French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [175]
Have your aïoli ready in a big bowl or a jug over which you can fit a conical or other sauce sieve. Through this pour your hot sauce; quickly stir and amalgamate it with the aïoli. It should all turn out about the consistency of thick cream. Pour it over your fish fillets. On top strew a little chopped parsley and the dish is ready.
I know that all this sounds a tremendous performance, and indeed I wouldn’t recommend bourride for days when you have the kind of guests who make you nervous; but as a matter of fact when you have cooked it once (try it in half quantities, just for two) it all seems quite easy, and it’s a very satisfactory dish to be able to make.
Incidentally, I usually cook the potatoes and fry the bread while the fish is poaching; both can be kept warm in the oven, and then at the last minute you can give your undivided attention to the sauce.
LA BRANDADE DE MORUE
CREAM OF SALT COD
This is not really a dish to be made at home and, indeed, nowadays, the majority of housewives in the Languedoc and in Provence buy it ready made for Friday lunch at cooked food shops which specialise in it. There is one such shop in Nîmes, Raymond, 43 rue d’Avignon, from whence it is sent all over France. It is one of those dishes which you either like or detest. Personally, I find it delicious, although even then a little goes a long way.
Briefly, you must soak 2 lb. of salt cod in cold water for 12 hours at least. Drain and rinse it, put it into a pan of fresh cold water and bring it very gently to the boil, then remove it at once from the fire. Take out all the bones, flake the fish, add a crushed clove or two of garlic, and place over a low flame. In separate small saucepans have some olive oil and some milk. Keep all three saucepans over a flame so low that the contents never get more than tepid. Crushing the fish with a wooden spoon you add, gradually and alternately, a little milk and a little olive oil, until all is used up and the cod has attained the consistency of a thick cream. All this, however, is quicker said than done. It requires great patience and also considerable energy (the famous chef Durand, of Nîmes, who has a recipe in his book, published in 1830, specifies that two people are needed to make the brandade, one to pour, the other to stir and rotate the pan), and if you own a pestle and mortar, it is better to crush the fish first in this. It can be done in an electric mixer, which I believe is nowadays used by the people who make the brandade on a commercial scale. In south and south-western France, the brandade is usually to be found at the restaurants and in the cooked food shops on a Friday, but rarely on other days.
The brandade is served warm, surrounded by triangles of fried bread or pastry.
One of the nicest subsidiary dishes to be made with this creamed salt cod is œufs Bénédictine, poached eggs placed on top of the brandade and covered with sauce hollandaise.
Note: Salt cod should always be soaked and cooked in porcelain, glazed earthenware or enamelled vessels. Metal tends to discolour it. And if your brandade has oiled or separated, the remedy is to mix in a small quantity of smooth potato purée.
MORUE AUX TOMATES
SALT COD WITH TOMATOES
‘Skin 5 or 6 large tomatoes; remove the pips as much as possible; chop the tomatoes small. Melt a chopped onion in warmed olive oil; add the tomatoes and stir until most of their moisture has evaporated, add a tablespoon of flour, moisten with pint of stock or water; add a bouquet of herbs, 2 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, and continue cooking while the salt cod is prepared.
‘Take your soaked cod,24 scale it, cut into square pieces, roll them in flour and fry them in a deep pan of olive oil. When they are golden on both sides, remove and drain them on paper. Put them into the tomato sauce; simmer another 10 minutes before serving.’
MORUE EN RAYTE
SALT COD IN RED WINE SAUCE