Early dinner in Antibes

(sorry for the delay in posting this!)

I’m really into colorful food. In fact, I know that all of us here feel strongly about having a lot of colors on the plate at any given time. It’s tasty, nutritious and looks good!

We spent our last early evening in Antibes (what feels like a lifetime ago to me now!) cooking, deciding to make something seasonal and full of flavor and shades of the beachy locale.

The menu ended up consisting of: crab (stick), corn, rice and mustard mayonnaise salad; fig, hearts of palm, tomato and mustardy greens salad dressed with lemon and a little tiny bit of aioli; trine pasta with fatty, lightly smoked salmon and a sauce of tomatoes, garlic, onion, cream and reduced lobster bisque.

The salads:

The first is really easy and a definite Russian holiday table classic: cook some basmati rice (in this instance we cheated and used the readymade kind), chop up some crab sticks and toss this with some canned corn (sweetcorn). Then put in enough mayonaisse to make the salad ‘sticky’ so that it is not dry but also not goopy. I do have to say that the original Russian recipe would encourage as much mayo use as possible!

The second salad is a great example of how you can take a random assortment of seasonal produce and concoct something amazing so, we took:

• 3-4 ripe figs
• a bagful of mixed greens/baby greens salad leaves
• a jar of hearts of palm – chop them up
• couer de bouef tomatoes – also chopped
• juice of half a lemon – mix the lemon juice with the oil and aioli (garlic mayonaisse)  for the dressing
• a bit of salt & pepper

Pasta:

Trine pasta with salmon in a lobster bisque and tomato sauce

1. Boil trine pasta. Without breaking it, preferably!

2. Chop up half a couer de boeuf tomato, about half a small clove of garlic and half a medium-sized white onion.

3. Sautee the garlic and onion with a mix of olive oil & butter.

4. Add in about 1/2 of a can of lobster bissque. Mix in about 1/4 cup of cream, adding more to taste.

4.1 NB!  Don’t add too much salt as the bisque will most likely be a bit salty.

5. Let reduce, add in the tomatoes as liquid reduces.

6. Keep stirring and tasting to adjust any ceam and salt proportions as need be for about 10-15 minutes.

7. Add in fatty smoked salmon, chopped into small pieces. Stir to combine with sauce and heat through.

8. Put pasta in a large bowl and pour sauce and salmon on top. Garnish with roughly chopped parsley.

9. EAT 🙂

Makes a perfect late fall lunch to enjoy with your friends!