Around My French Table (21 page)
Read Around My French Table Online
Authors: Dorie Greenspan
Turn the tomatoes into the pot, add the tomato paste and saffron, stir to incorporate, and cook for a minute or two. Add enough water to the tomato juice to make 6 cups of liquid and pour it into the pot, along with 1 tablespoon of the pastis. Toss in the zest and bouquet garni, season with salt, pepper, and piment d'Espelette or cayenne, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat so that the soup simmers gently but steadily and cook, uncovered, for 40 minutes.
If using a food mill, fit it with the medium disk and place the mill over a bowl. Ladle the soup (liquid and solids) into the food mill in small batches (discard the head and the bouquet garni when you come to them) and puree, scraping the solids that accumulate on the underside of the disk into the bowl and discarding the solids that build up in the mill; pour the soup into a clean pot. If using a food processor or blender, puree the soup in batches, discarding the head and bouquet garni, and then, if you'd like, press the soup through a strainer into a clean pot.
TO MAKE THE ACCOMPANIMENTS:
Preheat the broiler. Give the slices of bread a rubdown on both sides with the cut sides of the garlic. Brush or drizzle a little olive oil over the bread and put the bread on a baking sheet. Run the bread under the broiler until it's lightly browned on one side, then flip the slices over and brown the other side. Put the warm bread on a plate and the rouille or aïoli in a bowl.
Meanwhile, reheat the soup over medium heat and taste it. Add more salt and pepper if needed (you'll probably need more salt) and I more tablespoon of pastis. For some, that will be just enough; for others, another tablespoon or even 2 should be right. (I usually add at least 3 tablespoons.)
Serve the soup with the toasts and sauce.
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
SERVING
Ladle the soup into soup plates or bowls. At the table, put a slice of the bread in the center of each bowl and top with some rouille or aïoli; let everyone add more rouille or aïoli as desired.
STORING
Ideally the soup should be served shortly after it is made; however, it can be made a few hours ahead and reheated. Or you can cool the soup, pack it airtight, and freeze it for up to a month.
A food mill is avery old-school, pre-food processor piece of kitchen gear that presses food through a strainer and, in one fell swoop, both purees the food and separates from it whatever peel, pith, skin, bones, and other culinary detritus might be attached to it. It's perfect for mashed potatoes, great for vegetables and sauces (it's a wonderful tool for making fresh tomato sauce), and indispensable for this recipe, where you cook a whole fish and then want to mash and strain the "meat" while avoiding all the skin and bones. You can do this in two steps with a food processor or blender and a strainer, but you'll get a smoother soup, and with this soup, what you gain in suavity, you lose in savor—it's much faster, and it's more satisfying to come across slender shreds of fish in every spoonful.
Licorice maybe a love-it-or-loathe-it flavor in America, but in France it's a given, like chocolate and vanilla, and certainly it's beloved in the South of France, where pastis is the local drink. (It was even in the title of a Peter Mayle novel.) A liquor containing anise, licorice, and sugar, pastis may be what you think of when you're daydreaming about men in berets drinking in a small café or playing
petanque,
but it's a relatively new addition to the culture, having been introduced in the 1930s, after absinthe was banned. While I love licorice and I love the ritual of pastis—you pour a little into a tall glass and then fill the glass with water and watch as the liquor turns milky—I've never drunk a glass of it. However, each one of my kitchens stocks a bottle of Ricard pastis: you never know when the urge to make a Riviera fish soup might strike, and without a splash of pastis, the soup just wouldn't pack any memory-evoking pow.
T
HIS IS MY VERSION OF A
COTRIADE,
the stewish soup Breton fishermen made aboard their boats in the days when they could be out on the sea for weeks on end. It's an elemental soup, as it had to be, and one that's completely satisfying in much the same way as is New England clam chowder.
Given the literal catch-as-catch-can nature of this soup, the recipe leaves plenty of room for improvisation and substitution. To keep the spirit of the soup, you should have some mussels; a few oily fish, like mackerel or sardines (or both); some meaty, flaky fish, like cod; and plenty of potatoes, spuds being the principal vegetable in the mix. As with most French fish soups, this one is best with a mix of fish, but I've made it when I've had just mussels and only one kind of fish (like blackfish, a good stewing fish).
| FOR THE OPTIONAL VINAIGRETTE | |
| 1 | tablespoon Dijon mustard |
| 2 | tablespoons red or white wine vinegar |
| 6 | tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil |
| Salt and freshly ground white pepper | |
| 1 | shallot (not too big), minced |
| 1 | teaspoon chopped fresh parsley |
| | |
| FOR THE SOUP | |
| 2 | tablespoons butter, salted (a Breton staple) or unsalted |
| 2 | large onions, chopped |
| 2 | shallots, chopped |
| 2 | garlic cloves, split, germ removed, and chopped |
| 1 | celery stalk, trimmed (reserve a few leaves), halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced |
| 1 | leek, white and light green parts only (reserve a section of the green part to make the bouquet garni), quartered lengthwise, washed, and thinly sliced |
| Salt and freshly ground white pepper | |
| 6 | cups fish broth (or, in a pinch, vegetable broth) |
| A bouquet garni—2 parsley sprigs, 2 thyme sprigs, the reserved celery leaves, and 1 bay leaf, tied together in a leek green | |
| 1 | pound all-purpose potatoes (such as big round white potatoes), peeled, quartered, and cut into ½-inch-thick slices |
| About 2 pounds fish, in fillets or bone-in, cut into chunks—don't use more than ½ pound of oily fish, such as sardines, mackerel, or bluefish | |
| 2 | pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded |
| 4 | thick slices country bread, toasted, for serving |
TO MAKE THE OPTIONAL VINAIGRETTE:
Put the mustard, vinegar, and olive oil in a jar and shake to blend (or whisk together in a bowl). Season with salt and white pepper and stir in the shallot and parsley; set aside.
TO MAKE THE SOUP:
Put a large Dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat and toss in the butter. When it has melted, stir in the onions, shallots, garlic, celery, and leek, season lightly with salt and white pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are very soft but not colored, about 10 minutes.
Add the fish broth and bouquet garni and bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Toss in the potatoes and cook for another 7 minutes. Add the fish and simmer for 7 to 10 minutes, or until almost cooked through—you'll need to poke around in the pot to get a sense of how the cooking is going. Stir in the mussels and cook for 2 to 4 minutes more, or until they've opened.
Discard any closed mussels, give everything one last stir to mix up the mussels and fish, and taste for salt and pepper, then head for the table, armed with the toasts and the vinaigrette, if serving.
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
SERVING
Most often, I cut the fish into spoon-eatable chunks, bring the kettle to the table (traditional with this dish), and ladle the soup into big bowls with a slice of toast in the bottom of each. You can also use fillets and serve the dish as a multi-plate dinner, as is often done in Brittany. Leave it up to each person to decide whether or not to drizzle a little vinaigrette over the fish. Lift the fish, mussels, and potatoes onto dinner plates, serve the soup in bowls over hunks of toasted country bread, and pass around the vinaigrette to drizzle over the fish and potatoes.
STORING
The soup really should be served the instant it's ready, but you can keep leftovers in the refrigerator overnight. If you do this, before serving, remove the mussels from their shells, cut the fish into chunks (if you haven't already), and ladle the gently reheated soup into large bowls.
BONNE IDÉE
There is absolutely no reason not to add more vegetables or even a touch of saffron to the soup—it's exactly what the fishermen and their wives would do when they had the luxury of more ingredients at hand. Carrots are a very good and colorful addition, as is a little fennel, some cubes of celery root, or even chunks of peeled and seeded tomatoes. As for the saffron, use a pinch of it, and just dissolve it in a little hot broth before stirring it into the pot.
B
ECAUSE OF FRANCE'S LONG AND DEEP
ties to Vietnam (a former colony), it's common to find Vietnamese restaurants in even the smallest French towns, a sprinkling of Vietnamese dishes in most French cooks' repertoires, and a few Vietnamese ingredients in many refrigerators. While it's usually only Vietnamese people who'll make authentic dishes from their native land at home, the bones of Vietnamese cooking, as well as its spices, condiments, and seasonings, turn up often. This soup is my mix of two traditional Vietnamese soups that I have as often as I can at Kim Lien, a restaurant near the rue des Carmes market in Paris's 5th arrondissement:
pho ga,
a clear chicken broth with noodles, and
la sa ga,
a curried coconut-milk soup. I've skipped the curry in this hybrid, but if you'd like to add it, see Bonne Idée.
| Stems from 1 bunch cilantro | |
| 2 | points star anise |
| 1 | teaspoon coriander seeds |
| 1 | teaspoon white peppercorns |
| 1 | small onion, chopped |
| 3 | garlic cloves, split, germ removed, and thinly sliced |
| 1 | 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced |
| 2 | dried red chiles |
| 6 | cups chicken broth |
| 1 | can (about 14 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk |
| About ¼ cup Asian fish sauce (such as nuoc mam), or to taste | |
| 1 | teaspoon brown sugar (optional) |
| Salt | |
| 1 | pound chicken breasts with skin and bones or about ¾ pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts |
| 5 | ounces Chinese egg noodles or rice vermicelli (found in the Asian section of the supermarket) |
| 4-6 | tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste |
| About ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro | |
| | |
| OPTIONAL GARNISHES | |
| Fresh basil leaves (if you can find Thai basil, use it) | |
| Fresh mint leaves | |
| Lime wedges | |
| Bean sprouts | |
| Hoisin sauce | |
| Asian chile oil |
Put the cilantro stems, star anise, coriander seeds, and white peppercorns in a square of cheesecloth and tie the bundle together with a piece of kitchen twine; toss the packet into a Dutch oven or soup pot. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, and chiles, then pour in the chicken broth and coconut milk. Season the mixture with 2 tablespoons of the fish sauce, the brown sugar (if using), and a pinch
of salt and bring to a boil. (Don't be concerned if the coconut milk separates a little—it's only natural, and the soup will come together when you stir it.)
Lower the heat to a simmer, drop in the chicken, cover the pot, and poach the chicken gently for 15 to 20 minutes, or until cooked through. Transfer the chicken to a bowl to cool enough to handle; turn off the heat under the soup, but keep it covered.
(The soup can be made up to this point and refrigerated overnight; cover and refrigerate the chicken too.)
While the chicken is cooling, cook the noodles following the package directions. (Usually, boiling them for 4 minutes in a large pot of salted water is all you've got to do.) Pour them into a colander, run them under cold water, and drain well.