flipLe tourain à l'ail blanchi du Quercy
Le tourain à l'ail blanchi du Quercy
Why this dish? His fragile health and total absorption in deciphering made him neglectful of his meals: a bread-soaked soup, simmered in advance, gulped down distractedly without leaving his sign boards. The tourain with garlic is exactly that soup, the one from the houses of the Lot that Champollion knew as a child in Figeac and later as an adult in Grenoble.
A mild garlic soup bound with egg yolk, poured boiling over stale bread slices rubbed with walnut oil. The meal of both the poor and the hurried bourgeois: nourishing, comforting, ready to wait for the one who forgets the hour.
Come, bring your bowl. When my eyes burn from copying my cartouches, my sister serves me this tourain and orders me to eat before it all goes cold. You blanch the garlic very gently in the fat, see, until it loses its fire; you beat an egg yolk, marry it to the broth, and pour it all over yesterday's bread rubbed with our walnut oil. Drink it boiling hot: it is, I swear, the only remedy that draws me from my hieroglyphs for a quarter of an hour.
- •Garlic cloves — a good handful (aromatic base, blanched to mellow it)
- •Goose fat or lard — a spoonful (cooking fat)
- •Stale country bread — several slices (base that makes the soup a full meal)
- •Fresh eggs — two (thickener (yolk) and whites in strands)
- •Walnut oil — a drizzle (fatty, toasted signature of Quercy)
- •Water or household broth — as needed (soup liquid)
- •Salt — to taste (seasoning)
Le tourain à l'ail blanchi du Quercy
A mild garlic soup bound with egg yolk, poured boiling over stale bread slices rubbed with walnut oil. The meal of both the poor and the hurried bourgeois: nourishing, comforting, ready to wait for the one who forgets the hour.
Why this dish? His fragile health and total absorption in deciphering made him neglectful of his meals: a bread-soaked soup, simmered in advance, gulped down distractedly without leaving his sign boards. The tourain with garlic is exactly that soup, the one from the houses of the Lot that Champollion knew as a child in Figeac and later as an adult in Grenoble.
Come, bring your bowl. When my eyes burn from copying my cartouches, my sister serves me this tourain and orders me to eat before it all goes cold. You blanch the garlic very gently in the fat, see, until it loses its fire; you beat an egg yolk, marry it to the broth, and pour it all over yesterday's bread rubbed with our walnut oil. Drink it boiling hot: it is, I swear, the only remedy that draws me from my hieroglyphs for a quarter of an hour.
Ingredients (period version)
- Garlic cloves — a good handful (aromatic base, blanched to mellow it)
- Goose fat or lard — a spoonful (cooking fat)
- Stale country bread — several slices (base that makes the soup a full meal)
- Fresh eggs — two (thickener (yolk) and whites in strands)
- Walnut oil — a drizzle (fatty, toasted signature of Quercy)
- Water or household broth — as needed (soup liquid)
- Salt — to taste (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Garlic — 8 cloves (aromatic base)
- Duck fat — 1 tbsp (fat)
- Stale country bread — 4 thick slices (base)
- Eggs — 2 (thickener + whites)
- Walnut oil — 1 tbsp (signature finish)
- Chicken broth — 1 liter (liquid)
- Salt, pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Method
- Plunge the peeled garlic cloves into boiling water for 2 minutes to mellow them, then drain.
- Gently sauté them in duck fat without browning, roughly crush them.
- Add the broth, salt, and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Separate the eggs. Pour the whites in a thin stream into the simmering soup while stirring to form strands.
- Off the heat, whisk the yolks with a ladle of soup, then pour back into the pot without letting it boil.
- Place the stale bread rubbed with walnut oil at the bottom of bowls and pour the boiling soup over it.
How it was made : The tourain (or tourin) is the mother soup of the Southwest: it was made with garlic, sometimes with onion or tomato later in the century. Economical, it turned hard bread and a few cloves into a complete meal. The practice of "faire chabrol" — pouring a little red wine into the remaining soup — accompanied this dish in the countryside of the Lot.
The contemporary twist : Serve in small verrines with a shard of grilled bread stuck in, and a drizzle of walnut oil poured at the table to release the toasted aroma.
Champollion · Charactorium
