Porridge

Obviously there is not much difference between porridge made on a woodstove and porridge made elsewhere. Indeed I am even prepared to allow that porridge can be conveniently made in the microwave. But there is something so soothing about making it extraordinarily slowly on the woodstove (as the stove cranks up the heat following its overnight slumber) that I feel it is worth mentioning.

I still have some supplies of oats brought from Blighty on my last trip but I discover that it is also available at vast expense in the "English section" of the supermarket. Yes, we have our own section, with marmalade, custard powder, marmite and other such exotica.

This is my favourite kind:

Mainly because it's so cheap.

Also I am including porridge to show that peasant cooking isn't restricted to funny foreigners - it's alive and well in the British Isles. But here in France us peasants are very well catered for. For example, there is not a single house in this village which doesn't have its allotted vegetable plot. Not always attached to the house, but always with a few fruit trees, maybe a few vines, a place to store tools and wood and a water supply. Some of us even have a piece of woodland for our fuel supplies, too.

Anyway, back to porridge. I make mine with water as I don't like cow's milk, I use only a tablespoonful of oats to half a pan of water and I simmer it so slowly it hardly seems to be cooking at all. The stove is hotting up with the first oxygen intake of the day and a nice fresh log added to the night watchman, meanwhile I check my email and drink coffee.

You can add some other superfoods too, I like flaxseeds (added with the oats) and blueberries (added later). If you buy frozen blueberries it is surprisingly economical. Also they turn the porridge a pleasing and unexpected imperial purple.

Some other things your woodstove can do for you

Sit on the little stool and put some more wood on the fire. Or just sit there and admire the ever-changing landscape of shifting logs, blue and gold flames and red embers.

Make coffee on the hottest part of the stove. At the side, where it's a little cooler, put a wok upside down, fold your newly washed tea towels (pillowcases, towels, sheets...) and leave them until dry. Hey presto, perfectly ironed too! (And you would never catch me ironing a tea towel under any normal circumstances)

Keep a kettle on the side. Need a hot water bottle? Voila!

Dry orange peel on the top of the stove. Keep it for firelighters...

I'm still finding new things to do with my stove, and I love it.

Risotto

My husband and I are in many ways chalk and cheese. I like my woodstove and vegetable garden and piles of second-hand crockery. He likes minimalism and technology and plain white plates and keeping things as simple as possible. This is by way of explaining that the chicken which was the mainspring of this dish was roasted the day before by my husband, in his microwave. I know it's shocking, but I have to tell the truth.

I collected the bones after it had been demolished and kept the remaining meat (which is not that much after the husband has been at it). Then I simmered the bones on my stove for several hours with a bayleaf, an onion, a carrot and a branch of lemon thyme. The chicken had been "roasted" (if you can call it that) in a bag with a lemon up its fundament, so I decided to give a lemon flavour to the risotto.

When the stock was ready I put some butter in my heavy frying pan and gently fried some garlic for a minute, then added the rice (quantity? Half a packet..?) and stirred it round. More lemon thyme (leaves only), and a bit of chopped sage. After a few minutes I added the juice of a lemon, gave it half a minute and then I started to add the stock, which was genuinely SHIMMERING in its pot next to the frying pan. This is something I have never achieved on a conventional cooker, as I can't get the burner low enough. But you can always find a spot on the woodburner which is just the temperature you require.

Then I sat and played Scrabble on Facebook because my laptop is right next to the cooker, on the kitchen table. Perfect. Every few minutes (between moves) I hopped up and added a couple of ladlefuls of stock. As soon as the rice has absorbed all the liquid, you add some more.

One continues in this way until the rice (which should of course be arborio rice, but never mind if you have the wrong kind, it is not essential) is perfectly cooked, i.e. still has a bite to it.

If you run out of stock, you can always add water. But please don't use a stock cube. Please.

Then you add whatever else you fancy - the chicken meat of course, peas are nice and give a bit of colour, wild mushrooms (I used dried ones, which had soaked for half an hour) .... and cook for another ten minutes or so.

It was delicious, and there was enough left over for me to have for breakfast the next day. Cost: negligible.

Note: This cannot be achieved in a microwave.

Cassoulet

Today - well, today and yesterday - I made my first cassoulet. This classic peasant food can of course be bought in handy tins in all French supermarkets, but I felt it was time to try to make the real thing.

The first thing you do is to soak the beans - any kind of dried white beans will do, but haricot beans are traditional. I used half a packet (about 250 grams) and it was not nearly enough - next time I will use double the amount... so that would be a whole packet...

(The great thing about this peasant cooking is that quantities and timings are entirely flexible!)

So, you soak the beans in cold water overnight (no salt, as it hardens the skins and prevents the beans from cooking) and the next day you simmer them on top of the cooker with bayleaves, unpeeled garlic, thyme, parsley and peppercorns for about an hour, until soft but not mushy. I was told by my recipe to add a piece of pig fat but didn't have any to hand.

Meanwhile in another pan, which needs to be a good and big (I use an enamelled cast iron one) you fry some lardons or bits of fatty bacon and some chopped up shallots or onion. Then when they are browning you chuck in a glass of wine and wait for it to be absorbed by the onions. Then you are supposed to take the   bacon and onion out before you fry the meat, but I didn't bother - I just chucked the sausages in (four fat Toulouse sausages)

Next you can put in different kinds of meat - lamb chops, pork chops etc but I cheated and used confit duck legs from a tin, saving the fat to roast potatoes another day.

Then when the meat was brown I tipped in the beans with their cooking liquid (removing the herbs and peppercorns) and added more wine, salt, pepper and some tomato paste. The beans should be covered with liquid.

When it boils it can go in a lowish oven (120 - 150 degrees C) for a couple of hours.

There's a lovely topping that goes on this dish - made of breadcrumbs and parsley and garlic - but I was too exhausted to do it today. But there's tons left over (even though my husband had three helpings) and I may make it to go on top of the leftovers when I heat them up tomorrow....

Update: I did the topping for the leftovers and it is certainly worth the effort, even of grating a baguette with a cheese grater...

Christmas cake

I'm creating this blog for anyone who, like me, is interested in cooking with a woodstove. I have recently acquired one, and it combines my passions for peasant cooking and playing with fire.

Wood is undoubtedly an ecologically sound fuel for heating, particularly here in France where it only travels a few miles at most from felling to burning. When I was replacing the inefficient woodburner in my tiny French house (my only heat source apart from an emergency backup electric radiator - but I do have an electric blanket too!) I decided to get a cooker as this way I would be able to cook my meals at what my husband calls "zero marginal cost".

However, I'm still very much a novice, and this blog is my learning curve...

One of the first things I have made in the oven is a Christmas cake. I used to have an Aga many years ago so I used the wonderful Mary Berry's recipe from the Aga cookbook. I modified the recipe, using rum rather than sherry, and omitting the cherries in favour of preserved ginger, chopped prunes and a bit of dried pineapple. (I'm thinking - caribbean twist...)

I didn't use an Aga cake baker, I just put in in the oven at 110 degrees C and anxiously monitored the temperature for the next five hours, putting on another log, letting more air in, closing the vents etc. It was much easier than I had feared. The stove was extremely good-tempered and well-behaved and I even managed to keep it hovering around the right temperature. I could see that the cake was cooking as it should, thanks to the glass door, and - crucially - not burning. Eventually after five and a half hours I thought it looked okay, and tested it with a skewer - it was perfect! Of course, the taste test is yet to come (I will keep you posted) but I feel ever so slightly triumphant.

Will be feeding it with rum for the next few weeks. Bring on Christmas!