Provençal recipe

Mackerel fillets au gratin with capers

Recipe no. 68 Reboul, 1909 Fish

Recipe no. 68 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 43.

Ingredients

Preparation

  1. Preparing the filletsPrepare the fillets as above and cook them the same way, leaving them however 2 minutes less. Arrange them then on a gratin dish.
  2. Caper sauce and browningPut in a saucepan a piece of butter the size of a walnut, melt it and add a spoonful of flour; stir it a moment over the heat without letting it brown, and add liquid with broth or with fish stock if made on a fasting day. The sauce should be well thickened without being too heavy. Bring to the boil and add 2 egg yolks mixed with a little water; work it a moment over the heat then move it off the heat; add a handful of capers and pour it over the fillets, sprinkle with a pinch of breadcrumbs, drizzle with a few drops of melted butter and let it brown au gratin in a hot oven, so it takes colour without the sauce reducing too much.

Reboul's text

Prepare the fillets as above and cook them the same way, leaving them however 2 minutes less. Arrange them then on a gratin dish.

Put in a saucepan a piece of butter the size of a walnut, melt it and add a spoonful of flour; stir it a moment over the heat without letting it brown, and add liquid with broth or with fish stock if made on a fasting day. The sauce should be well thickened without being too heavy. Bring to the boil and add 2 egg yolks mixed with a little water; work it a moment over the heat then move it off the heat; add a handful of capers and pour it over the fillets, sprinkle with a pinch of breadcrumbs, drizzle with a few drops of melted butter and let it brown au gratin in a hot oven, so it takes colour without the sauce reducing too much.

Small Provençal glossary for this recipe

Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.

ProvençalEnglish
fieletfillets
rousbrowned
muiaadd liquid
deslegato mix with liquid
tapenocapers
rabinato brown au gratin

Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 68, page 43. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.