So good that it "bends the face".
If we believe our different culinary books, the teurgoule, a very old Norman recipe, is so good that it "twists the ghoul" of pleasure, in other words, we make faces of joy by eating it (in Normandy, the "ghoul" is the face). Others say that it "twists the ghoul" because it is necessary to eat it very hot and that one burns the tongue a little... The main thing is that everyone says it is delicious. Nothing is more common than milk in Normandy. There is a real river of milk flowing there as the grass is so fat and makes the joy of the famous Norman cows with their pretty brown spotted dress. And this milk, whole milk ! Not light!
Cinnamon and rice came from afar to the ports of Normandy in the 19th century. Here, The port of Dieppe in Normandy (Seine-Maritine) painted around 1826 by William Turner (1775-1851)
The Normans had the idea of mixing their famous milk with things that were very original for the Normans of the 19th century and that arrived in the numerous ports of the region, notably Le Havre, Dieppe... Rice, cinnamon and vanilla came by boat at the end of the 18th century from far away places. It is perhaps one of the greatest culinary talents of France to be curious about new flavors and to assemble them together to make culinary marvels like teurgoule and many other dishes.
How to make a good teurgoule ? Our recipe :
For 6 people
The ingredients
- 140 g of round rice (you can take classic rice, but round rice is more crunchy) rather than arborio rice.
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 pinch of cinnamon
- 1 liter of whole milk, especially not semi-skimmed
- 90 g of brown sugar (you can replace it with caster sugar, but you'll have to do...)
- 1 pinch of cinnamon
- 25 grams of semi-salted butter
The Teurgoule: a good dish to be eaten while still warm / Photo by beats1/Shutterstock
The process :
- Start by preheating your oven to 150°C (roughly Thermostat 5).
- Take a pan and fill it with cold water
- Put the rice in it and bring to a boil for about 2 minutes (3 if you like soft rice).
- Put the rice in a colander, rinse it, and drain it.
- Take your vanilla bean and split it in half (lengthwise).
- With the tip of a knife, scrape out the seeds that are inside
- Take a saucepan (but a cast iron pot is better)
- Boil the milk and put in the vanilla seeds and the split pod.
- When the milk has boiled, take it off the heat, remove the vanilla pod
- Then add the rice cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar.
- Mix
- Put it in an oven dish, the best is an earthenware dish.
- Take 20 or 30 grams of butter (semi-salted is better) that you cut into small cubes that you put evenly on top of the dish
- Bake for 2 hours at 150°C, then 1 hour at 120°C
Tips :
Remember to regularly break the crust that forms on top of the dish.
You can add some candied citrus peels, it's not bad and it gives some taste. But plain is so good!
Sorry for the translation errors, our translator stayed a long time in Normandy to check that the recipe was good and he tasted a lot the famous cider of Normandy. He is still a little ... Drunk!
