A New Fish Dish from Southern France

One week ago, which now seems like once a very long time ago on another planet, we were walking through the large Provençal market in Sanary-sur-Mer. Located along the Mediterranean in southern France, it had yet to be tainted by the world crisis now in full deployment. It was a perfect day. Not a cloud in the deep blue sky, gentle southern breezes swaying the palm trees, folks congregated along the four aisles where vendors sell anything from tablecloths to underwear to oranges to cheese to mattresses. We were hoping to visit the fishmonger for a fish that we had never tasted before.

We had left our little gîte in the next town with a market list in hand. Our hosts used to have a small vegetable farm and Madame put together two cookbooks with recipes for using the fruits of the local land and sea. I was eager to try this new fish dish I had found in its pages. The ingredients included little violet artichokes, lemon, Pastis which is the local anise flavored liqueur and white wine, shallots and roussette, a fish that I had never heard of.

As we walked down the aisles, collecting the items on our list, we interacted with vendors and buyers. At one booth, we bought all our vegetables including those cute baby violet artichokes and a lemon.

The fishmongers are located at the end of the market, right along the harbor, and this morning, they were in top form. As we scanned over their tables, Jim found then pointed to the roussette: it lay in long skinny curving pieces, looking very much like eel or snake or...We stared and backed away. Do we really want to get that? I approached another buyer. “Have you ever made roussette before?”, I asked in French. “Why, yes!”, she answered. “It’s really good with butter and garlic, or you can poach it in a bouillon. Just be careful with that big bone that goes through it.” With her encouragement, I placed my order with fishmonger Marcel, who was singing an old French song in his easy baritone voice. Next to me, an elderly gentleman smiled then turned toward me, “If he were a woman, I’d flirt with him.” The fishmonger handed me the wrapped fish as he ended his song. “Anything else, Madame?” I said no and paid him and off we went to climb the tower that overlooks the harbour and take in the scene on this amazingly sunny, warm day.

Later that night, my sister and her husband who joined us on this trip came over for supper, green salad in hand. I prepared the roussette following the recipe which included flambéing the fish and shallots with the liqueur, then finishing it off in creamy wine sauce. We served it over small new potatoes and with the salad. Delicious! As we ate it, it was hard to remember what it had looked like before…Later in the week, we saw Marcel the fishmonger and his wife eating at the next table to ours in the small woodfired pizza restaurant down on the harbour. 

Now that we are home, I’m pretty sure I won’t find roussette around here (in English, it’s dogfish). But I know I will make this recipe again with whatever fish substitute I can find, at least once this whole virus thing has blown over…

In the meantime, I peruse my photos and  look forward to that day. Below is the recipe, if you want to try it.

Roussette aux Petits Artichauts Violets (Dogfish with Small Violet Artichokes)

1  ½ lb. roussette (or other mild white fish)

1 bunch small violet artichokes (or 1 large can artichoke hearts)

1 large onion

¾ c. heavy whipping cream or crème fraîche

Juice of 1 lemon

1 T. fresh ginger, grated

2 T. Pastis

1 cup of white wine

Olive oil, salt and pepper as needed

Cut the fish up into pieces. Poach until just cooked. Salt and pepper it.

Dice the onion. Fry until they start to brown. Add the pieces of fish. When the mixture is nice and hot, add the Pastis and flambé. Add the white wine and cook over medium high heat. 

When the fish is cooked (2 minutes or so), remove it from the pan into a dish. Keep it warm. Reduce the sauce then add the cream, lemon juice and ginger.

Cut the cooked artichoke hearts into strips and fry them in a little olive oil. Salt them. When they are nicely browned, add to the sauce and pour it over the fish. Serve nice and hot with a side of new potatoes.