French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [176]
One of the oldest dishes of Provence, traditional for Christmas Eve.
‘In a saucepan heat a few spoonfuls of olive oil; in this cook a finely chopped onion until it turns pale golden, add a good tablespoon of flour, stir it a few moments; add litre25 each of red wine and boiling water. Stir well and let it bubble; season with pepper, a little salt, add 2 cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, thyme and parsley tied in a bouquet, a tablespoon of concentrated tomato purée and cook until the sauce is fairly thick.
‘Having prepared your salt cod as explained in the preceding recipe, put the pieces in the sauce with 2 tablespoons of capers and cook another 10 minutes before serving.’
This and the preceding recipe are from Reboul’s La Cuisinière Provençale.
MORUE À LA PROVENÇALE
‘1 lb. of salt cod, plenty of shallots, garlic, parsley, onions, 2 lemons, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 oz. of butter, breadcrumbs, pepper.
‘The salt cod, soaked, cooked and drained, is arranged in a fireproof baking dish between two thick layers of chopped parsley, garlic, onion and shallots, with slices of peeled lemon, pepper, oil and butter. Cover with dried breadcrumbs; strew with little nuts of butter. Cook in the oven for an hour. Serve in the same dish.’
SOLANDRÉ: Six Cents Bonnes Recettes de Cuisine Bourgeoise
This is an excellent way of dealing not only with salt cod but with any coarse white fish, and with smoked cod fillets.
LE POISSON AU BEURRE BLANC
FISH WITH WHITE BUTTER SAUCE
Curnonsky, renowned throughout France as a gastronome, man of letters, writer on all culinary subjects, founder of a monthly food and wine magazine and perhaps more than any other one man responsible for the great revival of interest in regional food after the 1914 war, was himself a native of Anjou (his real name was Maurice-Edmond Sailland). This is what he says in one of his books, A l’Infortune du Pot, 1946, about the beurre blanc:
‘The high priestess of the beurre blanc was la Mère Clémence, Madame Lefeuvre Prault, who kept an auberge at Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, on the left bank of the Loire, five kilometres from Nantes. She vanished some years ago but the tradition of the beurre blanc has not been lost; and you can still taste it all over Anjou.
‘It is a sauce of exquisite finesse and lightness, discreetly seasoned with Angevin shallots; it wonderfully accompanies the pike and the shad of the Loire, and even some salt-water fish such as bass and whiting. . . .
‘Remember that the shallot must be, so to speak, volatilised in the vinegar, and that it should be no more than a remote presence. . . . Many gastronomes hold that there is a sort of sleight of hand in making this sauce, given only to Angevin cordons bleus—try and see if you can give them the lie.’
Well, first a suitable fish must be chosen as a vehicle for your sauce. Pike and shad don’t come our way often in England, but even in its own country they serve instead certain sea-fish—bass or whiting, as Curnonsky suggests, or turbot or sole; I have had it with Loire salmon at Tours and have heard of it being served with quenelles, with trout and even with lobster.
Whatever fish is chosen, it is nearly always poached in a white wine court-bouillon. The reduction of shallots and vinegar for the sauce can be prepared while the fish is cooking, but the addition of the butter must be left until the fish is actually ready and keeping hot on a covered serving dish.
Quantities for four people are as follows: 3 shallots, 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons of dry white wine, 6 oz. of finest quality butter, unsalted for preference.
Chop the shallots until they are almost a purée. Put them in a small saucepan with the wine and vinegar and cook until the shallots are completely soft and the liquid all but dried up. When this mixture has cooled, start adding the butter, about 1 oz. at a time. Keep over a very low flame and whisk for a few seconds. As soon as the butter looks like getting soft and melting, remove the pan from the fire, because at no time during the cooking