Category: Fish
30th July 2020
Bouillabaisse Back to Basics — a modern version of a recipe by Jean-Baptiste Reboul
Jean-Baptiste Reboul wrote “la cuisinière provençale” in 1897 and it is still a standard-bearer. I recently bought fish at Port la Nouvelle with the aim of making a Bouillabaisse.
This fish soup with chunks of fish has become a famous Marseille dish of broth, lots of fish and sea food, served with a garlicky and peppery rouille and even some grated cheese.
1st April 2020
A simple aïoli
For many people aïoli is a garlic sauce that goes over fries, kebab or shawarma. But in the Provence, aïoli is more than that and can be an entire festive meal with fish, snail, squid, artichokes and other vegetables with a dollop of the creamy garlic sauce.
11th June 2019
Melva with garlic, ginger and soy sauce
At the fishmongers there was a “Melva”, a sturdy fish that looked like tuna but much smaller. I never saw one before. It is also called “false Bonito” as it is the same family as the Bonito but it bleeds more and has a more pronounced flavour. I took it and ended up with a good two kilos of fish. I kept the head and […]
9th January 2019
Japanese-style soup of rock fish with squat lobster
An easy, light and tasty recipe for a soup based on a dashi stock with small fish and crustaceans.
23rd December 2018
Red Mullet with a crust of salt
Red Mullet, rouget-barbet in French, is a rock fish of which some amateurs even eat the entrails.
It has a thick layer of scales that normally need to be cleaned but with this recipe you can leave them on.
30th June 2018
A light soup of clam and langoustines
Now that it is getting rather hot here in France, it is time to turn to light meals. I used to make Japanese-style soups with miso and seaweed, sometimes also dashi, and while the taste is great, it adds up to a rather salty combination. So, I improvised. I bought some clams and raw langoustines at the fishmonger and some shiitake mushrooms at the greengrocer. […]
13th June 2018
Turbot in the oven
Turbot is not the least expensive of fish, but it had a very delicate taste and the meat stays firm during cooking. In France, there are many recipes with parts of a large turbot – of up to 5 kilos – with white sauces, mushrooms, shrimps and oysters or mussels. I do like mushrooms, shrimps, oysters and or mussels but as often with complicated dishes […]
27th April 2018
Trout simply baked in a skillet with butter and lemon
More and more, I am returning to pure cooking where the basic ingredients pay the starring role and complicated or incongruous extras are left back stage, as with this trout. The fresh food markets in Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye were already brimming with great produce, while here in the Ariège you are very close to the producer. I found nice trout at the fishmongers, raised locally, […]
26th November 2016
Fresh trout on cabbage
At a market nearby I found a man selling fresh fish from his small fish farm in the mountains, using clean spring water, as many fish would prefer. He used a net to catch the fish from plastic containers on the back of his car. I prepared the fish in the simplest possible fashion to appreciate the taste and presented it on a bed of […]