French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [166]
REBOUL: La Cuisinière Provençale
MULET AUX OLIVES ET AU VIN BLANC
GREY MULLET WITH OLIVES AND WHITE WINE
A very simple and effective recipe which can be applied to many sorts of fish, including red mullet, sea-bream, sea-bass, whiting and mackerel; I have chosen grey mullet as an example because for some reason it is sold in this country at prices far below its true value, and represents something of a bargain.
For 2 medium-sized fish, each weighing approximately 1 lb. gross weight, the other ingredients are a coffee-cupful (after-dinner size) of olive oil, 2 or 3 tablespoons of white wine, a dozen stoned black olives, some slices of orange or lemon, and, if possible, a little piece of fennel—otherwise a sprig of thyme or a bayleaf.
Put the cleaned fish into a shallow oval fireproof dish, pour the oil over them, add your herbs, a sprinkling of salt and pepper and the white wine. Bake, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes in a medium oven, Gas No. 4, 350 deg. F.
Now add the stoned black olives and cook another 5 minutes. The mullet can be served in the dish in which they have cooked, or be transferred to a flat serving dish, in either case with their own juice and slices of orange or lemon arranged along each fish. May be served hot or cold.
RAIE AU BEURRE NOIR
SKATE WITH BLACK BUTTER
Skate, that spectacular fish which looks like some fantastic kite, has, when cooked in ideal conditions, a very fine flavour. It is one of the rare fish which is better kept for an interval of two to three days after it has been caught rather than eaten fresh from the sea but, since the circumstance of having too fresh a skate is scarcely likely to arise in most people’s lives, it is more important to know that the creature should reach the kitchen as soon as possible after the requisite wait of two or three days, for stale skate can be disastrous, and because of the powerful ammoniac smell which it gives out some fishmongers do not care to buy it. In England a good deal is sold to the fried fish shops, but poached and served with browned foaming butter according to the well-known French recipe, it can be a real treat.
The common skate, raie batis, and the thornback, raie bouclée, are the two varieties of skate most often to be found in French markets and here, and these fish are extraordinarily voracious. M. Donies, author of a manual called Les Poissons de Mer, asserts that in the stomach of one monster specimen of the common skate were found two large plaice, a lobster, two mackerel, a thornback nearly half a metre long and a salmon. A well-nourished fish, in short.
Supposing that you have a piece of wing of skate, weighing 1 to 1 lb., the other ingredients are an onion, a few sprigs of parsley, vinegar and butter. You also need a pan sufficiently wide for the piece of skate to lie flat while cooking. Into this pan you put the skate, cover it completely with cold water, add a sliced onion, a couple of sprigs of parsley, a little salt and 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Bring gently to the boil, with the pan uncovered. Thereafter let it barely simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Lift it out and put it on a dish or board so that you can remove the skin and the large cartilaginous pieces of bone and divide the fish into 2 or 3 portions. This has to be done with some care, or the appearance of the fish will be spoiled. Transfer it to a fireproof serving dish, sprinkle it with chopped parsley, and keep it hot over a low flame while the black butter is prepared.
For this you put 2 oz. of fresh butter into a small frying-pan and heat it over a fast flame until it foams and begins to turn brown. At this precise moment, not sooner nor later, take the pan from the fire, for in a split second the butter will take on the deep hazel-nut colour which is beurre noir. (It should be only a little darker than beurre noisette, which is light hazel-nut colour.) Pour it instantly over the fish. Into the pan