French Provincial Cooking (71 page)

Now as to the amount of garlic: you can, of course, use less but you are likely to find that the mass of eggs and oil is then too heavy and rich. A true
aïoli
is a remarkable mixture of the smooth mayonnaise combined with the powerful garlic flavour which tingles in your throat as you swallow it. One Provençal writer suggests that those who find the
aïoli
indigestible should take a
trou
or
coup du milieu
in the form of a little glass of
marc
in the middle of the meal.

Bourride
is one of the great dishes of Provence. There are various different ways of presenting it but the essential characteristic is that
aïoli
or garlic flavoured mayonnaise is added to the stock in which the fish has cooked to make a beautiful smooth pale yellow sauce—and of this there must be plenty for it is the main point of the dish.

M. Bérot, once
chef des cuisines
on the
Île de France—
a liner celebrated for its good cooking—served us his own version of this dish at the Escale, a hospitable and charming restaurant at Carry-le-Rouet, a little seaside place west of Marseille.

The ingredients you need for four people are 4 fine thick fillets of a rather fleshy white fish. M. Bérot uses
baudroie
or angler fish, but at home I have made the dish with fillets of John Dory, of turbot, of brill (
barbue
).

In any case, whatever fish you choose, be sure to get the head and the carcase with your fillets. Apart from these you need a couple of leeks, a lemon, a tablespoon of wine vinegar, at least 4 cloves of garlic, 2 or 3 egg yolks, about one-third of a pint of olive oil, a couple of tablespoons of cream, and seasonings. To accompany the
bourride
you need plain boiled new potatoes and slices of French bread fried in oil.

First make your stock by putting the head and carcase of the fish into a saucepan with a sliced leek, a few parsley stalks, a teaspoon of salt, a slice of lemon, the wine vinegar and about 1
pints of water. Let all this simmer gently for 25 to 30 minutes. Then strain it.

While it is cooking make your
aïoli
with the egg yolks, 5 cloves of garlic and olive oil as explained on page 302.

Now put a tablespoon of olive oil and the white of the second leek, finely sliced, into the largest shallow metal or other fireproof pan you have; let it heat, add the spare clove of garlic, crushed; put in the lightly seasoned fillets; cover with the stock; let them gently poach for 15 to 25 minutes, according to how thick they are.

Have ready warming a big serving dish; take the fillets from the pan with a fish slice and lay them in the dish; cover them and put them in a low oven to keep warm.

Reduce the stock in your pan by letting it boil as fast as possible until there is only about a third of the original quantity left. Now stir in the cream and let it bubble a few seconds.

Have your
aïoli
ready in a big bowl or a jug over which you can fit a conical or other sauce sieve. Through this pour your hot sauce; quickly stir and amalgamate it with the
aïoli.
It should all turn out about the consistency of thick cream. Pour it over your fish fillets. On top strew a little chopped parsley and the dish is ready.

I know that all this sounds a tremendous performance, and indeed I wouldn’t recommend
bourride
for days when you have the kind of guests who make you nervous; but as a matter of fact when you have cooked it once (try it in half quantities, just for two) it all seems quite easy, and it’s a very satisfactory dish to be able to make.

Incidentally, I usually cook the potatoes and fry the bread while the fish is poaching; both can be kept warm in the oven, and then at the last minute you can give your undivided attention to the sauce.

This is not really a dish to be made at home and, indeed, nowadays, the majority of housewives in the Languedoc and in Provence buy it ready made for Friday lunch at cooked food shops which specialise in it. There is one such shop in Nîmes, Raymond, 43 rue d’Avignon, from whence it is sent all over France. It is one of those dishes which you either like or detest. Personally, I find it delicious, although even then a little goes a long way.

Briefly, you must soak 2 lb. of salt cod in cold water for 12 hours at least. Drain and rinse it, put it into a pan of fresh cold water and bring it very gently to the boil, then remove it at once from the fire. Take out all the bones, flake the fish, add a crushed clove or two of garlic, and place over a low flame. In separate small saucepans have some olive oil and some milk. Keep all three saucepans over a flame so low that the contents never get more than tepid. Crushing the fish with a wooden spoon you add, gradually and alternately, a little milk and a little olive oil, until all is used up and the cod has attained the consistency of a thick cream. All this, however, is quicker said than done. It requires great patience and also considerable energy (the famous chef Durand, of Nîmes, who has a recipe in his book, published in 1830, specifies that two people are needed to make the
brandade
, one to pour, the other to stir and rotate the pan), and if you own a pestle and mortar, it is better to crush the fish first in this. It can be done in an electric mixer, which I believe is nowadays used by the people who make the
brandade
on a commercial scale. In south and south-western France, the
brandade
is usually to be found at the restaurants and in the cooked food shops on a Friday, but rarely on other days.

The
brandade
is served warm, surrounded by triangles of fried bread or pastry.

One of the nicest subsidiary dishes to be made with this creamed salt cod is
œufs Bénédictine,
poached eggs placed on top of the
brandade
and covered with
sauce hollandaise.

Note:
Salt cod should always be soaked and cooked in porcelain, glazed earthenware or enamelled vessels. Metal tends to discolour it. And if your
brandade
has oiled or separated, the remedy is to mix in a small quantity of smooth potato purée.

‘Skin 5 or 6 large tomatoes; remove the pips as much as possible; chop the tomatoes small. Melt a chopped onion in warmed olive oil; add the tomatoes and stir until most of their moisture has evaporated, add a tablespoon of flour, moisten with
pint of stock or water; add a bouquet of herbs, 2 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, and continue cooking while the salt cod is prepared.

‘Take your soaked cod,
²⁴
scale it, cut into square pieces, roll them in flour and fry them in a deep pan of olive oil. When they are golden on both sides, remove and drain them on paper. Put them into the tomato sauce; simmer another 10 minutes before serving.’

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
litre
²⁵
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.

‘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.

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 must the butter completely melt. It must finish up the colour and the consistency of thick cream. It only takes a minute or so. If it goes wrong the first time, don’t be unduly discouraged. At the next try you know that you probably made the mistake of letting the sauce get too hot, and take your precautions accordingly.