French Provincial Cooking (69 page)

VIVIAN ROWE:
Return to Normandy,
1951

This is not the elaborate restaurant dish called
sole à la normande,
but rather the primitive version from which, no doubt, the more luxurious concoction derived.

As a matter of fact, although the
sole normande
is now to be found in many of the restaurants of Normandy, it was originally a creation of Paris chefs. Carême (a Parisian) is thought to have invented the first version, which was simplified by Langlais, chef at the Rocher de Cancale, a restaurant famous in the early decades of the last century. Since then the dish has undergone many changes, and nearly every chef has his own version of the one and only true
sole normande.

For the simple matelote the ingredients are a fine fat sole weighing about 1 lb., 2 pints of mussels (small ones when available), a wineglass of dry cider, 1 large onion, seasoning, a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of parsley butter. First slice the onion finely and melt it in the butter, stewing it very gently until it is quite soft but still pale yellow. Meanwhile, put the cleaned mussels in a saucepan with the cider, set them over a fast flame and extract them as soon as they open.

Put the onion mixture, well seasoned, into a long shallow fireproof dish. On top put the sole, skinned on both sides. Through a muslin pour into it enough stock from the mussels barely to cover it. Cover the dish, and cook in a moderate oven for 15 minutes. Put the shelled mussels round the fish, and the parsley butter on top of it. Return to the oven for 5 minutes, just sufficient time to allow the mussels to heat through. Serve in the same dish.

Be sure to use a porcelain or enamel-lined dish; tin or unlined cast-iron will turn the cider black.

A small whole turbot, a sea-bream, a piece of skate, or fillets of John Dory (St. Pierre) can be cooked in the same way.

Sole cooked
à /a deauvillaise
is a curious combination, perhaps, but one much liked by those who share the Norman fondness for onions.

For four people the ingredients are 2 fine soles, filleted, 6 oz. onion,
pint cream, butter, cider or white wine, nutmeg, French mustard, lemon, seasonings, breadcrumbs.

Weigh the onions after they have been peeled; chop them. Melt 1
oz. of butter in a thick pan; in this cook the onions very gently, so that they turn transparent and yellow but not brown. In the meantime make a little fish stock by cooking the carcase of the sole for 10 minutes with
pint of cider or white wine,
pint of water, a slice of lemon and a little salt. Strain. Sieve the onions to a purée, add about 2 tablespoons of the prepared stock and the cream; stir till smooth and fairly thick. Season with grated nutmeg, a little freshly-ground pepper, salt if necessary and a scant teaspoon of French mustard. All this can be done in advance. When the time comes to cook the fish, poach the fillets in the remainder of the stock. About 5 minutes is enough. Remove them to a heated oval
gratin
dish. Cover them with the sauce, gently reheated. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on the top, and add a few little pieces of butter. Put under the grill for about 3 minutes and serve at once, with little triangles of bread fried in butter arranged round the dish.

Fillets of John Dory, sea-bream, whiting or even plaice can be prepared in this way.

Put not much more than a teaspoon each of finely chopped shallot and parsley into a well-buttered oval gratin dish. Add 2 tablespoons of white wine. Put in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes, so that the shallot and wine cook a little and amalgamate. Now put in your sole, skinned on both sides and seasoned with salt and pepper. On top put a tablespoon of butter in small pieces. Cover with buttered paper. Cook in a low oven, Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F., for 15 minutes, for a medium-sized sole weighing about
lb. Spread some of the shallot and juices on top of the sole and put the dish under the hot grill for 2 minutes so that it acquires a light glaze. Serve in the same dish.

It is quite possible to use dry vermouth instead of white wine for this dish.

This is an even simpler way of cooking sole than the Bercy method.

Make a little concentrated fish stock by just covering the skin, taken from both sides of the sole, with water. Add seasoning (but only a very little salt) and a sprig or two of parsley. Simmer until there is only about 2 tablespoons of liquid.

Put your seasoned sole in a well-buttered fireproof dish, pour over the strained liquid, cook in the oven and finish under the grill exactly as in the Bercy recipe above. Put a little
maître d’hôtel
butter (page 116) on top of the fish before serving.

For those who can lay hands on tarragon and chervil, a herb and cream mixture called
sauce messine
, from Lorraine, is one of the most delicious of summer sauces to serve with fish.

Buy a piece of turbot weighing a little over 2 lb. (the bones are very large, so this is not too much for four people), put it in a baking dish and cover it completely with half water and half milk. Cut turbot is much apt to dry up during cooking, and so should have plenty of moisture. Add salt and a sprig of fresh tarragon and parsley.

Bake, covered with a buttered paper, in a fairly slow oven (Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F.) for about 55 minutes, until you see that the flesh comes easily away from the bones. One side of the turbot is thicker than the other, so the timing depends a little bit on whether you have a thick or thin piece. Lift out the fish on to a hot serving dish, and have the sauce ready to be served separately.

 

First chop together the leaves of half a dozen sprigs of tarragon, the same of parsley and chervil and 2 small shallots. Then work together 2 oz. of butter and a teaspoon of flour, add a teaspoon of French mustard, the beaten yolks of 2 eggs and
pint of thin cream. Blend with the herb and shallot mixture, season, and put all in a small saucepan. Heat with the saucepan standing in hot water, stirring all the time until the sauce thickens. Do not let it boil. Immediately before serving, squeeze in the juice of a small lemon.

A whole chapter could be devoted to the bouillabaisse. Every French gastronomic writer and cook for the past hundred years (and some before that) have expounded their theories upon the dish so beloved of the Marseillais, and each one of them gives his own recipe—the only authentic one. And, however many Marseillais, Toulonnais, Antibois or other natives of Provence you ask for the correct recipe, you will never get the same instructions twice.

There is no authentic bouillabaisse without white wine, you are told; it is a heresy of the most deadly kind to add white wine; the best bouillabaisse includes a
langouste
and mussels;
langouste
and mussels are only added in Paris because they haven’t the other requisite fish; you
must
rub the croûtons with garlic; you must on no account rub the croûtons with garlic, and so on and so on.

I would not myself think it a great deprivation if I were told that I could never again eat a bouillabaisse. I have had good ones and bad ones, but to be quite truthful I have also eaten far superior dishes of the same sort, call it a soup or a stew or what you like, in Italy, notably on the Adriatic coast (and I hope no Marseillais will ever see these words, for the consequences might be serious).

However, for those who are interested in both the theory and the practice of the cooking of a bouillabaisse, a few constant factors emerge from all the confusion. They are as follows:

 

(1) It is useless attempting to make a bouillabaisse away from the shores of the Mediterranean. All sorts of variations can be and are devised in other parts of the world, but it would be foolish to pretend that these have more than a remote relationship to the true bouillabaisse.