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Writer's pictureMangia McCann

Coupètade: Breakfast in Southern France

2021 Tour de France - Stage 14: Carcassonne to Quillan


Today, the cyclists hit several hills and mountains as they trek through Southern France, still within the Languedoc-Roussillion region of France. Southern France is home to this lovely breakfast dish: Coupėtade, a bready, custardy fruity treat, typically served in a small dish call the coupet. While scrumptious on its own, top this with some powdered sugar and you will be in 7th heaven! I halved the recipe below and it was enough to serve 4 of us for breakfast along with some fresh fruit. I do not have a coupet, so I used a small, shallow baking casserole dish (10”x6.5”x2”) from Le Creuset.


Coupètade from French Regional Food, Joël Robuchon

  • 6 bread slices (slightly stale preferred)

  • 2.25 cups whole milk

  • Vanilla Pod

  • 6 eggs

  • 250g superfine sugar

  • 12 pitted prunes

  • 100g raisins

Place the bread in your baking dish and pour 1 oz of the milk over the bread. Let soak for about an hour. After about 45 minutes of soaking, prepare the remaining items, per below.


Preheat the oven to 350.


Pour the remaining milk into a small saucepan. Halve the vanilla pod, run a knife down the split halves to remove the vanilla beans from the pod and place everything (seeds and split halves) into the saucepan of milk. Heat over medium flame, until it just begins to boil. Remove from heat and remove the vanilla pod.


While the vanilla milk comes to a boil, whisk together the eggs and sugar until thoroughly combined. Whisk in some of the egg-sugar mix into the resting vanilla milk to temper, than transfer the milk into the eggs, whisking briskly, until combined.


Place 2 prunes on each slice of bread and sprinkle on the raisins. Pour the egg-milk custard mixture over everything and place in the oven to bake for about 30 minutes. The custard will start to bubble. Turn on the broiler and lightly brown the top.


Dust with powdered sugar, if desired, and serve.

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Copyright 2021, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.


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