Fish soup

Another offering from my mother's recipe book. I don't ever remember her having cooked this. I like the specificity of the fish and am interested by the fact there are no ingredients other than fish and water (save a little butter for frying).

Postscript : I failed to see the recipe continued over the page and that there are some additional ingredients from the seventies - red and yellow food colouring anyone? And who recalls top of the milk?

1 red mullet

1 baby squid

1/4 lb prawns (unpeeled)

1/2 pound cod cheeks

Butter for frying

Prepare the fish; put all trimmings including prawn shells into saucepan with water - boil down for stock.

Cut up octopus into small pieces and fry in butter, then add some strained fish stock and simmer 'til tender. Add pieces of mullet & cod & simmer 'til just cooked. Remove cod pieces & put into blender with strained remaining stock & blend 'til creamy. Pour over fish pieces, & add peeled prawns & a little red & yellow colouring + a little top of milk. Season to taste. Heat slowly & serve with chopped parsley.

Bon Appetit

This is a tribute to an eating house that is long closed. Bon Appetit, next to Blackfriars station, is now boarded up and has been for years, although its sign remains in part.

I recall it in the mid 1990s when I first qualified as a lawyer. By pure coincidence, the place is directly opposite the headquarters of my first ever client, Unilever. I used to buy sandwiches here when I got off the train at Blackfriars. They were the only place I know outside France to offer the wonderful Pan Bagnat.