Croûtons:

• slices stale French bread
• olive oil

 

Sauce and fish:

• 400 ml concentrated fish stock
• (fumet)
• 150 ml dry white wine
• 1 green paprika
• 1 red paprika
• 1 onion
• 2 Roma tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• pinch of cayenne
• 2 pieces (Atlantic) cod fillet
• à 150 g
• plain flour, salt, olive oil

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Very South European with that pleasant aroma of olive oil, garlic and tomato. Nevertheless the Ttoro stems from times when tomatoes were unknown because in old descriptions it is simply the cooking liquid of le stoque-fishe poured over pieces of bread fried in oil. Later on people from Saint-Jean- de-Luz added pieces of fresh fish such as angler and hake with scampi, mussels and bell peppers and tomatoes imported from America.

Basques are traditionally tough seamen and word has it that during whale fishing they discovered the coast of New Foundland far before Columbus. From then on, according to some food historians, the finest ‘American’ dishes were invented in French Basque Country.

For this simple version I used fish stock and fillet. For even at a fish shop you cannot always find a whole fish with clear eyes, from which you can use the head and tail for the sauce and cut the rest in slices.

For two:

 

Chermoula (fish marinade):

• 4 tbsp  chopped  coriander leaves
• 1 chopped clove garlic
• 1 tsp cumin seed
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp grated lime rind
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp water
• salt
• 1 red hot pepper, chopped without seeds

 

Fish:

• oil for greasing
• 2 fish fillets with skin, circa 400 g
• (bergylt for instance)

 

Garnish:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 small zucchini
• 3 carrots in thin slices
• 100 g instant couscous
• 100 ml boiling water
• salt
• coriander leaves

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The recipe does not look simple but once the ingredients have been gathered, the work is almost done. Especially when using a hand blender to grind the Chermoula. I sampled Seksou b’l-Hout in Essaouira, a fishing port at the Atlantic coast of Morocco. It was served in a restaurant situated at a delicious market place where fishes in all the colors of the rainbow were displayed. Because I remembered that you should not eat on a market place since the Evil Eye of the Jinns will hit you there, I bought a protecting  Hamza (= 5 for 5 fingers) before entering the restaurant. Today this beautiful wooden hand decorates my kitchen and so the Evil Eye will never visit me there.

Serves two:

• 4 large shallots
• 350 ml fish stock (jar)
• 200 ml red wine (Merlot)
• pepper and salt
• 250 g salmon fillet cut into two pieces
• butter
• 200 g small mushrooms
• 4 spring onions
• slices of casino as needed

 

For the sauce:

• 25 g butter
• 2 level tbsp wheat flour

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What led Koba Catenius, author of a lot of Dutch cookbooks, to call this dish à la Génèvoise (as in Geneva), she does not explain. But she gives her Vischkookboek (Fish Cookbook, 1916) as a motto: “Our people must learn to eat fish. It is therefore necessary that the housewife learns to prepare fish”. And indeed, meat was scarce during the 1914-18 war, so why not a tasty salmon? So much the better because at that time you still could scoop the fish out of the wide Dutch rivers almost by hand.

Koba prepared it in such a way that it looked like meat: ‘in red wine sauce’. In classic French cuisine this dish is called saumon braisé au vin rouge, dit à la Bourguignonne ­– as prepared in Burgundy. A dish that has not yet bowed to the dogma of no-red-wine-with-fish. Fortunately, some heresies are kept up stubbornly by culinary freethinkers.

Serves 4:

 

Soup:

• 1 bottle dry white wine
• 1 litre water
• 1 chicken leg
• 1 large carrot, thinly sliced
• pinch of powdered saffron
• pepper, salt
• 4 kg live mussels
• 150 ml water
• 4 onions sliced into rings
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 celery sticks
• 6 black peppercorns lightly crushed
• 2 leeks, thinly sliced
• 75 g cornflour (cornstarch)
• 200 ml whipping cream
• celery leaves, to garnish

 

To serve:

• buttered soft rolls (kadetjes)
• filled with garden cress

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The Dutch have a long history with mussels since in the 15th century fishermen discovered that mussels could be kept fresh by throwing them overboard when home. In the so-called ‘Golden Age’ (17^th century) ordinary Dutch people liked to eat their mussels raw with beer for breakfast. But mussels also got a place on the heavily loaded tables of the rich, so temptingly depicted by the famous Dutch painters of that period.

Wine in a soup from Zeeland? Not so surprising if one takes into account that the capital, Middelburg, played an important part in the transport of wines from all over Europe.  Today Zeeland has its own Wine Route, connecting four vineyards of the province.

For two:

 

• water, salt
• 2 thick cod fillets
• 50 g butter
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 300 g coarse-cut spinach (deep frozen)
• 2 slices of white bread, butter
• lemon slices

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‘Old-time Dutch’ since I found this recipe in De volmaakte Hollandse Keuken Meid (1761, The Perfect Dutch Kitchen Maid). The author writes in lovely old Dutch:

Neemt wel gereinigde levendige (= verse) Kabbeljaauw en snyd die in mooten; zout het water terdege en kookt ze, en eet die … met boter, die men met een weinigje koud water om te binden al roerende op het vuur laat smelten. En dan doet men er … eindelyk wat kappers en limoensap op’ (Take a well-cleaned fresh cod, cut it in pieces; pour a liberal amount of salt into the water and cook it, eat the fish … with butter, which you melt on the fire with some water to bind it. And in .. the end put some capers and lemon juice on it).

So I ask the fish monger at the stall for pieces of cod. His anwer: “You are right, fish on the bone is much tastier, but nobody wants to buy it these days.” So I come home with thick fillets, strangely enough called haasjes (tenderloin !) here.

Did people know about capers at the time? For sure. We  find this flower bud in Cruijdeboeck (Book of herbs, 1554) written by Dodonaeus, who lived in Gent (Belgium), then part of our country. Andrew Dalby (Food in the Ancient World, 2003) even states that Kappari (capparis spinosa) were gathered as early as 7000 BCE, as is evident from discoveries in the cave of Franchthi (Aeolian sea).