Desperately seeking summer...

Summer has been rather non-committal in this part of the world.  One day, the sun shines and I can soak in a view such as this:

The next, that view has vanished, only to be replaced by this:

View?  What view, I hear you ask.  There is one there; it's just been obscured by Atlantic fog for days.  And days.

Even if I have to (reluctantly) forgo the sunny days of summer, I'm adamantly refusing to forgo the fresh flavours of the season.  Even on evenings when it's cold and damp, with the fog closing in from the sea, I steadfastly refuse to eat the stodgy fare of winter.  But on those evenings, a light summer salad simply doesn't seem appropriate and searching for something of a compromise, I came across a recipe for Pissaladiere from French Country Cooking by the Roux Brothers (a review of which I've previously written here).

This dish is from Provence and if there's anywhere in the world I associate with blue skies and sunshine, it has to be Provence.  This dish - with its pizza base, sweet onion topping, salty anchovies and olives - seemed warming enough to ward off the unseasonal damp but retained the hint of summer I so desperately needed.

Before I tell you how to make it, I want to reassure you that even though this dish takes time, it's actually quite simple.  Mostly it cooks away while you focus on other things.

Let's start with the bread/pizza base:
Ingredients:
250g strong bread flour
7g sugar
A pinch of salt
One 7g pack of fast-action dried yeast
125ml warm water

• If you're making the bread by hand, put the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre of the mixture.
• In another bowl, mix the yeast and water and then pour into the well.  Mix the ingredients with your hand until well blended.
• If you're using a mixer, put the water and yeast in the mixing bowl and beat lightly with a whisk.  Fit the dough hook, add the flour, sugar and salt and beat at the lowest speed until thoroughly mixed.
• Cover the dough with a damp cloth and leave to rise in a warm place (I always use my hot press/airing cupboard) until it has doubled in size.  This usually takes an hour or so. 

While your bread is rising, you can work on the tart filling.
Ingredients:
1kg onions
100ml olive oil
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
12 anchovy fillets
36 small olives
Salt and freshly ground pepper

• Peel the onions and slice them as thinly as possible.  Gently heat the olive oil in a saucepan with a thick bottom.  Add the onions and garlic.  Cover and cook over the lowest possible heat for up to two hours. Stir the onions every 30 minutes, making sure that they do not colour at all.  After two hours, they should be cooked to a melted, aromatic wonderfulness.  The original recipe recommends taking out the garlic at this stage but instead I squeezed the cloves - which had roasted - into the onion mixture and ended up with this:  

• By this stage, your bread should be ready so set your oven to 200 degrees C/ 390F/Gas Mark 6.
• Knock the dough back a little by flipping it over with your fingers two or three times. 
• Sprinkle some flour onto a work surface and roll your dough into a circle that will fit your chosen baking tin.  (My flan case was 20cm in diameter.)  Oil your baking tin lightly and lay your pastry on top of it, pressing it into place. 

•  Leave the dough base at room temperature for about 15 minutes to allow it to rise slightly.
• Then bake it in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and add the onions (draining off the oil, if necessary).  Arrange the anchovies and olives on top and cook for another 20 minutes.

• Serve hot with some fresh green salad and, regardless of what the weather is like outside, you'll have a taste of summer on your plate.

I'd love to hear what you are all eating this summer and I hope the sun is shining wherever you are.

French Country Cooking: discover traditional French dishes with the Roux Brothers

One of the best things about being a food blogger is occasionally receiving cookbooks in the post. I recently received a copy of 'French Country Living' by the Roux Brothers; a cookbook that aims to showcase the best of regional French cooking and a cookbook that seems to have been made for me.

I used to live in France and have first-hand experience of just how proud the French are of their regional dishes. I have a particularly warm memory of a friend's mother's showing me how to make aligot in her kitchen in Rodez in Aveyron. She mixes Tomme cheese, mashed potatoes and garlic together in a huge pot, transforming it into a cheesy, garlicy, stringy, elastic dish of wonderfulness. (My memory of this dish is so tantalising that if I can lay my hands on some Tomme cheese, I'm going to have to try to recreate this dish for myself very soon.)

Such memories meant that I was predisposed to liking this book. Added to this was the fact that the book is written by Albert and Michel Roux, two brothers and chefs of impeccable pedigree who transformed British cuisine from their kitchens at Le Gavroche and The Waterside Inn.

Flicking through the book, my first impressions were that this was really traditional and very rustic French food. Perhaps a little too rustic for me. Lamb's brain with capers, anyone? Or pig's head soup?


I prefer my food on the light side and usually choose fish and vegetable-based dishes and light sauces over red meat, butter and cream. But my boyfriend (whose tastes are the exact opposite) happened to be looking through this cookbook with me and he ooh-ed and aah-ed over almost every recipe.

As we proceeded to look through the book together, I soon found plenty of dishes to entice me too. The overall design of the book charmed me as well. It was perfect for a Francophile like me.

The introduction tells us how the brothers came to be so passionate about food. They reminisce about their particularly well-fed childhood, enthusing aobut their mother's dandelion salad with bacon, her blanquette of veal and her waffles. These two world-renowned chefs admit that her food remains their favourite to this day.

They recall their father's charcuterie business too and how they could tell the day of the week from the smells emanating from the shop. If it was ham with parsley, it must be Wednesday...

The recipe section opens with a chapter on the basics. Their idea of the basics includes pastry (shortcrust, flan, sweet, short, puff and choux); brioche; bread; chicken, veal and fish stock; mayonnaise; almond cream; creme patissiere; and sorbet syrup.

Of these, I'm definitely going to try the bread, brioche, mayonnaise and the sorbet syrup (which the brothers use for moistening sponge cakes - a tip I can't wait to try on cakes of my own).

The rest of the book is divided into twelve regions. Each section opens with an overview of the region and its culinary traditions. The butter, cream, cheeses and cider of Normandy; the lamb and shellfish of Brittany; the fine wines and truffles of Guyenne; by the time you've finished reading about them, all you'll want to do is hop on a plane to France and eat, eat, eat and eat.

A dozen typical recipes from each region follow each overview and every chapter ends with a list of ingredients indigenous to that particular area.

I've earmarked lots of recipes from this book (and my boyfriend has also selected some that I'd probably never have chosen). Here are a few of our favourites:

Sole poached in cider with mussels, scallops and shrimps (my choice)

Sautéed veal kidneys (his)

Morel tart (my choice, with a nod of approval from him)

Entrecote steak with red wine, bone marrow and shallots (his choice)

Confit de canard (his)

Gateau Basque - a custard tart (mine)

Spatzle - noodles from Alsace (we both love these)

Ham cooked with hay (us both)

Peppery biscuits (me)

Catalan duck with Seville oranges (us both)

Bouillabaisse (us both: who after all, could resist this classic?)

Grape tart (sweet means that it has to be me)

In some ways, this isn't a fashionable book. French food has fallen out of vogue in recent years as popular taste has embraced new flavours from other countries, particularly from the east.

But in many other ways and judging from the reaction both I and my boyfriend had to this book, French food will always be popular. Chefs who trained in France have shaped our palates and taste buds for decades and French ingredients and cooking techniques are still at the heart of how we cook. With its focus on the quality of ingredients and simple but precise cooking techniques; French cuisine - at its best - simply can't be beaten.

This book reminded me how varied and enticing French food can be and I can't wait to start cooking.