I just started serving this new dish at Cafe Campagne  petit’ sale aux lentils.

it is a variation on a traditional dish of the Lyon region, as we run a program called French 101 at Cafe Campagne consisting of changing 3 course menus for a month at a time or so.

The dish actually started out as a charcuterie project.  I love the taste of pork hock and wanted to do something to capture the fantastic flavor that comes from the long simmer of the connective tissue and ligaments.  I placed  the hocks in a brine, then cooked them in a vacuumed bag  with mirepoix for several hours.  When the cooking was complete and the hocks were sufficiently tender, I pulled the bone from the center and dressed the insides with minced shallots, parsley and red wine vinegar.  I reshaped, pressed and refrigerated the hocks.  The finished product was sliced and dressed with a simple vinaigrette. It reminded me of several meat salads I had had in France-pigs ears and snout and beef nose/snout.

Anyway, every time I was assembling this item I would nibble on the hot meat just out of the bag and the flavor and texture was so good it would make my toes curl.   I thought,  I gotta put this on the menu as a hot item. The aroma was fantastic and the flavor and textures were so satisfying.

Here is a pic of the finished product and my challenge to my twitter followers.

“If u think u r man or woman enough, step up to Cafe Campagne’s French101 special petit’ sale aux lentilles”