Memories of Nice and Pissaladière

In 1993, the now husband and I (then in our early to mid twenties) dared one another to give up full-time, professional jobs for a spell in Provence. The first of Peter Mayle’s books on Provence had just been aired on TV, starring John Thaw who later was to have huge success as Inspector Morse, and we fancied a piece of the action. Needless to say, our search for the romantic lifestyle in the French countryside somehow directed us to the fifth largest city in France – the bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis of Nice, Côte-d’Azur.

Clearly this was not quite the idyllic provençal setting we had envisioned but, nevertheless, this vibrant city with its strong Italian and North African gastronomic influences, was to be our home for six months over that summer. And, boy, did we make the most of it.

Our wanderings frequently took us for a mooch around the old town whose narrow alleyways shielded us from the searing heat by day and, by night, came alive with loud and happy revelers, spilling out onto the tiny streets from an astonishing selection of buzzing restaurants. It was here that we first sampled, and came to love, the pizza-like onion and olive snack, Pissaladière, that is sold throughout Nice’s ‘Vieille Ville’ and is thought to have come to the area with the Romans during the Avignon Papacy. Known as Pissaladiera in Provençal, and Piscialandrea in Ligurian, it is a form of white pizza (no tomatoes used) which is common along the Provence coast from Nice to Marseilles and also in the Italian region of Liguria.

The dough is usually a bread dough, a little thicker than Italian pizza dough, although a pâte brisée is sometimes used instead and this is what I used in the recipe below with the traditional topping of onions, olives, garlic and anchovies. You can spread the luscious topping on crusty, French bread for an easier option. No cheese is used in France but over the border in the Italian town of San Remo, mozzarella is added although, according to Elizabeth David, writing in ‘A Book of Mediterranean Food’ the main difference between a Niçois Pissaladière and the San Remo version is the use of sardines in place of anchovies in Italy.

Indeed, Elizabeth David’s book, first published in 1950, talks at length about this gorgeous Mediterranean ‘pizza’: “This dish is one of the delights of Marseille, Toulon and the Var country, where it is sold in the market places and the bakeries in the early morning and can be bought, piping hot, by the slice, off big iron trays.”

Over the 17 years since I first came across Pissaladière, I have given much thought to the perfect wine match as you will no doubt imagine. The best choices seem to be fino or manzanilla sherry (they love the olives and anchovies), dry provençal rosé (when in Nice…), dry northern Italian whites, or fresh, New World Sauvignons. If you want to go up-market with your wine pairing and are keen to try something more adventurous, opt for an Alsace or Oregon Pinot Gris or an Australian Semillon.

Serve Pissaladière as a snack or chop it into bite-size pieces for a great canapé on a warm summer’s evening. I love to eat Pissaladière all year round served with a rocket salad or with sliced, juicy red tomatoes topped with a splash of olive oil, lemon juice and generous grindings of fresh black pepper.

Pissaladière


For the pâte brisée base:

125g unsalted butter, beaten until creamy
250g plain flour
1 egg yolk
a pinch of salt

For the filling:

Olive oil
1kg onions, thinly sliced
a few leaves of fresh sage, chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
12 anchovy fillets
a good handful of black olives

Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the salt, sugar and 3 tbsp of water. Mix together and then add the butter and egg yolk. Mix the ingredients with your hands to form a soft dough. Knead it lightly for a couple of minutes. Form into a ball and leave to sit , wrapped in a cloth, for 2 hours. You can store it in the fridge for a couple of days. 

To use, bring the dough to room temperature. Butter a loose-bottomed tart tin. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and lift it into the tin. Prick it all over with a fork and put in the fridge and leave in the fridge for 20 minutes. Turn the over on to 200 degrees centigrade (Gas Mark 6).

In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil and sauté the onions over a low-medium heat for about 40 minutes, stirring every now and then to ensure that they do not burn. 

Line the pastry case with baking beans and bake for 15 minutes in the oven. Remove the beans and leave to one side until the onions are ready.  Meanwhile, add the chopped garlic and sage to the onions and continue to cook on a low heat. When the onion mixture is soft and sweet, spread it across the pastry case and decorate with criss-cross patterns of anchovies and the black olives. Drizzle the dish with olive oil and bake for 15 minutes.

Pissaladière is delicious straight from the oven but it is also excellent when served cold and I like to take it in a lunchbox to work!

Winter vines, delicious wines and the pizza van

We were back in Burgundy during half-term week and drove down the autoroute wondering if, after the first eventful weekend in the house in January, more nightmare scenarios would greet us on our arrival.  Would we have another burst pipe?  Would the heating work?  There was snow on the ground and below zero temperatures as we pulled up at the house and it was just getting dark.  The house was uninvitingly cold.  A very dodgy half-hour was spent trying to get the boiler going for the heating and the oven but, thankfully and after many a cross word, it all worked.  That meant time for a glass of wine and we celebrated with a delicious Marsannay Blanc 2006 from Domaine Trappet.  The house was soon snugly warm and the SMEG oven did us proud when it was time for dinner.

During that week, we went backwards and forward to Beaune about a million times, or so it seemed.  There are two possible routes from our house and we found ourselves timing each one to see which was the better track to take.  One way, via names such as Santenay, Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault involves going through four villages with indescribably horrible road humps so we hoped that the other, more picturesque and bump-free route, via Saint Romain, Monthélie, Pommard and Volnay would be the quickest.  Our hopes were dashed but the preferred route has glorious views over the vines and I just loved driving through them every day and look forward to going back a few times, before this year’s vintage, to see the vines in different stages of development.  Now, in February, the vines are being pruned and a familiar site across the landscape is the rising smoke from burning vine clippings.

Whilst we didn’t eat out at all during the week (too much unpacking of furniture and trekking around for white goods), we ate and drank well at home.  The best wines included a red Rully les Montpalais 2007 from Jean-Claude & Anna Brelière with goat’s cheese wrapped in bacon, and a Bouzeron Aligoté 2008 from Domaine Chanzy (silver medal at Mâcon 2009) with linguine, homemade pesto and shavings of parmesan. 

The gastronomic highlight of the week was some mouth-wateringly good Charolais steak, the white Charolais beef being from Charolles in southern Burgundy.  We went non-Burgundy for the wine on this occasion as I had brought a bottle of Emily Laughton’s Occam’s Razor Shiraz 2006 from the much-respected Jasper Hill estate in Heathcote, Victoria.  It was a superb match for the steak and a welcome break from the local wines - as much as I adore Burgundy, it’s good to ring the changes.

A final point to mention: we made a terribly important discovery on this trip – the pizza van is in our village every Friday night and, for every 12 pizzas purchased, we get one free!  Friday night in France will definitely be pizza night.

Burgundy (71), here we come.

Having just bought a house in Burgundy (no, not the magnificent pile pictured although it's not far away, being the local château), here's my write-up of our recent trip where the deal was sealed.  There will be a little Burgundy food and wine matching coming your way if you read this blog, so putting things into context seems like a good idea.  We have spent longer than is usually necessary to finalise a sale, mostly because we sought a ‘Permit de Demolir’ for a large, concrete outbuilding in the garden of the house.  The local Mairie passed our application onto the powers that be in Mâcon as, it transpired, the house is within 500 metres of a listed building.  Needless to say, the application was finally passed and we look forward to nearly doubling the size of the garden as soon as we can get the builders in to knock this monstrosity down.

We set off on Thursday 21^st January at crack of dawn, with the signing meeting at the notaire’s office planned for the following day.  The vendor had already left the area so it would just be us and the agent at the meeting, the notaire having been given power of attorney.  We arrived in Beaune around 6pm that evening, checked into a cheapie hotel and set off into the beautiful centre of the town to find pizza (we had the 7-year-old and 10-year-old with us).

The next day, we had another pleasant amble around Beaune before setting off down the N74 to the house where we had agreed to meet the agent who would then show us the way to the notaire’s office.  When we arrived, the agent informed us that the notaire had postponed the signing meeting until 10am the next morning.  Aargh!  The first thought that sprung to mind was, ‘So, where are we going to sleep tonight?’.  The ever-helpful agent, Nigel, had already thought of that and had contacted the vendor, who had agreed that it was no problem for us to stay in the house that night anyway.  Our relief was shortlived when we got into the house and realized that the water and the gas had been turned off.  We had enquired about this and it hadn’t been mentioned so it was something of a surprise but, after much begging and pleading with the Mairie and the water company, a charming chap came to turn the water on at 5pm, only to discover a burst pipe!  It was impossible to get that fixed on the Friday afternoon so we faced the prospect of another night in a hotel - fine if it were just the two of us but more of a challenge with the children.

Anyway, we arrived back at the house the following morning to let in the very helpful man who had agreed to fix the burst pipe and then drove down to the notaire’s office for the signing.  The children were left in an ante-room to amuse themselves, which concerned me rather, but they did us proud and sat quietly reading their books for 45 minutes.  Everything was straightforward, the monies had arrived from our bank account on time, our insurance on the property was in place so the deal was swiftly agreed and off we went to the restaurant nextdoor, with Nigel and his colleague from their Beaune office, for a coffee (it was before 11am so too soon for proper drinks) and to bask in our new status as property magnates, as my husband jokingly described us.  I can’t speak highly enough of our agents – this is where we came across Nigel www.proprietes-en-bourgogne.com

So, back we went to the house and drank a bottle of Dom Perignon (at midday) in the freezing cold and hoped that the gas company would arrive, as agreed, to turn the gas on.  They never did and we spent a freezing cold night, sleeping in our clothes on blow-up beds, before getting up at 5am to return to the UK.  We go out again during the February Half-Term, by which time we should have heating (the gas is now connected) and the furniture will arrive mid-week.  We had wondered if we might think we’d made the wrong decision about buying the house when we returned – it was nine months since we had last seen it – mais je ne regrette rien and neither does the husband!

Gooey Marmalade Cake

Whilst surfing the internet last Friday, I came across a recipe for Marmalade Cake which took me straight back to my childhood when my Mother used to make the most gooey version that would disappear from the cake tin in no time.  So, having recently made Seville orange marmalade at home, I decided to bake a marmalade cake on Sunday.  As they always did when Mum made them, my cake sank in the middle…..  Oh no, I hear you cry – but, please, don’t be worried about my caking-making skills.  This is a cake that is so much the better for a bit of sinking. The middle is succulently sticky and moist yet its rich texture is offset beautifully by the sharp, citrus tang.

The husband has been taking a piece of the cake to work every day this week and has decided I should make a different cake every Sunday (I rarely make cakes at all except for Christmas / Easter, rum or brandy soaked, dark fruit cakes).  Good of him to decide, I thought, but, actually, it’s not a bad idea.  I think once a fortnight might be more realistic though.

If you’re game for a pudding wine with this cake, try Brown Brother’s Orange Muscat (widely available in supermarkets) or a southern French sweetie such as Jurançon Mœlleux  or Monbazillac but, I have to say, I find the cake is quite enough on its own.  If I drank English tea, which I don't, I would probably go for that.

Marmalade Cake
(inspired by Jam & Clotted cream’s recipe - http://tinyurl.com/yb9a396)

175g butter
175g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
3 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 heaped tbsp marmalade (Seville orange, preferably)
2-3 tbsps orange juice – add as required to make a gooey, not too stiff, mixture.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade (350f or Gas Mark 4) and grease an 8inch/20cm cake tin. 

Mix the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the flour and eggs and beat until smooth.  Then put in the marmalade and orange juice.  Finally, fold in the baking powder with a metal spoon.  You can put the whole lot in an electric mixer if you prefer, but I hate washing those things up!

Pour the mixture into the pre-prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for 40 minutes.  Once cooked, the cake should be springy on the top.  Leave in the tin to cool for 15 minutes or so, then turn out onto a metal rack.

For the orange butter icing
(this is a light icing – I don’t like it with too much butter and the cake doesn’t need it)

250g icing sugar
3-5 tbsps of orange juice, as required
zest of an orange
50g butter, softened 

Sieve the icing sugar, add the butter and orange juice and mix to give a smooth icing.  It shouldn’t be runny but thick enough to coat the sides of the cake without slipping off.  Wait until the cake is completely cool before icing.

Quick PX Pud

Pedro Ximinez sherry is something I came across when studying for the Diploma in Wines and Spirits (WSET). The exams involve blind tastings so, in an attempt to get to grips with a drink I knew precious little about, extensive tasting evenings were arranged chez nous with two sherry-loving friends.

I don’t have an amazingly sweet tooth and favour cheese at the end of a meal, which is partly why you won’t find many sweet recipes on this blog - something I should address, perhaps? Anyway, a pleasant outcome from all those hard evenings of fortified wine research, if you can call them that, was a new fondness for the sweet, treacle-like sherry, Pedro Ximinez (pronounced himinez), commonly referred to as PX.

This dark, warming, lusciously sweet sherry is great at the end of a meal, poured over vanilla ice cream, but I like to go a step further and steep dried fruits in the sherry. Earlier this week, I chopped dried figs and dates, popped them in a jam jar and covered them with PX. Today, I poured this mixture over rich, Cornish dairy ice cream which we enjoyed for Sunday lunch pudding, with a small glass of chilled PX on the side, naturally. You can use any dried fruits – sultanas, raisins, dried cherries or cranberries and the jar will keep for months, making it an easy last-minute pudding, providing you have ice cream in the freezer. I regularly make some of this nectar for my father-in-law who, rather extravagantly, likes to pour it over his breakfast cereal – a great morning pick-me-up, I imagine!

Other tried and tested food pairings for PX are: strong, salty cheeses, fruit cake, chocolate puddings and pecan pie.

Crab, chorizo & black olive pilaf

I adore chorizo and I’d had one of the picante versions sitting around in the cupboard since before Christmas, waiting to be used. I often bake it in red wine and then serve it in chunks, as a canapé on cocktail sticks, something that always goes down well and is so simple to prepare. The red wine and paprika oozing out of the chorizo are so moreish and most people find they can't resist. This year, however, the chorizo remained untouched over the festive season.

So, what to do with it? Below is the recipe for the supper we enjoyed on Friday night with a glass of 2007 Collioure rosé from Les Clos de Paulilles, bought at Nicolas. It’s a full-bodied rosé from 50% Grenache and 50% Syrah and it sat perfectly alongside the dish – don’t believe that rosé is only for the summer. The full-bodied examples are great partners for food and I am a keen fan of them all year round. If rosé’s not your bag, a soft, medium-bodied Spanish red from Tempranillo and/or Garnacha is a great accompaniment for this pilaf.

Ingredients

Serves 4 or 2 VERY hungry people (aka the husband and me)

Half a large piccante chorizo, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
100g white crabmeat
Handful black olives (I used couchillo)
250g basmati rice
20 saffron strands
100ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp chives, chopped
Lemon juice to taste plus more for garnishing
Small vine tomatoes for roasting and garnishing


Cook the rice according to packet instructions. Soak the saffron strands in the warmed vegetable stock and leave to one side.

Roast the tomatoes in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes. At the same time, heat the olive oil, in a frying pan, until sizzling and add the chorizo. Fry for a minute, then add the garlic, paprika and thyme and cook for a further minute, stirring all the time.

Add the cooked rice to the chorizo mixture and stir it in. Pour in the saffron with the vegetable stock and then the crab and olives. Mix well and season with salt and pepper. Finally, add the chopped chives and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Serve with the roasted tomatoes, chives to garnish and slices of lemon.

An Alpine supper for Alpine conditions

Tonight’s cold weather supper was just delicious and perfect for the alpine weather we’ve experienced today. Tartiflette is a dish I always associate with skiing as it's popular on the slopes of the French Alps from where it originates and the key ingredients are potatoes, bacon, cream and Reblochon cheese (here's a link to find out more on Reblochon), a combination requiring brisk exercise before or after. Today, the husband and I marched up to the local pub at lunchtime in the snow expending a good bit of energy and making room for some serious comfort food. The pub really did feel like a mountain restaurant with snowy puddles in the porch from wet boots, sledges propped up against the front door and several people sitting around in salopettes. The landlord must have been over the moon at the amount of custom for a Wednesday lunchtime in January.

So, my tartiflette recipe is below but, first, a word on what to drink with it. The traditional, and perhaps obvious accompaniment, is a crisp, alpine white wine and we looked no further than that this evening, choosing a 2006 Jacquère, one of several Savoie grape varieties. Others to look out for are Roussette and Altesse. From Burgundy, the lesser know white grape, Aligoté, produces clean, fresh white wines that I would also recommend as a match. If red wine is required, try the light Savoie reds from the Mondeuse grape or even a New World Pinot Noir. An Aussie Pinot from the Yarra Valley went down particularly well on a previous occasion. Otherwise go for, and I have done this on a ski slope, a cold, refreshing lager.

Tartiflette - serves four hungry people who have done lots of exercise or who are sure that they will do shortly afterwards.

750g potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced
1 onion, sliced
25g butter
8 rashers of smoked, streaky bacon, chopped
300g Reblochon cheese
A 142ml pot of double cream

Pre-heat the oven to 220C, 425F or gas mark 7. Place the sliced potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Simmer for a further ten minutes and then drain.

At the same time, fry the sliced onion in butter until soft. Then remove and add the bacon bits and fry until crisp.

Cover the bottom of a baking dish with potato slices and scatter half the onion and bacon over the top. Season with salt and then lay strips of the Reblochon cheese over this mixture. Add a further layer of potatoes, the rest of the bacon and onion and a final layer of cheese. Pour the cream over the dish.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes by which time the top of the dish should be crispy and browned.