Wednesday 3 December 2008

A cold market and garlic soup / un marché froid et la soupe à l'ail

It's cold and grey today.  The woman on the fish stall, where we bought a squid, said she has got used to being outside all morning and not wearing gloves but she was shivering behind her display of cold, wet fish.  The charcutier told us there was snow in his home village of Lacaune, in the mountains to the north-west.  We bought some warming produce - poitrine salée to use in split-pea soup, fresh and cured sausage, garlic and some beautiful lemons.

market purchases_1_1

Aujourd'hui il fait froid et gris.  La poissonière duquelle nous avons acheté un encornet a dit qu'elle s'est habituée au temps, mais elle grelottait derrière son étalage de poissons froids et muoillées.  Le charcutier nous a dit qu'il y a de la neige chez lui à Lacaune, dans les montagnes au nord-ouest d'ici.  Nous avons acheté des produits qui vont nous chauffer - de la poitrine salée pour la soupe de pois cassés, de la saucisse fraîche, du saucisson sec, de l'ail et des beaux citrons.

Garlic and thyme soup / la soupe à l'ail et au thym

garlic soup ingredients_1_1_1

I used the recipe in one of my favourite cookery books, André Soulier's La Cuisine Secrète du Languedoc-Roussillon.  He gives several recipes for garlic soup and this is the simplest.  He says that it is eaten in Nîmes as a morning-after remedy for those who have over-indulged at the ferias.  I can't give any guarantees about this, but it certainly tastes as though it will keep the winter germs at bay!

J'ai utilisé la recette d'André Soulier dans La Cuisine Secrète du Languedoc-Roussillon.  C''est la plus simple de ses plusiers recettes.  Il dit qu'elle se mange à Nîmes le landemain des courses des férias quand "la soupe au thym apaise les maux de tête et les aigreurs d'estomac".  Je ne peux pas offrir une guarantie, mais je suis sûre que les saveurs offrent la protection contre les microbes d'hiver!

To a litre of boiling salted water add the peeled cloves from 1 head of garlic (M. Soulier uses 6 cloves, but I like garlic so I added more), a bunch of thyme, 3 bay leaves, 1 onion studded with cloves.  Let it cook for 1 hour.  Put it through a chinois or a mouli légumes and reheat.  Serve garnished with chopped parsley.

garlic soup_1_1

Squid rings in batter / calamares à la romaine

squid plate_1 

We bought a lovely fresh squid in the market so that Lo Jardinièr could make one of his specialities.  The recipe will be on the Mediterranean food blog.

Nous avons acheté un joli encornet pour une des specialités del Jardinièr.  La recette sera sur le blog La cuisine mediterranéenne

squid_1_1 .

 

3 comments:

Michelle said...

Such wonderful goodies from the market! The garlic soup sounds great - I would be severely tempted to add a drizzle of new olive oil though. And who can resist fried squid... not me.

Anonymous said...

Cold wet fish - somehow those words sum up the same feelings I have about our weather just now.
It must be nice having market stalls like that nearby.

chaiselongue said...

Hi Michelle and easygardener - thanks for your comments. We are very lucky to have this small market about half a minute's walk from our house. And yes, Michelle, I think the olive oil would be a very good idea. I'll try it next time!