It’s only May and it’s already summer in the city in Paris — a great time to enjoy grilled pork brochettes with tomato, cucumber and red onion, even if you don’t have a barbecue. Today’s recipe adds a French twist to a Russian summertime favorite, shashlik. The secret is marinating the pork in — wait for it — red wine vinegar. I couldn’t believe this when a Russian friend first gave me the recipe. In France we mainly marinate in wine. But it works.
Brochettes de porc grillé / Grilled pork brochettes
Shashlik, which is popular across the former Soviet Union, may also be made with veal, beef or lamb (favored in Central Asia). It is usually grilled over an open fire or barbecue, but may also be cooked tandoori-style in the oven. It differs from shish kebab in that no onions or peppers are threaded onto the skewers, only meat.
The French version adds olive oil and herbes de Provence to the marinade, which also includes sliced onion and minced garlic. But this recipe is highly adaptable. You can easily produce versions redolent of Greece (with tzadziki), the Middle East (with cumin) or Southeast Asia (with lime juice instead of vinegar and satay sauce alongside).
I first encountered shashlik while working as a reporter in Russia in the 1980s. The occasion was a yard party on June 21, the longest day of the year. In Moscow that means the light lingers until around 11 p.m. and is back just three hours later. The party was held in the courtyard of my building, a foreigners-only residence guarded by the KGB. Journalists, diplomats and a few bold Russians danced through the night to the strains of a Russian dixieland band. Beer, wine and vodka flowed as the genial U.S. ambassador to Russia, Arthur Hartman, manned the barbecue. It was a grand evening.
But normally shashlik is dacha food, prepared in the country in quiet, leafy surroundings. So when I returned to France and found a ‘dacha’ in Burgundy, it was only a matter of time before I wanted to try making it on my backyard barbecue. This happened when my friend Debby and her Siberian husband, Kolya, came for a visit. My daughter was about five at the time. She watched with rapt attention (I watched in horror) as Kolya poured vinegar over the meat. A few hours later we lit the barbecue. What came to the table was, well, perfect — tangy, juicy, tender. By the time Debby and Kolya left, my daughter had learned some Russian — podnimi menya (‘pick me up’), and shashlik.
Grilled pork on skewers has been back by popular demand many times in our home since then. As I no longer have the dacha, I now make it in a very hot oven. To be honest it’s best over charcoal, but it’s pretty darn good that way too.
Happy cooking.
A culinary delight on a recent trip to Italy was an innovative pairing of twisty pasta and zucchini. This dish — the creation of my friend Gisella, a superlative cook — is not as simple as it sounds. The zucchini is cooked two ways so that the pasta is both bathed in a silky zucchini sauce and embellished with strips of sautéd zucchini. Grated parmesan, small squares of dry-cured ham and snipped fresh basil are added at the end.
A quintessentially French dish that comes into its own in springtime is radis au beurre, or radishes with butter and salt. This traditional bistro fare makes a great start to a meal. I often serve radis au beurre at cocktail hour — fresher and much lighter than chips or nuts, especially if you go easy on the butter. Radis au beurre may also be served as a first course at the table, often accompanied by other back-to-the-land starters.
One thing to note is that French radishes are rosy red with a white tip and elongated rather than round. They also tend to be less piquant than round varieties. (Strangely, they are referred to in English as ‘French breakfast radishes’, although I have never seen radishes served for breakfast over here.) No need to fret if you live elsewhere. Any red radishes would be fine for this dish.
This dish of chicken in a creamy paprika sauce came about as a result of current events. I thought I’d like to make something Ukrainian in honor of a besieged nation, and I also wanted to add to the poultry dishes already on this site. My first idea, rather naturally, was chicken Kyiv (suprêmes de volaille à la Kyiv). But a little research showed that this dish, which by the way is quite complicated to make, is actually Russian in origin. Nyet.
Grandma Anne was a good cook, although her imprecision with measurements drove my mother crazy. For example, her recipe for syrniki — little pancakes made with smooth cottage cheese and served with sour cream and jam — calls for ‘one half eggshell water’. I’d like to post this family recipe here one of these days, along with two more, Grandma Anne’s fabulous stuffed cabbages and her wonderful cheesecake. 
Meantime when thinking about today’s post I was surprised to realize that I’ve already posted two Ukrainian dishes on this site — 
Happy cooking.
I discovered this spicy peanut-topped cucumber salad just as Sichuan cuisine began making it big in Paris. It’s on the menu of 
The key ingredient in this salad, as in many Sichuan recipes, is Sichuan peppercorn. It looks different from black peppercorn in that it’s a reddish brown and more wrinkled. Unlike hot red peppers (piments in French), Sichuan peppercorn is described as numbing rather than fiery. And its flavor is just unbeatable. You can find it at Asian grocery shops.
The other day I decided to try to recreate a dish I vaguely remembered — cod with chickpeas, spinach and chorizo chips. It felt just right for a brisk, pre-spring sunny day. I checked my favorite Spanish cookbook, couldn’t find it. Ditto my Portuguese cookbook. Then I looked online, and found not a single recipe for this precise combination. So I winged it. Well, dear readers, my guest was happy. And in fact so was I.
So whatever the origin of this particular dish, the flavors blend well. And, as I discovered, it is not just easy to make but has the significant advantage of being able to be prepared in advance. If you cook the chickpeas yourself — highly recommended — it’s best to start the evening before you plan to serve the dish. Tips on cooking chickpeas may be found 
Flamiche is a savory tart from Picardie made of leeks and cream encased in puff pastry. This is comfort food at its finest, perfect for cool days or nights as we wait for spring. Flamiche can stand on its own as a lunch dish or may be served as a starter in the evening, accompanied by a fruity red. Its versatility makes it a winner. Yet this pie from Picardie is rarely encountered in other parts of France, not to mention the rest of the world.
This light, refreshing dessert of orange slices in a flavorful syrup is best in winter, when large sweet oranges are in season. I first tasted it at the home of my neighbor Manuela, a superior cook. But on that occasion she barely cooked. The main course was a platter of oysters and langoustines straight from the market. She followed up with the sliced oranges, which were so delightful I had to have the recipe. The star ingredient was star anise.
Hiding beneath its rather grand name, potage Parmentier is familiar to every child in France as potage poireaux-pommes de terre, or creamy leek-and-potato soup. It takes its name from Antoine Parmentier, who won royal approval of the potato (seriously!) on the eve of the revolution that toppled the kings of France. The soup — which unlike vichyssoise is served hot — makes a satisfying, and some would say elegant, winter dish.
Bourride is a Mediterranean fish dish bathed in a sauce infused with garlic and inflected with hints of orange and sunshine. If you’ve been to the French Riviera you may have had the luck to encounter it. Elsewhere there’s little chance you would have run into this undeservedly lesser known cousin of bouillabaisse. I’ve rarely seen it in restaurants in Paris. Which is why, shortly after tasting it for the first time, I learned how to make it.
