Rick Stein - Rick Steins Secret France

Quite near the town of Doubs in Franche-Comt theres a small village called Saint-Antoine, and a short drive through the Jura mountains is Fort Saint-Antoine, an old military fort of vaulted stone built into the hillside so all you can see is the front faade. Its been used to mature Comt cheese since the 1960s, when the affineur Marcel Petite realised that the most popular cheese in France could be successfully aged in the perfect cool and damp atmosphere of the fort. Today there are roughly 100,000 wheels of Comt being matured there at any one time and they stay there for up to two years.

While I was talking to Claude Querry, the chef de cave, and tasting the various maturities from the youngest to vieux Comt, I was thinking that the attention to detail happening here is the reason that French produce is so very good. The cheese is stored on wooden shelves many metres high and in endless aisles that you could easily get lost among. Robots trundle ceaselessly along them, sliding a cheese out, washing the rind with a weak salt solution, turning it and sliding it back. The shelves were made out of spruce wood and the reaction between the cheese and the wood is an important flavour element. Claude himself taps every cheese with a cheese iron called a sonde to check for density and possible hollows. At the other end of the sonde is a tiny borer that removes a carrot from the cheese for tasting, and having sampled a tiny piece Claude returns the plug to the cheese and smooths it over. In the younger cheeses the sort of flavours he is looking for are such things as grass, hay, cauliflower or mushroom; in older cheeses, nuts, meat stock, pepper, coffee, dark chocolate or smoke.

Comt cheese is made at fruitires and the farms that supply these can be no more than 25km away, so each area has its own particular pastoral characteristics. Locally, the taste is always for the young cheeses, and I must say that in Arbois in the Jura I ate an omelette made with young Comt, accompanied by a glass of yellow Savagnin wine, that I think is the best Ive tasted anywhere. In Franche-Comt, long-matured Comt cheese is regarded as a bit of a Parisian affectation fromage de snob but personally I think its exquisite in its dry nuttiness.

This chapter contains generally rather rich and gorgeous French recipes featuring eggs, cheese and lots of butter. Indeed, a couple of them come from a restaurant in Haut-Jura at Malbuisson where I had an eight-course dinner of cheese. But go into any decent French restaurant in France and there will be that distinctive, overpowering smell of aged mature poisse and Pont lvque. Where else in the world is it completely acceptable to walk into a restaurant thats smelling a bit whiffy dont you just love it? Its reassuring, and you know a nice glass of red will soon be on the way.

A croque monsieur should have an element of crispness to it since the French verb croquer is onomatopoeic, meaning to crunch or crack. For me, it means a crisp, toasted sourdough sandwich put together quickly with a little bchamel. The normal cheese and ham toastie thats served up in motorway service stations as a croque monsieur I would simply class as a stomach filler. This, on the other hand, is a pleasure, from the crisp toast to the hint of bay leaf and nutmeg in the bchamel, and the Gruyre cheese and good ham inside.

• 10g butter, softened for spreading
• 4 slices sourdough bread
• 12 tsp Dijon mustard
• 85g Gruyre or Comt cheese, grated
• 2 thick slices good-quality ham (about 50g each)
• A few rasps freshly grated nutmeg

• 25g butter
• 25g plain flour
• 270ml whole milk
• 1 bay leaf
• A few rasps freshly grated nutmeg
• Salt and black pepper

For the bchamel, melt the 25g of butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir for a couple of minutes. Take the pan off the heat and gradually whisk in the milk, beating after each addition to avoid lumps. Add the bay leaf, put the pan back on the heat and bring to the boil, then cook, stirring all the time, until thickened. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper, then set aside.

Preheat the grill to a high setting. Butter the slices of bread on one side and place them buttered-side up under the grill until golden. Preheat the oven to 220C/Fan 200C.

Spread the untoasted sides of the bread with Dijon mustard. Spread 2 of the slices with some of the bchamel, then add a quarter of the grated cheese and a slice of ham to each one. Top with the remaining slices of toast, toasted side up, and spread with the remaining bchamel sauce. Sprinkle over the rest of the cheese and season with nutmeg and black pepper.

Transfer the sandwiches to a baking sheet and bake them for 1012 minutes until golden and bubbling. Eat at once!

CROQUE MONSIEUR

The etiquette of the dinner party now is such that not only can you not call it a dinner party its coming round for a meal but also you cant be seen to be putting any effort into the first course. If, though, you can carry off something incredibly simple and casual, everyone still loves a starter. This is just that. All you do is layer up slices of goats cheese in ramekins, add seasoned crme fraiche, sprinkle with chopped walnuts and bake. The tartness of the cheese and crme fraiche served with crisp apple slices is a fabulous combination. Its the sort of thing that would be nice to find in a bar late morning somewhere in Paris to enjoy with a coffee or a glass of wine.

• as a starter
• 15g butter, for greasing
• 200g young goats cheese log, cut into 12 slices
• 200g full-fat crme fraiche
• 15g walnuts, chopped
• 1 tsp chopped flatleaf parsley
• Salt and black pepper

• 2 apples, cored and finely sliced
• Slices of crusty bread

Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C.

Butter 4 ramekins, then put 3 slices of goats cheese in each one. Season the crme fraiche with half a teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper and pour it over the cheese, dividing it equally between the ramekins.

Top with more black pepper and chopped walnuts, then bake for 1520 minutes. Garnish with parsley and serve with slices of crisp apple and good bread.

WARM GOATS CHEESE WITH CREAM & WALNUTS

Im much taken with ordering cheese, rather than dessert, in a restaurant, particularly if, as is often the case, Ive had fish with a glass of white Burgundy. Cheese gives me a perfect excuse to finish with a glass of red, something simple such as a Ctes du Rhne. Ive always loved the French combination of walnuts, honey, fruit and a characterful cheese. This dish also makes a nice light starter.

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