Peeled garlic - Broken Sphere/Wikimedia Commons
Try this authentic recipe for a garlic soup straight from the Perigord region of France. Impress your guests, call it Touraine a l'ail.
This is about as authentically French as garlic soup gets. This recipe was given to me by a neighbour in the medieval Dordogne village of Limeuil, near Sarlat. She assured me it had been given to her by her mother, so goodness knows how far back this touraine a l’ail goes. A touraine is a soup which is thickened at the last cooking stage by adding a mixture of egg yolks and vinegar......
So here goes.
Your ingredients.
- A head (yes, a head, not a clove) of garlic for each diner
- A small onion, or half of a larger one. (You don’t want onion taking over the flavour)
- 2/3 tablespoonfuls of olive oil ( or the equivalent of goose fat if you can lay hands on it.)
- 1 tablespoonful of plain flour
- One and a half pints of good chicken stock (vary this according to the density of the soup you want. Start with a smaller quantity; you don’t want the soup to be too thin)
- 3 egg yokes
- 4 tablespoonfuls of red wine vinegar
Method
- Peel all your garlic cloves (yes, it takes time but the end product is worth it!)
- Dice the onion.
- Sweat the garlic and onions gently in the olive oil/goose fat for about 5 minutes until they turn a light golden colour. Do not overheat!
- Add the flour and cook gently again for a further 5 minutes
- Add your chicken stock, stirring to keep the mixture from going lumpy.
- Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat as far as you can go. Some books will tell you to simmer for about half an hour, but personally I find that the longer the time and lower the temperature, the better the soup. A gentle hour’s simmering seems best to me.
- Now here you have to make a decision. Do you like your garlic soup smooth or as it comes? My own taste is to put the whole lot through a liquidiser and return to the pot.
- Ten minutes before you want to eat, re-heat gently the mixture.
- In a separate bowl whisk together your egg yolks and your vinegar, adding a warm ladle-full of the soup itself.
- Now add this egg/vinegar mix to the soup itself, stirring all the time. In a few minutes, the soup will acquire a beautiful creamy texture. (Do not overcook/overheat at this point or the mixture will begin to resemble scrambled eggs...) If the soup still looks too thin, take another 2 egg yolks, whisk them then add gently to the soup.
Voila, as Madame Magar would have said, the perfect Touraine!
Bon appétit!
Copyright Christopher Nicol. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
Christopher Nicol - I've spent most of my life teaching English language and literature in the English, Scottish, French and American systems. Along the way, ...
