Provençal recipe

Spiny lobster pilau

Recipe no. 128 Reboul, 1909 Fish

Recipe no. 128 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 69.

Ingredients

Preparation

  1. Sauteing the spiny lobsterCut 2 medium-sized spiny lobsters into pieces; arrange them then in a saucepan in which you will have melted about 100 grams of butter; the butter must especially be very hot, so that the flesh of the spiny lobster is seared by it immediately; otherwise it will stick to the bottom. Turn the pieces all around; add a finely chopped leek and onion, and, once everything is well browned, pour in 250 grams of rice, which you saute together a few more minutes.
  2. Cooking the riceThen add liquid with a litre of broth or fish stock if made on a fasting day, or even plain water if need be. Add a bouquet garni and the necessary seasoning, completed with a pinch of saffron. Twenty minutes of cooking are enough.

Reboul's text

Cut 2 medium-sized spiny lobsters into pieces; arrange them then in a saucepan in which you will have melted about 100 grams of butter; the butter must especially be very hot, so that the flesh of the spiny lobster is seared by it immediately; otherwise it will stick to the bottom.

Turn the pieces all around; add a finely chopped leek and onion, and, once everything is well browned, pour in 250 grams of rice, which you saute together a few more minutes.

Then add liquid with a litre of broth or fish stock if made on a fasting day, or even plain water if need be. Add a bouquet garni and the necessary seasoning, completed with a pinch of saffron. Twenty minutes of cooking are enough.

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
trospieces
langoustospiny lobsters
burrebutter
pòrrileek
ceboonion
risrice
bouiounbroth
safransaffron

Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 128, page 69. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.