MEDITERRANEAN CURRENTS
« Cooking and Eating Mediterranean Style »
These are recipes from a roundtable on Mediterranean cooking at the FAWCO Regional Meeting hosted by AWGLR, 23 January 2010.
The first group is from Sue Rich, and the second from Phyllis B.
Enjoy!
5 February 2010
Brandade de Morue (Cod) Nîmes
4 people
500g dried salted cod 20 cl olive oil
20 cl milk 1 kg
2 cloves garlic salt and pepper
Soak the cod 24 hours, changing the water several times. In a saucepan,
cover fish with cold water, or half water half milk (in addition to the 20 cl),
with a bay leaf.. Bring to boiling point and simmer a few minutes. Turn
off heat and leave to poach 15’.
Drain cod and remove bones. Flake and put into a saucepan. Crush garlic
in a mortar and add. Stir well, gradually adding the warmed milk and olive
oil. Adjust seasoning.
For a more refined recipe, truffle can be added. In this case eliminate the garlic.
Serve warm with boiled potatoes. Mashed potato is sometimes mixed with the
cod, though this is not traditional.
Bourride de Baudroie (Monkfish) Sète
1 large monkfish
3 tbsp olive oil 1 branch fennel
1 large onion, chopped 5cm orange rind
2 tomatoes, skinned and seeded bay leaf, thyme,
2 cloves garlic salt, pepper
Aioli
1 egg yolk 25 cl olive oil
4 cloves garlic, sprouts removed salt, pepper
Make the aioli first. In a mortar, crush garlic to the consistency of a purée.
Add the egg yolk, salt and pepper. Little by little add the olive oil, mixing
as for a mayonnaise.
Gently fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil. Do not brown. Add tomato
and cook 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients (without fish) with 150 ml
of water and simmer 10-15 minutes. Add the monk-fish cut into 3-5cm pieces.
Cook gently, no more than 10’. Remove bay leaf and orange rind. Add half
the aioli to the sauce and stir till it thickens (without letting it boil !).
Garnish with sliced bread sautéed in olive oil and serve with boiled potatoes.
Serve the remaining aioli at the table.
Moroccan Chicken with preserved lemons
1 chicken 1g saffron
½ glass olive oil 2 cloves garlic
1 glass water 250g pitted green olives
2 medium onions 12 slices preserved lemons
1 bunch coriander salt, pepper
2 tomatoes
Cut the chicken into pieces. Brown in the oil and remove
from the pan. Chop the onions and fry them gently. Add the
peeled and seeded tomatoes, the garlic, saffron, chicken pieces
and the chopped coriander. Season and add the water. Blanch
the olives to remove excess salt, and add with the lemon slices.
Cook 20’. Place in a tagine, or else an earthenware dish covered
with aluminium foil pierced with a few holes. Cook 40’ in a
moderate oven. I usually serve it with couscous grain.
Gratin of Figs, Fresh Goat Cheese and Lemon Verbena
4-6 people
2 fresh mild goat cheeses 50g cream
500g fresh figs small bunch lemon verbena leaves
150g sugar 50g thinly sliced almonds
3 eggs
Beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the cream, the cheese and the chopped
verbena leaves. Cut the figs in quarters. Butter an earthenware dish, or
better still, individual dishes. Arrange the figs and pour over the cheese
cream. Do not cover the figs completely. Sprinkle with the almonds and
cook at 200°C or 7 for about 25’. Serve warm.
If you don’t have the lemon verbena leaves this is also good drizzled with
a little honey before cooking.
--Buy your products from food markets (not supermarkets) and try to shop as frequently as possible; freshness counts. By doing this you have the best fruits, vegetables, meats and fish, and as an added bonus you will have a relationship with the vendor who can advise you and give the very best available.
--Cook with the seasons! Fruits and vegetables are the very best during their season of growth and not outside of it!
--All Provençal cooking revolves around the use of olive oil, and the olive oil from Maussane, next to Les Baux de Provence in the heart of
But mostly she taught me that “food is love so share it with as many friends as possible.”
Phyllis B
PROVENCAL RECIPES
These are just a few of my mother-in-law’s recipes; enough to whet your appetites for more. Remember, each one should be done in the correct season! And when the recipe calls for olive oil, use the very best available to you, preferably that from the South of France
Tomatoes: (SUMMER) The two following tomato recipes are quite simple and quite good. However they should be done in summer (!) when the tomatoes are the ripest, and not from greenhouses.
Dead Easy Tomato Sauce – (I do litres of this during the summer and use it for everything including a chilled soup—a kind of a quasi-gaspacho (at which time I add a red bell pepper or two, depending on the quantity). This is for two kilos of tomatoes, but you can do much more, just adjust quantities.
Two kilos of ripe tomatoes
One or two large onions
3 or four garlic cloves (smashed with the flat side of a knife)
Lots of fresh basil
Lots of parsley
Thyme and one bay leaf
(I often add one RED bell pepper to spice it up, but optional)
Salt, pepper, thyme and one sugar cube (for the acidity of the tomatoes)
*Take a heavy pot (you can even use a pressure cooker without using the pressure).
Cut up the tomatoes in quarters, then add the cut up onion, red bell pepper, basil, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, salt pepper and sugar. NO OIL!!
Let it cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until everything is well cooked.
Pass it through a strainer (this is the longest, hardest part: you have to turn the handle until all the liquid is strained into a pan). Put it back into a pot and reduce it; if it’s for spaghetti sauce it should become quite thick, for a “soup” not as reduced. It can be frozen but I never have enough left over for that.
Tomato Provençal: This is delicious and excellent as a beginning dish, or an additional dish to a salad, or even as an hors d’oeuvres to begin
The ripest round medium-sized tomatoes
*Cut them in two, take out the seeds and place them on an oiled (olive oil) oven sheet, cut side up.
Dribble a bit of olive oil on each half, plus a pinch of salt and sugar.
Put into a medium oven (150) for 1 and a half hours, to two hours: the tomatoes should be “confites” or caramelized. Remove them from any juice that may have accumulated and place them on a flat serving dish. Sprinkle each half with a “persillade” made by very finely cutting up parsley and garlic with a sharp knife.
Anchovies: Not everyone loves anchovies but the provençals do. This is a simple dish that was served traditionally on Christmas eve in
Anchoiade: (this is both the name of the sauce and the complete dish.) (FALL AND WINTER)
For the sauce, or anchoiade:
*Place 15 or 20 anchovy filets in two or three Tablespoons red vinegar (we use Xeres Vinegar).
Put them in a shallow heavy dish that goes on the top of the oven burner and cook it on a low flame for a few minutes. (If you like garlic then you can rub this dish with garlic before placing the anchovies). Add ½ to ¾ glass of very best olive oil and bring everything to a simmer. Turn off the fire and serve it immediately with any or all of the following:
Endive leaves; cauliflower; hard boiled eggs;
DELICIOUS as a big starter dish, or main luncheon menu
Ratatouille – (SUMMER)
How could we not include this most famous of the Provençcal dishes? This can only be done from the end of June through September (at least in the South of France). Any other time and it will NOT BE GOOD!! The secret of a good ratatouille is that the ingredients are cooked separately and then cooked together at the end.
1 large onion or two small
5 (or more) garlic cloves
2 red peppers
4 zucchinis
5 (small) eggplants or 4 large ones
Some thick bacon cut up in pieces (poitrine salé in French)
1 TBL. olive oil
Basil, thyme, bay leaf, sugar, salt, pepper, parsley, one clove (optional: coriander)
In large pot cook pieces of the slab bacon (about 150 grams), then add the cut up onion(s), and 2 garlic cloves (smashed with the flat of the knife) Cook over low heat. Add peppers cut in rings, continue cooking, then eggplant with the skin removed and cut in small cubes. Add some thyme, basil, clove, (coriander if you wish), bay leaf and parsley. Cook over low heat but watch eggplants that they’re not too dry. In the middle add a TBL of olive oil.
Zucchinis: Brown the other onion in a tefal pan, add a garlic clove, cut 4/5 zucchinis in rounds (take off skin), add some basil. Cook over low heat 15 minutes.
Tomatoes: Take off skin and seeds (you take off skin easily by placing in boiling water for a few minutes). Cut up 3 or 4 garlic cloves in olive oil, add tomatoes, basil parsley, a piece of bay leaf, sugar, thyme and cook ‘til there’s no more water. Salt, Pepper
Add Zucchinis and Tomatoes to the eggplant mixture and cook together 10/15 minutes over medium heat.
Snow Peas: (SPRING)
Snow peas (e.g. a kilo)
One small white young onion
Couple of butter lettuce leaves
A few pieces of thick bacon cut up
Little bit of mint finely cut up
*Put everything together in a heavy saucepan (if possible), and let simmer together over low fire until well cooked.
Leg of Lamb over Provençal Style Potatoes (ANY SEASON)
Leg of lamb, preferably from
New potatoes
2 cups of whole milk
Sage, one bay leaf
12 garlic cloves to be added ½ hour before end
3 Tbl olive oil
*Take leg of lamb out of the refrigerator a few hours before cooking.
Preheat oven to 220 degrees
In a large dish place 2 or 3 layers of thinly cut potatoes. Pour over olive oil and milk. Add the bay leaf, sage and salt and pepper.
Place lamb over the potato mixture and cook 20 minutes at 220 degrees, then reduce heat to 180 for 40 minutes or the rest of the cooking time (depending on the size). One half hour before the end add the garlic cloves.
When the leg of lamb is cooked, take it out of the oven, cover it with aluminum foil and let it “repose” at least 10 minutes before serving.
If the potatoes are not tender, add a bit more milk and continue cooking them without the leg of lamb.
