Provencal cuisine

Menu for a lunch offered by someone favored by fortune

Very fine hors d’oeuvres preceded the following dishes:

Provençal Meunière-style rock mustèles
Saddle of suckling lamb poached in butter
Potatoes and hazelnuts
Spring onions glazed with pink paprika, fresh peas with lettuce
Old Fashioned Duck Terrine in Jelly
Renaissance Salad
Green asparagus from Lauris
Peach and Strawberry Violet Soufflé with Curaçao
Monte-Carlo delicacies
Turkish Mocha

Wines drunk at this succulent lunch:

with fish: Vieux Meursault blanc;
with duck: Château Dufort Margaux 1900;
with asparagus: Château Haut-Brion 1906;
for dessert: Champagne Pol Roger Goût Amérique.

Grande Fine de France: Fine Napoléon 1802.

La Mostèle or Mustèle
This fish is caught in the Mediterranean. It is well known and appreciated by the many foreigners who, every winter, come to warm themselves in the rays of the beneficial sun of our French Riviera. Its flesh is so delicate and fragile that we could nickname Mostèle, the Sensitive of the Mediterranean. The slightest trip upsets her, so she says to those who love her: “Come and get me from my home and as soon as I leave the Blue Wave, immerse me in an oil that is still virgin but still smoking, and, after a few minutes, you will find under my golden coat, my white flesh, as light as the sea breeze.

Saddle of Lamb poached in Butter
For four or five people:
Choose a saddle from a lamb that is as fat as possible. Trim it, tie it up and put it in a saucepan of a size proportional to the size of the saddle; lightly salt it, sprinkle it with melted butter and cook it over a low heat, taking care not to let the butter burn so as to keep it a golden blond color.

Once the saddle is cooked, remove it from the pan and keep it warm. If the cooking butter combined with the fat from the lamb is too abundant, remove a third or half of it. Then add to the rest of the cooking, a deciliter and a half of brown veal juice; boil for two minutes.

Arrange the saddle, immediately on a very hot dish, surround it with hazelnut apples, sprinkle it with part of its unfatted juice, serve the rest separately in a gravy boat and the small onions also separately.

Peas with Lettuce
Should be served separately as vegetables and not as a garnish.

Old Fashioned Duck Terrine
Choose a beautiful Rouennais duckling, clean it, reserve the liver. Roast the duck, keep the flesh slightly pink. Lift both sides of the breast, keep them in reserve on a plate, the interior parts above, so that the blood cannot flow out. Remove the rump, detach the legs, separate the fat from the drumstick, pound it with the carcass and the reserved liver.

Place three deciliters of old Burgundy wine, two small glasses of fine Champagne, two chopped shallots, a few crushed peppercorns, a hint of nutmeg and a small bay leaf in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, add the crushed carcass; reduce the liquid to half its volume.

Then add about three deciliters of fine demi-glace to the brown veal juice; cover the pan, cook for 30 minutes over low heat, in the oven if possible; then pass everything through a fine sieve under pressure.

Incorporate 75 grams of Isigny butter and 150 grams of truffled duck foie gras, passed through a fine sieve, into the resulting puree, add the seasoning to the desired point.

Pour two thirds of this preparation into a terrine, arrange on the surface interspersed with beautiful strips of truffles, both sides of the breast and the fat of the thighs cut into escalopes; cover them with the rest of the preparation and level the surface; leave to firm up. Finish filling the terrine with a succulent jelly, exclusively prepared with veal shank, slightly amber in color and flavored with old Frontignan wine.
Keep the terrine on ice until ready to serve.
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Second method. Prepare the duck in the same way as above, but instead of adding the foie gras passed through a sieve to the sauce, cut it into beautiful cutlets and insert them with those of the duck.

A. Escoffier.