Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain)-Champagnole (Jura), 09/18/2020
This stage was what
is called a transition stage. It took place in the Jura and the Franche-Comté
area, and saw a beautiful victory by a Danish racer (his second win on this
Tour). The Slovenian Primoz Roglic (yellow jersey) and Tadej Pogocar (white jersey)
remain respectively first and second of the general classification. All the
odds are in favor of Roglic… but wait for the tomorrow’s stage arriving in “my”
mountains of Vosges…
The saucisson
brioché, meaning sausage in a brioche, is a French specialty, more
specifically from the Lyon’s region where the sausage is often stuffed with
pistachios. But this dish is not only the apanage of Lyon, as other regions
have similar recipes. And more specifically Franche-Comté.
Although it is a
very old region (the name Franche-Comté means "Free County" and came
from the 12th century when this county emancipated from the German Emperor's
power), Franche-Comté is not very well known as a region, squeezed between
Lorraine and Alsace in the North, Burgundy in the South and the West, and
Switzerland in the East. Its main city and capital, Besançon, is a beautiful
historical city with its citadel listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its
old city nested in an almost closed meander of the Doubs river.
Franche-Comté is
also, like its neighbors Lorraine, Alsace and Burgundy, a "foody"
area, with some famous cheeses, charcuterie and wine (not too bad, huh?), and
mushrooms and snails (I even discover that there is there a snail maker
named... "Billey"). This is the area that gave its name to the Comté
cheese, probably one of the best cheeses in the world. Morbier, this cheese
with a thin vegetable ashes line and Cancoillotte, a melted cheese to eat with
a spoon, are other famous cheeses from the area. Among its other specialties,
there are also morels, Vin jaune (yellow wine) and the recipes combining those
two, with the iconic Poulet de Bresse (Bresse’s chicken) produced near
the departure city.
And last but not
least, there is the iconic saucisse de Morteau (or belle de Morteau),
for me the best cooking sausage in the world. What characterizes the Morteau
sausage is that it is smoked with local wood dust in traditional pyramidal
chimneys (the tuyés), but since the tuyés are heavily ventilated,
it is not cooked, just smoked. It also has a small wooden stick wrapped around
the end of the link.
The belle de Morteau
could be cooked in different ways, grilled, traditionally poached in a broth
with potatoes and other vegetables (a potée), in salads, or like here, in a
brioche.
* During the Tour de France, combining two of my passions, biking and cooking, I will try to present (almost) every day a recipe from the route followed by the peloton.
|
Levels of
difficulty |
Cost |
Preparation |
Resting |
Cooking |
|
n |
$ |
30 minutes |
40 minutes |
25 minutes |
|
Ingredients
6 servings
§
1 Morteau sausage* §
1 onion §
Herbs (bay leaves, thyme, cloves…) §
1 or 2 yolks §
A brioche dough sheet § 1 generous tbsp of crème fraîche § 1/2 tsp of red wine vinegar §
Potatoes and/or salad as a side |
Instructions § Cook for around 20
minutes the (previously punched) sausage in water with onions, herbs, and use
this opportunity to steam above the sausage some fingerling potatoes to be
served as a side § When cooked and
just slightly cooled down (enough to avoid burning your fingers), peel the
sausage, brush it with yolk (to stick it to the dough when cooking), place it
on a brioche dough sheet (~1cm thick), roll the whole and seal the two sides
of the pastry sheet with yolk. § Let the whole rise
for ~40 minutes in a rectangular cake mold in a corner of the stove § Bake it in a 350F
pre-heated oven for 25 minutes § Take a few tablespoons of the saussage cooking broth and mix it with the crème fraîche and the vinegar. §
Serve the sucisson brioché hot or lukewarm with the crème fraîche sauce with steamed potatoes, or cold with a
simple salad and some pickles… |
Gallery
 |
| A tuyé: the sausages are smoked inside... |
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