The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

This dish, in spite of its seeming complications, is quickly prepared. It is a variation of the matelote, and is served Norman style wherever fresh seafood is obtainable in France, but with the Normandy cider giving way to white wine in the wine districts, and garnishings varying according to resources of local markets. The Normandy "matelote" is a simplified stew consisting of flat fish (brill or turbot) cooked in cider with mussels, onion, and herbs, and served in its own gravy, garnished with shrimps (see recipe). lle-de-France FILET DE SOLE MARGUERY Salt and pepper % cup butter 4 fillets of sole 1 cup white sauce (substitute flounder) 2 egg yolks, beaten Yi cup white wine 8 poached mussels, or oysters 4 large mushroom caps l/i cup bread crumbs Salt and pepper fish, lay in buttered baking dish and add wine. Place a mushroom top, with stem cut off, upside down on each fillet, fill with butter and season. Cover and bake 6-8 minutes. Then pour the liquid in the baking dish into a small saucepan, add white sauce and boil up. Remove from fire, add egg yolks. Lay mussels on fillets, strain sauce over, sprinkle with crumbs and brown in hot oven (400° F.). Sole Marguery has fetched thousands of international gastronomes to the doors of the old Marguery Restaurant in Paris, where it was invented and named. Normandy NORMANDY MATELOTE {Matelote Normande) 2 pound fluke or flounder Salt and pepper 2 dozen mussels i tablespoon minced parsley i dozen shrimp i cup cider 2 onions, blanched 2 tablespoons butter i tablespoon flour Have fish cleaned and skinned. Wash mussels and shrimp. Steam mussels until shells open. Remove meat and strain and save liquor. Drop shrimp in boiling salted water, and cook 20 minutes. Cool and shell, removing black vein. Chop onions and scatter half in bottom of buttered heat-proof dish. Lay fish on remaining onion, salt and pepper, and some parsley. Encircle with mussels, pour in cider, some of mussel and shrimp liquor, cover and bake, basting frequently. Thicken sauce with bits of butter kneaded with flour. Decorate with shrimp or put them in the sauce. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. This dish, being "sailor style" is subject to variations, additional ingredients being oysters, fried smelts, and mushrooms, and beaten egg yolk is used at the end for thickening instead of flour. Along the northern coast of France bream or turbot, both being flat fish, are preferred for a matelote, although other fish serve, and sometimes a mixture of several varieties, sliced or cut up. Then the fish is piled in the center of a deep platter and sent to the table swimming in some of its sauce, with heaps of the sea foods arranged around it. Cider is the Norman touch, matelote of fish being made in other regions with wine. Champagne MATELOTE OF FRESH WATER FISH {Matelote Champagnoise) 3 pounds fish comprising fresh i bit mace water eel, sunfish, pike or pickerel, whitefish, trout, etc. K cup butter 4 shallots, sliced i garlic clove, minced 2 cloves 1 bay leaf 1 sprig tarragon (optional) 1 teaspoon minced parsley Salt and pepper 1 pint champagne Yz cup good brandy Puff croutons