In honour of Bastille Day, Catherine Clearycooks up an easy, crowd-friendly feast of Gallic favourites
Clichéd cultural stereotype or not, there is something beguiling about the typical French attitude to food. Instead of the halo of guilt or anxiety that we sometimes bring to the table, food in France seems to be about contentment and conviviality. We return from holidays there remembering simple meals of warm hunks of fresh bread with good local cheese or robust paté polished off with a bowl of luscious cherries leaking claret-dark dribbles down happy chins.
We remember the fragrance and taste of mussels sending up garlicky steam and the juices mopped up with the innards of a French stick. For a long time, the best place to eat Irish mussels was in France where most of the stocks were exported as soon as they were harvested, to be slurped up by seafood-loving French diners.
It is now easier to find fresh mussels in Irish supermarkets. Cooking mussels at home is the best way to eat them because their instant cook-and-serve method does not lend itself to restaurant preparation times.
The sound of those shells rattling off the sides of the pot as you give them a quick toss will have you salivating in anticipation. Always good with fish, fennel gives a delicious aniseed kick as an accompaniment to a huge bowl of mussels. The final ingredient is a loaf of good bread, fresh-baked if you can find it, rather than re-baked from frozen.
For a deliciously Gallic lemon tart, make the pastry yourself, or do what a French hostess would do and buy ready-made pastry cases, into which you can just pour the lemon filling.
Recipes serve four
MOULES MARINIERES
2kg fresh mussels
50g butter
1 medium sized onion or 4 shallots
3 garlic cloves
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
handful fresh parsley
2 glasses white wine
Pop the mussels into cold water and scrape them clean, pulling off the beards. Discard any mussels that are open. Fill a bowl with clean water, add some salt and put the mussels in to soak for around 15 minutes. Chop the onion and garlic finely. Melt the butter in a large pan over a high flame or heat and add the onions and garlic. Throw in the herbs and the wine and let the mixture bubble for around five minutes to reduce the liquid. Add the mussels, drained from their salted water, and put the lid on the pot. Toss them in the pot for three to four minutes, depending on the heat and the size of your pan. Do not let them go rubbery. Discard any that remain closed. Serve immediately, tipping the contents of the pot into a large bowl.
FENNEL AND LEMON GRATIN
2 large fennel bulbs
30g butter
1 lemon, juiced and zested
125g pot crème fraîche
1tsp sugar
Salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Olive oil
Heat the oven to 230 degrees/gas eight. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Quarter the fennel, trimming the top and tail first. Drop the fennel into the water to blanch for two minutes. Drain and slice it roughly and arrange in a buttered gratin dish. Stir the lemon juice and zest into the crème fraîche and add the sugar, salt and pepper. Pour this over the sliced fennel. Top with finely-chopped garlic and parsley and drizzle the top with olive oil. Bake for up to 15 minutes, until the top has browned.
LEMON TART (serves 10-12)
Pastry:
110g butter
100g caster sugar
1 egg
250g white flour
Filling:
3 eggs
80g caster sugar
Juice of 3 large lemons
250ml cream
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas four. Beat the butter and sugar together in a food processor or a bowl. Add the egg and then slowly add the flour. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead briefly into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest it in the fridge for half an hour.
Put a large bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring that the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. Add the sugar and eggs and using a whisk beat them until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture has turned pale yellow. Add the lemon juice and change from a whisk to a spoon. Stir gently with the spoon until the mixture starts to thicken. When it coats the back of the spoon, it is ready. Remove from the heat.
Roll out the pastry dough on a floured surface and use it to line a 30cm springform tart tin. Mend any holes by pressing extra dough into them. Line the pastry with parchment paper and fill the case with dried beans or baking weights and bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.
Whip the cream in a bowl until it is quite thick and combine it with the rest of the filling ingredients. Pour this into the cooled pastry case and chill in the fridge before serving.