LUCY’S RECIPE PAGE
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I shouldn’t grumble. I am, after all, living and working in Aix-en-Provence for the next two months. Nevertheless, when I arrived, eager, at the apartment where I’ll be staying for the weeks to come, my heart sank when I spotted the ‘kitchen’; two ancient electric hobs in the corner, next to what was listed in the inventory as an ‘oven’. I beg to differ, Monsieur Landlord. This excuse for an appliance is barely large enough to roast my own fist in, and looks like it has been there since 1970. To add insult to injury, it calls itself ‘Topchef’. The proprietor obviously assumes that no-one would be desperate enough to use it in any case, as there is not a roasting tin or baking tray in sight. Perhaps they don’t make them that small. Curiously enough, the cupboard is stuffed full of tupperware boxes of every conceivable shape, size and colour. I am slightly confused as to what M. Landlord expects me to do with this plastic colony. Aside from that, he has supplied me with just two tiny saucepans, a mini frying pan, and no cooking utensils. Perhaps he prefers take-out.
I’m not angry, just disappointed. All my hopes of hosting grand, gourmet dinner parties have evaporated into the hot, Provençale air. Yet, as I sit, glaring at Topchef, and willing it to mutate into a glorious gagenau, I sense a stubborn desire to rise to the culinary challenge. Why should I let this minor set-back get between me and a good meal? I will not be deterred by such material disadvantages!
A trip to the daily market provides ample inspiration: green, yellow, red and even purple tomatoes obscenely bulbous, and swollen into brain-like tumors; bundles of asparagus, not uniform in size as English supermarkets dictate, but ranging from thin and slender to sturdy trunks; cheese stalls where nothing is cellophane-wrapped, and the man is generous with his samples; and peas, IN THE POD. I doubt whether the majority of Birtish society would recognise their Birdseye favourite in its natural form.
I start small, and tentatively:
A simple, fresh, salad
Ingredients
Freshly podded peas
A bundle of asparagus
Sheep’s cheese – I am using brebis, a deliciously creamy, mild and unctuous cheese.
Lettuce leaves – again, the variety in the market is mind-boggling. I am going for Cos, having recently read a fad article promising that it will give me perfect skin.
A whole beetroot
A handful of fresh mint
Olive oil
A slice of lemon
First, scrape the beetroot clean, wrap it in foil and pop in a 200 degree oven for an hour, or until tender (Topchef can just about accommodate this, thankfully).
Next, put the podded peas and asparagus into a pan of boiling, salted water and cook for a few minutes. The vegetables should be al dente. Run them under cold water afterwards as this will stop them cooking any further.
Break up the lettuce leaves into a bowl, then scatter the torn mint leaves and slices of cheese over the top, along with the cooked vegetables.
Once the beetroot is cooked, slice it and add this too. It is great if the beetroot is still warm so it melts some of the cheese.
Finally, drizzle generously with olive oil and a good squeeze of lemon.
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Fried courgette flowers with mascarpone and basil
There is no food-stuff more delicately beautiful than the courgette flower. Fragile and ephemeral, they adorn the market stalls for only a short time each year, so are well worth investing in whilst available. As soon as I spied their yellow and orange cacoons I couldn’t resist buying a bunch and inviting a CF virgin to sample them. This recipe would work well with a number of other soft cheeses too – mozzarella and fontina both make tasty substitutes.
Ingredients (serves two)
Six small or four large courgette flowers
6 tablespoons mascarpone
A handful of basil
Some grated parmesan
Soda water
Plain flour
Start by chopping the basil and mixing it with the mascarpone and parmesan, adding seasoning to the mixture.
Carefully open the top of each flower by peeling back the individual petals. This is a *delicate* job, and not to be bulldozed through. Then insert a tablespoon full of the mascarpone mixture down into the flower. The petals should naturally close again at the top.
To make the batter, fill a mug half full with soda water, then slowly add the flour, spoonful by spoonful, stirring all the while. Stop adding flour when the mixture is the thickness of double cream. Lightly season the batter.
Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan so it is very hot. Submerge each flower in the batter and place in the frying pan. Don’t be tempted to move them around in the pan, but let them cook on one side for a couple of minutes, and then turn them. Fry for a couple more minutes on the other side, or until lightly browned.
Place the cooked flowers on a paper towel for a few seconds before serving to soak up some of the extra oil.
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Soft fruit and almond tarte
Topchef and I are now getting on rather well. Sure, there have been ups and downs: tinfoil stubbornly fused to the bottom of pies (good for the teeth??): woefully uneven cooking producing charred outsides and raw centres (the recipients of my first attempt needed a hammer and chisel to get through their pastry….valiantly attempted by all): an extremely wayward temperature dial (my hand is proving to be a reasonably accurate thermometer). Yet the challenge, each time I decide to make an oven-based dish, is delicious in itself. I am now a dab-hand at creating my own roasting dishes and cake tins out of aluminium foil (always remembering to GREASE it first), and have an ample supply of empty wine bottles available to moonlight as a rolling pin. The lack of weighing scales has also provided an interesting hurdle. One of the eclectic collection of drinking glasses seems to me to look around the same size as 1 measuring cup, who knows if it’s British or American (does anyone really care?), so I have been working with a handy online conversion site and filling said vessel to varying percentages. It may interest you to know, for example, that 1kilogramme of vanilla wafers amounts to 6.2 american cups, or that 1 pound of evaporated milk equals 98.95 teaspoons-full. Always handy to keep in mind.
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>> ESSENTIAL WEBSITE: www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking (I haven’t yet looked into what else this site can ‘convert’)
This is one of my very favourite provençale recipes. I have made four different versions in the last two weeks, taking full advantage of the fabulous market fruit selection, and have even given a lesson in making it, though I did insist on going to their kitchen, where they actually have an oven. And a cake tin.
Here I am using a mixture of peaches and nectarines. It is also delicious with apricots or figs, and a bit less sweet. Alternatively, you can use fresh berries – in this case, you would slightly adapt the recipe, pouring the filling into the pastry case and cooking it without the fruit, then arranging the fresh berries onto the cooked filling.
Ingredients for the crust:
125g butter
90g sugar (I have a sneaking suspicion that my first failure MAY have been due to poor mathematics on my part. 90g of sugar = HALF a cup. Oops)
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
180g plain flour
2 tbs ground almonds
Approx 750g fresh fruit, halved and stoned. If using peaches, I usually peel them.
Ingredients for the filling:
100ml cream (estimating two fifths of an opaque carton is not as easy as you might think)
1 egg, beaten
1 tbs honey
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp almond essence
1 tbs flour
To make the crust, melt the butter in a saucepan, and then stir in the sugar. Add the vanilla and almond, then stir in the flour. The mixture will become thick and dough like.
Using the backs of your fingers and knuckles, press the mixture evenly into the bottom of a greased cake-tin (or home-made tinfoil origami extravaganza), making sure it reaches about an inch up the sides. The crust should be quite thin.
Bake in a preheated oven for 12-15minutes.
Next, scatter the ground almonds over the base – this stops it going soggy.
Arrange the fruit cut side up in snug concentric circles. It should be tightly packed, as it will shrink down during cooking.
Whisk together all the filling ingredients in a bowl, then pour evenly over the fruit.
Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes, until the fruit is starting to brown at the edges.
In recompense for the culinary lesson, the lovely Gussie provided a wickedly good sweet red wine as an accompaniment. Much lighter than port, but with as much punch. Apparently it keeps for up to six months once opened, but it would be a struggle to make it last that long.
