Les Poissonchats

It was a particularly overcast day when I cooked that jarret de veau. A jarret de veau, that’s a veal shank. To cook it right, it takes a lot of time and love and a little finesse. I was inspired by Mimi Thorisson’s recipe for poulet cooked in crème fraîche and garlic galore, as it’s anyway an excellent idea to slather crème fraîche over almost any kind of dish, especially on an overcast day, and I figured the fatty cream would be perfect to keep the veal juicy and tender. I also had some foraged mushroom from the last autumn in the pantry that I wanted to add. And love.

There’s a peculiar form of continuity when cooking with homemade preserves. It’s picking up a thought from a long gone day, or a feeling merely, and continue with it in a dish. A kind of time traveling, if you will, or embroidery through time, moving the thread in all directions, connecting points until a pattern forms.

I still go back to our old village when foraging for mushrooms, as I have my very own spots there. And the urge, a spell of obligation, to take them all once they’re out, and all of a sudden they’re everywhere, mushrooms everywhere and I must take them all until my husband gets out a stern word. For this season I’m firmly set on finding good spots around the castle, as there’s a big forest along the river, just beyond the monastery, with sunny patches and old trees, looking all very mushroomy.

What you’ll need

• A bowl of dried mushrooms, soaked in water a couple of hours before the cooking starts. It’s also nice with fresh mushrooms but dried mushrooms have a wonderful toasty note that I prefer. Keep the water once the mushrooms are rehydrated!
• Some fresh farm butter for cooking
• A small onion, finely chopped
• 0.5dl of Vin Jaune (or sherry works as well) to deglaze
• 4-5 large stems of parsley, finely chopped
• Fleur de sel and ground black peppercorns
• 1-2 big thick veal shanks
• 200g of creme fraiche
• 2-3 big cloves of garlic
• 3 potatoes, quartered

How to cook it

Start with the mushrooms. Take them out of the water, press well, keep the water. Heat the mushrooms in a cast iron pan that is large enough to later keep the shanks, add a tablespoon of butter and the chopped onion and sizzle at low temperature until the onion chops are translucent. This can well take 10 minutes. Increase the heat, deglaze with the wine, season with fleur de sel and pepper and add the parsley. Reduce for a couple of minutes and transfer to a separate plate, set aside.

Add another tablespoon of butter and heat at medium temperature, wait until it’s molten and add the shanks, brown for 2-3 minutes on both sides, season with salt and pepper. Press a clove of garlic on each side, so the shanks are well covered in it. Then deglaze with a bit of the mushroom water, and scrape so the cooking crust dissolves. Evenly spread the creme fraiche over the shanks, ideally it should stay on the meat and not run over the sides, cover the pan with a lid and let simmer at low temperature for 1.5 hours. You may have to add some mushroom water from time to time so the bottom is always covered in liquid. Be sure to have it really at a low temperature, if it cooks too fast/hot it gets chewy.

In the meantime, say 30 minutes before serving, pre-cook the potatoes in salt water (potatoes won’t cook at low temperature but need slowly boiling water. If you cook them with the shank they’ll either not cook through or your shank cooks too much, which would be unfortunate). Once the shanks are cooked, transfer on a wooden tray and cover with aluminum foil, let sit for ten minutes in a warm spot. Ideally the meat will have reduced and built a hollow in which the creme fraiche sits. Add the rest of the mushroom water together with the cooked potatoes to the cast iron pan and cook at medium to high temperature until the liquid reduces to a thick sauce. Take off the heat, add the mushrooms and then the shanks, cover with the lid so it all warms evenly. Serve when you’re ready.

How to eat it

Maybe this is the perfect thing to have on a day of undecided weather, those sunchasingrainchasingsun-days. It’s rich and creamy yet not too heavy. Hence, for a perfect wine pairing I’d go for a white, one that is in the ripeness of its age, round, and balanced, why not a nice Pernand-Vergelesses that has spent a couple of years in the cellar?