Every day during the summer, at 6:56 am and 8:43 am, Marion Sauveur gives you an idea of ​​a recipe to cheer up your taste buds. Today, the picodon.

We rediscover our local products every day with Marion Sauveur on Europe 1. Today, we are going south of the Auvergne Rhône Alpes region: in Drôme and Ardèche. 

Two departments for a cheese: a small round puck, the Picodon. It is a goat cheese made with whole milk. Originally, it was called Picaoudou, it is Occitan and it means “spicy cheese”. Its spiciness, it develops as it matures. It can be tasted young, from 12 days. Some producers refine it up to 2 years by washing it with clear water, whey or wine ... ardéchois of course so that it retains a little flexibility! It is not for all palates.

But no need to wait as much: he begins to have a little character from a month. It is adorned with molds which will give it a little taste of hazelnuts and mushrooms. We choose it as a fruit: more or less white, rather melting or very brittle. On a cheese board, you can install several picodons, it's a real treat for the eyes and the taste buds!

Picodon is also famous for being the first cheese in space. Jean-Jacques Favier from Drôme took him on his mission aboard the American space shuttle Columbia. And summer is the best time to taste it: since goats give more fatty, more flowery milk, thanks to their pasture in the meadows.

How do you propose to cook this Picodon? 

In crème brûlée but not for dessert ... it's an appetizer!

Ingredients 

300 g Picodon

300 g whole fluid cream

4 egg yolks

25g brown sugar

Thyme

Pepper

Salt

For this recipe, you need a young picodon, not too refined. It is melted with whole cream and thyme over medium heat. Once the cheese is melted, remove the thyme and mix the cheese and the cream on the egg yolks. We pepper, we dirty and we mix everything! We put the mixture in ramekins and bake them for half an hour in the oven at 140 degrees and in a double boiler. It is cooked when the cream is taken.

Before serving, we add a little brown sugar and with the blowtorch we burn the creams! If you don't have a torch: you can put your creams back in the oven, in grill mode.

Do you have an address where you can eat Picodon crème brûlée without cooking? 

Yes, at Thierry Chalençon. The chef of L'Oiseau sur sa Branche à Saou, in the Drôme, uses the village Picodon. A tasty picodon to surprise at the end of a meal but not for dessert.