I'm on the mailing list for a web site called La Cuisine de Jackie. Unless I'm mistaken, Jackie is a woman from Québec who lives in France. She posts recipes almost daily, and often they look really good. Her recipe for Daube de veau à la niçoise inspired me, so I made what I have always called Veau aux olives — I've made it before — following her recipe. A daube is a stew of meat and vegetables cooked à l'étouffée ("smothered"), a specialty of southern France. The best-known daube is made with beef.
This daube de veau is described as being cooked à la niçoise because one of the ingredients is black olives, which are a specialty of the city of Nice. The other ingredients, besides veal shoulder, are onions, garlic, spices, herbs, tomato, white wine, and concentrated veal stock (fond de veau, sold in France is powdered form).
We had the stew called a daube de veau with pasta. After it had cooked for about 90 minutes, I tasted the sauce and thought it needed a little sweetness, so I added about half a cup of red wine and let that cook down. That made it better.
Veal "roasts" like the one above are a standard item in our supermarkets here in Saint-Aignan. It's not a roast for cooking in the oven, but a pot roast described as à mijoter (to be braised, simmered). Veal pot roasts are not especially expensive at about five dollars U.S. per pound. You can cook the roast whole, or you can untie it and cut it up into cubes. Sauté them in olive oil, take them out of the pan, and sauté the onions and garlic in the same pan. Add crushed tomatoes, wine, herbs, and spices. Put the veal back in and simmer the daube, covered, for two or three hours to tenderize the meat. Add the olives about 15 minutes before serving. We don't pit them before cooking them.
P.S. I just remembered and found a similar veal recipe called Aillade de veau that I posted in 2018.
It would be very good made with boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
It would be very good made with boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
I ran Jackie's recipe for the daube de veau through Google Translate. Here's the result:
ReplyDeleteNice-style veal stew
500 g braising veal
1 can (400 g) crushed tomatoes
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. tablespoons olive oil
4 basil leaves
1 celery leaf
1 small sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 whole cloves (or a pinch of powdered cloves)
1 teaspoon of veal stock
10 cl of dry white wine
100 g of black olives
In 1 cast iron casserole dish, heat 3 tbsp. tablespoons of olive oil, and brown the pieces of veal on all sides. Reserve the meat in a dish.
Add 1 c. tablespoons of olive oil in the pan and sauté the chopped onion for approx. 5 minutes, stirring, then add the pressed garlic cloves and brown for another 2-3 minutes.
Deglaze with 10 cl of white wine and add the tomatoes, with their juice, herbs, spices and veal stock. Then put the pieces of veal back in the pan. Check the seasoning and, if necessary, add a little hot water so that the meat is just covered with the sauce. Cover and simmer 50 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the pitted black olives to the sauce. Mix gently. Let simmer for another 15 minutes covered. Check the doneness of the meat, which should come off easily.
Serve with pasta.
As long as there is wine in it, I’ll like it. I’d put pitted green olives in addition for color and taste. My mouth is watering. Oh!, it’s delicious!
ReplyDeleteHave you ever tried deepl.com for translation? It’s very good. It’s part of Linguee. Needs very little editing, if at all.
Important : Deepl is free!
DeleteI went to the deepl web site and saw that they would want me to pay $20/month.
DeleteLooks delightful
ReplyDeleteTasty! I had to google how to pronounce daube. My French is getting rusty like the tin man.
ReplyDeleteThat looks so good!
ReplyDeleteI have two questions.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a celery leaf? A green one (that you never see in the States) or a pale yellow one. In France the celery you buy is complete with all the leaves. I use them as well as the stalks.
What good one teaspoon of veal stock would do to the all daube? I would understand 1 cup or 2 cups, as needed, but one teaspoon? Better than hot water? No?
The teaspoonful of fond de veau is a teaspoonful of powder that you buy in little tins at the supermarket. You mix it with cold or warm water to reconstitute it. It contains starch which helps thicken the sauce slightly. Everybody uses fond de veau and fond de volaille powder in France. AFAIK, nobody uses it in the U.S. As for the celery leaf, that stumped me too. But I too use celery leaves in my cooking, as well as stalks. I just put in the top of a stalk that had 3 or 4 leaves attached. Walt and I both like the taste of celery. You can't let details like "celery leaf" stop you cold when you want to make something good for lunch.
DeleteThank you for the answers.
DeleteProbably, the top of a stalk would be understood as a leaf, but still confusing.
As for the traspoon, that makes sense when you know it’s a measure of dehydrated fond de veau. It probably means a cup or maybe two of actual fond de veau when rehydrated in the dish.
Good idea to dehydrate fond de veau or the likes. It saves room and can last a very long time as a powder.