Day 5: Provençal Tilapia with Red Peppers/White Wine Potatoes/Tomatoes and Braised Carrots/Parsnips
Today’s dish was tilapia with red peppers, potatoes boiled in water and white wine, and tomatoes. I cooked the carrots and parsnips in the oven with chicken stock, butter, and salt for about an hour.
Generally when a dish is referred to a Provençal it mean “of Provence” or “of the style of Provence,” the region of France that direct borders Italy. The dish here is a delicate mix of flavors with neither the fish nor the vegetables overpowering each other. Doing this dish with chicken or beef would likely result in the vegetables being overpowered by the meat in the dish.
Parsnips are a root vegetable that has a relation another root, the carrot. The cultivation of the parsnip originated in Italy during the Roman Empire, expanding as far a England due to the expansionist tendencies of the Romans. Parsnips, along with other root vegetables such as turnips, were eventually replaced with the introduction of the culinary titan known as the potato.
