My friends Camille and Joel are currently travelling all over the world. They send us this recipe: 

“Le principe est simple. Après avoir détaché le filet dorsal, il faut découper de fines tranches en allant de la tête à la queu, en utilisant tout le trancant d’un grand couteau. Disposer les tranches sur une assiette en plastique bleu, mettre dessus des echalottes ciselées, arroser d’huile d’olive et mettre au frais un quart d’heure. Déguster ensuite avec un vinho verde et du citron vert… Ah oui, j’oubliais. Pour les courses, le mieux est d’aller au milieu de l’atlantique. C’est là que la dorade est la plus fraiche.”

Mlafille (http://www.mlafille.com/) once asked chef Zeb to prepare the desert for her wedding. Chez Zeb never says no to his close friends, so he hired other firend who never say no to their close friends to build a team of “Marseillais amateurs cooks” who attacked the challenge. The main part of the desert was made of 80 individual “croques-en-bouches”… see the picture and tell us if you want a recipe

Pizza dough:

7,5 dl flour

2,5 dl rye

2 tsp dry yeast

2 dl lukewarm water

2 tsp sugar

1 tbs salt

some oil

Combine lukewarm water, sugar & dry yeast. Leave for 5 min. Combine flours, salt and oil in a large bowl, add water/yeast mixture and knead for 8 – 9 minutes. Leave to rise in a covered bowl for 1 hour. Divide into 4 pieces and roll it out pretty thin.

Toppings

Spread a medium thin layer of creme fraiche over the pizzas. Add rosmarin and thyme (dried or fresh), slices of fresh garlic

and top the layer with some shredded cheese.

Aubergines – thin slices

Zuccini – thin slices

Mushroom

Ruccula (rocket)

Cured ham (Serrano or parma)

Quarters of artichokes

Green asparagus

Bake in oven at 257c for 10- 12 minutes. Watch the pizza being baked trough the small window in the oven. Better than TV.

La dauble is a very typicall dish from Marseille. Eveyrone I know in Marseille has a different recipe but most people agree with the local cooking bible : “La cuisiniere provencale” from J.B. Reboul edited by Tacussel. I don’t know about an English version, which is a shame…

You need about 2 Kg of beef that you will cut in chuncks of about 100 gr. The meat should contain fat and shouldn’t be too tender. First, you marinate the pieces of meat in 1 liter of red wine + one glass of vinegar (vinegar helps tenderize) + 3 carrots + 2 onions + bouquet garni and spices. The meat should stay 5 hours  or more to marinate. Herve This suggests to actually take a syringe to inject wine within the meat, but I haven’t tried. Then, melt 200 gr (half a pound) of bacon in a large pan, add an onion and sear it for a while. Then on very strong fire, sear the pieces of meat that you would have removed from the marinade and dried. You  sear the carrots and onions from the marinade at the same time.  After some minutes, reduce fire, add the marinade, some garlic, another bouquet garni, a peel of orange. Evaporate half the marinade and then add half a liter of hot water. Cover and let cook during 5 hours on little fire.

You can serve with frsh pasta or potatoes….

The diner yesterday started with a pop touch… mixing suggary carrots, endives soups and Morbier foam in pistache green plastic plates.

Carrots are easy: Boil carrots in a 1 liter of bouillon where you would have added 100 gr of suggar for 3 hours in a furnace at 150C/300F. Take the carrots out. Evaporate 3/4 of the bouillon, add glass of orange jus and half a glass of carrot juice, keep evaporating until it gets syrupy. Display the carrots on the plates and cover with the syrup…

The soup, it is always easy and I don’t remenber what I put in this one. I guess white endives, onions, possibly some fennel, curry and peper

The foam would probably be much better with goat cheese than morbier. Just melt the goat cheese in creme fraiche, add cumin to match the carrots and foam in a canister. My canister is actually a soda bottle and it doesn’t work very well. I plan to steal a real foam canister for chantilly at starbucks