French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [82]
If you happen to have obtained mackerel with soft roes, which are very good, poach the roes separately after the mackerel have cooked, for a minute or two only.
CÉLERIS AUX ANCHOIS
CELERY WITH ANCHOVY SAUCE
Pound the contents of a 2 oz. tin of anchovy fillets in oil; to the resulting paste add a little pepper, olive oil and vinegar. Serve in a bowl accompanied by celery hearts cut into short lengths and left to get crisp in iced water for an hour.
MOULES EN SALADE
MUSSEL SALAD
Mussels, cooked and shelled, are dressed with a straightforward oil and vinegar or lemon dressing, or with any of the cold oil-based sauces described in the chapter on sauces. They can also be mixed with rice cooked and seasoned as for the rice and tomato salad on page 151.
CREVETTES COURCHAMPS
Serve plain cooked prawns with the same sauce as the one described for lobster on page 325, pounding a couple of prawns into the sauce instead of the lobster coral.
PLATEAU DE FRUITS DE MER
A big dish of assorted shellfish, some cooked, some raw, all arranged on a bed of cracked ice and seaweed with halves of lemons is one of the best of all hors-d’œuvre, but comes very much into the luxury class nowadays. But if we cannot afford oysters and cannot obtain the various kinds of exquisite little clams, the praires, the palourdes and the clovisses which one gets in France and Italy, there is nothing much wrong with a dish of freshly boiled shrimps, a few Dublin Bay prawns, a few cockles or winkles, and mussels cooked as for moules marinière, with the addition of a little oil. The giant Pacific prawns now available at a very reasonable price retain more of their flavour after freezing than the Dublin Bays or ordinary prawns; if bought uncooked, simmered in an aromatic court-bouillon for a few minutes and served piled up, still in their shells, with a mayonnaise separately, they make a very good hors-d’œuvre. They are very filling, and 2 to 4 per person should be enough, although it depends rather on what is to follow.
ŒUFS DURS MAYONNAISE
EGG MAYONNAISE
It may seem superfluous to give a recipe for so basic a dish as egg mayonnaise, but sometimes, in the search for originality, the most obvious dishes are forgotten. No one need ever be ashamed to offer their guests a well-made dish of egg mayonnaise, for it is always appreciated.
Having prepared a generous amount of really good thick mayonnaise according to the recipe on page 120, arrange it spoonful by spoonful on a flat oval or round dish. On top go the shelled hard-boiled eggs, cut in half lengthways and placed cut side down. Then the smallest possible sprinkling of very finely chopped parsley and absolutely nothing else whatever.
This is a filling dish, and 3 eggs for every two people should be more than enough.
ŒUFS DURS EN TAPÉNADE
An interesting Provençal hors-d’œuvre.
To make the tapénade, called after the capers (tapéno in Provençal) which go into it, the ingredients are 24 stoned black olives, 8 anchovy fillets, 2 heaped tablespoons of capers, 2 oz. of tunny fish, olive oil, lemon. juice.
Pound all the solid ingredients together into a thick purée. Add the olive oil (about a coffee-cupful, after-dinner size) gradually, as for a mayonnaise, then squeeze in a little lemon juice. It is an improvement also to add a few drops of cognac or other spirit, and sometimes a little mustard is included in the seasoning. No salt, of course.
Spread the prepared sauce in a little flat hors-d’œuvre dish, and put 6 to 7 hard-boiled eggs, sliced in half lengthways, on the top. The curious thing about this sauce is that it has a kind of ancient, powerful flavour about it, as if it were something which might perhaps have been eaten by