Coq au Riesling

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Meg

Coq au Riesling is chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce made with Riesling, a dry but slightly fruity wine from Alsace. While the dish was traditionally made with rooster (coq), chicken is now commonly used. For one thing, roosters are far tougher than chickens and take a long time to cook. For another, it’s not always easy to find a rooster — even in France, where it’s the national symbol! Meantime, today marks the start of an innovative herbal collaboration between EFC and a climate-aware online garden shop. Details below.

Coq au Riesling / Alsatian chicken in Riesling

Coq au Riesling made with chicken can be prepared in under an hour. The chicken is browned in butter and oil with chopped shallots and thyme, then simmered in wine for half an hour. When the chicken is ready, the sauce is thickened with cream, egg yolk and flour. Mushrooms cooked separately are added at the end. The dish may be served over pasta, rice or mashed potatoes. In Alsace it is generally served over spaetzle (eggy pasta).

If you were to make the dish with a rooster, the cooking time would increase to at least two hours. Maybe that was feasible in the old days when the pot could be left to simmer by the hearth, but now it’s just not practical. Poultry farmers must have recognized the change, for it’s rare to find a rooster, even at the market. My favorite poultry stand offers several varieties of chicken, duck, guinea fowl, quail and sometimes goose, but to get a rooster you would have to order it in advance, and even then you would not be sure to get one.

This decline of the rooster in this country’s cuisine clashes with its eminence elsewhere. France boasts a rooster atop nearly every church belltower in the country. This is said to be because the early morning crowing of cocks symbolizes the passage from darkness to light, with the bird thus also seen as a symbol of Jesus. But the rooster had become prominent in France long before rising to prominence on the steeple.

According to one story, the rooster became identified with France after the Romans conquered Gaul in 58 BC thanks to some mischievous word play by the Romans. Because the Latin word gallus meant both ‘rooster’ and ‘from Gaul’, the victors were able to make fun of the conquered, even stamping the image of the rooster on coins. Once the Romans departed, the kings of France adopted the rooster as a symbol due to its courage and bravado. The bird lost ground under Napoleon, who preferred the image of the eagle on coins, but has since come back into vogue.

As anyone who watched the Paris Olympics may have noticed, the rooster today features proudly on French sports uniforms. The country’s national soccer, rugby and handball teams go into combat wearing the rooster. The cock even has its place at the Elysée Palace, where it sits atop the gates to the palace gardens. But perhaps the most familiar French role of the rooster to those not in France is in the supremely French dish coq au vin, one of the most popular recipes on this site. So now we’re back to cooking.

In this regard, I am happy to announce the start of a collaboration between The Everyday French Chef and plant d’Avenir (‘plant of the future’), a nursery near France’s Atlantic coast that grows drought-tolerant plants — including many of the herbs used in recipes on this site. Readers who wish to grow their herbs at home, as I do, may order them from plant d’Avenir for potting on windowsills or balconies, or planting in a garden.

For our first collaborative foray, Katya Lebedev, the dynamic young woman who runs plant d’Avenir, and I are featuring rosemary, which may be planted in well-drained soil in early spring. As a recipe, we chose crisp goat cheese pastries with rosemary and honey. Click here to access the recipe on Katya’s site and see about ordering rosemary from her. She can ship the young plants to any destination in France or Europe (excluding Britain for the moment but she’s working on that).

Katya and I will collaborate on posts featuring culinary herbs four times a year — once per season. Our next will come in April, perfect for planting the herbs that flourish in summer.

Happy (herbal) cooking!

Posted in 6. Poultry | 4 Comments

Grog au rhum

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Meg

When walking in Paris in winter, one is likely to encounter a café chalkboard proposing grog au rhum, the French version of a rum toddy. This ubiquitous drink is popular not only because of its alleged healing qualities – it is said to be a remedy for the common cold and associated ailments – but also because it is warming and tasty, a great pick-me-up in nippy weather. And the beauty is that it may be made at home in a matter of minutes.

Grog au rhum / Rum toddy, French style

The recipe is ultra simple. Boiling water is poured over dark rum mixed with raw cane sugar or honey, a teaspoon of lemon juice is added, et voilà. Variations abound. Some people add spice — a cinnamon stick, cinnamon powder, star anise, cloves, a vanilla bean or grated nutmeg. Sometimes another type of alcohol is substituted for rum, for example whisky, cognac (brandy) or, in Normandy, calvados (apple brandy).

One question with grog is the proportion of rum to water. When the drink was first invented — in 1740 by Vice Admiral Edward Vernon of the Royal Navy — sailors were ordered to dilute their daily ration of half a pint of rum with a quart of water, making the proportion 1:4. According to Vernon’s notes, the drink was to be consumed twice a day: half in the morning, from 10 to 12, and half in the afternoon, from 4 to 6. (Given that ‘grog’ is the root of the word ‘groggy’, one wonders how much work got done on those ships.)

Indeed over time the proportion declined, with the daily ration of rum to water reduced to 1:6 in order to combat drunkenness. But when sailors got access to the rum barrel, they were known to make what they called ‘a northwester’. Named after the points of the compass, with N for rum and W for water, the proportions were — yikes! –50-50.

As for the name ‘grog’, it too stems from Vice Admiral Vernon, who was known familiarly as ‘Old Grog’ because he wore a coat of grogham, a fabric made of wool and silk. Lemon or lime juice and sugar were added for flavor, and not to combat scurvy as is sometimes said since the evidence that Vitamin C could prevent the disease was still anecdotal at the time — a time when scurvy was decimating seafarers, with thousands of deaths every year.

Despite having searched far and wide, I was unable nail down how grog spread from Britain to France — although one can easily imagine sailors fraternizing if they happened to cross paths at a time when European ships were busy traversing the globe to bring back the bounty of colonized lands. Britain’s rum hailed from Jamaica, France’s from Guadeloupe and Martinique. The American Navy took up the grog tradition, but in due course substituted rye whisky for rum. A stop was put to this in 1862. Surprisingly, the Royal Navy ended the tradition of issuing rum to British sailors only in 1970.

Grog is a close relative of the hot toddy, which is generally made with whisky. Both are deemed useful in treating a cold. The French call this ‘un remède de grand-mère‘ (loose translation: ‘a homespun remedy’). As one French recipe puts it, while the proportions of the ingredients may be varied according to taste, ‘It is strongly advised to drink the grog while sitting on the edge of one’s bed, and to get in the bed immediately thereafter’.

Happy cooking.

Posted in Drinks | Leave a comment

Coquilles Saint-Jacques au Champagne

Posted on December 20, 2024 by Meg

And so we end the year with an ultra French, ultra elegant starter of sea scallops in Champagne sauce to grace your table during the festive season. The scallops are sautéed in butter, deglazed with Champagne, bathed in a creamy, buttery Champagne sauce and decorated with fresh herbs. The amount of Champagne needed is equivalent to about one flute, so you can serve the rest of the bottle to your guests to get the festivities off to a merry start.

Coquilles Saint-Jacques au Champagne / Sea scallops in Champagne sauce

This starter is rich, no doubt about it, so a portion of three sea scallops per person is an elegant sufficiency, as my Grandma Anne used to say. I can virtually guarantee that your guests will ask for more. Best to stop at three, however, as more treats are likely to follow. (See the Holiday Menus page for suggestions). I may serve this dish as the kick-off to this year’s Christmas lunch. It would work equally well on New Year’s Eve. And another possibility would be to serve the sea scallops one to a small glass (verrine) at cocktail hour.

While making this recipe — which, by the way, takes only 15 minutes — I wondered why sea scallops bear the name of Saint-Jacques (St. James) in French. It turns out to be linked to the Way of St. James, a major pilgrimage route to the Spanish holy city of Santiago de Compostela (Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle), where the remains of James the Apostle are thought to be buried. In the Middle Ages, the pilgrims are said to have decorated their clothing with empty scallop shells, which they used to drink, eat and beg. Mystery solved.

If, like me, you’re a big fan of sea scallops, you can check out three recipes posted previously on this site — sautéed in sweet wine, pan-seared with chanterelles and Brittany style (dusted with flour and sautéed in butter). As sea scallops are in season at the moment, this is a very good time to try them out. And (shh!) if fresh sea scallops are not available where you live, all of these recipes may be made with defrosted frozen scallops.

And so, my friends, I leave you with my very best wishes for a joyful and delicious holiday season. We certainly live in interesting times. Let us hope that 2025 will surprise us all with peace on earth and goodwill toward men and women everywhere.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 1. Starters | 2 Comments

Cassoulet

Posted on December 6, 2024 by Meg

Cassoulet, one of France’s most popular dishes, is a specialty of the southwest Languedoc region. Dried white beans are simmered to tenderness, infused with garlic and baked in a slow oven with various meats — sausages, bacon, duck or goose confit, and sometimes pork or lamb. This is French comfort food at its finest. It’s a festive dish for a crowd that could be fun to make over the holidays. Preparation takes time, but it’s worth it.

Cassoulet / Cassoulet

The peasant origins and local roots of cassoulet make it a good example of terroir, a word that conveys the character of a dish emanating from a particular patch of land. This terroir quality is a key to cassoulet’s popularity — I’ll return to this later — but just because the dish is popular doesn’t mean it’s not controversial. Ask someone from the region what meats to include in cassoulet and an argument is sure to ensue. What kind of sausages? Duck or goose? With or without pork or lamb? With or without tomato? Topped with breadcrumbs or not? Even the quantities of the various elements are under dispute.

In an effort to resolve the matter, the General Asssembly of French Gastronomy (this body actually exists) determined in 1966 that the proper proportions of a cassoulet should be 70% beans and 30% meat. But the quarrel didn’t end there. The southwest cities of Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse sponsor rival Brotherhoods of Cassoulet that compete to promote their different versions of the dish. Their robed members recite chants to the glory of cassoulet in the local Occitan dialect and hold events such as the best cassoulet eater contest in Castelnaudary (won most recently by a 24-year-old named Jérémy who downed two kilos — four and a half pounds! — of cassoulet in 15 minutes).

This rivalry is so intense that the cities actually argue over how many times to break the crust that forms on the cassoulet while it is baking (seven times according to Castelnaudary, eight according to Toulouse). But the proof of the cassoulet is in the eating, and in fact I very much doubt that any diner in history, even in southwest France, has ever noticed how many times the chef punched into the crust.

So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty — how to make cassoulet. Despite all the mystique, preparation is simple. You soak the beans, simmer them with onion, carrot, garlic, herbs, bay leaf and a slab of bacon, brown the meats of your choice, layer the beans and meat into a baking dish (preferably earthenware) and bake for 90 minutes. This process took me four hours from start to finish, but I actually spent only an hour or so in the kitchen.

Cassoulet is one of the few grand classics of French cuisine that I had not yet posted on this site, the main reason being the difficulty of obtaining the ingredients if one does not live in France. But I believe I’ve found a way to make cassoulet accessible to home cooks everywhere, thanks in part to the online availability of French products these days.

The recipe I’m posting today contains all of the various meats — you can choose which to include or not — and is closest to the Toulouse version. A key ingredient is saucisse de Toulouse, which resembles Italian sausage minus the fennel and spicing. The nearest American equivalent is probably Wisconsin-style bratwurst. Chipolata sausages, while thinner, also resemble saucisse de Toulouse.

Another key ingredient is duck confit (pronounced cone-FEE). Widely available in France, this may be purchased online elsewhere — or you can make the confit yourself, using this recipe. (You’ll need to plan ahead, however, as making confit is a two-day process.)

An advantage of including confit in your cassoulet is that the smooth white fat clinging to the preserved duck will melt as you brown it, providing a source of duck fat for browning the other meats and for spooning over the dish just before it goes into the oven. You can also purchase duck fat online or, in a pinch, substitute olive oil.

Some non-French food writers propose more extreme substitutes, such as chicken instead of duck. My advice? Don’t go there. It wouldn’t be authentic. Julia Child, whose cassoulet recipe (dismissively titled ‘French baked beans’) covers seven pages in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, skirts the ingredients issue by leaving out the confit and sausage entirely, although she does mention them in her section on regional variations.

To sum up, making cassoulet takes time, it may be hard to obtain the ingredients and it’s not exactly diet food. So why bother? Given all of the above, what explains the popularity of this dish in France, where it regularly figures on lists of the country’s ten favorite foods?

I think that part of its appeal is the terroir aspect. Like Proust’s madeleine, cassoulet summons up memories of the past, a nostalgia for simpler times when farming households worked the local land and brought its bounty to the table. It’s a dish that seems to say, this is the real France, la France profonde (deep France), where each region has its own distinct cuisine, untouched by globalization and far superior to supermarket food.

But there’s another reason for cassoulet’s huge popularity — it’s just plain delicious.

It’s true that making cassoulet is a bit of a production. Think of it as an adventure, with a pot of golden beans at the end. With the holidays approaching, this is a good time to check out the recipe and gather the ingredients. You’ll be all set to head to the kitchen, put on your apron and create a beautiful, festive dish for Christmas, Hanukah or the New Year.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 7. Meat Dishes | 6 Comments

Choux de Bruxelles à la française

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Meg

With Thanksgiving arriving and Christmas not far behind, this may be a good time to try your hand at Brussels sprouts, French style. This savory dish — in which the sprouts are halved and sautéd with bacon, with carrots, with both or with neither — bears no relation to the version you may have been served as a child. Garlic and herbs brighten the flavor, and the sprouts retain flashes of lovely green by being cooked just enough, uncovered.

Choux de Bruxelles à la française / Brussels sprouts, French style

Brussels sprouts, which are an integral part of Christmas dinners in Britain and often feature on Thanksgiving tables in the United States, are perhaps one of the world’s most controversial veggies. If overcooked, they become gray, mushy and bitter. In years gone by they were served this way in many homes — including by my mother, an otherwise excellent cook — and in school cafeterias, as a British friend was quick to confirm.

‘One of my worst memories of my childhood was being fed Brussels sprouts boiled within an inch of their life,’ he recalled. ‘They spoil Christmas for me. I cannot bear to eat a sprout ever since.’ When I offered to make the French version for him, he said he would happily eat the bacon, carrots and garlic but leave the sprouts behind. And yet, and yet…

Brussels sprouts cooked properly are mild, slightly sweet and tender. In this recipe, they are first cut in half, exposing their beautiful yellow centers. The halves are boiled to the al dente stage, the key being not to cover the pot so that they remain bright green. The sprouts are then sautéd in olive oil with the addition of garlic, herbes de Provence and, if you like, lardons (bacon sticks) and/or carrot rounds. In the final stage, a little water is added to braise the sprouts and blend the flavors.

Brussels sprouts, a member of the cabbage family, take their name from the Belgian capital because they began being cultivated intensively there during the Renaissance. Garden plots outside the city walls had been used for growing cabbages, which require a lot of space. As the population grew, farmers switched to sprouts, which grow vertically.

These days Belgians have been surpassed as producers of Brussels sprouts by the Dutch and also the British, possibly due to the Christmas connection. Brussels sprouts have pride of place on traditional British Christmas tables along with dishes like roast turkey, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, red cabbage and flaming plum pudding.

In the States, if you’d like to add a French touch to your Thanksgiving in addition to the sprouts, you could check out the following recipes: roast turkey, French style, sweet potato purée, sweet potatoes with herbs, Georges Blanc’s pumpkin gratin, pumpkin purée with parmesan, green beans, French style, and walnut tart. But you don’t need a holiday to enjoy Brussels sprouts, French style. They’re good any time of the year.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 8. Vegetables | Leave a comment

Soupe aux lentilles corail

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Meg

An earthy soup of red lentils with coconut milk will brighten your table in these dreary days of November. In Paris, where’s its been gray and cold for weeks, we actually had November in October and now we’re having December in November. My neighbors across the way have already strung out their Christmas lights, and I’m seriously considering lighting a fire in the fireplace tonight. Just to create some cheer in this dismal season…

Soupe aux lentilles corail / Red lentil soup

The funny thing about red lentil soup is that neither the lentils nor the soup are actually red. The French for ‘red lentils’ — lentilles corail, or ‘coral lentils’ — is more accurate for the uncooked lentils. But when cooked they turn ochre, and in this recipe the addition of turmeric heightens the yellow. The soup is also flavored with fresh ginger, cumin, coriander, cayenne and coconut milk. Fresh cilantro adds another burst of flavor.

This healthy soup is similar to India’s masoor dal, but here the lentils are briefly pulsed — you pulse the pulses (sorry, couldn’t resist) — and you add the coconut milk. It makes a great lunch dish on a raw day, perhaps accompanied by a watercress salad (also vegan) or melted cheese on toast, or followed by roasted winter vegetables or a cauliflower gratin.

I was surprised just now to find that I have posted very few Indian-style recipes on this site. This is odd, because Indian cooking is very popular here at home and appears quite often on our table. My go-to book is Mahdur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery, which was given to me many years ago by a British friend and is now out in an updated 40th anniversary edition. Favorite recipes include tandoori-style chicken, Gujerati carrot salad (with black mustard seeds, delicious), rogan josh (spicy lamb stew) and prawns with courgettes.

While I love Indian and other Asian cuisines, and post about them occasionally, most of the recipes here are French or French-inspired — because that’s what this site is about. Yet one need only walk the streets of Paris to see how passionately the French have embraced the food of other cultures. Within a 250-meter (yard) radius of my home, there are restaurants featuring the cuisines of Thailand, Italy, Spain, Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Russia, Cuba, the Antilles and, yes, India.

Very often these far-flung cuisines are presented with a French touch. Wine is always on offer, and the dishes follow each other in typical French style — starter, main course and dessert. The price of a three-course meal at lunchtime can be as low as 15 euros. In this chilly global season of conflict, I feel blessed to live in a city with such abundance and openness to things foreign — a city that, at least for now, remains at peace with the world.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 2. Soups | Leave a comment

Quiche aux poireaux

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Meg

A quiche brings out the best in the humble leek. Sautéd in butter to tenderness, bathed in a mixture of eggs, milk, cream and a dash of nutmeg, piled into a savory crust and topped with grated cheese, the leek rises from peasant status to nobility. And the beauty is that this quiche can be prepared very easily, especially if — as I did on a lazy Sunday (blush) — you use store-bought puff pastry (pâte feulletée) instead of making the crust from scratch…

Quiche aux poireaux / Leek quiche

Okay, I admit it. A homemade savory crust (pâte brisée) is far superior. And it’s not particularly difficult to produce. The key is having the butter at room temperature when you begin. Well, last Sunday I was in a hurry and the butter was stone cold. So I popped out to the supermarket and picked up the pastry, making sure to buy a “pur beurre” (pure butter) variety instead of one made with vegetable shortening.

The quiche can make a meal in itself, accompanied by a salad — for example, in autumn, a salad of pears roasted with parmesan or a salad of lamb’s lettuce and beets. It can also be served as a starter for a more elaborate meal, followed perhaps by stuffed pumpkin (a great recipe, by the way) or roasted chicken, duck or beef and autumn veggies, and for dessert maybe a Tarte Tatin (apple upside-down tart) or walnut tart.

I’ve been thinking about autumn menus these days as we have two big birthdays coming up around here: my daughter is turning 25, and I’m turning… well… it’s such an improbable number that I won’t bother to mention it. For her birthday dinner, my daughter has requested foie gras followed by boeuf bourguignon and a celeriac-potato purée, with a pavlova (meringue topped with cream and fresh fruit) for dessert (recipe coming soon). As for me, I’m going with a Ukrainian-Georgian theme: blini with homemade gravalax, Georgian guinea hen, red bean salad with walnuts, etc.

These back-to-back events will be followed in short order by an election with the potential to change the world. My European friends are on pins and needles waiting for the result. They fear that a certain candidate, if elected, will pull the United States out of NATO — breaking up the alliance that has defended Europe for 75 years — and withdraw from the Paris climate accords. Everyone wants to know how I think this vote will turn out. Dear reader, I’m as much in the dark as everyone else. All I can say is, I voted. Did you?

Happy cooking.

Posted in 4a. Savory Tarts and Tartines | Leave a comment

Gratin de légumes

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Meg

The beauty of a vegetable gratin is that it can be made with virtually any veggies you wish. I made a gratin of potatoes, carrots, leeks and baby spinach last month when the gray, rainy weather set in after our all too brief summer season in Paris. A week later it was back on our table by popular demand. The veggies are steamed, bathed in a Béchamel sauce, topped with grated cheese and baked until golden and bubbly. Easy.

Gratin de légumes / Veggie gratin

This is French vegetarian food at perhaps its most classic. When I first arrived in Paris in the mid-70s, there was a little vegetarian restaurant on Rue Vieille du Temple in the Marais that served up the most delicious veggie gratins — a discovery for me. But, you may well ask, what makes it so French? Well, first of all the Bechamel, a quintessentially French sauce made of butter, flour and milk, with a hint of garlic, a dash of nutmeg and a spoonful of cream. Second, the cheese — usually Comté, Gruyère or a similar cheese from the eastern edge of France, near or in the Alps.

The key in this recipe is to choose veggies that marry well and suit the season. Potatoes, carrots, leeks and spinach work well in early autumn. As the weather turns cooler you could include butternut or pumpkin, or cauliflower. Broccoli and/or mushrooms may be added at any time of the year. (Other gratins on this site feature a single veggie: zucchini gratin, Swiss chard gratin, leek gratin, cauliflower gratin and eggplant gratin.)

The mixed veggie gratin may be served as a main course with a salad alongside for a simple meal, or as a side dish for a more elaborate meal. In autumn, you could begin with a seasonal starter, like a salad of lamb’s lettuce and beets or a pumpkin soup, and conclude with an apple dessert — for example, apple tart, tarte Tatin or baked apples.

This is generally a cool-weather dish, so it was perfect for pre-autumnal Paris. But after making the veggie gratin twice in September, I escaped to Washington, D.C., where the glorious sunshine was a delight. It wasn’t gratin weather there yet. Still, winter is coming — literally, of course, but in this danger-fraught political season, not figuratively, we hope.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 8. Vegetables | Leave a comment

Salade de hareng fumé

Posted on September 27, 2024 by Meg

This zingy smoked herring salad proved a winner when I was asked to cook for 50 people at a party in Normandy in late August. It was meant to be served on the night of the party as part of a salad buffet to accompany a mechoui — slow-roasted lamb cooked over an open pit. But the 30 or so guests who had arrived by noon had it for lunch, which worked out well as I hadn’t really made enough for 50. Reader, they ate it all and asked for more.

Salade de hareng fumé / Smoked herring salad

The only challenge I faced with this dish was figuring out how much to make for such a large crowd. The recipe is simplicity itself. The fish is chopped and tossed with minced red onion, lemon juice, olive oil and fresh dill. It takes just five minutes to prepare if you’re making it, say, for two people as a light lunch, perhaps accompanied by a mesclun salad, or for up to six as cocktail-hour canapés. But 50? Now that was a brain twister.

As much as I love to cook, and despite my early experience as chef at a small restaurant in Ithaca, New York, it’s rare these days for me to make a meal for more than, say, twelve. The hostess had instructed me to arrive no earlier than noon on Friday, the day before the party. The house would be full of guests, so I’d have to find a way to cook unobtrusively — and very quickly — to get everything ready in time for the festivities on Saturday night,

What would be on the menu? We put our heads together and came up with a selection of easy-to-make dishes that wouldn’t break the bank and that would marry well with the lamb. Many are already on this site: Georgian red bean-walnut salad, spicy Moroccan carrot salad, herbal tomato salad, French potato salad and spicy lentils. We added a pasta gratin and had planned to include roasted eggplant salad as well, but I ran out of time. For dessert I made three huge flaky baklava cakes (recipe coming soon).

Preparation turned out to be less problematic than I had feared. I was able to work undisturbed on the first day as the other guests were off visiting the D-Day beaches. And I had help on the second day in the form of a couple of young guests from Texas who peeled and chopped and stirred and generally amused me with funny stories. By lunchtime on the Saturday we were virtually done.

At this point the man in charge of the mechoui had been at work for a couple of hours. He’d dug a huge pit on the edge of the garden and set up two three-tier arrays of spits loaded with lamb. He lit the fire, and the aroma wafted over the property all afternoon as guests played games and picked flowers to set out on the seven white-clothed tables installed in a giant tent in the yard, and as a musician friend tested out the piano and sound system, which had been installed under the tent the day before.

The original idea for the fish had been to serve it on small squares of black bread for the Saturday evening toast that opened the festivities, accompanied by icy vodka. For yes, one of the guests of honor was the Russian husband of our hostess. (He spends most of his time in France these days and opposes the war.) He had turned 70 this year, and their younger daughter had turned 30, making this a 100-year birthday party.

The smoked herring having already been eaten, we improvised for the toast with smoked salmon on black bread. The dinner proved a success, and afterwards there was music (variations on ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in the style of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Mussorgsky by our incredibly talented musician friend), a raffle (I won a kitschy ceramic biker filled with vodka — not kidding) and dancing into the wee hours. Super fun.

So where does this leave us, cooking-wise? Bottom line: you don’t need 50 people to enjoy smoked herring salad. You can make it for two, or just yourself.

Happy cooking.

Posted in 1. Starters | 2 Comments

Fusilli aux brocolis et saucisses

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Meg

Pasta with broccoli, sausage, olive oil and red pepper flakes is a family favorite that I tend to make when cooler weather sets in — which has suddenly happened in Paris after a couple of warm months that went by in a flash. We had a hailstorm yesterday and overnight the temperature dipped to 6º C (43º F). It’s enough to send you scrambling for a warm quilt and a bottle of hearty red, which goes well with this spicy, garlic-infused dish.

Fusilli aux brocolis et saucisses / Pasta with broccoli and sausage

Preparation is super simple. You slice up and fry the sausage, chop the broccoli into bite-sized flowerets, boil the pasta — adding the broccoli towards the end, drain and toss in a sauce of olive oil, garlic and crushed cayenne or red pepper flakes. Top with freshly grated parmesan — et voilà. A one-dish meal in 20 minutes or less.

The recipe may be made with any kind of pasta. I chose fusilli this time because the sauce clings nicely to the little spirals. Sometimes I make it with spaghetti or with conchiglie rigate (shells). As Italian sausage isn’t that easy to find in Paris, I generally use a similar French variety called saucisse de Toulouse. What it lacks is Italian spicing — but you can do that yourself by combining the sausage meat with some fennel seed and herbs.

To make more of a meal of it, a lovely Italian-style starter in autumn would be country ham with fresh figs. Another possibility is ‘Salade de l’ambassadeur‘, a salad with bresaola and late summer fruit (which got its name from the person who gave me the recipe, the former French ambassador to Poland!). Vegetarian starters that marry well include burrata with mesclun and hazelnuts, roasted eggplant salad and salad with garlic and croutons. And by the way, a veggie version of this dish is easy — just omit the sausage.

If you’re serving this pasta to guests and would like to add a dessert, I’d recommend tiramisu, which is not only popular but also fun to make. Or you could serve a fresh fig tart, a walnut tart or — why not? — a classic French apple tart. Any of these options would make a fine coda to a comforting meal as, after the joys of summer, we head into a cooler, darker season…

Happy cooking.

Posted in 9. Pasta, Rice, Grains | Leave a comment