Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [23]
Meanwhile, soften the peppers with the garlic in the remaining butter over a low heat. When they are soft, add this mixture to the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Pour in the cream, Madeira and lemon juice to taste. Add the juices, much reduced, from the fish.
Arrange the fish on a serving plate or individual plates. Carefully pour the sauce round it, and arrange the pepper strips on top.
SKORDALIA
This is the Greek equivalent to the Provençal ailloli, made without egg yolks as it is a sauce eaten by tradition in Lent, with slices of aubergine and courgette, dusted with flour and fried, and with boiled beetroot and potatoes. On Clean Monday in Greece, the Monday after the last day of the Carnival, when everyone ate themselves to a stupor, it was served with salt cod soaked and deep fried in batter. Nowadays, skordalia often appears on Greek menus with all kinds of fish fried in batter. It is an improver of white fish in general, served hot or cold.
See p. 232 for recipes.
TAHINA CREAM SALADS
In cooking, as in much else, one homes continually on the Middle East as the central knot of our world. So in Claudia Roden’s A Book of Middle Eastern Food, one finds the ancestors of Escoffier’s walnut and horseradish sauce in the tarator sauce below, or in these sesame meal salads. I give her proportions.
1–3 cloves garlic
salt, about ½ teaspoon
150 ml (5 fl oz) lemon juice or juice of at least 2½ lemons
150 ml (5 fl oz) tahina (sesame seed) paste
½ teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
6 tablespoons chopped parsley or 2 only, to garnish
sliced hard-boiled eggs, to garnish
Mix first five ingredients in an electric blender or with a beater. Parsley in quantity can be mixed into the salad, or else the smaller amount can be used as a garnish with the egg.
Serve with baked fish or cold fish. Or serve on its own as an hors d’oeuvre, mixed with a tin of chopped, well-drained anchovies.
1 clove garlic
salt, about ½ teaspoon
150 ml (5 fl oz) lemon juice or juice of at least 2½ lemons
150 ml (5 fl oz) tahina paste
5 tablespoons ground almonds
5 blanched almonds to garnish
Mix first five ingredients in a blender or with a beater, using a little water to soften the mixture if necessary for creaminess. Turn into a bowl, and decorate with a daisy of whole almonds.
Serve with cold fish: John Dory, turbot, sole, cod.
125 g (4 oz) walnuts
2 cloves garlic
salt, about ½ teaspoon
3–4 tablespoons tahina paste
juice of 2 lemons
a little water if necessary
4 tablespoons chopped parsley
Mix as above, folding parsley in at the end.
Serve with fried mussels, baked fish or cold fish.
TARATOR SAUCE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
I usually make this recipe – from Claudia Roden’s book – with walnuts, in the Turkish style. This is because we bring them home by the kilo, every autumn, from our neighbour’s tree in France. After the hard work of the vintage is over, he finds walnut picking a pleasant job. The tree grows at the foot of a steep slope, and one suddenly sees his head, and the heads of nephews, cousins, and friends, popping out of the leaves like Jacks in the Green. Down below wife and children bash at the branches with sticks, and the nuts come raining to the ground. We munch steadily for days, walnuts with the new wine, walnuts with new bread, walnuts fried with apples to go with boudins noirs. And when I get back to England and electricity, we drink walnut soup and enjoy this sauce with fish; with the bass, bream or John Dory, mussels, or cod steaks to liven them up.
If your abundance happens to be hazelnuts, almonds or pine kernels, they can be used instead of walnuts.
2 slices white bread, crusts removed
125 g (4 oz) nuts
150 ml (5 fl oz) olive oil
3–4 tablespoons wine vinegar
1–2 cloves garlic, crushed
salt, pepper
Dip the bread in water and squeeze it dry. Crumble roughly and add to