‘She died of a fever
And no one could save her
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels alive, alive o!‘

Lyrics from Molly Malone

It can be quite frustrating at times to go to the market and have a specific recipe in mind, but unfortunately the key ingredients are not available. That’s how I felt last week, when my mind was temporarily evaporating away from any possible ideas for lunch. Luckily, I heard an inspiring voice, it was Loïc the fishmonger saying to his customers ‘Look at their beauty, these mussels are exquisite‘. I had to have at look at the goods. The crow-blue shells were glistening with beauty, and yes, I agreed that the blue was exceptionally beautiful. When Loïc opened one of them, the yellow was brighter than the morning sun. This can only mean one thing – it must taste good.

I blindly bought mussels and when I saw cockles, my thoughts revived – I instantly knew I would make little ‘papillote’ parcels, filled with lemon zest, thyme, red onions and olive oil. Just like a summer gift, only better.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

You will need 6 sheets of aluminium paper foil
700 g mussels, cleaned
700 g cockles, cleaned
1 large red onion, finely chopped
Large handful of fresh thyme
Large handful of parsley
6 bay leaves
Grated zest of 2 lemons
4 tbsp fresh lemon juice
5 tbsp olive oil

Vinaigrette:
1 tbsp mustard
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven 230° C/ 450 F

Clean the mussels and cockles – remove the ‘beard’ of the mussels and scrape any hard residue off the shells with a smooth knife blade. Soak for 20 minutes, rinse several times until water runs clear.
Prepare 6 sheets of aluminium foil to create parcels – Fold six 60 cm/ 24 inch pieces of aluminium foil in half. Place mussels, cockles, lemon zest, juice, herbs, olive oil, salt and pepper in the center. Fold foil over the ingredients, making small overlapping folds along the edge to seal. Seal tightly.

Bake for 10 minutes. Prepare the vinaigrette. In a bowl, mix mustard, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

When parcels are ready, serve immediately – pour in a deep-set plate and drizzle with vinaigrette.

Do you know the feeling when you eat something so good you can’t wait to have it again? Well that was how I felt yesterday when I made the red cabbage and walnut tart. Let’s face it, cabbage is very wholesome, but it’s the kind of vegetable that you don’t always feel like cooking, but you would like to.

Last week-end, I got carried away and couldn’t resist buying a few too many vegetables. Since I have become a country girl, markets have become my new playground, and to my surprise, I get more excited with seasonal fruits, vegetables and flowers than the latest Louboutins. Our kitchen table always looks like a bold still-life painting, where nature’s gifts colour our every day life. Perhaps it’s all in the way they are displayed, but I get so inspired by the colours and smells, the more petals I see, the more scents I smell, I get immersed in a fantasy world free to create anything I want.

I decided to slice the poor red cabbage that fell off the plate to see if it was still fresh. Wasting food upsets me, and I had to give it a last chance. As the cabbage opened, I was drawn to its inner beauty – splendid purple-red spirals everywhere, screaming for an alliance with flavours to match. That’s when I decided to make this tart. The walnuts were there, the red onions were fresh – the game was on.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

1 (ready-made or home-made) 230 grs puff or shortcrust pastry
3/4 head red cabbage (shredded)
2 red onions (sliced)
1 tbsp thyme
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Handful of walnuts
30 g butter (for frying)
Salt and pepper to taste
Crème fraîche to serve
Handful of chopped parsley

What I love about this delicious recipe is that it takes about 12 minutes to prepare!

Preheat oven 180°C/ 350 F (180 C).
In a large pan, melt the butter on a medium heat, fry the red onions for 4 minutes. Add the shredded red cabbage and continue frying for 5 more minutes, adding salt, thyme and pepper. Finish with the balsamic vinegar, reduce for 2 minutes. Set aside.
Line the tart dish with the ready rolled pastry. Add the cabbage mixture, place the walnuts all over the tart and bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown.
Serve warm with a spoon of crème fraîche and chopped parsley.

‘Merveilles‘ means wonders in French, and it’s just the kind of sweet pastry that brings me straight back to my childhood. When I was on holiday in the South of France, I remember buying ‘merveilles’ with my own pocket money at the market – the woman selling them was called Bernadette, she was a farmer’s wife, straight out of a baroque painting with her old-fashioned long dark grey dresses. She was renowned for her ‘merveilles’, for they were truly marvellous, so light and delicately flavored with lemon zest and orange flower water. She would shout ‘Achetez mes merveilles, mes belles merveilles!’ (Buy my merveilles, my beautiful merveilles!) – it was such a musical hit. I was so intrigued by her, by the name ‘merveilles’ and I loved imagining that these were food that fairies liked.

These old-fashioned French pastries are the cousins of doughnuts – fritters made of buttery dough, deep-fried until golden and puffy, to be sprinkled with sugar. Popular during Mardi Gras celebration, you can find ‘merveilles’ all year long at bakeries or markets. I love to have them whenever I feel like it (so easy to make and so fast to cook) – especially home-made ones as they are best served warm.

They really are some kind of wonderful.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

250 g flour
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
80 g granulated sugar
Zest of half a lemon
1 tbsp orange flower water (eau de fleur d’oranger)
50 g butter (softened and at room temperature)
Oil for frying (approx. 5cm/2 inch deep)
Icing sugar (to sprinkle on the merveilles)

Sift the flour and baking powder in a large bowl and mix the eggs, butter, sugar, lemon zest, orange flower water and salt. Mix the dough with your hands until smooth and shape in the size of a ball. Cover with a clean cloth and leave to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
On a floured board, roll the dough to 1/2 cm (1/4 inch) thick. Cut into rectangular strips (approx 5 cm width/12 cm length – you can choose the size you like – they can also be round or oval) – I use a pastry crimping wheel and add a 4cm cut in the middle of each rectangular strip. Heat the oil in a large pan, and drop in the ‘merveilles’, turn them once – this should take you up to 6-8 seconds (as soon as they are golden and puff up, which is very fast). Remove from oil and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle icing sugar and serve immediately. They can be stored in an air-tight container for a week.

Wild sweet peas in our garden

One thing you will always see on our kitchen table are tomatoes . We never run out of them – they are the juiciest of all vegetables, always available, raw or cooked, to be part of the plat du jour.

In Provence, tomatoes were called ‘pomme d’amour’ (love apples) because of their aphrodisiac properties. For me, they are the little black dress of the kitchen – a basic element that every cook must have. The quality I admire most in cooking is improvisation. My aunt is the queen of this act – she can create any dish on a whim, no matter what is in the kitchen, you are sure to get a gourmet meal. With a few simple ingredients, even a few leftovers, you can achieve little wonders.

I will always remember the first time I had tomatoes farçies à la Provençale. I was eight years old, it was a warm and balmy Sunday evening at my aunt’s house in Moissac, South of France. We had been invited by friends, feasting all week on foie gras and confit de canard, so my aunt didn’t have time to do any grocery shopping. However, she looked in the fridge and said ‘Oh, I will just bake some tomates farçies’,. My mother answered with ‘Mmmmm, j’adore!’ and it turned out to be one of the most beautiful summer food memories – succulent tomatoes stuffed with sausage meat, topped with golden crunchy garlic breadcrumbs and perfumed with a bouquet of herbs.

Today, I love making this dish, and I secretly like to stage the act of that night, pretending that I didn’t have time to plan anything. So when my husband asks me, ‘What are we having for lunch?’, I’ll say, ‘Oh, I didn’t really have the time to plan anything, but hey, I’ll make some tomates farçies!

Ingredients:

As I love hazelnuts, I added them to this classic recipe – it goes well with the breadcrumbs, garlic and parsley, and I find that they enhance the herb flavours. This recipe’s stuffing is made with sausage meat, but you can alternate and have this dish vegetarian.

5 large tomatoes
5 good quality pork sausages (or any ground meat of your choice)
60 grs hazelnuts (ground – I used a food processor)
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 tsp mustard
salt & pepper
1 tsp thyme
A large handful of parsley, finely chopped
2 slices stale bread soaked in milk
2 large handfuls of plain breadcrumbs
5 tbsp olive oil (2 for roasting pan, 3 to drizzle on top of breadcrumbs)

Preheat the oven to 200°C/ 400 degrees F.

Slice the top part of the tomato, as if you were slicing off the ‘hat’ part. Gently scoop out the tomato pulp and place upside down on a plate to drain for 10 minutes. Keep the ‘hat’ part and set aside.

Cut a slit in each sausage and squeeze out the meat. Soak stale bread in a bowl with the milk. Drain off excess milk and set aside. In a large bowl, mix crushed garlic, chopped shallots, sausage meat, mustard, thyme, salt and pepper, a small handful of parsley and the soaked bread. Sprinkle salt, pepper and a teaspoon of plain breadcrumbs in the bottom of each tomatoes. Fill tomatoes with the stuffing, add a layer of ground hazelnut, followed by a layer of plain breadcrumbs. Pour 2 tbsp olive oil in a baking dish and place the stuffed tomatoes. Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil on each tomatoes, and add the reserved ‘hats’. Place in a pre-heated oven and bake for 40 minutes.

Last week-end, I was really in the mood for something tasty, juicy, something fun. My son Hudson made a request for ‘Pirate chicken’ (he named this dish because eating chicken with your hands is just like a pirate). This dish is very Caribbean influenced, with coriander, clove, cinnamon, lime, nutmeg and chilli. Drenched in squeezed lime, this is exactly what you need to slip into holiday mode.

After this satisfying meal, the kids begged for a beach outing, which was just about the best idea of the day. When we first moved here, little did we know that there was a beautiful untouched ‘secret’ beach ten minutes away from our house. The route is quite a maze, as some of the roads have no names. You will need a compass, a good memory and a dash of adventurous spirit to get there.

As you approach the destination, the smell is infused with a mixture of ocean air and warm pine trees, making you feel like you entered the most endearing spa. You are challenged to climb a large dune before seeing the ocean. And there you have it – freedom. It’s the only place that has the power to take my breath away and rock my dreams to paradise. It is rare to see anyone, and when you do, you just throw a glance and a knowing smile, as if you are saying ‘It’s our secret, I shall not reveal this beach to anyone’.

16 chicken drumsticks
6 shallots (sliced finely)
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
8 crushed cloves
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp chilli powder or crushed dried chilli
2 tbsp ground coriander seed
2 cinnamon sticks
6 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp ground nutmeg
A large handful of chopped coriander
4 limes (quartered)
Honey (drizzled over each chicken thigh halfway through cooking)
40 ml olive oil
Salt to taste

Slice shallots finely and place chicken thighs in a roasting pan. In a large bowl, mix sliced shallots, garlic, olive oil, soya sauce, all the dried spices, salt and pepper. Mix well and pour marinade over chicken. Cover with aluminium paper and leave to marinate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

In a pre-heated oven 190° celsius, place chicken in oven and cook for 30 minutes. You can add half a glass of water in the roasting pan if the sauce dries up. After 30 minutes, turn each chicken thighs, return to oven. After 15 minutes, drizzle chicken with honey all over. Return to oven and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Place on a serving dish, add the chopped fresh coriander. Serve immediately with plain white rice, sliced cucumbers and lime.

‘A cooked tomato is like a cooked oyster: ruined.’ André Simon, wine writer

Today was a perfect summer day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the breeze smelt of rose bouquets. I couldn’t think of a better lunch than having a bowl of chilled gazpacho, the summer soup.

I somehow feel like a ‘Bewitched’ character when I prepare this soup – there is something so ceremonial about the green and red color combination, and I love to casually throw in the vegetables in a large pot, letting the food processor perform all its magic for me. The result is a poignant soup bursting with tangy flavors, so healthy and filled with sunshine. I love adding the garlic cream and home-made croutons – it’s a real treat.

Ingredients: (serves 4 to 6)

Gazpacho
5 tomatoes, de-seeded and diced
1 red pepper, de-seeded and diced
1 cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 onion, chopped
3 slices of stale white bread
150 ml extra-virgin olive oil
40 ml milk
1 tsp tabasco
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the diced tomatoes, red pepper, cucumber, celery, onion, shredded bread, olive oil, milk, tabasco, vinegar and pepper in a large bowl. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

Blend until smooth, add salt and vinegar to taste. Mix well. If you prefer a more ‘liquid’ consistency, add a little water. Keep chilled until serving time.

Garlic cream
1 clove of garlic, minced
100 ml double or single cream

Mince garlic with garlic crusher. In a small bowl, mix cream and crushed garlic, stir well. Pass the sauce through a sieve. Set aside and keep cool.

Garlic croutons:
1/2 stale baguette bread
70 ml olive oil
1 clove garlic, sliced finely
Salt to taste

Preheat oven 180° C/350 F. Slice stale baguette bread into cubes. In a large bowl, mix cubed bread, olive oil, garlic and salt. Place on parchment covered baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Set aside to cool.

Serve chilled gazpacho soup with garlic cream (drizzled) and croutons.

Since I moved to the country, I’ve developed a passion for baking bread. I loved baking cakes in the past, but bread was never my forte. In Paris, I lived in the 7th arrondissement surrounded by ‘maîtres boulangers‘ (baking masters) – all I had to do was run down and follow the scented bread trail. Baking is extremely rewarding, and if ever there was a smell to describe love and family, then freshly baked bread would be it.

I once read a story on Marie-Antoinette and how she introduced an Austrian light tube cake to her friends in Versailles – she was homesick and longed to have her favourite childhood food. This cake was called Kouglof, filled with raisins and crowned with almonds. It became one of the most fashionable cakes in the court of Versailles – everybody could have a little piece of their queen’s history.

I find it very glamorous to bake these old-fashioned cakes – not only for their past and present beauty, but also for the magic of transforming water, flour and yeast into heavenly crusted works of art. Bread baking can hold fears for some people, but once you have understood the purpose of yeast, the basic element of baking, then it will all start to make sense.

Ingredients: (Serves 8)

1st part:

20 g active yeast

70 ml water

100 g plain flour

For the main dough:

450 g plain flour

250 ml lukewarm milk

2 eggs

80 g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

130 g butter

100 g de dried dark raisins

40 ml rhum or kirsch

For the lining of the kouglof mold:

25 g butter

80 g blanched flaked almonds

Soak the raisins in the rum or kirsch. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine 70 g lukewarm water and yeast and leave to dissolve and froth for 5 minutes. Add the 100 g flour and mix well – knead for 5 minutes, make it to a shape of a ball. Cover the ball with the remaining 450 g of flour, cover for 20 minutes in a warm place. I always place dough (to be risen) in an unheated oven, and I place a small bowl of boiling water – like this the oven will be humid and warm, a perfect environment for rising dough. After 20 minutes, add the eggs, lukewarm milk, sugar, salt and butter.

Start kneading (pulling and pushing) the dough for 15 minutes of more – consider this as a form of exercise for the arms! The dough should become elastic. Add the soaked raising add the rest of the rum or kirsch in the dough.

Spread butter generously around sides and bottom and into crevices of the kouglof mold. Arrange almonds in bottom of mold. Gently shape dough into roll about 10 or 12 inches long and arrange in a circle in mold. Cover and let rise in a warm spot until dough doubles and is level with rim of mold for about 1 hour.

Pre-heat oven to 180 ° degrees/ 350 F. Place mold on center rack and bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. When ready, take out of oven and place let it cool for 5 minutes. Then un-mold on a plate.

Some people window-shop, I sometimes like to ‘window-eat, especially when I am outside a store like Ladurée. I often give in to temptation, and go for that particular pastry that I have been eyeing like an eagle – the Saint Honoré. How can one resist the caramel colored puffy pillows sitting on a cloud of vanilla whipped cream?

The Saint Honoré was named after Honoré, a French saint of bakers by M. Chiboust, ‘pâtissier’ on the rue Saint Honoré in Paris. This classic French dessert is made of puff pastry and ‘pâte à choux’ puffs filled with ‘chiboust cream’ with masses of whipped cream. It is often my choice for a birthday cake, and I started making them for my own amusement, thinking I would never really succeed. To my surprise, it is a relatively simple cake to make (just be patient and read the recipe through), and so rewarding. If you want to make someone feel special, then this is the cake.

Ingredients:

One pack of fresh raspberries

Pastry base:
1 good quality ready-made puff pastry sheet

For the pâte a choux:
75 ml water/ 1/3 cup
75 ml/ 1/3 cup full cream milk
60 g/ 2 oz butter (cubed)
80 g/ 3 oz plain flour (sifted)
3 eggs
3 g/ 1/2 tsp
10 g / 2 tsp sugar

In a saucepan, add milk, water, butter, salt and sugar and bring to a simmer. Take the pan away from the heat and add the flour (in one go) and stir constantly until you get a smooth dough. Put back on a low heat for 1-2 minutes to dry it up slightly. Take away from heat. Add the eggs, one by one, and stir gradually to form a smooth dough. Leave to rest at room temperature.

For the caramel:
100 g/ 3.5 oz caster sugar
4 tbsp water
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

For the ‘crème patissière’ filling:
300 ml full cream milk
2 eggs yolks
80 g/ 3 oz caster sugar
30 g/ 1 oz corn starch
1 tsp vanilla essence
A dash of rum or kirsch (optional)

In a saucepan, add milk, sugar, vanilla essence and bring to a simmer. Stir well and take off the heat. Add the egg yolks and whisk continuously. Drizzle the corn starch and whisk again – put on a low heat, for 2 minutes, or until the mixture thickens to a thick creamy sauce. Set aside and leave to cool. Then place in the refrigerator to set it properly (15-20 minutes).

Chantilly whipped cream:
250 ml/1 cup whipping cream
20 g/ 4 tsp icing sugar

Whip cream (I use electric whisks), add the sugar after 30 seconds and continue whipping until stiff peaks form. Set aside in freezer until you need to use it.

Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven to 180°/ degrees celsius/ 360 F.

Roll pastry into a 8-10 cm/ 3-4 inches round shape and cut out four round disks – you can use a small cake tin or jar lid to make the shape. Place on a parchment-lined baking tray. Cover with a round of greased parchment paper and weigh pastry down with pastry weights (or dried beans). Bake 10 minutes, then remove paper and weights. Bake 10 minutes more. Set aside to cool.

Place the pate a choux dough in a pastry piping bag with a large nozzle and pipe small nut shapes onto a parchment-lined baking tray. Bake for 20 minutes. Set aside and leave to cool.

When all the ‘choux’ are cool, make a small slit in the base. Use pastry bag with the smallest nozzle tip and ‘inject’ each ‘choux’ with the crème patissière (approx one tbsp per choux). Set aside.

Now you can make the caramel. On a low heat, melt the sugar, teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, and four tablespoons of water in a saucepan. Let the mixture melt. It is very important not to stir until the color starts to turn golden. At this point, shake the pan, until the color slowly turns to caramel golden brown. This process will take approx 15 minutes. Be very careful not to burn the caramel. Take away from heat and place the saucepan in cold water for 5 seconds to stop the heating process.

Dip each ‘choux’ in the caramel, being very careful not too burn your fingers as it is very hot. You can use kitchen pliers or hold the ‘choux’ with a stick if you prefer. Set aside. I like to play around with the rest of the caramel and drizzle it on parchment paper. They can make nice decorations, and it’s delicious!

Now you can decorate the cake. First start with the pastry base, thinly layer with the crème patissière, then pipe little meringue shapes with the whipped cream. Add the caramel covered choux around the cake, and place raspberries around the choux and a few in the center. Continue and finish with whipped cream piped all around. Finish with one ‘choux’ on top.

Iceland? I can’t think of a better way to describe this exceptional northern country than by introducing you to Haukur Morthens, the Blue Lagoon, the Sagas, folktales, elves, kleinur, kókosbollur, wool sweaters and fiskisúpa (fish soup). As my husband is Icelandic, I have had the chance to add another culture to my life. I am enchanted by Icelandic folklore, which is in many ways the foundation of Iceland’s spirit.

There is a very special place in Iceland close to my heart called Búdir in the Snæfellsnes peninsula. There you can find Snæfellsjökull, a 700,000 year old volcano with a glacier covering its summit. Very near Búdir is a tiny fishing village called Hellnar, where my husband and I have gone for long walks on the beach and adventuring about in caves where the colour and lighting are in tune with the movements of the sea, just out of a kaleidoscope dream. There is a small café, a tiny house on a cliff, where you can have kleinur (deep-fried pastry), waffles, and the classic Icelandic fish soup. Sitting there, on a beautiful day, looking at the sea made me fall in love with Iceland.

I have a collection of black rocks found on the beaches around Snæfellsnes, they are my little trophies of adventure, making me feel like a ‘Jules Verne’ heroine. They have somehow become my lucky rocks, captivating thousands of years of history. Geologists have a saying – rocks remember…

Souvenirs of Iceland – Búdir 2007

You can find fish soup almost everywhere -it embodies the nation’s tradition where fish is very much part of daily life. Everybody has their own version, consisting of vegetables melted in butter, covered in stock and white wine, throwing in the fish last-minute. And lots of cream for those who like it.

Ingredients: (serve 6-8)

3-4 tbsp butter
2 small onion – finely sliced
1/2 leek – finely sliced
3 tomatoes – chopped into very small pieces
2 small stalks celery, finely sliced
1.5 liters chicken or vegetable stock/ 6 cups
200 ml cream/ 4/5 cups (you can add less if you wish, or none)
100 ml/ 1/2 cup sherry or port or Noilly Prat
3 tbsp tomato concentrate
1/2 tsp saffron powder (optional)
3-4 tbsp wine vinegar
160 ml/ 3/4 cup dry white wine
400 g/ 4 cups small shrimps (without shells)
500 g/ 5 cups mixed nordic fish – salmon, haddock, plaice, halibut – cubed
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a large pot, add all the vegetables (except the tomatoes) and cook for 10 minutes until tender. Add sherry/noilly prat/port and white wine and reduce for 4 minutes. Add the stock, tomato concentrate, saffron and vinegar. Boil for 15-20 minutes. Add the fish, shrimps and chopped tomatoes, bring to a soft boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add cream and stir. It is important not to make the soup boil again (as the cream might ‘break’/curdle).

Serve with some warm bread and butter on the side.

My husband Oddur and I (pregnant with Louise) – Búdir 2007

There must have been something in the Atlantic ocean’s air this morning when I woke up – for all I wanted to do was to get the kids ready and drag everybody to Soulac-sur–mer for the Saturday seafood market.

Deep coral colours marked my day and opened my appetite for a crustacean lunch. If a woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets, then mine is filled with tourteaux crabs, bulots and bigorneaux (marine snail). I just can’t explain my love for seafood, apart from the fact that I grew up by the sea, influencing my palate’s memory. The best crab I ever had was at Trishna’s (Birla Mansion, Sai Baba Marg, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, India), for their butter pepper garlic king crab fulfilled my every wish for food perfection.

I love going to Soulac’s market because of its ‘Belle Epoque’ look and feel. Located at the tip of Médoc, Soulac is sheltered by pine-covered dunes and fronted by the Atlantic ocean. Attractive villas sprang up in th early 19th century making this village a little gem of a seaside resort. I am always told by locals that the charm of Soulac is its inacessibilty – as it’s a quite a little detour to get there, it is never over-crowded by tourists.

There was so much choice that I hesitated for a while, from freshly fished daurades, bar, oysters and lobsters to name a few. I decided to choose a dos de cabillaud (cod) for two reasons: the kids like it, and I thought of a perfect match – the aïoli. Aïoli is a classic French Provençal sauce made of garlic, olive oil and egg yolk. My mother is originally from Séte in the South of France, and whenever she was homesick she would always talk about a good aïoli. After an aïoli meal, you might feel embalmed by garlic, chasing away any hint of a future cold. This is pure sunshine food! I couldn’t resist adding a few goodies – cooked tourteaux crab, a few shrimps, bulots (winkles) and a pot of fresh mayonnaise – they are perfect starters when we come home famished from the market!

I like to serve the aïoli sauce with vegetables and fish. The classic version requires boiled eggs, but I don’t add them because I find the sauce so powerful that I want to keep the taste simple. You can add any vegetables you like – I found these beautiful cranberry beans at the market so I added a few to this recipe. This dish offers a perfect blend of flavours, and the sauce is the high note of the meal. You can use a food processor to make this sauce, or a pestle and mortar (which is what I used).

Ingredients: (serves 4)

For the aïoli sauce
2 egg yolks
4 cloves garlic (I like it strong, but you can add 2 if you prefer a milder version)
120 ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Crush the garlic with a garlic crusher and transfer to the pestle and mortar. Crush the garlic again to obtain a smooth purée. Transfer to a bowl, add egg yolks and start whisking away, slowly adding the olive oil. When the sauce starts to thicken (like a mayonnaise), add salt, pepper and lemon juice. Alternatively, you can mix everything in a food processor. Blend steadily until a thick sauce starts to form.

For the fish and vegetables:
600-800 grs cod (or any white fish of your choice)
4 carrots (cut in small quarters)
2 large handfuls of cranberry beans (optional)
300 grs French green beans (haricots verts extra-fins – tips cut off)
8 small potatoes
A small handful of parsley to sprinkle
Salt & pepper

Pre-heat your oven 200° celsius.

In an oven proof dish, place the fish – add salt, a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Cook in pre-heated oven for 15 minutes (or until fish is cooked to your taste).

Cook carrots and potatoes in salted boiling water for approx 15 minutes, add the green beans 8 minutes towards the end as they cook faster. Drain and set aside.

Serve the aïoli with the fish with vegetables.