Here's our verdict on a new collection of Provencal recipes through the seasons, from restaurateur Alex Jackson.
The food of Provence, that legendary wedge of southwestern France, is so utterly revered that even those without a culinary obsession will have heard of it and its cuisine (don't say you haven't heard of ratatouille).
And so, if you're short on summer dinner plans, Alex Jackson, owner and head chef of Sardine, London, has a few ideas to keep you sated and happy, with his new Provencal inspired cookbook...
The book: Sardine: Simple Seasonal Provencal Cooking by Alex Jackson
Who will love it? Francophiles, frequenters of Jackson's London joint, and anyone who adores tomatoes and likes homely food (don't expect fancy foams, techniques and jus).
What is it trying to get us cooking? Divided into seasons, this is the fare of southwestern France, and features the kinds of meals you might find on Jackson's London menu. There are classic French dishes, like ratatouille (of course), clafoutis, mussels, pate, tarts, grilled rabbit, cassoulet, as well as kinks on those staples. In each quarter there's also a 'grande bouffe' (beautifully illustrated by @whatwashad), that gives you a feast of a menu to suit the season - and makes summer dinner party planning a total doddle.
How easy is it to use? It's a mixture. You've got relatively simple grilled fish and salad dishes, but then some of the recipes will require more work when it comes to tracking down ingredients (take roast bone marrow, snails and persillade, for instance). Also, this isn't a quick dinner compendium - many of these meals require time and patience (for instance, leg of lamb on a string, salt baked guinea fowl). That said, the recipes are straightforward to follow, so stick with it and you shouldn't go too wrong.
The best recipe is... Lautrec-style new season's garlic soup - can you get anymore French?
The recipe we're most likely to post pictures of on Instagram is... Mozzarella, peaches and ham - all that orange flesh set against pearly white cheese, tangled up with slivers of ruby ham. It's a winner.
The dish we're least likely to try is... The tielle setoise (octopus pie from Sete). Wrangling an octopus into pastry seems like quite a bit of bother - but we'd happily eat one.
Overall rating: 7/10 - stunning to pore over, very hunger-inducing, but it makes you want to move to Provence, more than it makes you want to get in the kitchen.
How to make Alex Jackson's roast hake with samphire and tomatoes...
Ingredients:
(Serves 4)
A fat piece of hake or any other flaky white fish, on the bone, weighing approximately 1kg, scaled
2tbsp olive oil
Branches of rosemary, thyme, bay and tarragon, all on the stalk, for a bed of herbs
1 unwaxed lemon, 1/2 sliced into rounds, plus 1/2 for juicing
1 large glass dry white wine
1tbsp butter
4 juicy large tomatoes (Amalfi Italian for preference)
100g samphire, washed (this absolutely must be English or French as the imported Israeli stuff is bitter, stringy and horrible)
Olive oil
1tbsp each roughly chopped parsley and tarragon leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
2. Select an appropriate size roasting dish for the fish: It needs to be a snug fit.
3. Drizzle the dish with olive oil and build a bed of herbs. Season the hake with salt and pepper both inside and out. Nestle the fish in the herbs, slide a few slices of lemon inside the fish with some tarragon stalks too. Pour over the wine, drizzle liberally with olive oil, then dot the fish with butter.
4. Roast the hake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the flesh offers very little resistance when pierced to the bone with a skewer. If you can, it's best to remove the fish from the oven when it is almost cooked as it will continue to steam and cook on the bone while you assemble the rest of the dish. If the wine threatens to boil away during cooking, add a splash of water. Ideally there will be some buttery, winey juices left in the bottom of the dish.
5. To bring it all together, cut the tomatoes into fat chunks, then season with salt and pepper. Fill a large pan with water and bring to the boil. Cook the samphire in the boiling water for only a minute or two, or until soft and succulent (do not add salt). Drain and set aside. Combine the tomatoes with the samphire, while it's still warm, and dress them with olive oil, lemon juice and chopped herbs.
6. Arrange the still-warm tomato and samphire salad on a serving platter. Flake the hake flesh off the bone in big pieces and lay them just to the side of the salad. Drizzle any buttery, winey juices from the roasting dish over the fish. A crusty baguette would do a first-class job of mopping up the juices here, making an impromptu open sandwich of warm, buttery fish and juicy tomatoes.
Sardine: Simple Seasonal Provencal Cooking by Alex Jackson, photography by Matt Russel, is published by Pavilion, priced £25. Available now.
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