A Book of Mediterranean Food Read online

N.B. Quantities given in the recipes are, unless otherwise stated, for four or five people.

  Soups

  Le plus entendu de touts n’eust pas quitté son écuelle de soupe pour recouvrir la liberté de la respublique de Platon.

  La Boëtie

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  SOUPE AU PISTOU

  The origin of pistou is Genoese, but it has become naturalized in Nice and the surrounding country.

  Into 3 pints of boiling water put 1 lb of French beans cut in inch lengths, 4 medium-sized potatoes, chopped finely, and 3 chopped, peeled tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and let them boil fairly quickly. When the vegetables are almost cooked, throw in ¼ lb of vermicelli and finish cooking gently.

  Have ready the following preparation, known as an aïllade. In a mortar pound 3 cloves of garlic, a handful of sweet basil and a grilled tomato without the skin and pips. When this paste is thoroughly smooth, add 3 tablespoons of the liquid from the pistou. Pour the pistou into a tureen, stir in the aïllade and some grated Gruyère cheese.

  SOUPE BASQUE

  Brown ¼ lb of chopped onions in lard; add ½ lb of pumpkin cut in pieces; add the cut-up leaves of a white cabbage, ½ lb previously soaked dried haricot beans, 2 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, and 2 quarts of stock or water. Cook 3 hours in a covered pan.

  AVGOLÉMONO

  The best known of all Greek soups.

  To 2 pints of strained chicken broth, add 2 oz rice and boil in the broth until well cooked. In a basin beat up 2 eggs and the juice of a lemon. Add a little boiling broth to the eggs in the basin, spoon by spoon, stirring all the time. Add this to the rest of the broth and stir for a few minutes over a very slow fire.

  SOUPE CATALANE

  3 large onions, 2 oz chopped ham or bacon, 1 glass white wine, 1 small stick celery, 3 tomatoes, 2 potatoes, 2 egg yolks, 3 pints stock or water, thyme, parsley, a pinch of nutmeg.

  Slice the onions thinly and brown them in olive oil or bacon fat in the pan in which you are going to cook the soup. Stir frequently to prevent them catching. When they start to brown, add the diced ham or bacon, the tomatoes cut in quarters and the chopped celery. Continue stirring for a few minutes, then pour in the glass of wine; let it bubble and then add the stock or water, the potatoes cut in small pieces and the seasoning.

  Cook the soup for about 30 minutes. When ready to serve, beat the yolks of eggs with a few spoons of the soup, then pour over the rest of the very hot soup and stir well. Add a good handful of chopped parsley.

  The same soup can be made without the egg yolks by adding some vermicelli as soon as the soup has come to the boil; or make it without any thickening and serve with grated cheese.

  PURÉE LÉONTINE

  2 lb leeks, 1 cup each of spinach, green peas, and shredded lettuce, 1 tablespoon each of chopped parsley, mint, and celery, ½ tumbler olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

  Clean and cut the leeks into chunks. Into a thick marmite put the olive oil and when it is warm put in the leeks, seasoned with salt, pepper, and the lemon juice. Simmer slowly for about 20 minutes. Now add the spinach, the peas, and the lettuce, stir a minute or two, and add a quart of water. Cook until all the vegetables are soft – about 10 minutes – then press the whole mixture through a sieve. If the purée is too thick add a little milk, and before serving stir in the chopped parsley, mint, and celery.

  This soup turns out an appetizing pale green. Enough for six people.

  SOUP OF HARICOT BEANS

  With the remains of a Cassoulet (p. 102) a most delicious soup can be made.

  Heat up the beans which are left over in a little extra water, and pound them through a sieve. Reheat the purée, adding sufficient stock and a little milk to thin down the soup, and put in some pieces of sausage cut in dice.

  SOUP WITH RISOTTO

  For using left-over Risotto (p. 93).

  Make the rice into little balls the size of a nut. Egg and breadcrumb them and fry them in butter, and when they are dry add them to any kind of hot soup – chicken broth, for instance, or a simple vegetable soup.

  POTAGE DE TOPINAMBOURS À LA PROVENÇALE

  Cook 2 lb of Jerusalem artichokes in 3 pints of salted water. Sieve, and heat up, adding gradually ½ pint of milk.

  In a small frying pan heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and in this fry two chopped tomatoes, a clove of garlic, a small piece of chopped celery, a little parsley and 2 tablespoons of chopped ham or bacon. Let this mixture cook only a minute or two, then pour it, with the oil, into the soup. Heat, and serve quickly.

  HOT CUCUMBER SOUP

  1 lb potatoes, 2 large onions, 2 whole cucumbers, milk, parsley, chives, 1 pickled cucumber, leek tops, mint, salt, and pepper.

  Boil the potatoes and 1 onion in water. When they are soft pass through a sieve and proceed as for potato soup, making a thin smooth purée with the milk. Grate into this soup 2 whole unpeeled cucumbers, 1 raw onion, add the pickled cucumber cut into small pieces, and all the other ingredients chopped fine, and reheat cautiously, so that the vinegar in the pickled cucumber does not curdle the milk.

  ZUPPA DI PESCE

  There are many versions of fish soup in Italy, and most of them are, like the Bouillabaisse, more of a stew than a soup. The varieties of bony and spiny fish used in the Genoese burrida, the Livornese cacciucco, and the Neapolitan zuppa di pesce are much the same as in a Bouillabaisse (see p. 59), but with the addition of squid cut in rings, small clams called vongole, sometimes small red mullet, prawns, mussels, small lobsters or langouste.

  The basis of Italian fish soups is usually a broth made with oil and tomato, flavoured with garlic, onion, and herbs, sometimes dried mushrooms, sometimes white wine or a little vinegar. In this broth the fish are cooked and served, accompanied by slices of French bread baked in the oven.

  A very simple version of an Italian fish soup can be made with mussels, and prawns. To make the broth, put 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide, heavy pan. When it has warmed put in a small chopped onion; let it melt a little, add a tablespoon each of chopped celery leaves and parsley and a clove or two of garlic. Cook a minute then add 1 lb of chopped and skinned tomatoes. Simmer until the tomatoes are reduced to a sauce. Add a small glass of white wine and the same amount of water. Season rather highly with pepper, and if you like a little cayenne, and a very little salt. If the broth is too thick add a little more water. In this preparation cook 4 pints of cleaned mussels and 1 pint of large prawns (these should be in their shells and uncooked, although personally I do not care for the very strong flavour which the prawn shells give to the soup, and I usually buy cooked prawns and shell them before adding them).* If you are using Dublin Bay prawns, use the tails only and slit the shells down the centre before putting them into the pan, to facilitate shelling when they are served. (Dublin Bay prawn shells have nothing like the strong flavour of those of ordinary prawns.)

  As soon as the mussels have all opened sprinkle a little chopped parsley and if you like a little lemon juice or chopped lemon peel over the top, and serve at once in very hot soup plates, with slices of bread baked in the oven. For those who like it, rub the slices of baked bread with a cut clove of garlic before serving.

  Another way of making a simplified zuppa di pesce is to cook slices of any fish such as red or grey mullet, mackerel, brill, whiting, haddock, or gurnard in the prepared tomato broth, then add the mussels and prawns, but in half the quantities given. Those who don’t like fishing bones out of the soup can use filleted fish.

  A MEDITERRANEAN FISH SOUP

  A cod’s head, a cooked crawfish, 2 pints cockles or mussels, 1 pint prawns, 1 pimento, 1½ lb tomatoes, a lemon, a few celery leaves, a carrot, 2 onions, 6 cloves of garlic, 3 tablespoons rice, coarse salt, ground black pepper, thyme, marjoram, basil, fennel, parsley, a piece of orange peel, ½ pint white wine, 4 pints water, saffron, parsley.

  Make a stock with the cod’s head, the shells of the crawfish and the prawns, the celery, onions, carrot, a sli
ce each of lemon and orange peel, marjoram, thyme, white wine and water, and a tea spoonful of saffron. Simmer this stock for an hour.

  In the meantime chop the tomatoes and put them to cook in a thick pan with the pimento and a clove of garlic, and a very little olive oil, simmering them until reduced to a purée.

  Clean the mussels or cockles and open them in a very little water over a quick fire; take them out of their shells and strain the liquid through a muslin.

  When the stock has cooked, strain it, return it to the pan; bring it to the boil, put in the rice and simmer it for 15 minutes; now add, through a sieve, the tomatoes; the crawfish cut into small pieces, the whole prawns, and stock from the mussels or cockles. Let all this heat together for 5 minutes; by this time the soup should be of a fairly thick and creamy consistency. As the soup bubbles and is ready to serve stir in a handful of fresh parsley, basil, or fennel, the mussels or cockles, a dessertspoon of grated lemon peel and a small clove of garlic crushed in a mortar. Another minute and the soup is ready. The addition of the herbs, the lemon, and the garlic at the last moment gives the soup its fresh flavour.

  WHITE FISH SOUP

  2 lb any firm white fish, 1 cod’s head, 1 onion, 1 leek, celery, garlic, parsley, 3 tablespoons tomato purée, 1 glass white wine, 1 cup milk, a few sprigs of fennel, lemon peel, flour.

  Put the fish and vegetables into a pan and cover with water. When the fish is cooked, remove it carefully, taking out any bones, cut in large pieces, and keep it aside. Continue cooking the rest of the stock for 20 minutes. Then strain it through a sieve and return to the pan. Add the white wine, the tomato purée; thicken with 2 tablespoons of flour stirred in a cup of milk and poured into the soup through a strainer when it is off the boil.

  When the soup is smooth (it should not be very thick) put in the pieces of cooked fish, add a large handful of coarsely chopped parsley, the chopped fennel, and chopped lemon peel. There should be at least one large piece of fish for each plate of soup. Serve with slices of toasted French bread.

  SOUPE AUX MOULES

  2 pints mussels, 1 small onion, 1 stick celery, 1 clove of garlic, 1 glass white wine, parsley, lemon, 2 eggs.

  Cook the mussels as for moules marinière (p. 51). When they have opened, take them out of their shells and keep them aside. Strain the liquid in which they have cooked through muslin (there is always a little sand or grit deposited from the mussels, however carefully they have been cleaned).

  Heat up this stock, put back the shelled mussels and a handful of chopped parsley and cook 2 minutes more. The less the mussels are re-cooked, once they have been shelled, the better they will be. Beat up the eggs in a bowl with a little lemon juice, pour some of the stock into it, stir well, return the mixture to the pan, and continue stirring until the soup is hot, but it must not boil.

  TOMATO AND SHELL-FISH SOUP

  This is typical of the way many soups are made in Mediterranean countries. Sometimes French beans are added or potatoes cut in dice.

  1 lb onions, 2 lb tomatoes, a sherry glass olive oil, herbs and seasoning, garlic, 1 breakfast cup of any cooked shell fish (mussels, prawns, clams, or scampi), 1 oz vermicelli, parsley.

  Heat the olive oil in a thick pan and put in the sliced onions and let them cook slowly until they are melted and golden. Now add the tomatoes, chopped roughly, salt, pepper, herbs, and a clove or two of garlic, and let the whole mixture simmer until the tomatoes are soft.

  Now add 1½ pints of water or stock from the shell fish. Cook slowly for 20 to 30 minutes. Put the soup through a sieve.

  Return it to the pan, bring it to the boil and throw in the vermicelli in very small pieces and whatever shell fish you are using. In 5 minutes it will be ready. Add chopped parsley before serving.

  MELOKHIA

  Melokhia is a glutinous soup much beloved by the Arabs, particularly in Egypt. Melokhia is a kind of mallow (Greek malakhe, Latin malva).

  1 lb green melokhia, 3 glasses rabbit stock, several cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of coriander seeds, salt, and shatta (ground dried chillies) or cayenne pepper.

  Wash the melokbia well and drain it until dry. Take the green leaves only and chop them finely – this is done with the two-handled chopper called a makhrata.* Put the stock into a pan and heat it. When it is boiling add half the coriander and garlic pounded together. Add the chopped melokhia and stir it well for a minute or two, and remove the pan from the fire. Fry the rest of the pounded coriander and garlic in hot fat and add it to the melokhia, with the shatta or cayenne. Leave the casserole uncovered on a low flame for a few minutes. This is served in a soup plate, accompanied by another plate of boiled rice with rabbit or chicken.

  ICED CUCUMBER JELLY SOUP

  Grate 2 large cucumbers with the peel. Add half a small onion grated, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and some very finely chopped mint. Stir in about ½ pint of melted aspic jelly (see p. 141) and leave to set. Garnish each cup of soup with a few prawns.

  GASPACHO

  Gaspacho, the popular iced Spanish soup, was described, some-what disparagingly, by Théophile Gautier after a journey to Spain in 1840; like all good Frenchmen he was apt to be suspicious of foreign food.

  ‘Our supper was of the simplest kind; all the serving men and maids of the hostelry had gone to the dance, and we had to be content with a mere gaspacho. This gaspacho is worthy of a special description, and we shall here give the recipe, which would have made the hair of the late Brillat-Savarin stand on end. You pour some water into a soup tureen, and to this water you add a dash of vinegar, some cloves of garlic, some onions cut into quarters, some slices of cucumber, a few pieces of pimento, a pinch of salt; then one cuts some bread and sets it to soak in this pleasing mixture, serving it cold. At home, a dog of any breeding would refuse to sully its nose with such a compromising mixture. It is the favourite dish of the Andalusians, and the prettiest women do not shrink from swallowing bowlfuls of this hell-broth of an evening. Gaspacho is considered highly refreshing, an opinion which strikes me as rather rash, but, strange as it may seem the first time one tastes it, one ends by getting used to it and even liking it. As a most providential compensation we had a decanter of an excellent dry white Malaga wine to wash down this meagre repast, and drained it conscientiously to the last drop, thus restoring our strength, exhausted by a nine hours’ spell upon indescribable roads at a temperature like that of a kiln.’*

  Modern versions of gaspacho appear to be very different from the hell-broth described by Gautier. The basis of them is chopped tomato, olive oil, and garlic, and there may be additions of cucumber, black olives, raw onion, red pepper, herbs, eggs, and bread. The following makes a very good and refreshing gaspacho.

  Chop a pound of raw peeled tomatoes until they are almost in a purée. Stir in a few dice of cucumber, 2 chopped cloves of garlic, a finely sliced spring onion, a dozen stoned black olives, a few strips of green pepper, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a tablespoon of wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, a little chopped fresh marjoram, mint, or parsley. Keep very cold until it is time to serve the soup, then thin with ½ pint of iced water, add a few cubes of coarse brown bread, and serve with broken-up ice floating in the bowl. A couple of hard-boiled eggs, coarsely chopped, make a good addition. Sometimes these, plus a selection of the vegetables – the cucumber, olives, peppers, onions – and the bread, are finely chopped and handed round separately in small dishes instead of being incorporated in the basic soup.

  Sometimes gaspacho is presented in large deep cups, sometimes in shallow soup plates.

  ICED CHICKEN AND TOMATO CONSOMMÉ

  For 1 pint of chicken stock take ¼ pint of fresh (or canned) tomato juice and cook for 5 minutes with a clove of garlic, 2 lumps of sugar, salt, pepper, and basil. Strain and add the chicken consommé and a glass of white wine. Heat again and then chill in the ice box.

  ICED BEETROOT SOUP

  Cook 4 large beetroots in the oven, exactly as for potatoes baked in their jackets – they will take 2 o
r 3 hours, and the resulting delicious flavour happily bears no resemblance to the bloodless things sold ready cooked by the greengrocers. Peel them and grate them into 2 pints of aspic jelly (p. 141), add a little vinegar and seasoning and heat this mixture gently for 10 minutes, then pour it through a sieve. The liquid should be a strong clear red. Put it into a bowl to set. To serve, put a cold poached egg into the bottom of each shallow soup bowl and pile the jellied beetroot on top in spoonfuls. Iced soup ought not to be served in a set piece or it looks like a nursery jelly.

  OKROCHKA

  There are many variations of okrochka, and it can be made with different kinds of fish, fish and meat mixed, or simply with pieces of cold cooked chicken. The essential ingredients are the fresh and pickled cucumbers and the fennel which gives it its characteristic flavour.

  The okrochka which I enjoyed many times at the Russian Club in Athens was made with kwass* and yoghourt was served separately. Here is a recipe which can quite easily be made in England. It is a filling soup and should be served in small quantities, when it makes a refreshing first dish on a hot evening.

  1 cup diced fresh cucumber, ½ cup diced frankfurter sausage or cold chicken, ½ cup cooked shrimps or lobster, 2 tablespoons each of chopped green onion tops, fennel leaves, pickled cucumber, and parsley, 2 hard-boiled eggs, ¼ pint yoghourt, 1 cup of milk, salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

  Mix the milk into the yoghourt to thin it down, then add all the other ingredients except the hard-boiled eggs. Leave on the ice at least 2 hours, and before serving put a cube or two of ice into each cup, and some chopped hard-boiled egg, and sprinkle over some more parsléy.

  ICED PIMENTO SOUP

  From a small tin of red Spanish pimentos (preferably the roasted kind) mash half into a purée and cook a few minutes with twice the quantity of tomato juice. Add the rest of the pimentos cut in strips, and ice. If fresh pimentos are used, grill, skin, seed, and pound them before mixing with the tomato. Very fine slices of raw pimento can be used for garnishing.