Their cooking is as delicious as the area is lovely:
Much fish, prawns, shrimps, the best heavy cream and butter I’ve ever tasted.
Their fish casserole was so tasteful that once back home, we decided to cook it on our own, because no restaurant in South of France cooks this dish from North. That’s probably because the southern culinary speciality is the Provencal fish soup.
Fish casserole and Provencal fish soup are both cooked with fish and potatoes but the result is totally different, because we don’t use the same kind of fish (fish and crabs from Mediterranean sea taste totally different than fish from Channel or Atlantic) and more often, people from South cook with olive oil instead of double cream.
Anyway, the fish casserole from Normandy is really worth the trip!
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 400 Gr Large prawns or shrimps
- 200 G Mussels without shells
- 200 Gr Scaled cod fillets
- 400 Gr Scaled coalfish fillets
- 400 Gr Scaled hake fillets
- Half a can lobster soup
- 500 gr Potatoes
- 250 gr Mushrooms
- 300 Gr Tomato purée
- 400 Gr Heavy cream
- 2 Garlic cloves
- 1 Onion
- Half a bunch parsley
- 10 cl Olive oil
- 3 Handful powdered thyme
- 1 Gr Powdered saffron
- 5 Pinches paprika
- Salt and pepper as taste
Directions
- Wash large prawns and cut heads. Place in 2 separate bowls
- Peel garlic cloves, onion and chop
- Wash parsley and chop parsley leaves
- Pour 5 Cl olive oil in a large pan, add half of chopped garlic and half of chopped parsley, large prawns heads, pepper and paprika
- Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, while crushing the heads to get all the flavors from large prawns. Stir from time to time
- Add 250 ml water, cover and bring to a boil over medium heat for 10 minutes.
- Simmer.
- Peel potatoes and slice them thinly (2mm)
- Strain stock using a conical strainer
- Wash mushrooms and slice them
- Pour 5 more cl olive oil, add mushrooms, tomato puree, remaining garlic and parsley,potatoes and lobster soup, 3 handful powdered thyme, paprika, powdered saffron and salt and pepper as taste. Stir and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes
- Cook over medium heat for 45 minutes, stir from time to time
- Reduce heat and let simmer for 15 more minutes. Add a bit water if needed
- Put then double cream, fish, mussels and prawns into juice and cook over high heat for about 6 minutes (depends on size of prawns. Cooking time is for small ones)
- Serve with a glass of white or rose wine, absolutely delightful!
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