A savory tart made with pears and Roquefort cheese can be a lovely start to a meal, and with pears now in season this is a perfect time to try it. The tart is best if you make the crust yourself, in this case a pâte brisée — a tender, savory crust. This may be done a day ahead of time, after which preparation is remarkably quick. I had my tart in the oven 15 minutes after getting home with the pears, and 40 minutes later it was ready.
Tarte roquefort-poires / Roquefort-pear tart
By that time tantalizing aromas were wafting through the house. I waited a short while for the tart to settle, then had a taste — just to make sure it was safe to serve to the guests arriving later. Well, dear reader, I wasn’t disappointed. The tang of the Roquefort marries beautifully with the sweetness of the pears, and these flavors are enhanced by a fruity red. I’d suggest a Beaujolais, say a Brouilly, Fleurie or the delightfully named Saint-Amour.
The beauty of this tart is that it may be made in advance and reheated just before serving — as a lunch dish, accompanied by a green salad, or as the starter for a more elaborate meal. If you’re serving it at dinner time, you could stick with the fruity theme and follow up with a dish like chicken with fresh figs or duck with black currant sauce. Or you could choose a more classical main dish, such as roast shoulder of lamb or, for vegetarians, roasted butternut with pine nuts or caramelized celeriac with walnuts and greens. And for a fruity autumn dessert, pommes au four (baked apples). Of course!
Happy cooking.
I first discovered fig jam many summers ago when I spent a few weeks at a country house in the Cévennes region of southern France. The place was idyllic, lush with fruit both cultivated and wild. We picked the figs straight from the tree. Making the jam was easy, as no pitting of the fruit is involved. And, as I learned, fig jam is heavenly. It manages to capture the musty, lusty fragrance of fresh figs — which happen to be in season right now.
Fig jam is fabulous not only on toast or on buttered baguette, as in the photo, but also on yogurt (which we also made ourselves during that summer in the Cévennes). I usually make this jam with dark purple figs, which lend the jam a beautiful ruby color, but I suspect it would be equally good if made with green figs.
Fig jam didn’t exist in Wisconsin to my knowledge when I was a kid growing up. Nor did fresh figs. The only figs I tasted during childhood were the dried variety that came in Christmas fruit baskets sent by elderly relatives once a year. Then came a summer study program in Avignon. Walking to class one day, I smelled a deiicious aroma. I looked around, and there was a fig tree, heavy with fruit. Well, dear readers, that was an ‘aha’ moment for me.
You don’t need to live along the French-Italian Mediterranean rim to enjoy a summer vegetable soup topped with parmesan and fresh basil. This version omits the beans and pasta but is otherwise rather similar to both Italy’s minestrone and Provence’s soupe au pistou. Oh, and did I mention that it also leaves out the tomatoes? It’s an improvisation I came up with one recent sultry day using the ingredients I had on hand in my Paris kitchen.
A bowl of sliced peaches poached in rosé wine with rosemary makes a light and refreshing dessert for hot summer evenings. You can serve the peaches on their own, as I prefer, or take a page from my daughter’s book and serve them over a luxuriously rich burrata. The recipe is simple — the peaches are slipped out of their skins, sliced and poached in a syrup flavored with the rosé and rosemary. A dash of freshly ground black pepper adds bite.
Colombo, a spice mix widely used in the French Caribbean, gives its name to this dish of spicy chicken balls in a coconut-curry sauce. The dish is generally served over rice to temper its heat. Start off the meal with 
Colombo with chicken balls is both easy and fun to make. You first chop skinless chicken breasts in a food processor with onion, garlic, cilantro, hot pepper, lime juice, salt and pepper. You then shape the mixture into balls and sauté them with the colombo spice mix, coconut milk, more lime juice and a little sugar. This process is even more fun if you have a glass of ti punch handy.
This post featuring favorite summer dishes wraps up my 10th anniversary series on the best of The Everyday French Chef. And I have to say that, given the bounty of the season, it was hard to choose one special dish to highlight. My first thought was 
Starters
Soups
Salads
Eggs
Savory tarts and sandwiches
Fish and shellfish
Poultry
Meat dishes
Vegetables
Pasta and grains
Desserts
Storzapretti are Corsican dumplings made with spinach or chard and cheese, topped with tomato sauce and more cheese, and baked until bubbly and golden. According to legend, a priest once found the dumplings so delicious that he stuffed himself to the point of choking, hence their name, which translates roughly as ‘strangle the preacher’. One might think they’d be heavy, but after eating a plateful my guest pronounced them delightfully light.
Italian-style sausages marry beautifully with finocchio, aka fennel, in this one-dish meal for all seasons. It’s a crowd pleaser that also includes potatoes, and you can round out the dish with a seasonal veggie — e.g. peas in springtime, butternut in the fall. Here in France I used the readily available saucisses de Toulouse, which like Italian sausages are about 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. But it could be argued that the Italian variety is better.
Happily I phoned ahead, as the pan bagnat rolls had to be made to order. The next day I collected four beautiful crusty rolls. The rest was easy. I made a sauce of olive oil, garlic and basil, boiled an egg, sliced the veggies, sliced the roll and layered on the ingredients, drizzing with olive oil from time to time. In a very short while the venerable sandwich was ready.
What better time than spring to make fresh spring rolls? In this Vietnamese-inspired recipe, a very thin rice-flour crepe is rolled up around lettuce, mint and the zesty filling of your choice: shrimp, chicken or mango, mixed with Asian flavorings, peanuts and cilantro. The rolls — not to be confused with fried spring rolls (called nems in France) — are served with a tangy sauce. They’re light, fun to make and a great way to exercise your creativity.
When you’re ready to roll, the rice-flour wrapper is dampened in hot water, then placed on a board. Lettuce and mint are placed on the bottom third and topped with a couple spoonfuls of filling. Shrimp halves are then placed on the middle of the wrapper. You fold in the sides and wrap up tightly, bottom to top. If making the vegetarian/vegan mango version, you can skip the shrimp and instead use cilantro leaves for decoration.
