France is home to thousands of wines, thousands of cheeses, and countless recipes – almost all of which are inextricable from their local terroir. Terroir is a word that links foods, wines, and more to the places they're from and the people who make them. Let culinary journalist Emily Monaco and chef and wine expert Caroline Conner take you through the ins and outs of France's phenomenal regional richness.
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France is home to thousands of wines, thousands of cheeses, and countless recipes – almost all of which are inextricable from their local terroir. Terroir is a word that links foods, wines, and more to the places they're from and the people who make them. Let culinary journalist Emily Monaco and chef and wine expert Caroline Conner take you through the ins and outs of France's phenomenal regional richness.
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, and this bit of southwestern France – whether you call it Dordogne or Périgord or even Aquitaine – smells sweetly of walnuts, washed-rind cheese, and wine. Emily and Caroline are breaking down Périgord's seven strawberry varieties, delving into why a cheese invented by monks was vastly improved by nuns, and explaining how the wines here got to be so deceptively delicious for how reasonable they are. Caroline shares a recipe for a delicious local walnut cake, Emily reduces the 100 Years' War to 15 seconds or less, and they both fangirl over the ultimate badass Eleanor of Aquitaine, who married two kings and proved to be cooler than both of them.
Tarte Aux Noix Perigourdine Recipe by Caroline Conner
I made these into little tartlets but you could just as easily make one big tart. It was so delicious, pecan pie vibes but more caramelly and with the lightest crispest pastry!
Yes, you could buy pastry, but store bought pastry sucks. It sucks! Making your own pastry is so easy and it's really a zillion times better. The pastry makes enough for 6 tartlets easily cut out with as many scraps leftover for the next project, or one big tart again with scraps. It's so easy, trust me!
If you want to make one big tart, increase the cooking times on everything by about 20 minutes
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
200g walnut halves 200g sugar 200g of creme fraiche or heavy cream 30g unsalted butter cut into cubes 1/4 tsp of salt 30g honey 2 eggs Pate sucrée - or sweet pastry crust - this makes enough for 2 big tarts
Start by making the pastry since it will need at least an hour in the fridge before rolling.
Pate Sucrée
250g AP flour or pastry flour 95g powdered sugar 30g ground nuts, walnuts if you have them, but almond or hazelnut will do, you can skip this if it's too much of a pain 2 big pinches of salt 150g butter 1 large egg
Combine flour, powdered sugar, salt, and ground nuts. Whisk together Cut butter into cubes and mix into the dry ingredients, pinching and rolling the butter between your fingers until the mixture is sandy and there aren't any big pieces of butter left Crack the egg into a bowl and break it up with a fork, then add it in and fold with a spatula You want to work the dough enough so it starts to create a mass, but it doesn't need to be uniform or totally cohesive Dump it out onto plastic wrap including any dry crumbs, flatten into a disk shape and wrap Store in a cold part of the fridge for at least an hour Preheat the oven to 350F or 175C (if using convection lower it by 10 or so degrees) Spray or butter the tart shells Roll out pastry with plenty of flour Line the tart shells, it doesn't matter if there are some holes just patch them up! Grease some foil and lay it butter side down over the pastry and fill with either rice, beans, or baking beads Blind bake like that for 10-15 minutes until the sides look like they are starting to be drier Remove the foil and beans and bake for another 10 minutes
Meanwhile - for the tarts
Have all your ingredients at hand before you make the caramel, it waits for no (wo)man! And for god's sake be careful, caramel is dangerous.
Roast the walnuts in the oven or toast them in the microwave so they get all that good roasted flavor, I don't have a microwave so it's usually 10-15 minutes in the oven for me I dump them into a kitchen towel and crunch them up with my hands, this keeps the chunks large enough to be toothsome and removes some of the bitter skin Melt the sugar in a dry pan over medium heat, you can stir the unmelted sugar into the melted sugar to help it along Once it is uniformly melted and a rich amber color, take it off the heat and add the butter...
The Terroir Podcast
France is home to thousands of wines, thousands of cheeses, and countless recipes – almost all of which are inextricable from their local terroir. Terroir is a word that links foods, wines, and more to the places they're from and the people who make them. Let culinary journalist Emily Monaco and chef and wine expert Caroline Conner take you through the ins and outs of France's phenomenal regional richness.
