Having driven Richard Olney and our friend Jill Norman down the precipitous road that drops from Richard’s home into the village, his directions to the vineyard were vague: “This exit will do ... nearly there ... The gates are here.” All given while yakking in the back of the car. It is odd to be guided by someone who has never driven a motor car. But we made it and, after effusive greetings, calm requests followed from Lulu Peyraud, chatelaine of Domaine Tempier in the Bandol wine country.
“S’il vous plaît, Simon, aidez-vous Richard avec les violets?” she asked. Ah, oui, bien sûr, I replied, helplessly, regarding a pile of what looked like small marine rocks. “And do you like violets, Simon?” said Richard. Never had them, I said. “Well … I don’t care for them much,” he muttered in his gentle American drawl (Peter Lorre always came to mind), “but Lulu adores them, so that’s what matters.” And Richard adored Lulu Peyraud almost more than life itself.
For me, the most extraordinary dish over two lunches, over two days, was simply a deep pot containing roughly cut-up potatoes cooked with local olive oil and garlic in the oven. I have no idea which kind of potatoes but they were possibly the most deliciously fondant potatoes I had ever eaten. Not a recipe, per se; rather, “how I do potatoes when they are the right ones, the olive oil is fruity and the garlic juicy”. And, although the potatoes do not feature in the book, an equally fondant way with braised fennel does. We had that, too.
“Well, you know … ” remains, without doubt, the good cook’s initial utterance whenever questioned over the simplest recipe. “Well, you know, you add a little olive oil to the pan and cook some onions until soft …” And when will that be? “Well, you know, when they are soft.” I know full well how exasperating it can be to write down a recipe that one has done over and over. When cooking all the time without thinking (naturally, and with the ease of knowledge), to then have to list ingredients, timing, textures and “how it will look” can be daunting. Most certainly, for Lulu Peyraud the idea of one needing to know would have been the last thi ng on her mind.
The recipes in Lulu’s Provençal Table were offered by Lulu to Richard to transpose; compose, truly, as Lulu’s directions would be, how shall we say, loosely spoken directly from her kitchen stove. In his inimitable, careful way, however, Richard coaxed from Lulu that which would produce the most wonderful results – such delicious duress. To be in the kitchen of a beloved friend, who is also a cook he admired almost more than any other and to have a glass of fine Bandol wine regularly to hand must, surely, have been a commission given by the gods. Simply to have the pleasure of standing by: looking, watching, inhaling, tasting. And, of course, the finest eating.
That which is unique to this collaboration is how, over many months, the tentative giving and taking of recipes quietly evolved into a book so rich in collaboration that Lulu together with Richard seemed to become as one: a magical, culinary love affair, if you will.
Onion tart – pissaladière
Pissaladière derives from the word pissala, a puree of tiny, salted anchovy and sardine fry that was, in Nice, traditionally mixed with the cooked onions before spreading them onto rolled-out bread dough. Today, nearly everyone uses anchovies instead of pissala for the confection of a pissaladière; Lulu prefers shortcrust to bread dough. She uses large white summer onions, very sweet with a high water content. Niçoise olives are small ripe and semi-ripe (mixed black, brown and violet) olives preserved in an aromatic brine; they are now commonly available everywhere.
Serves 8
For the pastry
130g flour
salt
150g cold butter, diced
about 4 tablespoons cold water
4 tablespoons olive oil
900g sweet onions, finely sliced
salt and pepper
8 salt anchovies, rinsed and filleted, or 16 fillets
50g niçoise olives
Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, add the butter, and crumble the flour and butter together, lightly and rapidly, picking up portions and rubbing loosely between thumb and fingertips. Above all, don’t overwork the pastry. Gather it together with a fork and a little cold water, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before rolling it out.
Warm 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large earthenware poêlon or heavy saute pan, add the onions and salt, and cook, covered, over very low heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for an hour or more, or until they are so soft as to form a semi-puree. Remove the lid and continue to cook until much of the liquid has evaporated; the onions should remain absolutely uncoloured. Season with pepper.
Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5. With the palm of your hand, flatten the ball of pastry on a generously floured marble slab or other work surface, sprinkle over plenty of flour, and roll it out to a thickness of approximately 3mm. Roll it up on the rolling pin and unroll it onto a large baking sheet. Roll up the edges and crimp them, either with your thumb, dipped repeatedly in flour, or with the tines of a fork. Spread the onion puree evenly over the pastry, press the anchovy fillets into place in a simple design – latticework or wheel spokes – and push the olives into the puree to complete the design. Dribble olive oil over the surface and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the edges of the pastry are golden and crisp. Serve hot or tepid, cut into small wedges or squares with the aperitif, or in large wedges as a first course.
Leg of lamb on a bed of thyme – gigot sur lit de thym
Leg of lamb on a bed of thyme was high on the list of the Peyraud family’s preferred dishes. Lulu says, “The thyme branches should contain a lot of wood so, when the leg is placed on them, it doesn’t touch the bottom of the pan..”
If only fragile garden thyme is available, use a roasting rack and scatter over an abundance of thyme sprigs before placing the leg on top. Sometimes, Lulu mixes sprigs of winter savory with the thyme. In late spring and summer, she often surrounds a leg of lamb, with or without thyme, with whole heads of garlic – 1 per person. At table, guests pull the heads apart, pressing the cloves with the tines of a fork to force the puree from the skins before spreading it on the meat or on pieces of bread.
Serves 8-10
2 large handfuls of fresh thyme branches
2.7kg leg of lamb, at room temperature, pelvic bone and superficial fat removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
8 to 10 fresh heads of garlic (optional)
Preheat the oven to 230C/gas mark 8.
Prepare a bed of thyme branches in the bottom of a heavy shallow roasting dish or large oval gratin dish. Rub the leg of lamb with the olive oil, season with salt and pepper, place it on the bed of thyme, and surround with garlic. Roast for about 1 hour, lowering the temperature after 10 minutes to 180C/gas mark 4 and, 20 minutes later, to 140C/gas mark 1. Transfer the leg to a heated platter and hold it for 20 minutes in the turned-off oven or other warm place before carving.
Roast chicken with ginger, macaroni with roasting juices – poulet rôti au gingembre, coudes au jus
Serves 4
1.5kg roasting chicken
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
3 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
125ml white wine, at a simmer
350g elbow macaroni
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
450g tomatoes, peeled, seeded, coarsely chopped, salted, and spread in a colander for 1 hour
handful of freshly torn-up basil leaves
Preheat the oven to 230C/gas mark 8.
Season the chicken’s body cavity with salt and pepper, smear the inside with grated ginger, and truss (or not). Smear the outside with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and place the chicken on its side in an oval oven dish. Put it in the oven, turn to the other side when the first is lightly coloured, then turn onto its back. After 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 180C/gas mark 4, remove excess fat, and baste with lemon juice; when there is no more, pour some boiling white wine into the dish and continue basting. Roast for about 45 minutes, or until the juice runs clear.
Boil the macaroni in abundant salted water according to the package instructions. Add the garlic to 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy frying pan over high heat. As soon as the garlic begins to sizzle, add the tomatoes. Shake the pan constantly, tossing the tomatoes repeatedly for a minute or so, until they are nearly dry and give off a caramelised scent. Add the basil, toss again, and remove from the heat. Drain the macaroni, empty it into a wide, deep, heated serving dish, add the tomatoes and the chicken’s roasting juices, and toss well.
Carve the chicken at table and serve, accompanied by the macaroni.
Provençal salad – salade d’oeufs dur
This is another of Lulu’s childhood memories, a salad that opened the family lunch several times weekly. It sounds like nothing at all, but it is delicious and much the best for being assembled, imperfectly mixed, and seasoned at the last minute at table – the flavours remain separate and vibrant. Much, naturally, depends on the quality of the olive oil and the vinegar.
Serves 6
9 eggs
20 salt anchovies, rinsed and filleted (or 40 fillets), gathered together in 3 bundles and finely sliced crosswise
2 sweet onions (or a large handful of spring onions), finely chopped
large bouquet of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
6 fresh, crisp garlic cloves, lightly crushed, peeled, and finely chopped
olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper grinders (at table)
Cover the eggs with cold water, bring to a boil, and hold at a simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the eggs. Shell them (if they are very fresh, they are often difficult to shell – cut into them shallowly, break them in two, and scoop the halves from the shells with a teaspoon). Separate the whites from the yolks. Finely slice the whites, then chop across the slices. Finely slice the yolks – they will crumble. Mix the whites and yolks together, loosely, so as not to crush the crumbled yolks.
Make a neat pile of the chopped eggs at one end of a large platter and arrange separate piles of anchovies, chopped onion, parsley, and garlic all around. At table, each person chooses proportions to taste and seasons to taste with salt, pepper, olive oil, and vinegar.
Fennel baked with white wine – fenouil au four
Serves 6
60g butter
900g fennel bulbs, outer stalks removed, trimmed, split in two, parboiled in salted water for 10 minutes, and drained
salt
1 medium onion, chopped
250ml white wine
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Melt the butter in a large, heavy saute pan, place the parboiled fennel halves in the pan, split sides down, salt lightly, and cook over low heat until the cut surfaces are an even golden brown. Turn them over, add the chopped onion, and cook until the rounded surfaces of the fennel are lightly coloured. Shuffle the contents of the pan around with a wooden spoon to make certain that no fragments of onion become too darkly coloured. Transfer the pan’s contents to a gratin dish, split fennel surfaces down. Over high heat, deglaze the sauté pan with the white wine, scraping sides and bottom with a wooden spoon. Pour the boiling wine over the fennel and onion and bake for 15 minutes, or until the wine is reduced to a near syrup.
Walnut gateau – gâteau aux noix
Dictionaries translate gateau as “cake”. This is not a cake. Lulu says, “Well, it is really a galette of sorts …” The dictionaries give excessively vague and various definitions for galette. In fact, a galette is something round, usually thin and compact, and usually, but not necessarily, baked. This walnut gateau is, in any case, unleavened, dense, moist, and delicious. Lulu likes it thin and, for that reason, uses two round 25cm cake tins; a single 30cm diameter tin will do as well. Tempier vin cuit usually accompanies it, but a sauternes or a late-harvest gewürztraminer will also serve well.
Serves 8-10
120g butter, softened at room temperature (plus butter for the pan or pans)
300g sugar
pinch of salt
5 eggs, at room temperature
225g shelled walnuts, pulverised in a blender or in a food processor
25g peeled and finely grated carrot
85g flour
Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3.
Put the butter in a mixing bowl, add the sugar and salt, and work to a creamy consistency with a wooden spoon (or a rubber spatula). Beat in the eggs, one at a time, stir in the pulverised walnuts and the grated carrot, then gradually sift in the flour, stirring briskly, then beating.
Butter two shallow, round 25cm diameter cake tins. Butter two circles of parchment paper cut to the size of the tins and press the unbuttered sides to the bottoms of the tins. Pour in the batter and bake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer, pierced at the centre of each gateau, comes out clean and dry. Cool in the tins, loosen the gateaux from the sides of the tins with a knife tip, unmold onto plates, and peel off the rounds of parchment paper. Serve tepid or at room temperature.
Lulu’s Provençal Table by Richard Olney (Grub Street, £16.99). Click here to order a copy for £12.99 from the Guardian Bookshop
