Les Carnets de Julie – Les saveurs des agrumes avec le chef Cédric Grolet

Julie vous propose aujourd’hui de traverser les Pyrénées Orientales, puis la Corse avant de s’arrêter sur la Côte d’Azur, et terminer son voyage entre Rungis et Paris… à la découverte des agrumes ! Ils parfument, relèvent, assaisonnent n’importe quelle recette et sont pour moins indispensables en cuisine. Ils sont à la fois la chaleur et le soleil du Sud de la France et l’exotisme des contrées plus lointaines. On connaît les citrons, clémentines et pamplemousses, mais il existe mille autres variétés que Julie nous fait découvrir.

Les Carnets de Julie – Les saveurs des agrumes 23 avril 2016

Au sommaire :
00:02:43 Rencontre avec Bénédicte Bachès, pépinièriste
00:08:01 Pintade à la Catalane d’Irène
00:15:00 Clémentines de Corse
00:20:34 Cédrats de Corse
00:27:45 Citrons de Menton
00:35:40 Les Barbajuans de Jean-Marc
00:42:46 La Crème Yuzu, passion et sablés croustillants aux zestes de Julie
00:46:32 Le Citron de Cédric Grolet

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[Music] Hello, like every week, we meet up to travel the roads of France, discovering products, especially seasonal products. So, you’ll see, they perfume, they enhance, they season any recipe. They are both the warmth and the sun of the south of France, but also the exoticism of more distant lands. You may have guessed, today we’re going to focus on citrus fruits. So, we all know lemons, clementines, grapefruits, oranges, but there are 1000 other varieties that I would like to introduce you to. It’s quite surprising. So, it’s very, very hard. That’s why we boil it to soften it, actually. For that, I suggest we cross the eastern Pyrenees and then board a boat to Corsica. I hope Michelin will hold up before stopping on the Côte d’Azur. You shouldn’t try to do something too calibrated in the end. That’s what makes the recipe. There you go. Manuel, human intervention must be irregular to go north between Ringis and Paris. My hands will truly sculpt the lemon to measure and maintain its simplicity. My idea was to represent what nature gives us. Take a trip. Let’s start again. We’ll cross a small part of the Mediterranean to reach the island of all citrus fruits, Corsica. We’ll reach the continent with a stop in Menton for its lemon festival and its tangy recipes. Then we’ll go back to Île-de-France to cook citronu. And to start the journey, head to the Pyrénées Orientales in Argelè sur mer then to Euss. I’ll meet two citrus growers, nurserymen, researchers, adventurers. We don’t really know how to introduce them anymore, they have so many hats. This is Benedict and Michel Bachz, who have developed a passion for citrus fruits and now travel the world to unearth extraordinary varieties. Their greenhouse contains more than 800 species, including mandarins that have disappeared from the shelves and therefore inevitably from our plates. Come on, let’s go. Heading to EUS, department 66. [Music] Oh Julie, hi Bénédicte. It’s great to see you here in this world, isn’t it? In your paradise, you mean? Well, it seems so, but is this a region that’s quite conducive to growing oranges? Because it’s cold in winter anyway. You see today, but I admit it’s mild. Yeah, you’ve built houses. Yes, it’s true that it’s a country, especially here because we’re at the foot of the canyon, so we have to put them under cover. And what possessed your husband to get so into citrus like that? Well, listen, it’s the meeting with me, it’s a love story. You’re the sour woman, it must be me. Together, we decided to focus on this genre, which is the citrus genre. But then within the genre, we have more than 1,000 varieties. Yeah, it’s because you’ve expanded the genre, at least in France. We went to see how other countries where there are citrus fruits, especially in Asia, how they serve these citrus fruits that we knew by name, you see. How it fits into their cuisine, how it fits into their culture, you see? Because yeah, you were interested in the entire chain, ultimately, from the seed to consumption and processing. That’s what ‘s quite rare because for a nurseryman, in general, we deliver good fruit and that’s it. You wanted to know how we could use them in cooking. For example, this is a calamandine. Calamand kumquat. Well, it’s a kumquat hybrid. Ah, naturally. It’s the shape of a mandarin and the size of a kumquat, after all. There you go. And the skin is sweet like a kumquat’s. Can I taste it? Yes, you can. Is it ripe? You’ll tell me. Mertume he the acidity mertume acidity mertume not too much I think but very juicy a very thin skin but even thinner than on the kumquat absolutely it’s very very thin I love it, it’s a sweet, but it’s the mandarin that particularly interests me. We meet Michel, Benedict’s husband, who is just picking [Music] So, mandarins are found all around the Mediterranean. In fact, this mandarin originally comes from China. It probably arrived via the Silk Road and all these waves of trade that passed through the Gulf of Guinea arrived in the Mediterranean. The one we know in France is called Citrus Délicieusa. When the pieds noirs returned to France, they planted it on the shores of the Mediterranean. So we find it in the gardens of people who came back, who planted it. So we have very old trees and we also find it in Italy and Sicily with different qualities. I say quality because just as we selected this mandarin, the Italians, or those in Corsica or North Africa, each selected it to their own taste, that is to say, more acidity, more sugar. It’s a fruit that has a very thin skin and is ultimately somewhat difficult to transport. So the market doesn’t want it. Bénedicte and Michel put them in the spotlight and have fun creating endless variations. Here, it’s a variety of mandarin that is the result of a cross between a Mediterranean mandarin and a blood orange. We get this fruit that is bloody. We try to have this flavor of the old mandarin on something a little more modern, more up-to-date, and whose presence of seeds will be limited. We can also have a different color. For example, here is a mandarin that comes from India and is yellow. There, we have a natural hybrid called Hugly that comes from Jamaica. We have relationships with research centers and collections that allow us to bring together all this diversity. And we also have a program of cross-pollination, eh, crossing to obtain different things. One of the objectives for us, besides the pleasure of having diversity because we love it, is to offer gastronomy different aromas, different textures, sweeter, less sweet, more acidic, mandarins at different times, mandarins that vary over time. That’s what’s exciting. Like Bénédict and Michel, I hope that the mandarin will soon return in all its diversity to our market stalls and on our plates. On the way to Argelè sur Mer where my Irène and her recipe for tangy guinea fowl. Hello Irène. Hello Julie. So I’m bringing a lemon from Michel’s, but I have the feeling you have what it takes. I have what it takes. Is it true , are they the same? This one, I think it’s gotten a little bit leaner. And yes. And yes. At his house, everything grows faster. So this one, I learned, is called Pem. Yes. Is it the same variety or not? No. A little different. So, what shall we take? We’ll take two. We’ll take two. We have what we need. [Music] So, let’s put on our aprons. That’s it. They’re pretty. Full of colors. They’re the… Hey, this board is magnificent. It was my grandmother’s board. Oh yes, absolutely. Who cooked a lot. Ah, you’re a fan of tradition. So, as well as in objects in the… because it’s important to pass on traditions. Of course. So, your husband’s mother cooked a lot, and did your family cook too? They cooked too, but a different cuisine since I’m more from Southern Catalonia. Ah, from Spain, right? Yes. Yeah. The famous Catalonia. When you come here and you’re not Catalan, it’s hard to understand. Okay. So it’s Catalonia, it’s there, it’s there, I understood that well. I was already made to understand it during my first trip. So tell me the story of how we’re going to make it today. since the Middle Ages apparently. Anyway, I have the impression that all Catalan cuisine, from the south or the north, is very, very imbued with a very distant influence, and notably medieval. Not medieval or absolutely. We browned it, I imagine. That’s it. In the casserole dish. We brown it. Then we add a little olive oil. How did this recipe come to be in the family? I always saw my husband’s grandmother make it. So, as I want to please my husband, I make his grandmother’s recipes. The recipes of his childhood. And so, what does he tell you? Is it as good as his grandmother’s? Oh yes, he’s very good in public. Ah, that’s cute. I always saddle it first so that it penetrates the skin well. I’m going to put them on. So, what do you do? Chop an onion to brown it . Afterwards, what you’ll need to do is cut some lemons. I cut them into slices. Not too thin, no. So the lemons. So obviously, at home, when you don’t have a lemon tree, which is the case for a good part of the French in your garden, you buy untreated lemons, eh. You have to buy untreated lemons because, well, you’re still going to eat them, and yes, of course. Ah, at the end, it’s less easy. We’re going to get rid of the rind. I’m boiling the lemons. And so, why? You remove the brine. Remove the rind. So I’m going to let them blanch first for 2 minutes from boiling and then I ‘m going to throw away the water. I’m going to add more water and we’re going to let them blanch for 5 more minutes again. Okay. Ah, there were suitable tongs. Onion and the lar, which is what, salted rather than smoked, that’s it. It’s not bacon, it’s ham. Ah okay. It’s dry-cured ham. Yes, okay. So here, I’m doing the gestures of Poem. If we don’t have Poem, what do you think we use? A lemon one too. Uh, good one, cedra, we can try maybe in my opinion with pomello , uh, untreated too. Yes, it can work as long as we remove the bitterness. There you go, that’s it. So here too, you’re going to remove the bitterness in your boiling water. But it’s done quickly. I like it. No, but that’s very Yes. No, it’s definitely done quickly, but it’s done quickly when you know it, when you’re used to it. There you go, we’re going to put the pieces of pentade back in, now I’m going to deglaze with the roto. That’s really local. So the rentio, eh. And this one comes from next door. Can I smell it? It comes from Cyour. It’s a wine with a little oxidation. It’s very good, eh. Absolutely. A dry and rare wine whose fermentation in an oxidative environment, that is, outdoors in unfilled barrels, is complete. It is characterized by aromas of nuts, licorice, roasting, prunes, and even cocoa. That sounds very good to me. I think it’s shaping up very well. So here, you’re going to confit your lemons and zest with honey. I’m deglazing with a little vinegar. Okay. It’s true that medieval cooking was always very acidic. Now, we’re going to add the broth. Oh , well, that’s not a complete broth. It could make a soup. What did you put in there? Garlic. So, I added a hint of garlic. No, no, no, no. How do you want the Catalans? Well, that makes a face. No, I’ll tell you, I love garlic, it doesn’t scare me. Let it simmer for 20 minutes before adding the preserved lemon. Let’s take the opportunity to take note of this recipe with the sunny flavors of Catalonia. For the citrus guinea fowl with garlic, Irene style. Take a farmhouse pastry cut into pieces. A head of garlic, two untreated lemons , a punem lemon or a pomello for its zest, two large onions, carrots, 50g of dry ham, bay leaves, a sprig of thint and cloves, a good tablespoon of honey, olive oil and a large glass of dry rancio or yellow wine from the Jura. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello Bernard. So Iran cuisine, you… set the table. It’s a well-oiled duo, eh. There you go. So here’s the guinea fowl we’ve cooked up just for you. And do you know this guinea fowl? I have the impression that… Yes, since my childhood. That’s it. It’s the grandmother’s pentad. Absolutely. It’s the grandmother’s guinea fowl. You don’t want to sit down. That is to say, there’s a huge responsibility, it’s to find a wine that goes with the dish. So today, what are you serving us? It’s a rosé. The Sims rosé. So, these are vines at an altitude of 550 m. It’s the highest place where rosé is produced in our country. In your country. Oh yes, it works well with lemon. Yes, very well. And it removes a lot of sugar from the wine. It’s surprising. It seems very slightly sweet even though it’s no less than any other. No. But Ah yeah, it’s funny. Like what, the dish and the wine create yet another unique flavor. And and when we find the note, the harmony, then it’s there, it’s there, and yes, of course, in any case, it’s delicious. Then the little note of ham, a little crunchy, the carrots, it adds color. Hm, it’s delicious. [Music] We leave the Pyrénées Orientales to reach another mountainous region, also very sunny, Corsica. Come on, a few hours on the road, a night on a boat, and here we are in the land of the Clementine. Here, obviously, one of the island’s prides. From cultivation on the tree to transport before it arrives on the continent, Corsican producers take the greatest care of it. Every year during the high season, 20,000 to 30,000 tons of Corsican Clementine travel to the continent. No more than two days pass between harvest and arrival on market stalls. A race against time to guarantee the freshness and perfect ripeness of the berries . And it all starts here in the plains of Haute Corse where 130 producers like Jean-André Cardos patiently cultivate them. We pick the fruit by hand, ripe on the tree. Initially, we were the only ones to harvest with the leaf since it was a criterion of natural ripening on the tree because a leaf does not live very well. So when the leaf is really fresh, we are sure to have a beautiful clementine and that is what we had chosen to differentiate ourselves from clementines produced in the Mediterranean basin in the 70s and 80s. You can never have a naturally red fruit without putting it in a greening chamber. So this cuvert, we had to explain to people and to the consumer, especially to the buyers, that it was simply a criterion of naturalness. Despite its slightly green appearance, it was ripe and good to eat. Arriving on the Isle of Beauty in 1925, this young citrus fruit, discovered just 100 years ago, comes from Orang and owes its name to its discoverer. The clementine was discovered by Father Clément, who was in Algeria, taking care of an orphanage and who had an educational orchard in his orphanage with mandarin and orange citrus fruits. And in his orchard, he discovered a mutation one day. It was a mixture of a mandarin and an orange, and it gave rise to the clementine, a hybrid. In fact, it’s a natural mutation. Once established in Corsica, the variety was further refined. Our soil, unlike other terroirs, is a clay-limestone soil. This gives the fruit a truly different taste. This tangy little taste is what defined our PGI and our difference. A difference that the producers wanted to emphasize to save a production in full decline in the face of Spanish or Moroccan competition. The PGI obtained in 2007, some producers are now going further and committing to the red label. For his part, Jean-André decided to cultivate his clementines as naturally as possible. I chose the organic clementine for an ideal of life, in other words. I live on the farm with my daughter and so I made this choice. to produce less but to produce better and to live in an eco-friendly environment. If the clementine is a natural treat, it can also be enjoyed processed , and Christophe wouldn’t disagree with me. In Fouriani, in her modern canning workshop, this aesthete and gourmand who makes jams according to the seasons shares her quick and foolproof recipe for clementine jam. Her guilty pleasure. It’s much more fragrant. It has an acidity that’s very interesting to work with, especially when making jam. Uh, it has a flesh content that’s very interesting. It smells of the sun and then has the peel. There you go, quite simply. For 2 kg of organic, untreated clementine like Jean-André’s, Christophe mixes 200 g of water with sugar, 700 g per kilo of clementine, and boils the mixture at 125°. And surprise, he also adds a lemon. The lemon will simply allow us to, how can I say, give extra pectin to our jam. So while it’s cooking, we first clean the clementines, remove the stem on each side, and then cut them into slices. Then we can scrape with a little salt, coarse salt, not too much because afterward it removes the zest and the salt gets absorbed. But for cleaning, it’s very good. It helps hold the jam, leaves the skin. Christophe incorporates the clementines into the sugar syrup where they will cook for 20 minutes. As you can see from the cooking, it’s already starting to change color. The sugar penetrates directly. He squeezes and removes the lemon before putting his mixture on the skin. Quite simply, we pot it this way. Very important, we check one thing: there must never be any contact with the sugar around the pot or liquid. We check each quickly. Principle like our grandmothers did, that we close it this way. We check well. Hop, we turn it over immediately. This gourmet and clementine lover doesn’t hesitate to pair its zest with a beautiful dentex or the famous Corsican cake, fiadon. A little treat. These artisanal sweets can be found in delicatessens on the island and on the mainland. [Music] So now, we head to the village of Barétalie to meet Xavier, who divides his time between two professions: construction and cedra production. Cédra is the island’s other iconic fruit. It is even said that the citron trees were the first citrus fruits to arrive in Europe with Alexander the Great in the 3rd century BC. Passionate about the history and production of these sheets, Xavier decided to replant citron trees in their original production area. And today, in fact, there are no more than four producers. This is a very small production on the entire island. So, I suggest you learn more about the production of this strange, slightly bumpy fruit that we know very little about and which is one of the rare ones that doesn’t produce juice. And when that sun goes down, hope you raise your cup. Oh. Hello Xavier. Hello Julie. Are you in the middle of the harvest? And yes, that’s it, we’re in the middle of the harvest. So here it is, the famous cedar, I can look of course. So there it is, it’s a fruit, uh, is that it, average size? Uh, that’s, let’s say that we’re on a 3rd or 4th harvest, so the fruits are starting to get a little smaller. Ah, do you have three or four harvests a year? Ah, we have one, yeah, a little more, even, we harvest every week, every 15 days or so. We choose the fruits, eh? like the fruits on the same tree and even on the same tree he you see fruits which are look for example these ones they are small and then they will grow and then there are bigger ones there so these are fruits at the same time look you see there are small buds, small fruits. Do you mean by that that the fruits are bigger at the beginning of the re at the beginning? Yes, we have fruits which are still a little larger. There, what is that? Almost 1 kg, no? A little more. A a little more and peel up to 2 kg, even exceed it sometimes. So it’s quite nice. I’ll show you something here. For example, we’re going to open one to give you an idea of what it’s like inside. Yeah. So it’s quite surprising. So it’s very, very hard. That’s why we boil it to soften it, actually, because it’s a fruit. Can I try it to see for myself? Go ahead, go ahead. Oh yeah, you’re right. In fact, it’s just the peel. Say, that’s it, I’m there. There you go. And now you notice it’s crazy, the white part, in fact, what we call the albeo, which is very, very thick. Can I taste it? Go ahead, taste it, okay. I beg you, okay. Because in Menton lemons, I eat the Corsican one, right? But there, it’s maybe a little different. No, that’s it. It’s a little different. It’s a little different. Ah well, you can’t even bite into it, it’s so hard. And yeah, it’s very, very hard in fact. It’s very, very hard, but you know, it’s similar to what you find in the kitchen on fish, on meat, where you can add zest of these raw sheets. And it’s really, it’s really amazing somewhere because when you add them, it brings a taste, uh, on. But I like it even like that, you know. And explain to me why this will apparently give way , from what I’ve heard, had almost disappeared from Corsica. Oh, there were, uh, a lot of parameters. We found ourselves at the end of an economic cycle where people preferred to work in the city, abandoning rural culture. Exactly. There was also a bit of famine. There was the… When was it when it experienced its decline? During the First World War, just a little before. So, what was the golden age of the Sédra? The 19th century. The end of the 19th century especially, so with a lot of exports, and Corsica was the world’s leading producer of cedra. In the world, yeah. Storing the cedras in seawater. Oh yes, with salt, and adding salt to create a sub-ripe and actually blocking the fermentation and the development of the fruit. That’s what you still do today. No, no, no. We work it today, we wash it with fresh water. And it’s precisely towards a lavir fed by spring water below his land that Xavier takes me to clean the freshly harvested fruit. So, we’re going to put them in the water and then they’re going to stay there for a week and that’s going to remove the bitterness that’s a little bit on them just to soften them up a little more. The simple fact of immersing them in water for a week will release the bitterness. Yeah, that’s it. So there, you just strap them down, eh. Yes, we strap them down otherwise they’ll float. Well of course, there’s still air inside. So we’re going to strap them down and then we’re going to submerge them. It’s the most dedicated and energetic member of the team who plunges each crate into the water, or not hot, hot anyway. Glad I don’t have to do it. Crates that, thanks to a stone, are held at the bottom of the pool. A technique developed by Xavier, inspired by the techniques of the elders. After 7 days, the citrus fruits are collected to be processed in the workshop where we meet Xavier for a little side trip. Cedar is a fruit that is not eaten like an apricot or a strawberry. That’s it, we pick it and we eat it. It’s a fruit that absolutely must be processed. First you have to boil it to make it tender and then you make different sugar vines where you gradually increase the sugar to be able to candied it and arrive at a completely candied fruit. And that’s when it’s at its best, I would say. In total, about ten baths are given, a long and tedious job that can last 10 to 12 days. I was lucky enough to meet grandmothers who gave me recipes and then we adapted a little according to their recipe and according to the recipe of a professional confectioner with the rules of candied fruit. So here, The fruits are candied and when you cut them, you can see the sugar seeping inside. There, it’s perfect. The fruit is well candied. Back to the washhouse. While Xavier suggests I taste this subtly transformed fruit, bringing out all its aromas. The texture is crazy. It’s surprising. Sweet at the same time, you still have the peels that crunch a little. It’s tender, it’s melting. H it’s killer. But you’re right that I like it. I can’t stop. But especially candied fruit is often so full of sugar. You see what I mean? That’s the problem. That’s the problem that suddenly, well, it’s good, but you have the sugar above all. Sugar on top of sugar, there you really have the fruit. After the sugar on top of the bitter sugar, so uh, you mustn’t go beyond this stage. And I think that when it’s like that, it allows this fruit to be better known because it’s excellent. It’s excellent. It’s really, really, really fine. It deserves to be known. I’ll take one last one for the road. Come on, shut up because otherwise I’ll finish the tray. Hi Xabier. Thanks. Discovering the CDRA is a revelation and already gives me lots of ideas for cooking. [Music] Well, goodbye, Isle of Beauty. Back to the continent while we wait for our next visit and we’ll stay in the south since our next meeting takes us to Menton for a very special celebration. We’re going to gain a little height and climb to the top of the town to meet a citrus grower. He’s one of the five professional farmers in Menton. There aren’t many left, and Laurent Ganac is one of the last citrus professionals. He’s not a native of Menton, but he really fell in love with the region where he decided to settle to produce his famous winter fruits. He’s going to show us around his incredible plantation, and you’re going to see lemon trees of this size. Well, it makes me dream. [Music] [Applause] [Music] It’s not crazy. Every year, for 3 weeks in February, Menton produces its favorite fruit, the lemon. You should know that 150 years ago, Menton was the leader in lemon production in Europe. So obviously, this production has declined a little for many reasons, including real estate pressure, but the lemon has remained the king fruit of Menton. And we can also come to these gardens called the biove gardens, which for these 3 weeks are covered with citrus fruits, lemon and orange. And it’s an opportunity to create truly amazing sculptures. And it’s Stéphanie Perez who is responsible for creating these veritable citrus towns. Originally, citrus growers wanted to promote and boost their production, hence the birth of the lemon festival in 1934. Today, this event has grown to such an extent that Stéphanie spends a year developing the floats and decorations that will be showcased for three weeks. From these designs, she works hand in hand with ironworkers, painters, and artists of all kinds. In total, six trades are called upon to create these motifs, which are then fruity. [Music] For the entire festival, this year we’re at 175 tons of citrus because these are very large and very complicated designs to create. So the more shapes there are, the more citrus there is to put in. And for the floats, there must be about 26 tons for all 10 floats. [Music] Once the whole festival is over, all the floats are stripped of their fruit. The gardens are stripped of their fruit too and all the fruit is sold at a very low price at the end of the festival by the box. So people come, the Mentonés or the visitors and so on, they come, they buy these fruits. So to eat them like that or to make good jams. [Music] And so three Sundays in a row, the floats or rather the corsis loaded with the fruits of the sun parade through the city, all punctuated of brass bands and folk groups that attract no less than 25,000 people. During the parade of floats, it’s the culmination of all the work. There you have it, that’s the reward and seeing all these people who are happy, who want to celebrate, who are amazed, it’s really the greatest satisfaction in my job. An entire town in unison in the pure tradition of Mardi Gras carnivals. [Music] And to stay on the theme of citrus fruits, it’s time to go and learn more about this lemon. Go ahead, Michel. [Music] Now, we’re going to go up a little bit to the heights of the town to meet a citrus grower. You understand, he’s one of the five professional citrus growers in Menton. There aren’t many left. There are many citrus growers but who improvise a little in their garden like that for personal consumption. Lauranganac is a professional and you’ll see that he’s really fallen in love with Menton. He’s not a native Menton. And if you had the ambition to grow lemon trees at home , well, you should ask him because with him, everything grows. That said, where you live, it might be more of a struggle because there are very few regions in France where you can plant lemon trees in the ground. But that’s another debate, or you’ll have to come and settle in Menton. It’s quite tempting, I must say. Laurent has tamed steep terrain to grow his Menton lemons, the golden fruit as they’re nicknamed here, which has just obtained a PGI. Hello. Hello. Whoah! Oh yeah, okay. Maybe they didn’t wear the right sneakers. Yeah, I’m going down. Yes, yes. Go ahead. This is where it’s happening. Oh yeah, I say, there’s lemon. Yes, there you go. Lemon, the Menton lemon. And uh, and I discovered something quite fascinating. Yes, it’s the cultivation of lemons, the lemon tree is a very rewarding crop. The lemon tree, particularly the Menton lemon, which is a 4-season lemon and an ancestral variety cultivated here since the 15th century with a golden age around the 18th century. And this harvest, moreover, went very far away, went to the Americas because it was also the one that kept the best. I heard that Menton was indeed the region with the largest lemon production in Europe. In any case, it was the most northerly and the closest to the consumption areas. This Menton lemon had specific characteristics, notably in being able to produce in summer, which lemon trees in Sicily or in the south of Spain didn’t do, where it’s much too hot in summer for the lemon tree to produce and have a ripe harvest. And that was the privilege of the lemon. Come on, let’s go. We’re going to pick a few. So, there you go. So, no, this year, I have a very nice harvest. I see that. But I have the impression that it’s a tree that can bear a lot of fruit, right? Compared to the average lemon tree. It’s true that in Menton, I have young lemon trees that bear more than 100 kg. Yes. Of fruit. Isn’t that beautiful? Look. Yeah, it’s magnificent. Can I take a little bit? Well, I was going to offer you. Well, there you go, I’m going to cut myself a little slice. Look how beautiful that is. That’s priceless, eh. Magnificent. I’m going to see if it’s like the lemons of my childhood. No, it’s exquisite. It’s incredible because you do that on a lemon that’s not a Menton lemon, it’s incredibly bitter. And there, it gives the impression of a fresh almond a little. You know , on top of that, I simply put a little olive oil in a salad with fresh herbs, or even apple segments. And avocado is not bad either, by the way. Yes, I have avocados if you want, we can pick some, right? Yes, they grow here too. Ah, very good. Very good. And this year, there are some But what do you have? Mangoes, pineapples, there’s everything here. But pineapples, you’d really have to apply yourself. But mangoes Yes. Yes. When I think that I came without a passport, it’s incredible. Well, we have what we need here. We’re going back up. I have enough to do. Come on, [Music] suffering the vagaries of the almost tropical climate, it’s time to take shelter. For me, it’s aboard Micheline to go and cook this lemon that I now know a little better. [Music] I don’t know if you remember, but a few months ago, we went to fill our little notebooks in Monaco and yes, there is Monegasque gastronomy. There are not only luxury boutiques and a rock that people talk about all over the world. And during this trip, we discovered fried ravioli very characteristic of Monegasque cuisine called barbageant. Well, imagine that these barbageans, they don’t only belong to Monegasque gastronomy, but they are also one of the jewels of Menton’s gastronomy. Well, that’s what Jean-Marc is going to tell us about. Jean-Marc is the king of barbageoants. He runs another restaurant, you could say, about ten kilometers from Menton near Castillon. And he doesn’t only cook traditional barbageans with vegetables, chard, squash, but he imagines more daring, more original versions, but always faithful to the region’s products. In this case, I think, Ricota lemon. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Julie, hello. What a lovely hideout! What a lovely smile! I answered correctly. It’s a beautiful place. You’re here, you’re in peace, eh. There you go. Here, we’re perched. We’re clinging to the mountain. Yes. You’re quite high up, by the way. No. 650 m. Yes, that’s it. You’re in the cool of summer. In the cool. And the sea is right across the street. And we’re in the heart of the land of up-to-date barbs. Up-to-date barbs. We go and we found the guy who manages to make barbs in all flavors. All flavors. The fanciful barbageoin. The fanciful barbageoin. That interests me because it’s childhood memories. Come on, let’s see. What are we going to do? So, tell me. Here, we made a personal adaptation, a nod to the lemon with a chin. So, that’s not a historical recipe in quotation marks, it’s a version, an interpretation. So, we’re starting to prepare the dough, which has a few variations compared to the traditional savory version. Sugar and water are added to the flour , into which Jean-Marc incorporates a natural coloring. Turmeric. That, we had to think of that again. You’re right. Because you want to get a lemon color. There you go. Exactly. We pour it into the dough along with the equivalent of a glass of peanut oil and the same amount of orange blossom water. There you go. There, we’ve put all the available ingredients. Okay. Let’s turn it. No egg, it’s really No, no, no egg. That’s a batter. It’s a batter. Yeah, that’s it. So, won’t I do it by hand? I usually do it by hand. There you go. There, it’s ready. We can let it rest for an hour. So there, we let it rest for an hour. Did you prepare one in advance? Yeah. Oh, you’re perfect, that’s great. Don’t say I’m perfect because later I ‘ll believe it. And for the moment, it’s the stuffing that we’re paying all our attention to, with well-drained ricotta in a cloth, for example, and we’re going to flavor it. So Julie, now you’re going to zest. Zest? Yeah, zest. I’ll go for it. So that’s the famous Menton lemon. There you go. Then we add sugar and a jam from here with Menton lemon. So do I need to add anything else? There you go, it’s the almond powder. Almond powder. Tac. There you go. And then we mix it in and the candied lemon zest. Okay. Magnificent. It’s really an all-lemon recipe, a variation on lemon. I love it. So, I’m dabbling. I’m dabbling. It’s true that it’s a cuisine that’s quite instinctive. If you like, I guess by eye, but hey, success is achieved through practice, through habit. I can see that. So, But it suits me very well. It suits you very well. What do we do now? Let’s stretch the dough. We’re going to flour it. [Music] So, you roll out your dough lengthwise. Yeah, your dough is very beautiful. It’s magnificent. It’s supple. The dough has to be very thin, as thin as possible. Yeah. As thin as possible. Here, I’m going to try because it’s very elastic. That’s what makes it so good too. That or that’s what will give it the crispy side. Ah, that’s it. It’s the elasticity of the dough. Yes, of course. There you go. Ah, well, that’s not bad. It’s magnificent. So then we’re going to stuff it and then we’re going to place little piles. Okay. Hop. There you go. Like that because there we’re going to do it after that. There you go, you do it like that. Yeah. Go ahead, I’ll let you do it. Go ahead. So then we put a pile like this, you see? Ah, okay. That allows you to mold little dumplings. There you go. Dumplings like that. Okay. I understand. And you close them. That’s it. We fold them over on themselves there. Like that. There you go. You close the sheet a little over Yeah. Then we cut off the excess like this. Yeah. And then we make little candies like that. Oh, absolutely. You wrap them up. There you go. They’re little candies. You see, it’s funny. I’d never seen this method. We stretch them a little to remove the air and that’s it. Yeah, it shouldn’t be airy inside or they’ll burst. Or there there. Say, we can tell you’re used to it, eh. We’ve got the rhythm here. Ah, yeah, yeah. Little candy. Hop. I pinch. And then you tear your hand, right? Yes. Or with the wheel. With the roulette wheel. Okay. Is that okay? Magnificent. Julie, you shouldn’t try to make something too calibrated in the end. It’s… It has to stay manual. Human intervention has to be irregular. You know what the Italians say for their pasta that is made by hand? Les malfates. Les malfites. Badly made. E.g. We don’t see the difference between Julies and Jean-Marcs. That’s nicely said. Let’s go. Can we dip them in the frying pan? Can we dip them in the frying pan. What temperature? 180. I’ll do it with you. Yes. Julie. We can dip the whole thing, right. We put them on the basket, then we dive in. That’s the method. Pan Hop there. And how long do you let them cook then? Uh 3 minutes. 3 minutes. Okay. So I imagine that as always when it’s fried, you shouldn’t let them rest, you have to eat them right away. You can eat them right away, yes, especially with a little icing sugar on top. Ah, that’s nice. Not a second to lose. Let’s take note of all that. To revisit the traditional barbageant, Jean-Marc uses 1 kg of flour for the dough, a tablespoon of sugar, 10 cl of orange blossom water, 40 cl of water, 10 cl of oil and half a teaspoon of turmeric. And for the stuffing, count 1 kg of ricotta, the grated zest of two Menton lemons, three tablespoons of lemon jam, 50 g of almond powder, 50 g of candied lemon zest and 70 g of sugar. Don’t forget the frying oil bath, of course. Come on, I believe. Hm, the dough is good. It’s not greasy at all. Okay, so it’s just that the texture hasn’t absorbed the oil. That’s the main thing. No. It’s delicious because the ricotta isn’t cooked at all. It doesn’t have time to cook. It’s protected by the dough. So it’s fresh. It’s creamy, there’s that milky side. Okay. In contrast to the crispy biscuit, it’s very good. And the lemon is there. Sweet barbageans are really worth the detour, believe me. [Music] Okay, now we’re leaving the south and its gentle way of life, its temperate climate. To go back north and more precisely to Paris where I have an appointment at the Ringis international market, I have to meet Jean-François Chemouni, a specialist in exotic fruits and vegetables. So obviously the man for the job when we’re talking about citrus fruits. Well, between us, the problem will be finding him in this maze of greenery. It seems that there is even bicycles to cover the dozens of kilometers that make up the aisles of this famous market. Well, we’ll see. For now, there’s still a bit of road to go. Micheline. [Music] For once, I’m the chef of the day, supported by Jean-François, a choice kitchen boy. He challenged me to prepare a dessert with three original citrus fruits. Citronuzu from Japan, caviar lemon, and Buddha’s hand. Right in the heart of the flower market, our friend Léa welcomes us to cook them. You see, I was thinking of a cream based on your lemon there, your yuzu. It’s like buttercream but much fruitier, lighter. So, maybe you could finely slice Buddha’s hand and then we’ll preserve it in a syrup. So, it’s completely improvised. Actually, there’s not much juice in the yuzu. No, there are a lot of seeds, though. It has a lot of seeds and not a lot of games. What made you get into this profession? Because it’s not a common specialty. I actually found it exciting to sell products that no one knew. Yeah. And it was also to escape the routine because you’re forced, you have a necessity to travel. There you go. Jean-François has the finely sliced Buddha’s hand preserved in a syrup. Water and sugar, though. For my part, I continue preparing the cream by adding four whole eggs and four yolks to which I incorporate the sugar and the passion fruit. You’ll see, little by little, it will thicken. Then, you add the butter off the heat as if you were actually whipping buttercream and it will make a thick cream that will have a bit of the texture of lemon tart cream, you know, a little less set. Okay. In fact, it’s like a custard. When you stir, by the way, we’re going to turn off the heat. When you stir and the cream doesn’t turn, you see, after you put your whisk on, you see, you turn it and hey presto, it stops right away. As soon as you remove the spoon or the whisk, it stops turning. That means it’s set. In fact, it’s not complicated. So now, we’re going to add butter off the heat. I do it a bit with a ladle. And you, how’s it going? Ah, that’s funny. They’ve changed, they’ve changed color. It’s magnificent. It’s true. Okay, so we’ll let that cool. How are you doing? Anyway , we’ll let it cook throughout the meal and at the end we’ll put Buddha’s hand like that, sticking out of the pan. It’ll be hot and cold, it’s not so bad. And we’ll also add the finger lime. Okay. For this Yuzu Passion cream with crispy shortbread that we’ll finalize at the last minute, you’ll need to find 80g of Yuzu juice for the cream, which is the juice of 3 to 4 fruits and the zest of two of them. 100g of sugar, 120g of butter, four whole eggs, and finally, two large passion fruits. For the shortbread that you can make at home with the following ingredients, I opted for a Poitou crush for ease. All that’s left to do is dress the plate with the crush, a few thoughts for their color, without forgetting our strange candied Buddha’s hand and the famous finger lime. Thank you Julie for making it so well in any case. A combination of exotic fruits where citrus fruits awaken the taste buds and will detonate our conves. [Music] And to finish, as always on our roads in France, it’s with a chef that we’re going to close our citrus notebooks this time. I have an appointment at the very chic Hôtel Meris located in Paris opposite the Jardin du Lourd where pastry chef Cédric Grelet has created a rather downright frosty dessert. Well, I won’t tell you any more. A great talent in pastry making, Cédric Grelet has an overflowing imagination combined with high-flying technique. Each of these creations has been thought out, designed and can take up to a year to develop. For this creation, he was inspired by his childhood and sought to recreate a beautiful lemon from scratch, but in his own very palace way. Uh, the citrus subject, It’s super interesting. So I chose lemon, to preserve the taste, the color. So in fact, I structured it with a chocolate shell. Inside, we’ll have a little lemon mousse. Then, we’ll have a candied lemon marmalade inside, which will really be stuck in the middle. So, a very technical visual aspect, but inside, lots of deliciousness. Cédric starts his recipe with the heart of the dessert, the candied lemon marmalade. So we’ll start heating the lemon juice. [Music] We add the lemon juice little by little to avoid lumps. We’ll boil it for two minutes. Once it’s boiled, we’ll keep it in the fridge. Thanks to the lemon juice, which acts as a gelling agent, the juice will solidify. Cédric can then rework this material by mixing it for a long time and obtain a very creamy texture . We’ll mix all the candied lemons inside. The Menton lemon really suited my choice because we actually had a slightly harder, slightly thicker skin. We’ll finish with the caviar lemon. That’ll give us a bit of a fireworks effect. The almond will also diffuse. Cédric’s team prepared the intermediate part of the dessert. A ganache made with creams, Yuzu juice, white chocolate, and a touch of gelatin. So, we’ll pipe a little mousse at the bottom of the mold and add the insert. Cédric will put his preparation in silicone molds using a piping bag. We’ll heat it a little. We’ll add the insert, and that way the mousse and the insert will blend well. We’ll pipe the cream and turn the tray. A technical gesture to ensure that there are no air bubbles and that the heart of the lemon is in the center. After refrigerating the lemon balls, Cédric moves on to the last and most artistic step: sculpting the fruit, which will make each piece unique. When I was much younger, uh, and I sculpted a lot of chocolate, it was fascinating to make custom pieces. It’s really exactly what I’m looking for. I really feel like my job takes on meaning because my hands will truly sculpt the lemon to measure and keep its simplicity. My idea was to represent what nature gives us. Once both sides of the lemons are shaped, Cédric will coat them with a layer of white chocolate and soluble powdered food coloring . It’s very, very important to dip it only once and above all that there are no smudges, that it’s smooth. There, you saw, it sets extremely quickly. Cédric tackles the reproduction of the granulated skin of the lemon. The technique is high-tech since everything is done by spraying with a gun. We splashed the chocolate against the very cold chocolate shell. We have a velvety side but not a lemon pot. He now sprays a very hot sugar syrup. There, I can see with my naked eye that my lemon poau is being built. A final splash of gold powder and the lemon appears. [Music] The pastry chef pushes the refinement to the point of sticking a real lemon leaf on his givret. He lightly heats the chocolate shell and cools the whole thing with a spray. A goldsmith’s work. There were so many steps on this subject, I’m not going to add the artifices in the dessert and on the plate. And there you go. There you go . [Music] I don’t smell sugar, I smell freshness and lemon and the length of the mouth compared to the mthe which seasons and gives a little something extra. Here is our finished lemon. Julie, it’s missing you. I invite you to come and taste my ripe lemon. And the cutting of the frosted lemon reveals all the complexity of the assembly. Thank you Cédric for this gourmet version of frosted lemon. And between us, we all have our Madeleine de Prou and for me, the frosted lemon is one of them. Well, this one is still very elaborate. And I accept this invitation. With pleasure, Cédric. Well, that’s it, that’s the end of our notebooks, but don’t hesitate tomorrow Sunday to take a stroll around the market, to get into the kitchen to remake this Catalan-style guinea fowl, these barbage or this tart with, of course, frosted lemon. See you soon for new recipes. Bye! [Music]