copious quantities of wines, and usually follow it all up with dancing. Great night out for all concerned, N’est pas?

On offer last night were Arcachon oysters, melons grown down by the river, some really delicious escargot cooked in butter, parsley and garlic, a charcuterie producer with some great terrines and pates in jars (we chose the goose), Mr. Banier, the butcher from Castillon with his sarment BBQ, the goat cheese producer from Pessac and of course the local baker since no French meal would be complete without a French stick.

You don’t really need to take your own gear but we like to do things properly so we arrive with our own china, wine glasses, steak knives and even a large antique china platter. Chef, Steve, knocked up a few canapés which went down well with the oysters and the rosé and Mr. Banier happily filled with a very rare steak and chips for eight of us.

The whole thing is utterly charming and incredible value since it’s possible to eat well for 10 euros, buy your wines at cellar door prices and enjoy the spectacular sights of local councillors strutting their stuff on the dance floor.

The controversy in my mind is how this sits with the local restaurant owners. The restaurateurs pay rates and taxes on their premises and keep them open throughout the year in the hope that they will make the bulk of their money over the summer evenings when we’re all tempted to eat out on a more regular basis. Suddenly they are now competing with the night markets for clientele that would previously have been theirs.

To make things worse, they’re competing against their own suppliers, the very businesses that they, the restaurants, support all year long. The butcher, the cheese maker, the baker are all taking free stands on a weekend evening to sell directly to the people who would otherwise have taken a table in a restaurant that night. It doesn’t seem quite right to me.

The night markets are definitely delivering what their audience want – the atmosphere is fabulous and now we’re in the height of the season it’s possible to attend a different night market within twenty minutes of the chateau, from Thursday to Sunday every week. But I do worry for the local restaurants. It must be quite disheartening to find yourself undercut by your cheese supplier and facing empty tables over the summer weekends.

Middle aged birds are far more fun

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Twitt

Last week we “changed” the chickens. Our rather fat and confident old hens were boxed up and taken back to the shop they came from and five chic young chicks arrived in their place. The old, or as I prefer to say the “more mature” hens, had become birds of a certain age and their productivity levels had fallen. In fact none of them had laid an egg for several months, despite a return to warmer weather here. I realise the vegetarians won’t like this but it was time for the Poule to arrive au Pot.

The problem with the situation is that the new ladies have proved to be interminably boring. There’s no raucous greeting as you approach the hen house, they don’t brush flirtatiously against your legs in the hope of another scrap, and gone are the knowing, head on one side, glances as they try and attract your attention from the weeding…. They just hover in a nervous teenaged group, whispering to one another. No confidence, no conversation, no fun at all.

I’m wondering if there’s a message here for the middle aged sisterhood?

Refit complete and open for business

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Twitt

It’s been a tense winter refit….Due in the main part to me not getting “The Van” here on time. I did get a bit bored with hearing that we couldn’t do such and such because the materials needed were “on the van”.

When it finally arrived it contained a complete professional kitchen, two sofa’s, eight elegant arm chairs, a roll top bath, 150 litres of designer paint, (one of which had burst open), eleven sheets of stainless steel, a massive 8 cubic metre walk in fridge (flat packed of course), a pair of hand stitched curtains with a four metre drop and two pairs of shoes for the Badger….

Work is now finally complete and the new look chateau has been inaugurated by our No.1 Client who described it as “simply stunning” and their corporate week here as “flawless”… That’s partly why she’s our No.1!

So what have we done exactly?

The new professional kitchen has a spectator gallery for future cookery demonstrations and gourmet house party weekends. Pull up a bar stool and watch the chef in action. We’re planning a series of food and wine weekends and gastro events – see here for more news of these later in the year.

“The Stable” is a purpose designed nursery space, equipped with toys, games, art materials and of course nannies! Plus a dining table for children’s high tea. We’ve always had a great nursery and brilliant childcare at Rigaud but now it’s located downstairs and behind a stable door. The noise will be greatly reduced and no need for the teeny tinies to climb up and down the stairs.

The “New Room” is the imaginative name for our brand new and superior grade bedroom, with roll top bath and walk in shower. It’s another stunner bringing the total number of bedrooms to nine, plus a dorm.

The Gallery has been transformed from the aesthetician’s hell that was Buzz Lightyear meets Simba from The Lion King via the My Little Pony Dream Castle, into the now tranquil space for contemplation. Painted a serene Prussian Blue, with low suspended pendant drum lights it’s going to make an impressive catwalk for this season’s brides.

I know what you’re thinking, if you’ve read this far…. Where are the pictures? We want to see all this sophistication and glamour you speak of! Well patience is a virtue and all WILL be revealed in the near future. We’re just organising a for couple of professional photographers to shoot the chateau in the next couple of months, watch this space for the results!

Designer Wars cause seismic change at Rigaud

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Twitt

Never, ever go away on holiday. Leaving the chateau can only lead to trouble as we discovered in August, when we returned, fat, tanned and spent out with happy memories of Rioja and fried fish.

Within minutes of unloading our anchovies and hams, Steve, our fabulous chef, presented us with Hayley’s Plan…. a fully worked up CAD drawing in three dimensions which would deliver an inspirational kitchen environment and most importantly, would make Steve happy. While the cats were away the mice had even identified and specified a particular clock for the wall. This was no simple envelope in the staff suggestions box, it was a full on strategic review to which my fabulous team had devoted time and energy. How can you say no to their youthful, enthusiastic little faces?

Deep breath, count to a hundred, find some serious financing…. But then what? It would be unthinkable to spend so many euros without first consulting with our design guru, Aunty Debrah (co proprietor of the glorious www.42ruevictorhugo.com). And construction and spacial questions would surely require Mr Pyne’s input (www.m-hotel.org). It all called for a creative chateau house party with copious added eating and drinking. Hurrah!

A design summit house party was duly planned and Mr Pyne added an interior designer mate plus his lovely new partner, Megan, who is also from a cheffing background. So that’s one architect (Tim), two architect’s technicians (Eric and Hayley), two designers (Jeremy and Debrah), two chefs (Steve and Megan), myself and Aib, who are paying for it all and of course Hobo the Dog.

What’s wrong with this plan? What could possibly go wrong with SO MANY opinions to choose from? I will leave you to imagine the exhaustion levels. How many ways is it possible to say “Yes, you could do that, but have you considered x, y and possibly even z?”

Suffice to say that by the final lunchtime, after impressive degrees of focus on the subject and despite raging hangovers all round, we had a neat plan for the refit of the kitchen. Drawings were complete, materials were decided upon, we were ready to go.

And then, on the journey back from the airport, after dropping the architect construction team back to their return plane, Debrah, who had remained surprisingly quiet during the battle of the designers, stuck her oar in. And I quote

“Don’t take this the wrong way…. You can just park this idea somewhere and come back to it another time but…. I don’t understand why you have the kitchen in that room of the house in the first place….”

She’s right of course. It makes no sense to have two kitchens in a house this size. And why have your chef kitchen tucked away in the most difficult to access part of the house while the glorious 15th century chateau kitchen is nothing more than a corridor? And while you’re at it, why not make turn the existing chef kitchen into a kids dorm and playroom on the ground floor which will be much safer than taking kids up those stairs. All of which releases the existing kids dorm, a huge room with a stunning fireplace as another fabulous ensuite bedroom.

Yes, it all makes about 50K’s worth of perfect sense. It might have been a bit more useful if you could have said that three days ago….

West London Lifestyle brings cutting edge vegetarian food to Rigaud

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Twitt

It was obvious that using a French team to produce a Vegan wedding feast for a couple who wanted “a celebration of Vegetarian food with some Vegan options”, was just not going to work.

We thought about it a bit and then struck upon the idea that we could bring a Vegetarian friendly London team down to Bordeaux to show us how to do it. And that is what happened last weekend when a very cool piece west London lifestyle arrived here in the Bordeaux. Michael Daniels and his team from The Gate in Hammersmith flew in on Thursday and our Rigaud chef team took them to the local markets and producers. We found all the herbs they needed in the Rigaud vegetable garden and after a long twelve hours of cooking they produced a vegetarian feast that would have convinced any committed carnivore.

The sad thing was that Laurent was not here to see what they did. We would have learned a thing or two.

Guinea Fowl – the new Christmas Chicken

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Twitt

guinea-fowlWe’re celebrating a mid winter wedding at the chateau this afternoon. Chef is starting with a roast garlic and herb consommé and continues with beautifully puffed up and light goat cheese soufflés. Then there’s a little ginger sorbet before the guinea fowl arrives. Chef has deliberately ordered small birds and will serve each guest a confit leg and a pan fried breast, with a Banyols Jus.

Chef did a dry run last week which was tortuous. It was just 11 in the morning when he brought out each course for a tasting and I was expected to take just one spoon or forkful of each, comment and leave the rest. How unfair. It was all utterly divine particularly the guinea fowl which I describe as a super tasty chicken. The difference is subtle but definitely worth the extra effort. It’s served with a carrot and swede puree infused with onion and cloves - the seasonal twist since this gives essence of bread sauce.  I could happily have devoured the lot, even at 11am. It’s tough, this chateau life.

Guinea Fowl is definitely the new chicken. Just as the Bauduc Semillion is my new Chardonnay. So that’s our Christmas lunch sorted out then.

The Bordeaux Camper Van

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Twitt

I’m forever bemoaning the partisan nature of the French psyche, particularly when it comes to regional cuisine. You’ll struggle to locate a raclette outside of the Haute Savoie, cassoulet rarely features on a menu far from the Gers and the delicious Confit de Canard that we take for granted here is absent from the menus of Brittany. It’s fine for the tourists who immerse themselves in duck fat for a week then move on but it’s shame that the best of all regional cuisine doesn’t travel just a little further.  The same problem extends to the wine shelves in the local supermarkets and wine merchants. We have aisle upon aisle of Bordeaux blends but try to find a decent selection of white Burgundy and you’re limited to a mighty fine Montrachet at sixty Euros and perhaps an entry level Chablis but that’s your lot. There’s literally just ONE label from New Zealand, Chili and California respectively.

We found the funniest example of how far this regional view extends in the cupboard of our camper van. We bought the camper locally of course. The previous owners had cut some handy holes in the work top to accommodate a few wine bottles without them falling in transit. The system works very well just as long as you stick to the long narrow Bordeaux bottles. Try and take a wide bodied bottle from Cotes du Rhone on holiday and it won’t fit the hole. Pah! Gallic shrug, “But why would you?”