FFW 2021 Wine Catalogue

BORDEAUX LEFTBANK

RECIPE Tourain à la Bordelaise (Grape Harvester’s Soup) The various tourains of southwestern France are also onion soups. The onions are coloured in goose fat, lard, or drippings and the simplest is moistened with water, simmered for from45minutes to 1 hour and served over crusts of bread. Garlic is sometimes added, often a spoonful of flour is stirred into the onions after they have been browned and before they aremoistened, a handful of French thread-thin vermicelli may be added a fewminutes before serving, and terminal egg-yolk bindings are not uncommon. The bread crusts may be rubbed with garlic, and certain households add a bit of vinegar at the last minute. The following is a typical Bordelais tourain and is traditional at the season of the wine-grape harvest. A nativemay first eat his sopped bread crust, empty out his (red) wine glass into the soup, and drink the rest from the soup plate, a performance known as faire chabrol (or faire chabrot)—to act like a little goat—and which belongs more to the realmof folklore than to that of contemporary habit.

INGREDIENTS

METHOD

• 1½ pounds onions, thinly sliced • ¼ cup olive oil • Salt • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped • 3mediumfirm, ripe

1. Using a large, heavy saucepan, cook the onions gently in the oil, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon, until they are uniformly light golden and very soft. 2. Add the salt, the garlic, the tomatoes, and the sugar and continue to cook gently, stirring from time to time, for another 10minutes. 3. Add the white wine, turn the flame up, reduce by half, stirring, and add the boiling water. Simmer, covered, for from45minutes to 1 hour before serving out the soup over crusts of bread placed in the individual soup plates.

tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped

• ½ teaspoon sugar • ½ cup dry white wine • 6 cups boiling water • Slices of stale bread

RICHARD OLNEY, SIMPLE FRENCH FOOD

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