La Cuisine Provençale · The Table of the South

Provençal Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Step into the sunlit kitchens of Provence, where daube simmers slowly in red wine, sea bass roasts on a bed of fennel, and every fougasse is kneaded with good olive oil. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way the South of France has always cooked.

Explore the Recipes
Olive Oil✦ Butter✦ Duck Fat
A generous Provençal supper laid out on a rustic wooden table
✦ Daube Provençale
From the recipe collection
Huile d'Olive

Olive Oil First

Provence was planted with olive trees long before it was called Provence. Every stew, roast, and loaf in this collection begins with olive oil from the stone mill, never with a refined seed oil.

Beurre & Canard

Butter and Duck Fat

When a dish asks for richness, we reach for sweet butter and golden duck fat, the two old companions of the Provençal larder, for pastry, for browning, and for the deepest savor.

Jamais

Never Vegetable Oil

No seed oils, no shortcuts. Only the traditional fats that the farmhouse kitchens and village bistros of Provence have trusted for generations.

✦
From Our Kitchen

French Provençal Recipes

Six beloved dishes from the tables of Provence, each cooked with the honest fats that bring out the best in every ingredient.

Mas Daube Provençale, dark braised beef resting on a warm plate

Daube Provençale

Beef braised slowly in red wine

3 hr 45 min·6 servings·Medium

The great Sunday dish of the Provençal farmhouse. Beef simmered gently in red wine with orange peel, herbs, and black olives until it yields at the touch of a spoon.

Ingredients

  • 1.2 kg beef chuck, cut into large pieces
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp duck fat
  • 2 onions, thickly sliced
  • 3 carrots, cut into chunks
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 500 ml full bodied red wine
  • 2 wide strips of orange zest
  • 1 bouquet garni of thyme, bay, and rosemary
  • 100 g black olives, plus salt and black pepper

Instructions

  1. Season the beef generously and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
  2. Warm the olive oil and duck fat in a heavy pot and brown the beef in batches until deeply colored on all sides.
  3. Soften the onions, carrots, and garlic in the same pot, scraping up the browned bits.
  4. Return the beef with the wine, orange zest, and bouquet garni, and bring to a bare simmer.
  5. Cover and cook over the lowest heat, or in a 150°C (300°F) oven, for 3 hours until the meat is completely tender.
  6. Stir in the olives for the final 20 minutes and let the sauce thicken with the lid ajar.
  7. Rest the daube 15 minutes off the heat and serve with buttered noodles or potatoes.
Calanques Loup de mer au fenouil, a sea bass fillet with herbs and lemon

Loup de Mer au Fenouil

Sea bass roasted on fennel

35 min·2 servings·Easy

The pride of the Marseille coastline. Whole sea bass roasted over a bed of sliced fennel and lemon, anointed with olive oil and finished with a spoon of melted butter.

Ingredients

  • 2 whole sea bass, cleaned, or 4 fillets
  • 2 fennel bulbs, thinly sliced, fronds reserved
  • 1 lemon, thinly sliced, plus wedges to serve
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 30 g butter
  • 3 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
  • 2 sprigs of thyme
  • 1 small glass of dry white wine
  • Sea salt and black pepper
  • A handful of small black olives (optional)

Instructions

  1. Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F) and toss the fennel and lemon slices with half the olive oil in a roasting dish.
  2. Roast the fennel alone for 12 minutes until it begins to soften and color at the edges.
  3. Season the fish inside and out, tuck in the garlic and thyme, and lay it over the fennel.
  4. Spoon over the remaining olive oil and pour the wine around the fish.
  5. Roast 15 to 18 minutes until the flesh flakes at the thickest point.
  6. Melt the butter until it smells nutty and spoon it over the fish with the reserved fronds and olives. Serve with lemon wedges.
Marché Ratatouille, a colorful stew of summer vegetables in a rustic bowl

Ratatouille

The slow vegetable stew of Nice

1 hr 15 min·4 servings·Easy

Summer in a single pot. Eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes, each cooked separately in olive oil so it keeps its character, then married gently with basil.

Ingredients

  • 1 large eggplant, cut into thick half moons
  • 2 zucchini, thickly sliced
  • 2 bell peppers, red and yellow, in strips
  • 6 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 4 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 120 ml olive oil, divided
  • 1 bouquet garni of thyme and bay
  • A large handful of basil leaves, torn
  • Sea salt and black pepper

Instructions

  1. Salt the eggplant and let it drain in a colander for 20 minutes, then pat dry.
  2. Fry the eggplant in a third of the olive oil until golden and set aside; repeat with the zucchini, then the peppers, adding oil as needed.
  3. In the same pot, soften the onions and garlic in the remaining oil.
  4. Add the tomatoes and bouquet garni and simmer 15 minutes until saucy.
  5. Return all the vegetables and simmer gently, uncovered, for 20 minutes so the flavors mingle without collapsing.
  6. Rest off the heat 10 minutes, fold in the basil, and serve warm or at room temperature with good bread.
Potager Soupe au pistou, a summer vegetable and bean soup in a deep bowl

Soupe au Pistou

Summer soup with basil pistou

1 hr·6 servings·Easy

The soup that tastes of the kitchen garden. White beans, green beans, and squash simmered until tender, crowned at the table with a pounded sauce of basil, garlic, and olive oil.

Ingredients

  • 200 g cooked white beans
  • 200 g green beans, cut short
  • 2 zucchini, diced
  • 2 carrots and 2 potatoes, diced
  • 2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
  • 100 g small pasta
  • 1.5 litres water or light vegetable broth
  • 2 large bunches of basil
  • 4 garlic cloves and 120 ml olive oil, for the pistou
  • 60 g aged cheese, finely grated, plus salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Bring the water to a simmer with the carrots and potatoes and cook 10 minutes.
  2. Add the green beans, zucchini, and tomatoes and simmer 15 minutes more.
  3. Stir in the white beans and pasta and cook until the pasta is just tender. Season well.
  4. Meanwhile pound the garlic with a pinch of salt, then the basil, into a rough paste.
  5. Work the olive oil into the basil little by little, then the grated cheese, to make the pistou.
  6. Ladle the soup into bowls and let each guest stir in a generous spoonful of pistou at the table.
Boulangerie Fougasse, golden olive oil bread on a floured bakery board

Fougasse aux Olives

Olive oil bread shaped like a leaf

2 hr 30 min·2 loaves·Medium

The signature loaf of the Provençal bakery, slashed into the shape of an olive leaf. A supple dough enriched with olive oil, studded with black olives and herbs.

Ingredients

  • 500 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 10 g salt
  • 320 ml warm water
  • 60 ml olive oil, plus more for brushing
  • 120 g black olives, pitted and roughly chopped
  • 1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
  • 1 tsp herbes de Provence
  • Coarse sea salt, to finish
  • Semolina or flour, for the tray

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, and salt, then add the water and olive oil and knead 10 minutes to a smooth, supple dough.
  2. Knead in the olives, rosemary, and herbes de Provence until evenly spread.
  3. Cover and let the dough rise about 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  4. Divide in two and roll each piece into a flat oval on a dusted tray.
  5. Cut a center slash and diagonal side slashes with a sharp knife and open them wide so the loaf looks like a leaf.
  6. Rest 20 minutes, brush generously with olive oil, and scatter with coarse salt.
  7. Bake at 220°C (430°F) for 18 to 20 minutes until deep gold, and brush once more with olive oil while warm.
Fête Tarte Tropézienne, a cream filled brioche dusted with sugar

Tarte Tropézienne

The cream filled brioche of Saint-Tropez

3 hr 30 min·8 servings·Medium

The celebration cake of the Riviera. A tender butter brioche crowned with pearl sugar, split and filled with a cloud of vanilla and orange blossom cream.

Ingredients

  • 350 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast and 50 g sugar
  • 3 eggs, plus 1 beaten egg for the glaze
  • 80 ml warm whole milk
  • 150 g soft butter, diced
  • Pearl sugar, for the top
  • 400 ml whole milk, for the cream
  • 4 egg yolks and 90 g sugar, for the cream
  • 35 g cornstarch and 1 vanilla pod
  • 1 tbsp orange blossom water and 200 ml cold heavy cream

Instructions

  1. Knead the flour, yeast, sugar, eggs, and warm milk 8 minutes, then work in the soft butter until silky. Rise 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  2. Shape into a wide disc on a lined tray, rise 45 minutes more, brush with beaten egg, and scatter thickly with pearl sugar.
  3. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 22 to 25 minutes until golden, and cool completely.
  4. For the cream, whisk the yolks with sugar and cornstarch, then cook with the milk and split vanilla pod, stirring, until thick. Chill well.
  5. Perfume the chilled custard with orange blossom water, then fold in the heavy cream whipped to soft peaks.
  6. Split the brioche like a cake, spread the cream generously, replace the sugared top, and chill 30 minutes before slicing.
A cook working at a warm stove in a busy home kitchen
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Duosse Cuisine

Duosse Cuisine is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of Provence, the sunlit south where lunch stretches into the afternoon, the market basket decides the menu, and nothing good is ever hurried. We write these recipes down the way they are still cooked in farmhouse kitchens and village bistros, patiently, precisely, and always with a generous hand on the olive oil.

Our only house rule is an old one: olive oil from the stone mill, sweet butter for the pastry, duck fat rendered the traditional way and nothing else. Vegetable oil never comes through our door, because it never sat on the tables we learned from.

Bon appétit, may it feed you well.