Provençal Cuisine

Breakfast menu on the banks of the river "Le Loup", a river that waters the plains of the picturesque village of Villeneuve-Loubet, located 2 kilometers from the big blue, the Mediterranean.

Fresh figs
Tomato salad with anchovies

Omelette with artichokes
Sardines with spinach Provençal style
Zucchini flan au gratin
Fried eggplant
Cream cheese
Peaches with Saint-Laurent-du-Var wine
Raisins, Reine-Claude plums
Orange mousseline biscuit
Coffee with toupin (old Provençal style)
Eau-de-vie so old that we forgot its age.
Sardines with spinach Provençal style.

For six people, choose three dozen beautiful sardines, very fresh; tear off their heads with your fingers equipped with a piece of paper. This method of operation allows you to remove the intestine at the same time as the head; scale them, season them with salt and pepper, roll them in flour and cook them in oil, in the pan. Arrange them on a bed of spinach, prepared in advance and in the following manner:

Sort and wash carefully 1 kilo. of spinach, cook them for 7 to 8 minutes in plenty of boiling salted water, drain them, refresh them, squeeze them strongly to extract the water and chop them.

Heat 4 to 5 spoonfuls of olive oil, in a saucepan whose bottom has been lightly rubbed with garlic, add the spinach, season them with salt, pepper and a hint of grated nutmeg; let all moisture evaporate while stirring the spinach being arranged on a long dish forming a bed 2 centimeters thick, arrange the sardines on the spinach.

Heat strongly in the pan, 4 spoonfuls of olive oil with 5 to 6 spoonfuls of white bread crumbs, as soon as the bread begins to take on a brown color, pour everything on the sardines.

Note. As it is always difficult, far from fishing ports, to be able to obtain fresh sardines, it is advantageous to replace them with a good brand of canned sardines, which one will take care to scale before arranging them on the spinach. No need to heat them in advance, the heat of the spinach and the boiling oil is enough.

It is good when one lives in the country to always have a few cans of sardines in reserve, of a good brand, a precaution which, on lean days when the tide is failing, and even on an unexpected visit when the menu is a little short, this dish, although a little original, will pleasantly save the situation. If the illustrious Vatel had taken the precautions of always having a few cans of sardines in reserve at his disposal, the tide not coming in, he could have made up for it and would not have passed his sword through his body.

A. Escoffier.