Eh bien, je ne parle pas français. Well, I tried it at school for some month, but honestly I don't really understand much French. Nevertheless I like French cooking. Now, some time ago, I had strange ideas when travelling. I thought I might get a cookbook, when I'm on holiday ... in that country ... in the local language. As a consequence, I ended up with an Italian and a French cookbook. Great, I'm not really able to read it properly. So I didn't really make any efforts to try some recipes.
Here is, where it starts to get interesting. Dom from Belleau Kitchen has another entertaining idea for this month's random recipes. The theme is time for a spring clean and the idea is to give those books you would get rid off another go. Anyway, I wouldn't even think of getting rid off any of my cookbooks, even those I can't read properly. Nevertheless, I wanted to give one of those two books a go. The rolling of dice decided for the French one, which is Je Sais Cuisiner by Ginette Mathiot, and the random choice came up to Salade Pastourelle, which freely translated has to mean Young Shepherdess Salad. Have a look ...
This was the second try to select a random recipe for I by no means wanted to make anything with rognon de bœuf. Sorry, but no. I wouldn't know where to get beef kidneys and I don't want to know what they taste like.
So I was lucky I came to the salad section with the second attempt. Still there would be the challenge to translate the ingredients and the recipe. Then I reduced the amounts to m needs and came up with the following.
Ingredients:
5 small round onions, cooked, roasted, whatever
1 pickled gherkin, finely sliced
3 anchovy fillets, sliced
2 hard boiled egg yolks
50 g tuna in oil
2 tsp. capers
8 pitted olives
Vinegar, oil, salt, pepper
Freshly chopped parsley
Method:
Another problem with the book was, there are nearly 2000 recipes in the book, but no pictures of the dishes at all and the instructions are very limited.
However, I was so focused on getting the small round onions, that I totally mixed things up and got the wrong ones, for in the recipe it said you should boil them in salted water for 30 minutes. My onions needed no cooking at all, because they came in a jar and where already roasted.
Accordingly my sole job was to get the egg yolks ready and then carefully mix all the ingredients together. Well, the egg yolks and the parsley where supposed to feature as a garnish.
Now I can not say whether I got this salade pastourelle right, but I liked it and as a matter of fact had another one the day after, however without egg yolks. I wasn't ready for more eggs that day.
I reckon, that cookbook has a lot of good French recipes in it. Fine, a few might be towards a direction I don't want to go, but I guess I could work a bit more on my French and have another go at something else. Maybe then I'll be able to figure out, why I got the book in the first place ...
Right there in the most of the time dark corner sits a piece of equipment, the television set. I got it from work some months - or was it years? - ago and I almost never used it for tuning in into some television programs. Fine, once I connected a free SAT receiver to try to connect to the already installed satellite dish for the house. The receiver broke before the seek run was over. It never recovered.
Sometimes I watch a DVD using the television, but ... I don't really need it. I might as well chuck it away. I never switched it on since I live here.
Do I believe that television broadcasting is entirely evil and good for nothing?
Well ... eh ... um ... eh ... no, not really. A workmate told me how I can watch telly on the Internet ... after all a lot of channels give the opportunity to watch their program online ...
Since then I discovered some nice programs.
For instance, since we are visiting South Africa for Bloggers Around the World, I started watching Masterchef South Africa from 2012 and ... I love it.
Now I would stop talking about television programs and get to some cooking, but ... eh ... just briefly ... the following dish is inspired by Paul Hollywood's Bread, which I watched once. Maybe it was the last show that was running.
I didn't really remember the recipe, but just took up the basic idea. What did I do then?
Analogue or digital? When you have to write a letter do you use a typewriter or even a pen or your computer? Is your television reception analogue or have you gone digital? What about your phone? Analogue or digital? Or is it now even smarter than you? Hm ... could have mentioned the same about the television these days. That is all irrelevant now! Although it would be quite nice these days to spent more time in nature instead of the virtual world ...
However, today it's time for random recipes #27 - Get Random Baby!
For random recipes I used to take out my analogue randomizer (dice) and go on with choosing a recipe to cook. This time, though, Dom decided to let us go digital with his
random recipes number generator thingamidoodah he put up on his post. No worries! Here we go ... 27 ... what a coincidence. Counting backwards from my cookbook collection brings us to Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver.
Well, I would never think of cheating at random recipes. That would take away all the fun. So, what's cooking then? Just take a moment and think about it ... Last time we had an Indian fish curry. Last year in June we had grilled mackerel with pomelo salad. Oh, I checked it, the result was not so much what I expected. There was also some lasagna and some chicken. Nevertheless, random recipes makes me think of fish ... and that's what is going to be again: tonno di nonna fangitta. That is a tuna dish from a lady called Nonna Fangitta, who lives on the island of Favignana off the coast of Sicily. I would like to imagine myself sitting down somewhere around that area now.
It was as it should be I opened the book randomly and came to this very recipe. First thought: How am I going to make that? Where shall I get fresh tuna? That isn't going to be a cheap meal. I might not do it. Since I don't cheat, the other option was not to participate in random recipes this month. I left a marker in the book and went about with the usual business.
Now, here I am, having a whole day off. A good chance to get a hair-cut. No, I don't have so much hair, it takes a whole day, but strangely I rather go in the morning instead of after work.
Nearby ... in the vicinity of the hair-dresser ... there is the farmers market. Checking the fish stall wouldn't harm. If you have a half-decent farmers market around, that's the place to go. The fish monger had tuna on offer. I went for it ... after the hair-cut.
Back to the kitchen ...
Peeling 1 kg of tomatoes isn't that funny, but not so bad either, if you know how to.
The tuna is prepped with some garlic, chilli and rosemary.
Don't get me wrong now, I like Jamie Oliver, but the photo of that dish in Jamie's Italy is somehow a cheat photo. It doesn't show the cooked dish, but rather the raw materials arranged in a pot. That might look cool, but isn't food reality. On the other hand, that might be intentionally, because it helps you to prepare the tuna correctly.
Anyway, in the end, mine will by far not look so nice as in the book. Still it represents the cooked dish more correctly.
With some more garlic, chilli and rosemary and some other things like a cinnamon stick, dried oregano, capers and anchovy fillets, we start out with cooking a tomato sauce. Of course we add the peeled tomatoes as well and above that as a bonus some tinned tomatoes. Seasoning with salt and pepper is obligatory, too.
The tuna is poached in the tomato sauce in under 30 minutes. That will definitely look like that.
Jamie was right, it tastes lovely with some bread. Dig in!
You can't go wrong with tomato sauce ... Thank you Nonna Fangitta, thank you Jamie, thank you Dom.
The recipe said 'serves 4'. Lately, I'm really lacking help in that department. That means leftovers. According to Jamie, it can be used well for pasta. That reminds me, I still have another post in the pipeline in pictures waiting to be written and published. It is about lamb and the never failing tomato sauce business. Watch out for that!
Meanwhile, enjoy that tuna dish. Have you cooked with fresh tuna before? For me it was the first time and ... I luved it! Going digital with random recipe was really fun again! In other areas, I'll rather be careful with going digital. Those things that are still analogue, shall remain that way. I really don't want my phone or television to be smarter than me! Really!
I just got another idea after publishing this already. This dish goes also well for the April Herbs on Saturday April from Lavender & Lovage.
