Pastis, present and future

We’ve all done it: brought back that bottle of booze from our holidays, only to find we just didn’t fancy it once we got home. It gathers dust at the back of a shelf until someone needs a raffle prize or a last minute gift, when we revive it with a microfibre cloth and a ribbon. And then, next holiday we start that dance all over again.

Of course, what we’re really trying to hold onto is that feeling of lazy evenings and late dinners, sun-warmed skin and nap-nourished calm. It’s not the raki, stupid.

For me, bottles of Ricard were the most regular offenders. I would spend all summer in France sipping glasses of pastis on the terraces of cafés and bars. In the evenings, I looked forward to tipping a generous pour of the anise-flavoured into a tall glass then trickling in some water, watching the mixture turning cloudy, pale yellow, like the day breathing out.

I always included a bottle of Ricard in our last-day-of-holidays dash around the supermarket, along with tins of confit de canard, jars of Collioure anchovies, packets of Puy lentils and bags of pruneaux d’Agen. Unlike the rest of its trolley mates, the pastis lost all of its appeal when I got back to London. When we left Hackney to move to France, I think I gave away four bottles of it to my neighbours. They’re probably still in the back of their cupboards.

These days, while I still like a cold pastis on a sunny terrace, I enjoy cooking with it as well. So if you, too, have a bottle lurking on a shelf somewhere, I thought today I would give you some suggestions of what to do with it – plus a recipe for a lemon and almond cake where it gives it a little extra zing

1. Use it to flambé prawns, and finish with lots of garlic and chopped parsley

2. Next time you poach mussels, add a little pastis

3. Add a splash to white fish cooked en papillote

4. It adds a South of France flavour to fish soup

5. Next time you cook chicken or salmon with fennel, add a little pastis

6. Make a vinaigrette using pastis half-and-half with the vinegar and using it to dress a shaved fennel and tomato salad

7. Use some pastis mixed with honey, Dijon mustard and soy sauce to baste a pork loin

8. It’s a great addition to poached pears or pear tarts

9. Next time you make crêpes, flambé them with a little pastis

10. Try roasting split figs with some runny honey and a splash of pastis trickled over the top

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Lemon and almond cake

This is a simple lemon and almond cake which I pixied up with a little pastis and served with cherry compote and crème fraîche. I highly recommend making twice as much compote – it’s really delicious with Greek yoghurt for breakfast.

MAKES 1 x 23cm CAKE

130g butter, melted and cooled, plus a little more softened butter for buttering the tin
130g caster sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
100g ground almonds
Finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons – be careful not to remove any of the bitter white pith (grate it directly onto the ground almonds so as not to lose any of the delicious oils)
Juice of 1 ½ lemons
1 ½ tbsp pastis
2 tbsp whole milk
40g flaked almonds

TO FINISH
2 tbsp icing sugar
Some finely pared lemon zest from an unwaxed lemon

FOR THE CHERRY COMPOTE
350g cherries, destoned
50g caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp water
1 tsp cornflour
½ tsp almond extract

TO SERVE
Crème fraîche

Heat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/Gas 3.

Lightly and thoroughly butter a 23cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Line the tin with baking parchment and lightly butter the parchment.

In a stand mixer or in a bowl with an electric beater, or in a bowl with a whisk if you fancy an arm workout, beat together the sugar and eggs until the mixture is light and fluffy and it leaves a ribbon trail in the bowl when you lift the beaters or whisk.

Sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, then gently fold it into the batter with a rubber spatula. Fold in the ground almonds and lemon zest, melted butter, lemon juice, the pastis and milk.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and gently smooth the top. Scatter on the flaked almonds. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top is lightly golden and a toothpick or small, sharp knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the tin for 15 minutes before removing it from the tin and leaving it to cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the cherry compote, put everything together in a medium-sized saucepan and simmer very gently, stirring gently and often, for about 10 minutes until the cherries soften a little and the juices are syrupy.

Just before serving, dust the cake with icing sugar and finish with the lemon zest. Serve with the cherry compote and some spoonfuls of crème fraîche.

Copies of all the printable recipes are available to paid subscribers here.

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One of my subscribers, Fio Zacha, left a comment on my tart post that gave me an idea. Fio wrote “I do love your market haul photos, Debora, they are the modern equivalent of classic Dutch still lifes. I look at them and think “What would I conjure up with this”. It made me thing it would be nice to ask you what you would make, using an ingredient or ingredients from each week’s choice. Do join in in the comments. I’d love to know.

Anchovy biscuits from the new deli, peaches, lemons, red pepper, cucumber, fennel, Charentais melon, cherris, eggs, Noir de Crimée tomatoes (Crimea tomatoes).

What would you make with this week’s market haul?

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