Tourin à l’Ail

tourin à l’ail

Tourin à l’ail is a simple garlic soup from the Dordogne in France. The soup is made throughout Aquitaine with some variations known as Tourain Blanchi à l’Ail. There are also people who like to mix onion with the garlic. In Languedoc-Roussillon (on the opposite, Mediterranean coast), tourin is referred to as, Soup des Vendangeurs (grape picker’s soup) – it’s made with olive oil instead of fat and lacks flour. Thickening should take place when the garlic is heated gently in olive oil, similar to the emulsification of garlic and olive oil in ailoli. Tourin à l’ail is commonly served (for strength) to the bride and groom on their wedding night.

Tourin is said to be an ancient dish and in it’s basic form contains no stock, just water. The bread would be stale and without cheese. You can imagine it being cooked in a single pot, over a fire, perhaps in the fields at lunchtime by vegetable pickers. In many ways it’s similar to the Spanish sopa de ajo and Portuguese sopa seca – hot meals that fortified and sustained the workers. In Provence they make a very similar boiled garlic soup called Aigo Bouido (“boiled water” in Provençal) – garlic and potato soups are common in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.

garlic cloves

Tourin à l’ail recipe (serves 2):

20 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1 dessertspoon goose fat
1 dessertspoon plain flour
1 pint stock
1 large free range egg
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
croutons
cheese – Cantal or Gruyère (grated)
chives (garnish)

goose fat

Heat a dessertspoon of goose fat (duck or pork fat can also be used) in a suitable saucepan.

chopped garlic

Gently fry the chopped garlic in the not too hot fat.

blonde garlic

I love the French language in some of the tourin recipes, where they say, blondir les pétales d’ail – quite literally, blonde the garlic petals, so fry the garlic gently until it is golden and not brown!

roux

Stir a heaped tablespoonful of plain flour into the blonde garlic to make a roux.

stock

Slowly add a pint of stock to the roux, a little bit at a time and keep stirring. I used pheasant stock (onion, carrot, celery, garlic and herbs, with 2 pheasant carcasses). The most basic recipes for tourin contain water, while the deluxe versions use chicken or vegetable stock. Cook gently for 20 – 30 minutes.

egg white

Take the soup off the heat. Separate the free range egg, and beat the white. Whisk or stir this into the soup to former des filaments – make filaments.

egg yolk

Beat the egg yolk with the white wine vinegar and a few turns of black pepper. Temper the yolk, meaning whisk it, with half a cup of the warm soup to stop it going lumpy. Beat the tempered yolk into the soup and heat gently for 5 minutes to thicken it. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.

croutons

Traditionally people add pieces of stale bread to their tourin, but with this deluxe version it deserves croutons. These can be easily made in the oven, using cubes of stale bread, a little olive oil, chopped garlic and ground herbs with salt and pepper. Croutons will keep in an air tight container (refrigerated) for several weeks, or frozen for at least a year.

garlic soup

Cover the croutons with grated Cantal cheese, then float them on top of the soup and sprinkle with chopped chives. You get a fantastic tang from the cheese and hints of onion from the chives. I swear I tasted mushrooms, though there were none at all in the turin – mushrooms are rich in umami, the fifth Japanese taste – it’s what we call savoury.

Serve with a decent glass of claret, such as Château les Martins Cotes de Blaye.

“Towards the end of your soup you can faire chabrol – a fine Dordogne custom, still observed quite unselfconsciously by many a local as he eats his soup. In a posh restaurant I do not dare faire chabrol. But usually, out of the corner of your eye, you can see someone unconsciously bold enough to do so. Instead of completely emptying the soup bowl, the custom is to pour into the dregs of the soup a little red wine. The warmth of the soup releases the flavour of the wine, which in turn enhances the flavour of the bouillon, and the diner raises the bowl to his lips and happily drinks it down. In the days of Jacqou le Croquant the practice was deemed to promote all manner of physical well-being. And a patois rhyme still sings of it’s health giving properties:

Qu’ei lou chabrol que ravicolo
Qu’ei lou pu grand tous medicis.

(‘It’s chabrol which revives your strength/Which is the finest of all medicines.’)”

Quote from “Life and Food in the Dordogne” by James Bentley.

Faire chabrol (or chabrot), refers to the way in which goats lap their water!