Soupe de Poissons and other fishy dishes

It would be odd to end my time here in Cassis without at least one blog given over to fish recipes- as the fish restaurants on the quayside are one of the main reasons tourists come here in their hundreds. On a Saturday or Sunday, even in winter, you cannot get a table at any of the hotspots along the Quai des Baux- with everyone tucking into bowls of fish soup, plates of oursins and fish served up in any number of ways.

Fresh oursins

Quayside in Cassis

However, a meal in one of these enticing places will set you back a fair few euros- so here are some recipes to make at home at a fraction of the price. Open a nice bottle of Cassis white wine http://www.ot-cassis.com/en/les-cepages.html, find a bit of spring sunshine if you can, and you can share the experience along with me!

I'm starting with a fish soup, taking you through some simple fried fish dishes, a poached salmon idea, and then looking at some ways to make a little go a long way with the aid of pasta and pastry.

Soupe de poissons is a Provencal classic- little rock fish boiled up to make a stock with tomatoes, garlic and saffron and then pureed and sieved to make a rich soup, served with toasts, rouille and grated cheese. Every baker has big bags of toasts for sale- but of course, they are simple to make yourself with stale bread, sliced thinly, spread out on a baking tray and cooked on a low heat in the oven until brown and crispy.

Ingredients:

2 onions
2 fat cloves of garlic
1 leek
2 carrots
500g of fish- here the fishmongers sell poissons de rocher especially for fish soup but you can improvise with a mixture of pollock, fish pie mix, fish trimmings or whatever you can pick up at the fishmongers going cheap.
6 shell on prawns
1 glass of white wine
1 tbsp pastis-optional
1 pinch of saffron
salt and pepper
2 -3 tbsp tomato puree or a small tetrapak of passata
1 litre of water.

1. Soften the onion, leek and garlic in a little olive oil,  then add the chopped carrots
2. Add the prawns (legs, head and all) and scrunch around a bit with the veg.
3. Add the fish, white wine and seasoning and bring to the boil
4. Reduce the heat, add the tomato puree, pastis, water and saffron and simmer for 20 minutes
5. Then blitz the soup with a hand blender, pour the gloopy mixture through a sieve to take out any bones, scales, spiny bits etc
6. Keep warm

To serve- give your guests bowls of toasts, grated cheese and rouille ( garlic mayonnaise flavoured with paprika and tomato). They can either float their toasts in their bowl of soup, or place them in the bottom of the bowl and spoon their soup over them. (Everyone ate it so fast, I forgot to take a photo unitl it was nearly finished!)

Fish Soup with rouille, cheese and croutons

Sometimes the best way to serve fish is just to use the simplest and quickest method you can. Meuniere is just such a recipe. It literally means 'cooked the way the miller would'- white fish, coated in plain flour and seasoning and then fried in hot butter until golden and crispy.
That's all there is to it.

Skate wings cooked a la meuniere

Fish fillets- fried (whether in flour or not)- can be enhanced with simple sauces. Here I've got some red mullet fillets served with tapenade (green or black olive paste). You can buy tapenade everywhere here- it is known as the butter of Provence- and it is served routinely with toasts when you order an aperitif in a bar or cafe.
It is however very simple to make if you have a food processor:

Take 150g of  pitted green or black olives, 2 fat cloves of garlic and a glug of olive oil and pulse them all together until you have a smooth paste.

Fry your fish fillets quickly, presentation side down, turned once and served on a plate with lemon and tapenade.

Rougets with tapenade

An equally easy sauce to make is with roasted veg - it is good made with leftover Mediterranean veg as the flavour improves when it is cool.

Sea bass with roasted veg sauce

2 red peppers (deseeded and chopped into chunks)

2 large tomatoes (quartered)

1 onion (peeled and quartered)

1 fat clove of garlic (peeled)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

salt and pepper

1. Mix the oil and vinegar in the bottom of a large roasting dish

2. Add the veg and plenty of salt and pepper

3. Toss with your hands until the veg is thoroughly coated

4. Roast at 170 degrees for about 30 minutes until the veg is tender and beginning to caramelize on the edges and tops

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. (The flavour develops the longer you leave it, which is why it is good made with leftovers the next day)

6. Blitz in a food processor until smooth and pass through a sieve to remove any pips or tomato skin

Salmon- both fresh and frozen- is about the best value fish you can buy here. I bought four large paves for 7 euros.
Two of the fillets I poached in almond milk:

Bring a tetrapak of unsweetened almond milk up to a simmer and add a pinch of saffron, two tsp curry powder and lots of salt and pepper. Slide in your salmon pieces and poach for 10 minutes.
Thicken the sauce with a little creme fraiche and serve the fish with rice, sauce and a sprinkling of chopped chives.

Salmon poached in almond milk

The remaining two I used in pasta dishes- lasagne (layers of fresh lasagne pasta, salmon and cooked leeks mixed with a tub of creme fraiche and topped with a little grated gruyere):

Salmon and leek lasagne

and tagliatellis (100 g of fresh tagliatelle per person cooked in boiling salted waer for a couple of minutes, a bunch of chopped chives, some flaked salmon and a tub of creme fraiche and some of the leftover salmon poaching stock mixed into the warm pasta with plenty of salt and black pepper)- and had enough left over to flake into a leek and salmon tart. (A pastry case, 2 leeks, 4 eggs and some milk plus the salmon and seasoning).

Salmon and leek tart

Finally, I made a seafood pasta dish, using a mixture of fresh and frozen fish- pollock, prawns and mussels:

Embed the cleaned mussels in the pasta

Seafood pasta

Poach the white fish for 5 minutes in a little white wine. Cook the pasta noodles for 7 minutes until just becoming tender. Drain the pasta and mix it with the white fish, poaching liquor, a clove of pureed garlic, prawns and half a tetrapak of passata. Spread it out in a gratin dish, add some black olives and then embed 5-6 large cleaned mussels in the pasta.

Cook in a medium oven- 165 degrees- until the mussels have opened.

A bientot!

Jour du Marche

Friday is market day here in Cassis and the centre of the little port comes alive with the colours, sights and smells of a French market. It is my weekly treat to wander around the stalls, looking for the most attractive fruit and veg to buy.

Since coming to France, we have eaten less and less meat- partly because it is so expensive but also because the vegetables are so much more enticing.



So far, on the blog I have regaled you with endives cooked in sauce

Baked Endives with Ham

spinach stuffed into pancakes

Spinach Stuffed Pancakes

 heritage carrots and turnips roasted in the oven

Roasted market veg

and radishes chopped into salads.

Noodle salad with radishes

This week, I am using rainbow chard three ways, stuffing courgettes and making a leek tart.

An enticing haul of veg from the market

Rainbow chard has so many uses- the stems and the leaves can be used in completely different dishes.
The leaves can be used like spinach- as a plain side dish, or steamed and stuffed to make a substantial main.
Trim the stalks from 12 stems of chard ( and keep them for one of the other dishes to follow). Wash the leaves thoroughly and place in a steamer.

Steam over hot water for 5 minutes or so until tender, then lay out on a tea towel to blot the moisture.
In a bowl, mix 400g of sausagemeat with plenty of salt and pepper, a crushed clove of garlic and 2 tablespoons of fresh breadcrumbs. Divide this into 12 and roll into meatballs using wet hands.

Place a meatball on each chard leaf and roll up.
Lay them back in the steamer and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Place the cooked parcels in a gratin dish, add fresh tomato sauce, a little grated cheese and some more breadcrumbs and flash under the grill.

Stuffed Chard Leaves

With the stalks, if you steam them until tender, you can then add them to a cheese sauce and bake in the oven as a gratin.

Chard gratin

They are also a delicious and colourful addition to a stir fry-  I used them with peppers, spring onions and the leftover radishes (which make a really good substitute for water chestnuts incidentally.)

I was entranced by these cute little round courgettes too in the market:

Courgette Bonhommes

I hollowed out their little bodies, steamed the outsides and lids until tender, stuffed them with a mixture of onion, garlic, bacon lardons and gruyere cheese (fried up with the courgette flesh itself) and baked them in a hot oven (200 degrees) until golden on top (and then put their jaunty little hats on to serve).

Finally, along with all the root veg, spinach and chard on the stalls - leeks are in abundance so, as well as pots of soup

Vegetable veloute

 I made a leek tart.

Bake a pastry case blind, and meanwhile soften 2 well washed and chopped leeks  in some olive oil.
Mix up 4 eggs with enough milk to make 500 ml and season the custard well. Add the softened leeks and pour into the pastry shell. Top with grated emmental cheese and bake in a moderate oven 190 degrees until risen and golden.

Leek Tart

Next week, I plan to investigate the fish stall and bring you some seafood recipes. Until then, have a good week and remember to eat up all your veg.

La Chandeleur- French Pancake Day

February 2nd is Candlemas- known in French as 'La Chandeleur' or 'la fete des crepes'. It falls on the 40th day after Christmas, and is richly endowed with traditions and superstitions.

For example, it is said that if you warm a coin on top of your pile of pancakes and then wrap it up and put it in your wardrobe - it will bring your family prosperity throughout the year. Shame I only read about that one after we had eaten our stack of pancakes.




It is also said that if it rains on Chandeleur, it will rain for 40 days afterwards. I can't really see that happening here in the South of France, and anyway luckily it was a bright and breezy day.

We spent the day hiking in the Calanques so were hungry for our pancakes by the evening.

The Calanques at Port Pin

I made one of my favourite pancake dishes - originally one of Raymond Blancs: Pancakes with Spinach, Mushroom and Emmental.

You need a bit of time for this- but it's worth it. There are four processes: making the pancakes, making the filling, making a cheese sauce - and baking it all in the oven.

For the pancakes you need:

100g plain flour
300 ml milk
2 tbsp oil
2 eggs (beaten)
salt

1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, make a well in the centre and pour in the milk and beaten eggs.
2. Mix well with a whisk and then add the oil. The mixture should resemble pouring cream.
3. Heat a drop of oil in a sturdy frying pan and fry ladlesful of the mixture, swirling to cover the bottom of the pan and turning over as soon as they start to brown underneath.
You should get at least 8 pancakes from this mix.

For the filling:

1. Wash a large bag of spinach thoroughly and pull off any coarse stalks.

A sinkful of spinach

2. Place the wet spinach in a large pan and wilt down quickly.
3. Drain, pressing hard with a large spoon to get most of the moisture out- then wrap your spinach in a teacloth and squeeze as hard as you can to get all the remaining moisture out.
4. Fry 50g of  chopped mushrooms in a little oil and then add to the spinach mix, working the two together well with a little cream or milk and seasoning with lots of salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Crepe and filling mixes at the ready

For the cheese sauce:

1. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and add 1 tablespoon of flour.
2. Cook for a little while until it forms a soft ball, then add 350ml milk, lots of salt and pepper and a teaspoon of mustard.
3. Bring to the boil, whisking all the time until you have a thick white sauce.
4. Shoot in 200g grated emmental cheese and allow to melt.

Butter a gratin dish, rub it round with a cut clove of garlic and preheat your oven to 200 degrees.

Now, assemble your dish- a tablespoon or so of filling in each pancake, roll each one up and place in the gratin dish,

Lay the stuffed pancakes in a gratin dish

pour over the cheese sauce, sprinkle on a little more cheese and bake until golden and bubbling (about 20 minutes).

This needs nothing more than bread to mop it up, and a crisp white wine such as the lovely Cassis white wines we have here.

Pancakes with Mushroom, Spinach and Emmental

The leftovers were equally good next day with a salad.

As it was Pancake Day in France- and soon to be so in the UK- I thought I'd add here some of my other favourite pancake ideas to maybe inspire you to try something different.

Crispy pancake rolls are everyone's favourites - and we had ours this week served with a noodle and vegetable salad..

If you want to make your own pancake rolls, it is very simple and the recipe can be found here on the blog. http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/2013/02/week-2-chinese-new-year-frugal-feast.html 

(I bought mine this time round!) I'm focussing on the salad though: a warm noodle dish, with lovely fresh salad ingredients from the market, like these wonderful radishes:

Radishes from the market

You will need egg noodles, peanut butter, chili sauce, peanuts, radishes, spring onions, peppers, carrots and lettuce.

Cook the noodles until tender, drain and whilst still warm, mix with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, 2 of chili sauce, 3 finely chopped spring onions, 1 pepper (finely chopped), 4 big radishes (blitzed in the food processor) and 2 carrots (grated).

Noodle salad in preparation

Season well with soy sauce and then serve on a bed of lettuce, with the pancake rolls and a tablespoon each of blitzed peanuts and radishes as a garnish.

Crispy pancake roll salad

Some of my other favourite pancake recipes are here:

Sweet Maki Rolls

I had these sweet rolls in a sushi restaurant a few years ago (see pic)- and adapted the idea using sweet pancakes instead of bean curd ones. They make a fun dessert- especially served with chopsticks and little sweet dipping sauces. I make them when I have leftover rice pudding, as they are essentially rolled pancakes, filled with coconut rice pudding and fruit puree and served sliced sushi-style.

Pancakes:

50g plain flour

1 egg

150ml milk

1tbsp flavourless vegetable oil

pinch salt

1. Sift the flour and the salt, make a well in the centre , add the egg, milk and oil and whisk vigorously until the mixture resembles pouring cream.

2. If you can, leave the mixture to rest in the fridge for half an hour or so

3. Fry ladlesful of the mixture in a hot frying pan until you have a stack of 4-6 pancakes

Rice pudding:

50g short grain rice

200ml coconut milk

110ml milk

zest of one orange

2tsp sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

1. Place all the ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil.

2. Stir well. turn down the heat and simmer for 45 minutes-1 hour until the liquid has all been absorbed.

3. Leave to cool with a lid on- to keep the mixture moist in the steam.

Now assemble your maki-

Lay a pancake on a flat surface, spread generously right to the edges with rice pudding, add a stripe of fruit puree down the centre (apple. blackcurrant, mango or raspberry- or a selection of colours to look pretty), roll up tightly, slice into rolls and serve standing to attention, with the cut side down.

Leftover puree makes pretty dipping sauces on the side - or go mad and have chocolate sauce or syrup or cream instead!

Full English Galette

Classic French savoury galettes are made with buckwheat flour- and topped with whatever you fancy. I've topped mine with scrambled egg, bacon lardons and tomatoes for a full English.

For the batter:

Sift together 50g of buckwheat flour, 100g of plain flour, a pinch of salt and a a tsp of baking powder into a bowl. Make a well in the centre and add 1 beaten egg, 80g of melted butter or margarine and 185ml of milk. Mix well until you have a creamy batter.

Heat a frying pan with a spritz of oil and pour in a ladleful of the batter, spreading it out with the back of the ladle until it covers the bottom of the pan very thinly. These crepes should be lacy in texture.

Flip over with a palette knife and cook evenly on both sides.

Place your filling in the middle and fold the sides in to form a square.

But of course, sometimes pancakes are best just served with sugar and lemon!

And wouldn't you just know it - I forgot to put that coin on the top again! 

Haggis Parmentier- Burns Supper French-Style!

This 25th January we celebrated Burns Night in France. Not so strange really, as 'the auld alliance' between the French and the Scots goes back to 1295. Indeed, as late as 1903, any Scots person who wanted to live in France was granted French nationality automatically.
This alliance was forged of course through a mutual distrust of the English- and- oh dear!- I don't suppose much has changed there over the centuries.

Anyway, fusion cooking (Franco-Scots) was the order of the day last Sunday and, after a smoked salmon starter, we piped in our haggis in the guise of a Parmentier.




As the only haggis I could lay my hands on was brought over tinned from the UK (but very good it was even so), it needed a bit of dressing up.

The tinned haggis was moistened with a little whisky and gravy, topped with a potato puree, dusted with grated emmental and breadcrumbs and baked in a hot oven (190-200 degrees) until bubbling and golden.

I thought it might be a bit over-substantial, but it disappeared faster than a 100 metre sprint at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Haggis Parmentier

I accompanied it with roasted turnips and heritage carrots (known here as legumes oublies and very much in fashion too).
These were particularly delicious.

Beaautiful veg in the market

Thoroughly wash, peel and prepare the veg then parboil (or microwave them) until just starting to be tender.
Toss the hot veg into a baking dish with a good glug of olive oil, two tablespoons of honey, 1 tablespoon of coarse grain mustard, two whole cloves of garlic and loads of salt and pepper.

Roast along with the Parmentier.

Mustard roasted 'forgotten vegetables'

Normally, I have veg leftover to make a Spiced Clapshot Soup the next day, but not so this time!

Spiced Clapshot soup with Haggis Samosas

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.fr/2014/01/week-49-burns-supper-leftovers.html

For pudding we had chocolate moelleux ( see last week's post for the recipe) with Scottish raspberries (frozen of course but so what?) and whisky creme anglaise.

Moelleux with Raspberries and Whisky Custard

There was a small amount of the main dish leftover- so I made it into Haggis Cocotte ( a refried hash with a baked egg in the centre- yum!)

Mash up the leftover haggis and potato, make it into a large round and then fry it in a pan until beginning to caramelize underneath. Turn it over and fry on the other side. Slice it down the middle and into quarters and then combine each of the quarters with the one opposite and fry again on both sides. That way you get the lovely crispy bits running through the hash.

Making a hash of it

Divide into individual ovenproof dishes and make a well in the centre of each one.
Break an egg into the well, dust with a little black pepper and gruyere cheese and bake at 190 degrees for 12-15 minutes until the white of the egg is set properly (test with a knife).

Haggis Cocotte

And so yet again we have toasted the Baird of Alloway in a fitting manner. How will we do it next year? O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us to know that one!

Cul sec!

Comfort Food

Add caption

It has been a sad and shocking start to our French adventure. For two days, as we travelled across France, we listened closely to the radio broadcasts- first the terrible events at Charlie Hebdo, then the manhunt, Francois Hollande's grave speech and finally the awful hostage taking and denouement in Paris.

But the solidarity shown everywhere- and at the marches on Sunday- the call to the French people to respect the values of liberte, egalite, fraternite brought home to me how in times of stress we turn to the old comforts and reaffirm what is important to us. Whether that is tradition, religion or family rituals.

So, how can I show my solidarity with these sentiments? Well, as the intention of this blog for the next few months is to bring you a flavour of France, I have decided to look backwards- at old fashioned comfort food French-style.

Pencils are powerful here in France..

I am beginning with a dish of braised endives with ham.

Endives are becoming more readily available in the UK- but are often unpopular because of their bitter taste. This can easily be rectified with the addition of a little sugar to the cooking liquor and by braising the endives in vegetable stock rather than plain water.

Allow one medium endive per person.Slice the endives in half lengthways, heat a little oil in a frying pan and place the endives in the pan cut-side down. Brown a little, then add a teaspoon of sugar, a crumbled vegetable stock cube and a cup of water. Cover and braise for 20 minutes until the endives are tender.
Meanwhile, make the sauce by melting a tablespoon of butter and mixing in a tablespoon of plain flour. Add 400 ml of milk and bring to the boil, stirring frequently to thicken. Take off the heat and whisk in plenty of salt, pepper and a teaspoon of mustard, along with a grating of nutmeg. Then shoot in 100g of grated emmental or strong cheddar. Allow to cool and then add 1 egg yolk to the sauce. ( Keep the egg white for making either of the dessert recipes on this page.)

Uncover the endives and boil off any remaining liquid.

Next wrap the two endive halves in a piece of good ham. (Rubber gloves can help at this stage if the veg are too hot to handle.) Lay in a buttered gratin dish and cover with the cheese sauce.

Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs (something I will never be short of in France as there is always a piece of stale baguette left after a meal, begging to be blitzed into crumbs and frozen for later use.)

Breadcrumbs in plentiful supply already in the freezer

A final dusting of cheese (Parmesan would be good) and nutmeg if you like it, and the dish is ready for the oven at 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes until golden.

Braised Endives with Ham

If you have leftover cheese sauce, make tartines with slices of French bread, spread with butter and topped with ham, tomatoes or whatever you have in the fridge, then spread with the cheese sauce and grilled until bubbling and golden.

Tartines ready for the grill

Tartines for the table

For pudding, use up the egg white either in macaroons for a sweet ice cream sandwich- or make a chocolate moelleux and serve with custard or creme anglaise.

For the macaroons- beat 2 egg whites until at the soft peak stage. Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence, 100g of caster sugar and 200g of dessicated coconut. Mix together until it all binds.
Grease two baking sheets and line with baking paper. Place spoonfuls of the mixture into biscuit rings and press down firmly with a spoon to make round shapes. Bake at 170 degrees for 10 minutes or so. Watch carefully and remove from the heat as soon as they are golden.Allow to cool.




For the pudding- sandwich a scoop of your favourite ice cream (I used salted caramel) between two macaroons, drizzle over some caramel sauce, maple syrup, chocolate sauce, cream- whatever you fancy et voila!

Sweet Macaroon Sandwich

A chocolate moelleux is a soft, gooey cake not unlike a brownie. It is not to be confused with the ubiquitous chocolate fondant- which has a runny centre.

You need
 200g of dark chocolate
150 g soft butter
100g sugar
50 g self raising flour
2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites

Beat the egg whites until just forming soft peaks, beat the butter with the sugar and then add the whole eggs one by one. Melt the chocolate in the microwave with a splash of water for 1 minute. Mix it into the eggs and butter, then add the flour. Carefully slide in the egg whites, folding them into the mixture rather than stirring them in. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake at 150 degrees for 25-30 minutes- crucially, until the top is firm but a cocktail stick inserted into the very centre still comes out with some gooey mixture on it. That way you have a chocolate cake with a squidgy centre which is the key to it success.

Just out of the oven

Things don't get more comforting than that.

If you want to jazz up the presentation, make a puddle of creme anglaise and chocolate sauce artistically arrranged:

Chocolate moelleux

For everyone everywhere, who enjoys writing- whether it's a witty rejoinder on Facebook, articles for magazines, blogs or stories- and for anyone anywhere who needs some comfort at the moment- I hope this blog entry shows you a bit of solidarity.

For Charlie