Recipes from France

This wonderful bread loaf, called by my friends in Nizas “Cake” is just a must in every party. I tried it for the first time last month at Barbara’s party. Do you remember the loto where Miranda almost won 2 chickens? Well, Barbara did not do “almost”. She did us proud and won half a lamb which she shared with all her friends by giving a great BBQ. Don’t you just love friends that win and share? Naturally, all the lucky friends brough some other dish to supplement the lamb, and “Dried tomatoes, thyme and tapande loaf” was Monique’s contribution.

I can’t say that Monique is a native Nizasois as she is a resident of Nizas during summer months and Easter holidays. Monique, her husband, the children, a cat and a dog have been home owners and active in the social life of this small village for the last 20 years. I vote her recipe as a 10 for taste and a 10 as a must for every aperitif.

CAKE AUX TOMATE SECHES, THYM ET TAPANDE

• 4 Eggs
• 2-3 slices of Ham
• 1 Onion
• 3 Dried tomatoes (preferably in oil) diced
• 1-2 Tbls Tapande (A puree of black olive with anchovies)
• 1 envelope of Levure chimique, or 1 Tbls baking soda and 1 Ts sour cream
• 1 Tbls thyme and 1 Ts olive oil
• black or white pepper

-if you have no tapande in your store, just puree black olives with some oil and vinegar in the blender, excellent as spread on fresh loaf of bread with fresh tomatoes on top as a snack.

Turn oven to 180° (Therm. 6) or in the US to 350°
Butter a loaf pan and keep aside.
Golden brown onion slowly in a heavy frying pan, put on an absorbent paper ant let cool.
In a bowl to mix flour, salt, Levure chimique and soft butter.
Beat eggs as for an omelette and add in a slow flow to the dry ingredients.Beat to obtain a smooth and slack dough.
Add onions, tapande mixture, dried tomatoes, diced ham, thyme and pepper.
Place dough in bread pan let rest for 10 minute or so.
bake 35 minutes. When done the loaf should sound hollow when tapped.
Rest loaf for several minutes before you remove from pan. Let cool on rack.

Apparently this is the latest “In Cuisine”, to serve with our local wine.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Languedoc, South of France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.