Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [211]
In the Physiologie du Goût, Brillat-Savarin tells the story of how Madame B, a society beauty who occupied herself with good works, called on a curé one evening in the poor part of Paris. He was dining at an unfashionably early hour, and welcomed her to join him. Poor and unfashionable he may have been, but he ate well (and copiously). After he had finished a salmon trout, the housekeeper brought in a tuna and carp roe omelette which smelled and tasted so good that Madame B could talk of nothing else at the dinner she went on to.
I thought the story much exaggerated – until I tried the omelette. Admittedly herring roes had to stand in for carp, and canned tuna for fresh, but the result was still superb.
Serves 4
250 g (8 oz) soft roes
6 tablespoons butter
1 small shallot, finely chopped
125 g (4 oz) fresh or canned tuna, chopped
salt, pepper
8 eggs, beaten
maître d’hôtel butter*
Pour boiling water over the roes and leave for a few seconds to become slightly firm. Drain and chop roughly. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a pan, and cook the shallot gently until soft. Add the tuna and stir for a few seconds, then add the soft roes. After a moment or two, remove the pan from the heat: the roes must stay creamy. Season and cool. Stir into the seasoned eggs. Using the 2 remaining tablespoons of butter, make the omelette in the usual way – or make four smaller omelettes. Don’t overcook; omelettes should be just liquid in the centre. Spread the maître d’hôtel butter on a warm dish and place the omelette(s) on top. Serve immediately. The heat of the omelette should melt the butter into a sauce.
THE FISHMONGER’S TUNA
Around Trôo, there is a market almost every day of the week, in one or another small town, which means that we know exactly which day we may be invited out for a meal in any particular area. Or which day to choose, if we are given a choice. Tuesday means Château-Renault where there is a good convivial fishmonger, and one September lunchtime we were given this dish by a triumphant friend who had acquired the recipe that morning as her purchases were being wrapped. Most of the vegetables came from her huge kitchen garden. It was very much an autumn country lunch, a small harvest festival.
Serves 6
¾–1 kg (1½–2 lb) tuna slices
salt, pepper, cayenne
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced
500 g (1 lb) chopped onion
250 g (8 oz) sliced carrots
about 500 g (1 lb) aubergines, sliced, salted
about 500 g (1 lb) small courgettes, sliced, salted
about 500 g (1 lb) tomatoes, skinned, seeded, chopped
1–2 red peppers, toasted, skinned and cut in strips
wine vinegar
sugar
about 60 g (2 oz) black olives
chopped parsley and basil or green coriander
Season the fish with salt, pepper and cayenne and leave for 30 minutes. Heat a large sauté pan with a thin layer of olive oil in it. Add the garlic and onion, with the carrot. Cook slowly until the onion is tender. Push to one side and gently cook the tuna 3 minutes on each side. Put it onto a warm serving dish and keep it in a low oven, where it will continue to cook through very very slowly – gas ½, 130°C (250°F).
To the pan, add the remaining vegetables. Cook down to a thick sauce. Season, add a splash of vinegar if you like and a little sugar if the vegetables are watery in flavour. Pour over and round the tuna. Scatter with olives, parsley and basil or coriander. Serve with rounds or triangles of bread rubbed with garlic and fried in olive oil.
VARIATION You could substitute parboiled small new potatoes for the aubergines, and increase the quantity of peppers and tomatoes in the vegetable stew, which is a kind of Ratatouille and variable.
† TURBOT
Rombus maximus
One thing I do resent – having to be in France, 240 km (150 miles) from the sea, before I can count on buying turbot. No doubt if I lived in London, things would be different, but like most of the population of these islands, I don’t. And yet turbot has been vaunted – until recently at any rate – as a national