A Book of Mediterranean Food

by Unknown

  PAN BAGNIA (a Provençal sandwich)

  Cut fresh French rolls in half lengthways. Rub them with garlic. Spread with stoned black olives, pieces of red or green sweet pepper, tomato, and young raw broad beans. Pour a little olive oil and vinegar over the rolls, join the two halves together and put them under a heavy weight for 30 minutes.

  Pan bagnia is served in Provençal cafés with a bottle of wine when a game of boules is in progress. The ingredients vary according to what is in season, or what is available. There may be anchovies, gherkins, artichoke hearts, lettuce. Probably it is the origin of salade niçoise which is made with the same variety of ingredients, but without the bread.

  TIAN

  ‘One of the national dishes of Provence, but a family dish; one that the tourist will search for in vain on the menus of restaurants.

  ‘It is the container which indicates the contents, and the tian owes its name to the vast and heavy terrine of the earthenware of Vallauris, where it is sent to cook on a wood fire in the baker’s oven. The dish consists of a gratin of green vegetables, spinach, and chard (blettes), sometimes mixed with marrows, all finely chopped, and first melted in – this is essential – olive oil. For this reason the dish is to be found in olive-growing areas. But from one region to another the dish is subject to all kinds of variations, which give it its local cachet. Up in the hills they do not despise the addition of salt cod, on the coast this is replaced with fresh sardines or anchovies.

  ‘This savoury mosaic can also be enriched with a few cloves of garlic, a cupful of rice, or a handful of chick peas. Another refinement is to thicken it with eggs and cover the top with breadcrumbs and Parmesan.

  ‘Tian is one of those ready-made dishes which is eaten cold on picnics. There is a story that six gourmets from Carpentras, having decided to treat each other, each, provided at the time fixed for the picnic a surprise dish of a monumental tian; all six were devoured with patriotic enthusiasm. Not one of the guests had been able to imagine that there was a better dish in the world.’

  From La Cuisine à Nice, H. Heyraud

  PATAFLA (a good recipe for a cocktail party or a picnic)

  4 tomatoes, 1 large onion, 2 green pimentos, 2 oz black olives, 3 oz green olives, 2 oz capers, 2 oz gherkins, 1 long French loaf.

  Peel the tomatoes, stone the olives, take the core and seeds out of the pimentos, and chop them together with all the other ingredients. Cut the loaf in half longways, and with a sharp knife remove all the crumb, which you mix with the tomato preparation, kneading it all together with a little olive oil, a pinch of paprika, black pepper and salt.

  Now fill the two halves of the loaf with the mixture, press them together and put the loaf into the refrigerator.

  To serve, cut into slices about a quarter-inch thick, and pile them up on a plate.

  Always make patafla the day before it is needed.

  A PROVENÇAL SALAD

  Mix shredded celery with chopped watercress, grated orange peel, parsley, garlic, stoned black olives, and slices of tomato. Oil and lemon dressing.

  OIGNONS À LA MONÉGASQUE

  Choose small pickling onions. Peel them and put them into a little boiling water.

  When they are half cooked add olive oil, a little vinegar, 2 or 3 chopped tomatoes, thyme, parsley, a bay leaf, and a handful of currants. They are served cold.

  SALAD OF SWEET PEPPERS

  Cold cooked red peppers (or mixed green and red) with oil and vinegar dressing.

  LEEKS À LA GRECQUE

  Boil some small leeks. When they are nearly cold drain most of the water away, leaving enough to cover them. Stir some of this water into a teaspoon of cornflour, add to the leeks and stir until the sauce thickens a little. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon, stirring all the time, and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Let the leeks get cold in the sauce, which should be slightly gelatinous and shiny.

  Serve as it is.

  SALADE DE HARICOTS BLANCS SECS

  Cold boiled haricot beans, drained and mixed while still warm with oil and vinegar, chopped raw onions, slices of salame sausage, and parsley.

  SALADE AUX ÉPINARDS

  Plunge some cleaned spinach into boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain it, mix with some sliced cold potatoes and thin slices of Gruyère cheese. Dress with a spoonful of cream and the juice of a lemon.

  PICKLED CUCUMBER SALAD

  Into a bowl of yoghourt mix a little of the vinegar from pickled cucumbers, a handful of chopped mint, and a little sugar. Into this mixture put the sliced pickled cucumbers.

  A Few Sweets

  Ices in Athens

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  ‘Somewhere round about half-past six that evening I was taken to a famous café at the end of the university boulevard, the name of which eludes my memory. Here faced by the prospect of nothing but boiled rice for days to come I was presented by the waiter with a card on which some thirty different kinds of ices were listed. Thetemptation was atrocious. My soul responds to a mere vanilla ice smeared out into the thick glass of an Italian ice-cream vendor; but here was an opportunity to sample ices which were to the ordinary vanilla as Hyperion to a satyr. Although I knew nothing could be worse for my complaint than even a moderate indulgence in ices, greed and curiosity were too much for me. I really did feel that life was less important than sampling these ices to discover which were the most delicious. Some of the fervour which has given martyrs to science was mine. I understood and sympathized with the impulse that drives a man to explore the North Pole. I comprehended at last the passionate recklessness of Bluebeard’s Fatima. Even without dysentery and cystitis it would have been impossible for any man to sample every ice on that list, and I do not remember that ever in my life I was so anxious to make a right choice. Paris faced by the problem of awarding an apple to the most beautiful of three goddesses was in no predicament at all compared with mine. I looked at the waiter. Could I rely on his taste to direct me aright, so that whatever pain I might suffer on the morrow would not be embittered by the thought that for all I was suffering I had chosen the wrong ices? And while I was trying to decide with what varieties I should make myself that amount more ill than I was already I found myself being introduced to the wives of various members of the British Naval Mission whose habit it was to meet here at dusk…. I heard which were the best six ices on the list and of those six I ate four. Then, thinking of that boiled rice before me and deciding that I might as well make the most of what life remained to me, I wound up my last night of freedom with a mayonnaise of crayfish at dinner.’

  First Athenian Memories

  by Compton Mackenzie

  I have included only a few sweets in this collection. The sweet course in these southern countries, and particularly in the eastern Mediterranean, frequently consists of very sweet little cakes and pastries, and bowls of fresh fruit. The cakes usually require quantities of eggs, sugar, honey, almonds, pistachio nuts, rose-water, sesame seeds, and other Arabian Night ingredients. Very often little bowls of yoghourt are handed round and eaten with sugar and a conserve of quinces or little oranges, more like jam than our compote.* The Greeks are also much addicted to a slab-like cold rice sweet, called rizogalo, liberally sprinkled with cinnamon, loukoumadés, which are like very small doughnuts served in a honey syrup, and baklawá, the honey and almond cakes which originated in Turkey.

  The huge selection of ices which had such allure for Mr Compton Mackenzie are still, so far as I know, a speciality of the large cafés in Athens; one does not find them, though, in the small tavernas and typical Greek restaurants. The Athenians dine very late, so they sit in these cafés drinking oúzo or Varvaresso brandy until nine o’clock in the evening. After dinner they will return to the café to eat ices and sweet cakes with their Turkish coffee.

  In the summer fresh fruit is put on the table in bowls of ice, melon is served at the end of a meal, not at the beginning, and the beautiful pastèque, or water melon, is much eaten for its thirst-quenching propert
ies.

  In the winter there are the succulent dried figs and raisins of Greece and Smyrna; tender little apricots dried with their stones in from Damascus, and loucoumi† to accompany sweet Turkish coffee.

  In Italy there will be delicious water ices (granite), Sicilian cassata, and elaborate ice-creams (although both of these are eaten as refreshments at odd times of the day more than at the end of a meal; they have also become rather Americanized in recent years). The Neapolitans make very beautiful-looking fan-shaped pastries, filled with cream cheese and spices, called sfogliatelle, and their Christmas sweet, pastiera napoletana, is a rich and solid confection of eggs, butter, sugar, almonds, spices, and crushed wheat.

  The Spaniards may offer nougats, turrons (delicious almond or marzipan confections), or quince or peach paste as sweetmeats. In Spain, too, I have enjoyed delicate sponge cakes and very light sweet biscuits for breakfast. The little town of Apt, in the Comtat Venaissin, in northern Provence, produces delicious candied apricots and other fruits confits, and no one who has seen them will forget the gorgeous displays of crystallized fruits of every conceivable variety in the shops of Nice, Cannes, and Genoa.

  In the rose-coloured city of Toulouse there is scarcely a street without a confectioner’s window showing little boxes of candied violets, and one of the best of all French sweetmeats are the delicate, diamond-shaped little almond paste calissons of Aix-en-Provence.

  Nearly all these delicacies belong rather to the province of the professional pastrycook or confectioner than to that of the amateur cook. I have tried, therefore, to give recipes for the sweet course which will be practical possibilities for the amateur cook at home, at the same time using ingredients of Mediterranean cooking, the oranges, lemons, apricots, and almonds, the honey and cream cheese, the eggs, wine, and honey, and, most especially, the fresh fruit of those lands.

  A DISH OF POMEGRANATES

  Take all the inside from 6 pomegranates and mash them into a silver bowl. Sprinkle with rose-water, lemon juice, and sugar and serve iced.

  WATER MELON STUFFED WITH BLACKBERRIES

  If by any chance you happen to come upon a water melon and some blackberries in the same season, try this dish.

  Cut the water melon in half, take away the black seeds and cut up the red flesh into pieces. Squeeze lemon juice on to it and mix it with some blackberries. Put them back in the halves of melon, add sugar, and put on the ice.

  BAKED BANANAS

  Peel and split bananas and cut in half. Place in baking dish with butter, brown sugar, orange and lemon juice, nutmeg, cinnamon, a tablespoon of honey, and a glass of rum. Place strips of lemon peel on the top and bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven. The sauce should be thick and syrupy.

  FRUIT SALAD

  Fruit salad can be delicious; it can also be very nasty indeed. Here is a good recipe which includes the making of the syrup which is so important.

  2 oranges, 1 apple, 1 pear, 1 grapefuit, 2 bananas, 3 fresh figs, 2 slices pineapple, either fresh or tinned.

  For the syrup, bring 2 teacups of water to the boil; throw in 10 lumps of sugar and the peel of an orange cut in strips. Boil for 3 minutes and leave the syrup to cool.

  Prepare the fruit carefully, put it into a glass dish and pour over it a small wineglass of maraschino, and the prepared syrup.

  It is important that the fruit salad should be very well iced, and it should be prepared several hours before it is needed.

  APRICOTINA

  ½ lb dried apricots, ¼ lb butter, 2 oz sugar, 4 eggs.

  Soak the apricots in water for 2 or 3 hours. Stew them slowly and keep aside 10 or so nice whole apricots for the garnish, and put the rest through a sieve, keeping the juice separately, and reserve 2 tablespoons of the purée, also for the garnish. Now put the purée into a saucepan, and add gradually the sugar, the butter, and the yolks of the eggs, stirring all the time until you have a smooth thick cream. Leave it to cool. Fold in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs, and pour the whole mixture into a buttered soufflé dish and steam it (on the top of the stove) for 45 minutes. When it has cooled turn the pudding out on to the serving dish. Now spread over the top the purée which you have reserved and on the top of this arrange the whole apricots. For the sauce, mix the apricot juice with an equal quantity of thin cream. This sweet is greatly improved by being made the day before, and kept in the refrigerator, in which case it is preferable not to do the garnishing until an hour before you are going to serve it.

  Apricotina is not such a trouble as it sounds; the result should be something between a moist cake and an iced soufflé.

  APRICOT SOUFFLÉ

  Put ½ lb of cooked dried apricots through a sieve. Put them in a buttered, sugared soufflé dish. Fold in the stiffly beaten whites of 3 or 4 eggs. Bake in a fairly hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

  COLD ORANGE SOUFFLÉ

  1 pint orange juice, about ½ oz gelatine, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 eggs.

  Soak the gelatine in the orange juice for 30 minutes, put the orange juice in a saucepan with the sugar and as soon as it starts to boil take it off the fire and pour gently through a strainer over the well-beaten yolks of eggs. Stir well, and leave to cool. Add the stiffly beaten whites and fold them into the soufflé. Leave in the refrigerator to set, and put whipped cream flavoured with sherry on top before serving.

  ESH ES SERAYA or PALACE BREAD (an Egyptian sweet)

  Heat ½ lb of honey with ¼ lb of sugar and ¼ lb of butter until the mixture thickens. Add 4 oz white breadcrumbs. Cook all together in a saucepan, stirring until it has become a homogeneous mass. Turn out on to a plate or into a tart tin. When cold it will be a soft mass, in consistency not unlike the filling of an English treacle tart, but of course much thicker, and can be cut into triangular portions. This sweet is always served with a cream which is skimmed off the top of quantities of milk cooked very slowly until a thick skin forms on the top, so stiff that when separated from the milk it can be rolled up. A little roll of this cream (it cannot be made from modern pasteurized milk) is placed on top of each portion of Palace Bread.

  SIPHNIAC HONEY PIE

  These quantities fill 2 medium-sized flat pie dishes.

  1 lb unsalted myzítbra (this is the fresh Greek cheese made from sheep’s milk; in England ordinary fresh milk or cream cheese can be used), 4 oz honey, 3 oz sugar, 8 oz flour, 8 oz butter, 4 eggs, cinnamon.

  Make a paste of the flour and butter with some water, roll it out thin and line the tins. Work the cheese and warmed honey together, add the sugar, the beaten eggs, and a little cinnamon, spread this mixture on the paste and bake in a medium oven (Regulo 5) for 35 minutes.

  Sprinkle the top with a little cinnamon.

  BEIGNETS DE PRUNEAUX

  Soak prunes in weak tea for 2 hours and then in rum. Stone them. Make a frying batter* with the addition of a tablespoon of rum and deep-fry the prunes. When golden, roll them in powdered chocolate mixed with vanilla sugar.

  GTEAU DE FIGUES SÈCHES

  1 lb dried figs, 1½ pints milk, 4 tablespoons rice, 3 eggs, 2 oz butter.

  In a large thick saucepan warm the milk, put in the rice, let it simmer very gently for about 15 minutes until the rice is softened but not cooked through. Leave to cool a little. Gradually add the beaten eggs, and then mix with the chopped figs and the softened butter.

  Turn the whole mixture into a buttered cake tin or turban mould large enough to allow for the swelling of the cake during cooking. A three-pint capacity tin is about right.

  Bake in the lower shelf of a very slow oven, gas no. 2, 310 deg. F., for 1½ to 2 hours.

  The cake is turned out of the mould, and can be eaten hot or cold.

  This is a rather primitive nurseryish kind of dessert, but it is a very cheap one, and owing to the very small proportion of rice to liquid is not stodgy.

  Sometimes I add a little grated orange or lemon peel to the milk and rice mixture. I think that dried apricots would be good instead of the figs – and if you like you can spread a th
in layer of apricot jam at the bottom of the tin before adding the mixture. The jam gives a decorative appearance when the cake is turned out.

  FROMAGE BLANC AUX RAISINS SECS

  ½ lb of unsalted cream cheese (either home made or the French Isigny or Chambourcy), a few muscatel raisins, a small glass of brandy, sugar, lemon peel, a little cinnamon.

  Soak the raisins in water for an hour or two, then simmer them for 10 minutes, adding the brandy (or kirsch), a little piece of lemon peel, and a scrap of cinnamon.

  Beat together the cream cheese and 2 or 3 tablespoons of castor sugar, add the raisins and the liquid they have cooked in and if you like a little more liqueur. Put into a muslin and leave in a very cold place to drain for several hours. Serve with a plain biscuit.

  FIGUES AU FOUR

  In a fireproof dish arrange some slightly under-ripe unpeeled figs. Put in a little water, sprinkle them with sugar and bake them (as for baked apples).

  Serve them cold, with cream.

  TORRIJAS

  The Spanish version of a sweet well known in most European countries, and designed for using up stale bread. In France it is called pain perdu.

  First prepare a syrup of ¼ lb of sugar, a coffeecupful of water, a small piece of lemon peel, a pinch of cinnamon, all cooked together for 10 minutes or so. When the syrup has cooled add a small glass of sweet white wine or sherry.

  Cut 8 to 10 o slices of white bread, about ¼ inch thick. Soak them in milk (about ½ pint), then in beaten egg (1 large egg should be sufficient).

  Fry the slices until crisp and golden in very hot olive oil. Pour the cooled syrup over them and serve. Instead of sugar honey can be used to make the syrup.

  CENCI