The Saint-Thibéry summer
Quiz shows, neighbours and the gift of courgettes. Plus a recipe for how to stuff them and this week’s market haul.
Years ago, we spent the summer in Saint-Thibéry, a village about fifteen minutes from here. It must have been 2008, because I remember my dad watching the Beijing Olympics in the cool of the first-floor sitting room, the shutters closed against the sun. He was so exasperated at seeing the flag being handed over to Boris Johnson, then mayor of London, his jacket undone, he had to turn off the television. “Daft Herbert”, he said, which is only one step up from “Bag of tripe”.
Anyway, this isn’t about that. It’s about our neighbours. We rented a tall, thin, pink village house with a courtyard garden which was overlooked by another house, kitty corner to ours. Every day at 5.35pm through the open window, I could hear the music that announced the beginning of Des Chiffres et des Lettres, the French inspiration for our own words and numbers game show, Countdown. The elderly couple whooped, clapped and oooooh’d through the show in a very un-French fashion. I liked them before I met them. They sounded jolly.
I love the way that some French people seem astonished that English people cook at all.
After a couple of days, we did meet them as our houses shared a side path to the front doors. I left our windows open when I was cooking to let some air into the kitchen. They said hello as they went past, and sometimes “Ça sent bon!” (that smells good) or “Bon appétit!”. I love the way that some French people seem astonished that English people cook at all.
One afternoon, the husband appeared at the door. He was wearing jeans held up high with braces, and a short-sleeved checked shirt. In his hands, he had a cardboard box with some tomatoes, lettuce and round courgettes from his potager, just a present, and a newspaper clipping of the Millau Bridge, the Norman Foster viaduct about 100km to the north. In those days, we used to fly here so we never went over the bridge. Now, when we often drive, it’s the sign that we’re almost home. The sight of it makes me breathe softly.
Saint-Thibéry is a quiet village with a long history. It is part of the via Domitia, the Roman road that connects Italy and Spain. A bridge across which Hannibal once led his elephants still spans, more or less, the Hérault river on the edge of the village. There has been an abbey there since the Eighth Century, a site of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages. Today, there’s a shop, a bar, a jazz festival in summer, not much else. When we were there, each afternoon a group of women would meet and chat in the middle of the crossroads, any traffic politely steering around them. Sometimes, they waved or a passing driver gave a short, friendly tap on the horn.
On our last Saturday, I was loading the car and our neighbour came out of the house. “Oh! I’m sorry you’re leaving,” she said. “There’s a wedding this afternoon. The bride’s in the hairdresser’s now. But I thought we could put some chairs out on the street and watch the wedding together.” If I’d been there a couple more weeks, I’m sure I would have been chatting in the middle of the road. The greatest honour.
Stuffed courgettes with tomato rice
I love a stuffed vegetable. I know they’re quite old fashioned, but honestly that makes me love them more. I make them a lot in the summer – tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines – because they keep quite well for a couple of days in the fridge and you can take them out and reheat them whenever you like. A green salad, and you’re done. With stuffed tomatoes, cooks often scatter rice in the bottom of the dish to bake in the juices. Here, I add rice and cherry tomatoes to the bottom of the courgette dish, so really you have the whole meal right there.
You can put the courgettes’ lids back on and bake them if you want – they look pretty that way – but I prefer the crunchy top you get from baking them naked, simply with a few breadcrumbs, butter and cheese scattered on top.
Serves 4
4 round courgettes or medium-sized long courgettes, about 250g each
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, about 500g total weight, diced
1 bay leaf
2-3 sprigs of thyme
4 garlic cloves, halved, any green germ removed, and minced
350g minced pork or beef, or a combination
80g fresh breadcrumbs
80g Parmesan cheese, grated
1 egg
Small bunch of parsley, fine stems and leaves only, about 15g
½ tsp piment d’espelette, paprika or chilli flakes
40g butter
For the rice
100g long-grain rice
140ml chicken or vegetable stock
200g cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cut the tops off the round courgettes. If you’re using long courgettes, slice off the top 1cm. Using a teaspoon, hollow out most of the flesh. Scoop out any seeds, then coarsely chop the flesh place in a colander lined with kitchen paper. Press out as much liquid as you can.
Sprinkle a little salt into the hollowed-out courgettes and turn them upside down on a plate lined with kitchen paper.
Warm the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan over a medium-low heat. Add the onions, a bay leaf, the thyme and a good pinch of salt and sauté gently, stirring from time to time, until the onions are softened – don’t let the take on any colour – about 20 minutes.
Add the chopped courgette you scooped out from the vegetables along with the garlic and sauté for 5 minutes. You want to dry out the courgette as much as you can in the pan.
Raise the temperature to medium-high, add the meat and break it up with a fork. Sauté until the meat has lost its red colour. Remove from the heat and tip the mixture into a bowl. Fish out the bay leaf and thyme.
Heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4.
Scoop 2 tbsp of the breadcrumbs and 2 tbsp of the Parmesan into a small bowl, add a few grinds of black pepper and mix.
Stir the remaining breadcrumbs, Parmesan, egg, parsley, and piment d’espelette, paprika or chilli flakes into the meat mixture. Break off a spoonful and fry it until cooked through. Taste it and then season the mixture with more salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
Scatter the rice in the bottom of an oven-proof dish. Arrange the courgettes on top. Dab the insides dry with some kitchen paper. Stuff them with the meat – you should have about 180g of the mixture for each one. Sprinkle the breadcrumb-Parmesan mixture on top of the meat and dot a scrap of butter on top of each one. Arrange the cherry tomatoes around the courgettes and trickle over the stock (if your stock is very mild, add some salt) and olive oil.
Check after about 40 minutes and if the rice looks dry but still uncooked, add a splash of boiling water from the kettle. Continue to bake for a total of 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the tops are browned and the courgettes and rice are tender. Let them cool for 10 minutes before serving – they’re good just warm too.
Market haul, 10 July 2024
Cherries, onions, chair à farce (a seasoned mixture of mixed beef, pork and veal), green beans, red pepper, apricots, red onions, including a long Simiane onion, tomatoes, a potato, spring onions, parsley, avocado, an apple, round courgettes.
We are entering that intensely Direct Producteur time of year – onions, tomatoes, apricots, peaches, melons, salad, courgettes, just some of the good things grown locally.
Snap! I was just finishing off reading my subscribed Substack posts when yours popped into view, I’m reading away and there is the exact recipe I was going to look up when finished, stuffed capsicums which I bought the other day, although you used gourgettes this time. Thank you! I actually thought of you the other day after I had bought the yellow and red capsicums, plus one each of a yellow and red Grandma’s (huge) tomato, and took a photo of these items surrounded by cherry tomatoes. A painting waiting to happen.
What a thrill to the soul the Market Haul is - you know how much I pour over it taking in every detail . . . . we could do with some direct producteur here! Thank you for taking the trouble to photograph and report