Provençal recipe

Village-style liver crepinettes, or gayettes

Recipe no. 271 Reboul, 1909 Pork

Recipe no. 271 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 132.

Ingredients

Preparation

  1. Preparing the stripsCut 500 g of liver and as much fat into strips 7 to 8 cm long and 1 cm thick. Put them separately on 2 plates, season with salt, pepper and spices, add 3 or 4 chopped cloves of garlic and mix well.
  2. Filling the caul fatSpread on a table some caul fat soaked in lukewarm water and cut into 15 cm squares. Arrange on each a layer of fat then a layer of liver, alternating in this way for 5 or 6 layers and finishing with fat.
  3. Shaping and cookingFold the caul fat over and wrap it, tying with string, place in a gratin dish, cook in the oven for about half an hour. Serve generally cold.

Reboul's text

Take 500 g of pork liver and the same weight of fat. This fat should preferably be taken from around the intestines of the pig; it can be replaced by fresh bacon, but it is not as delicate.

Cut fat and liver into strips 7 to 8 centimetres long and a centimetre thick; put them separately on 2 plates, season with salt, pepper and spices, add 3 or 4 chopped cloves of garlic, mix the strips well in this seasoning.

Spread on a table some caul fat soaked in barely lukewarm water and cut into squares of 15 centimetres a side, arrange on each first a layer of fat, then a layer of liver; make 5 or 6 layers in this way, finishing with fat; fold over the caul fat and wrap it, tying with string; place them in a gratin dish, cook in the oven for about half an hour. These crepinettes are usually served cold.

Small Provençal glossary for this recipe

Reboul himself gives certain Provençal names in this recipe: gayettes. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the other words used, in mistralian spelling: each of these forms is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary, and the link opens the entry. Our dictionary does not yet attest the word gayettes: we therefore quote it as the author printed it, without adding a form of our own.

ProvençalEnglish
lardounstrips
crespinocaul fat
assabouraseason
chaplachop
bressolayers
enfeisselatie
gratingratin
couirecook in the oven

Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 271, page 132. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.