FROM THE BRITISH ISLES we look outwards at a sea that is, more often than not, in grey and angry mood. In sharp contrast, those countries which border the Mediterranean gaze over a sea that has its dangers, but is for the most part blue, warm and tranquil. No wonder then that for centuries the British have been drawn to its shores, as pilgrims, explorers, travellers, scholars and, latterly, as tourists in their unseeing millions, and it is unsurprising that so many English writers and artists have found a source of inspiration there. Since the end of the Second World War, food writers have joined them, invigorated by the vitality and richness of Mediterranean cookery. Elizabeth David was the first and remains the greatest, beginning the mass transformation of our eating and drinking habits. Jane shared Elizabeth David’s love for the food of the region and was much inspired by the earlier writer’s work and so too wrote affectionately and knowledgeably about the Mediterranean.
The subject is so wide and diverse, the amount of source material so great and the strands that link food with history and culture so myriad that almost every book that Jane wrote will have somewhere in it a recipe or reference deriving from the Mediterranean, and this is reflected in this chapter.
Sitting outside a small taverna on Rhodes, hard by the water’s edge, sipping retsina and nibbling olives, pistachio nuts, little cubes of cheese and bits of octopus, I realized that 2,000 years ago and more, Greeks were drinking the same resinated wine and eating the same food. Only the very rich would have enjoyed extra dishes of consummate skill.
Greek chefs then had the same reputation as French chefs have today – ‘Cook and poet are alike: the art of each lies in his brain,’ said one Greek writer. And he reported a chef’s remarks to a young commis: ‘I’m a gourmet – that’s the key to our skill. If you aren’t to spoil the ingredients entrusted to you, you must love them passionately … Cook and taste often. Not enough salt? Add some. Something lacking? Keep tasting and adding until the flavour is right. Tighten it, as you would a harp, until it’s in tune. Then when everything is in harmony, bring on your chorus of dishes, singing in unison.’
Such statements have been made again and again since then, each chef in turn heralding a revolution (nouvelle cuisine?) whereas he is really restating the principles of fine cookery that, for Europe, were first enunciated in Greece. Our Greek chef saw good food, food in its season, as an integral part of the harmony and pleasure of life.
Meat and game were plentiful. Our chef dealt with lamb, veal, pork, ham, sausages, and hare. Flour came, perhaps, from one of the new watermills. For dessert, he was able to produce almonds, walnuts, pine kernels, pistachio nuts with their green and purple tones, and dried raisins. If his cheesecakes were not quite up to Athenian standards, he would serve them with Hymettus honey, a much prized delicacy from the nearby Mount Hymettus.
He might have agreed with the chefs of Kos that cooked lettuce stalks were the best of vegetables, in spite of their reputation for cooling sexy desires. His salads contained bitter rocket and green coriander, with sorrel added for sharpness. And, of course, he had olives and olive oil. He was sharp, too, in the market, poking down into the punnets of figs to see what was beneath the fine ones on top, and bargaining with fish-sellers.
Then, as now, fish was the favourite food of chefs and other discriminating eaters. They knew the best parts of the tunny fish, that octopus needs bashing to tenderness on the rocks, how squid should be stuffed, and the special deliciousness of red mullet. They loved shellfish like oysters, mussels, crabs, lobsters, and prawns, as well as the apricot-orange creaminess of sea urchins, enclosed in purple-brown spikes. The best foods of Greece have not changed.
I wonder what our chef would have thought of new foods that came later with Arab merchants and Turkish invaders, or after the discovery of America? If he considered the tomato to be over-used today, he would surely enjoy spinach in flaky pies … the elegance of okra. Or the transforming lemon and the clarity its flavour brings to food. He might also envy modern pastry-cooks the neutral sweetness of sugar (the assertive sweetness of honey, the only sweetener he had, limits variety in dishes), but what would he make of the thick black coffee needed to balance the tooth-piercing syrups? And the accompanying glass of water?
Except in top restaurants or hotels, the way of ordering a meal in Greece demands nerve. You will be handed the universal printed menu, listing every Greek dish you can think of – there are no great regional differences. Here and there, inky smudges on the plastic indicate the day’s dishes. Or yesterday’s. You must at this point, earlier for preference, make for the kitchen to see what bubbles on the stove. On account of Greek willingness to feed you at any time of the day, meat dishes can be overcooked. Best to stick to the little meze dishes – the appetizers, such as stuffed vine leaves and vegetables, little pastries and so on. Then grilled fish, which came out of the sea that morning, with a Greek salad. Then figs, oranges or grapes and the superb coffee: if you value your teeth, order metrios (lightly sugared coffee), or sketos (without sugar).
Buying picnic food is another great pleasure. You find the baker’s shop simply by looking out for people carrying pans of meat and potatoes under white cloths, or a tray of buns on their head. They are going to and from the baker’s ovens, where these foods are baked for them as they have always been. Butchers’ shops are stark and you may prefer to look for sausage and cooked meats at the grocery, along with honey and cheese, fruit, wine and olives.
On leaving a village one day in November to look for a sheltered picnicking place, I stopped at a spot where people were knocking down olives from their tree. I joined in, and later was rewarded by dipping bread into the green-gold stream of oil that came from the presses. Everything in the pressing shed had a soft sheen of oil – sacks, mats, walls, floor, the dog – even the farmers, who had brought in their crop and were watching it pass through the unchanging process, the centuries-old system hurried along by machinery. [European Cookery]
750 g–1 kg (1½–2 lb) fish bones and pieces
1¾ litres (3pt) water
150 ml (¼ pt) wine vinegar
1 medium onion, stuck with 4 cloves
1 medium carrot, sliced
8 peppercorns
½ bay leaf, sprig of thyme and parsley
60–90 g (2–3 oz) rice
3 eggs
1–2 lemons
The name means egg and lemon, which are the two important finishing ingredients of this soup. In Greek restaurants here, it’s usually made with a basis of chicken stock – but try using fish stock as they often do in Greece. Most fishmongers are delighted to hand over free plaice bones, or cheap fish pieces, left over from filleting, which gives you a luxurious soup at a low price. Avgolemono has a light foamy texture, which tastes particularly agreeable on warm days.
Simmer stock together for 1 hour. Strain and reduce to about 1½ litres (2½ pt). Correct the seasoning.
Simmer the rice in the stock until cooked. Have ready in a bowl the eggs beaten up with the juice of 1 lemon. Add a ladleful of hot soup, whisking all the time. Return to the pan, and without boiling, cook until slightly thickened. Keep whisking. Add more lemon juice to taste. Serve at once. [Good Things]
1 kg (2 lb) fish (see introduction)
500 g (1 lb) mussels or other shellfish
60 ml (2 fl oz) olive oil
1 large onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
250 g (½ lb) tomatoes, peeled, chopped
250 g (½ lb) mushrooms, chopped
1 heaped tablespoon rice
1¾ litres (3 pt) water
bouquet garni
a pinch of saffron
salt, freshly ground black pepper, sugar
tomato concentrate (optional)
6 thick slices French bread
extra olive oil
grated Parmesan cheese
chopped basil or parsley
Mediterranean recipes for fish soups often include tomatoes and saffron and a good mixture of fish, including shellfish. Our varieties in the north of Europe and in the United States, too, are different, so we can never hope to produce a bouillabaisse. But we can make a good soup on the same lines, and enjoy it for its own qualities. I have not specified exactly which fish should be used. First because it doesn’t matter precisely, and secondly because fishmongers vary widely in their stock in different parts of the country, and on different days of the week. Generally speaking, you need a cheap fish for background flavour: conger eel is good, but redfish, often sold as bream, will do instead (in the United States anything from ocean perch to porgy would be fine); then a better type of fish to add fineness and an agreeable texture, red mullet, John Dory, brill or turbot (in the States, perhaps red snapper or sea bass would be best); and lastly shellfish for sweetness and piquancy. When you have made your choice, take the fish home and prepare them appropriately. Mussels will need to be scrubbed and opened and their liquor should be carefully strained and added to the soup in place of some of the water. Then all the fish should be cut into nice chunks and divided into three piles – 10 minutes of cooking (conger), 5 minutes of cooking (most white fish), and 2 minutes of cooking (shellfish). If these times seem short to you, remember that the fish continues to cook in the broth as it is served and brought to the table, and that nothing is worse than soup with a flannellike mush of overcooked fish.
Clean and separate the seafood as described above. Heat olive oil and fry onion and garlic until lightly browned. Add tomatoes, mushrooms and rice, and stir over the heat for a few moments. Pour in water, and add bouquet and saffron. Season with salt, pepper and a little sugar (many commercial tomatoes are tasteless by comparison with French ones – some extra tomato concentrate may also be a good idea). Simmer for about 15 minutes, then add the fish at the intervals described above. Correct the seasoning.
Meanwhile brush the slices of bread with oil and place under the grill until lightly browned. Sprinkle one side of each slice with cheese, and return to the grill until it is melted and bubbling. Either place these in the soup tureen or put on a separate plate.
Pour the soup into the tureen, scatter the basil or parsley over the top, and serve boiling hot. [The Mushroom Feast]
250 g (½ lb) dried haricot, or butter beans
1½ litres (2 pt) water
5 or 6 large tablespoons olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, chopped not crushed
a bunch of parsley, chopped
salt, black pepper
The people of Tuscany are the great bean-eaters, the mangiafagioli, of Europe. They have so many bean dishes that I’m surprised they’ve never invented any bean cakes, or buns, in the Japanese style. But they have invented a special pot for cooking beans in, a fagiolara. Apart from being a beautiful object, the fagiolara is practical: it can be used over low, direct heat, or in the oven, and, on account of its chianti-flask shape, the top is easily sealed against loss of heat and flavour. In these pots, beans simmer in water seasoned with olive oil, garlic, sage, tomato, and perhaps some pickled pork, to make Tuscan – not Boston – baked beans. But for a small party of tired urban stomachs this is the Tuscan recipe I would choose.
Soak, then simmer the beans in the water without salt until cooked. When they are soft, remove a quarter to half of the beans, and liquidize or mouli the rest. Season well, diluting the soup with more water if necessary. Reheat, with the whole beans. In a separate pan cook the garlic slowly in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, until it turns golden. Add to the soup, with the parsley and the rest of the oil. Serve immediately.
Note: if you can’t buy good olive oil, don’t make do with corn oil, which is tasteless. Use butter instead. The result will be quite different, more like a French soup, but still very good. [Good Things]
18 plump cloves of garlic, skinned and sliced
milk
18 large salted anchovies, soaked and filleted, or 3 × 50 g (1¾ oz) tins of anchovy fillets in oil
60 g (2 oz) butter
240–270 ml (8–9 fl oz) olive oil
6 eggs (optional)
A bagna cauda – ‘hot bath’ – of anchovy sauce, with vegetables to dip into it, is a favourite dish in Piedmont. The vivid collection of vegetables is arranged on a platter or in a basket, or on plates with individual pots of the sauce, if the party is a small one. Cardoon (only available here if you grow it yourself), celery and Florentine fennel are popular, and there must be red pepper, too, for its juicy sweetness. Green and yellow peppers, chicory, radishes, broccoli, carrots cut into long sticks – choose whatever is fresh in the shops that day. For special occasions, the Piedmontese grate thin slivers of white truffle into the sauce.
Simmer the garlic until tender in enough milk to cover. Use a small pan with no lid, so that the milk can reduce (but take care it does not burn). Add the anchovies, cut in pieces, with their oil if they are tinned. Crush them down with a wooden spoon or masher, keeping the heat low. As they dissolve, put in the butter, and then the oil gradually. You should end up with a fairly smooth brown sauce under a layer of oil. This can all be done in advance.
When ready to eat, bring the sauce to boiling point and put in a pot over a table burner, or in individual pots with nightlights underneath. (It is normal for the oil to separate and come to the top.) To eat, dip in vegetable pieces, stirring up the sauce. Provide long stubby bread ‘soldiers’ and bread-sticks (grissini), too.
If you include the eggs, put them on the table in a small basket. When the sauce reduces to a sediment, break in the eggs and scramble them with a fork. Scoop them up quickly before they overcook, with vegetables, bread or a fork. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
125 g (4 oz) dried chick-peas (not canned ones)
juice of 2 lemons
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
100 g (3½ oz) tahina paste
approx. 2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
cayenne pepper or finely chopped parsley, to garnish
This recipe lifts chick-peas far above their basic role of standard nourishment. A blender or food processor is essential. Soaking time can vary: best quality chickpeas may only require 12 hours, but it is prudent to allow 48. The general rule for dried pulses is that when they have more or less doubled their weight, they have soaked for long enough. There is no magic about soaking – the point is to reduce cooking time, as the less you soak the more you cook, which wastes fuel.
Soak the chick-peas, as described above. At the end of the soaking period simmer them for 1– 1¼ hours. Then drain them, saving the liquor. Put 4 tablespoons of this liquor in a blender or food processor with the lemon juice and garlic. Start the blades whizzing and gradually tip in the chick-peas and tahina alternately. If the machine clogs, add a little more liquor, and some olive oil. You should end up with a thick, cohesive purée of a grainy creaminess. Be prepared to add extra olive oil, or tahina, to taste. Season with salt and pepper.
Put in a bowl. Smooth the top and cover with a barely perceptible layer of oil. Sprinkle with cayenne or parsley.
Hummus can be served on its own or as part of a mixed meze course. Scoop it up with bits of pitta bread. Or use it with okra and tomatoes (page 257), cerkes tavugu (Circassian chicken, page 246), felafel, peperonata and so on, to fill the pitta bread. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
1½–2 kg (3–4 lb) spinach, cooked
30 g (1 oz) butter
30 g (1 oz) flour
300 ml (½ pt) hot milk
150 ml (¼ pt) single cream
1 heaped tablespoon Parmesan cheese, or Cheddar to taste
salt, pepper, nutmeg
6 medium eggs
2 crumbled rusks or biscottes
The Italians love spinach, and make more use of it than we do. All those green pasta, the pasta verde, are not coloured and flavoured by drops from a bottle, but by the addition of spinach and spinach juice. Sometimes ravioli and tortellini are filled with a mixture of spinach and cream cheese and Parmesan. When eggs, fish and ham are cooked and served with spinach and cheese sauce, we describe them as ‘Florentine’, in the style of Florence.
As the spinach cooks, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a heavy pan, stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Cook gently for 2 minutes, then incorporate the hot milk gradually, to avoid lumps, and the single cream. Season with half the cheese or a little more to taste, with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and leave to simmer over a low heat for at least 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, having drained the spinach, put it into a buttered ovenproof dish, and prepare the eggs. They can be poached, but, if, like me, you’re not an admirer of poached eggs, try cooking them this way – put them into a pan of fast-boiling water for exactly 5 minutes. Then plunge them into a pan of cold water, set under a gently running cold tap. The moment they’re cool enough to handle, tap them all over carefully and peel them (remember that the yolks will not be hard-boiled, so do this gently). Make 6 depressions in the spinach with the back of a tablespoon, and set the eggs well down. Strain the hot sauce over the dish. Mix the rest of the cheese with the rusk crumbs, and sprinkle over the top. Bake in a hot oven for about 10 minutes, until the sauce bubbles and the top turns golden brown.
Variations
FOR SOLE OR PLACE FILLETS FLORENTINE: roll up the fillets and secure them with a toothpick. Put them on the spinach instead of the eggs. Finish the dish as above, but bake for 30 minutes in a moderate oven to cook the sole or plaice. The top can be browned under the grill, if necessary.
FOR HAM FLORENTINE: roll up slices of cooked ham, spear with a toothpick, and lay on the spinach. Pour over the sauce and finish as for eggs Florentine. If uncooked gammon is used, pour boiling water over the slices and leave for 5 minutes to remove excess saltiness. Lay them, overlapping each other, on top of the spinach, and finish as for eggs Florentine.
FOR INDIVIDUAL EGGS FLORENTINE: put a spoonful of spinach (4-day spinach is ideal for this dish) into a buttered ramekin. Break an egg and slide it on top of the spinach. Bake in an oven (or in a pan of simmering water) until the white just starts to look opaque. Pour in 1 tablespoon of double cream; sprinkle with cheese, salt, pepper, and rusk crumbs; brown quickly under the grill. Don’t overcook. Serve with toast fingers. [Good Things]
60 g (2 oz) chopped spring onion or onion
300 g (10 oz) butter
750 g (1½ lb) cooked spinach, chopped
225 g (8 oz) grated feta cheese, or mixed Parmesan cheese and dry grated Cheddar cheese
4 large eggs (size 1–2)
2 tablespoons dried dillweed
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
12 sheets (½ packet) fila pastry
salt and pepper
Thin fila pastry dries rapidly and breaks, so have a damp cloth handy to put over it the moment it is unwrapped. Extract a sheet at a time, and wrap up immediately any you are not going to use.
Preheat the oven to gas 4, 180°C (350°F). Cook the onion slowly in 90 g (3 oz) of the butter until soft but not brown. Mix in the spinach. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese, eggs, herbs and seasoning (remember that the cheese and butter also contain salt).
Melt the remaining butter. Take a shallow tin into which a sheet of fila will fit, come up the sides and overhang the top – approximately 28 × 20 cm (11 × 8 inches) in area. Brush a sheet of fila with some of the melted butter and lay it in the tin. Repeat with 5 more fila sheets, putting each on top of the last. Put in the filling, sprinkle with a few spoonfuls of melted butter and flip over the fila at the edges.
Cut the remaining sheets to fit the top of the pie with a slight tuck-in. Brush them with butter and lay them on the pie. Score the top lightly into diamonds or squares, and sprinkle or spray with water: this prevents the pastry curling. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
Variation
Creamed chicken, made piquant with feta and Parmesan, is another popular filling. Lamb or beef mixtures, well spiced, sometimes with raisins and pine kernels added, also work well. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
1 lettuce, separated into its leaves
6 fine large tomatoes, peeled and quartered or sliced
½ cucumber, scored with a fork or zester, sliced
salt and pepper
12 spring onions, or 1 sweet onion
12 sprigs of fresh mint, chopped
1 heaped teaspoon rigani
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
about 175 g (6 oz) feta cheese, crumbled, or sliced or cubed
18 black olives
This is the dish that makes me most homesick for Greece. Not because it was the best thing I ate there, but because it appeared in every small taverna on every beach, at every market or monument or site that I visited.
Roll up the lettuce leaves and slice the rolls across thinly with a stainless-steel knife. Scatter all over a serving dish. Arrange the tomatoes and a cucumber on top of the lettuce, leaving a good lettuce rim, in receding layers, seasoning as you go. Scatter with onion and herbs. Beat the oil with lemon juice and pour over the whole salad. Put the cheese and olives on top (sometimes rings of sweet pepper are added, too).
Serve straightaway – if this salad stands around for long the shreds of lettuce will wilt and the cucumber will weep. [European Cookery]
13 large mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small clove garlic, crushed
olive oil
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 heaped tablespoon chopped parsley
salt, pepper
1-cm (½-inch) slice of bread, crusts removed
1 egg
breadcrumbs
Ceps are the ideal mushroom for this dish, but large field or cultivated mushrooms can be used instead.
Remove mushroom stalks and chop them up with one of the mushrooms. Stew onion and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until they begin to soften. Add chopped mushrooms, raise heat, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in anchovies and parsley, and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and correct seasoning. Meanwhile squeeze bread to a thick paste with a little water. Mix with fried mushroom mixture and bind with the egg. Fill the caps. Pour a little oil into a shallow ovenproof dish, and arrange the stuffed mushrooms in it close together. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and olive oil. Bake in a fairly hot oven, gas 6, 200°C (400°F), for about 20 minutes – field and cultivated mushrooms will not need quite so long, so keep an eye on them after 10 minutes. [The Mushroom Feast]
125 ml (4 fl oz) olive oil
300 ml (½ pt) water
juice of ½ lemon
¼ teaspoon peppercorns, crushed
¼ teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
salt to taste
bouquet of ½ small bay leaf sprig each of parsley, thyme, and fennel, plus 1 celery leaf
500 g (1 lb) small mushrooms
This popular French dish is best served as part of a mixed hors d’oeuvre. When serving mushrooms like this on their own, the recipes which include tomato or tomato and orange are to be preferred on account of their extra piquant flavour. Be careful not to overcook the mushrooms: they should still be crisp in the centre.
Boil all the ingredients except the mushrooms together for 10 to 15 minutes to make a marinade. Add mushrooms, and boil for about 3 minutes, then leave to cool. Serve with a little of the marinade, well chilled.
SERVES 4–8
Prepare the marinade and boil the mushrooms in it as directed in preceding recipe. Remove mushrooms, and reduce sauce until it is thick. Skin and chop 3 large tomatoes, add to sauce, and boil for a few minutes. Pour boiling sauce over mushrooms. Serve chilled, sprinkled with a little chopped parsley. [The Mushroom Feast]
125 g (4 oz) butter
1 medium onion, chopped
250–375 g (8–12 oz) ceps, caps sliced, stalks chopped
500 g (1 lb) Italian rice
250 ml (8 fl oz) dry white wine
up to 1½ litres (2½ pt) meat stock
salt, pepper
Parmesan cheese, grated
When the French have a few ceps, they stretch them with potatoes. The northern Italians choose rice; the plump melting grains produced in the Po valley go well with mushrooms. The recipe is simple, the standard risotto with one extra ingredient.
Melt half the butter, and sweat the onion in it. When it is soft, stir in the ceps and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the rice, and when it becomes translucent, pour in the wine. This will soon be absorbed, so add a quarter of the stock, then another quarter as that disappears. And so on, until the rice is cooked – about 20 minutes. Different kinds of rice, even different brands, need different amounts of liquid, so this is a dish to be watched.
Correct the seasoning and stir in the remaining butter and several tablespoons of cheese. Serve at once, with more grated cheese in a separate bowl. [The Mushroom Feast]
shortcrust pastry, made with 250 g (8 oz) flour, and seasoned with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 kg (2 lb) onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
400 g (14 oz) can tomatoes
2 lumps of sugar
bouquet garni
1 tablespoon tomato concentrate
2 tins of anchovy fillets, 60 g (2 oz) each
125 g (4 oz) black olives
If you’re a cook living in the Mediterranean area, the sun does half the work for you. Tomatoes and onions have acquired a concentration of sweet richness; olive oil, olives and anchovies flavour them to perfection. This combination is well known to us all in the form of the pizza, which has sadly become a cliché, now, of snack bars and cookery demonstrations, and as tasteless as you’d expect. For this reason I’m concentrating on pissaladière which is less known. I happen to prefer the filling when set off by pastry rather than by bread dough as in the pizza; and it’s easier for most housewives to make; unless they bake their own bread, in which case pizza can be one of the delicious side-products.
Pissaladière comes from the area of Nice, where they use a conserve of anchovies flavoured with cloves called pissala, rather than anchovy fillets. Pissala is the modern descendant of those vigorous Roman confections known as garum or liquamen; they were made of anchovies, or anchovies and various other fish, pickled and fermented in brine, and were used in many dishes, as a kind of antique monosodium glutamate. Pizza, which sounds rather the same, means pie, so any connection between the two words is probably coincidental. Both, after all, are made in areas where tomatoes, olive oil, olives and anchovies are to be had in abundance. You don’t need to be a diffusionist to arrive at similar dishes.
Line a 26-cm (10¼-inch) to 28-cm (11-inch) flan tin (with a removable base), and bake blind, until the pastry is firm and set, but not brown.
Cook the onions and garlic slowly in the olive oil for 1 hour, until they’re reduced to a soft mass. They must not brown at all (it helps to cover them for the first 30 minutes). In another pan, boil down the tomatoes, sugar, and bouquet garni, until the mixture is reduced to about 6 tablespoons of purée. Stir in the concentrate, and remove the bouquet. Mix with the onions. Season well, having regard to the saltiness of the anchovies, and spread out evenly over the baked pastry case. Split the anchovy fillets in half lengthwise. Arrange them in a lattice over the filling, then put an olive into each diamond-shaped compartment. Brush over lightly with olive oil. Bake in a fairly hot oven (gas 6, 200°C [400°F]) for 20 minutes or so, until the pastry is properly cooked, the filling thoroughly heated, and the olives beginning to wrinkle. Eat hot, cold or warm, with a glass or two of red wine.
It makes marvellous picnic food, particularly if you can manage to bake it just before leaving home. Wrap it loosely in foil, and it should still be warm by early lunch-time. You may find it more convenient to bake small pissaladières, as they often do in northern France in the grander charcuteries; use patty pans, the ones with almost perpendicular straight sides, and a diameter of 11 cm (4½ inches). Naturally, more shortcrust pastry will be required; about double the amount. [Fish Cookery]
750 g (1½ lb) red or green peppers, or both mixed
375 g (12 oz) chopped onion
150 ml (¼ pt) olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
750 g (1½ lb) tomatoes, peeled and chopped
a good pinch of thyme
salt and pepper
sugar, to taste
6 slices of Bayonne or Parma ham, or thin gammon
6 eggs, beaten
A Basque dish of cheerful colour and flavour, and an ideal summer lunch especially if you grow your own tomatoes. The tomato and pepper sauce (sofrito) can be prepared in advance, but the eggs and ham must be dealt with at the very last moment.
Grill, or bake the peppers in a hot oven gas 8, 230°C (450°F), or turn them over a gas flame, until the skin turns black and blistered. Rub it away under the cold tap; seed and slice the peppers.
Make a sofrito in a shallow earthenware pot (use a heat-diffuser for gas) by cooking the onion slowly in about two-thirds of the olive oil, then adding the garlic as the onion begins to look transparent. When the onion is soft and yellow, add the tomatoes. Stir them about and when they are cooking away, put in the pepper strips, thyme and seasoning, adding sugar if the tomatoes are not as well-flavoured as they should be. Keep the mixture bubbling so that all wateriness disappears.
In the rest of the oil, heat the slices of ham briefly. Stir the eggs into the vegetable mixture. Take the pot off the heat straightaway as egg cooks rapidly and it should not be allowed to harden. Tuck the ham round the edge or place it on top. Serve immediately. [European Cookery]
90–125 g (3–4 oz) chopped onion
3 tablespoons olive oil
250 g (8 oz) Italian rice
½ litre (¾ pt) water
500 g (1 lb) shelled peas
sugar, salt, black pepper
grated Parmesan cheese
Driving along between the arcaded de Chirico towns of Cuneo and Turin, one may round a corner to find that life has shifted suddenly to the Far East. Rows of girls, with skirts kilted up and low conical straw hats on the back of their necks, paddle along pushing rice plants into flooded fields. The extra large grains that these paddy fields produce give the rice dishes of northern Italy a special succulence. For this dish of risi e piselli, or risi e bisi to Venetians, who make it a great deal, try to buy some of this delicious rice from an Italian delicatessen.
Brown the onion lightly in the oil. Add the rice and stir it over the heat until transparent – about 5 minutes. Add ½ litre (¾ pt) water, and leave to simmer with the lid on the pan, until the rice is tender and the water absorbed. You may need to add more water, so watch the rice as it cooks. Meanwhile cook the peas in boiling water, seasoned with salt, pepper and a little sugar. Drain and mix with the cooked rice. Stir in 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, and serve extra grated cheese in a separate bowl.
By adding hot chicken stock at the end, this dish can be turned into a hearty soup. [Good Things]
1½–2 kg (3–4 lb) firm white fish, or squid
2 large onions, chopped
1 leek, chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 tomatoes (optional)
500 g (1 lb) potatoes sliced (see introduction)
bouquet of herbs: thyme, fennel, parsley, bay
strips of orange peel
salt, pepper
ailloli (see method)
Any firm white fish can be used; one alone, or a mixture. The ideal fish is monkfish, turbot or John Dory, but squid make an excellent bourride as well. Saffron is occasionally used to scent and colour the soup, but the most usual flavouring is orange peel, 1– 2 good strips of it, preferably from a Seville orange. The ailloli is used to thicken the soup. Croûtons rubbed with garlic are served with it, as with bouillabaisse. Potatoes can be cooked and presented separately, or included in the soup.
12 slices French bread, toasted lightly in the oven, fried in olive oil, and rubbed with garlic
Clean the fish and cut into good-sized slices. Put onions, leek, garlic, tomatoes, and potatoes (if included), into a large pot. Lay the fish on top, with the herbs, orange peel, and seasoning. Add 1¼ litres (2 pt) of water, or enough to cover the fish; stock made from head and bones of fish can be used instead for a finer result; in some places sea water is used. Cook gently for 10 minutes at simmering point. Remove fish, and potatoes, to a warm serving plate. Boil the liquor hard to less than 600 ml (1 pt). Correct the seasoning. Then strain slowly on to the ailloli, in a large bowl, mixing the two together carefully. Return to a clean pan and stir over a low heat until the mixture thickens slightly. Pour over the fish, sprinkle with extra parsley, and serve with bread as above, and with potatoes if not included in the soup-making. [Fish Cookery]
up to 8 cloves garlic
salt
2 egg yolks
300 ml (½ pt) Provençal olive oil
pepper
lemon juice
8 large shelled hazelnuts
8 shelled walnuts
3–6 cloves garlic
salt
2 egg yolks
300 ml (½ pt) Provençal olive oil
pepper
lemon juice
Ailloli, the garlic mayonnaise from Provence, gives its name to the great spread of cold food for which that part of France is so famous. Salt cod and other fish provide the centrepiece (page 228). The sauce can quite well accompany the salt fish in simpler combinations or even alone; though I think a modifying salad of some kind is a good idea.
Crush the garlic with a little salt in a mortar. (The first time you make the recipe start with 4 cloves of garlic; when everyone’s got used to the idea, work up gradually to 8.) Add the egg yolks and finish the mayonnaise with the rest of the ingredients.
The unexpected ingredients of aillade, another garlic mayonnaise, are hazelnuts and walnuts. To me, this is the ideal sauce for a simpler arrangement of cold fish.
Grill the hazelnuts lightly, until the skins can easily be rubbed off; pour boiling water over the walnuts, and remove their skins. Crush the nuts with the garlic and a little salt in a mortar, and continue with the mayonnaise in the usual way. [Fish Cookery]
The most spectacular dish of summer holidays in Provence is ailloli garni. At its most flamboyant, it is a Matisse-coloured salad of salt cod and other fish, vegetables fresh and dried, raw and cooked, hard-boiled eggs, snails occasionally, and lemon quarters. With it comes a huge bowl of mayonnaise, a special garlic mayonnaise. The flavour has nothing to do with rubbing a clove of garlic discreetly round a salad bowl. It comes from clove after clove after clove. So important is this sauce that the dish carries its name of ailloli – ail being French for garlic – with all the rest reduced to the status of a garnish, lordly abundance being just an excuse as it were for eating the sauce. Although mayonnaise has a way of dominating nomenclature – mayonnaise de saumon, mayonnaise de homard – I think no other name touches the grandeur of ailloli garni.
The sauce (see preceding page) is the last thing to be made. First you must assemble the other ingredients. A nice piece of salt cod is the first requirement. Soak it for at least 24 hours, changing the water, then drain it and put it into a large pan. Cover with cold water, and add bouquet garni and a little salt. Bring slowly to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes (or less) until the fish flakes away from skin and bone. Don’t overcook. Put on a perforated dish to cool. Remove the skin, and put on a large serving dish. Surround it with as great a variety of vegetables as you can assemble. Crispness is required (raw Florentine fennel, cauliflower, radishes, peppers and celery); so, with that sauce, is mild solidity (potatoes, haricot beans). Decorate finally with lemon quarters, egg quarters, and unshelled prawns. [Fish Cookery]
SERVES 6
It is magical to watch citrus juice ‘cooking’ fish. If you put it into a glass bowl, and look into the refrigerator from time to time, you will see the scallops or bass or sole losing transparency and beginning to look exactly as if you had steamed or poached it. The blend of sharpness and fresh fish is most refreshing.
As well as the fish mentioned above, you can use John Dory, brill or weaver, sea bream or mackerel. Go for freshness.
Skin and cut 500–750 g (1–1½ lb) of fish fillets into strips or cubes about 2½ cm (1 inch) long. Large scallops can be sliced across into 2 discs. Put them into a dish and cover them with lime juice or lemon juice. Seed a hot pepper, a Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper for instance, and slice it, adding it to the fish. Cover and leave for up to 3 hours in the refrigerator. Taste occasionally to see whether the hot pepper is making too powerful an effect, and remove it if necessary.
Drain and dress with Seville orange juice. Serve on salad leaves, with thin slices of purple onion, avocado, tomato and a little sweetcorn. Sometimes slices of cooked white sweet potato are added. [À La Carte]
1½ kg (3½ lb) roasting chicken, with giblets
2 litres (3½ pt) light stock or water
1 small lobster, uncooked or ready-boiled, cut up by the fishmonger
1 medium-size squid, approx. 250 g (½ lb) in weight
500 g (1 lb) prawns, preferably of varying sizes
500 g (1 lb) mussels
250 g (½ lb) monkfish
olive oil
1 large onion, chopped finely
250 g (½ lb) tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 heaped teaspoon paprika
3 large cloves of garlic, chopped finely
tomato paste or sugar, if needed (see recipe)
500 ml (¾ pt) Spanish or Italian rice (approx. 400 g [14 oz])
a generous pinch of saffron
175 g (6 oz) shelled young peas
1 large red pepper, grilled, skinned, de–seeded and sliced
4 large artichoke hearts, cooked (optional)
3 lemons, quartered
salt and pepper
Like couscous (page 238), paella is one of those magnificent dishes that need a party to share them. A picnic by the sea in this case, I think, with the shallow pan bubbling gently over a driftwood fire. Again like couscous, there is no one ‘right’ recipe. The only essential ingredients are rice and saffron (do not be tempted to substitute turmeric – make your economies elsewhere if necessary!). Flavourings can be meat and poultry alone, or fish and shellfish alone, or vegetables alone. Or – as in this recipe – a mixture of all three. I have come to regard squid as essential for its piquant sweetness; mussels help to flavour the broth, and huge gambas (Mediterranean prawns) give an air of luxury, though the usual pink prawns do well enough.
Use a wide, shallow pan or paellera of at least 35 cm (14 inches) diameter. Alternatively, use two pans once the rice is half-cooked, transferring some of the rice to a second pan before putting in the chicken. Paella is not a dish for the small family. Remember that if you alter the quantity of rice, you need to alter that of the liquid.
First, prepare the chicken and fish. If you intend to make the paella out of doors, on a picnic, this should all be done in advance, leaving the final cooking of the rice and so on to be done on the spot.
Set aside the chicken wings and drumsticks. Cut away the chicken breast and keep for another meal, if you are only feeding 8 people. Cut the thigh meat off the bone, dividing each piece into three, and remove the oysters. If you are using the chicken breasts, bone them and cut into two pieces each. Leave the carcase to simmer in the stock or water. Cut up the lobster so that there will be a chunk for each person.
Clean the squid and cut the bag into rings and the tentacles into short lengths: keep the trimmings and left-overs. Peel most of the prawns, leaving a few whole for garnishing: put the debris with the squid’s. Open the scrubbed mussels in a heavy covered pan over a high heat: shell most of the mussels, keeping some for the garnishing, and strain the juice into the chicken stock pan. Add the fish trimmings after the stock has been simmering for at least 30 minutes. Cut the monkfish into chunks: add the bone and skin, and the small claws of the lobster, to the stock pot. Give it another 30 minutes and then strain off the stock – you will need just over 1 litre (approx. 2 pt) or a little more, so add water if you are short, or boil it down if there is much too much. Season the chicken and fish.
Now you are ready for the cooking. Bring the stock to simmering point and keep it there. In a large pan or paellera heat enough olive oil to cover the base. Put in the onion and cook it slowly until soft and yellow. Add the tomatoes, paprika, garlic, seasoning and a little tomato paste or sugar unless your tomatoes are very well ripened. When the mixture is a thick purée, push it to the side of the pan and brown the chicken pieces. Remove them to a plate. Stir in the rice and move it about until it looks transparent. Pour about half the hot stock on to the rice. Pour a little more stock into a cup and dissolve the saffron in it. Leave the rice to bubble gently.
When the rice is half-cooked, put in the chicken, pushing it down so that only the drumstick and wing bones stick up. Pour in the saffron stock and most of the remaining stock.
After 10 minutes put in the squid. In another 5 minutes, add the vegetables and uncooked lobster pieces. Check the chicken breast pieces and remove them if they are done: they should not get too dry and can be put back at the end to heat through with the prawns and mussels. Another 8–10 minutes and everything should be cooked. Add any remaining stock or water, if necessary to prevent sticking. Shake the pan from time to time, but avoid stirring it up.
Just before serving, put in the shelled mussels and cut-up, cooked lobster meat, if you had to buy a ready-boiled lobster. Then add the shelled prawns. Last of all, arrange the reserved whole prawns and mussels in their shells on top, after checking the seasoning. Tuck in the lemon wedges and serve.
Note: in Spanish restaurants, the paellera is sometimes placed in a slightly larger basket tray, with a ring of flowers and fruit in the gap – red and white carnations, yellow lemons, echoing the colours of the food. Festive but confusing. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
butter
12 slices from a small sandwich loaf
meat from a large crab, or 250 g (½ lb) shelled crab or shelled prawns
1 tender celery stalk, chopped finely
1 tablespoon chopped onion
150 ml (¼ pt) mayonnaise
3 tablespoons mixed herbs – chopped parsley, tarragon, chervil and chives
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
approx. 175 g (6 oz) Gruyère, fontina or Gouda cheese, grated
4 eggs
250 ml (8 fl oz) milk
250 ml (8 fl oz) single cream
salt, pepper and cayenne pepper
One of the best bread-and-butter puddings, but made with crab or prawns. For economy, a proportion of lightly cooked and flaked white fish can be used with the crab or prawns, but never more than half.
Butter the bread and cut off the crusts. Season the crab or prawns. Mix the celery and onion with the mayonnaise, herbs and Parmesan and then fold into the shellfish. Make six sandwiches with the mixture.
Butter a dish that will take the sandwiches in a single layer. Cut them in half and place in the dish. Dot with the grated Gruyère, fontina or Gouda. Beat the eggs with the milk and cream and pour into the dish. Leave in the fridge 2 hours or longer (overnight will not hurt).
Bake in the oven, preheated to gas 4, 180°C (350°F) for 30–40 minutes, lowering the heat as the top browns. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
1 vol-au-vent case, about
20 cm (8 inches) across
1 large crab, boiled
4 finely chopped shallots
a small bunch of parsley, chopped
a small bunch of chives, chopped
5 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
juice of 1 lemon
1 avocado pear
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper
1 boiled lobster, 1 kg (2 lb) in weight
avocado mayonnaise (page 234)
1 avocado pear, peeled, stoned and sliced
tail meat from lobster above
175–250 g (6–8 oz) unpeeled prawns
The success of this dish depends on the quality of the seafood, its freshness and sweetness, and on your skill in seasoning. It’s a matter of attractive assembly and taste, rather than of any cooking skill. If lobsters are impossibly expensive locally, use chopped mussels or lightly simmered scallops instead. Or even some fine, cooked white fish such as sole, John Dory, turbot, or anglerfish. The thing to avoid is canned lobster and crab, they are too tasteless for this French recipe – and for any other, I think.
If you make the vol-au-vent case at home, you will need 500 g (1 lb) total weight puff pastry. Bake in a very hot oven (gas 8, 230°C [450°F]) until risen and brown. Leave to cool.
Remove the meat from the crab and mix it with the other crab salad ingredients, and the avocado pear, peeled, stoned and diced.
For the lobster salad, remove the claw meat and meat from the head, and mix it with avocado mayonnaise. Slice the tail meat neatly across and set it aside for the garnish.
Put a layer of lobster salad in the pastry case, then all the crab salad, then another layer of lobster salad. Arrange a circle of avocado slices on top as garnish, with tail meat in the centre. Stand prawns, head up, around the outside of the pastry case. Serve immediately. [Fish Cookery]
1 avocado pear, peeled and stoned (pitted)
1 egg
4 tablespoons salad oil
juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon mustard
1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
a pinch of cayenne pepper
1 avocado pear, peeled and stoned (pitted)
1 measure vodka (optional)
Excellent with shellfish, on account of its beautiful colour, as well as its flavour. I do not find it very harmonious with other fish; it seems to need the sweetness of shellfish for complete success. Here are two recipes, the first quick and simple, the second a little more work but much better in flavour and so worth the trouble.
Cut avocado into rough cubes. Mix in blender with other ingredients, at top speed, for 10 seconds, until creamy. Adjust seasoning to taste. A hint of sugar may be needed.
Season the basic mayonnaise with the next three ingredients. Mash or sieve avocado to a fine purée. Fold it into the mayonnaise and add vodka if used. Adjust seasoning to taste. [Fish Cookery]
60 g (2 oz) butter
1 medium onion, chopped
500 g (1 lb) rice
250 ml (8 fl oz) dry white wine
1¼ litres (2 pt) water
300 ml (½ pt) concentrated fish stock or mussel liquor
salt, pepper
1 small lobster, shelled and cut up
or 1 crawfish, shelled and cut up
or 3½ litres (6 pt) mussels
or 3½ litres (6 pt) clams
or 3½ litres (6 pt) cockles
or 375 g (¾ lb) shelled prawns or shrimps
or 30 scampi
90 g (3 oz) butter
1 clove garlic
parsley
60 g (2 oz) butter
60 g (2 oz) grated Parmesan cheese
One of the pleasures of eating is good rice. By this I mean Italian rice, or French rice from the Camargue, huge oblong grains which cook to a juicy risotto without losing their individual form. I cannot conceal my preference for this European rice; or my affection for the man-made landscape of the Po, where oriental paddy fields separate one Renaissance or Mannerist city from the next. To the rice add shellfish, as they do in Venice – clams, mussels, oysters, lobster or crawfish, cockles, prawns and shrimps of all kinds – and you have one of those perfect unions which stimulate high respect for the civilization where it came about.
Use suitable shells from the fish for making a fish stock, plus the usual trimmings; or keep the liquor from opening mussels etc., and use as well as, or instead of, fish stock.
To make the risotto cook the onion in the butter until soft and golden (don’t brown it). Stir in the rice and when it looks transparent, pour in the wine. This will soon be absorbed, so add 300 ml (½ pt) of the hot water, and as it disappears, another 300 ml (½ pt). Use the fish stock next, and the rest of the water if required. The rice will take 20–30 minutes to cook. It should be tender but not mushy to the tongue, and juicy – juicier, for instance than curry or pilaff rice – but not wet.
When the rice is done, quickly reheat the cooked or opened shellfish in their butter, with the finely chopped clove of garlic. A matter of seconds only, or the fish will toughen. Stir into the risotto with the parsley and the final 60 g (2 oz) of butter. Turn on to a serving dish and sprinkle with the Parmesan.
Note: 500 g (1 lb) of tender young squid, cut in rings and fried in olive oil until cooked, can also be added to a risotto. So can pieces of eel fried in olive oil. Chopped anchovies are sometimes used, with a little more garlic, and plenty of parsley. The only rule is that the fish must be piquant in flavour, and firm. [Fish Cookery]
500 g (1 lb) spaghetti
3 kg (6 lb) clams, washed
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
400 g (14 oz) can tomatoes
60 g (2 oz) chopped parsley (large bunch)
Small clams in a tomato sauce are often served with spaghetti in central and southern Italy. In the north, in Venice, they would be added to a risotto (page 235), with a lump of butter rather than tomato sauce.
Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water in the usual way, until it is cooked but not slimily soft. Drain and keep warm until the sauce is finished.
Start the sauce as soon as the spaghetti goes into the pan. Open the clams in a large pan over a moderate heat, discard the shells and strain off the liquid from the fish. Brown the onion and garlic lightly in the oil. Add the tomatoes and some of the clam liquor. Boil down to a rich sauce. Add clams, which will be adequately cooked, just to re-heat them. Remove sauce from the stove, stir in the parsley and pour over the spaghetti, mixing it well.
Note: mussels can be used instead of clams. [Fish Cookery]
600 g (1¼ lb) tunny
bread
small sage leaves
olive oil
salt, pepper
lemon juice
A recipe for fresh, good quality tunny fish. Be sure to place the sage leaves next to it on the skewers for the full benefit of the flavour.
Cut the tunny into regular slices about the thickness of a finger, and divide the slices into squares. Cut an equal number of squares of bread, without crusts, of a similar size. Wash plenty of sage leaves.
Thread the tunny and bread on to six skewers, with sage leaves on either side of each piece of tunny. Half-leaves of bay can be substituted for some of the sage leaves.
Brush the skewers with olive oil, and season them. Grill at a very moderate temperature for about 30 minutes, brushing tunny and bread with oil whenever they begin to look in the least dry.
Squeeze lemon juice over them and serve. [Fish Cookery]
Couscous is a magnificently hospitable dish for a number of people. Meat and vegetables can be varied with the season. If one or two extra people turn up, just add extra couscous. The explanation may sound laborious, but once you understand the stages, couscous is very little trouble – especially if you make it at the weekend when there is help around. Then the preparation is nearly as much fun for everyone as the eating.
The traditional couscoussier is a huge double pot. In the large base part, meat and vegetables are cooked; in the perforated upper part, the couscous itself is steamed. A large stew or stock pot and a colander or steamer can quite well be substituted.
Trim surplus fat from the beef and cube the meat. Block the ends of the marrow bones with tied-on foil, to stop the marrow falling out. Trim fat from the lamb. Season the chicken inside and out and set aside in the refrigerator. (If you use a boiling fowl rather than a roaster, cook it from the start with the beef and so on.)
In a frying pan, brown the beef and lamb lightly in a little oil. Put it in a stew pot or the base of a couscoussier. Brown the onion in the pan and then put it with its skin on top of the meat. Add the marrow bones. Pour in water to cover generously. Bring to the boil and skim conscientiously, adding cold water to replace what the skimming has removed and to encourage the foam to rise. When clear, add the saffron, cinnamon, tomatoes and carrots, and the drained chick-peas tied in a muslin bag. Simmer at about 90°C (190°F) for 1½ hours, covered. This gives the fat a chance to solidify on the surface, so that it can be removed.
Two hours before the meal, reheat the beef. Put in the chicken and the chilli. Add extra water if necessary, but the chicken does not need to be covered if it is a roaster. Bring to simmering point, skim and remove a mugful of liquid.
375–750 g (¾–1½lb) shin of beef
4 sections of marrow bone shank, 13–18 cm (5–7 inches) long
4–8 slices of scrag end of mutton or lamb
½ –1 chicken (boiling or roasting fowl)
oil
1 large onion, sliced, plus the skin
a generous pinch of saffron
8-cm (3-inch) stick of cinnamon
4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
4–6 medium-size carrots, peeled
175 g (6 oz) chick-peas, soaked for 36 hours
1 red, hot chilli, de-seeded
500 g (1–1¼ lb) couscous
a heart of 1 cabbage, sliced
3–4 small white turnips, peeled (optional)
250 g (8 oz) shelled broad beans (optional)
250 g (8 oz) pumpkin, cubed (optional)
8 tiny courgettes
60–100 g (2–4 oz) raisins
2 tablespoons coriander
harissa or cayenne pepper and paprika
butter
salt and pepper
extra coriander and chopped parsley, to garnish
Line the top of the couscoussier or a colander with stockinette or muslin. Stir the couscous round with some water in a basin, and then drain it and put it in the cloth. Raise the heat under the meat pot so that the liquid boils steadily. Put the top section in place. Tie a tea towel round the join to prevent steam escaping and leave for 30 minutes. Occasionally, dip your hands in some oil and run them through the couscous to air it. When you remove the couscous after 30 minutes, taste the liquid and remove the chilli if it is hot enough for your tastes.
Tip the couscous into a bowl, sprinkle it carefully with cold water and stir through to separate any lumps. Use more water or a little oil so that it runs freely. Add salt and then put the top part back on the boiling meat and stock, after slipping in the remaining vegetables, raisins and coriander. Give it a further 30 minutes. By this time the couscous should be tender and much swollen. Try it, and be prepared to give it longer, though this is rarely necessary with the packaged couscous.
To make the fiery sauce to go with couscous, simply stir 1 tablespoon of harissa into the mugful of stock previously removed and reheat it, stirring. Alternatively, mix in paprika and cayenne. This sauce is used in dabs, like mustard.
To serve, heap the couscous on an earthenware dish. (In North Africa a shallow earthenware dish with a tall conical lid is used. This is called a tajine; the base of it is a kesra.) Melt a good lump of butter and pour it over. Gently make a crater in the top for the meat. Keep it warm. Remove the meat you wish to serve from its bones. Season the pieces and place them with the best bits of vegetable on top of the couscous, or in a separate dish. Carefully remove the foil from the marrow bones, so that the marrow can slip out and lie on top, like the delicacy it is. Scatter with coriander and parsley. Strain off the broth into a pan, season and boil it down if need be. Remove the chick-peas from their bag and add to the broth. Drink it first, or put bowls on the table for people to drink it with the couscous itself. Finally, serve the couscous, and give everyone a tiny pot of the hot sauce.
Note: if you bring back ras-el-hanout or the French quatre-épices from a holiday in North Africa, use it in the seasoning of couscous. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
1 large onion, chopped
olive oil
500 g (1–1¼ lb) long grain rice
approx. 1½ litres (2½ pt) stock appropriate to the accompanying meat, or water
1 rounded teaspoon turmeric or a large pinch of saffron
4 heaped tablespoons slivered almonds or pine kernels
4 heaped tablespoons raisins or sultanas
chopped parsley
salt and pepper
Another recipe with many variations. Different nuts can be used – pine kernels are a favourite choice. Sultanas make a substitute for raisins, and saffron will give a better colour and flavour than turmeric. For a plain pilaff, omit spice, almonds and raisins. Bulghur can be substituted for rice. Serve as an accompaniment to grilled or stewed meat.
Brown the onion lightly in just enough oil to cover the base of the pan. Stir in the rice, and when it goes transparent, pour in about 500 ml (¾ pt) of the stock or water, with the turmeric or saffron. Simmer gently, covered, adding extra stock or water as required. The rice should never be swamped and by the time it is cooked (20–25 minutes) there should be no more liquid visible: the top of the rice will have little holes in its flatness. Stir in the nuts and fruit, with enough seasoning and chopped parsley to give a lightly speckled effect.
Turn the rice on to a hot dish and place the cooked meat in the centre. Scatter with a very little more parsley and serve. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
375 g (¾ lb)
piece of calf’s liver
750 g (1½ lb) onions, sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
chopped parsley, to garnish
Quite the best version of a favourite European combination, but you should use calf’s liver. The tricky thing is to cook it so briefly that it remains slightly pink inside.
Half-freeze the liver, so that it is solid enough to cut into thin, tissue-paper slivers. Put them on kitchen paper to thaw and drain and then pat them dry.
Cook the onions slowly in just enough oil to cover the base of a large, heavy frying pan. Put a lid or some foil on top at first. As the juices run, remove the lid or foil so that they can evaporate, to leave you eventually with a soft golden mass of onion, not browned but very tender. Season with salt and pepper. This can be done in advance.
Just before serving the dish, and after the first course if you are eating one, set the pan over a high heat. When it is sizzling, stir in the leaves of liver and keep stirring for about 30 seconds, or until the liver is brown in part, but still a little pink – you are in effect stir-frying. Remove the pan and season again. Tip everything into a warm serving dish, or divide immediately between four warm dinner plates. Sprinkle with a little parsley and serve. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
6 thick pork chops
salt, pepper and sugar
olive oil
250 ml (8 fl oz) red wine
1 heaped tablespoon coriander seeds, lightly crushed
Pork in Cyprus is excellent. I suspect that farmers there are not yet breeding the skinny modern pig, since the chops are of a size and tenderness difficult to find in this country. When making this dish, which should be succulent, be careful not to overcook it.
Cube the meat from the chops, discarding bones, skin and obvious gristle, but including the fat. Rub in salt and pepper, sprinkle with a pinch of sugar, cover and leave overnight in the refrigerator.
To cook, heat a thin layer of oil in a heavy sauté pan (large enough to take all the meat in one layer) and sizzle the cubes rapidly, until they are brown all over. Pour off any surplus fat. Add the wine and let it bubble fast for a minute. Half-cover the pan, lower the heat and leave the pork to finish cooking. Turn it over regularly. It will need upwards of 2 minutes. The sauce should boil down to a little rich gravy. Stir the coriander seeds into the pan, leave for a few moments and then serve with new potatoes, bulghur or rice pilaff (page 240), and a salad. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
A quick appetizing dish – the name means ‘leap into the mouth’ – which should not be kept hanging about. With veal the price it is, Italians are beginning to use sliced turkey breast for dishes of this kind. But be careful, turkey is a much drier meat than veal and should be cooked more briefly. Chill it thoroughly in the ice-making compartment of the refrigerator, so that you can cut paper-thin slices on the slant.
For 4–5 people you will need 500 g (1 lb) turkey slices, or 4–5 escalopes of veal, which need to be beaten out between greaseproof paper or clear film. You also need 125 g (¼ lb) prosciutto crudo and enough small fresh sage leaves to give you one for each saltimbocca – 18 to be on the safe side.
Spread out the turkey slices, or cut the flattened escalopes into 2–3 pieces each, and spread them out. On each put a piece of prosciutto cut to fit, and a sage leaf. Roll up the little pieces and secure them with a wooden cocktail stick or toothpick. (In some versions, the sage leaves are put between veal and ham, and the pieces are not rolled up: this shortens the cooking time to 4 minutes.)
Brown the little rolls on both sides in butter. Pour in 90 ml (3 fl oz) Marsala, cover and simmer for a further 3–5 minutes, turning the rolls once. Serve immediately with the pan sauce.
Note: if you replace the sage with batons of Gruyère cheese, the dish is known as bocconcini (little mouthfuls). [European Cookery]
Find an intelligent butcher who will cut 4 cm (1½ inch) thick veal slices for you, across the shin of the animal. These are ossi bucho, hollow (marrow) bones, a favourite Milanese food. Season and brown these bones carefully, so that the marrow doesn’t fall out, in olive oil. Pour over a large glass of dry white wine. Boil hard to reduce, for about 5 minutes. Transfer the bones to a casserole, where they can lie flat in a single layer. Add a good 600 ml (1 pt) of tomato sauce to the pan juices, bring to the boil and pour over the veal. Simmer gently in a low oven until tender. This can be done in advance, and the dish reheated just before the meal.
Serve sprinkled with 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, mixed with the grated rind of half a large lemon, and 1 chopped clove of garlic. Boiled rice is the usual accompaniment to this excellent dish. [Good Things]
1 rabbit, jointed (or 1 young hare)
seasoned flour
½ litre (¾ pt) red wine
2 heaped tablespoons each onion and carrot
1 tablespoon each parsley and thyme
1 bay leaf
3 cloves
plenty of black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
60 g (2 oz) lard
60 g (2 oz) fat bacon, diced
90 g (3 oz) chopped onion
beef stock
1 heaped tablespoon sugar
90 ml (3 fl oz) wine vinegar
60 g (2 oz) sultanas
60 g (2 oz) pine kernels
60 g (2 oz) candied peel, cut in strips
30 g (1 oz) grated bitter chocolate
salt, pepper, lemon juice
It may need an act of faith to include the chocolate, but please don’t leave it out. And make sure it’s the bitter kind. Pine kernels can be bought at delicatessen or health food shops.
Soak the rabbit or hare in the marinade ingredients for at least 4 hours. Drain and dry the meat, roll in seasoned flour and brown in the lard, together with bacon and onion. Put into a casserole. Strain the marinade liquid over the rabbit and add enough beef stock to cover it. Season well and simmer for 1½ hours, or until the meat is cooked. Melt sugar in a thick saucepan until it turns pale brown, add vinegar, stirring vigorously – the mixture will become a brown syrup. Pour into the casserole, and add the sultanas, pine kernels, peel and half the chocolate. Simmer 5 minutes. Correct the seasoning with salt, pepper, lemon juice and remaining chocolate to taste. No accompanying vegetables are needed. [Good Things]
30 g (1 oz) dried porcini or ceps, or 60 g (2 oz) mushrooms, chopped
500 g (1 lb) chicken livers, chopped
1 slice raw Parma ham or unsmoked gammon, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
25 g (¾ oz) chopped sage
a sprig of rosemary
1 slice lemon, chopped
olive oil
½ litre (¾ pt) dry white wine
juice of ½ lemon
salt, pepper
One of the family sent me this recipe from La Lanterna restaurant in Perugia. I thought it most original – until I came across an almost identical sauce the following week, in the Forme of Cury, that roll of medieval recipes compiled about 1390 by the cooks of Richard II. Sawce noyre was served with capon in those days: at La Lanterna it’s spread on hot, thin slices of veal (lightly fried escalopes or roast veal), and served with pieces of toast in between also spread with the sauce. You can order it too as a first course on its own, when it’s eaten with toast like a pâté.
Pour hot water over the dried mushrooms, and leave to soak for 15 minutes or according to the instructions; drain and chop. Cook the first eight ingredients in a little olive oil, until the livers are half-cooked. Mince finely, or use a food mill. Add wine and a little lemon juice. Simmer for 30 minutes, uncovered. Correct seasoning and add the rest of the lemon juice if necessary. The liquid evaporates to leave a strongly flavoured, spreadable paste rather than a sauce. It can be stored for up to 10 days in a screw-top jar in the refrigerator: it can also be made in half-quantities quite successfully. [The Mushroom Feast]
1 large chicken, approx. 2 kg (4 lb) in weight, with giblets (minus the liver)
375 g (¾ lb) onions, complete with skins
125 g (¼ lb) outer celery stalks
125 g (¼ lb) carrot, quartered
bouquet garni
250 g (8 oz) walnut halves, almonds or skinned hazelnuts
2–3 tablespoons nut oil (walnut, almond or hazelnut as appropriate) or groundnut oil, if required (see recipe)
1 tablespoon paprika
60 g (2 oz) bread, crusts removed
salt and pepper
Usually served cold, as part of the meze course, though it can quite well be eaten as a main dish, hot or cold. The important thing is to find a well-flavoured chicken. In practice this means the larger the better: I have sometimes used half a huge capon or small turkey. The ideal is a plump boiling fowl.
Put the chicken and its giblets in a large pot or pan, together with the onions, celery, carrot and bouquet garni. Add enough water to cover the legs if it is a roasting bird, or to cover it completely if a boiling fowl. Bring to simmering point and skim. Adjust the heat to maintain a low simmer, 90°C (190°F), and cover. A roasting chicken will need 1 hour or so, a boiler anything over 2 hours. Do not overcook the chicken. (The drumstick should move easily when pulled and the flesh between it and the body should not be pink.)
Remove the cooked bird. To serve hot, cut it into serving pieces, season and keep warm. To serve cold, allow to cool and then cut into pieces and remove the bones.
For the sauce, blend or process the nuts (no need to blanch almonds, unless you like a very white sauce). Turn them into a piece of stockinette and squeeze as much oil out of them as you can. There is no need to do this if you are using nut oil or a good groundnut oil. Stir the paprika into the oil and set aside.
Boil the cooking stock to reduce to a good, concentrated flavour, aiming to end up with 300 ml (½ pt), or slightly more. Return the nuts to the blender or processor, if necessary. Add the bread and then whizz to as smooth a sauce as possible, using the reduced stock to moisten it slightly. You may well not need it all. Aim for a consistency that will coat the chicken nicely, and keep tasting to make sure that the sauce does not become too strong – it should be delicate but not insipid.
To finish the hot version, put the pieces on a dish surrounded with well buttered, plainly cooked rice. Heat the sauce through (add a little more stock if it is unmanageably thick) and pour over the chicken. Dribble the red oil over the top and serve immediately.
To finish the cold version, consider the sauce. It should have almost a mayonnaise consistency, as thick but not quite as light, since nuts and bread are heavier than oil. Add more stock if it is too thick. Layer the chicken pieces into a glass bowl with the sauce, leaving enough sauce to cover the top completely. Sprinkle with the red oil. Serve very cold, or slightly chilled. [Dishes of the Mediterranean]
large roasting chicken
125 g (4 oz) butter
grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
1 level tablespoon rigani
125 ml (4 fl oz) giblet stock or water
2 level teaspoons salt
plenty of freshly ground black pepper
3 eggs
extra lemon juice
One of the best and simplest chicken recipes, clear and vigorous yet delicate.
Set oven at moderate, gas 4, 180°C (350°F).
Stuff the bird with half the butter mashed with lemon zest and some of the rigani. Brown it in the rest of the butter and put into a deep casserole. Pour over the juice of the 2 lemons, plus the stock or water, salt, pepper and the rest of the rigani. Cover and bake in the heated oven, basting every 15–20 minutes until the chicken is cooked (about 1 hour). Transfer the chicken to a heated dish and keep warm.
Beat the eggs vigorously and strain in the chicken juices to make an avgolemono sauce (see page 248) using extra lemon juice to heighten the flavour. Serve the chicken with boiled rice.
As its name implies, the popular sauce of Greece is made from eggs and lemon. It tastes rich and clear, more lemonish than our northern hollandaise egg sauce, and lighter since the bulk consists of stock rather than butter. It is served with vegetables, poultry, meat or fish, either separately or poured over.
The basic mixture is 4 egg yolks or 3 eggs beaten with the juice of a large lemon (to extract the maximum juice, pour boiling water over the lemon and leave a few minutes before squeezing it). First beat the yolks of eggs in a large bowl or in the top of a double boiler, using an electric beater if you have one, then beat in the lemon juice. Now you are ready to complete it.
Pour 250 ml (8 fl oz) hot liquid slowly into the egg and lemon mixture, beating all the time. The liquid should be appropriate to the dish or from it. Place the bowl or pan over simmering water and stir or beat until the sauce is thick, light and smooth. As with any egg mixture, do not overheat or the egg will curdle. When the consistency seems right, dip the base of the bowl or pan into very cold water to prevent overheating. [European Cookery]
1 large chicken, jointed, plus 2 tablespoons butter (or 1¼ kg [2½ lb] cubed mutton or lamb)
2 large finely chopped onions
a bunch of parsley, chopped
about ½ teaspoon ground ginger
salt, black cayenne and paprika pepper
90 g (3 oz) butter
500 g (1 lb) quinces (or more to taste)
One of the interesting things about Middle Eastern and Arab cooking from an Englishman’s point of view, is its similarity to our own medieval food. The abundant use of sweet substances with meat, the strong seasoning of ginger and various peppers, remind us that once dishes and courses were not so separately conceived as they are now (the well defined three- or four-course dinner, soup, fish, meat, dessert and so on, is really a nineteenth-century institution). To jump from reading a modern Middle Eastern cookery book to a fifteenth-century English one is much less of a change than going from the fifteenth-century one to Mrs Beeton. It may seem obvious to say ‘Crusaders!’, but I’m reluctant to believe such romantic notions, remembering that Marco Polo didn’t bring back from Cathay half the things he’s credited with. Let’s be cautious, and say that such dishes, whatever their origin, came to us via France and our medieval French court.
Put meat (and, in the case of the chicken, its butter) into a large pan with onions and parsley. Just cover with cold water and season with ginger, salt and peppers. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 1 hour, until cooked. Slice and core the quinces (leave peel on), brown them very lightly in butter, and add to the stew 30 minutes before the end of cooking time.
Note: the meat is not browned before cooking, and lamb has enough fat of its own to do without the butter. [Good Things]
500 g (1 lb) prepared sweetbreads
4 thin slices lean smoked bacon, or, more correctly, Italian prosciutto
6 fresh sage leaves (1 teaspoon dried sage)
90 g (3 oz) butter
scant 150 ml (¼ pt) Marsala (or Madeira, port, brown sherry)
4 large croûtons of bread, fried in butter
The Italians have a good way of cooking delicate pieces of lean meat such as turkey or chicken breasts, or poultry livers, or sweetbreads. The system is to brown them lightly in butter, then to stew them for a little with Marsala until they are glazed and succulent. The result is delectable, sharply stimulating to the appetite, but not in the least heavy.
Divide the sweetbreads into nuggets. Cut the bacon into matchstick strips, discarding the rind. Snip the sage into tiny pieces with scissors. Fry the sweetbreads in butter quickly until they begin to brown (be careful not to burn the butter) with the sage. Add the bacon and cook for another 2 or 3 minutes. Pour in some of the Marsala, and, as it boils down, add some more, and so on until it’s used up. This takes about 10 minutes, and the heat should be turned up to evaporate the wine. Turn the sweetbreads over and over all the time, to acquire a brown, syrupy glaze. Serve them on the croûtons of bread, with the small amount of sauce left in the pan poured over them. [Good Things]
500 g (1 lb) turkey fillets (or blanched sweetbreads)
salt, pepper
flour
butter
225 ml (1½ gills) Marsala, or 125 ml (4 fl oz) each Marsala and stock
250 g (8 oz) mushrooms, sliced (or thinly sliced white truffle)
Like the preceding recipe, this is another Italian way of cooking delicate cuts of meat. As well as being suitable for veal and pork, it can be adapted to sweetbreads, which should first be soaked, blanched and trimmed.
Flatten, season and flour the fillets (if using sweetbreads, do not flatten but divide into convenient pieces, or cut into slices). Cook gently until lightly browned in 90 g (3 oz) of butter – about 5 minutes a side. Pour on the Marsala, or Marsala and stock, and bubble for a few moments before removing meat to a warm serving dish. Boil pan liquids down to a slightly syrupy sauce, stirring all the time. Beat in 30 g (1 oz) of butter and pour over the meat.
Meanwhile cook the mushrooms in 60 g (2 oz) of butter, unless you are using white truffles, which need no cooking but can be heated for a moment in some butter. Place mushrooms around the fillets. [The Mushroom Feast]