Farcement Savoyard
May I introduce Le Farcement, the first savoury Savoyarde recipe that I have made WITHOUT CHEESE! Who knew there was a traditional recipe from this region and no cheese was involved!
Whilst this is a well-known Savoyarde speciality, it is not a dish I see on menus in the region. I haven’t seen it much in any of the local delicatessens, but it does appear in local recipe books and whilst I was browsing in The Sherpa (one of our local supermarkets) I picked up their little Mountain Recipe book – “Recettes des Nos Montagnes” and there is a recipe for it there. My recipe is based on this one.
HISTORY OF THE FARCEMENT
The Farcement Savoyard is part of the gourmet heritage of rural areas of The Val d’Arly an area that borders the Haute Savoie and the Savoie regions. This dish is traditionally served at weddings and on Sundays.
It is essentially a potato loaf with bacon and dried fruits cooked for several hours in a bain-marie. The Farcement Savoyard is made in a special mould with a chimney in the middle a “
RECIPE FOR FARCEMENT
Ingredients
1 ½
1 onion sliced
60 g butter
350g sliced smoked bacon
2 eggs
250g stoned prunes – halved
150g raisins
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
Mixture ready for the bacon lined mould 
pack the filling well into the mould 
cover the top with bacon
Method for making Farcement Savoyard
- Heat the oven to 170 C
- Peel and grate the raw potatoes – I used a food processor for this.
- Drain the grated potato and squeeze out the extra moisture.
- Put into a large bowl with the sliced onions, prunes, raisins and eggs. Season well with salt, pepper and some grated nutmeg and add half the butter melted.
- Butter the
farcement mould or dish with half the butter and line the mould with slices of bacon overlapping all the way around and allowing the edges to hang over the sides. Keep a few slices to go on top. - Fill the mould with the mixture pressing down well as you go.
- Bring the overhanging bacon over to cover the top and add a few more slices of bacon to completely cover the top.
- Cover with a piece of buttered foil and put into a roasting tin. Pour boiling water into the roasting tin around the mould until about three-quarters of the way up the side of the mould.
- Bake in the oven for 3 hours.
Serve hot with a green salad, a good fresh baguette and a Savoie wine. Either a crisp white like Apremont or Chignin-bergeron or if you prefer a red, perhaps a Mondeuse! I think both would work well. Bon Appetit…
I found a traditional French recipe that suggested you can slice the cooked
Another recipe suggested frying bacon lardons and adding them to the mixture. I also found a recipe that added dried pear and a little crème fraiche to the mixture. One recipe added 2 tablespoons of flour to the mixture, but I found it didn’t need the flour. So you can see there are a few variations to this recipe.
Next time I make it I would sauté the onions, add bacon lardons and splash a little wine to deglaze the pan and add this to the mixture!
Why not pin this recipe for later
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